Redeye (The Wonderland Cycle Book 2)

by Michael Shean

  “What?” Violet turned toward Bobbi, forgetting the cyborg entirely. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I have to shut this place down somehow, don’t I? There’s no virus colony down here that we could see, just these…” Bobbi gestured to the deck above. “Things. Assuming there are viable bodies growing in those tanks, I’ll need to do what I can do destroy them. And honestly, Vi, I need to know what’s going on here as well. Cagliostro was so very wrong about this place, twice over now, and I need to find out what’s we’ve all risked our lives for. And…” Bobbi nodded toward the Redeye’s matched set of dim irises. “She’s armed. I have to find out what can be done about it.”

  Violet stared at Bobbi for a long moment, clear conflict in her eyes. On the one hand, she wanted to serve, but Bobbi knew that she was very uncomfortable with a situation where she could not protect her new mistress directly where she had chosen to go. There was probably the animal fear of being alone in the belly of the Devil’s spawning ground, too. Bobbi took a deep breath, summoned up courage that she in no way felt, and smiled. “Look,” she said, “this is for the best. For everybody. It needs to happen. I promise you, I won’t leave you alone down here. Let me find out what’s happening, do for Redeye, and we’ll leave and get Scalli out of here to boot. It’ll work, Vi. Trust me.”

  The words were ashes in Bobbi’s mouth, but they apparently worked; Violet nodded somberly, flicking a glance upward through the deck above them. “I will not fail you,” she said, electing not to waste time arguing further. “And I know that you will do as you promise.”

  “Good girl.” Bobbi exhaled, trying her best to hide her relief. “All right, well, I guess I’m going to sit down here and connect as well.”

  “Can you do that?” Violet blinked. “Do you need cables as she has used?”

  Bobbi chuckled. “I still have the wireless link,” she replied. “And I’m not trying to keep my brain alive, mind you. I’ll just sit down and get comfortable, and you watch over me. All right?”

  “I…” Violet trailed off, only nodding as Bobbi moved to sit down on the couch next to Redeye’s. She took a deep breath as she folded her hands in her lap, feeling the slight stickiness of the nearly-dry synthblood covering her front, feeling the yawning pit that hovered in her short-term memory. There would be so much that she would need to handle in the coming days, weeks, whatever time lay ahead of her – assuming that she didn’t get her brain fried and die on the spot next to Redeye’s broken corpse. Once more into the breach, dear friends, she thought again, and sighed. Here we go.

  Bobbi closed her eyes, began counting backwards from ten, and reached out to look for the network presence of the giant machine against which she now leaned. She felt its presence, felt it towering over her, and reached out to connect – and she was joined with it, as surely as if she had been fused, the intimate connection of the psychotronic interface drawing her into the machine’s internal system.

  It was a cold place, cold and dark, nothing like what she had sensed before. It was like the Chorus system, and yet she was not helpless; she found herself able to operate just as she had before. Perhaps it was that the system was in a state of suspension. Bobbi could not tell. All she knew was that she floated in darkness, and could not feel anything in her proximity. She conjured up her defenses, and within seconds was enclosed within a bubble of hardened codewalls, a crystal bubble ferrying her through the night. Then, a voice she knew very well reached into her sensorium.

  said Redeye, and the tone that came with these words was gentle.

  Moments crawled by, and Bobbi waited for Redeye to show herself. This was the second time in a row that she found herself being surprised by Redeye, and though the other woman did attack, Bobbi would not allow herself to be fooled into thinking she was without defenses.

  Finally Bobbi grew tired of waiting. she said.

  Sadness etched itself into her every projected word.

  Bobbi said.

  Redeye was quiet a moment.

  Bobbi thought of the piece of consciousness that Cagliostro had put into her head.

  said Redeye.

 

 

  Seconds passed, and Bobbi found herself afraid that perhaps the mental spark had been extinguished. she called out into the dark.

  Redeye’s voice returned from its soujourn in the void.

  Bobbi wasn’t sure what else to say.

  Redeye said.

  Bobbi pointed out.

  Redeye sounded strange to her. Her voice was as ephemeral as the ghost that she now claimed to be.

  Bobbi said dimly.

  Redeye laughed softly. she said.

  Maybe she really is dead, Bobbi thought. She thought about the fragment of Cagliostro’s consciousness that resided in her headware. Was it possible that upon death, the thought-sensitive network could trap part of the mind within its confines? she said.

 

 

 

  Far away, Bobbi felt her heart skip in her chest.

  Redeye replied.

  For a moment Bobbi did not know what to say, but the shock wore off quickly enough.

  Redeye replied.

  Bobbi pushed back a tide of mingled excitement and vengefulness. Was there anything graceful one could say about the passing of another intelligent species, when it had strove to slay your own? And yet she felt a strange sort of sadness in their passing; behind her anger and her desire to celebrate the death of a civilization, she could not help but wonder if some other solution could have been reached.

  But there was no time to think of such things now.

 

 

  The truth was that Bobbi had not seen that. Between the armored suits and the butchered white corpses, how could she tell? she said.

  lose too many to the eventual fragmentation of consciousness that so many face when placed within a human host.>

  Bobbi heaved a mental sigh.

  said Redeye, but if that concerned her there was no sign of it – all was placidity that came from the ghost-woman.

 

  Redeye’s voice took on a hint of black amusement.

  Bobbi hesitated.

  Redeye explained,

  Bobbi was silent. She remembered the sensation of panicked carpet-bombing of whatever nodes were in her path as she attempted to escape the Yathi operators. Was it possible that this was the ‘trouble’ that the Mother had referred to? Had she really killed these creatures through sheer trick of fortune? she replied.

  said Redeye.

  With these words Bobbi felt lead pour down her throat into her stomach and the spectre of those glowing eyes surfaced in her mind. she said.

 

 

 

 

 

  Bobbi felt herself clench distant fists.

  Redeye had the grace to sound sheepish as she answered.

  Bobbi said, and her mind sharpened as stress chemicals flooded her body and her heart began to race.

  Redeye said sadly.

  Bobbi felt her adrenaline and anger top out in that instant. she spat.

  Redeye replied.

  Bobbi’s sense of dread faded a great deal at that, but did not vanish entirely. Instead, a certain resignation replaced it that was even heavier in her gut.

  Redeye replied.

  Reaching down into herself, Bobbi pushed the dread and the doubt out of her stomach, and let the fire she felt when she faced the Mother take its place.

  If there was anything that would break the dreamy calm that Redeye had exhibited up to then, it would be those words. Redeye replied, sounding very grim and more than a little awed.

  Bobbi said,

  said Redeye.

 

 

  Bobbi insisted. She felt her aggravation pulse through the network like a burst of red static.

  Redeye laughed again. It was strange hearing that.

  Bobbi felt another weight on her, greater than anything else that she had felt that night. More than fear, more than anger, more than dread. It was the weight of certainty that she wore on her shoulders as she listened to Redeye’s words, the knowledge that if she was to survive – if humanity was to survive – she’d have to play her part in it. There was nobody else, at least at this moment, who could do the job. Bobbi finally replied. She thought of Scalli, wondered if she could save him still.

 

  Bobbi gave her the address of one of her secure data dropboxes.

  The gentleness returned to her, and Redeye sounded ever more like a mother in her own right than the Fury she had been.

  man,> said Bobbi.

  A tinkling laugh, as thin as tissue paper, was her reply.

  Even if I came to kill you in the end. Bobbi said,

  After that, there was only silence.

  Bobbi killed the link and found herself staring into Violet’s ashen face. “You’re alive,” Violet said, as if she had expected anything but this result. “You’re all right?”

  “Yeah,” Bobbi said as she got to her feet. “Come on, we have to get out of here. Red’s gonna blow, and we don’t have much time left.”

  The way back was far easier than the way forward. The trail of blood and corpses that Redeye left was easy to follow back to where they had gone. They did not find Scalli wedged between the doors, only the crushed hulk that had been his armored suit. Though it had been thoroughly mangled, its mass kept the door open wide enough for the two women to escape. Bobbi had feared briefly that Scalli might still be in there, but ducking through the gap banished this – the entire back of the suit had been burst open like a rotten fruit, and fresh, bare footprints in the bloody trail indicated his escape. Though empty of its operator, the inert mass of armor and fiber bundles The two of them moved swiftly through the complex, past the piles of gory corpses piled in the factory, and then through the charnel wastes of the warehouses, where, emerging from the top of the chute, they found that the tomb had been opened. There was no time to ponder that particular mystery, however, for the spectre of impending destruction loomed over them; each second ticked by like Death’s pale gong, bringing them closer and closer to annihilation. Redeye did not know how strong the remnants of her mind would be, how long they would have before the charge in her body went off – and even if they did escape the complex before she gave out, would the subway tunnels survive the blast? Both women ran through the complex for all they were worth, expecting resistance but finding none, hurrying for the final anteroom and hoping against hope that Scalli would be waiting for them.