Less Than Human

Home > Other > Less Than Human > Page 28
Less Than Human Page 28

by Maxine McArthur


  She didn’t think she could do anything so specific. “What data?”

  “All the classified information on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.”

  “Where’s the download point?”

  “A personal mail address.”

  Eleanor hesitated, unsure if this were not a trick by Akita to test her loyalty. “But if you get rid of things like the stock exchange in your new society, what use will that data be to you?”

  Iroel sucked his teeth, as if doubting her also.

  “You don’t believe Adam’s plan will work, do you?” Eleanor kept her voice as low as she could.

  “I think there will be … a disturbance,” he said finally. “But things will return to normal. Then a shrewd businessman may acquire opportunities.” He bent over her, his breath hot on her bare head, and thrust his left hand down so she could see the biometal pieces on two of his fingertips. “I was going to try in the Macrocosm. But I’m not good enough. I get lost. I can just about navigate around a Betta.”

  “Who’s your partner?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “How can I trust you then?”

  Silence. A door slammed around the corner.

  Iroel’s face folded around his frown. He sighed, and the sour smell drifted past her cheek. “It’s Melan.”

  Another Angel. How many of them were disloyal? “How will you get me out? I think you’ll take the data and run.”

  Iroel waved his hand in a placatory manner. “We’ve got a car parked in a garage across the road. There’s an old tunnel entry in the outer wall. One of us will put you through the tunnel, the other will go out as normal. We are Angels, you know,” he added meaningfully. “Nobody will question us.”

  He might be telling the truth. She couldn’t see the tunnel on her mental map, but the map probably came from an official plan that wouldn’t include the tunnel. “I don’t trust you. Get Mari out first.”

  “We can’t, at least not until it starts.”

  “Until what starts?”

  “Everyone will be praying … look, do you want help or not?”

  “All right,” she said. “But I’ll need to know Mari is out before I download anything.”

  He frowned, his face drooping. “I’ll turn off one of the building systems. The antisurveillance field.”

  “Fine.” The biometal on her hand gleamed whitely through the bruised flesh around it, like bones.

  “And the download point?”

  “[email protected].”

  “If you lie to me, remember I’ll be in the Macrocosm. I can see you anywhere.”

  He twitched a bit at that, even though he didn’t believe Akita’s mysticism. “Na-mu-amida-butsu,” he intoned, and pulled her to her feet.

  They stopped at the first door around the corner “Your niece is in here,” he said, and bounced back up the corridor, his elbows flapping.

  Mari didn’t want to leave.

  Eleanor sat with her on a thin mat in the “meditation room” in front of a rickety wooden bookcase holding a television screen. The screen showed a recording of Akita, distinct in his gold ruffles, conducting some kind of prayer meeting. He stood before a huge screen on which background colors swirled hypnotically, reciting a monotonous chant echoed by about thirty people prostrate on the floor in front of him. Eleanor tried muting the sound, but the volume controls had been disabled.

  Mari insisted that she felt more at home with her friends there than she’d ever felt anywhere before. She and Taka were part of a real family. They might have a few problems because ordinary people didn’t understand, but Adam and the Angels (sounds like an ancient pop group, thought Eleanor subversively) were working for the good of all humanity, and if Eleanor couldn’t understand that, she was no better than Mari’s parents, who never understood anything …

  How to reach the child? Eleanor almost cried with frustration. Her head ached, every part of her body ached, her hand throbbed and sent waves of pain through her shoulders and neck, and she had the feeling that she’d forgotten something important. It was right at the edge of her mind, but she couldn’t put words to it, a feeling that she’d had often after her accident and it terrified her, because she never remembered.

  “What about those girls who died?” she said at last. “Weren’t they your friends?”

  Mari’s eyes filled with tears and she looked down. “You know they were. But that was an accident.”

  I don’t have any proof it wasn’t, Eleanor thought. Without access to the outside world, I don’t know what they did at Zecom, either. She looked at her hand, still part of her and yet changed. What would she become if she kept on using the interface? What would they all become if Akita had his way—some kind of cyborg? Speaking of cyborgs …

  “I got your copy of Journey to Life,” she said wearily. “We mixed them up at the apartment. You must have taken mine.”

  Mari wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “So that’s what happened. I thought I’d bought the wrong volume.”

  They sat in silence for a minute, Eleanor trying to gather enough energy to go and get a drink from the pitcher on a low table near the door. Mari picked obsessively at the edge of her thumbnail.

  Mari looked up. “I was reading the final episode, the one you bought. Don’t you think it’s a strange title? I mean, the story’s about Sam Number Five trying to become able to die.”

  “I think …” Eleanor gathered her thoughts with an effort. “The writer is saying that being alive means you have to die. You can’t have one without the other and be human.”

  “Adam says we can.”

  That brought Eleanor up short. I suppose Akita wants to live forever, she thought. Eventually he’ll want us to live without our bodies, inside the network. It may happen that way, but we won’t be human anymore.

  “Why does Sam Number Five want to be mortal?” she said.

  Mari started on the other thumbnail, thinking. “Because he wants to be reborn,” she said finally. “Without rebirth, you don’t get a chance to escape the wheel of suffering. But Adam says …”

  “That you can escape, I know. By not needing a body, in the Macrocosm. Or by using bodies that don’t decay, like machines.” She ran her right forefinger over the bio-metal on her left hand. “I can’t help you decide. Part of it depends on whether you want to be your present self for all eternity. Or whether you want to escape all your selves eventually. Just be careful that you don’t get caught, like Sam Number Five, in a body that won’t let you die even if you want to.”

  The door opened. Fujinaka/Gagiel stood there, running his narrow eyes over both of them. He had changed his undershirt for a silver vest.

  “Adam-sama is waiting. It is time.”

  Eleanor unfolded her knees and creaked to her feet, grabbing Mari as her head whirled briefly.

  “Remember, find Iroel,” she whispered in Mari’s ear. “He’ll get you out.”

  Eleanor let her eyes run along the old wooden wall as they walked, but could see nothing like an entry to the tunnel Iroel spoke of. A couple of flimsy wooden cupboards were shoved against the wall—perhaps they concealed a passageway?

  In the “throne room,” as Eleanor called it in her mind, several people in silver robes were gathered around Akita. Two novices in blue clothes stood motionless on each side of the door, staring straight ahead like soldiers on duty. One of them glanced at her with a gleam of recognition—it was Taka, Mari’s boyfriend. He looked as scornful of Eleanor as he had on that day in Mari’s apartment. No respect for “Lilith-sama” there.

  Samael, slim and cold, exchanged a glance above her head with Fujinaka/Gagiel as they walked down the red carpet.

  The other man in silver was gangly Iroel, who carefully avoided her gaze. Beside him, a heavy-busted woman with thick-lensed glasses stared curiously at her. That would be Melan.

  On the wall behind the throne, above the interface consoles, a video screen sprang into focus. A solemn-voiced NHK announcer said, “… and in resp
onse to this communication, we have a message for the group from the Head of the National Police Authority.”

  Akita’s mouth open and shut indignantly. “But I told them the prime minister,” he sputtered. “Not some two-bit bureaucrat.”

  The NPA chief, a stony-faced gray-haired man in plain clothes, shuffled his hard-copy props and stared into midair as he began reading from the prompt.

  “To the perpetrators of the recent gas attack at a facility in Okayama. We received your communication, and we take your demands seriously, as you can see by the fact that we are communicating through national television, as you directed.”

  He paused, waiting for the prompt with his eyes narrowed slightly. “We are experiencing difficulty accommodating some of your requests …”

  “Not requests, orders,” snapped Samael.

  “… and we would like to communicate with you further. Please contact us again. I repeat, we need you to contact us.”

  The image was replaced by the NHK announcer, who began to give a précis of the incident.

  “They’re stalling.” Samael folded his arms. “They’re trying to divert us from choosing a new target.”

  “I agree,” said Melan. She had a fluting voice at odds with her heavy frame and fat-looped arms.

  They all began talking at once, with Akita in the middle looking angrier by the moment.

  Eleanor stared in horror at the screen, forgotten behind them. It showed the Zecom Betta from the air, an L-shaped box out of which people streamed like ants from a nest. They converged around the edges, then trickled away in lines. Fire engines and ambulances gathered around the exits. Some people on the roof were being directed down the outside fire escapes. She listened in a daze to what she could hear of the commentary.

  “… shocking awakening … first time a problem of this kind … police refuse to confirm a terrorist attack …”

  “Maybe they do need more information.” Iroel’s hesitant voice cut across the commentary.

  “They’re playing for time while they look for us,” Melan piped scornfully. “You didn’t leave any traces, I hope?” This to Samael.

  Samael looked at her with his head on one side, like a bird. “Only the traces we meant to leave.”

  “He means the hand,” said Akita. He flexed his artificial hand menacingly. “That was a necessary sacrifice.”

  “They don’t have any idea where we are. That’s why the others took the vans,” Fujinaka said. His flat face was expressionless.

  Names rolled down the side of the screen—the names of the dead and their ages. With floating detachment, Eleanor counted twenty-five, mostly elderly and infants. The detachment vanished, and she nearly vomited. If she had run from Akita’s apartment the moment Samael appeared and sounded the alarm, maybe this could have been prevented. She wanted to curl up in a ball somewhere and be told it was a dream …

  “Why didn’t the gas work properly?” Melan hooked her thumbs into her belt as if it was too tight. “If we’d made a better example, the government would have listened to us.”

  They all looked at Samael.

  He merely smiled. “I acquired the substance. It’s not my fault if it was not inserted as per my recommendations.”

  “The problem wasn’t the gas,” retorted Fujinaka. “Emergency services had the antidote. We mustn’t fight among ourselves. That’s what they”—he pointed to the screen—“want us to do.”

  “Yes, but how did they know to prepare the antidote?” insisted Melan.

  “Somebody’s adept decided to be too complicated in disciplining his novices.” Fujinaka/Gagiel looked at Samael. “That paint was a stupid idea.”

  Eleanor’s newly sensitive hearing picked up a quick indrawn breath of shock. At the door, Taka’s darkly handsome face had paled.

  “Niniel has been disciplined,” said Samael. “In an uncomplicated way. And don’t forget who enabled the novices to transgress in the first place.”

  “I have already conducted penance for that.” Iroel’s voice wavered.

  The screen cut from close-ups and on-the-spot interviews of the evacuees, back to an overhead view of the Betta. This time, smoke billowed from a point halfway along the side of the L close to the ground.

  “… believed the systems manager was overcome by gas and trapped in his apartment by the fire,” said the announcer. “The fire fortunately did not spread to the rest of the building. Police are analyzing the wreckage now. The governor of Okayama this morning praised the emergency services …”

  Eleanor’s knees gave way and she sank onto the bottom step of the dais. If Masao told the police her message, they’d know she went to see Akita. They probably thought she’d been trapped in the fire. How long would it take to discover there were no bodies in the wreckage? The police would have no more idea where she was than she did herself. Masao would be frantic.

  “Silence.” Akita held up his hand, and the Angels’ voices stilled. Melan reached over and cut off the broadcast.

  Akita’s voice trembled with emotion. “They have chosen to defy us. We will show them how wrong they are.”

  What did he expect? He stole their children and attacked their homes. Did he think the government would roll over and say “go ahead”?

  “Listen, my Angels.” Akita placed both hands precisely on his thighs, in a pose reminiscent of ancient samurai portraits. “I have floated my soul in the Macrocosm, and I have seen what we must do here in this world, this manifestation of the Greater Whole. Just as I see what each and every one of you is doing.” He paused for effect.

  Melan nodded agreement. She’d better hope he couldn’t see what she and Iroel were planning.

  “We must strike our enemies before they destroy us,” Akita continued. “We have seen today that the government is corrupted by forces of evil that threaten to pluck the fresh shoots of our pure society before it is even born.”

  The Angels all stood motionless, their eyes fixed on Akita’s face.

  “We must exorcise this conspiracy of evil and give the people the chance they deserve—to join us in the new realm free from birth, age, disease, and death. The Four Truths are no more.”

  What about the people who don’t want to join? Eleanor wanted to ask, but she kept her mouth shut. She looked up and saw Fujinaka’s narrow eyes on her.

  Melan cleared her throat. “Will the Master enlighten us about the plan to cleanse the government?”

  Akita blinked and made a show of bringing his thoughts down from a higher plane.

  “Knowledge is power. We will destroy their power over our citizens by eradicating their knowledge. This will throw the country into turmoil. We will then step in and assume command, as is our destiny.”

  There was a short, mystified silence. Akita beamed at them. His eyes weren’t quite focused on anything.

  “Master.” Iroel bowed awkwardly and kissed the air above Akita’s feet with a loud smack. “We do not yet have your enlightened understanding. What is it you wish us to do, in the terms of the Microcosm?”

  Akita patted the air above Iroel’s head three times. “We shall eliminate all information on the National Data Network.”

  The Angels all stared at him. Eleanor felt her jaw drop.

  The NDN was livelined. If this place was, too, Akita could bypass the complex security system at the liveline–groundline gates and go directly to the NDN entry points. And once inside … she remembered the casual way he had snuffed out a subsystem to demonstrate to her how it was done.

  It would cause utter chaos. Banks, stock exchanges, insurance houses as well as the government ran information from the NDN. Whatever Akita did could contaminate those networks, too, and possibly WorldNet. Communications would be totally disrupted, and probably utilities such as electricity and gas. Maybe transport as well.

  “We will then restore all basic functions and tell the people they are now free to join us. They can then build their own portals to the Macrocosm,” Akita finished.

  “Do you t
hink they’ll want to do that?” Eleanor couldn’t help asking.

  Akita waved his hand reassuringly. “When they understand that I am offering transcendence, who will not?”

  “Some of them might like what the Microcosm offers. Work, food, exercise, sex …”

  “Maybe they like that now.” Akita leaned toward her. He smelled of sweat, the incense that smoked all around the room, and something burnt, like solder.

  “But people grow old,” he said. “Their bones grow soft, their joints ache. They fight pain and the body’s degeneration. Then which choice do you think they will make? You see”—he settled back again—“we have broken the wheel of suffering. Without bodies, there is no birth. And therefore no rebirth. In Microcosmic terms”—he turned to the Angels—“decide who is to oversee which network once we have taken control. Initiate those adepts who are ready to use the interface. How many?” He looked at Iroel.

  Iroel met Melan’s eyes before replying. “As many as twenty.”

  Samael’s head turned at the words. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Iroel blustered, but he avoided Samael’s eyes.

  “Master.” Samael’s thin face was solemn. “Perhaps we are being premature. Until we have more adepts who can assist …”

  “We have twice as many to help us with prayer.” Akita ignored him. “Your Master and Lilith-sama will begin the takeover. The enemy’s defenses are strong. But in the Macrocosm, thought is all. Our thought is pure, and we will prevail.” He stood with a grunt. “Midnight is the time. We must be ready.”

  He placed his palms together, then spread his arms, palms down. His prosthetic hand kept all its manipulators inside itself.

  The Angels seemed to recognize it as a signal, and all bowed, their hands together. They backed away and left, murmuring among themselves. Samael said nothing, his face cloudy. The two novices followed them out.

  “Lilith-sama, we must begin.” Adam was already seated before the console, strapping himself in. “I will show you the way to the enemy’s gates. There you and I will breach those defenses and begin the revolution.”

  That’s what you think. Eleanor sat beside him. She would use the interface, but not to help him destroy everything they knew—she’d find a way to stop or delay him. She reached for a calm memory. The red-and-gold autumn leaves in the courtyard of the Betta, swishing in bright drifts on the concrete until rain turned them to soggy brown …

 

‹ Prev