by J M Guillen
She laughed then, and all tension burned off like mist in the morning sun.
I suppose that’s true. Problem is, there are… complexities. Things you don’t know. She paused.
That’s par for this course, Delacruz. I gave her a smirk. It felt important that I should try and keep her spirits up.
I can port you some data, if you have some mecha. I don’t want to run my Crown dry.
I have four injectables left. You, however, may only have three of them. I felt her smile.
Do you have room for a patch to memory?
Um, I eloquently linked. I think so. Give me a moment. For a man who had been activated on a cold boot, I had an assload of crap shuffled into my Crown. I frowned as I truly paid attention to the mess of data in my system.
Huh. As it turned out, I didn’t have enough room for much at all. If I had a Lattice connection, my Adjunct could have offloaded some of Stone’s maps and Wyatt’s little video. I enjoyed letting Paige have the honor, she often scolded me for my messy file keeping.
I found it cute.
However, as it happened, I didn’t have the room for a large patch at all. I started to link Delacruz but she messaged me first.
You know what, I don’t need to port you the monster, not yet. This one doesn’t have to go to memory. It’s just images. A patch followed her words, and my head twitched. There you go. The link felt nervous, perhaps even a bit grim.
I opened the patch.
This… It took me a moment. This is your current visual?
Oh yeah. Look, I have friends.
A second patch hit me then, this one slightly larger than the first. When I opened it, I saw a secondary view, slightly to the right of the first.
“Surreal,” I commented to myself.
From what I could tell, Delacruz crouched somewhere in the nightmare jungle, hiding amidst what looked like great, off-violet banyan trees, if banyan trees brimmed with thousands of mutant cave crickets. The ground around her occasionally had blossoms of symbiont, all tendril-y and gruesome.
In the images, Delacruz didn’t seem concerned about the wildlife, however.
No, she focused on the military bunker and the intense, well-armed men in its watchtowers. In fact, it seemed as if she were, correctly, more concerned with the large, automatic rifles.
The second image raised even more questions and answered none. In it, several figures crouched around her, women with a slight red tint to their skin. Each of them held a wicked metal blade. One held a pack made of skins and wood.
Bald to a woman, a single piece of scarlet chitin shone on each forehead. A strand of yellow light twisted and bent in an elaborate pattern within the chitin growths.
Exactly as Stone had described Subject X.
I see I’ve shown up at a bad time, I quipped. If you ladies are busy, I’d be pleased to wait.
Take a look at this. She sent another image. Look familiar?
It did. Stamped squarely in the center of the bunker door, the red, “S” symbol made me grind my teeth. I noted the same symbol hanging from the belt of the man standing in front of that door.
Well, damn. I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. I have to admit, I didn’t actually expect this.
These people first encountered Sadhana approximately five years ago, according to what they tell me.
According to what they told her? Hadn’t Stone said that our Crowns couldn’t translate their language? How had Delacruz communicated?
So, two and a half years ago. These events ran far before my little party in the Mojave.
At first, she continued, the [bastards] acted civilized. Remained friendly.
I bet that didn’t last long at all, what with the name-calling. A thought struck me. Is one of those women Subject X?
Who? Delacruz felt genuinely puzzled.
The… the woman. The one Stone liberated from the Ryuu building.
Ah. Yes. She is with us. Woman’s name is Sil. Fierce thing. Sofia chuckled. She feels like she has quite the score to settle.
I thought back to the blood on the floor and nodded.
It’s not just her. Sadhana has been experimenting on the Ad’uun for some time. It began in their research stations here.
Experimenting on the what?
The Ad’uun. It’s what these people call themselves.
Remembering the scythe-like blades I had seen in Delacruz’s image, I decided they could call themselves whatever they wanted.
It’s a complex story. She paused. The base of it is, these people want Sadhana gone. The tensions have been escalating for some time now. When fifteen November happened, I and Sil awoke adrift in the jungle. At first, she thought I was one of Sadhana’s, but—
Wait. I interrupted her. Are you saying that you’ve been here four days, and you’ve somehow joined up with the local guerilla fighters?
It’s been a hard four days! More than a little bit of temper came through in her tone. Besides—shit! The unladylike curse came punctuated with a startled reaction, which transmitted over the Crown loud and clear.
Delacruz?
Sorry, Michael. No time!
Why not? I knew that she didn’t have many resources, but it wouldn’t take long to compile a memory patch.
Because. Her tone felt grim. They see us.
2
Well, fuck.
In that moment, nothing would have been more welcome than a few extra seconds to think. An enhanced processing boost, just for a moment, would have been too useful.
I missed Rachel.
Here I stood, stranded in a moist, aberrant hell while one of my own fought for her life.
Cursing, I paced.
Peering into the jungle, I didn’t see a single demon-spawned banyan tree. Not one. I had a fairly decent view too.
That meant we were far apart. Too far apart.
Delacruz? I hoped she wouldn’t feel my panic. Tell me what’s going on.
Busy. The warm, sharp sensation of focus melted through my Crown.
I paced to the edge of the clearing and felt absolutely helpless. Delacruz had survived for these few days without any help, and now that I’d showed up, she might be dying, adrift in a strange land. I couldn’t possibly reach—
Wait.
“Idiot,” I cursed myself. The woman had the Gatekeeper equipped, after all. She could only use it to open an aperture to coordinates that she had previously used or an area within her visual range. However…
Still, that didn’t make the Gatekeeper useless.
If I could get there, I could help.
I’m sending you a patch. I didn’t even ask. Do you have room to send it directly to memory?
I do. Her link came sharp, terse, focused elsewhere.
Over the course of the next several seconds, I took perhaps half a dozen still images from the phaneric node of my Crown. I made certain to get the cliffs behind me with the rambling series of caves, as well as several good shots of the pyramid and the structures around it.
Do you recognize any of these places? Do you have a spike anywhere near where I am? I sent my patch.
Dangerous. She paused for a long moment. This space is full of aberrant vectors—space-time that doesn’t mesh properly with standard axioms. It’s difficult to see, because of the way Rationality bends here.
I geared the Gatekeeper once; I know what you mean. Often, alternate rules of physics in space-time could interfere with the basic functions of the Gatekeeper.
You really don’t. I haven’t had the time to properly explain.
Sounds pretty dangerous on your end. How about we spend less time worrying and more time coming up with solutions?
Delacruz didn’t have the monopoly on danger. I had almost killed myself the last time I had geared the Gatekeeper. My cadre drifted within the gloaming between worlds, fighting for their lives, while my Crown thundered with system warnings about paradox looping.
I don’t think you understand. Her tone irritated me.
/> I didn’t ask if you thought it was a great idea; I asked if you have a spike in my proximity, Gatekeeper?
Near-ish. One location, about two kilometers off.
Okay. What’s the best way for me to get to it?
I have the coordinates here in my Crown augment. I felt rivulets of rage and frustration washing through the Crown, but I had absolutely no context within which to place them.
I will ignite an aperture there. If I link you the coordinates, can you place your own waypoint marker for Locale One? Rushed panic came with her words.
Yes, I confidently linked though I had never done that in my entire career. I’m certain I can.
Less than a second later, I received the coordinates.
“Okay,” I said out loud. “Initiating a waypoint marker. Easy…right?”
Crown command: Configure phaneric display.
Access code or Adjunct required.
“I don’t need an Adjunct all day and now that I do, I can’t have one…” I groused.
Crown command: Configure phaneric display. Access iota six-three.
Access granted, Asset.
I require a reticule over my visual, at the following coordinates. I selected the data that Delacruz had ported me and configured it for system usage.
Improper system command.
I swore and bit my lip. I should have known it couldn’t possibly be that easy.
Crown command: Initiate waypoint reticule.
Reticule initiated. A golden crosshair appeared in my vision. Do you wish to input coordinates?
Fucking-A, I do. I nodded.
Improper system command. Do you wish to input coordinates?
YES! I just about had my fill with truculent Facility technology today. Select data from archived link number 1–55987B–1999.
Compliance.
Like a miracle from heaven above, the reticule slid across my visual field, positioning itself in the direction that I thought of as functional southwest.
“Finally,” I muttered, cursing the miraculous technology.
I had just triggered the Adept and sprinted in that direction, when a thought occurred to me:
Perhaps I shouldn’t be completely stupid.
I took an extra thirty seconds and set a message to broadcast from my Crown. I couldn’t imagine that I would see my cadre too soon—after all, if it took them an hour to get past the symbiont that would be three hours here.
And what if it took longer?
This is Michael Bishop, Asset 108. I am present on reconnaissance and recovery of one Sofia Delacruz. I am alive. This message has been broadcasting since [#system time]. My systems are currently operational.
I am currently, against all intellect and reason, charging off to take part in what seems to be guerrilla warfare against overwhelming military forces organized by the Sadhana Corporation. I have located Sofia Delacruz, and she has initiated an aperture for my transport at [#system coordinates].
If you happen to be an inbred hillbilly with your entire house decorated in bikini models and pictures of monster trucks, I officially request assistance.
I would also quite enjoy seeing Anya again.
What the hell was that? Delacruz’s confusion, tied with the adrenaline that pounded through her link, made me grin.
It’s a complex story. The base of it is: I’ll be there very soon.
I re-geared the Adept, feeling the packet sync to my nervous system with trickles of wintergreen and electric tremors.
Then I began to run.
I needed to be cautious and not let the packet go for too long. The Adept might speed my reaction times and improve my concentration, but it came at a cost. The mental buzz from the constant axiomatic alterations of biochemistry could make a man downright twitchy.
Wyatt maintained that the intense rush of focus and concentration had addictive qualities… and that I needed my head shrunk for favoring it.
According to the information in my Crown, Delacruz had laid a spike somewhere approximately a mile away. I dreaded the sprint through a hungry, Irrational jungle filled with blood-seeking symbionts, but if things got dicey the Adept would help me dodge past any too-friendly tendrils.
“Can’t exactly use the Spectre, can I?” I chuckled to myself. “Not until I touch the Lattice again, at least.”
Let me know when you reach Locale One. Delacruz sounded harried. I’ll simply trigger the second aperture then.
I hoped that you could leave this one open, at least for a— I stopped short, realizing that I had almost stepped into what looked like a slime-covered, eyeball-laden Venus flytrap.
“Fuck!”
The thing hissed. It looked so bizarrely alien, with its wide maw and dripping eyes, that it might have actually come from Venus.
For a…?
For a little while. So my cadre can use it when they get here.
Am I to expect that your cadre will be equipped with monster trucks?
I considered.
You know, it’s possible.
Hold on.
Again, the quiet extended for a long period while I felt the intense emotions of a woman in the middle of a firefight. When she linked again however, the message felt professional and crisp.
I can leave it open. But that doesn’t mean that it’s trustworthy.
I’ll take what I can get. I carefully stepped past the horrific carnivorous plant, even as it rustled and turned toward me with an alacrity that I never would have expected from vegetation.
“I do not have time for you today.” I gave the thing a fierce glare.
I’m certain it understood since it wisely backed down.
The plant-monster wasn’t my true problem, however. As I sprinted forward, I came to the slow but inevitable realization that the coordinates Delacruz had sent me…
Were moving.
The reticule itself drifted, constantly shifting to the right ever so slightly.
I hadn’t really been paying attention so far, what with the sprinting through the alien jungle of death, but the moment I did, I stopped short.
It’s further away. I frowned as I linked Delacruz. Is that even possible? Can an aperture move?
I told you. Aberrent vectors mean that the dimensions of space aren’t exactly flush with what the Gatekeeper is accustomed to. She paused. Even so, I show an eighty-seven percent probability that the aperture will still be stable by the time you reach it.
And if it’s not?
If it’s not, then I told you so! The link came all in a rush, and I had the impression that Delacruz had just been taken by surprise.
Tell me you are okay.
No. I’m—A long moment passed. Okay. Now I’m okay.
Okay. I’m on the move. Hold tight for me, Delacruz.
Ha! She laughed. I felt it over the link like tiny pink bubbles. Let’s be clear. You’re not coming to save me from the bad guys, gringo. I’m doing you the favor of providing safe transport through a horrific alien landscape. After that, I’ll be the one taking you home.
Gringo?
Mike Bishop. That’s the single whitest name possible.
I prefer Michael.
Get us both out of here, and I’ll call you whatever you like. How about that? I felt her grin.
Fair enough. I smiled as well and pushed through said horrific alien landscape.
The way ahead became a bit more difficult as the density of the fungal forest closed in. Many of the gigantic, willow-like growths clustered together, and those long, almost hair-like tendrils swung from the branches as if moved by the wind.
Yet, no wind graced this strange place.
I eyed the swaying ends of those trees, more than a bit certain that the long hairs would have some horrifying effect if I allowed them to touch my flesh.
“Fuck,” I swore to myself at the thought. Could everything be carnivorous in this place?
Keeping the still-drifting reticule in my sight, I skirted the edge of the small fungal grove, peering through the
haunted half-light in an attempt to find a way forward. After only a few moments, I found a game trail. At least that’s what it would have been had I been in an ordinary forest.
Then I remembered that purring snarl from earlier. Native creatures definitely lived in this forest. Delacruz’s linked images had told me as much, but I had to admit that the fact felt a touch more harrowing as I crept through the nightmarish fungal trees.
I didn’t want to be the prey.
“Just not my kind of vacation.” I slunk beneath the gently wafting branches and shifted along in a half squat to remain out of reach.
In about fifteen minutes, I jogged by a jagged ravine and saw two dozen orange beetles the size of footballs. Sulfuric water boiled and steamed, and I saw the print of a something I definitely didn’t want to meet.
I was actively keeping my eye out for horrific monsters when I saw the scarlet glow of a Facility aperture through the trees. The crimson tear in space sang quietly as it hovered among the trees.
“Finally.” The aperture drifted as I watched it, floating slowly through the forest as it spun on its axis.
That made no sense. Apertures queued via stationary quarrels similar to the Tangler’s spike. The quarrel didn’t drift through the ground, surely.
How did it move? How could the aperture possibly have freed itself from the tether of its spike?
I’ve made Local One. I tilted my head uncertainly at the warbling rend in space. I’ll admit that the aperture seems off-kilter.
Yeah. I felt the grimness in her link. I’m showing a 72% temporal stability. It’s gonna be a bitch to link. She paused. Is it large enough that you think you can clear it without touching the sides?
Um. I looked at the aperture uncertainly, even as it continued to shift in space. What happens if I touch the sides?
Don’t. How about that? Don’t touch the sides. Delacruz grinned, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the suddenness of it. You have the Adept geared, right? You should be fine.
“Good,” I muttered as I watched the odd undulations of the aperture. “It’s the ‘should’ part that sounds assuring.”
I felt half certain that I might cut something off.
I will ignite an aperture in a safe location near me on your mark. I felt her lack of focus, which made this even more nerve racking. I am currently clear and secure on my end.