by Ruth Owen
As he spoke, a thin black layer peeled off the top of the pile and flew off with an inhuman grace of an undersea manta ray. Jill stiffened, revolted by the strange creature in a way that defied logic. It was as if someone had taken her worst dreams and rolled them into one chilling nightmare. “What is that thing?”
“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t appear to be alone,” Ian replied, nodding to the rubble. “The pile’s swarming with them.”
He was right. Looking closely, Jill saw the surface of the pile undulate as the black sheet creatures moved in and around each other. She shivered, this time in real fear. She wanted to run, to get as far away from the chillingly weird beings as possible. But one thing made it impossible for her to leave. When one of the sheet creatures moved, she saw a spark of blue beneath the black layer. A pulsing blue, beating in perfect unison with PINK’s burning globe.
Apparently Ian’s thoughts mirrored her own. “Jillie,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid we’ve finally found your Einstein.”
FOURTEEN
Ian froze, feeling as though he’d been catapulted back into one of his childhood nightmares. The gloomy, cavernous corridors of his ancient castle filled his young subconscious with a battalion of monstrosities—from cannibal ghosts and headless ghouls, to a purple-tongued bogeyman with glowing eyes who lived in the shadows under his bed. Science and maturity had overcome these childhood beliefs, but there was still a small, secret part of him that remembered the monsters and recalled the soul-numbing terror felt by a lonely, imaginative boy in the dark hours of the night.
But this was no nightmare. Despite the simulated topology, this danger was very, very real. Ignoring the knot of fear in his stomach, he took a few steps in the direction of the pile. “Get a reading on this, Sadie. The things look like some kind of stray data strings or rogue viruses, but I’ve never seen them swarm in a community before. I’m going to try to touch one—”
“No!” Jill cried, grasping his arm to hold him back. “Those things are feeding on Einstein. What if they feed on you too?”
“I’m a much weaker energy source. I doubt they’ll be interested,” he assured her as he removed her hand, holding it a bit longer than was absolutely necessary. A child. Good Lord, why hadn’t he considered what the possibility of having an illegitimate child would do to her?
Well, there was no time to consider it now. He approached the pile with a hunter’s caution, grateful for once for his sportsman grandfather’s meticulously drilled instructions. Never take your eyes off your prey. Never show fear. They can smell it. He lifted his boot and gave one of the creatures a small shove. The thing didn’t even turn in his direction, but merely reshifted to its former position.
Encouraged, he reached down and gripped one, pulling it off the pile. Its slick, undulating surface sent out a strange vibration that repulsed him to the point of nausea, but he held it firm, and threw it with all his strength into the distance. The creature flapped off in the direction he’d thrown it. Apparently its intelligence was limited—it made no attempt to return to the food source.
Once again Ian lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Control, how much time have I got left?”
“Twenty minutes,” Sadie’s voice returned.
Only twenty minutes, he thought, grimly surveying the large number of creatures covering Einstein. There were dozens. He couldn’t remove them all in that short a time.
A shuffle at his side alerted him. He glanced down and saw Jill kneeling beside him, pulling at one of the creatures. The look on her face told him she found them just as vile as he did.
“You’ll need help,” she said simply.
“Jill, get away from there,” he ordered, appalled at having her so close to the nightmare creatures. “These things could be capable of all sorts of unpredictable mutations. You have to toss them away hard enough to set them on a new trajectory, to prevent them from returning. And we don’t know if or when one might morph into something that prefers human energy to electronic. It’s too dangerous. It’s—”
“Save it for someone who cares, Doctor,” she stated, gripping the edge of another creature. “I’m staying. Now, are you going to stand around wasting precious time, or are you going to help me get this computer equivalent of toxic waste off E?”
Put that way, he had little choice.
They worked together, peeling off the layers of noxious creatures from Einstein. Twice Jill had to stop, nearly gagging on the revolting smell and feel of the unholy things. She wiped her hands on her bodysuit, wondering if she’d ever be clean again. Only PINK’s continual worried buzz kept her reaching back for more. Only PINK’s buzz, and Ian’s incredible dedication to the task.
The scientist never faltered from his objective, removing the monstrosities with an almost machine-like dedication. But Jill saw the waves of nausea that crossed his face. He hates these loathsome things as much as I do, maybe more.
“I would take care of it,” he said suddenly.
“Take care of what?”
“Our child, if we had one. I’d make sure he—or she—was supported financially and emotionally.” He rested a scant second, whipping his sweating brow with the back of his arm. “I wouldn’t turn my back on our child—or you.”
He was trying to be kind, she knew that. But all he managed to do was twist the knife deeper into her heart. “Ian, children need more than financial and emotional support. They need security. They need to know that the people who love them will be there for them—and for each other. They need … a loving family.”
“Marriage is no guarantee of that,” he told her curtly.
“No,” she agreed, “but not marrying is almost a guarantee against it.”
He started to say something, but he never got the words out. A sudden wave of nausea rocked him, causing him to lose his balance and crumble to the ground.
“Ian!” Jill was at his side in an instant. She pushed and pulled him over to the side of a nearby rectangle. He leaned back against the surface and closed his eyes, clearly exhausted. “You’ve got to rest. These things are affecting you much more than they are me.”
“No, can’t give up—”
“You not only can, you will,” she said sternly. “That’s an order, Doctor.”
He started to argue, but stopped as his practical side got the better of him. “All right,” he agreed as his mouth curved into a reluctant smile. “And next time I’m letting you take on the orc.”
Jill turned away before he could see the wince of pain cross her face. There’s not going to be a next time.
She scrambled back to the pile and began yanking off the creatures with a vengeance. She was making a difference. Before long she could see Einstein’s form clearly between the remaining layers of creatures. Apparently, before he’d been attacked, he’d rearranged his data bytes into a human pattern, perhaps believing that his uncomputerlike shape would drive the things off. But if that had been his plan, it had backfired. The creatures had attacked him anyway, draining him of his electronic power, like vampire bats sucking blood. He lay facedown on the ground, his blue and gold diagonally striped skin fading to a sickly pallor. Even his faint energy pulse had stopped beating.
“Einstein!” she said as she shook his shoulder. “Get up!”
No response.
She shook harder. “We’ve pulled these damn things off you. We’ve saved you. Now do your bit and get up!”
“Jill.” Ian knelt beside her and reached out, gently extracting her hands from their death grip on Einstein. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“Of course it will. He’s just unconscious.”
“He’s more than unconscious,” Ian told her, his tone gentle in a way she’d never heard before. He stared at her hands, rubbing his thumbs gently along the back of her fingers. “I know you cared for him, but … sometimes you can’t make things right, no matter how hard you want to.”
Jill stiffened, pulling her hands from his grasp. “You think he’s dead. W
ell, you’re wrong. He’s in there somewhere. I can feel it.”
“His electronic resonance might exist, like the brainwave patterns in a coma patient, but that’s all. They’ve drained him dry. He’s gone, Jillie. You’ll have to accept it.”
Accept it. She’d been accepting things all her life. She’d lived with the fact that her mother never cared deeply for anyone besides herself. She dealt with the reality that her mother’s boyfriends never wanted or returned the love her childish heart offered. She understood that Ian’s love was not the kind she could build a future on. Deal with it, she’d always told herself. Swallow your disappointment and move on.
But not this time.
“Help me, Ian. I can’t do it alone.”
She watched his eyes. Even in his virtual representation she could see his internal battle, the logical scientist struggling with the compassionate man. He pushed his hand through his hair, the static electricity in the simulated environment making his fingers spark with living fire. “Jillie, I—”
He paused, his attention suddenly captured by something to Jill’s left. She turned to follow the direction of his gaze, and saw that PINK had left her position of safety several yards off and was hovering close to Einstein’s head. “PINK, get back! The creatures are still …”
Her words of warning died on her tongue. PINK’s fireball flared like a supernova, becoming so bright Jill had to hold up her hand to shield her eyes. “What the—?”
“She’s morphing,” Ian said, his voice hushed with awe. “She’s reconfiguring her simulated pattern within the locked topology. Theoretically I knew it could happen, but—it requires so much directed energy, so much willpower.”
Miracle or not, Jill was stunned by PINK’s transformation. As she watched, the fireball stretched and expanded, swirling like a miniature whirlwind. Gradually the whirlwind solidified into a humanlike body, a slight, elfin woman with close-cropped black hair and skin cut with pink and silver stripes. Formed a few inches above the ground, she drifted down and knelt beside E’s lifeless torso. She placed her hands on his shoulders, just as Jill had done. But, instead of shaking him, she began to pulse with power.
“PINK,” Jill whispered, unsure of how to speak to the mythical being in front of her.
PINK raised her head and met Jill’s gaze. Her eyes radiated pure light, like the heart of a nuclear reactor, or a star. She said nothing aloud, yet Jill felt PINK’s message burn in her mind. My world. My task. And, after the echo of those words had died, my love.
Ian must have heard PINK too, because he and Jill rose to their feet as one. They backed away, watching as PINK poured her own power into Einstein, bringing him back to life. It was a testament to a love that defied boundaries, that was strong enough to overcome the cessation of electronic impulses, that meant death in any reality. “She shouldn’t be able to do that,” Ian muttered, his gaze riveted on the pair. “It’s not possible.”
Anything’s possible with love, Jill thought. She tried to say the words to Ian, but she couldn’t get her mouth to move properly. She was beginning to lose touch with this reality, even though their “time limit” in the simulator was not yet up. Apparently either her intense “physical” exertion, or her prolonged contact with the ray creatures, had speeded up her degradation process. She focused what was left of her concentration and painstakingly raised her hand to tug on the doctor’s sleeve. “Ian—”
She froze. Past his shoulder she saw one of the largest of the nightmare creatures gliding steadily toward his unprotected head. Even in her befuddled state she couldn’t miss its deadly intent. At any moment one might morph into something that prefers human energy to electronic.…
She couldn’t warn him, so she did the next best thing. She screamed at the top of her lungs and gave him a mighty shove, toppling herself backward in the process. Her scream alerted Felix and Sadie to the danger. They immediately started the exiting procedures. Smiling with relief, she saw the evil creature glide through Ian’s fading body.
A sharp crackle and the smell of sulphur alerted her to a new danger. She looked to the side, seeing too late that she’d fallen into the path of the cobalt-blue grid lines, which was already beginning to power up for their exit.
“Jill!” She turned at the faint cry, and saw Ian’s ghostly form trying to reach her. Halfway between the two realities he saw her danger, but was powerless to save her. She saw the terror in his expression, but felt none for herself. He’s safe, she thought, knowing that was all that mattered to her—all that would ever matter. Looks like I saved you after all, Doctor.
And then the full power of the simulator blasted through her, and she remembered nothing more.
“… done everything we could to revive her,” Dr. Hassam, head of the coma unit, said as he scanned the wide bank of monitors packed into the intensive care unit. “We’ve exhausted the possibilities.”
Ian barely heard him. He stared at the slim, unmoving form in the bed, the physical shell that housed the spirit of the woman he loved. A dozen tubes and wires connected her slight body to the life-sustaining machines. She’d been this way for almost twenty-four hours, and every minute of those hours felt like a stake driven through his heart. “There must be something more you can do,” he said hoarsely. “Some drug. Some medical procedure.”
“Not in this case,” Hassam admitted sadly. “It’s as if her mind has lost all connection with her body. Frankly, it’s a miracle she’s alive at all.”
A miracle, Ian thought darkly. What kind of bloody miracle left an innocent woman lying in bed like a discarded corn husk? He twisted his fingers around the metal bed rail, wishing like hell he had the strength to rip it apart. She was there because of him, because she’d sacrificed her own safety to push him out of the way of the creature. And, according to Dr. Hassam’s expert opinion, there wasn’t a thing he could do to help her.
He tightened his grip on the railing. She’d done it to save him. And though she didn’t know it, she’d also saved every future cybernaut. Because of what had happened to her, Felix was able to pinpoint the problem with the grid lines, and was reconfiguring them to make them harmless. Jillie’s sacrifice had made Ian’s simulator safe for everyone, and would bring him international fame.
Fame he would have gladly consigned to the devil if it could have brought her back to him.
All too clearly he remembered their argument in the simulator, when she’d told him she couldn’t take being with him anymore. He’d been confident that he could persuade her to stay in one way or another. But now, as he looked at her silent form, he wondered if she hadn’t found a way to leave him after all.
“Dr. Sinclair?”
Ian turned toward the speaker, a young nurse who’d just stuck his head around the hospital room door. “Yes?” Ian sighed, asking out of instinct rather than interest. Partridge’s lessons on manners died hard.
“I just got a call from your lab. They asked me to tell you that the prototype was back on-line, and that the bad data had been purged from the system.” He paused, giving an apologetic smile. “I’m not sure what that means, but they said you’d find it important.”
They were wrong. I don’t give a damn about the system. He gave a curt nod of thanks, then turned back to the one thing he did give a damn about. I can’t let you go, Jillie. Not like this. “Maybe we could stimulate her body somehow. Help her mind to relearn the forgotten connections.”
“It’s worked in other patients,” Hassam agreed, “but in my opinion a program like that wouldn’t work for her. She’s lost too much. It’s just not possible.”
It’s not possible. Ian remembered saying much the same words to Jillian in the simulator as he watched PINK transmit her energy to Einstein’s lifeless body. In many ways, a human being’s electronic physiology was very similar to a computer’s. The senses were the input-output ports. The nerve paths were the data-chip circuitry.
His mind fastened on the similarities with his legendary ruthless tenacity. If PINK
could revitalize E, there was a chance he could use the same method to revitalize Jillie.
“Does this hospital have a library?” he asked suddenly.
“Well, yes,” the startled Dr. Hassam answered. “But I don’t see—”
“You will,” Ian interrupted brusquely, and he pivoted and headed for the door. “I’m going to read her every bloody book in that library. And when I’m finished, I’ll start on the paper, and the National Enquirer if that’s all that’s available. I’m going to stuff her so full of data that she’ll wake up out of sheer overload.”
“If she can hear you,” Dr. Hassam cautioned.
“She’ll hear me,” Ian stated confidently as he marched out the door. He didn’t voice the rest of his thought.
She’ll hear me because she has to.
FIFTEEN
He read her magazine articles. He read her newspapers. He read her science journals, paperback romances, and even the racing form. When his eyes stung and his vision blurred, he told her stories of his early years growing up in the castle, of the fabulous wealth and the impoverishing loneliness he’d experienced as a child. When his voice gave out, he called on his friends and his coworkers to take turns at Jill’s bedside. Partridge read her extremely bad poetry from the last century. Marsha religiously told her all the latest gossip in the department. Felix gave a lecture on Dungeons and Dragons. Sadie, whose hobby was cooking, brought in all sorts of savory dishes to wave under Jill’s nose, trying to stimulate her olfactory sense. Even Einstein and PINK got involved, barraging her with the most comprehensive collection of useless gambling and shopping-channel facts ever compiled.
Ian’s bombardment of Jill’s senses was constant and unrelenting. It was also apparently ineffective. During the first two weeks, not one flicker of consciousness was recorded by the ever-vigilant monitors. After three weeks, it appeared Jill was actually beginning to lose ground.