Written in Light

by Jeff Young

  LORIS: MORNING TOUR AT PELIAGIC INC.

  The text appeared in red on his glasses, and he struggled to read it through the pain and the yellowish-green afterimage that swam in his vision. Peliagic Inc. competed with MNOS’s in the development of solar sail and optical fabrics. Peliagic gave the kids the jackets as promotional swag. The jackets must be designed to passively record their surroundings, as well as display those fish images. Had the tour passed in front of anything sensitive? Fortunately, Cameron retained the jacket, which could contain the most damaging information. But what might the others have garnered? he wondered. He could just imagine Peliagic issuing a recall for the jackets a few days later to retrieve their intel.

  Cameron came to a halt at the top of the stairwell. He issued several directives to the other members of his team to begin their search of the R&D floor. Then he returned to Loris.

  MAINTAIN YOUR POSITION AND OBSERVE, he sent.

  Then he paged Means, trusting that the well-muscled former bodyguard would be alert.

  TELL ME YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY TO THE DOORS. NOBODY, AND I MEAN NOBODY, LEAVES UNTIL WE HAVE THIS STRAIGHTENED OUT. CLEAR?

  MEANS: ALREADY HERE, BOSS. YOU All RIGHT?

  WONDERFUL. I’M CHOOSING TO LAUGH NOW INSTEAD OF CRY SINCE IT HURTS THAT BAD.

  Switching to the team band, Cameron broadcasted:

  NOBODY TAKES THE JACKETS OFF, OKAY? JUST MAKE SURE THEY STAY ON. MEANS NOW HAS THE FRONT GATE AND THE OTHER AREAS IN LOCK-DOWN. WE’VE GOT CONTROL OF THE HALLWAYS. LET’S FIND OUR MISSING SHEEP.

  HALVER, I EXPECT YOU TO LET US KNOW AS SOON AS THE KID SHOWS UP ON ANY FLOATING SECURITY CAMS.

  Cameron looked at the steps ahead of him. This part was not going to be fun. He leaned a shoulder into the wall and started down. His vision blurred, and he misjudged his step, putting his right foot over the edge on the tread. He quickly locked an arm around the handrail, just managing to stop himself from pitching forward. Leaning against the wall with a hand clamped over his streaming eye, Cameron blinked, and pain shot like a white-hot bolt through his head. He really wanted the solidity of his gun in hand but considering the situation, better to keep it holstered. After all, they were just kids taken advantage of by an unscrupulous corporation. The searing image continued to waver in the right-hand side of his vision, jumping in time to his accelerated pulse. Cameron shook his head, trying to clear it. His depth perception still suffered.

  GIVE ME A REPORT, PEOPLE, he sent.

  HALVER: KEEPING AN EYE ON THE MONITORS. WE’RE STILL MISSING ONE VISITOR. I’VE GOT LORIS AND THE OTHERS IN THE LOUNGE. SO FAR, NONE OF THE SCANNING CAMERAS HAVE PICKED UP ANY OTHER MOTION.

  SAMUELS: I’M WALKING THE OTHER SIDE WITH DRAKE. ALL QUIET HERE. WE ARE LOCKING THE SECTIONS AS WE PASS THROUGH THEM.

  Fine, Cameron thought. She’d made a good call. That meant that the west side was now cut off from the east and their little issue.

  FELDMAN: WELKIN AND I ARE HEADED IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION. DO YOU WANT US TO BREAK PATTERN AND SWEEP AHEAD OF YOU?

  NO, STAY WITH THE DRILL, Cameron answered.

  He tried squinting again. Did the yellowish-green blob in his vision shrink? He hoped so. No way he wanted retinal damage, although it might be proof of the incident later.

  Loris better still be there with her charges. This whole delay would give them a few extra minutes with the games, which worked in the company’s favor, Cameron thought.

  Even though he hated the interaction, Cameron knew that the techs were also supposed to be open to their visitor’s questions and encourage them to participate in the tour. Cameron hated this part the most.

  The techs were the vulnerable underbelly of MNOS. They weren’t supposed to be doing anything sensitive or really working hard while the kids had their hour-long tour. But techs never listened. Cameron could bank on that. It gave him nightmares that young impressionable eyes with memories honed by schoolwork potentially observed hard-gained research on a weekly basis. Unless they had another junior Einstein, most of it existed as code, graphs, or numbers. It still bugged him, just like the thought of exploiting the young like a resource irked him at a moral level.

  LORIS: CAMERON, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY. THE LOST SHEEP IS BACK. I MISSED HIS ENTRANCE. HALVER IS TRYING TO BACKTRACK HIS APPEARANCE WITH THE CAMERA LOGS. THIS KID IS LIKE A GHOST. HE LOOKS JUST LIKE ANY OF THE OTHER ONES. I CAN’T BE SURE I CAN PICK HIM OUT. HOLD ON.

  The connection cut as Cameron doubled his pace, not quite ready to start running. He had a bad feeling he’d just pitch forward. Had the blob of light bouncing with each step started to get smaller?

  LORIS: EVIDENTLY, THE KID WATCHED THE MOTION OF THE FLOATING CAMS AND STEPPED THROUGH INTO THE ROOM WHEN IT ROTATED AT THE FAR SIDE OF THE CYCLE. NOT ONLY THAT BUT HE ALSO APPARENTLY PICKED UP A JACKET FROM THE COUCH WHERE SEVERAL WERE LYING AND PUT IT ON. HALVER SAYS WITH TIME HE’D BE ABLE TO PINPOINT THE BOY. LOOK’S LIKE THIS IS WHAT HE DID WITH THE CAMERAS IN THE HALLWAYS.

  Cameron stopped for a second, the next door directly in front of him. About twenty feet ahead lay the room with the children. Time had run out. He couldn’t have the jackets confiscated without a reasonable cause. What could he do now?

  Cameron looked down at the jacket in his hands. More than likely, its defense activated by forcibly separating the two sides of the zipper- like pulling the jacket off someone. Did that mean that putting the zipper sides together activated it? He looked at the zipper tag. A lump of glistening greenish-blue plastic covered its widest part, bearing the embossed image of a mermaid. Now it made sense. If the jacket recorded, it had to store the information somewhere. How about right next to the off/on switch?

  Cameron pulled out his flashlight. He hefted it briefly and, putting the zipper tab down on top of the doorknob, smashed the tab with the base of the light. It shattered satisfyingly. There were several fine golden wires visible in the pieces. He rubbed the flashlight back and forth several times, grating over the tab until the remaining greenish-blue material flaked away. What could he do about the others? Well, probably not a lot. For now, he needed to get the kids out of the building and assess the damage. He ran his thumb over the tab. It felt relatively smooth. Now, if he were lucky, whoever got this jacket back would never notice the difference. But what about the other ones? Suddenly, an idea occurred to him.

  LORIS, FIND A REASON TO DETAIN THE KIDS ANOTHER TEN MINUTES.

  SAMUELS, BREAK OFF THE SEARCH. GO TO THE MATERIALS LAB AND GET A COUPLE HAMMERS AND SOME SANDPAPER. HALVER, HAVE SOMEONE IN MAINTENANCE CRANK THE TEMPERATURE IN THE LOUNGE UP TEN DEGREES.

  LORIS, WHEN THE JACKETS START TO COME OFF, GATHER THEM UP AND TAKE THEM OUT OF THE LOUNGE. IF ANYONE QUESTIONS YOU, YOU’RE JUST HANGING THEM UP.

  EVERYONE ELSE, EXCEPT FOR MEANS, MEET ME OUTSIDE OF THE LOUNGE. WE’VE GOT TO WORK QUICKLY.

  A few tense minutes later, he sent the other security officers on their way to their various assignments. Peliagic would be disappointed to discover the intelligence they sought to gather was gone. Too bad for them.

  Cameron leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. Shortly, Loris led the kids out. They marched in a line toward the front lobby and the gate. He couldn’t help glaring at them. None of them looked back.

  MEANS, THE KIDS ARE CLEAR. YOU CAN STAND DOWN FROM ALERT, Cameron sent.

  MEANS: SURE, SIR. YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT THEY WANT TO SEE YOU UP ON THE BALCONY RIGHT AWAY.

  A pause and another message ran across Cameron’s display.

  MEANS: SIR, THERE’LL BE A SCOTCH WITH YOUR NAME ON IT AT PALAVAR’S LATER, IF YOU FEEL UP TO IT.

  Cameron chuckled and then replied:

  LET ME LIVE THROUGH MY DEBRIEFING (?), CLEAN UP THIS MESS, AND THEN I’LL SAY YES.

  He clicked off. Briefly closing his eyes, he rubbed his hands across his forehead. He did not look forward to dealing with the executives up on the Balcony, but he couldn’t avoid it. On the good side, his sense of balance had returned, and the blot on his sight was definitely de
creased in size. Pushing himself away from the wall, he began the long walk to the Balcony.

  ~*~

  At Palavar’s, he asked himself if he missed something crucial. Cameron started to think along different lines. What if, as weird as it sounded, Peliagic weren’t sifting their tour groups for merely genius traits? What if they were searching for something else? Like perhaps potential corporate spies? What if you could train a spook from childhood on? A ghost who could avoid security and scrutiny, outfitted in a jacket that passively stole valuable secrets. The possibility chilled him. Had he met the equivalent of Shy Hagen today? His reflection in the scotch wavered, much like his resolve. Then he tossed it back and turned the glass upside down on the bar. He clapped Means on the shoulder in thanks and headed out into the heat of the summer evening.

  Halfway home, Cameron stopped outside of a playground. He stood there for several minutes, hands in his pockets, watching the children running, swinging, and jumping. He looked at their faces trying to find something different in each passing glance, trying to weigh them as something more than just a child. He considered them like threats in need of an assessment, much like MNOS looked at them as potential commodities. For a moment there, Cameron didn’t see children, just a sea of possibilities.

  Viewpoint

  As the transport shot rapidly out of sight and the fine sand drifted slowly out of the air, Dr. Kendricks looked at his escort. He said, “I wish the damn pilot hadn’t taken the words ‘dust off’ so literally.” The head’s up display, or HUD, threw up a small icon with the words “Bulldog” printed under it, and the image tracked the sergeant whenever Kendricks moved his head back and forth. Amazingly, he felt quite at home in the RES-suit.

  Kendricks looked into the sky, and he heard Bulldog’s voice “Dust off will be when you’re picked up, sir, and don’t—” The white-hot glare of the distant blue giant star stabbed at Kendrick’s eyes, and he fought the urge to rub at them, throwing an arm over his helm instead. “—look at the sun,” Bulldog finished, sounding somewhat disgusted. “Your suit has quick reactions to filter out excessive light, but this star puts out radiation that can overwhelm them.” But Kendricks didn’t worry. With the RES-suit he could lose both of his eyes and still function fine. In fact, he could lose a lot more than that. He knew that for a fact since he’d unlocked the use of the RES.

  Bulldog said something that the comm-system didn’t quite carry and motioned Kendricks to follow him. They struck out across the leached-dry landscape. “So, Doc, maybe you can settle a running bet going on in the company. What does RES stand for?” Bulldog asked, moving along.

  “Actually, just a shortening of ‘resource,’ but you know how the military is, every word must stand for something. They re-titled it Recombinant Emergency Substrate.” He had a sudden memory of standing in the shadow of the large reservoir tank and slowly decanting another precious 2-liter test sample of the raw RES. Kendricks blinked, and his vision cleared. Already his eyes felt better. He played briefly with the RES-suit zoom and 360 vid functions and found Bulldog waving him onward.

  “So, sergeant, I have to ask, were the figures I received about the health of your company correct? They seemed to indicate that there were only 2% fatalities though you have seen quite a bit of action for long periods.”

  Bulldog stopped and turned back to Kendricks, giving him time to catch up.

  “Look, Doc, if you want someone to hand out praise, then talk to the people holding the money bags. If you want me to say the RES-suits are miracles, then I’ll tell you yes. I’ll also point out that the psych-programming working hand in hand with the suits makes it complete.” Eye to eye with the other’s helm, Kendricks gave a start when Bulldog leaned toward him, punching a finger into his suit’s cuirass. “Just hope for your sake you don’t learn the hard way.” With that, they spun around and started off again.

  Kendricks stared after them, surprised. He thought that the soldiers would appreciate all the hard work that it took to utilize the RES. He was proud of the fact that hardly any of their number had lost their lives in the last few campaigns. He alone worked out the activation sequence for the RES. The psych program definitely allowed for quick adoption as well. Since he put on the RES-suit he hadn’t felt the least bit uncomfortable. Even the thought of the inevitable discomfort at dealing with waste disposal faded away. In fact, for being stuck inside some suit, he felt too damn good. The program interfaced with his implants seamlessly.

  “Doc! Standing still makes you a target. If you wanna die, do it when I’m not escorting you. Get it in gear, come on,” Bulldog groused, waving him toward his distant figure.

  Kendricks jogged along. When he reached Bulldog, he realized he wasn’t the least bit out of breath. Since his muscles did not pump his legs and he only went along for the ride while the servomotors did their job, why would he be? After all, he didn’t really breathe since the RES-suit flooded his lungs with super-oxygenated liquid and trimmed back his autonomic functions. No wonder there were so few casualties. One felt almost superhuman in a RES-suit.

  Bulldog pointed at a distant hillock. “The bunker is there. We’ll have to cross this sandy area and through these trenches before we’re safe. Stay on my six.” With that, the other took off at a blistering pace that Kendricks found frighteningly easy to match.

  When Bulldog stopped, Kendricks almost ran them over. The sergeant lazily threw out an arm and checked Kendrick’s forward momentum. “Hold up, Doc, something’s changed since the last run through this sector.”

  An overlay appeared on his HUD transmitted from Bulldog. There were highlights on strange circular markings in the sand. The RES-suit’s visual record noted the differences and called a halt to their progress. “See how that looks like coils of rope or razor wire laid out on the ground?” Bulldog commented, gesturing with a forefinger. “That’s probably a mine-vine. They’re programmed to grow like that in coils to cover a larger area.”

  “We could just jump over it since it’s not very wide,” Kendricks offered, following the coils off into the distance to the left.

  “You want to play games with your legs—”

  “Yeah, I know, do it on my own time. It seems to have grown from the left. Maybe we can find the end of it before it keeps growing further.”

  Bulldog nodded once, and the sergeant set off cautiously to the right. They’d gone about fifteen meters when an ugly little thought reared in his head. “Bulldog, what does the fruit of the mine—” Kendricks never finished the thought because Bulldog came flying at him ahead of a geyser of dust, fire, and rock. No time to throw himself out of the way. The bulky suit struck him as it flew through the air. Unfortunately, it knocked him back toward the vine. He felt something lift him effortlessly through the air, the bright blue sun wheeling across the sky, and then he hit the ground and bounced several times off boulders the size of his torso.

  When Kendricks finally managed to lift his head, the HUD flickered sporadically, the display filled with several glowing lines. He could see Bulldog’s still form a few meters away. Using the zoom, he locked in on the sergeant. Only then did he notice the odd way the other’s arms twisted and how their right leg was missing from the knee down. The reaction of the RES caught his attention. The oily amber material with its metallic glints oozed out of the ragged end of the suit. It slowly reformed into the shape of the missing limb. Kendrick knew that right now, the energy bound in the liquid was being converted into matter to match the need of the moment. The glossy suit surface grew out of the RES. Even now, the sergeant’s arms slowly straightened, bending back into true. Kendricks knew that the RES built chambers inside the suit to slowly re-grow the missing limb and re-knit the tortured tissue. The RES could’ve duplicated the flesh, but the military opted to stay with the standard cellular regeneration programs. In the meantime, the substance would fill in for the man’s missing limb. The RES would almost be better than the actual flesh.

  Only then did Kendricks spare himself a glance.
The tumble over the rocks should have torn ligaments and crushed vertebrae but the suit protected him. His right hand, however, was completely gone, the suit’s surface scorched and pitted. What the hell? His hand was gone! Or was it? The HUD flickered, and his gauntleted hand appeared in his vision. He opened and shut his fingers. He could feel the pressure from fingers and thumb. By the time he reached for the top of the closest boulder, he had to wonder if he had hallucinated. Why hadn’t he seen the RES filling in for his hand? Kendricks swept the area, no sign of shards of the broken gauntlet, his severed hand, or any blood. Did the psych program work so well that he couldn’t even see the evidence that he lost a hand? The flicker he saw in the distortion of his sense of time, did that allow the RES to rebuild his hand? Did Bulldog even know the RES replaced his leg? He walked carefully over to the sergeant, who climbed slowly to their feet.

  “For the record, Doc, the fruit of the mine vines look just like rocks, and usually they replace ones that were already there. Nasty piece of work that weapon. I think, much to your surprise, I’m going to suggest we take your advice. See that outcropping there? It’s nice and flat on top. If we jump from here, the assisted musculature can easily get us up there. The vine won’t grow up the side of the ravine.”

  “Not to be a pessimist, but what if there’s another vine?”

  “Tell you in a minute,” Bulldog answered as they bent and then leapt up into the air. Bulldog landed slightly off, but the come-ahead wave convinced Kendricks he should jump.

  “Who planted the vine?” Kendricks asked as they continued forward.

  “Someone with a difference of opinion.”