Redeye (The Wonderland Cycle Book 2)
Page 33
Bobbi sighed, and leaned back in her seat. Great. Sanitized. Everything fucking sanitized. With the way she looked, Bobbi would not have been surprised if Maya Frail hadn’t had her brain zapped as well – the predominance of the pale-faced, pale-haired fashion was maddening. She thought about the woman that she saw in the train a few weeks back, how she looked straight-up like Genefex stock. Had she been armed then, would Bobbi have killed her? Tracked her down and executed her in an alley? And if she were prepared to do murders, what if the girl just had taken on the Genefex ‘look’, not knowing what it truly meant, and she ended up killing an innocent? The thought of it chilled her blood again – she was getting halfway to a reptile this way, and she didn’t like it at all.
Nor did she relish the idea of putting the cable into the back of her neck and trying to sniff out Cagliostro again, come to that. She had always been a digital girl, always someone for whom metal and circuitry was so vital – and now she faced the creatures that helped it all come about, the network, mind-machine interface, everything about the modern world which she loved so very much. She had hit nerve-scrambler programs before, lethal feedback signals, danced with secure systems that would make anyone terrified. And yet she wasn’t afraid, not once. Until now. Now, she feared the work that made her so useful, her very calling – not afraid of the technology itself, but who loomed behind it. Bobbi thought again of the Chorus, shivered, and then reached for the terminal plug. Fuck it, she thought. I can’t let the fuckers keep me from doing what I was meant to do, even if it’ll scare me shitless from here on out. I just can’t.
She gritted her teeth, plugged herself in…and instantly found herself somewhere she had never intended to be.
Bobbi felt herself tense up all at once, as if her every muscle were suddenly transmuted to concrete – sitting at her desk, her body fixed, back straight and staring ahead. There was no general relaxation of the Awake, no semi-meditational posture. There was only tight, rigid fear. The disconnection between mind and flesh had not happened; her consciousness had not yet touched the halls of her terminal. Where was she? How could this have happened?
As if reading her thoughts, Cagliostro – wearing the voice of Anton Stadil, if not his manner of speaking – flooded her mind with words.
What the hell did he mean, close? How close could she be? To what? To— and then it sprang into her mind, the fact that there was a computer in her possession, however small, that was closer to her than even the terminal on the desk in front of her.
Bobbi was quiet for a moment, but when she replied it was with restraint.
The answer made Bobbi want to reach up and yank the cord out of her head – which wouldn’t really do anything, she realized, considering it was only the access state that had gotten her where she was.
Bobbi said, startled entirely out of her reserve.
That, at least, took the amusement away.
Bobbi paused. Her purpose?
The ghost made a soft sound of consideration in her head.
The memory of those cold tendrils bubbled up again, and a shiver wracked her body. she replied.
The ghost made an agreeable sound.
Bobbi had to strain hard to push back the images that Cagliostro had transmitted into her brain the night that Freida was killed. She sensed herself taking a deep breath in reflex.
Amusement returned in the ghost’s voice.
Bobbi groaned inwardly. The wonder she might have had concerning this situation was entirely drowned out by dread and resignation.
Again, the stiffening of fear; though she could not feel her body changing into a statue once more, she was aware of it happening. she repeated, and then added to her chagrin,
But if she expected derision from the construct, what she got was an approximation of sympathy.
the ghost replied.
Irritation flared.
The ghost’s patient tone was starting to fray.
Bobbi was aware of her body taking another deep breath as she considered it. If she did this, what would it mean about her mental state? Would she become sociopathic? Would understanding Yathi thought make her so, if not the program? She felt the fear flood through her again, fear for her sanity, fear for her humanity. There was the reduction of her abilities, too – it seemed crazy to make a decision to take the power offered to her, considering the restrictions it would place on her. But then, just as it always did, the desire to know the truth – really know it – came in and scattered fear to the winds.
Famous last words, she thought.
And then the presence in her head was gone. It only took a few seconds for the software that the ghost had been to dissolve itself, changing form and function. Now it was something that she was aware of simply as a lingering presence in her hardware, a new process running resident in the OS of her interface. It was a steep chance that she was taking, but she had taken it and there was nothing to be done about it but move on. Bobbi looked to the elevator, took a deep breath, and shook her head in gallows resignation.
Famous last words, indeed.
Bobbi came downstairs to find them all eating breakfast – even Redeye, who despite her synthetic innards seemed to have no problem munching on sausage, which from the smell of things had been grilled on a camp stove in the back. They all looked at her as one, friendly as always – all except for Violet, who Bobbi was surprised t
o see eyeing her with a narrow look. She would have to worry about that later.
“All right,” Bobbi said. “I’m ready.”
It took them a month to put everything together.
Against all odds, it appeared that the Yathi were convinced that Redeye had been destroyed in the explosion, and had no knowledge of the others’ involvement in the last stand; there were no spies, no intrusions, no scouts or small armies turning up at their door. They had complete freedom to get their shit together. Redeye told them a great deal about Yathi technology that she had encountered, at least where it applied to their plans, and the more they heard the more the odds towered over them. The cyborg told them about x-ray turrets and automated drones, fractal darts and flash weapons, the term they used for combat lasers. She spoke of body armor that could turn away or even absorb all but the most lethal of weapons technology. She told tales of body implants that defied imagination, some of which made the bionic horrors that Redeye’s people became – and even her own advanced systems – appear as feeble clockworks by comparison.
Yet for all their power, the Yathi were conservative with their resources as well; the most dangerous implant technologies were reserved for the top of their hierarchy or for stable transfers, and they did not often risk themselves in combat. Machines and xsiarhotl were the predominant combat forces, and that did a great deal to level the playing field, Machines could be disabled or hacked now that Bobbi could interface with them, and once the horror of their existence was put aside, the corpse-drones were reasonably mortal. They could, if they were careful, deal with what was coming if they suitably prepared themselves. And so they began to plan.