Nearly. He looked at his wife, knowing she was lost to him, but would carry out her final wish. He clicked on the headset, switching over to the Lieutenant's channel.
"Lieutenant Eyer? This is Marks."
"Where are you, Aaron? We're cleaning up here. You three head to my beacon on the double. We could use a little muscle to--"
"Sorry, ma'am, but that's not possible. Abigail is still accessing, and Sarah and I have caved in the entry tunnel. We've got a couple suits on us and we need to hold this position."
"And your objective?" she asked tonelessly, knowing the entire battle was pointless without the destruction of Chris Young.
"Still undetermined, ma'am, but not for long. Abigail was successful in the puterverse, but needs to blow this base to finish the job. Generator detonation is in eighteen minutes."
There was silence on the other end as Jody reflected on Aaron's words. A successful mission, then, but at a very dear price.
"Very well. I'll spread the word. I'll send a team down there stat to pull you two out. Maybe we'll get lucky and we can yank Abigail before overload."
"Aaron?" Sarah was standing up, staring at the piled rock in the alley. There were crackling sounds from beyond the cave in. "They must've wanted us bad, because here they come." Aaron nodded and spoke into his headset.
"We'd appreciate that, ma'am. And the faster you got here, the more we'd appreciate it. Marks out."
He snapped off the link and drew his heavy slug gun. Shifting it to his uninjured left hand, he stepped back in direct line of sight of the tunnel. Sarah, her knife gripped in her right hand, pressed against the far wall. It wouldn't be long.
***
"You're sure about this?" Mike stood facing me, holding my hands. Kiki waited for us behind him. We were standing out on the vast, unspoiled plain of the true puterverse.
"Yes."
He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
"Then be careful." He squeezed my hands once and walked to Kiki. Arm in arm, they walked a hundred meters off, then turned and watched.
I looked around. There was nothing to see but Mike and Kiki. And off in the distance, the Quantum River. Well, no point in putting it off.
Gathering my will, I looked down at my left hand. My knife was supposed to be there. My knife was supposed to be in my left hand. It had to be there, it belonged there. I wanted it there.
And it was.
Immediately a fire exploded from where my puterverse being touched the real knife, searing the skin off and pressing the molten haft against my raw muscle. I screamed, but kept my feet. Blood oozed around the hot metal and I felt the ragged otherworldly knife settle against my living bone, bonding to it with agonizing slowness.
Slowly, ever slowly, I forced the pain from my mind. My knees weakened, but I refused to surrender to the agony. Surrender meant death for me and victory for Chris. I could not allow that. I would not allow it!
"I will not give up!!" I cried, sobs of pain and anger ripping the words from my throat.
Looking down at the knife, I marveled at it. Unlike anything else in the puterverse, it had mass. It had substance. It was a reality inside another reality. I had done it. Lifting the knife, I held it out.
"I will not give up!" I screamed again.
Gathering my will, I looked at my body. My body was supposed to be here. My body was supposed to be in the puterverse. It had to be here. It belonged here ...
***
With a crackling roar, the rocks exploded free and a hunched blur leapt directly at Aaron, going for his throat. It was the psychosuit.
Like the lurker in a standard NATech patrol, the person in the psychosuit was an outcast, a psychotic being that had been riped by NATech to serve them. Bonded permanently to the light armor combat suit, this unstable fighting machine was part berserker, part cold computer. Not anchored too firmly to reality to begin with, the woman inside this suit had had her moorings completely torn free, and she was allowed to act out any impulse she wished. Of course, those impulses were imbedded in her riped mind and were to NATech's bidding. Eventually, if she survived long enough, her mind would burn out completely and she would be a husk. The suit would be cut off her and she would be disposed of. To NATech, the suit was far more valuable.
For now, though, the psychosuit was fully functional. She hit Aaron high up on the shoulder, knocking him back. His damaged gyros tried to compensate and succeeded. His damaged servos tried to obey the adjustment commands from the gyros and failed. He crashed to the hard stone floor, landing on his back and grunting in pain as his broken ribs tore at the cartilage. His gun clattered free.
He wasted no time but rolled to his side and rose to his feet. The psycho was already on him. He swung his right arm, grimacing as the wrist crashed against her armor. But he was lucky. It caught her full and tossed her ten meters toward Sarah. He closed immediately.
Sarah was fighting the remaining member of the quad team. She had disarmed him of his energy gun, but still had to contend with his holoknives. Since she had no enerarmor, and her knife was metallic, she couldn't afford to be touched by a holoknife. Unfortunately, she already had; several pieces of sliced armor lay on the floor, and blood was dripping steadily now from her exposed left arm.
There was a low, mechanical growl and Aaron jerked his attention back to the psycho. His injuries had started clogging his mind, and he was losing focus. He had to end this quick, or she would.
She jumped at his head again, then when he raised an arm to smash her, impossibly changed direction in midair and slashed at his legs. He jumped back instantly, but felt the sharp surge of electricity as the holoknife sliced through his armor and four centimeters into his leg. He tossed her off again, causing no damage, and backed up to the wall. This was not going well. If they defeated Aaron and Sarah now, all they needed to do was destroy the access grids and Abigail would be at their mercy.
There was a scream of agony and Aaron snapped his head up. Abigail!
She was twisting and convulsing, a primal scream being torn from her throat. Such was its quality that it froze everyone in their motion, for the moment completely oblivious of anything except the anguish of the hideous marionette inside the access grid dancing on a madman's strings. Even the psycho turned, startled at hearing a kindred soul.
Aaron stepped forward. He had to do something. He couldn't just leave her in such misery. To his left he heard the bestial growl as the psycho roused herself out of the instant and prepared to launch again. Ignoring her, he reached out, ready to enter the access grid.
She was gone!
Before his eyes, Abigail disappeared! She was there one moment, blood dribbling from her left hand, and the next she was gone!
A heavy weight slammed against him and something deep inside him snapped. Ignoring the stabbing pains in his left shoulder, he reached his right arm across his body, moving so rapidly the psycho never saw it coming. A massive hand closed over her head, pulling her free.
Maddened with grief and fear for his wife, Aaron brought all his desperation to focus and closed his right hand. Unaware of the blinding pain in his right wrist, unaware of the thrashing and wild attacks of the psycho, unaware even of the cracking that was coming from the helmet in his grip, he focused only on closing his hand.
Wild squeals came from the creature, the terror of helpless prey as it succumbs to a merciless and relentless predator. The thrashing became frantic, then disjointed, then weaker. Finally, it ceased altogether as, with a loud crunch, Aaron closed his fist.
He stood there, uncaring, holding the gruesome, limp burden in his outstretched hand. He had poured all his anger and frustration into that final attack, and his cold, efficient, combat mind had returned. Abigail would find a way to get to him. He had absolute faith in her and her abilities. All the mattered was for him to get out alive. He didn't want to disappoint his wife by dying.
Tossing the destroyed suit aside, Aaron turned quickly and scooped up his gun. Moving quick
ly to where Sarah and the last NATech grunt were fighting, he pulled loose the magpuck and set it for ten seconds.
Sarah's eyes flickered at him as he closed, and he held up the magpuck.
"Eight!" He shouted, then tossed it toward her right, forcing her to move out of position. She never hesitated. Though it made her injured side vulnerable to attack, she immediately moved to grab the airborne puck.
Seeing his chance, the NATech soldier stepped up, his holoknife thrusting forward. This would be over in ...
Something overwhelmingly strong seized him and spun him around. So intent was he on the kill that he'd failed to notice either the death of the psycho or Aaron's attack. Too late, he realized his mistake.
Holding his gun low and close, Aaron fired all five rounds into the stomach armor of the NATech suit. Then, jamming his right arm against the throat of the man, he rabbit-punched the stomach armor with his left fist. Finally, he brought his left arm up and around the man's head, obscuring his vision for a moment. In that moment, Sarah slipped in and attached the magpuck to the cracked armor plating.
Terrified, the NATech soldier shoved Aaron off. He and Sarah fell back, watching. The soldier looked at them, falling into an attack posture. Seeming to feel their intent stare, he stood up quickly, the fear of understanding jolting through him. He looked down at his armor just as the magpuck exploded.
Screaming through the mask, he tried to tear the magpuck free. But the 1100-degree heat of the boiling magnesium fuel was far beyond the tolerances of the suit, and the puck had bonded to it, melting first the suit, then its circuitry, and ultimately the man.
Staggering blindly, pounding at the instrument of his death, he lurched forward. Stepping quickly to one side, Aaron watched impassively as the dying man stumbled into the grid area and was instantly accessed at unlimited level. His motion stopped immediately and the suit, now devoid of life, crashed to the ground, the still flaring magpuck casting hard, cruel shadows on the injured and dead.
***
I rose to my feet, still holding the knife. The pain of accessing was gone. That part of me that had been Princess - that perhaps still was - reveled in the sweet agony that made me so alive. The terrible dragging and sluggishness was gone. I could see and hear with incredible clarity.
Mike and Kiki were still watching me. Their looks were a combination of wonder and fear as they looked on me as I really was for the first time. I wanted to go to them, but there wasn't time. I needed to go to Chris' location immediately.
Not knowing how I could, but knowing that I could, I exited the puterverse, wanting to put myself with Chris.
Lights popped and flashed all around me, and the pain returned. So it wasn't the being there that you paid for, it was the getting there.
Hurt more than I could stand, I found I couldn't stand. Collapsing to the stone floor, my knife clattering free, I gasped and twitched as my body seemed to burst into flames. I was a fool! Chris wouldn't need to maintain a life-sustaining environment; he was buried inside the memory core of a computer no doubt locked away in a vault deep in some hidden chamber.
Still gasping from the thin air and high heat - it was easily 60 degrees - I rose shakily to my feet and looked around in the dim red lighting. There was a single unit with a display against the far wall, with cables strewn all about the floor. Picking up my knife, I cautiously approached the computer. In just the few seconds I'd been here, sweat was already pouring off my body
"Hello, Wyeth." Chris' voice came from all corners of the small room. His voice sounded strained. Partly from his shellacking in the puterverse, but more likely from his efforts to circumvent Mike's shunting routines that kept him trapped here.
Not having anything to say, nor the breath to say it, I ignored him and began studying the panel. It was fairly straightforward I should be able to cut power by ...
A razor sliced through my upper right arm, another my inner thigh. Crying out, I spun around, knife out and ready.
Nothing. The room was ... wait. Up in the corner. I noticed a slight movement. A laser! I dove underneath it, hoping it couldn't depress far enough to fire. It couldn't, but I was stuck in this corner. I heard Chris chuckle.
"Really, Wyeth. I'm surprised you even thought I'd leave myself undefended."
"Marks, Chris. My name's Abigail Marks. Or have you lost too many memory banks to remember?"
"All right, bitch! Abigail it is. I'm glad you've gotten used to your tiny body."
That was it! I could get to him, but not in the way I'd thought. And I had an idea about how I could get to him physically, too.
"Better than no body, Chris," I shot back in my snotty, fingernails against the chalkboard voice, the one you lose when you turn twenty. "I should thank you. Because of you, I'm happier than I ever could have been. I'm married, I have friends, I have a healthy body. Everything you don't have, you video game reject." An ancient term, but from a time we'd both lived in. And appropriate, too, because I'd pushed his button.
He had a lot to say about that. He just didn't say anything printable. After thirty seconds of filth, I cut him off with a laugh.
"What's the matter, Chrissy-boy?" I twirled in a circle, carefully staying under the laser. I knew now why he only had one. It wasn't to disable or kill; it was to detain. "Can't you do this? You might have had your chuckles for centuries past, but I'm alive! I get to move and breathe and travel and love! You ..." I sneered, "you get to stay in this dark little room while I go out into the world and live." I laughed at him.
"I'll be alive tomorrow, Chris," I pressed on, hoping to anger him to the point of recklessness. I had to hurry, though. The air was becoming less and less breathable. "I'll be alive and you'll be dead. Mike's got you trapped in here!"
"Not for much longer." He seemed to have regained some of his composure.
"Nope. Not for much longer," I agreed with a harsh laugh.
"Why should you ..." He broke off, then gave out another outburst. "You little ______! Your damned construct's blowing the generators!"
"Uh-huh. I said I was going to destroy you, Chris. In less than five minutes time, I'll keep my promise. And I'll let you in on a secret." Here I went out on a limb. "I'm leaving the same way I came! So you can die the way you existed: alone."
That got him. The far wall on my right opened suddenly and a NATech suit entered. Lean and tight, just barely larger than me, he looked like a hungry jaguar. I could make out thin slits beneath his wrists where holoknives could slide easily into his hands. His mask was solid black with the pale glimmer of a skull projecting through.
"Kill her," Chris said flatly.
He lunged at me without warning, but I didn't need a warning. I suspected this type of arrangement had to exist. That Chris had a perimeter laser told me there was access to this room by humans. That there was just the one told me he counted on his own humans to take care of intruders. I'd goaded him into sending for the suit even though he knew I couldn't really damage him with just a knife. With luck, Chris had summoned his own executioner.
I flung myself around him, dodging his knife and putting a foot to his throat. Feinting for the door, I suckered Chris into closing it to keep me in. I wanted it closed as much as he did. At least, I think I did. I'd know in a few seconds.
He came at me again, in a crouch, a fresh holoknife in his right hand. I jumped over him and gave him my blade in the back. It skittered off the armor, but I got a good look at his equipment belt. Standard NATech issue, even down here.
My shoulder hit the hot stone floor and I rose quickly. He had recovered as well and was already attacking. I feinted to the right, then ...
"Aaaahhh!" I screamed. The laser! I'd pulled a rookie stunt and forgotten the laser! It punched a hole through my left shoulder and stayed on, pinning me. If I moved in any direction, it would cut away more muscle, bone, and artery. Worse, my opponent knew it and wasn't wasting any time in finishing me off. His knife punched forward to slice open my stomach.
I jerk
ed back while swinging my blade above and behind my shoulder. The laser cut for several centimeters, nearly causing me to pass out from the pain, then was blocked by my blade. I stepped back quickly to get out of the laser's scope, then tripped over the floor cabling. The NATech goon fell on me, his hand slashing at my stomach.
Nothing happened. The holoknife had evaporated.
Seizing the initiative, I slashed my own knife - still glowing hot from the laser - down on the inside of his arm. I was rewarded with a heavy jolt of power as I sliced through the holoknife energy lines. I was still in mortal danger - his strength even in this low powered suit would be four times mine - but we were closer to equal.
Slamming my right hand to the back of his head, I jammed the knife in my left into his throat. The armor allowed the point to penetrate, then hardened, resisting my strongest thrust. I rolled hard to my side, bringing us up against the companel. He remained on top of me and grabbed my left wrist. Squeezing, he broke it, forcing me to drop the knife. He then brought his hand in and wrapped it around my throat. I slid my right hand down his back and found the sonic grenade I had seen earlier. I twisted the dial quietly to one-second fuse. The suicide switch.
In this killers embrace we remained locked. Having me helpless, he was waiting for Chris to give the order. I heard Chris chuckle. It was a metallic, humorless, humanless chuckle. I couldn't kill Chris, after all. He'd been dead for centuries.
"It looks like you'll be breaking your promise, Abigail. I'll be through your construct's shunts in less than a minute, and the generators won't detonate for another two minutes. This works out nicely. Everyone will think I'm dead, and I'll be rid of you. I made a mistake, 654 years ago, Wyeth. I should have killed you, not used you."
"It was a mistake, Chris," I choked out. The lights were beginning to pop again. "And you just made another one. Check those shunts again. I'll bet you find a second layer. Mike always was a tease."
Final Book Page 21