Challenges of the Deeps

by Spoor,Ryk E

  Bryson, or the image of him, chuckled in the same dry-leaf way DuQuesne remembered. “A particularly apt characterization, I am forced to admit. The question remains, then, why are you speaking to me, in particular?”

  “Technically, I’m speaking to Vindatri, and don’t think I’m forgetting that,” DuQuesne said. “And I bet you’re not going to trick either of my companions, either.”

  “As another acquaintance of yours might say, do not indulge in such loose and muddy thinking. Tricking is not the point of this interview, not in the sense you mean it.”

  “Hm. So it’s an interview, is it? A way for you to …what, examine our reactions to some particular stimulus? Interesting that you’d need to do that when you can obviously read our minds in detail.”

  “What is obvious, Mr. DuQuesne, is quite often not the truth—something I believe I mentioned more than once in class, yes?”

  Damn, he’s got that “superior professor” attitude down perfect. “That your doppelganger’s doppelganger mentioned, yeah. The Hyperion Bryson never got old enough to go all gray. So, you want me to answer the riddle here? Fine.” He thought a moment. “Okay, I think I’ve got a line on it. Orphan’s more self-defined than just about anyone else you’ll ever meet. He was built to be a weapon against a faction that he then personally converted to; in a pretty short time after that, he was the only member of the Faction, and he’s been defining his Faction as himself, and himself by being his Faction, for so damn long that he’s pretty much the only, let along biggest, influence on his life. So who else was going to be used to play mindgames with him, but himself?”

  “Full marks, Mr. DuQuesne,” said the fake-Bryson. “And why me?”

  “That’s a much more interesting question,” he muttered, looking at Bryson carefully. I’m impressed. Every detail’s just as I remember it. “You …you were the nexus. You were the point that brought me and Rich Seaton together, the guy who got both of us pissed off about the same thing enough that we clicked and teamed up to humiliate you. And then you helped make us grow up enough to become the people we were supposed to be.”

  Bryson nodded slowly.

  “Key influences. What made us who we are. And Bryson …you’re the real Bryson. Well, a reflection or image of the real Bryson, the Hyperion researcher that …designed me. So you represent what shaped me on both sides of the glass.”

  “Precisely.”

  “And,” he said with sudden conviction, “you didn’t even know why, not right off. Because what you—Vindatri—did is to trigger a reaction in us that generates the illusion. That’s why you implied you don’t read minds; you can find the right way to trigger a memory or a reaction, but until we live it, see it, experience it, you don’t get the details; we make those for you.”

  “Oh, excellent, Marc,” Bryson said, with the rare, broad smile he remembered well. “Truly, you live up to your designer’s intent, and then some.”

  “And from that, you start to get a real, personal handle on who we are, what we think is important, what we’re really like.” DuQuesne nodded, then frowned. “Not that I like it, or approve of the method. I’ve had a bellyful of being manipulated before.”

  “Understandable,” Bryson said. “Yet you would, I think, agree that actual mind-reading is much more of an intrusion, and disapprove even more, while I think you would also understand that a being such as Vindatri has good reason to be cautious.”

  “Maybe. I don’t need to be cautious around babies, and power-wise you sure seem to have that level of divide on us.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps. Yet in the Arena things are rarely what they seem, Mr. DuQuesne.”

  DuQuesne suddenly became aware that his surroundings had slowly, subtly, but completely shifted; he was now in what appeared to be Professor Bryson’s office, complete with stacks of papers waiting to be graded and the same slightly-battered wooden chairs with green leather-cushioned seats for students looking for additional help. “That’s impressive. Don’t know if I like it, but it’s impressive.”

  “You don’t find a familiar setting comforting? Interesting, Mr. DuQuesne.” Bryson seated himself in the larger swivel-chair behind the desk, and stubbed out the cigarette which was now burned almost to the filter.

  “Okay, that actually counts as evidence you don’t read minds, unless you’re just playing a really deep game. Because if you read minds, you’d know that this stopped being a comforting setting for me about fifty or so years ago.”

  “Yet these images are also what you produced under the stimulus you theorized I have created. Even more interesting.”

  It was interesting, and DuQuesne found he had to stop and consider the situation. If he was right, this was a sort of self-generated illusion; “Vindatri,” whatever and whoever he really was, just sort of poked your brain and then gave it the tools to generate one hell of a hallucination that Vindatri could participate in—but much of it was provided and directed by DuQuesne’s brain, not Vindatri’s. So why, exactly, was he seeing this particular setting?

  He found himself involuntarily glancing over his shoulder, and the answer was obvious. “Blast it. Because seeing you, talking with you …thinking about all of that …I keep thinking Rich is going to walk through that door. Part of me would like nothing more. Except I don’t want a shadow play of him, I’d want the real thing, and he’s gone.”

  Bryson nodded slowly, pulling out his cigarette pack again absently and proffering it to DuQuesne in the same gesture DuQuesne had seen a thousand times and more. He saw his arm, almost against his will, reach out and take one of the white cylinders; Bryson lit his first and then handed the shining metal lighter to DuQuesne.

  The sharp, warm taste of the smoke was the same, too. DuQuesne felt a sting in his eyes that wasn’t from smoke. My aunt’s cat’s kittens’ pants buttons, as Rich might’ve said, this is just too damn good an illusion.

  “Why are you here, DuQuesne?” Bryson-Vindatri finally asked.

  “Here—your office, or here—Vindatri’s home?”

  “Oh, Vindatri’s home, I meant.”

  “Orphan needed someone to help him run his ship; from what he told us later, we’re also sort of exhibits to help him fulfill an obligation to you to tell him about any true newcomers to the Arena.” DuQuesne figured Vindatri would know the details; if he didn’t, his questions might tell DuQuesne something about the things Orphan might be hiding.

  “That is …a rather surface explanation, Mr. DuQuesne—”

  “If you’re going to keep being all formal, I’ve been Doctor DuQuesne for fifty years and more now.”

  “Humph,” Bryson snorted, but then shook his head and smiled. “Old habits, eh, Doctor? You were my students and then adventurers for a while before you ever officially finished that degree. But in any event, Doctor DuQuesne, that was a surface explanation. I asked why you were here, not why Orphan would want you here.”

  Interesting question. Let’s see how this dance goes. “Pain in the ass or not, we owed Orphan a lot, and so we’re fulfilling a debt.” He debated internally for a moment, but realized that holding back the next piece of information would be pointless; it was in fact one of the major reasons they’d come. “And since we know about Orphan’s little toy, we wanted to come here to find out what you know about the powers of the Shadeweavers and the Faith.”

  Bryson’s façade cracked for an instant; the brown eyes were suddenly strange, unreadable, and the figure was rigid and motionless. Almost instantly, however, it resumed the more natural motion. “Does that mean that Orphan has had occasion to use my gift? Interesting. I had reached a tentative conclusion that he would likely never use it as he did not know its limits and would always argue with himself that there would be a moment of greater need …later.”

  “Used it and maybe burned it out. Might want to give it a maintenance check and replace it if it’s still in warranty.”

  The Bryson-illusion smiled. “I may have to do that, yes. Now …somehow it does not seem to me tha
t you have any direct interest in these powers, other than the quite natural curiosity of a scientist trying to understand a power that seems to violate some of the basic principles of science.”

  “Ha! That’s the whole of the Arena in a nutshell. But until we’re all together, I don’t think I want to discuss the rest of it. You want to talk about other things, hey, great, but our mission and my purpose or lack thereof? Wait until me and my friends are all together, and you’ve taken off all your masks.”

  “An interesting requirement,” he said, and the tone was not quite Bryson’s any more. “How, precisely, would you know I had, as you say, taken off all of my masks, when you do not know the truth of what I am?”

  “Trust me, I’d know,” DuQuesne said. “I’m real, real good at telling real from fake. You might say it’s one of my absolute defining characteristics.”

  “Still, I would very much like you to tell me a bit more about your interest in the powers of Shadeweaver and Faith.”

  DuQuesne had been tense and waiting for it, and so he sensed it instantly; a disturbance in his mind, a sudden awareness that part of him was not thinking in the direction that it should. He shot to his feet and slammed his fist down on the desk so hard that the illusory wood cracked from one side to the other. “Stop it right now. Understand this, Vindatri or whatever your name is, I’m giving you one chance, and one only, to back off. You don’t touch our minds. It’s one thing to do what you did here—and I still don’t like it—but the microsecond I catch you poking around trying to change my mind, or anyone else’s, again, that’s the microsecond I’ll make you regret it.”

  The sensation vanished instantaneously, and the figure across from him only looked like Bryson the way a doll of Bryson would have. “You sensed that. You resisted. Extraordinary. Utterly unheard-of. Yet you do not truly think you can threaten me here, do you?”

  The last thing DuQuesne wanted to do was trigger a conflict here and now; yes, he had his trump card in the form of the fiction-made-real powers the Arena was granting him …but he had no idea what Vindatri’s real power level was, and even back on Hyperion DuQuesne had known there were people out of his league. Still …You gotta double down on stuff like this. Can’t let him get the complete upper hand, think he can push us around. “Maybe. Maybe not. But sure as God made little green apples you’ll find out if you ever try messing with any of our heads again. Do you follow me?”

  Slowly animation returned to the figure; Bryson stood and bowed slowly. “You are a fearsomely interesting arrival, Doctor Marc DuQuesne. So be it. I will refrain from testing your capabilities in so dangerous a fashion.”

  He gestured, and the door of the office opened, showing—instead of the brick corridor of the school—a long, well-lit passageway of metal. “I thank you for a most instructive meeting, Doctor. Please proceed.” The smile was neither human nor comforting. “There will be much to talk about …later.”

  Chapter 24

  Ariane stumbled to a halt, mouth dropping open, eyes wider than they had been since she was a child.

  The old man—who didn’t look so old now, to a girl ten years older—smiled broadly at her and held his arms wide. “Hey there, racer girl!”

  I thought I was prepared. Boy, was I wrong, a part of her thought. That part, Captain Ariane Austin, Leader, knew perfectly well that this was—had to be—just an unexpected guise of Orphan’s mysterious “Vindatri.”

  But the other part of her was starting forward, tears rippling her vision of the man, brown hair sprinkled with gray, smiling lines creasing his face, sharp eyes twinkling like polished wood, wearing the blue jeans and shirt that had been a standard outfit for workers for, literally, centuries. There was even a streak of black oil or grease on one cheek, just as if he’d been working on one of the…

  Even as she thought it, she realized that she was no longer in a sterile, dimly-lit room of metal and plastic and glass; the Texas sun shone brilliantly overhead, striking hot highlights from the red-painted metal of the ancient truck that Grandaddy leaned against, hood wide open, tools neatly arranged on his mobile rack nearby.

  His hug felt the same, too, and the smell—of oil, a touch of gasoline, a little sweat, citrus soap—was enough to make her actually cry. Don’t let him see that much of you! the Leader snapped, but it was a halfhearted self-scolding.

  She let go and stepped back. “You’re dead, Grandaddy.”

  “Maybe so, Arrie, or maybe not so dead as you think.” He wiped his eyes, and she could see the glitter of tears.

  A thin trickle of anger finally began to seep in. “I know you are. Saw the garage burning, and we’d seen you go in, and they found your body in it. So this, this is all a trick, and a pretty mean trick, too, Vindatri.”

  Grandaddy frowned, but it was a sad frown, an apologetic one. “Sorry about that, Arrie. I never wanted to make you sad, you know that. And …well, neither does Vindatri, since you bring him up.”

  Ariane swallowed the anger. This is the person we came to see. Whatever he does, he may be the only chance I have to understand the power I’ve got. “So …what is the purpose, Vindatri?”

  “Wish you’d just call me Grandaddy, like you always did. Y’see, this, well, everything around you, that’s not actually Vindatri’s doing. Not exactly, anyway. He can give …call ’em hints, guidance, stuff he wants to see or know or talk about, but the way those questions show up, that’s more you than him.”

  “So he’s not just reading my mind?”

  “Nope. Maybe he can, but that’s not the way this game’s being played. He’s getting to see what you’re seeing, but only touches of what you’re thinking—the stuff you’re focused on, what’s being projected.”

  That did make some sense. Obviously she would know exactly what her Grandaddy’s old farm would look and smell like; she suspected that someone just reading her mind and trying to build it from scratch would find it a lot harder. She smiled finally, brushing away the last of the tears and feeling less embarrassed by it than she might have been. “I was actually expecting Mentor.”

  “Ha! Be too predictable. Besides, there’s a damn good reason it’s me and not him. Bet you can guess it.”

  “Because he’s been …more a friend than anything else. He didn’t raise me, didn’t shape me. He’s named Mentor but he wasn’t my mentor, so to speak.”

  “And you’re fast on the answers as you are on the track. Good answer, Arrie, and pretty much spot-on.” He reached up and slammed the hood of the truck down. “C’mon, let’s get inside. Hot out here, a body could use something cold. Want a beer? Or maybe lemonade?”

  It’s just like a simgame. Play along. “One of your lemonades?”

  “You bet.”

  They walked to the somewhat weathered-looking house in silence, puffs of dust kicking up around their feet until their boots rattled across the wooden porch and into the dimmer, cooler interior. Grandaddy opened the refrigerator—startling in its modernity, shining sharp edges in the midst of centuries-old décor—and got out the lemonade. The pitcher was just the way she remembered it, light shining mistily through the glass, slices of lemon swirling in the water, scattered bits of pulp drifting as Grandaddy poured her a big tumbler full. “Here you go.” As usual, Grandaddy had pulled a beer from the back of the fridge and popped the top off easily.

  She took a long series of swallows. My god, it tastes just like Grandaddy’s. Tears threatened to well up again, but she forced them back. Once she was sure she had everything under control, she spoke. “So what does Vindatri—you—want?” she asked. It was a huge temptation to just accept what she saw at face value, but that level of escapism wasn’t really in her. It’s an awesome simulation, but it’s still just a trick, and for some purpose I don’t quite know yet.

  “Truth? He’s not sure, exactly. To know more about you. Figure out why you came with Orphan. Find out what you want, coming this far with someone you must know didn’t tell you the half of the truth about what he was doing.”

/>   I was afraid of that. “Orphan held something back, yes, but he was, well, up-front about not telling us everything.”

  “Was he, now? Good for him. Boy’s spent years learning how to keep his left hand or right hand from knowing what the tail was doing, if you get my drift. Nice to think he’s tryin’ to get over that.” He took a long pull from the bottle. “That hits the spot! Now …Orphan says there’s been two sets of First Emergents?”

  So he’s already been talking—probably is right now—with Orphan. Wonder if he plays games like this with him now? “Well, we’re your standard First Emergents, if there is such a thing. The others are natives to the Arena, the Genasi, who just got their first Sphere.”

  Grandaddy froze—just a tiny hesitation, but that hesitation was like a glitch in a simulation, suddenly bringing home the fact that this was not real, no matter how much it seemed like it was. “The Genasi? Citizens now? Well, well, well, that’s a surprise and a half. Though I can’t figure there’s anything standard about you and your friends, nohow. That DuQuesne’s a firecracker, and Sun Wu Kung’s just a plain hoot. How’d you get your citizenship? Who’d you Challenge?”

  She hesitated, but honestly couldn’t think of any reason not to tell him the basics; everyone in Nexus Arena already knew, after all. “We actually got that through a Type Two Challenge. The Molothos landed on our Upper Sphere, and we kicked them off.”

  The stare was definitely two-edged; in a way, it looked just like her grandfather’s incredulous gaze, and yet there was something else, much older, alien, behind it. “First Emergents defeated a Molothos scouting force on their own Sphere? As their initial Challenge?” The voice had shifted the tiniest bit, but then warmed back to that of her Grandaddy. “Dang, Arrie, you people know how to make an entrance! Not that I didn’t already know that, having seen you at the races and all. Still, that’s one hell of an introduction. You’ve had other Challenges too?”