Han trailed off, no longer mouthing the words of the lecture as he stewed over the text screen hovering above his VIT. Third time had to be the charm. He reached for his Mega Slurp and sucked down a few fizzy gulps, waiting for inspiration. What did he know? Facts. Truth. Efren worked for Paxton in some capacity. There was obviously bad blood there. Efren had to know some of the ins and outs of the facility, and he believed the security systems could be cracked, and cracked specifically by Han. Han didn’t know if there was anything interesting to be found in that security footage, but he knew a lure when he heard one—Efren wasn’t just encouraging him, he was daring him. Efren even had the balls to refer to Paxton as a “so-called great man,” which were basically fighting words, and Han looked forward to proving him wrong.
And he had mentioned hubris. Hubris. That had to be the real clue.
What would be a stupidly arrogant choice of admin log-in? he wondered. What would a man, blinded by hubris, do? He brought up one of his scripts and ran it, then tried a few different variations on admin or administrator for the log-in nickname. Log-in? Admin. Password? Password.
No luck. Good to know his tech idol wasn’t a total fail of a human being.
Log-in? Administrator. Password? Qwerty.
Nothing. Han cracked his knuckles and shoved a coconut-covered black licorice mochi into his mouth, chewing with chipmunk-big cheeks. “Okay, okay, let Cecilia’s wisdom flow through you, Han. You’re just warming up.”
Log-in? Paxton. Password? Ganymede.
Han blinked. It wasn’t right, but he was receiving a different rejection error. He had gotten the log-in nickname correct, because now it was prompting him to retrieve his password, not his password and his log-in information.
“Holy whoa,” he murmured, coconut dust falling into his lap. “Okay, okay, okay, Han. Think.”
While one success tasted sweet, it also smacked of bitterness. Efren was right. That was a dogshittedly idiotic admin name. Anyone, including someone on their tenth total try, could guess it. Was Paxton lazy or just confident? Maybe his password had layers upon layers of encryption. Maybe it was a personal reference nobody could possibly guess. The details of his life remained largely a mystery, so how would anyone guess his favorite dog’s name or his second wife’s birthday?
He tried a few more variations on simple, expected, universal passwords, but they were all duds.
“We’ve observed what a supermassive black hole can do, but what about a black hole the size of your fingertip? Or the size of a pinhead? Everyone always wants the big kahuna, right? Much sexier, those monster black holes! Those poor miniature black holes, always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Cecilia’s speech continued in the background, slicing in and out of Han’s concentration as he puzzled over the hack.
What if I’m going about this all wrong? What if I don’t need to know about him, what if I need to know about me? He knows everything about us, everything about me . . .
Zurri and Senna weren’t trying to test Paxton’s systems (well, Zurri was, but that was beside the point, and she wasn’t attempting the hack personally)—no, it would be Han. Paxton would know that. Grabbing another mochi, he bit it in half and chewed, glancing up at Cecilia and saying a silent, tongue-in-cheek prayer to her. What if Efren wasn’t actually working against Paxton, but with him? What if it was an elaborate test? Han gasped, remembering his first chat with Paxton when he arrived at the Dome.
I’m pulling back the curtain. I want to meet the wizard.
The Game. A Fincher classic, in which a man gets involved in a complicated web of quests, each intended to question his reality and push him to unravel a whole mess of secrets. If Paxton was a fan of that vid, then maybe he was taking inspiration for it, testing Han. It was wild, pointless, a lark, but Han tried his hunch anyway. Paxton had taken a neural map of his brain, he had the technology to carefully alter his memories, to zero in on individual connections between thoughts and associations. Anything was possible.
Log-in? Paxton. Password? HanIsKing.
The text began to scroll. The password went through. Han clenched his entire body, the half-eaten ball of mochi plopping into his lap.
22
Zurri stared at the vid of her own face, not believing the words coming out of her mouth.
“What Paxton is doing here is simply mind-blowing!” Her face crumpled into shy giggles. “Oh! Can I say that? I said it. It’s incredible. Paxton is incredible. More than just healing and hope, I’ve found so much more here. I’ve found connection, back to myself, back to others.”
This was a nightmare. There was no other explanation for it. She struggled against Brea’s hands, clamped like two fleshy vices around her upper biceps. Brea’s fingers dug in, hard, squeezing a pained gasp out of Zurri’s throat. It was no use. The girl didn’t look strong but she had a grip.
“First of all,” Zurri breathed, dazed still from the shock Brea had given her to her chest. It had knocked her unconscious for just an instant, but that was long enough for Paxton and Brea to get the other hand and wrap a tight gag around her mouth. That gag was off now as they held her hostage in the LENG room, and they would regret removing that scrap of cloth. “I would never say any of that, not a single word, you demonic little fucker. Let go of me.”
“Let her go, Brea, but watch her,” Paxton said.
“You’re going to regret that,” Zurri slurred, stumbling away from them both. Regret it like she regretted pounding that can of wine. “What the hell is going on here? How can you make me say those things? Is that a deepfake?”
“No,” Paxton chuckled, stepping out of the way as Zurri swung, trying to knock the tablet showing her vid out of his hands. Brea lunged forward, landing a blow with the flat of her hand to Zurri’s neck. She went down.
“Not the face,” Paxton warned. “The others will notice.”
Zurri tried to push herself up from the ground, the star-field projection bleeding across her face and shoulders as she did. Jittery, weak, she could only muster a tiny glob of spit, but she hacked at Paxton’s shoe.
“Rude. That doesn’t seem like the Zurri I know.” He tapped the shiny edge of the tablet, dangling it mockingly over her head. Crazy. He was crazy. She should’ve known. She should’ve listened to those prickles of danger warning her that this guy was a psychotic mess. “It’s not a deepfake, Zurri. It’s you. You said it today after your session. Don’t you remember?”
Of course she didn’t remember. She spent the morning hate-watching old runway vids, having a leisurely brunch and then trying to convince Han to outsmart the security systems for her. Then she had her appointment, and then . . . a blank. A strange, murky blank that rested heavily on the tip of her tongue, anxious to be spoken but impossible to define. Just a blank, and then she remembered a sky like fire. Standing on the walkway. Senna in her conspicuously expensive dress. Anju smashing into the window.
A growl welled up from the base of her belly. She wanted to kill him. She was going to kill him, or sue him inside out, whichever was more expedient. The vid played on. It was an impromptu, candid interview. She was standing at the base of the stairs leading to the suspended walkway in the courtyard, her orange dress matching some of the flowers in the background.
“This place is unbelievable.” She was laughing, reaching to caress one of the blooms.
Paxton’s voice, friendly, conversational, answered from behind the recording device. “Nice, right? “I have a fondness for the prehistorics. Cycad, staghorn ferns, gingko . . . it’s wonderland,” he said. “It’s Eden.”
“So what now?” asked Zurri from the floor. “You keep me imprisoned here and send that off to the station? Why? It doesn’t . . . none of this makes any sense! We came here trusting you.”
Paxton shut off the vid and crouched down to her level, Brea hovering nearby, her mean little black Taser device aimed and ready. “I wouldn’t want you to
live that way. Imprisoned. No, I wouldn’t want anyone to live like that. Brea? Get Dr. Colbie, please.”
“Brea? Brea, wait! Help me.” Zurri’s eyes flew to the other woman’s, imploring. She wasn’t going to do whatever Paxton wanted without a fight, she was not letting this crazy white psycho win. “You don’t have to do what he says!”
“Yes,” Paxton muttered. “She does.”
Brea didn’t even pause to consider Zurri’s pleas. She left the LENG room and returned a moment later, heaving open the heavy vault door, Dr. Colbie’s white jacket a bright flare in the dark room. Colbie had always seemed nicer than the others, or at least more compassionate.
“Dr. Colbie—”
“Don’t bother, Zurri. She won’t listen to you.” Paxton stood with a sigh, rubbing his lower back and flicking his head toward Zurri. Dr. Colbie didn’t look as certain or as willing to cooperate as Brea. She fidgeted by the door, an ominous syringe cradled in both hands.
Maybe Dr. Colbie wasn’t a total lost cause.
“Get her up,” he told Brea, and she came at Zurri again with the Taser device. “Put her in the chair. We’ll do this again, and again, until we get the Zurri we want.”
Zurri gasped and hissed through her teeth as Brea grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet, shoving her toward the chair. The star field rolled across them, constant.
“Is this how he gets you to do what he says?” Zurri cried, directing this primarily to Colbie. The doctor glanced away, back toward the door. “He puts you in this chair and messes with your head? We outnumber him. Just stop complying!”
“We can sedate her,” Dr. Colbie said softly, her voice almost hoarse. “But to put her through the process again so soon, Paxton—”
“Do. It.” He jabbed his finger in Zurri’s direction. “Try to calm down, Zurri. Try to think of how content you’ll be when you aren’t constantly up my ass about everything. It’ll be a new, gentler you, and we’ll all be happier for it.”
“Why?” Zurri murmured, feeling herself tumbling toward defeat, toward giving up. No, there can be no losing against this guy, he’s going down no matter what.
“Because I create the world.” Paxton chuckled to himself. “Because I control everything on Ganymede, including you. I offered to do this the friendly way, Zurri, over whiskey. You chose this.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Agree to disagree.”
Brea brandished the Taser as Dr. Colbie shuffled over, heaving a labored sigh before taking the syringe and holding Zurri’s right arm, sliding the needle in while Zurri stared up at her, protesting with wide, glossy eyes.
“Just stop listening to him,” Zurri murmured, knowing she had seconds of lucidity left. “This isn’t right, girl. You know this isn’t right. What he’s doing here to you? To me? It’s not okay. It’s monstrous. Fight back.”
“I can’t,” Colbie mouthed, silent, her back to Paxton while he remained close by, observing, his mere presence quietly threatening.
“Warm up LENG,” Paxton muttered, turning and striding toward the door, the back of his head just visible through the narrowing, blurry tunnel of Zurri’s vision. She had gotten her sedatives after all, she thought darkly, feeling the familiar sensation of the world shrinking in on her.
“Let’s get on with it.” The door opened and Paxton saw himself out. “I’m tired of interruptions.”
* * *
—
Han had expected a clean, elegant system, something far more sophisticated than the in-home assistant OS he had hacked at home. Was it wrong to feel disappointed? Paxton had other things to worry about, Han reminded himself. He was creating never-before-seen technology. He was changing the universe. Some messy programming nobody was supposed to see didn’t exactly rate as a cardinal sin.
Unless it was meant to be seen. Unless it was meant for Han.
The Game.
This was pure rush, the dopamine flood from solving a difficult puzzle times one hundred. His hands shook; he started to sweat. I’m in, I can’t believe I’m actually in.
Through the sudden buzz it was difficult to concentrate. He had gone snooping for a reason, but it was like breaking into a multilevel, dream-stocked tech store and only stealing one measly memory stick. There had to be so much to find, so much to discover.
Later, he promised himself. He would clear up this stupid claim of Efren’s and then really sink his teeth into Paxton’s data. And so he navigated to the main server, checking directories and subdirectories for any labels that might logically store the security footage. He assumed the system would create a folder for each day, then chunk the data into modest sizes to make it easier to view. Or . . . if this was Paxton’s log-in, he could just review recently accessed files.
Han smiled, finishing his Mega Slurp and typing fast. Just as he thought, Paxton’s activity in the last hour led him right to the correct subfolder. Everything there was labeled by Dome time, making it easier to track down the correct file. It made sense that Paxton would want to keep anything work- or facility-related synced with the day and time back on Tokyo Bliss Station. Most big companies with satellites or a colony presence kept things in relation to station time for ease of sharing and interoffice connectivity.
Wiping the condensation off on his pants, Han sat back against the sofa, his legs crossed underneath him as he let the footage play, approximating the correct time to be just a few minutes after the end of dinner, since he had seen Anju there at mealtime. He set the playback to 1.5 speed. There was no sound, but Paxton had accessed a file displaying activity in a narrow gray maintenance shaft in something labeled Quadrant 3, Zone 6. Zone 6, Han recalled from his map, sat near the staff quarter, but this appeared to be a subterranean level, almost unfinished, with exposed pipes running along the ceiling.
On the footage, an unskinned Servitor leaned over a hatch near a sealed door, welding. Anju stepped into frame behind it, already dressed in her space suit. The Servitor stopped what it was doing, and stood upright to listen to her. Han grunted, wishing there were sound. Something else joined them in the frame, gliding up from behind Anju. A man.
Han wanted to believe it was just an artifact from crappy capture, or a trick of the light, but it had too much form, a silhouette of a man standing behind Anju, crowding her. Even the Servitor seemed to notice it, its chrome, beak-like head turning to regard it, round aperture eyes growing wider at having seen it. Anju did something on her VIT and the Servitor went still, powered down, and then the man placed both hands on her shoulders, and Anju interfaced with the hatch on the wall. He let go of her and turned to leave, giving Han a brief glimpse of his face.
His stomach dropped. Efren.
Efren walked away, a placid expression on his face. When he was out of frame, the sealed door flew open, a spray of ice scattering across the interior floor, then calmly, Anju walked out into the hazy white unknown.
His mouth had gone dry. The footage played on, but there was nothing more to watch. So Paxton had viewed this footage and deemed that an accident. Han’s heart clenched in his chest; Paxton knew that Efren had spoken to Anju just before she went willingly out the hatch. He had lied to their faces.
What the hell is going on?
“Genie?” asked Han.
“Yes, Han, how can I assist you?”
He drew in a deep, ragged breath. Was he really doing this? Was he really going to confront his hero? If the most brilliant man in the universe didn’t have an answer for this, then maybe he wasn’t so brilliant after all.
“Where is Paxton right now?”
The AI had to think it over, giving an unusual pause. “Paxton is currently meeting with staff in his office, but the facility is on lockdown until Dome time eight a.m. tomorrow. Would you like me to schedule a meeting with him for you?”
Right. The lockdown.
“Where is Efren, Genie?”
he asked, shaking.
“That information is currently unavailable.”
Han’s eyes wandered back to the text hovering above his VIT, glowing faintly in the low light of the living room. The gears in his mind started spinning, faster and faster, an anxious itch bothering him at the base of his neck. Was this lockdown a coincidence or was Paxton trying to take care of Efren himself? Maybe it was for their own safety. In that case, he should’ve been honest. He should’ve been, but wasn’t. They were allowing him access to their brains, and there he was, lying to them. How could Han trust him to use the LENG tech on his memories ever again?
He deserved an explanation.
“Lockdown,” Han repeated under his breath, then dove back into the Dome security systems. He was, after all, using Paxton’s own admin log-in. Surely that granted him the power to lift the facility-wide lockdown . . .
He heard a quiet ka-shh from the front door, the override lock releasing.
“If you think Paxton will not notice your extracurricular activities, Han, you are mistaken. Please reinstate the lockdown protocols.” Genie had never taken that bossy tone with him.
“Nervous?” Han smirked and stood, deciding that on his walk to the clinical labs he would see about tweaking Genie’s parameters, too. It couldn’t hurt to have friendly eyes in the sky.
Han is king, baby, he thought, another rush of adrenaline coasting through his body as he approached the door and it slid open. He only hoped he wouldn’t run into Efren. Hail to the king.
23
Senna had just finished obliterating the shadow and painting the entire canvas flat black when she heard a strange sound at the door. Sitting on the couch, barefoot, she had been letting her brushes soak in turpentine solution while she stared at Anju’s pink dress, now folded neatly and placed on the center of the glass coffee table like an offering.
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