“G'bye, Abby!” I heard her shout.
I let myself plummet toward the ground. Halfway down, I told my doppelganger to get aloft. It shot up toward me, meeting me about three hundred meters from the surface. It disappeared and I was left with a pair of wings. To those below, there would have been only one me, since I decloaked as the doppelganger disappeared. I finished my now controlled fall, breaking and landing lightly in front of Jody. My wings folded back under my arms and disappeared. She clapped her hands.
“That was fantastic!” She sounded like a little girl, overflowing with excitement. Even Ressler was smiling with his friendly smile now.
“Fantastic barely describes it. I never thought it was possible to have that kind of mobility in the puterverse, Abigail. Doesn't the interface affect you at all?"
“Maybe. I'm not going to give away too much until I know who you are, Doctor."
“And if I'm not who I say I am?” he prodded gently.
“We had a phrase for it centuries ago. It was called ‘dead man walking'."
His face went stiff for a moment, then relaxed. He smiled weakly.
“Makes me glad I am with TAU, then.” He strolled over to the data bank and sat down on the short purple grass. Jody and I joined him. My heart jumped when Jody sat closer to me than Ressler. It gave me comfort to know she seemed to prefer my company to his. Silly competition for friends, I know. But I really needed a friend now.
The silver and gold of data currents, eddies and streams in the river, swirled only an arm's length away. For as far as we could see out, it was like that. Although this wasn't as nice as my favorite place, it was very pleasant. Occasionally, a sliver of light would erupt briefly from the river as someone in our relative vicinity would access. There were more flashes in the middle of the stream than on our shore. There was no access on the far bank, which was only half seen through the faint ion fog that floated just above the surface of the river. Jody saw my distant gaze and pointed to the far bank.
“Have you ever been over there, Abigail?"
“No."
“Can you go over there?"
I hesitated. I was sure by now that Ressler was who he claimed to be. Mike would have successfully acquired his records by now and verified his identity. If Ressler hadn't checked out, the shielding around him would have disappeared and he'd be exposed to the full elements of unlimited access, which was a one-way trip. But just because he was TAU didn't mean I was going to pour out my plans to him. Not that I didn't trust him. But by not telling him anything, I didn't have to trust him.
Still, I should give some kind of answer. If I was too secretive I'd never get access while at the 179th. Worse, TAU, who had been passively supporting my efforts in the puterverse, might get tougher if I didn't cooperate at some level. It wasn't yet time to give everything away, I decided. It was, however, time to start letting the Resistance in on my ideas.
“Yes, I can go over there, Jody. I haven't tried yet, but I'm sure I can."
“Why haven't you?” Ressler inquired, scooting closer to us.
“Because of what I think is over there, Doctor.” I took a breath and plunged in. “I think that there is a hostile being over there that is forcing restrictions on the entire puterverse and has actively retarded the development of Earth's society for at least three centuries."
Had I turned into a giant tree sloth and started singing the “Star Spangled Banner” they wouldn't have been more shocked. Jody especially, Ressler not as much This might have been another one of those times kids like me enjoy, but the subject was far too serious to appreciate the moment. They both started to say something at once, but Jody won out.
“That's impossible, Abigail!” she exclaimed. “A person who's been alive for three centuries and has enough power to dictate the direction of an entire planet? Do you know how incredible that sounds?"
“Of course she does, Sergeant,” Ressler said thoughtfully. “It sounds just as incredible as a sixteen year old girl who has unlimited access to the puterverse and can create a living being out of impossible code."
“But three hundred years!” Jody protested. “Medicine has never been able to extend life beyond one hundred and twenty years on Earth, let alone three hundred."
“I didn't say three hundred years, Jody,” I explained. “I said at least three hundred. And I didn't say that it was a human doing this."
We heard a roaring sound and Mike streaked into view. He was skimming along the softly undulating hills leading to the bank. About a half kilometer from us, he plunged into the ground, splashing green for a hundred meter radius all around him. Moments later, he surfaced again, next to me. He didn't say anything, instead just lay back onto the grass beside me. He gave a brief nod and started contemplating the sky.
The doctor and Jody had lapsed into stunned silence. I lay back on the grass and looked up into the black, starless sky of the puterverse.
“The best place to start is at the beginning. But I haven't found a beginning yet. Not for what's on the other side. So you'll have to bear with me while I start at my beginning, two years ago, and work in both directions.
“As you both know, I was born in the late twentieth century and lived for thirty-one years in my original body. At the time of my ‘death', I was working for a sensitive laboratory and think tank that tried to anticipate upcoming problems and find solutions for them.” That was close enough to the truth for my purposes. “Because of that, when I was accidentally electrocuted through faulty security systems, I was in about the only place that could possibly work out a solution to save me. It was this agency that created, I believe, the original persona transference that eventually became known as riping. The next few centuries are—"
“A moment, please,” Doctor Ressler broke in, “I'm somewhat familiar with history of that period. I was aware of the United States’ role in the development of the riping process. But it had always been recorded that riping techniques weren't introduced until the twenty-second century."
“As I said, what they came up with eventually evolved into riping. And not all of our technologies were made available for public consumption. Anyway, I have no memories of my other personas, and I don't recall anything until waking up in Dr. Barrett's sickbay on November 11, 2676. Although I have had occasion to experience a few of my ripes, I'll not go into detail now about them.
“Waking up as I did was a big change. It took weeks for the shock to wear off fully and for my mind to come to grips with the many differences I'd woken up to. After I had made—"
“Sorry, Abigail,” Jody said apologetically. “Don't mean to interrupt, but what changes are you talking about? I mean, I know you went from being a thirty-one-year-old to a fourteen-year-old, but how hard was it really?"
Oops. I'd almost slipped. Jody was assuming I'd always been female, an assumption I'd been cultivating. Fortunately, she hadn't had any experience with Cues, so I knew I could worm out of my apparent overstatement.
“It's not just having seventeen years shaved off, Jody. I had to go through the same changes again, but with a different body. Not to mention the big time leap and change of scenery. In a minute's time—to me—I'd gone from a mature adult working with the government to a semi-helpless twerp tied up with rebels. It's a little more intense a change than, say, going to sleep in your bed and waking up on the floor. It takes time.
“But I had the time and adjusted. Corporal Lendler and Lieutenant Sanchez noticed my ease in the puterverse fairly quickly and I was given access immediately. It was during our first tour together in the puterverse that they showed me the Quantum river and the invisible far shore. They were curious about me and my past and even then asked what you did just now, Jody. Could I cross?
“I wondered about their question. Why was it so important to cross? Had anyone ever crossed? Did they know what was over there, and just wanted to see if I knew?"
“Why you, Abigail?"
I looked at Ressler, but his blurred puterverse face didn'
t betray very much. I shrugged mentally and committed.
“Because Chris Young, the creator of the puterverse's webbing techniques, had lived at the same time I did. The truth is, he and I worked for the same company and I knew him quite well."
“Romantically?” Ressler inquired.
“Uh, no, Doctor. Professionally.” Then he didn't know my full story. I had worried that TAU had informed him of my original sex. His question showed they obviously had not.
“They hoped that I, knowing Chris, knew his techniques to cross the river. It was an unfounded hope. Chris had developed the webbing, but this kind of advancement didn't take place until long after he'd died. Sure, knowing him and his style, it was a lot easier for me to get the hang of the place, but other than that, I had no special insights."
“Then you didn't get your trinary coding skill from your original persona?” Ressler seemed surprised.
“Excuse me, Doctor, but I am me. What you mean to say is my original lifetime."
“My apologies."
“That's okay. No, I didn't get them from the twenty-first century. The fact is I don't know where I got them. I do know that I need to be careful that whatever is over there doesn't find out I have UTC knowledge. I don't want to put too much importance on myself, but the being over there probably doesn't know UTC, and would consider me a major threat if it discovered me. Fortunately, I have both NATech and the Resistance to work behind."
“NATech is in on this?” Jody whistled. In the puterverse, it sounded like a kazoo. “That makes sense. They're in on everything. Then they're the ones working with that thing?"
“Yes and no. They have a common goal—suppression of Earth's social and technical development. But the motives are different. NATech is looking for a captive consumer market for achieving profit. A stupid goal in my opinion. I don't know what the other being's motive is, but it's nothing so trite as a handful of cash.
“Getting back to my story. I spent the first few months with the Third figuring out the puterverse and getting used to my new body. To make matters worse for the former, I still hadn't realized my coding ability. At first, I had no idea of the scope of the puterverse. And with severely restricted access, it was a frustrating maze of walls and red doors. Still, I picked up the feel and flavor fairly quickly.
“The big break came after my first sharding episode. I was out of it for three weeks. I don't remember anything during that time. When the episode finally did end, I was a basket case for another week. Eventually, I was bored just lying around in bed and I accessed to do a little light netting. But it was so different. Where there had been massive black walls, they now looked fragile. I pushed against one, just to test it, and it crumbled to ion dust, giving me complete access to everything behind it. I had the ability to visualize and use unbound trinary code."
“Fascinating. Did you or Dr. Barrett ever determine whether your talent was triggered by the episode, a remnant from a previous shard, or a catalyst that activated a latent ability?"
“No, Doctor, we never could determine it, though not for lack of trying. I was ready for active duty after another week, but I stayed in sickbay for an additional week. I was as eager to find out how this came about, and how long it would last. Dr. Barrett didn't find anything. Not a hint, not a clue, not even a trace of how this had come about. The only thing we could determine was that it was permanent. And even that is hard to explain. If I could teach you UTC, you'd know that once you have the concept of UTC, it becomes a part of you.
“We eventually gave it up and I returned to active duty, transferring out of support and moving over to Research. Now that I had the keys to the kingdom, as it were, I really started to poke my nose into all the corners of the puterverse. I could go everywhere, so I did. Everywhere but across the Quantum.
“One of the biggest perks of accessing with UTC is there's no toll on my physical body. The primary reason for access levels is security—or at least that's what we're led to think. Another major reason is that the higher the level, the greater the toll on the user's real body. Accessing too high can literally suck the life out of you. But UTC freed me of that, so I was able to shed access level restrictions."
I had been staring out over the Quantum while talking, so I snuck a quick peek at my audience. Jody was staring up into the sky and Ressler was staring at me. I saw his eyes avert abruptly and I had a vague feeling. Intuition? I don't know. I returned to my story, but I was suddenly certain somehow that while Jody was hearing for the first time, Doctor Ressler had heard it all before.
“But the puterverse was too big. I had gotten very fast moving around, and became even faster after I fashioned my wings, but there was too much to see. I needed help. That's when I decided to write Mike, here.” I nudged him playfully with my foot. Sparks jumped up and floated away, several fizzling out in the data river. He smiled at me, making me feel warm. Mike had heard this many times over, but always enjoyed the telling.
“Writing him was one of the most difficult things I'd ever done. Oh, the coding was pretty easy. After all, in the physical world, he's just a bunch of zeros, ones and twos. Ouch!” Mike jabbed me in the ribs, so I slugged him. “Hey, it's true! Lemme alone, jerk."
“Why in the world did you write him to behave like that, Abigail?” Jody asked, looking at Mike with something between amusement and distaste.
“Hey, lady, don't ever talk to me like I'm a program or something!"
“Why not?” Jody challenged. “That's all you are."
“That's all I am? Ha! Not even close! How ‘bout I drop your shields and we'll—"
“Knock it off, both of you. Mike's right, Jody. He's much more than a program. He's the code he started as in the same way that we're the infants we started as. In fact, that's not an analogy, that's hard fact. As the time has passed here in the puterverse, Mike's code has matured quickly. It will even reach a point when he'll stop being rude to my friends and quit making passes at me. Soon, I hope.” Mike sulked, but didn't explode—figuratively or literally—so I continued.
“And I didn't program his personality, that developed on its own, with me acting as a kind of—"
“Sweetheart."
“—big sister. Mike's the little brother I always wanted to kill. But instead of taking it out on him, we've been working together past eighteen months, laying out our own—umm—strategy for countering both NATech and whatever's on the far side of the Quantum. I should be ready to cross in about four more months. By then the safeguards will be in place. I'm very interested in seeing what could be so important to a creature that it would try to corrupt and ruin an entire planet's society."
“No less interested than we are, Abigail,” Ressler said, nodding as though approving that I hadn't lied. “As for what TAU's been doing during that time, Jody, we've been monitoring all of Abigail's activities for over two years. At least we thought we'd been monitoring them. It's pretty obvious now that we've only been seeing what she's wanted us to see. A humbling revelation."
“Sorry, Doctor,” I said, smiling a little. “Both TAU and the Resistance have been very accommodating in helping me with resources and access. But I couldn't risk revealing too much. I still can't. I don't have the fear of NATech that the 179th does, but that doesn't mean I don't respect their power and influence."
I looked at Jody. “Speaking of the 179th, you've heard my story. Now you tell me yours. What's with all this cloak and dagger? The 179th doesn't strike me as the kind of unit that NATech would worry too much about, let alone infiltrate."
“There's a reason,” Jody said glumly.
“More to the point, that is the reason,” Ressler said cryptically. “The regiment is ineffective because NATech wishes it to be ineffective.” He stood up and absentmindedly brushed off his legs. “Why don't we continue this conversation outside? I'm feeling a little disoriented and I don't want to be too sore in the morning.” He looked back toward the way we had come. “And we still have a ways to go before we can safely end acc
ess."
I stood up as well, helping Jody to her feet. She was probably in better physical shape than either the Doctor or I, but she didn't have the experience in the puterverse that we did. She was looking a little ragged around the edges, literally. Her virtual form had started showing small tears near her hands and feet, and the color was fading. She was in no danger, not as long as the shields were up, but there was no point in overstaying one's welcome.
“Good idea, Doctor. I could charge up both of you quick enough with another shot of UTC, but we're pretty much finished here. What you have to tell me can be said in the flesh, and Mike can check it easily enough. Even better, we can end access right now. Since this entire area is mine, one point of exit is as good as another. Before we do, though, I'd like a quick minute with Mike."
“Fine,” said Dr. Ressler, although it didn't look very fine with him. “We'll wait outside..."
“If it's all the same, Doctor, I'd like you and Jody to wait here. I'll only be a minute and besides, those shields won't allow you to exit anyway.” I bit my tongue as I said it. I had to constantly remind myself to never volunteer information. Grow up, Abigail.
“All right,” he agreed, which was not too necessary seeing as he had no control over the decision.
“Thanks.” I lifted my arms up, and the shielding around Jody and Ressler fell away, joining together and forming a sound-proof box. They could move around and talk to each other, but they couldn't hear me. I turned my back to them and faced Mike. He had come to his feet and was looking at me intently, his emerald eyes bright.
“You don't trust him, do you, Abby?"
“Sure I do, Mike. I trust him to tell TAU absolutely everything he learned from me tonight. I only hope it wasn't too much."
Shards [Book Three] Page 7