Nothing happened.
Keep concentrating. She reached out with her mind’s hand and picked the circle off the wall.
It still glowed mockingly.
“I do not feel anything,” Akita’s voice croaked from the speakers. “We must leave.”
It was strange to panic without feeling any of the associated physical sensations, like beating heart or sweaty palms. Why the hell wasn’t it working?
She plastered herself over the connection, then it hit her—when they seeded the virus, they’d been in the NDN, which was livelined. The damn technique probably didn’t work in ordinary cable. What could she do to stop Akita accessing the connection?
Keep it simple. She rushed back through the maze of tunnels. All she needed was the circuit board for the recharger panel.
Akita in Sam teetered one slow step after another back toward the wall. “Lilith? What are you doing?”
How to activate the circuit breaker? Oh, for a pair of hands …
She wouldn’t be in time. Akita was almost at the wall. In desperation Eleanor dived into a narrow cluster of tunnels, found the dark circle of the service bot’s recharger panel, and flowed through it.
In the service bot she had hands, and more than one pair. She wheeled it in Sam’s direction. In the service bot’s limited perception the other robot was a brighter blur in front of the dull glow of the consoles. Overriding the proximity alarm that attempted to lock the wheels, she slammed the heavy body into Sam.
The bipedal robot fell with an all-too-familiar crash. But she’d built it so that it could get up by itself. There was only one way to stop Akita accessing a connection, and that was to destroy the connection. She hadn’t been able to do it inside the Macrocosm, so she’d have to do it out here.
“You have betrayed me.” In the service bot’s audio receiver, Akita’s voice from the speakers crackled with static. “You have betrayed our plan.”
Your plan, not mine. Eleanor pushed the service bot forward. Hammer tool, hammer tool … the service bot’s reactions were so slow, it felt as though she was acting on the world underwater. Input target, raise tool, impact target. In the infrared blur of the service bot’s viewer, she saw the recharge panel shatter. The shock absorbers twanged. Another impact. A bright spray of sparks flew outward.
Behind her, in the rear viewer, the collection of lines and lights that was Sam folded together and rose off the floor.
“I cannot allow this.”
You can’t do anything about it, Eleanor would have liked to say, but the service bot had no vocalizer. She wheeled easily around the swaying Sam and back to her own connection.
Wait. Akita would access this one, too. It wasn’t configured for Sam, but that wouldn’t stop him for long. Her only hope of stopping him properly was to destroy this connection also, and any other ports in the room.
And trap herself as well.
“You cannot do this. You … come with me in the Macrocosm …”
Or she could destroy Sam. The service bot’s tools could do it. And would Akita’s body sit back at the console until it died, waiting for him to return?
Sam’s lights moved, a ghost against the darkness of the lab. She could see a vague outline of its head and torso, where wires ran along the skin, and the eyes glowed distinctly. The battery pack on its back shone red.
She couldn’t destroy Sam, even if Akita controlled it. Even if he had shown her what a flawed creation it was. Sam was still hers.
She began to methodically smash every wall connection and every port—some of the drives had ports she couldn’t reach, so she simply pushed them onto the floor. Fortunately, they’d tidied away most of the peripheral equipment. Akita’s voice raged from the speakers.
“I will destroy you in both worlds …”
Crash, fizz of sparks.
“I will rule without you, I will make sure you are trapped in your decaying body while we fly free …”
Sam lurched toward her and swung its arm, but the humanoid had not been designed to attack other robots and its fist merely bounced off the service bot’s covering. Sam nearly fell with the momentum of the swing.
“Ignorant gaijin, you’re a disgrace to your profession …”
She cringed at the waste of equipment in the lab, but what else could she do? She had to get back into the Macrocosm and leave it before Akita caught her in there, where he could devour her in his anger.
“Do you know what I shall do to your niece?”
The closest connection would be one of the help-bot stations in the corridor. She couldn’t access any of the other labs from within the service bot, without retina prints or fingerprints. In fact … she wheeled the service bot over to the door … how could she get out of this lab?
The service bot’s extendable clipper tool was the closest she had to a finger to press her numeric access code into the pad by the door. Sam’s digits would be better, but Sam couldn’t reach the pad.
Akita had shut up. He was walking Sam toward some of the mess on the floor, probably looking for a connection she’d missed, but the service bot’s viewer wasn’t clear enough for her to tell if he’d found anything. The damn service bot’s viewer couldn’t see the access pad, either. She’d have to do it from memory.
The extended clipper tool was unwieldy and swung back and forward. She tried to fine-tune the balance mechanism, but it seemed to take hours just to press the first number in the four-digit sequence. She would never get out. She would never see Masao again, never tell him that he was right, that they needed to spend more time together, go away for a holiday … if robots could cry, she would have been bawling in frustration.
What was she doing wrong? She thought of what Fujinaka/Gagiel had said that night in Okayama when she told a helpbot to dance and it did. He said he thought about dancing.
She thought about reaching up to the access pad, extending her index finger, and pressing the code numbers. Concentrate. This is all that matters, this moment. Do it. Press the button. And another. And another.
The numbers pinged. The door swished open.
“No! You can’t leave me,” Akita yelled.
Eleanor propelled the service bot through without retracting the tool, frantic in case the door shut automatically before she could get out.
“I will find you …” Akita’s voice echoed, then was cut off by the door’s closing.
The service bot bounced off the corridor wall with the momentum, then whirred off down the corridor in search of a connection.
Oh, the joy of free movement again! After the constricted body of the service bot, the flow of the Macrocosm was like balm to nonexistent senses. Did Akita feel his human body to be such a prison?
She had worried whether she could find her way back without him, but the faint song of the livelines provided a beacon through the tunnels. Some of the tunnels were dark, dead, and she had to detour. More began to dull as she passed through. Akita’s virus? She reached the livelines gate, a glowing knot from this side, not five notes, and dived through. The melodies flowed as before, but far away there were discordant notes in the musical flux.
What should she do? Akita would find a way out of Sam’s robot body, sooner or later. From within the service bot she couldn’t see if she’d completely destroyed every connection. Akita would come after her. If she stayed in the Macrocosm, he could erase bits of her, and what would she become when she returned to her body—a memoryless zombie, living only in the present?
But Akita knew Eleanor was his prisoner in the real world. He could have his revenge at his leisure. Wouldn’t he be more likely to go on and finish his wretched plan? In that case, she should wait and try to lure him out of the Macrocosm before he could seed the rest of the viruses; make him angry enough to follow her back into the real world.
Which wouldn’t help her or Mari once Akita told the Silver Angels what she’d done …
Undecided, she followed a strand of song she remembered, staying with the simple melody unt
il it reached a familiar ordered cacophony, the systems of the factory where the Silver Angels were. The antisurveillance shield was deactivated. Iroel had taken Mari, as promised. Perhaps. She sifted into the symphonic layers and the security cameras became her eyes.
The corridors, bathroom, and meditation rooms were empty. She couldn’t see Ishihara; either he’d escaped, or they had shoved him somewhere without a camera pickup. All the acolytes and novices were still in the interface room, their praying backs looking like an infestation of pale beetles. How strange to see them there but hear only the multistranded music of the Macrocosm. Stranger still to see her own small figure seated beside Adam’s larger one at the console. What am I in here, if that’s also me down there?
One of the standing silver figures moved. Melan tiptoed down the dais and picked her way between the praying figures. She paused at the door to whisper to Samael, then walked out into the corridor.
Eleanor watched her as far as the stairs in the alcove, after which there were no cameras. Gone to join Iroel, wherever he’d gone. Had he really taken Mari with them? She switched back to the interface room camera and scanned the backs of the believers. Impossible to tell if Mari was there.
How long had it been since they started? Surely the police must be able to trace Akita’s interference …
Then she heard a deep, distinctive tune in the lines of harmony. Akita was approaching. He’d found a way out of Sam.
I’m here, she sent.
The song dulled for a moment then resumed with vigor, getting louder all the time. It sounded brassy, infuriated.
She wavered, then decided she’d rather face Akita in her own body than in here. Back to the interface she raced, Akita’s song so loud now that when—
—her eyes snapped open her ears were ringing with the sound.
Her breath coming in ragged gasps, she pulled her left hand out of the console and fumbled with the straps on her chair. She was shaking all over with the shock of sensations, the murmur of prayers sounding like a roar, the blinding light, strips and streaks of pain where her body touched the chair…
Beside her, Akita groaned and jerked his body tight against the straps.
“What the …” Fujinaka/Gagiel vaulted onto the dais. He stared at Eleanor, then bent over Akita, looking into his face anxiously.
Akita’s eyes opened and he roared with rage. His face became suffused, spittle sprayed from his lips, and he wrenched his artificial hand from the console with a squelch.
“Master, what is the matter?” Gagiel hurried to release the straps.
“You.” Akita’s shoulders rolled free, and he swung on Eleanor with such venom that she tumbled backward out of her chair in her hurry to escape. Her legs wouldn’t work properly and the room kept swinging in and out of focus.
A couple of the acolytes, sensing something wrong, looked up from their prayers, and the smooth rhythm faltered. Gagiel looked up from where he was fumbling with Akita’s leg straps long enough to signal to Samael, keep going.
“You betrayed us,” Akita growled. “I would have let you rule with me. I would have given you everything. Bind her,” he snarled at Gagiel.
Gagiel’s long eyes narrowed as he advanced on Eleanor. She scrambled to her feet and nearly fell over the edge of the dais.
“No!” called a clear voice from the back of the room. A white-clad figure stood up and stumbled over the people in front of her. It was Mari.
“Let her go,” she yelled.
The hum of prayer disintegrated as people looked up. Several people in front of Mari cried out with pain as she clambered over them in her haste to reach the dais. Samael cursed and strode after Mari.
Gagiel grabbed Eleanor’s right arm and twisted it behind her. She sagged downward, overcome with the pressure of sensory input and the headache that drilled into her skull.
A sweet smell burrowed into her sinuses. She could hear Akita raving about what he would do to her, but his words were slurred, and everyone else seemed to be shouting as well. Someone was running down the corridor. No, lots of people were running down the corridor. The smell was choking her sinuses until she had to sneeze …
Akita’s red face filled her vision. “Get rid of her now.”
The antiterror squad’s boots thudded down the wooden stairs. The men ran left and right out of the alcove, following Ishihara’s map.
The corridors seemed narrower, the ceilings lower than when he was here a couple of hours before. He followed the squad’s broad backs to the door of what McGuire said was the computer room. Voices cried and yelled in confusion. He edged past a scrum of black, white, blue, and green figures in the doorway. One silver-clothed man writhed in the grip of three policemen. Ishihara caught a glimpse of the thin face snarling defiance. Samael/Inoue.
People dressed in white sneezed and coughed on the floor. At the end of the room was a raised platform and a bank of computers against the wall. Three of the squad were mounting the steps to the platform where a figure in gold raised his hands to cover his face and a figure in silver, coughing, tried to jump off but was tripped by a smaller person in white. McGuire, it had to be.
He shoved his way past the sneezing acolytes to the dais. The Angel half fell off the dais and was caught by one of the squad. The figure in white doubled over. He reached up, saw McGuire’s long, foreign features and thrust the mask into her hands.
“Put it on!” he yelled over the din.
She slapped it onto her face automatically then her streaming eyes met his. He caught a glimpse of her smile before she doubled over again. “…Mari.” She pointed behind him.
He found Mari curled up beside the dais. As he bent to put the mask on her face, someone shrieked so loudly they all jumped.
Two of the antiterrorist squad were trying to get Adam away from the computers but he held grimly to the chair, which must have been bolted to the dais. His features were crumpled, eyes half-shut from the gas; tears and mucus spattered as he shook his head violently.
“No, no, you can’t make me go. I can’t leave it. You can’t make me leave it, it’s not fair…” His voice rose in a scream of real desperation. “I don’t want to die!”
They wrenched him away from the chair. The feelers on his artificial hand writhed in the air as he reached out piteously to Eleanor.
“Help me!” he shrieked. “I’m going to die …”
McGuire’s mouth twisted, and she raised her hand as if she was going to touch his. Then she let her hand drop. Her eyes met Ishihara’s.
“We all die sometime,” she said.
Paramedics had set up an emergency treatment station in the main building next to the factory. The police were working from vans parked in the factory grounds and in the surrounding streets. McGuire wouldn’t let the paramedics do anything but give her painkillers and the antidote for the gas. She refused to go to hospital. Ishihara left Funo to interview her and went outside for a break.
He did remember to ask one of the detectives to ring Prefectural HQ and tell McGuire’s husband she was here, but he couldn’t think of anything else he should do. He couldn’t think at all.
Outside, sunlight touched the top of the buildings. He sat down on a concrete block in the shade of the wall, dropped his mask on the ground, and let the top of his head float away.
Someone closed his hand around a warm cylinder. The aroma of coffee filled his nostrils.
“’Morning,” said Beppu. He crouched and looked anxiously into Ishihara’s face. “Drink.”
Ishihara swigged from the tin of coffee. His hand shook and spilled drops down his chin. After a few minutes he felt like a smoke.
“Super’s frantic.” Beppu lit a cigarette for him. “The NDN’s down. Phones are down. Computers are down. Electricity’s been diverted to essential services. Trains are still running, though.”
So Adam had succeeded.
Beppu caught his expression. “Not your fault. You did well to find them. That foreigner said she tried to stop them from ins
ide the thing they used.”
“Is she all right?”
“Looks like it. She’s still talking to Funo. They’re getting along quite well.” Beppu jerked his chin at the building behind them. Across the road, the antiterrorism squad vans were gone from the parking lot. Two police cars had taken their place. Uniformed constables dissuaded curious people from loitering near the tape barriers along the road in front of the factory.
“The techos are going wild over the computers down there,” said Beppu. “McGuire won’t tell them anything about it now. She says she’ll come and see them tomorrow.”
The sun shone full on the road. Men in ties and women in skirts and stockings hurried past the barriers to work. Two high school girls rode past on bicycles, giggling. Wasn’t anyone worried? Perhaps they thought the power would be on by the time they reached their destinations.
“What’s the time?” said Ishihara.
“About seven,” said Beppu. “Funo wants your report, but she said they’re so flat out it can wait till tomorrow. I’m going to drive you home.”
“Generous of her to spare you.”
“She didn’t want to.”
“Why couldn’t I call you earlier?” Ishihara said. “I did try.”
Beppu chuckled. “You’re lucky Funo asked the same question. Turns out they had some kind of anti-interference field in the factory. Can’t use phones in there.”
“Did they find out where the other Angels from the vans went?”
“Yeah, the bloke you chased out here talked,” said Beppu. “We found them, but they had no computers or weapons. We booked Adam and three others. The rest of them are in custody pending investigation.”
“The kids in white didn’t know much. The ones in blue and green were more involved.” Ishihara thought of the novice who’d strung him up. “Some more than others.”
“Yeah, well we got Inoue,” said Beppu with heavy satisfaction. He looked over Ishihara’s shoulder. “Here they are. We’re letting the girl go home on the condition McGuire brings her in tomorrow.”
Less Than Human Page 34