by J M Guillen
“I do,” I said distractedly, oddly certain that I needed something else: weaponry for close quarters. “Please synchronize both for item possession and neural link.” The words sounded alien, yet as familiar as my own reflection.
Synchronization initiated.
My Crown whirred in my head. Still, I scanned the room for more weapons, as calmly as if I had been shopping for groceries.
CRACK! The doorway reverberated with a deafening sound.
Location achieved, Asset.
At last the crawling, droning hum slowed and quieted. I stepped toward the door, casually grabbing two katana hanging on the wall.
“Yeah.” I felt their heft in my hands. “These will do.”
As always, Michael… The words seemed tinny in my mind.
I stepped toward the door. As it opened, the corners of my mouth quirked up, and I mouthed the words along with the woman:
We wish you well in the days ahead.
2
I felt far less bleary by the time the door from my white room opened. My Crown hadn’t yet come entirely online, but I had enough system resources available that I could at least pretend to be operable.
“For now,” I grumbled. Odd system glitches, partial access to data, low Crown resources, along with a roving and fierce headache, all exemplified cold boots. I hated them.
Cold boots meant that some situation had spiraled out of Facility control—something so significant that they couldn’t follow typical protocols.
A situation that required immediate attention.
“If you go alone, you’ll be dead before dawn.” I whispered the quote as I peered through the doorway. “You’re a fool, Blake.”
Beyond the confines of my white room, the passageway looked like a charnel house. Overhead, red emergency lights flickered, casting a lurid light down a shadowed hallway. In that scarlet glow, I could just make out what looked like a splattering of gore and viscera plastered across the far wall.
I gaped at the sheer volume of the wet, dripping mass.
“Someone had a really bad day.” The last vestiges of my good mood vanished. I moved forward, my expectations grim as I stepped through the conduit.
Cool air carrying an unfamiliar scent of rot rippled over my skin, and my nose snarled involuntarily at the rancid rawness.
“Ugh.” I shook my head. “Rank.”
My Crown crackled loudly, like a radio between channels. As I looked down the hallway, splattered with carnage, a whining, buzzing voice warbled in my Crown:
One… Foooour… Sehven…
The woman’s clipped voice held an accent I couldn’t place. Each tinny syllable set my teeth on edge. Her words came punctuated with near deafening levels of static, as if the recording originated from impossibly far away.
Or perhaps had been recorded on equipment built no more recently than World War I.
FouRTEEn. AlPHA tangents are IN placssse. Si-ix… Niiiiiine… Fi-ive… Four…
This is Michael Bishop, Asset 108. I peered into the gloom, trying not to wonder at the splatters along the left wall. I drew my Stilettos, holding them steady as I waited for any kind of response.
ThrEE… EighT… Ne-ine… NINE… two-oo… Onnne…
My link didn’t slow the transmission in any way. The numbers marched onward, the woman’s voice seeming perverse. Her accent sounded more than simply foreign, as if her mouth had been deformed, not quite shaped to create English words.
Mich—
I stopped mid step.
Anya. I only had a quick whisper of her in my Crown, coming between two of the numbers, but I felt certain.
I would know the feel of her links anywhere.
Anya? Are you onsite?
Sssseeven… Sssseeven… TwwENty-twoo Brrrravo. Nine… TWO…
The woman’s voice, clipped, oddly bent, and emotionless, continued to drone.
I still felt Anya there, as if we had an open link, but I simply couldn’t hear her over the repetitive numbers.
My brow creased as I sent, Anya, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I cannot hear you. I am onsite and advancing. I will clear the area as directed.
The crackling numbers continued their onslaught, squelching any link that Anya might send.
“Ugh.” I winced at the sensation boring through my mind. The stench of the hallway and the hellish light put my nerves on edge, but that flossing-my-teeth-with-a-chainsaw sound?
Horrible. Far worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. And whatever else that interference might be, it overrode links to my Crown.
“Well, damn,” I sighed.
I had to go in with no link to the Facility. Not ideal, but then I wouldn’t be alone long. My simple, concise mission specs assured me of that: Clear the area. Await hillbilly. Receive my dossier…
“Fine then.” I performed the mental twitch that switched off my primary comm. Immediately, blissfully, the eerie transmission died.
Only the stuttering crimson half-light accompanied me.
“System command: Illuminate.” With absolutely no hope, I awaited a response from the local system. If I could access the lighting, this might look like less of a house of horrors.
No dice.
The conduit structure had terminated at the end of a hallway, so I only had one way to go. As I stepped forward, I initiated the optics settings in my Crown.
Immediately, a shattering, shifting brilliance poured into my visual cortex, like scalding oil in my mind.
“Wha—?” I stumbled backward, threw my hands up in front of my face, and dropped one of my Stilettos.
The hallway had resolved into a cacophony of burning, vibrating symbols. It seemed as if the physical walls didn’t exist at all. A lost and forsaken alphabet of incomprehensible ideograms and dataglyphs burned their way into my brain.
“What the fuck?” I switched optics off and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. That didn’t do much, as the optical systems remained directly wire-synched into my brain. My mind swam with echoing afterimages.
I rested one hand against the wall and leaned there to take a moment.
Our enhanced optics are spec’d as a marriage of night-vision and infrared. The Crown had the capability of reading the data, and it used several technologies to provide a visual read.
It also tended to give me shatteringly painful headaches if used for too long. However, I had never experienced anything like what had just happened.
“Just wonderful.” I steadied myself, leaned over, and picked up my weapon. “Exactly what I need—more system issues.”
I’d been in the West Papuan highlands only a few weeks after Dhire Lith when the first of my “ongoing concerns” had arisen. I’d been posted to a small telemetry station, dealing with an inhuman entity that had quite literally fallen from the sky.
Its ability to shift form and mesmerize the natives had the Facility concerned.
I stood in the middle of the dense wilderness when my Crown started stuttering.
Soon, I couldn’t process patches or initiate optics.
“Have you been to AES recently, Asset?” Caduceus Somare frowned as he looked through my Crown dialogues.
“Erm, don’t you know?” His question disturbed me. “I assumed you had access to every system notation ever written on me.”
“You have a Designate lock on your notation dialogue, dated 24 August to 9 September.” Caduceus Somare squinted at his visual array.
“I… I did.” I blinked, surprised at the news. “I had a rough dossier. Spent almost two weeks in recovery.”
“You have several locked channels in your Crown nexus,” he reported. “I cannot completely access your system.”
“Why would something like that happen?”
“It’s hard to say.” Somare frowned. “It typically indicates a system status or Lattice interface that the Designates wish to preserve. I’ll look into gaining access.”
By the time we dealt with the interstellar anomaly, my system had stammered its way ba
ck into functionality. Somare signed off on the idea that the creature’s auric radiations had interfered with my system.
All seemed well, except…
It happened again while running down a small gang of Irrats in Columbia.
And again while looking into ritual slayings in Arizona.
Yet, after my diagnostics last month, the Caduceus had cleared me as fully operational.
“Apparently not,” I grunted. That simply wouldn’t do. If I couldn’t access my Crown, I was as good as tech adrift. I needed to ascertain my options.
With one hand braced against the wall, I initiated optics once more.
For a second, the hallway again shifted into a burst of shapes and symbols radiant with colors never named by man. Expecting the assault, I stood steady for a long moment before being forced to switch the optics off.
Dammit.
Alone in the dark.
“Fine then.”
Grimly, I peered into the passageway. The red light still flickered fitfully, making the bloody walls dance and lurch, shadows grasping at me and then falling sullenly back into place. I wished I could shut them off as well. Proceeding in full darkness would be better than this.
I crept forward.
Less than ten paces later, I came to the first large splatter of blood and viscera, wet and rancid. It clung to the wall like some horrific fungus, thick and cherry red. It pulsed, a blubbery roil of motion.
“Oh!” I yelped as I backed away. My eyes widened, my stomach churned, and I exhaled harshly. If this had simply been some poor soul who had been splattered across the wall—
“ALEEeeEERT!”
I started as the Facility announcement echoed down the hallway, the single word warbled and broken.
“Theees ees a Status II hot-ot-ot-ot zown.”
“No shit.” Ignoring the sound, I leaned slightly closer to the grotesque patch on the wall. Dark traceries of veins ran through the organism, throbbing with nearly imperceptible fluctuations.
Definitely not human remains.
Then, almost as if confirming my thoughts, the patch of gore moved, ripples passing through it as it shifted higher on the wall.
Wait.
It hadn’t simply moved; it had grown.
I peered closely and realized that it indeed covered a greater area. Had it flattened itself? Or had it actually gotten bigger?
I took a step back and glanced down the hallway. Empty, as far as I could see, although several doors lined the hall in front of me. Also several more of the growths, shining wetly in the flickering light.
“Okay. Time to check in again.” It had been all of five minutes after all.
Anya. I sent the link the moment I initiated my comm, hoping desperately that I could get a clear channel.
Fffivvve… Sssixx… ThirTEEN… Sta-atUS: Whissskey… SEVen…
I have encountered what I believe to be an aberration. I leaned closer to the pulsing gore again, to get a clear image in my Crown. I do not know if this is the target I am to clear from the area before Asset Guthrie is dispatched. Please advise.
For a long moment, I only heard the eternal progression of soulless numbers. Then, however:
—t Guthrie—
That one warbled bit slipped between the clipped numerals that marched soullessly through my Crown.
Anya. It had to be.
So I did have a link. Even if I could scarcely hear her, it seemed as if Anya might be receiving me.
I cannot read you, Anya. I kept my visual on the aberration for another long moment and then turned toward the darkness. I will explore deeper into the hot zone and see what I can find. If I encounter no hostiles, I will return and deal with these growths.
I heard no reply from Anya, only the incessant succession of chanted numerics, wending onward with no pattern or meaning.
The woman’s terse accent made the litany all the creepier. Even if I did have a clear link to Anya, I didn’t know if I could handle the monotonous parade of useless data as I walked through the flickering, gore-splattered hallways.
I’m killing the link. I will report back when I can.
No response. I gave one last glance at the oozing growth on the wall and then shut off my comm.
Again, I stood in silence.
After a moment of gazing into the shadows, I stepped forward, my hands clutching the pistol grips of my Stilettos tightly. Only a few steps ahead loomed the first of several doorways, a gaping rectangle of darkness bereft of red emergency lights.
I slipped up next to the door, giving the hallway a quick glance in each direction. Once I felt certain that I was still alone, I stole a peek into the room.
Silver banks of quantum relays sat ensconced in smooth casings that jutted out slightly from the walls. A soft, electric-blue glow shone across the top of each, small readouts that fluctuated out of sync with each other. Dozens of schemata plastered the opposite wall, but I couldn’t make them out from where I stood.
A terminal orb hung in the center of the room, the primary interface for this system. It hovered there, in exactly the way a large titanium sphere should not.
I raised one hopeful eyebrow at the device. Perhaps I could interact with the local system and get some answers.
Slipping inside, I strode eagerly to the center, my boots quiet against the tiled floor. This could be the break I needed.
Most Facility locations didn’t have what would be considered a typical computer interface. The terminal orbs we had instead allowed anyone with a Crown—
“Crap.” My Crown was glitchy, full of interference, not to mention those disturbing numbers. Logging into the local system would certainly give me more intel, but if I couldn’t hear it, the information wouldn’t do me any good.
I needed to find some way to bypass the interference.
Hoping to make out anything at all in the dim light, I peered at the schemata.
CAPRICORNUS ALIGNMENT PROTOCOLS dominated the top of the thin paper in a large, bold font. To its immediate right was a small square with dozens of white dots against a dark background. Below that marched a long strand of numbers, some of which seemed to be coordinates.
Great. More numbers. I sighed.
Complex geometrical figures accompanied enumerated lines, both drawn with alien and unnatural angles. These had been surrounded by blueprints for a large, slender tower. Gracefully arching symbols surrounded the building, seeming to emanate from it like radio waves.
Wait. Capricornus? It sounded familiar.
I squinted at the small square and the white dots within it. They looked like a flat-topped, dented triangle.
The constellation Capricorn?
Any other time, I would have pulled the relevant data from my Crown. I could have learned the makeup of the constellation Capricorn, the origins of its name, and every use of the word throughout history in an instant.
Now, however, I felt certain that the moment I switched on my comm, I would be assaulted with an ever-shifting tide of numbers.
I sighed.
Without a clear comm to access the Lattice, I was stuck using my physical brain.
Like a damn shmuck.
“Fine.” I frowned as I turned to one of the other schemata. Without my Crown’s intel, the information made no sense.
I turned back toward the silver terminal orb, where it hung in the center of the room. It hovered over a small platform in which small blue lights slowly pulsed. Nothing held the orb in the air, at least nothing physical.
A thought occurred to me.
I stepped closer and initiated my comm. As quickly as I could, I sent system command, Initiate Adjunct.
Nothing.
I didn’t hear the Adjunct’s chipper prompt, didn’t even feel it in my mind.
Only the woman’s haunted drone continued to warble through my head:
FOURrr… Niine… Se-eVen… ThirTEen T-ango… NiNnne… Twwwo…
Time to try again.
Terminal initiation. I paused as the
terminal orb rippled in front of me, much like a floating sphere of mercury. When the lights beneath it pulsed, the woman’s voice warbled a bit but continued.
Sev-hen… Fe-ive… Eighttt…
This is Michael Bishop, Asset 108. My access code is iota-six-three.
The blue lights intensified, but the woman’s voice never stopped. I stepped closer to the terminal orb, and six rectangular screens shimmered into view within my mind’s eye, each suspended in the air above the orb in ghostly transparency.
“That’s more like it.” I permitted myself a small smile. While the numbers still marched through my mind, I wouldn’t be able to hear any of the system prompts, but perhaps…
“Screen four.” I watched the hovering field, and it brightened as my gaze came to rest upon it. “Please display all system prompts as text.”
UNDERSTOOD, 108. WILL COMPLY. The words appeared upon the screen instantly, and my small smile blossomed into a wide grin.
“Score one for me.”
I assessed the other screens, trying to determine what I should look for. Each of them held a dizzying array of data, but two of them obviously displayed readouts from long-range telemetry. As I gazed at the nearly transparent screens, I realized that even though I could read them, I didn’t see any physical coordinates on the data. That brought me up short.
I didn’t exactly know my own physical coordinates, did I?
It seemed obvious upon reflection, but in that moment, the idea struck me dumb.
A cold boot had a specific, simple purpose: get an Asset into play as soon as possible. In doing so, some of my systems weren’t exactly online. Until this very moment, it had never occurred to me that part of a cold boot might involve sheltering an Asset from sensitive intel.
“Makes sense though.” I glanced from screen four to screen two, which brightened noticeably. Naturally. The system worked with the phaneric node in my Crown to create nonphysical screens. Anyone else would see me staring into empty space, speaking with nothingness.
“Query: What is my current location?” I glanced back to screen four.
It brightened. Text appeared on it. Unhelpful text, but text all the same.
ASSET COORDINATES: THE SPIRE.
I stared at the words for a long moment, frowning. A definite non-answer. I had expected a sub-station or perhaps one of the Facilities themselves. Those, however, had numeric designations, never names.