by Alex Bobl
The other neurotech seemed to be tuning a portable mentoscope. The machine differed a lot from the stationary one they used in the Fort for mind scans. This one looked like a small tomograph with an additional console and a few plugs on the side panel for power and auxiliary equipment.
"Are they torturing him?" Kathy asked aloud.
The guards smirked.
"No," Wladas whispered with a cautious glance at them. "Just maintenance."
"Maintenance?" she winced.
"The tiger mauled him, remember?" I said. "It has to be serious if they've opened up his chest. They're changing his combat modules or even reinstalling the software."
"No talking," the guard snapped behind me.
I swayed. His gun barrel hit the air. The guard stumbled and nearly fell face down. "Halt!" he shouted regaining his footage.
"Hands on your head!" the other one raised his gun.
I'd done it on purpose. I wanted the guards to stop us here so I could have a good look at the lab. Hopefully, Wladas had done the same. Wong's observational skills didn't need to be questioned.
While the guards trained their guns on us, I studied the lab equipment. How many cybers did Varlamov have? Two were out on patrol, and another one was lying here in intensive care. The captain had to be a cyber, too. That's already four, plus Varlamov himself - their mastermind and control center.
I glanced over my shoulder at the other glass cube. Two labs for five cybers was a bit over the top. It meant there were others I hadn't yet seen.
"What's going on?" I heard the captain's voice from the hallway.
"This one," the guard pointed his gun at me. "He didn't obey orders."
'Liar," I gasped biding for time. "You nearly lost your gun."
"You fu-" he struck out with the butt of his rifle.
"As you were!" the captain ordered. "Shut up, both of you!"
For a moment, the officer studied me and the others, suspicion in his eyes. "Carry on,' he finally said. "I'll join you in a moment."
He walked past us. The guards took us in the opposite direction into a wide stone hallway dimly lit by glowing wall lamps. I followed Wladas along more cables snaking along its walls. The guard's angry stare burned a hole in my skull.
The neurotech cried out and stopped. I nearly walked into him. All three of us froze next to an open-mouthed Kathy.
Oh well. Wladas had to be right about Metropolis.
We stood on the doorstep of an enormous hall divided by a transparent sheet of either glass or plastic. The nearest half of the hall was packed with all sorts of machines I'd never seen before. Chart recorders ticked, cooler fans whirred inside server boxes; lights flickered on control panels; lidless casings exposed more lengths of cables.
An officer at a console station in the center glanced up at us and went on tapping at his keyboard. This part of the hall reminded me of a combat control center. But the other half... I took in a lungful of air and let it out slowly as I gazed at the stuff dreams are made of.
Behind the partition lay a fragment of an alien world.
The sheer size of it defied human imagination. Spherical vaults of gray marble-like stone came together at an impossible height, too high to see. Their circumference was studded with long rods slanting downward, their ends almost meeting above the center of the hall forming a truncated cone narrow end down. About a meter below, on a pedestal, lay a black ribbed semisphere. It was covered in small black blisters as if the sphere had been made with bubbling hot tar and then refrigerated at just the right moment.
A group of people stood around the sphere: a tall broad-shouldered man in a military uniform and two civilians: a submissive white-haired old man and a woman with her chin in the air. Both wore lab coats.
Above their heads, weak bolts of lightning sparked from the lower ends of the rods reaching for the semisphere. Something prevented the lightning from touching the ribbed surface - some protective field or other - causing the lightning bolts to diffract and change direction. They climbed back up the rods like spiders and exploded high above sending a rain of sparks down onto the researchers' heads. They talked, indifferent to the phenomenon. Or rather, the man in the uniform spoke while the other two listened to him.
The captain reappeared next to us. He stepped toward the partition and froze with his fingers to his temple. I was right, then: he too was a cyber, tuning his communications channel.
The woman habitually repeated his gesture. This was getting interesting. Was she a cyber scientist? She turned her head toward us: a narrow face, a straight nose, thin lips and long fair hair. Her wide-open eyes sparkled with recognition when she saw me. She touched the old man's shoulder, her lips moving silently behind the soundproof partition.
The captain shook his head and pressed his fingers tighter to his head, his face strained. It could be that the partition was not just sound- but also radio-proof. I'd heard of those security shields before although I didn't know much about their technical aspect.
The old man and the one in the uniform turned around simultaneously. I nearly jumped as the Information identified the former as Boris Neumann. The voice in my head said a few words and stopped. The old man removed his glasses and wiped them squinting at me shortsightedly. Then he put them back onto his aquiline nose and vaguely waved his hand, open-mouthed.
Had he recognized me?
The next moment my eyes met the other man's. This time Information chose to remain silent, but judging by his chest chevron replete with two large black stars, I was looking at General Varlamov. A broad face, determined chin, the dented bridge of his nose - a souvenir of an old fight, - gray-tinged temples and a stiff dark mustache.
For a moment, his eyes glistened betraying the avalanche of emotion. Blood flushed his face. Then the general pulled himself together and walked to the partition, his hands behind his back.
What was going on here? How many times did I have to ask myself that question? Why were they all staring at me as if I'd risen from the dead?
Varlamov stopped in front of the partition and moved his lips. The captain turned to us and repeated his words aloud,
"So you're back, son."
The captain's voice was devoid of emotion, his stare vacant. He acted as a transmitter for the general's speech.
Varlamov turned away. "Proceed," the captain repeated his last words. Gradually, the officer's eyes grew more cognizant as he recovered from his apparent stupor. He signed to someone behind our backs, and guards rushed in to apprehend Kathy, Wong and Wladas. Two more soldiers - the captain must have fetched them when he'd left the room - raised their guns. A neurotech in a mask and clean suit stepped up to me and buried a syringe in my shoulder.
"What's going on?" My legs grew weak.
"You'll soon find out." The captain nodded to his men. "Move it!"
The Information in my head screamed red alert. My knees gave. An agonizing pain pierced my temples and the back of my head. Information started a countdown. I couldn't care less.
'What did the general say?" I shouted.
The soldiers supported me underarm and dragged me along the hallway to the vacant clean room. The other neurotech was already busy in it hooking up the mentoscope.
"What did he say?"
They laid me into a chair. Steel bracelets snapped shut on my wrists and ankles. A copper band pinned my head to the back rest.
"Tell me!"
"He told you the truth," the captain leaned over me. "Surely a traitor like yourself must remember something?"
The neurotech came over to the chair and raised the syringe. A thin jet of fluid squirted into the air.
"What?" I croaked shaking with pain, "Remember what?"
"He's your father."
Chapter Seven
The Tables Turn
The injection into my neck relieved the pain for a short while. The neurotech told his assistant to prepare the catheters and plasma containers when I started gasping for air. For an instant, everything darkened
before my eyes. They gave me another shot and jerked the back of the chair down. Sharp cold steel pierced my ribs.
I struggled and wheezed as I spat blood. The electronic clock on the mentoscope showed 5.07 a.m.
"Too early," a voice spoke by my side. "Turn it off. We need to reset the system."
"He'll die if we do," a confident voice replied.
A blurred silhouette blocked out the bright lamps above me. Latexed fingers touched my eyelids.
"Dilation is still normal. We can carry on."
"Too much risk. The general won't-"
"We'll proceed! The biocyne in his blood will pull him through."
The silhouette disappeared. The light seared my eyes bringing the pain back. The agony in every cell of my body seemed to cleave my heart. I didn't have the strength left to cry out. Tears gushed from my eyes. Next to me, a drainage pump turned on. Catheters stung my body piercing my lungs and reaching for my liver and kidneys, then entering my stomach. The semispherical module of the mentoscope loomed above me.
"Probe readings?" I heard the senior neurotech's voice dampened by his mask.
"Normal," the assistant answered.
"Scanner?"
"Mnemocapsule clamp confirmed."
"Commence with the extraction."
I felt it even though the pain overpowered all sensation. As if a hand had slipped into my skull, squeezed my brains and pulled them back out slowly and deliberately.
My teeth ached. My eyes bulged out and my mouth filled with blood. It trickled down my nose into my throat. I wheezed trying to spit out the clots and didn't understand what was happening.
"All done," the assistant's voice pierced the droning in my ears. "Do I update the wetware or..."
My brain erupted. I lost control of all sensation balancing on the cusp of pain and pleasure. My consciousness separated from my inner being escaping the glass room with its equipment and neurostaff. For a second, I hung in a void. Then everything changed.
Varlamov looked down on me from above, his eyes smiling. There were no general's stars on his chest: instead, he sported a lieutenant colonel's pips. He eased up the legs of his pants and squatted in front of me. It turned out I was sitting on a stool in a corridor with light-colored walls and a threadbare carpet runner. A desk stood next to me. Behind it, with her hands clasped together, the principal sat patiently waiting.
The principal of what?
"Take it, Mark," Varlamov smiled as he handed me a toy gun. He looked younger - a good twenty years younger. He patted my cheek and pinned an elite paratrooper's badge onto the pocket of my favorite checkered shirt.
I beamed with joy and glanced at the principal - the principal of the orphanage - and gave her a goofy smile. "I now have a father. Finally you've come!"
His face looked at me again but now he wore a dress tunic with rows of medal ribbons and glistening general's stars on his epaulettes. His white-gloved hand jerked into a salute. Inhaling the fresh ocean breeze, I, Master Specialist Mark Varlamov, commander of the cyber troopers section, having graduated from infantry school with honors, heard my own resolute voice as I reported my arrival at the Fort for further military service. My father was proud of me and the successful start of my career. We were back together again.
The breeze was still here, but now my father was gone. I stood on an open platform observing the Fort's construction from above. They were pouring concrete into the shuttering around the atomic reactor. The arms of cranes and scaffolding towered over the Fort's outer wall which was just starting to grow.
The platform offered a good view of the ocean, the Continent and the L-shaped pier. A ferry boat with prisoners had just cast off. Below, the projected territory of the Fort resembled an ant hill. Workers in bright safety vests and construction helmets busied themselves with jackhammers; excavators and bulldozers roared as they cleared the space for the new base buildings. Officers were issuing orders to the workers; armed soldiers and combat vehicles were moving along the coast.
A new face now. This time a woman's. We lay in bed, her fingers touching my shoulder as she whispered sweet nothings, words of love. I was overwhelmed by the feeling of warmth toward Mira. Mirabella Neumann. She was a chemist-biologist and the Professor's daughter. She'd arrived at Pangea not long before and my father - as if he knew beforehand that we would be together - entrusted her to me. I resisted his decision in every possible way. Idiot. Now I was laughing but when I had gotten his order I'd very nearly submitted a transfer request. I seriously believed that it was better to go back to Earth than be a babysitter for this cyber she-nerd who only showed interest in test tubes and chemical reactions. That way I could easily lose all my combat skills. But I was mistaken and now I was grateful to my father for his wise decision. Because Mira proved to be different. She liked the military; she was interested in guns and told me that she dreamed of an officer's career. We became friends and even closer. Now I couldn't imagine myself without her. I wouldn't want to part with her even for one moment.
She stretched and laughed, then threw the edge of the quilt over my head.
Darkness. Light. Bright lamps, flashing. Far-away voices. A total confusion in my head. Where was I? Where was Mira? What had happened to her?
For an instant my eyesight became clearer. The figure of the masked neurotech loomed before me, stapler in hand.
"He's come around," his assistant said. "This boy's tough."
Without further ceremony, he took me by the chin and turned my head aside, then pierced my cheek with an injection gun. The stapler touched my chest and clacked a few times fastening a deep incision.
There was practically no blood. The air stank of surgical spirit. I tried to unglue my lips and ask them about Mira's whereabouts. But my head swam.
We were together again, me and my father, standing on the Fort's walls leaning against the parapet. I listened to him, shattered by the truth about Pangea. No one was going back to Earth. Neither the deportees nor the military garrison. Even he, the general, didn't have the right of return. We all had a one-way ticket: the Professor, Mira... why her?
The reason was simple: the government was afraid of infections and pandemics. The swamps deep on the Continent were rife with incurable alien viruses which could wipe out humanity in one fell swoop. The Central Public Health Inspectorate had analyzed Mira's reports and concluded that the New Pang pandemic had been provoked by malignant bacteria brought in by people from the swamps. A secret order had arrived at the Fort forbidding all servicemen and civilian personnel from returning home to Earth. An open-ended quarantine was declared while the Inspectorate developed vaccines against the unknown disease.
There was a way out though. A universal solution: biocyne. Mira had proven that biocyne was capable of not only identifying and repairing DNA breakage and chemical damage, but that it also showed resistance to all alien viral activity. The only problem was to extract the pure biocyne from carula in a field environment. Mira's laboratory needed the latest equipment but Earth answered in the negative to the base commander's request. We'd become prisoners of Pangea through no fault of our own.
Father had told me about it in order to hear me out although he already knew what he was going to do. He was the only person with the key to the jumpgate and the possibility of a unique communications system with Earth that engaged his cyber modifications. Which meant that he, General Varlamov, was the only person on Pangea who could send and receive messages to his associates among the top brass.
After having consulted his sources, he learned that only society's elite used biocyne on Earth and that it was impossible to produce it in sufficient quantities. Which was why the government had taken this tough but efficient measure.
The Fort found itself between a rock and a hard place. On one side, the Continent with its thousands of deportees. On the other, Earth that kept sending them new prisoners. We both knew that sooner or later this information would leak out to both sides resulting in a stalemate; the garrison could mutin
y and the outcome would then become unpredictable.
Father couldn't accept the government's policy that left his men stranded on Pangea. Neither was he planning on spending the rest of his days there. He had never abandoned his soldiers in the field of conflict. He was a professional who could foresee complicated situations and preempt them. He'd planned and accomplished dozens of secret missions. Also, he only trusted himself and believed in me. He'd always said that I'd become the best - a new caliber in cyber staff evolution.
I had high neural functionality criteria in all four classifications. Varlamov didn't have a family. He'd spent a long time scouring children's homes for a unique kid like myself. In any case, that was what he impressed upon me when he'd picked me up from the orphanage. Then came college and infantry school. Father wanted me to continue his cause and his dynasty. He wanted me to be worthy of General Varlamov's name and take pride in bearing it.
"What course of action are you going to take now?" I asked him.
My own voice resounded strangely echoing and distant. It dawned on me that we were communicating through the memory chips using a closed narrow channel switched off from the signal amplifying network that connected all the base's cyber staff to the general. Third parties couldn't listen in. That's why the words reached us with a delay creating the echoing sensation.
The general glanced at me and continued his story. Apparently, Professor Neumann had not received government funds for a long time. It was my father and his highly-placed associates who had financed his research. They planned to overthrow the government but in the event of failure, to find shelter on Pangea.
To that I objected that we couldn't just shut the jumpgate down. The two worlds could collapse and we'd all die. The government, too, wouldn't tolerate this turn of events. It would send in troops to obliterate the garrison and hunt us down all over the Continent to exterminate us.
Father calmly listened to me and told me that Neumann had found a Forecomers' machine in the old city. All we needed to do was to start it up but we needed to hurry and find a way to do it. He didn't let me in on the details of its construction and purpose. He only said,