Mainline

by Deborah Christian

  Reva studied his forehead. No rus was visible, the label imposed on formally trained adepts. "A wild talent, you say."

  Vask rubbed his forehead self-consciously. "They never caught and marked me." It sounded almost like a boast.

  Reva's brow creased, her thoughts in a whirl. Her natural caution was alerted, and in other circumstances she would have abandoned him that very moment. A Fixer who could walk through walls made the perfect spy.

  But given the circumstances, did it matter after all?

  Not right now, she had to admit to herself. Back in Mainline, maybe, but not Now.

  "I saw you disappear in the water," Vask said, easing back into their original conversation, "and guessed you could do the same as me. Then with Yavobo turning to me like I was his next target, it seemed like a good idea to disappear, too. That's when I saw you, in that other space, between the physical and the not. You saw me there, too."

  She nodded slowly. "And when we came out of it we ended up here. In this Line."

  "Line?"

  She knew she had to tell him, and shifted on the couch uneasily "Look, Vask. This is a long story, alright? And I've never told it to anyone, not anyone who would believe me."

  He gestured her to continue, and she did. She told him about her own wild talent, her ability that had cost her family and friends, that had driven her finally into work that kept her separate from any one Timeline. She knew what she said must sound wildly improbable, yet Vask had already seen the proof: a Lish who was not the Lish he knew, a Devin who was as coolly distant as any Rus'karfa high-caste, an apartment he had never seen before, keyed to his and Reva's voice-codes.

  The Fixer listened in silence as her tale unfolded. She held some things back: how she could stay present in Realtime, for instance, yet split her attention to survey nearby Nows with her timesense. Vask didn't need to know everything, after all.

  She caught the Fixer's uncertain expression. "Do you know, about the Sea Father?"

  Kastlin had heard rumors. She told him more. For R'debh natives, those who lived under the ocean waves, there was little doubt that something large and immaterial and alien was out there, something that brushed the edges of their lives from time to time.

  "So, you see ..." Reva struggled to articulate an idea just dawning upon her, "if the ghost-ray is real—"

  Vask had the same idea. "And he was there in Rinoco, near us—" "He must have been. That energy surge—you felt it, too?" He nodded. "We must have been caught up in that energy, and it carried us across Lines."

  "Or drove us," Vask agreed. "That makes sense. My talent doesn't involve a timeshift, though. I don't understand how it I could affect me that way."

  Reva shrugged. "Maybe any shifted state can be affected by the Sea Father. Or maybe it's because you were close to me when it happened. The fact is, you're here. Now."

  Vask looked around, mild distress on his face. "Yeah, so— when is Now?"

  The assassin laughed, short and bitter. "Be damned if I know. I told you. I can never find my way back to a Line that's too far off."

  Vask struggled to assimilate all that Reva had told him. "How is that," he finally asked, "when you can see these Lines around you?"

  " Think about it," she chided. "You see several variations of Now. In this one the streetboy has a jacket on; in that one he carries it; in the third there's no jacket at all. These are times that are parallel to you. You get there by moving sideways and just a little ahead, like, like crossing from one tree branch to another along a twig that touches both. Now, in which of those Lines, on which of those branches, are your parents alive and contracted to each other? You see?" Her tone became acid. "There's just no way to tell, not in that moment when you have to make a choice about which way to go, which Reality to live in. And if you make loo many wrong choices, there's no telling where you end up."

  Her voice quavered. "You get it, now? We're lost. We're stuck with this bitch version of Lish, and there's no way to get back to Mainline. What was our Mainline."

  Tears were in her eyes again and she brushed them away angrily. I hate feeling this way, she thought.

  Better the calm coolness of disassociation—though that evaded her completely now that Kastlin was with her, knowing about the Lines, a constant reminder that she was not alone in this anymore. How strange, how very, very strange, to have someone with her in this situation who knew....

  His hand reached out, fingers twining through hers, and she returned the squeeze of his touch. They sat on the couch in silence in the apartment they kept together in this Line, each wondering what to do next.

  CVI

  "Boss?"

  The voice spoke twice more before Karuu heard it, an urgent low-pitched call from close by. He glanced around, saw movement in the alley he was passing, a figure hunched between warehouse wall and a broken-down skimmer idling a few centimeters above the ground.

  Karuu looked, the face not registering, the voice too familiar In mistake. It was Daribi, skin bleached of Islander bronze. His shaved head bore pink scars from some kind of surgery. One shoulder was stiff and carried lower than the other, and he wore a patch over his right eye.

  He was most definitely alive, not killed by Skiffjammers after all.

  Karuu snarled. Daribi had left his smuggling empire in ruins. He had looted Karuu's last reserves on this forsaken globe, leaving him poor and at the mercy of MazeRats—

  "Awwrrrrrr!"

  He launched himself at the broken figure in the alley.

  The rush overbore the injured man and Daribi slammed to the ground with sixty kilos of clawing, snapping Dorleoni on top of him. Karuu's ripping tusks were not just for show; one good fix on Daribi's neck and he would be a dead man. The former lieutenant did the only thing he could think of, slamming the palm of his hand into the Holdout's nose.

  It was a muzzle structure more sensitive than a human's nose. The sudden pain caused Karuu to roll off, clutching at the blinding agony that was his face.

  Daribi scrambled away and to his feet. The skimmer thumped against the ground as he jumped in, then rose and shot down the alley. Air washed over Karuu where he gripped his face with two hands, blood trickling from his nostrils, tears blinding his eyes.

  The pain sobered him. As rage fell away, he realized he had made a mistake.

  I'll have that traitor dead, he thought. But first, I'll have my money.

  CVII

  “Most wild talents have been documented, but it's always possible to encounter something new.''

  Vask had heard that point driven home countless times at the Academy of Applied Psychonetics. When you found a wilder your duty was clear. "They are a danger to themselves and others," the Academy position went. "You are obligated by law and your professional oath to turn over such persons to the Academy so we can properly investigate their talent, and teach them to uit wisely.''

  That wilder would also be branded as a known psi power, imprinted with a laser-scribed rus for all to see. The subject would be forcefully recruited into the Academy. If uncooperative, she would be thrown in prison or compelled to take psi-suppressant drugs to limit her potential to harm others.

  Kastlin had never questioned the logic behind the psi laws before. It had all made perfect sense to him, until Reva.

  He studied her, now changed into a casual jumper, sprawled on the couch with one long leg dangling onto the floor. It was late and they had long since talked themselves out. The assassin was lost in a sensie flick on the vid unit, the neurogrip that she wore hidden from sight among the cushions cradling her head.

  Vask sat in a too-comfortable armchair and sipped a Lyndir ale. The room lights were on low; he watched reflections from the vid play over Reva's face, greens and blues outlining high cheekbones, straight nose, the curve of her lip.

  His Academy masters had surely never envisioned what it would take to "turn over" a wilder like this for study. Vask was pretty sure that was a move he didn't even want to attempt.

  And duty r
equires I arrest her, he thought. She's the mystery assassin wanted by IntSec. I can't prove it, but there's no doubt about it, now.

  The killer who did impossible hits, who moved past surveillance cameras without being recorded. Now he was certain she did so in a shifted state.

  He looked at her lounging figure and a cold chill ran down his spine. If I could catch her in action, he thought, I'd bet anything she wouldn't show up on the vidpix. That was why I could record her doing the Lanzig hit: she didn't move across Lines right then.

  He drained the last of the ale from its chill-pack container, and got up to get another from the kitchen. When he returned to his chair, the flick had ended, and Reva was sitting up.

  "Entertainment's no better in this Line than in Main," she said dryly. "See you in the morning." "Night."

  She left the room, appropriating the bedroom to herself. This Reva obviously didn't intend on sharing her space, regardless what her other self might have been doing in this Line.

  Kastlin welcomed the buzz he was getting from the ale. It saved him from trying to sort out the paradoxes that suggested themselves. The assassin was no source of enlightenment; she had given up attempting to answer the unanswerable a long time ago. "What happens when you shift Lines?" he had asked earlier.

  "Does your body physically move dimensions, or just your consciousness?"

  Reva guessed it was consciousness, since an analog self seemed to exist in each Line she visited.

  Why, then, did she physically shift into an altered state?

  The assassin had only shrugged. "I don't know, Vask. I could never figure this all out. You'd have to be some kind of Mutate Master to do that, and I'm sure as hell not."

  He'd swallowed uncomfortably and changed the subject. He was a master-level Mutate, and had as few answers as Reva did. He had plenty of theories, though. Reva didn't know enough about psi and talents to know what to look for, or how to experiment creatively, to make sense out of her ability.

  Vask did.

  Was her talent one that could be learned and duplicated? If he could learn it, maybe he could find a way to a specific Timeline, even though Reva had failed to do so. He was better trained, could surely think of more things to try—or, perhaps, the right things to try.

  It was a tempting proposition, and a frustrating one. An arrest would make his career, but she wouldn't be teaching him anything, then. Then there were the ethical—and oath—claims the Academy had laid on him, about wilders....

  Vask gulped down half the ale. It was easier not to decidc anything, yet. He needed to get his bearings before making any major decisions. Just discovering that they kept house together here was one more unsettling thing in a day full of shocking revelations.

  It wouldn't be such a bad deal if she enjoyed my company, he thought wryly. So why do I feel kept at arm's length?

  He regarded the blankets stacked near the couch and sighed. Finishing his drink, he quickly made up a bed to sleep in.

  Reva's door, of course, stayed closed throughout the night.

  Yavobo tended to his business while others slept.

  The lanky warrior studied the dock and loading bay of Lair-dome 5 from a sea-sled 200 meters out in the warm harbor waters. He wore a black bodysuit and rode a dark aqua-colored sled buoyancy set so craft and rider floated just below the surface, like a submerged log. To foil any underwater sensors that might delect him, the sled mounted a thermal curtain generator, a device that diffused his shape and heat signature into the surrounding surface water. Only Yavobo's head and hands were visible, glistening with seawater sheen.

  The warehouse area was quiet, no small craft in motion, no dockworkers about. Yavobo lifted the night-glasses at the end of a wrist strap and put the light-magnifying lenses to his eyes.

  Lish's stronghold leapt into sharp relief. The seaward side of the complex was dominated by the bay doors of the warehouse. During the daytime, they would be opened onto the ramp that sloped directly into the water. At night they were secured and guarded by security bots inside the Lairdome. It wasn't possible for Lish to block off her dock access with an underwater fence, like the one surrounding the marina—that was against harbor regulations. But the guard he had interrogated had described an elaborate system of perimeter sensors, including some kind of underwater alert that announced incoming traffic, in operation both day and night.

  She would have guards stationed underwater to back up the alarms, of course, but a few Skiffjammers wouldn't be much of an obstacle to an Aztrakhani warrior. And with the right timing, the Holdout would be in sight when he got inside. Then surprise would negate all her elaborate precautions, and Yavobo only needed a moment in which to make the kill.

  This was going to be enjoyable.

  CVIII

  Vask awoke entirely too early. It was dark outside, a thick sea-lug hugging ground and windows, beading the glas with moisture. He pushed a hand through rumpled hair, and trudged over to the com console against the wall.

  He was sitting in the chair before he realized why he was there. Gotta check in, he thought. I've been out of touch too long. Obray must be wondering what happened to me.

  He glanced down the hall to the bedroom. He would make it discreet and fast; and if Reva by chance got up right now and overheard the call, he could pretend he was checking with his answering service. The terse language he used with Systems Control would be ambiguous enough if there was reason to fear an eavesdropper.

  He punched in the special call code that connected with the field center. As usual, it was a voice-only link, so only the wheep tone let him know connection was being attempted.

  "MTS," came a woman's voice. "What is your account code?"

  Vask stared dumbly at the com unit.

  "Money Transfer Systems," the woman spoke again. "I said, what is your account code?"

  "Money transfer systems?" was all Vask could choke out.

  "Yes. Are you one of our clients, sir?"

  "I—no. I'm trying to reach Systems Control." It was more than he should have said, but the code he'd punched was visible on the com display. This should be Internal Security. Who was using this number?

  "They're not at this code. I'm sorry, sir, I have to ask you to clear this line."

  "What—who are you?"

  "We're a money market broker, listed in the Services Dire tory, and this is a secure line for our priority clients. I'm sorry, sir, I really must clear this line."

  The click of disconnect left white noise on the com speaker Vask sat in shock. If he'd had any doubt, needed other proof of his timeshift, this was it.

  And if the code to Systems Control had changed, what els had changed along with it?

  CIX

  Vask had long been up by time Reva came into the kitchen for food. She was clad in what he thought of as her "serious bus ness" garb—bodysuit of charcoal gray, darkened hair—and the air of spring-tight tension about her cautioned him to keep himself.

  She sat down to eat and offered him food as an afterthought pointing to the extra staying warm in the cooker.

  He took it, and they sat at the counter together. Kastlin f funny, and it took him a while to realize he had a nervous stomach.

  Feel like I'm going on stage, he thought, without knowing of my lines.

  "So, how do we do this with Lish?" he finally burst out. "We don't know anything about her, in this Line. What kind of relationship we have, what's gone before.. . . How do you fake your way through this?"

  Reva gave a tight smile. "I play it by ear."

  "Isn't that kind of dangerous? Not knowing where you stand?"

  She sipped from a cup of osk, wrinkled her nose at a broth saltier than expected. "That's the problem. You learn to be a good actor, and ask the right leading questions. Look—you follow my lead, alright? I don't want you saying something that'll sound too outrageous, like you dropped off a moon or something."

  Kastlin frowned. "I don't usually put my foot in my mouth."

  "No, but it's easi
er to trip up than you know. People either think you're on drugs, or get pissed at your 'forgetfulness.' Until we're clear where we stand with Lish, keep quiet."

  He tilted his head in concession, and they finished their meal in silence. Reva called a taxi and headed for the door.

  Vask was following her when it happened, a sudden buzzing behind the mastoid bone of his left ear. It caused him to jerk his head up, falter in midstep. Loud enough to drown out conversation, it seemed. It was a sound he hadn't heard since the implant was tested after his graduation from training.

  "Something wrong?" Reva asked, looking at him oddly.

  He forced himself to behave normally. "No, uh, just remembered something." "What?"

  That Mother is calling me home right now, he thought. "Nothing important," he told the assassin, and walked out the door.

  This was the damnedest time for Obray to recall him. Something big was up; the recall sounder was a last-ditch emergency beacon to reach an incommunicado agent. His ass was fried now: he'd been out of touch too long, or he was being pulled from held duty, or a major emergency had happened. When recall was transmitted the standing order was disengage yourself from field activities immediately, and report back in person. After a minute the implant fell silent. Vask knew it would sound again, repeating every hour until he returned to IntSec offices. His stomach erupted into the acid fire of stress, and he frowned as he trailed Reva down the hall. This was going to be a very long morning.

  CX

  The warehouse complex looked as they remembered it, until they entered Lish's office. It was more finely appointed than the workaday shipper's office they'd known, this one with plush cream floor matting and sonic sculptures on desk and shelves. The Holdout carried herself differently, too: her body language stiffer, more formal than they were accustomed to. She turned a sharp gaze on them, one glance at nearby chairs enough to order them seated.

  Vask complied. Reva managed to take a seat slowly and make it look like her own idea.