Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  "So what's different about it?"

  "Aside from being able to wirelessly integrate with other personal computing equipment, we're testing out a new interface method. It's kind of bleeding edge... psychic circuitry."

  I raised the eyebrow not covered with medical tape.

  The doctor continued, "Most neural interfaces are either basic signal feeds, or require the user to train their brain to think in a prescribed manner. Psychic circuitry is supposed to work the other way around, keying off your intent rather than just a pre-set electrical pattern. If it works correctly, it can be used with the more... unusual physiologies we sometimes see in here."

  "I guess that makes sense."

  "Someone called in a favor to get you selected for the trial. If it doesn't work, we'll replace it with a more conventional implant. However, you should be able to control features like vision mode, zoom, and target tracking through simply willing it. In theory at least. Worst case, you can configure them to be controlled from a computer or handheld device."

  "I hope there's some serious security on that wireless management. I'd hate to have someone hack my eyesight."

  "There is. Someone from Paragon Logistics should deliver the encryption key you'll need. The Fund will have a copy for technical support, just in case."

  "I have a somewhat odd question."

  "Shoot."

  "I have a friend who can speed along healing using magic. If I enlisted her aid, would that lead to any complications?"

  "That depends. If it only accelerates the normal processes, then you should be fine. If it triggers some other regenerative processes, you could be in for problems."

  "I don't think it's regenerative, but I'll ask her."

  "Just one last thing. For the most part, your new eye should be able to charge itself from your body. And it might reboot if you're subjected to an electroshock weapon, like a Taser. It won't be permanently damaged, but it will render you blind again until the process completes."

  "I'll keep that in mind." I no longer had any doubt-- I really hate electroshock weapons.

  Part 30

  The hard part proved to be convincing Ixa to work her magic on me for a third time. "My magic comes from a very old goddess, and she doesn't care for technology," she said.

  "You never speak much about her. Why is that?" The trailers we were based out of felt far too cramped, even with Ixa and Ben sleeping off-site. They were cheap structures liable to shatter if Pam or Jennifer lost their tempers.

  "Because people like you conflate sacrifice of blood with blood sacrifice."

  "Before I make an idiot of myself, kindly explain it to me. On the surface it does sound like a distinction without a difference."

  "A blood sacrifice implies killing something or someone. A sacrifice of blood does not require that the donor die. In fact, most of the time, it's your own blood being sacrificed. Without it, she won't grant the powers I rely on."

  "Is that why you live off-site?"

  "I know for a fact Jennifer would freak if she ever saw the rituals."

  "I see," I said. "So why doesn't your goddess like technology?"

  "It's the tools of the powers who destroyed her people," Ixa said. "She doesn't punish me for using it, but has made her dissatisfaction clear in the past."

  "So is she the one putting me back together, or you?"

  "It's a joint effort. I am a conduit for the energy. Since it's not in me to begin with, I have to gather it."

  "So you think she won't react too well to trying to heal someone with implants? Or that it will heal me but refuse to bind to the eye?"

  "I... don't know. This sort of thing hasn't come up before."

  "If she does get angry, will she take it out on me, or you?"

  "She's more subtle than that. She'd find some way to hurt both of us without striking directly."

  "I guess pissing off a goddess is a bad idea."

  "I'm surprised she didn't freak out about healing a Catholic." The implications started to dawn on me. Those followers who survived the smallpox and the conquistadors would have been driven from her worship by the efforts of the church. Not the sort of affront a deity forgives. The theological implications of Ixa's magic could start a holy war-- or a witch hunt. I wasn't about to touch that debate, my brain just couldn't handle it.

  "I'm just antsy. I want to see normally again," I said. "But, time will work, so I should take the opportunity to learn patience." Ixa gave me an enigmatic grin. "What?"

  "You were in no hurry before you stopped by Vanguard and had the implant put in."

  "I was preoccupied with being unable to sleep."

  "And now?"

  "I think I'm getting used to it. I'm not seeing the mental degradation you tend to get with sleep deprivation now that I'm not all torn up inside."

  "So it was anemia and pain meds before?"

  "I guess."

  "What are you doing with all the extra time?"

  "Physically I still need to rest, but sitting still to study seems to do the trick."

  "You do know you've missed a lot of school."

  "Yes..." I said, trailing off. "I've probably been kicked out of Leyden Academy by now."

  "If they did that, they'd get so much bad press the headmaster might lose his job. I think if you showed up Monday, no one would bat an eye."

  "I need help catching up."

  "Is that a request or a command?"

  "Would you be willing to tutor me on what I missed while... you know."

  "If we have that date which got so rudely interrupted, sure."

  I smiled. "That's more of a reward than a condition," I said.

  Combined with the school uniform, the eye patch made me look like a villain. Admittedly, a teen-aged villain in some monumentally low-stakes tale, but that was what the face in the mirror resembled to me. Since he had a connection to our family outside of the community, Ben drove me to Leyden Academy. His battered old sedan stood out among the shiny, high-end cars, trucks, and SUVs of the students and faculty. But, then again, I stood out among the students and faculty. Although I got a lot of stares, no one batted an eye when I took my seat in Sharpe's class.

  "Mister Colfax," Sharpe said, "I take it the doctors have cleared you to return to school?"

  "Yes, sir," I said. I hadn't actually asked any.

  "You realize you will be responsible for making up the work you missed."

  "Yes, sir," I said.

  He nodded, then went about roll call as if nothing had happened. My thoughts drifted to the Morlock Society. They had to have some means of communicating their intent to the Ygnaza, and arranging for pick-up of their captives. It was unlikely that they had the capacity to deliver even one person to high orbit. Zsh-ya made his demands over old television bands and protocols used before the switch to digital. Two options seemed evident. Either they had taken control of an abandoned broadcast station, or perhaps a satellite truck. They shared a common element, the requirement that someone among the Morlocks had an understanding of how to make the analogue equipment work.

  To nab two thousand people in less than a month would require multiple teams of people operating in concert. Possibly with an even shorter time frame given that the organization was unlikely to have existed prior to the issuing of the ultimatum. I'd wager they organized online, little else would produce a big enough network of people fast enough. That would leave a data trail, assuming you can find it. That's the thing about the Internet, it was big, convoluted, and decentralized. It was designed to withstand node loss in case of nuclear war. Designed? Not after it escaped ARPA. No, it amalgamated. A billion tweaks and band-aids to minor technical problems.

  I was drawn out of my wandering train of thought when the headmaster poked into the room. I hadn't had a reason
to interact with him directly, but I did know he was a mendacious, self-serving little weasel. He also had the authority to recommend the expulsion of students. He was a round-faced man with a wrinkled jowl that suggested recent massive weight loss.

  "I need to speak with Mister Colfax," he said. Having to deal with the headmaster was never a good thing. I stood up from my desk, scooped up my books and followed him through the eerily quiet halls to his office.

  He settled into his overstuffed chair behind a massive mahogany desk with a smug expression. He was flanked by two walls of shelves as if he sat within a garbage press, and his window overlooked the athletic fields. There were no guest chairs, forcing me to remain standing. It all spoke of pettiness and insecurity to me.

  "Mister Colfax," he said. "I suspect you want to know why I pulled you out of class."

  "I figured you'd get around to it when you were ready." The surest way to infuriate the petty autocrat was to be neither obsequious, nor openly defiant. They didn't get to stroke their egos, and couldn't lash out for defiance of their authority. I refused to smile at the headmaster's frown, but I knew I'd struck that nerve.

  "You understand that according to the agreement you signed there are requirements in order to keep your scholarship."

  "Yes," I said. His cheek twitched. He wanted to hear "yes, sir" or "yes, headmaster," but the speech code only forbade disrespectful speech. Failing to kowtow didn't warrant a demerit. It was probably a bad idea to antagonize the headmaster, but after dealing with Uth-sk, he seemed far less threatening.

  "And that missing a set number of practices will cause you to be thrown off the track team?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "You've already passed that threshold," The headmaster said. "Losing your place on the team automatically revokes your athletic scholarship."

  "I see," I said. I turned towards the door.

  "Where are you going? I haven't dismissed you yet."

  "Well, I can't afford to stay here."

  "How do I put this? The trustees feel that the negative publicity from pushing you out of the school as a direct result of your abduction would generate a backlash among our alumni and parent communities." In other words, their endowment fund would suffer. Not a good thing for a prep school that charged more than the ivy league schools it fed. The headmaster continued. "They have decided to permit you to continue your studies her under a modified scholarship, whose requirements are purely academic. So long as you keep your grades up and maintain the standards of behavior expected of Leyden Academy students, you will not be removed from this institution." The headmaster actually looked pained to say it. I think he might have enjoyed seeing me pitched out the front gates. Of course, you don't go into school administration for liking students.

  "I see," I said.

  "I expected more of a reaction out of you than that."

  "Isn't self-control a virtue?" I asked.

  "Ungrateful little pissant, get out and go back to class!"

  I turned and left, allowing myself to smile once I made it to the hallway. I shouldn't enjoy tweaking self-important people that much.

  Permanent insomnia meant I had a lot of hours at that I used to use for sleep. I spent them listening to Zander Reeves' audio archives. It painted a clear picture of the internal strife between him, Greeler, and Omicron. The three couldn't stand each other, but were tied together by a steadily unraveling web of necessity. Greeler wanted powers, and Omicron had a serum which could grant them, albeit with a hidden and quite fatal caveat for the woman. Reeves needed Omicron to complete "Project Thirteen," or at least continue to make progress. And the two of them needed Greeler to pump money into the operation now that Reeves had burned his own fortune. Omicron didn't need them per se, but he was getting paid generously for his time.

  "Dude!" Pam said, "I almost crapped myself waking up to that voice!"

  "Sorry," I said, pausing the recording.

  "What are you listening to?"

  "Communications between the head of the Order of the Final Star and whoever he had to talk to. In this case, our 'friend' Doctor Omicron."

  "Where did you get them?"

  "Oh, I slipped into his house a few nights ago and copied them off of his computer."

  "What? You didn't tell any of us, or ask for help? I thought this was supposed to be a team."

  "When I set out, I hadn't actually planned on breaking into his place. One thing just led to another, and I ended up pilfering some of his files."

  "So you found out who this guy is?"

  "Yeah, he's a retired dot-com millionaire by the name of Zander Reeves. He has a son Andrew. His wife died in a car crash thirteen years ago. Not sure when he joined the Final Star, but their recent losses helped accelerate his rise to the top."

  "Why didn't you just have us nab him?" Pam asked.

  "If we nab Reeves, Omicron will abandon the Final Star completely and go to ground without a trail we can follow. Reeves shows no sign of being experienced in hiding from the law. After we have Omicron, picking him up should be almost an afterthought."

  "And I was worried you'd gone screwy since that alien drilled a hole in your head."

  "I'm not sure I haven't. I just know I have a job to do."

  "Well, wear headphones or something; you'll give the rest of us nightmares."

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't thinking."

  "Fill us in on what you find out in the morning." Pam tapped the cork board as she headed back out of the office towards the bedrooms. "Oh, and you haven't given us your list yet."

  "Good night," I said. I fished out an earbud and plugged myself in. As I hit play, Omicron's resonating voice filled my ear.

  "--this building."

  "I'm sorry you're inconvenienced, but it was your idea to parlay with the heroes," Zander said.

  "It had a decent chance of working. It was worth the risk."

  "You know they think in absolutes. There is no room for ambiguity in their worldview."

  "I don't need a lecture on the psychology of masked vigilantes," Omicron said. "What I need is someplace to move to."

  "You spend more time moving than researching these days."

  "Bullshit, I keep very good track of my time. Relocating is still below twenty percent of my waking time."

  "We've poured an ungodly amount of money into your work, and all we've gotten are demi-dragons which aren't suitable for the task."

  "What you have is a means to non-monetarily reward your loyal cultists while bringing them close to the strength of those who hunt you. What you want is for me to reverse engineer a male of an extinct species from fragmentary female genetic material. You won't even show me the data from the only other project to produce a viable subject."

  "Project fourteen was a failure, why do you keep asking for the data from it?"

  "You can learn a lot from failure," Omicron said. "Project fourteen still produced a viable male, albeit not a full-blooded dragon. Combining their information and expertise with my work could bridge the gap between what we have and what you want."

  "Could. You don't know for sure."

  "Because I haven't seen the data!"

  "Fine. You want the data, and you want a new lab. The project fourteen annex can be reactivated for you. The scientists who worked it have been reassigned to project zero, but that is housed in the same facility. I will let them know to expect you, and to assist with aggregating the data between the two projects."

  "Where is this?" Omicron asked. I leaned closer, despite my proximity to the computer having nothing to do with my ability to hear.

  "Halite."

  "That's rock salt."

  "It's also a town west of here where they used to mine rock salt. The mine became uneconomical, so I was able to buy it cheap. It has a very
dry atmosphere, perfect for deep storage. We also built a few structures inside the mine for the project staff and labs. The town is pretty much abandoned. You should be secure for a good long while."

  "Thank you," Omicron said.