A Trick of Light

by Stan Lee

  For all his intuition and his powers, Cameron Ackerson hasn’t a clue that he’s being hunted.

  17

  Closer and Closer

  Xal licks her lips, relishing the sensation. This skin is in good shape—supple, well cared for.

  She wasn’t sorry to shed the foul-smelling male carapace for this one, younger and female. The former, as it turned out, attracted the wrong kind of attention, and it amused Xal to learn that human bodies require constant maintenance, cleaning, and decoration to be considered acceptable by other humans. It seems even the creatures themselves are repulsed by the sight and smell of their own flesh. But for a species so preoccupied with its own appearance, they are remarkably unobservant of the interloper in their midst. She’s been following the boy since the day she arrived, always taking care to stay out of sight—only she’s beginning to think that her care is wasted. He seems oblivious to her presence, and his incautiousness is perplexing.

  Cameron—that’s his name. The not-quite-man who is the source of the signal. There is no question: He’s been touched by the same destructive force that scarred Xal’s face and ripped her people from her. She can feel it coming off him even at a distance, but she’s been surprised to find the energy increasingly focused and controlled. The boy may not know the source of his power, but he knows he has it—and, apparently, how to use it. And that makes him dangerous, especially when there’s still so much Xal doesn’t know. For her people, the Inventor’s weapon was a means of connection, but what can that kind of power do in the untethered, isolated mind of a human being? And how did the boy come to be in possession of it? His entire existence is an infuriating mystery.

  And yet, he may be her best hope of survival—and not just survival, but rebirth. If the Inventor’s weapon remains intact, if she can harness it once more, then Xal’s ruined civilization could be rebuilt anew. Maybe even better than new. For all its flaws, Earth possesses resources her own planet did not, resources the Elders could have scarcely imagined. It is a place where a hive could flourish. Perhaps even a new order: instead of the Elders, there would be Xal. Instead of trying to rebuild, she and the other survivors of the massacre could start afresh, here, on a new world and with a new vision. Her vision. She would be the architect of their glory, and in return, her people would fall in behind her and call her their queen. Already, she knew she could reign like a god over the swarming masses of this planet. And what would the humans do? They would fall to their knees in gratitude, relieved at last of the burden of their solitude. She would show them what it means to truly be a part of something. She would show them the unimaginable power of another world.

  But Xal is getting ahead of herself. First, she has work to do. The boy is the key, and to get closer, she’ll have to choose her target carefully. Not the mother; even the oblivious adolescent would notice if Xal took her skin. But in her time on Earth, she’s learned that humans build strange little networks of trust in their quest for connection. They forge relationships with each other based on chemical attraction or shared gifts. They pay strangers to massage their bodies, or sing to them, or listen to their fears and hopes. And when all else fails, they seek out doctors to heal their broken, isolated minds. Doctors who they trust. Doctors who they tell everything to, even their deepest, darkest secrets. Xal has seen the boy visiting the woman called Nadia Kapur. She has watched from across the street as he disappeared into her home, and then listened, crouched below Kapur’s window, at the murmurs of conversation inside.

  Yes.

  Xal smiles. If she hurries, she can be inside her new body before the next sunrise.

  18

  Dr. Nadia Kapur Takes Out the Trash

  Night settles deeply over Woodbine Boulevard as Dr. Nadia Kapur steps out her front door and shivers against the wind. The smell of frying onions wafts gently out behind her, and she chuckles; if her husband were still alive, he’d be chasing after her now to scold her for leaving the gravy unattended.

  “Do not turn your back on the onions!” he’d shout. “You must monitor them. They are a conspiratorial vegetable!”

  Nadia sighs. Of course, if her husband were still alive, she wouldn’t be out here in the first place. Dev would be the one dragging the trash bins out to the curb. But if she’s quick, she’ll be back before they scorch . . . and if she fails, she can order herself a pizza.

  The luxuries of widowhood. I can eat any stupid thing I want; the tradeoff is missing him every damn day.

  The street is empty and drenched in shadow, despite a pleasant glow from the windows of the well-kept houses that line it on either side. Months from now it’ll be more cheerful, the porch railings and shrubs draped with strands of twinkling colored lights, the first sign of the holiday season. Another task Dev used to take care of that Nadia supposes is her job now.

  Quickly, she drags the bin of recyclables out of the alley and into position—but stops short as she turns back to get the trash, gripped by the sudden conviction that she’s no longer alone on the street. It’s the kind of thing most people might write off as nerves, a fear of the encroaching darkness combined with a dread of returning to the empty house behind her. But Nadia Kapur is not a nervous woman, and not one to ignore the fine-tuned system of instinctual responses that produce the sensation of “the creeps.” Her two decades as a psychologist have only given her a deeper respect for the power of the unconscious—that lizard brain that senses danger even when it can’t be seen. Moving purposefully, she hurries back inside, closing the door and sliding the deadbolt home with a satisfying thud.

  From behind her, an inhuman voice croaks out a single word.

  “Unexpected.”

  Nadia shrieks and whirls around, her hands coming up halfway to defend herself only to hang in the air, forgotten. The young woman standing in her front foyer is completely naked, staring, arms dangling limply at her sides—and familiar, Nadia thinks. She’s seen her recently, around the neighborhood. Did she stumble in from the street? Has she been sexually assaulted? It’s the most logical explanation . . . only Nadia’s instincts don’t agree. Even as her training kicks in and she imagines moving forward, offering help, every cell in her body screams at her to run. Not because the woman is dangerous, but because—

  She’s not a woman, oh God, don’t you see, don’t you see it, she’s not a woman she’s not a woman at all she’s something el—

  The woman-not-a-woman’s forehead splits open, a leering, inhuman face peering out as the blood and bone and sinew peel away.

  Nadia’s mind goes blank.

  The woman-thing lurches forward and grasps her by the neck as she slumps, the strength gone from her legs. The horrible face draws close, closer, and Nadia gags at the smell of rot, the cloying bouquet of pus and plasma, a dying defense as its skin tries vainly to battle the hideous thing inside it. Her stomach lurches as she tries to vomit, but the hand around her throat tightens hard, harder, and nothing can get out . . . or in. The last thing she feels, as blackness begins to cloud the corners of her vision, is the acid burn of bile as it dribbles back into her stomach—only the sensation seems very far away, as though her stomach no longer belongs to her. Nadia Kapur is unraveling, undone.

  And then she’s gone, and someone else opens her eyes.

  * * *

  The acrid scent of burning onions follows the body of Dr. Nadia Kapur as it steps out the front door for the second time that night, a bulging trash bag in her hand. The street is still empty; nobody is there to observe the difference in her gait and posture, to wonder at the stiffness of her movements.

  Nobody sees Xal wearing Nadia Kapur’s flesh like an ill-fitting suit.

  Xal is no stranger to creating hybrids, to taking what she needs from the creatures she encounters—even from her own people, when it was the only way to save her own life. But this is the first time she’s taken everything, every cell and every system, to become as much something else as she is herself. She feels lost inside this body, with its repulsive por
es and itchy hair and slimy mucous membranes. It’s allergic to having her inside it; hives ripple on the surface of Kapur’s skin, and Xal hisses at the sensation.

  That won’t do.

  Carefully, she focuses her attention on the offending gene sequence, sending her own cells to extract it, filling in the blanks with a DNA patch. The hives subside, but for the first time, she feels uneasy. This body is weak, and its weakness makes her vulnerable. How much can she strip away, or augment, without the boy noticing that something is amiss in their interactions? Perhaps the doctor’s files will be useful on that front. The woman keeps recordings of her sessions on a device inside the house; Xal has seen her through the window, listening, making notes. Perhaps she can study them, the better to mimic the woman’s speech and movements. Perhaps she’ll even learn something about her quarry in the bargain.

  * * *

  She drops the trash bag into the bin on the curb. It catches slightly on its way in, and a thin stream of fetid liquid oozes out through the tear, pattering in dark droplets against the sidewalk. Inside, what’s left of the body she came in collapses on itself with a squelch.

  Xal grimaces, showing her human teeth, and slams the lid down.

  * * *

  BREAKING NEWS ALERT

  Good evening. For American Network News, I’m Ashley Smart. The big story tonight: Journalists at outlets including ANN received anonymous Dropbox caches today containing documents and analysis revealing the existence of a massive online data-mining network, whose influence in international elections and other global initiatives dates back at least a decade. Multiple world leaders have denied responsibility for what appears to be the largest organized act of cyber-espionage in history. We’ll continue reporting on this alarming news as it develops.

  ENCRYPTED MESSAGE INCOMING

  From: Olivia Park

  Subject: Target lock

  Analytics has identified a common code string in the attached incident reports tracing to subject ACKERSON, CAMERON. Pursuant to today’s events, immediate action is requested to capture subject at earliest opportunity. He’s caused us enough trouble.

  Please note: Whereabouts, physical description, and identity of second subject DOE, NIA remain unknown. There’s a chance they may be together, so keep your eyes peeled.

  ENCRYPTED MESSAGE INCOMING

  From: ADMIN

  Subject: Re: Target lock

  Olivia, the board trusts your family connection to Ackerson will not be a problem.

  Please advise.

  19

  Operation Burn It Down

  The abandoned digital city, the one Cameron’s father used to call Oz, is a maze of ancient code, as difficult to penetrate as its fictional namesake. As a child, Cameron would creep downstairs in the night to stand at the closed door of his father’s office, staring at the thin line of blue-tinted light beneath the door, listening to the tap-tap-tapping of the keyboard as he built his city. It would be years before William Ackerson disappeared entirely, but in those moments, it seemed like he was already gone. He put everything he had into building his city, imagining that someday he’d throw open the doors and invite the world in. Instead, the place became a virtual tomb: a final resting place for the broken dreams of a broken man, its doors sealed shut forever.

  But Nia was right: Every system has a way in. William Ackerson’s world of code was only waiting patiently, ready to admit the visitor who comes with the correct password—the right words, spoken in the right tongue. Years ago, Cameron had tried to hack his way in and gotten nowhere. The system wasn’t just impenetrable, but incomprehensible. He couldn’t even scratch the surface of its structure; it was like knocking at an endless, featureless wall. He’d given up almost immediately. But now, when he approaches it, everything has changed. Not just him, but the system itself. When he approaches that wall, it shifts and shimmers. It responds. Instead of a wall, it becomes a mirror.

  It’s like it’s been waiting for me.

  Perhaps Nia was right: maybe he was meant to find his way into the ruins of his father’s empire. He just had to learn to speak the language that would allow him to pass—to go beyond simple communication and become part of the system itself.

  It’s a sunny morning. Upstairs, Cameron’s mother is brewing a fresh pot of coffee—but when she calls down the basement stairs to tell her son it’s ready, she gets no reply. Cameron’s body is sitting on a couch in the darkened basement, but his consciousness is deep in cyberspace, passed like a ghost through the looking glass, over the threshold that divides the real from the digital.

  The first time he did this, several days ago, it happened by accident. It was terrifying—like falling off solid ground and plummeting through nothingness. One moment, he was sitting at his keyboard, hammering out commands, listening in his mind for a response from the system and getting nothing but the downcycling echo of his own code. The next, he felt his fingers lift from the keys to grip the sides of his head as his mind suddenly synced with the system itself, his consciousness racing along an unseen pathway and dumping him down abruptly on the other side of the wall. For a moment, he was in two places at once: staring with his open eyes as the screen in front of him unfurled an endless string of code, revealing the architecture of a hidden digital world that appeared in his mind’s eye like something out of a dream. A city inside the machine, a world of glowing ones and zeros, narrow streets lined with hundreds of structures that contained thousands of rooms.

  Then he closed his eyes, and there was only Oz.

  * * *

  Now, he can enter without a single keystroke.

  Nia is already here as he walks in, sitting on a high-backed sofa with a small brown dog curled up in her lap. One day, Cameron thinks, they might remake the place together—maybe even open it to the whole of the internet, an empire reborn. But that can come later, once he’s sure of his ability to remake the Whiz system from the inside, once he’s not so afraid of plucking out the wrong piece and bringing the whole thing down on their heads. For now, Cameron has kept the renovations of Whiz limited to just one room, a blank canvas that either one of them can remake as they please. The first thing he did was give Nia her own entrance, her own key to the city. She’s better at whipping together elaborate virtual tableaus than he is; the last time he was here, she’d turned the room into a perfect replica of the Dr. No villain’s midcentury lair. Now, it’s like something out of a fairy tale: weathered walls made of loosely separated boards, the cracks between them choked with vines that admit just a few stray beams of sunlight. An attic hideaway, or maybe an elaborate treehouse.

  She bolts to attention as soon as Cameron opens the door, dumping the dog onto the floor and running across the room to greet him, the hem of her gown—Nia also loves dressing up, he’s learned—sweeping the floor. Her avatar here is like his own: an exact replica of the real thing. Even the Uncanny Valley effect, the eerie smoothness that makes their digital selves look almost-but-not-quite human, is barely noticeable; if Cameron doesn’t think about it, he’ll soon forget that she’s not really here, and that he’s not really here with her.

  A wild tangle of flowers and vines is growing through the cracks in the floorboards, too, and they explode as Nia moves through them, kicking up clouds of glittering petals into the air until the room is filled with a sea of swirling confetti. The dog, who is wearing a jeweled collar with a nametag that reads DOGUE, woofs once in irritation and waddles away.

  “You’re here!” Nia says, and throws her arms around him. Or rather, she tries to; one of her forearms hovers just above his shoulders, while the other plunges straight through his guts. She draws back, giggling. “Oops.”

  Cameron groans—not in pain, but in frustration. He amends his earlier assessment: everything about him and Nia and this world feels almost perfectly real, until they try to touch each other. Then it becomes clear that there are still bugs in the system, that even after stretching his abilities to the limit, this place is still a work in progres
s. But there’s plenty of time to get it right, he thinks. And in the meantime, the glitches in the system are the furthest thing from his mind—or hers.

  “Did you see?” she asks. “We did it! It’s happening!”

  The first of the information packets had dropped just hours before, bouncing through a series of digital wormholes and washes to make them untraceable. The journalists who received the fruits of their work would never know who’d handed them the biggest scoop of their lives, but more important, neither would the dark, mysterious person or persons whose lovingly cared-for misinformation farm had just been burned to the ground.

  Cameron wishes he felt like celebrating, but he can’t help feeling uneasy. Neither he nor Nia was ever able to peel back that last layer, to identify the precise origins of the massive network. He would have liked to have a name, a location, anything to pinpoint the person or persons behind it. But there’s nothing to investigate now; the whole operation vanished from the internet within hours of them exposing it, just winked out of existence without a trace. It’s not that Cameron regrets what they’ve done—shining a light on that dark web has to be a good thing for the world and the people in it—but he’s extremely aware, even now, that it can’t be the only one of its kind, or the only project being run by . . . well, whoever it was. Together, he and Nia have almost certainly pissed off someone, maybe multiple someones, with immense power and extremely deep pockets. It would make him feel better if he had at least some idea of who that someone is.

  But he doesn’t say that to Nia. She’s too excited; he’s not about to ruin it. And what is he even worried about? Their tracks are covered, a dozen times over.

  “It’s everywhere,” he says. “Trending on every major site, headlines in every major outlet. What’s happening on the network? Still dark?”