‘We like to think so,’ Tom said. ‘What’s to eat then?’
Bronwyn carried a large pot to the table and took the lid off. Steam and flavour spread out and she began serving up. One scoop of thick fish soup with rice and a nut salad.
‘So, Inez. Where are you from?’
‘I’m from Mexica.’ Zach paused as he served himself. So this is going to be her story. Perfectly finding a lie that was both unverifiable and gained her immediate sympathy. He had no choice but to confirm anything she might say.
Lily reached over to pat Inez’s hand. ‘We’re very sorry to hear about what happened. That must be absolutely terrible.’
Inez nodded. ‘I wasn’t there when it …’
‘And your family?’
Inez lifted her face, a perfect tear in each eye. She didn’t need to answer. Her loss was obvious and beautiful.
She’s good. Zach had to credit her that. They all believed her and knew it was polite to not dig too deeply. Even the other girls held their hands over their hearts in sympathy. Except for Bron, who stood watching with the ladle still in her hands.
‘I think we should have a moment’s silent contemplation before we start,’ Lily said.
After lunch, having done the dishes, the kids went to the rumpus room to find a game that would occupy them for the afternoon.
Zach followed Inez and at the corner between the boys’ dorm and the rumpus room he pulled her aside.
‘What are you up to, Inez?’
‘Zach. You naughty boy. Were you waiting to get me alone?’ She made a kissing face at him and stepped towards him. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, faux-innocently.
‘You know what’s wrong. You can’t stay here.’
‘Oh, why not, Musashi? This is an orphanage, isn’t it? I’m an orphan. They’re nice people, like you said.’
‘I don’t want you here.’
‘You mean you don’t want them to know what you’ve been up to. Don’t worry, Zach, I won’t tell them. I don’t want to spoil this for either of us.’ She leant into him, her arm and breast lingering close. ‘We can be friends, can’t we, Zach?’ Her lips hovered near his face and her hand trailed up his trousers. ‘I know what you like.’
‘No.’ Zach tried to back away from her, but … didn’t.
‘What would Tom and Lily say if they saw us now?’ She felt him harden and arched her pelvis closer. ‘Oh, and what would Bronwyn say if she saw you? Does she know what kind of boy you are?’
‘She’d say you should leave him alone.’ Bronwyn was standing in the doorway. Zach pushed himself away from Inez.
She smirked. ‘What do you want, fuckmeat?’
‘We don’t behave like that here. This is a good home.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you two was twozing like that. But, hey, your boyfriend was the one who dragged me in here.’
Bronwyn didn’t reply and Zach looked back and forth between them for who would speak next. Inez broke first.
‘I can leave him alone if that’s what you want, but I don’t want to go, and I don’t think kind Aunt Lily would kick me out on the street.’
‘She would if I told her to. And she wouldn’t ask questions.’
‘Look. Let’s be croom. I’ll stay away from him. He’s all yours. I’ll be good. This is your house. Please?’
Bronwyn hesitated, then gave in. ‘Fine. I’ll give you one chance. One.’
Inez snickered. ‘Okay, kid. Okay.’ She went past them and headed to the rumpus room.
‘Thank you, Bron. It wasn’t what it looked like.’
‘I saw most of it.’
‘Then you heard me telling her to go?’
‘I heard you.’
‘You have to take care, Bron. I don’t trust her.’
‘Is she the one who was keeping you hostage?’ Bronwyn asked.
‘What? No. She didn’t lie about that. Services got Dungeon. We just ran away together.’ Zach sat down on one of the beds. ‘I am so kutzed. I messed everything up.’
‘Yeah. You did.’
‘I’ll make it up to you, Bron. I will.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You don’t owe anything to me.’
‘I’m still sorry.’
‘Then tell me what you’ve been doing,’ she said.
‘I can’t …’
‘Zach, please. Don’t protect me. I don’t need you to do that.’
‘But you won’t look at me the same way if I tell you.’
She walked up to stand in front of him and looked straight into his eyes. ‘If I ever did look at you in that way, Zachary, I don’t any more.’
‘But Bron —’
‘What’s done is done, but if you want us to trust you again, you have to tell us what you’ve been doing.’
He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t. His face distorted. He wanted to tell her so badly, but he also didn’t want to think about it ever again. ‘I did whatever she told me to. I don’t even know what we were doing half the time. I just did what I was told.’
‘Bad things?’
‘Some bad things,’ Zach admitted.
Bronwyn sat down beside him and took his hand. ‘It will be okay. I promise.’
Cybermesh was built into the base of a low tower. It was three individual towers really, but the bottom twenty floors were wrapped around with hand-built shanties and skywalks, and all the floors above were conjoined by a crochet of bridges, ropes and piping.
As they approached, Takashi could see the materials of the housing and walkways in more detail: huts that needed new bamboo; exposed metal oxidised and weakening; washing lines hung every which way; home-produce growing out of wooden plant racks and dwarf citrus trees in clay pots.
Cybermesh was on level twenty, where the stacked huts of the denizens petered out. Sunlight hit it for an hour in the morning and only by reflection from the windows of the towers after that. They parked close to the front door.
Lewis was waiting for them. Inside, a few of the kids had left to return to their homes, but new ones had come and they all killed time in the main room with old games the café had in its library. Lewis looked at Takashi’s and Cindy’s faces and then led them to the back room, curious heads turning to watch them.
‘So, what happened? What did you find out?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ Takashi said. ‘The whole of Yantz is cut off. No Weave. No satellite connection. And we saw signs of some sort of fighting.’
‘Fighting? Who?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Services had it under control by the time we saw it. Here, look.’ Takashi bounced him the footage from the squib’s cameras.
‘That’s a big smoking hole, Takashi. What the kutz is happening?’
‘I think something very bad,’ he said. Cindy nodded in full agreement.
‘What did your family say?’
Takashi looked at Cindy before answering. ‘They don’t know anything.’ He noticed the chameleons that were drawn onto his sleeves. I shouldn’t be wearing these. I’m not a Shima now and I’ve always hated these lizards. Camouflaging and fading into the background. I’m not going to hide any more —
‘Takashi?’
Cindy was shaking him and his eyes took a moment to focus on her.
She looked at his hands, and he followed her gaze. In his fists were the sleeves of his kimono. He didn’t remember crossing his arms and tearing them off, but that is what the evidence indicated he had done.
He dropped the strips of material to the floor and went to lift the trapdoor.
Lewis, Cindy and the boys looked at each other. They could hear Takashi’s heavy steps thonk down into the storage room he had made into his den.
‘I’ll go,’ she said and made to follow.
‘Cind, what happened out there?’ Lewis asked her.
‘He told you.’ Cindy paused. ‘We saw an attack. Something blew something else up.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I dunno. He showed
you what we saw.’
‘But what did the Shimas say?’ Lewis asked.
Cindy looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t think they told him anything. The kutzes threw him out. Even his brother wouldn’t talk to him.’ She bent down to pick up the discarded sleeves, scrunching them up and stuffing them in her pockets.
She turned back towards the hole, but stopped as Takashi lumbered back up the steps. He was carrying one of his dolls over his shoulder.
‘Someone grab another one and bring it to the front room. Tell anyone who wants to learn something new to gather. Lewis, I need something sharp and a roll of filament.’
Cindy took a knife from her belt and unfolded it for him. ‘I’ll get the wire,’ she said and darted off.
‘What are you going to do?’ Lewis asked.
‘I’ll set up a subnet. That way we can talk to each other again.’
‘Why? How long do you think this can last?’ Lewis asked.
‘I have no idea.’
‘So what exactly is your plan?’
‘We’re going to make a new Weave,’ Takashi answered, his eyes overcharged with energy.
‘Huh!’ Lewis said. ‘What do you mean? Are you making your own Weave? Can you even do that?’
‘Of course I can. The Weave is just a feedback system. The equipment is still there, we just need new software.’
‘But that requires base code. How will you —’
Takashi tapped at his symbiot. ‘I always carry the base on me. With some modifications written in, of course.’
The world must never slip into another Dark Age and it was every weaver’s unofficial duty, even the rogue ones like Takashi, to be ready to set up a network in the event of a collapse.
Two of his dolls were brought into the front room and laid down on the floor, side by side. The kids gathered to stand behind his crouched form, with a second ring standing on chairs behind them. They watched as he switched the dolls off and rolled them onto their fronts.
‘Sorry about this, Jasmin.’ He placed one large hand at the base of Jasmin’s head and the other where the neck met the shoulders, then he pushed in opposite directions. It required a fair amount of pressure.
‘Pull straight and keep the pressure until …’ There was a click and the head of the doll came loose from the spine, neck floppy. ‘… it dislocates.’ He did the same with Poco, trying not to think about the good times they had had together. Cindy was close to him, her small hand on his shoulder. Whenever she was next to him, she touched him, almost like a compulsion. She really had chosen him, and there wasn’t much he could do about it.
‘Now,’ he picked up the knife, ‘we make a cut here. No need for precision, we just need access. Be careful not to go too deep. You don’t want to damage anything.’
He cut through the outer layer and the pinkish gel, which gave the doll its colour and flesh-feel, oozed out. ‘It’s not toxic, just a little slippery. Then you get your finger in there and find the port.’
‘Can I try?’ Cindy asked. She stood behind him with her finger out ready. Takashi moved backwards.
‘Uh … sure. Yeah. Everyone should take a turn.’
She crouched down and jammed her index finger inside. ‘What am I feeling for?’ she asked.
‘A circle, about five millimetres across. It’s very small.’ He stood up as the kids tried one by one to find the port.
Takashi looked over at Lewis, who was trying every old bit of equipment he had to find a means of communication. The owner shook his head, he had nothing new to report. Takashi rubbed his stomach to indicate he was hungry.
When the kids had each taken a turn, Takashi knelt back down and cut an arm’s length of filament from the roll Cindy had brought. It was fine like spiderweb, strong, slightly elastic and whitish-blue. He showed them how to take one end and plug it into the port in the base of the doll’s head and then with the other he stroked the symbiot on his arm until it became receptive to an external connection: a small nipple grew and became fibrous on its end until he could poke the tip of the wire into the skin.
‘When you first connect, wipe the memory clean immediately. Purge then load. I’ll give you the code blocks for a cleanse …’ Takashi trailed off and looked up. Suddenly he didn’t see what was before him, his mind had jumped elsewhere again. Is that what is happening …? Someone pushed him; Cindy, of course.
‘Taka?’
‘Right, sorry, I was just compiling what you’ll need.’ He shook the thought away.
‘You still haven’t told us what you’re doing,’ she pointed out.
‘Haven’t I? Sorry, everyone, I told Lewis before. It will be clear in a moment. Once the brain is reset, we can add our own base code and detach.’ He quickly repeated the operation with the filament on the second doll. ‘Give me a swab,’ Takashi called Lewis over.
He held out a sensor plate that was attached to the erased doll. Lewis licked his finger and wiped it on the plate.
‘Right. You’re the key. Anyone who wants access has to go through you.’
‘Me? Who should I give access to?’
‘Anyone you trust,’ Takashi answered. ‘Now, Jay, please bring out the rest of the dolls. I’ll watch you practise before you go forth and begin connecting the tower.’
As they waited, Lewis pulled Takashi into the back room. ‘What’s the game, Takashi? Why bother with all this? You don’t think Services have it in hand?’
‘They do not have it in hand, no,’ Takashi answered. ‘I believe we are perilously close to a full collapse.’
‘A collapse? Takashi, do you really think …’ Lewis didn’t finish. It was clear that Takashi did really think it was a possibility. ‘Shouldn’t we be running somewhere?’
‘Believe me, Lewis. There is nowhere for us to run.’
‘I have friends in the country. We could go there.’
‘Go if you wish. But I will stay here and build a new Weave. We have to get the system back up before we fall into chaos.’ Lewis grunted, not really agreeing. ‘Something very curious is going on,’ Takashi whispered. ‘The Weave doesn’t just stop working. It’s component based. Thousands of interconnected systems. Even if half the world was destroyed, it should still function. The Weave is not a house of cards. The removal of one part should not cause the rest to topple.’
‘But it has,’ Lewis said.
‘Yes. That’s why I think the Weave was shut down.’
‘Intentionally?’
‘Intentionally,’ Takashi confirmed.
‘Who would do that? Who could do that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Quietly he thought again of those who might be able to: the Primacy, Greater Earth, the psi rebellion.
We know that Services is still communicating. Does that mean they have some kind of discrete network disconnected from the main Weave? A fail-safe seems a likely thing for the Services to have.
But if it is merely a fail-safe, that means Services probably didn’t take the Weave down themselves … No, Takashi immediately disagreed with himself. If a force, Kronos or the psis, had caused the blackout and destabilised the World Union, Services would surely be alerting the public and uniting them in defence. Services is still operational, to what level I don’t know, but they aren’t saying what is happening, which means they could be doing something the Will might disagree with … or Services itself has been breached by psis.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said aloud, breaking his own loop. ‘We don’t need to solve a problem that we can bypass. The Weave is still there. The components are still there. What we have to do is install our own system on top.’
Qinny, one of the helpers, pulled her headphones out of the jack of the radio she was bent down in front of. ‘You should listen to this,’ she said and turned up the volume so they could hear the calm, stern voice reading an announcement.
‘… alarmed. Stay indoors and return to your homes. Please check this station frequently for updated instructions. Continue recording your interactions.
All data will be committed to the Weave once the disruption is over … Citizens. Remain calm. The Weave has been disabled for security reasons. All Servicemen are to report for active duty. Do not be alarmed. Stay indoors and return to your homes. Please check this station frequently for updated instructions.’
Qinny turned the sound down. ‘It’s a loop playing on radio.’
Radio? He hadn’t thought to check radio. ‘This must be the announcement my parents mentioned.’
‘What should we do?’ Lewis asked.
The Weave has been disabled for security reasons. Takashi wondered if that were true.
‘Spread the new Weave. As big as you can. Do you know anyone who can crack an omnipole?’
‘Please.’ Lewis smiled. ‘All the kids at Cybermesh can do poles.’
‘Good. Use them. If this is a collapse, we’ll want a strong group. Try for this side of the tower first, then the whole block.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Lewis asked.
Takashi had his eyes on the floor and was heading to the trapdoor. ‘Tell Cindy to put the kettle on. I need to think.’
Takashi watched Cindy pour the tea. Through the glass it looked like a blue one, usually a sign of mellowness. With ceremonial care, she added a drip from an eyedropper to his cup and turned the handle towards him.
He nodded thanks, but didn’t move to pick it up, only looked at the small demitasse as he took his time to think about the problem before him. What he needed was information. For that he needed a way to connect and something to connect to.
He felt like a brooding mountain. Huge and casting a shadow over everything before him. No longer a Shima.
On the day the world ended. The people were torn asunder and their Will made powerless.
Services was still connected though. That much was clear. He’d long suspected that there must be a Services-only Weave. A classified network built on entirely different principles and unconnected to the public space. Before now there had been no evidence of such a secret network, but he had always believed it was there. It would be a natural precaution and it seemed likely that Services would have such a system in place for emergencies.
Convergence Page 8