Binary Storm

by Christopher Hinz

  “I can tell you that what she’s provided to us so far is remarkable. She claims that this Ash Ock tway is highly placed in human society, that he or she is in charge of a vast international organization with satellite locations in nearly every country.”

  Bel paused again and glanced around the table, trying to look at everyone in turn and not concentrate only on Vok Shen, R Jobs Headly and Lois Perlman. As far as she could ascertain, expressions throughout the room were genuine. The regents were reacting with a mix of astonishment and disbelief, chattering amongst themselves, debating the impact of the revelations. No one displayed any obvious hints that they had stopped being an individual tway and had come together to form Codrus, their Ash Ock monarch.

  Vok Shen faced Bel. Maybe she was imagining it but she had a sense that the industrialist was more disturbed than the others.

  Is he the one?

  “Has Ms Shining offered any particulars about this organization?” Vok Shen asked.

  “Not yet. However, she did say that in the past, this tway of Codrus has complained to the other Royals about the duties inherent in running the organization, that he or she is kept too busy traveling. Apparently for the Ash Ock, there is some added stress in the tways being physically separated for lengthy periods.”

  “Excellent,” Nick said. “That’s more than enough details to force Codrus’s hand.”

  It better be, Bel thought. That’s just about all the relevant information we have.

  But if Nick was right, it should do the trick. The mole would be persuaded to bring on the interlace. A Paratwa of the Royal Caste would appear among them.

  Fifty-Six

  As Director Bakana and Al-Harthi spouted out their incredible revelations, the regent tway of Codrus sensed the meandering ripplets of concern emanating from his other half, Bishop Rikov, thousands of kilometers from Philadelphia.

  Without a doubt, E-Tech indeed had in custody the wife of that accursed traitor, Ektor Fang. Such privileged information, that a tway of Codrus was in charge of a large international organization and that his duties too often kept the tways apart, was too accurate to have been gleaned through any other source.

  Which meant that as soon as the deal with the traitor’s wife was completed, she would give up the bishop’s identity.

  Codrus made it a point to avoid interlacing in public. The sudden ascent of the monarch and the corresponding diminishment of the tways could induce spontaneous physical changes, anything from mild facial contortions to muscle spasms. The reaction period was brief, the intensity marginal, the risks minimal. Yet it was best not to take chances.

  But this situation cried out for unity, demanded the presence of Codrus’s superior intellect. And even if the tways resisted coming together, it could happen in spite of them through the whelm, the forced union of tways into monarch. Such an event didn’t require a mirror or other means for interlacing. It could be brought on by an immediate and dire threat.

  Waiting for the whelm to occur wasn’t an option. The regent tway allowed his strongest emotion – worry for the bishop tway’s safety – free rein. The fear encapsulated within that feeling fostered the connection. He could feel his own disparate consciousness receding as the interlace began to form.

  If his tway here in the E-Tech conference room displayed a noticeable physical reaction, it surely would be mistaken for an idiosyncratic phenomenon, merely one regent’s reaction to the startling news about Olinda Shining.

  The transition was complete in a matter of seconds. Codrus, monarch of the Royal Caste, panned his gaze across the faces of E-Tech’s Board of Regents.

  Simultaneously, he sprang his bishop half into action, enacting an emergency plan prepared for just such a contingency. Bishop Rikov excused himself from the midst of a parishioner council and walked swiftly out the back door of the London cathedral of the Church of the Trust. A limo awaited him. He would take a short ride to an Ash Ock safe house and remain there until the situation clarified.

  Fifty-Seven

  “Yes!” Nick exclaimed, bolting to his feet.

  Sosoome reacted to Nick’s excitement by hopping off the end table and scampering around the living room. Gillian showed no such enthusiasm. He remained sprawled across the sofa, merely angled his head in Nick’s direction.

  Although the holos provided no obvious indicators, there could be no doubt. The charts and graphs on Nick’s pad had revealed an abrupt series of spikes. One of the three suspects had literally transformed into a different personality. The tells for the transformation were clear and unambiguous.

  “Got ya, you Ash Ock son of a bitch!”

  Fifty-Eight

  Bel endured an agonizing moment of silence waiting for Nick to deliver the news.

  Who is it? she wanted to shout. Who, dammit!

  “Codrus has arrived,” Nick said triumphantly. “R Jobs Headly is the tway.”

  Bel whipped her attention to the youngest regent before she could think not to. Whether intentionally or by accident, he happened to be turning toward her at the same instant.

  Their eyes met. Mutual comprehension passed between them. Bel knew that he knew that his secret had been revealed.

  Fifty-Nine

  Quite clever of you, Codrus admitted, giving Annabel Bakana a faint nod, silent praise for her ingenuity. Even now, under such dire circumstances, he couldn’t help but admire their plan.

  There was no proof that the plan had originated with the director but Codrus was certain she’d had a hand in it. Annabel Bakana had turned out to be far craftier and more formidable than the Ash Ock had anticipated when they’d arranged for her ascendance to E-Tech’s top job following Witherstone’s death. It was a rare mistake on the part of the Royals in having underestimated a person’s abilities.

  Yet the plan also smacked of the Czar, the name Sappho and Theophrastus had given to the mysterious and shrewd human – or perhaps a consortium of humans – who operated behind the scenes to thwart the Royals. Some believed that the Czar might be an E-Tech programmer, or group of programmers. Whoever he, she or it was, and whether they had been involved in setting up this trap, would have to await analysis at a more opportune time.

  The basic outline of the humans’ plan was obvious. The conspirators had learned just enough from the traitor’s wife to impel his tways to bring on the interlace. No doubt, some trusted associate had arranged for the conference room to be secretly outfitted with the appropriate detection gear to register the physiologic changes inherent in his transformation from singletons to binary.

  Looking back on the meeting from its start, there’d been hints of trouble brewing. Director Bakana’s nervous anxiety was a clue that something out of the ordinary was happening. And Al-Harthi’s last minute bug sweep of the room, although a routine event, had been performed by an individual the regent tway had never seen before. The fact that the board president’s independent security contractor had tasked the job to a different employee was not in and of itself enough to arouse suspicion. But in retrospect…

  Codrus deduced in that instant of eye contact with Director Bakana the flow of upcoming events. Guards would be summoned. The regent they knew as R Jobs Headly would be ordered into custody. With the board president and the director backing the order, it would be followed without question. Afterward, those two would come clean to the rest of the regents and offer a full explanation.

  His captured tway would be whisked offsite as quickly as possible. In all likelihood he would be handed over to security forces less inclined to abide by E-Tech niceties. The tway would be rendered unconscious to prevent his other half from acquiring the location of the ultimate destination, no doubt some well-prepared black site.

  His tways possessed a rudimentary bilocating system, an organic version of GPS. But it would only enable a potential rescue party to track him to within an area of roughly two thousand square kilometers. Unless his rescuers got lucky or the humans were sloppy – both scenarios highly unlikely – once in custody
his fate would be sealed.

  The real R Jobs Headly had been captured just prior to his appointment to the Board of Regents more than a year ago, and the sapient supersedure process initiated. After being persuaded to divulge every possible detail of his life, the Headly prototype had been terminated and his body incinerated to prevent any recovery of physical evidence.

  For Codrus’s regent tway, the interrogation would be conducted by coldly intelligent beings similarly at ease with the more primitive methods of intel extraction. As had occurred with the regent prototype, his tway would be kept alive only as long as it served the humans’ purposes.

  But Codrus wasn’t about to allow the situation to get that far out of hand. He’d prepared his tways for the possibility of exposure. Even now, as his London half enacted the escape plan, Bishop Rikov was contacting the Ash Ock’s most loyal servitor within E-Tech, the sleeper agent who over the space of many years had risen through the ranks to become an associate director. All Codrus needed to do was buy the sleeper a little time to get down here from his office on the executive floor above.

  He rose from his seat at the conference table. Simultaneously, behind the church, his bishop tway sat down in the back of the limo. In a less critical situation, Codrus might have enjoyed a certain intellectual relish from examining the dialectic of standing and sitting at the same instant.

  “My fellow regents, I have something to say to all of you,” he announced via his Philadelphia mouth. “A profound admission.”

  Fifteen pairs of eyes locked onto him. Codrus stretched out the moment by favoring each of the regents and Director Bakana with a slow piercing gaze.

  “It is something that may well shock many of you,” he continued. “Yet it will not necessarily be a surprise to some, who clearly have been harboring a degree of suspicion for quite some time.”

  Half a world away, his tway made the call. The sleeper was informed that one of his masters, a lord of the Royal Caste, was in jeopardy. The man would be racing to arm himself and then rushing down to the conference room. In short order, a solution to Codrus’s predicament would be at hand.

  Sixty

  Bel listened intently as Codrus talked. Yet he seemed to be doing what Bel and Al-Harthi had done moments ago, dancing around the topic while refraining from admitting who he really was. He spoke at length about his time among the regents, offering up a series of platitudes that expressed his admiration for E-Tech’s objectives.

  Every pair of eyes was locked onto R Jobs Headly, waiting for him to get to the point. Vok Shen ran out of patience.

  “Enough of this,” he snapped. “What is this profound admission?”

  “I apologize for keeping you in suspense. However, I’m afraid there has been a change of plans. I find that my presence is urgently required elsewhere.”

  Bel realized he’d been stalling at the same moment Nick did.

  “Call the guards!” he hissed in her earpiece. “We need to take him right now.”

  Bel touched her wrist fob, preset for the panic button. The tway of Codrus took notice of her faint movement. The face of R Jobs Headly broke into an expansive smile.

  You won’t be smiling soon, Bel thought, no longer bothering to maintain a neutral expression. She glared back at him with open hostility, knowing that in the next few seconds, Bull Idwicki’s trio of security people stationed outside would barge in.

  She glanced at the door, waiting. It remained closed.

  “What’s keeping them?” Nick demanded.

  A chill swept through Bel. Something’s wrong.

  From the hallway outside came a series of mechanical shrieks. Bel’s heart pounded as she recognized the sound.

  Thruster fire.

  Codrus’s tway walked calmly toward the door, leaving behind surprised looks and confused muttering. Bel lunged from her chair, grabbed hold of Headly by the collar.

  “You’re not going anywhere!”

  “Unfortunately, Ms Bakana, you are mistaken.”

  She heard the door open behind her. She whirled. Rory Connors stepped calmly into the room, thruster in hand. He pointed the weapon at Bel.

  “Let him go,” Rory ordered.

  For a moment, Bel thought Rory was misreading events, that he believed she was the threat for the way she was gripping Headly’s collar. But then she caught a glimpse into the hallway behind Rory. The three guards were sprawled across the floor, face down, unmoving. They appeared to have been shot in the back, probably while rushing toward the door to respond to Bel’s summons.

  “You,” she whispered, stunned that the man who’d replaced her as head of Media Relations was a murderous traitor.

  “Don’t panic,” Nick urged in her ear. “More Security people are on their way.”

  Rory withdrew a second thruster from under his jacket and handed it to the tway. Codrus turned to Bel and stuck the barrel in her face. She froze, too frightened to move a muscle.

  Regents erupted from their seats shouting, flabbergasted by what was happening. The tway ignored them, kept his attention on Bel.

  “Good plan, Ms Bakana. Executed with precision. It’s sad for you that it must end this way.”

  “We need to go,” Rory urged. He was waving his weapon at the other regents, warning them not to try anything.

  The tway pressed the barrel against the bridge of her nose. Bel sensed his finger tightening on the trigger. In that instant she thought back to Director Witherstone’s final seconds, confronted by Yiska yet defiant in the face of certain death. Her own terror reached a tipping point, morphed into newfound courage.

  “Humanity won’t be defeated, Codrus. Your end will come.”

  “Let’s go!” Rory hissed.

  The tway stared at her. Then his face brightened into a smile and he lowered his weapon.

  With Rory in the lead, the two of them raced out the door. They leaped over the bodies of the Security people and ran toward the elevator bank at the far end of the hall.

  Bel, ignoring the shouted warnings from Nick and the other regents, bolted through the door after them.

  “You won’t get away!” she yelled.

  The tway ignored her and stepped into the Exec express elevator. The door closed, leaving Rory in the hallway. He turned and raised the thruster, his eyes burning with malice. The last traces of the mild-mannered politico were gone.

  Bel leaped back into the conference room as Rory fired. Multiple rounds of thruster fire pounded the edge of the doorframe, splintering the veneer and warping the underlying metal.

  A booming male voice shouted, “Drop your weapon!”

  Bel recognized the voice. Bull Idwicki. She peeked into the hallway.

  Idwicki was leading a contingent of Security people out of the emergency stairwell beyond the elevators. They were marching slowly down the hallway with guns raised, forcing Rory Connors to retreat back toward Bel.

  “Seal the building!” she yelled to the Security Chief. “Arrest R Jobs Headly! He’s in the Exec elevator!”

  Nick’s voice boomed in her head. “Dammit, get back! You’re going to get yourself shot!”

  “We have to stop Codrus!”

  “I’ve already notified Security. The elevators are in lockdown.”

  Rory turned and made a run for the conference room. Idwicki and the Security people rushed after him but held their fire. They were obviously unclear about the nature of the situation and were being understandably cautious. Even Bull Idwicki was savvy enough to realize that shooting an associate director in the back, with the Board of Regents as witnesses, might not be a smart career move.

  Bel ducked back into the room. She positioned herself behind the door and steeled herself. As Rory dashed through the portal, she lunged forward and thrust out her leg.

  Rory tripped over it and went down hard. His chin slammed into the carpet. The gun flew out of his hand, skidded across the floor.

  Bel dove for the weapon. But Rory was closer. Recovering from his fall, he scampered toward the gun
on all fours. He snatched the thruster just as Idwicki and his people rushed into the room.

  “Last chance!” Idwicki hollered. “Drop your weapon now!”

  Half a dozen thrusters were trained on Rory. His features dissolved into a mad grin.

  “My lords, I am forever your servant-son!”

  He reset his gun to microburst and pressed the barrel against his forehead.

  “Don’t do it!” Bel shouted.

  “Rebirth comes, two not one!”

  Rory pulled the trigger. His skull imploded, breaking into dozens of shards. The remnants of the head collapsed in upon itself. Liquefied gray matter oozed out from between the fragments, flowing like melting candlewax down across his shoulders. In a moment, there was nothing left above the neck but a dangling clump of spinal column.

  The regents erupted into horrified gasps. Idwicki and his Security people lowered their weapons. Bel turned away, urgently whispering to Nick.

  “Did they get him? Did they get Codrus?”

  “No. He must have had a QKI on him. Bastard overrode the lockdown and switched elevators. They believe he’s somewhere above the lobby floor.”

  “We can’t let him get away.”

  “Don’t you think I goddamn know that?”

  Bel forced herself to stay calm, not get caught up in mutual frustration. “He may try making for one of the stairwells, get out through a side or back exit.”

  “Yeah. Slag is watching the front of the building and I have Security heading for the other exits. Oh, and sorry about the yelling.”

  “Forget it.”

  Nick was silent but had left his mic on. She could hear him arguing with Gillian about something.

  “What’s he saying?” she demanded.

  “Nothing. Just Gillian being Gillian. He says that if I’d gone with the original plan and snuck him into the building instead of Slag, Codrus wouldn’t have outwitted us and escaped.”