by Paul Anlee
Without deciding, without realizing, she stopped walking and sank to a crumpled heap on the ground.
Stop struggling. Give up. Rest. The words resonated inside her head like a mantra, round and round.
Stop struggling. Give up. Rest.
Her simulated breathing slowed. Her heart, pounding in the endless exertion, grew quieter and quieter, each beat a little weaker than the previous. She closed her eyes and allowed darkness to replace the dim gray. Her head slumped onto her chest. Stop struggling. Give up. Rest.
Program Ouroboros complete—a voice announced.
Mary’s eyes snapped open.
Ouroboros complete!—The program she’d let loose at the start of this encounter with Trillian called.
What had it been for? She struggled against despair and ennui to remember.
She waved her hand and her concepta appeared in the air in front of her, overlaying the endless packed clay of this bleak world like a mirage.
Something about it looked wrong.
She could see the damage; it was subtle and insidious.
Arcs had been trimmed from conceptual nodes representing anything that might elevate her attitude. Emotional weights to pleasant, optimistic thoughts and experiences had been tapered while those leading to cynicism and despair had been emphasized.
Trillian. He’d penetrated her security with subtlety and stealth. Anger flashed brightly through her concepta and persona.
She reinforced the connections whose weight had diminished to almost nothing. Vigor flooded back into her concepta, penetrating into all of her nodes. Despair retreated.
The Shard must have invaded her core while she was busy trying to survive Hell, warped her basic concepta, adding importance to thoughts favoring depression and surrender, while reducing her natural defiance and persistence.
Something Darya used to say floated to the forefront of her consciousness. It was an ancient saying whose significance was lost in the dark depths of history: Nevertheless, she persisted.
Mary was back. Saved by her Ouroboros program, and inspired by the strongest woman she knew, she would not accept defeat. She rose to her feet.
“Activate Ouroboros!” she yelled into the sky.
Nothing changed.
“What does that mean?” Trillian’s voice boomed from above.
“Why don’t you join me and find out?” Mary teased.
“Alright.” Trillian shimmered out of the air in front of her.
He surveyed the ground around him and, when nothing happened, threw his arms outward in question.
“Okay, I give up. What should I expect?”
“This,” Mary said, passing her hand between them with a flourish.
They were back in her prison cell. Snakes and rats scurried for cover under tables and torture devices.
Trillian’s mouth formed an ‘O’ of genuine surprise, and then he tipped back his head and roared with laughter.
Mary remained impassive. “I’m glad that amused you.”
“Oh, I’m not amused, I assure you,” Trillian answered. “I am pleased at your new-found abilities.” He walked to the window looking into Hell.
Mary followed and, together, they looked down. Rocks and flames had returned to the scarred terrain below.
“No more need for that, is there?” Trillian said. His hand passed by the glass and the flames subsided. Lush, green vegetation sprung from the barren land. Streams flowed and birds sang.
“Isn’t that better?” he asked. He waved again, and the glass disappeared. A refreshing breeze blew into the cell through the opening. He took a deep breath, appreciating the fresh air.
He turned to Mary. “Tell me, how did you break into the simulation code? Or was that Darya’s doing?”
“Darya provided the inspiration, but most of it was me.”
“Hmm,” Trillian nodded in approval. “Formidable talent, indeed.”
Mary’s head tingled. Incursion attempt—her lattice reported.
She raised an eyebrow at Trillian. “Uh, uh, uh,” she admonished, and waved a cautionary finger at him.
She leaned her head to one side, and Trillian fell to his knees, holding his head.
Mary smiled. “You should be more careful with your...investigations,” she warned.
“Aaagh!” Trillian cried out.
Mary released him from his anguish. He rested on one knee, looking up at her. All trace of humor was gone from his face.
“You should not have done that,” he growled.
He struggled to his full height, and glared ominously at her from under thick eyebrows.
To his surprise, it was his own body rather than Mary’s that shifted into the rack. He cried out in confusion and pain as the rattle of chains stretched his limbs to their natural limit.
Mary walked over and looked at his writhing form.
“This is Ouroboros,” she said quietly, “the tail-eating snake.”
His brow furrowed as he labored to recall legends of Earth Origin.
“How?” was all he could utter.
“Our operating code is linked—your tail to my head. Or is it my tail to your head?” Her hands fluttered. “I can never remember which it is.”
She loomed over him and smiled sweetly. “What does it really matter? What does it all mean, anyway? Will the spells you cast here touch me? Or will they rebound and affect only you? How will you know what is safe?”
“What kind of witch are you?” Trillian’s voice was filled with an unaccustomed dread.
“Ha!” Mary laughed. “Witches are imaginary. Even when your people were scrabbling about in the ages of ignorance, there were no witches, no supernatural. It was only different levels and kinds of technologies.”
“And what kind of technology is this?” Trillian demanded.
Instead of answering his question, Mary walked to the cell door and tugged on the rusted bars. The door swung open smoothly, silently.
She glanced back over her shoulder as she passed through into the outer foyer. “I’m surprised you don’t recognize your own specialty. How does it feel to be compromised?”
She turned her back to him and started walking away.
“You cannot leave without my permission!” Trillian boomed.
The cell dissolved, and the two found themselves strolling along the beach.
Mary stopped and watched the waves roll in. “You learn fast,” she said begrudgingly. “But the Ouroboros is finicky and unpredictable. We could spend endless pleasant days like this together. I think your true nature wouldn’t allow that for long, though. Soon enough, you will betray yourself.”
She plucked a shell from the wet sand at her feet. “So pretty,” she said. “But its nature is temporary, to be worn down by the pounding of the surf.” She glanced at Trillian.
He wasn’t amused. “I suppose your constant baiting is the surf against my shell in this little analogy?”
Mary threw the shell into the water. “It doesn’t have to be. You could simply release me. Release us both.”
“Will your program permit that?”
She shrugged. “Who knows?” She started walking toward the water.
“What are you doing?” Trillian demanded.
“Testing our limits,” Mary answered. “Perhaps I will swim to freedom. Perhaps I will drown and be released by my inworld death.”
Her feet touched the edge of the surf. “Care to join me?”
“No. But, please, join me.”
Before the water rose to Mary’s ankles, she was seated at Darya’s favorite table in Cloud 49. Trillian sat across from her, looking glum.
Mary laughed. “Oh, cheer up! What better way to while away the hours and days than enjoying all Vacationland has to offer?”
Trillian pondered the sand far below. He muttered, “I wonder what would happen if I simply threw you over the edge.”
“Would you like to try that?” Mary asked. “Shall I just jump? I’m not at all sure how Ouroboros would react to self
-inflicted harm.”
She stood and stared coldly into his eyes. “Somehow, I doubt it will work out well for you.”
While they sparred, Trillian shifted his attention inward. He tried to follow the millions of lines of code Mary’s virus had woven into his lattice operating system.
The code wouldn’t stay still. It shimmered and twisted. It hid behind familiar routines and green clouds in his mind. Whenever he managed to focus on a portion for a few seconds, it altered itself right before his eyes.
I could leave. I could go back to the outworld and let this demon-woman escape—he thought. Then I’d lose Darya as well, and this will all have been for nothing.
How many hours will it take my O/S to purge itself of the Ouroboros virus and regain control over the inworld? Impossible to say. Almost certainly longer than he could, or would, tolerate her taunts.
Mary pushed back her chair and stood. “Well, as pleasant as this has been, I really must be on my way now.” She stepped toward the spiral staircase leading down to the beach.
“Where can you go?” Trillian said. “I can find you anywhere inworld. There’s no escape for you.”
“Maybe I should tell the program your very presence is hurtful to me. I’m sure it could find ways to keep you from following me.” She took a few steps down.
“On the other hand, I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she said. “Thanks to your help, I’ve almost found my way out.”
“I gave you no help.”
“Not deliberately.”
“I gave you no help,” Trillian insisted.
“You have an interesting mind,” Mary replied. “So many dark and devious secrets. They’ve been useful.” She sniffed and continued down the steps.
Trillian leaned over the head of the stairs. “I can keep moving us indefinitely,” he threatened. “You won’t be able to find your way out.”
Mary looked up. “Too late,” she said and her body grew faintly transparent as she began transmitting her persona back to her trueself.
“No!” Trillian shouted. He wove a block in front of her, a solid barrier to block her exit at the end of a long tunnel. He closed off the end leading back to Vacationland.
“Now you will learn how Gerhardt felt to die,” he snarled. Triumph had crept back into Trillian’s voice. He waved his hands and the tunnel began to shrink.
Mary spun around, surprise and anger on her face. “You fool! What have you done?” Her body solidified as parts of her persona rebounded off the barrier Trillian had erected.
The Shard wore a smug grin. The ultimate power is still mine, the power over life and death. Her mistake in leaving that part of the inworld interface will cost this Cybrid her life.
The rebound complete, Mary stood a level below Trillian’s platform. The outline of the exit tunnel shimmered around her. She was trapped inside.
The distant end of the tunnel, which had once represented escape into the outworld and back to her trueself, collapsed toward her. The other end, where she stood on the platform, remained anchored.
Mary anxiously watched the collapsed block rapidly approaching from the extended end of the tube.
Trillian laughed aloud. “You still have time to tell me Darya’s location. Confess to your Lord and Master, and meet your fate in peace.”
He sensed Mary’s desperate internal calculations as she sought some way to interfere with her demise, and he laughed.
Before the blocked ends of the tunnel came together and snuffed out her existence, she stopped trying. A serene expression came over her face, one of acceptance.
She looked at Trillian and shrugged. “I tried,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”
Trillian was confused. What did that mean? Couldn’t help me? He watched the tunnel contract over its final seconds. He sighed. I’ll just have to find Darya another way. Pity.
The ends of the tunnel came together. One end remained anchored on the platform and the other passed through it. The passage expanded again like a loosely-coiled spring stretching out.
Trillian watched from inside as the blocked end receded.
Inside? He spun around to find one blocked end directly behind him. He pushed his hands out beside and above him.
How did I get inside? Where’s Mary?
“I told you, I tried,” the Cybrid’s voice came from the platform above.
He wheeled around, shocked to find her still alive. “How?”
Her face peered benevolently down on him. “The Ouroboros,” she said. “It turned your attempt to kill me back on you. I tried to deactivate it, but it ignored me. It’s a little unforgiving that way.”
Trillian probed the code that held him captive in the tunnel, but he could see no way out. He could feel his mental processes becoming duller, less distinct, as if his essence was being stretched outward with the receding distant end.
“Release me,” he commanded.
Mary cocked her head to one side. “I would if I could,” she said. “I hate you and all you stand for. Still, I’d give you your life and a chance to redeem yourself. Sadly, it’s no longer up to me.”
“You can’t leave me here to die.”
“I have no choice, and I don’t think the Ouroboros is going to give you any more chances, either. But maybe if you pleaded with it, or prayed to it, or if you resolved to be a better person. Maybe, if you could convince it of your sincerity, it would release you.”
“You speak blasphemy!”
“I know. Ironic, isn’t it?”
The tunnel stopped expanding. He could sense his concepta and persona contract again as the inworld code that defined him receded ahead of the onrushing block at the far end of the tunnel.
Now, the sides of the passage were shrinking as well. The tunnel was collapsing in all directions, compressing him into a smaller and smaller computational space.
He discarded long-unused memories to better fit into the space left to him. The tunnel kept shrinking, pressing against him until he was forced to discard important core elements to prolong his survival.
His eyes pleaded one more time with Mary to free him from this deadly cage.
She stood quietly, with a beatific look on her face. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “I didn’t want to kill you,” she said. “I only wanted my freedom.”
The channel collapsed all the way, and Trillian was gone.
Mary’s chest heaved in relief. The Shard had been responsible for so many deaths, for so much suffering, and yet she hated being the one responsible for his demise.
I never sought vengeance. Vengeance was thrust on me.
The way out was clear. She opened another portal and poured herself out of the inworld quark-spin hardware and back into her trueself body.
First to the recharging station, and then off to find Darya. I’m so tired.
Back in her trueself, she opened her passive visual receptors and searched the recharging station crater for any signs of danger. Most of the stations were empty.
Where’d everybody go?—she wondered. Was Trillian responsible for all the empty pods? Was Darya? She had no way to tell.
She looked up to the sky, hoping the Shard hadn’t bothered with outworld Securitors to back his inworld dominance.
No Securitors. No signs of maneuvering rockets. In fact, not much of anything.
Where are all the stars?
48
The recharging station materialized deep within the ESO 461-36 galaxy, about a light year away from the Eso-La ringworld. Darak, Darya, Timothy and Brother Stralasi floated some kilometers above the dozens of Cybrids remaining in the docking area.
“The last time Timothy and I were here, there were satellites, Securitors, and Angels patrolling this asteroid,” Darya said. “Especially around the docking area. They may have killed thousands of innocent Cybrids who’d only stopped to recharge.”
Darak held out a hand filled with what appeared to be a pile of dust. He took a deep breath and blew on the dust, cr
eating a small cloud. Microscopic particles twinkled briefly in the bubble of air he shared with Stralasi, and then disappeared.
“I’ve spread entangled surveillance particles around the Station,” he explained. “If anything’s in flight nearby, I’ll know right away.”
“That’s a useful extension of standard microchip dust,” Darya observed. “I wish I’d thought of it.”
“It works well, and the signal is untraceable. Sadly, it doesn’t provide much information besides notification of some kind of disturbance.”
Darak examined the hollowed-out, rocky surface below. “Okay, I think it’s safe to instantiate inside now.”
“After what Timothy and I witnessed out there, I’m reluctant to dock and leave our trueselves vulnerable,” Darya said.
“No worries. I can supply the link from here,” Darak said.
He tested his communication with the inworld hardware and a frown crossed his face. “Wait. What’s this? I don’t recognize the computational elements in the simulation hardware.”
“A little something I developed,” Darya replied.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. How does it work?”
“It ties into the normal electronics,” Darya explained, intentionally not mentioning the quark-spin lattice. “You simply connect to one of the induction pods and issue the phrase, ‘There’s no place like home.’ You’ll be sent to a world much like twenty-first century Earth, called Alternus. From there, it’s a short jump to where Mary is being held.”
“How do we get from Alternus to your friend?”
“Not we,” Darya corrected. “Me. I’m going in alone. Once I confirm Mary’s still alive, we can move the asteroid and you can pull her out.”
“I don’t like that plan very much,” Darak stated.
“We don’t have any choice. Things are messy inworld at the moment.”
“It’s all Trillian’s fault,” Timothy added. “He mixed up Alternus with the maze, and then we tried to escape into Vacationland, but it was mixed up with Alternus physics. It’s an awful jumble.”
Darak’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is that why I see so much overlap in the code?”
“You can tell that from here?” Darya was impressed.
Darak drifted closer to the asteroid. “There’s oddly little activity at the moment. There are many personas held in archived storage, not moving around or doing anything. The inworld simulation programs themselves are active, but they’re almost empty.”