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He rolled his eyes. "I told you to meet me at Blanket's ..." "You told me to meet you. You never said where]" "Meet me at Heather's. She's in trouble."
"Heather! That's what I--"
"I'll see you there!" Then he and the Avernian were out the door, racing for the elevator.
By the time he skidded to a stop in front of Heather and Hing's suite, Rob was panting. He tapped in the emergency override to the door lock and it slid open obediently.
Cautiously, Rob glanced around before plunging in, just to make sure everything was darkened. As planned, everything was dim, just enough light to help him pick his way. This was the living room that the two roommates shared. Empty.
Rob crossed the room purposefully, placed a hand against the door to Heather's room. "Heather?"
Then he returned to the screen, moved to shut it off. That was when he first realized what was on it.
A woman. Red-haired. Upturned nose. Just as he'd seen her in Heather's records. Heather's mother! Rob blinked, disbelieving, hands hovering over the keypad. Then he remembered what Kintha had told him. Some image of a red-haired woman had warned the station just before the crash. Rob stared openmouthed at the screen, trying to assimilate what was on it. How could that be Heather's mother?
|This was impossible, his common sense told him, unless this is some kind of bizarre home video. But even as he thought that, he knew it couldn't be.
The clothes were all wrong, the setting.
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Besides, the computer clock in the upper right-hand corner of the screen was giving him the same date and time as the clock he could plainly see in the fancy office.
But even more bizarre than this image of Heather's mother as the ultimate businesswoman was what the woman herself was doing. Her expression was one of sheer terror, as she pressed her hands to the inside of the computer screen like someone imprisoned behind a plate of clear plas-steel.
Her hands were even flattened as though this screen were the only thing separating her and Rob, as though if he broke it, she could emerge. She pushed desperately against the screen, and he faintly heard her crying,
"Help! Help me! Get me out of here, please! Oh, help, somebody!"
The woman stared straight at him, begging for help. It was the eeriest thing he'd ever seen, worse than the sixth remake of The Fly-- the first holo-vid version--when they'd used a woman scientist instead of a man, and she kept begging the audience, "Help me. Help me."
Then the woman that looked like Heather's mother stared directly into his eyes and begged, "Please, Dr. Rob. Please help me!" He staggered back, stunned. The face and body were adult, but only now did he realize that the voice was purely Heather's.
But, Rob thought, baffled, isn't this Heather?
Realizing the Avernian was giving him good advice, Rob quickly saved the image for further study, then ruthlessly cut it off, shut the terminal down. But somehow he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just turned his back on someone in dire need, like ignoring an emergency broadcast. Shaken, he went back to the bed, to Heather and the protective Avernian.
Rob quickly examined the child. She was worse than he first thought. Her pulse was thin, thready, her skin cool to the touch and clammy. Her eyes were rolled up into her head. Her extremities were icy. Quickly he wrapped her legs and feet in the bed's heated blankets, tucked her arms under the covers. That was when he realized he'd failed to bring his medical kit.
He couldn't have been more astounded if he'd left his arm behind. Damn, Gable! And you call yourself a doctor?
fault, it's mine. I pushed you so hard telepathically, I permitted no stray thoughts to cloud your mind.>
Before he could frame a response, Janet jogged into the room, blinking at the alien's glowing form in the dimness.
"Rob, you here?"
He moved to her quickly, grabbed her by the shoulders so fast she gasped.
"Janet, thank heavens you're here!"
"I'd have been here sooner if I hadn't been chasing you all over this school!
The computers are going nuts! The defense systems have caught
something. A virus program, maybe, but I can't get them to tell me anything about who it is. I'm afraid it might have something to do with the crash at the station. I'm afraid . . . Heather's at the bottom of it."
"You're right, she is, but there's no time to discuss it. Her mind is trapped in the AI, and while it's there, Heather's body may die."
Janet blinked, uncomprehending. "Her mind! What are you talking about?"
Only then did she seem to realize the youngster was flat out on the small bed.
"Later!" Rob said forcefully. "Right now, I need you. Go to the infirmary. Get me a complete medical kit, an ICU cart, and an a-grav stretcher. But before you leave here, go into the living room and tell Nurse Ch'eng Hao to get down here. Before he came to StarBridge, he worked in ICUs with coma patients, and that's the closest thing I can compare this to. Please. Do it now!"
For a half second she looked like she might argue, then she glanced at the child on the bed covered by an alien. Muttering a quick "Di'os!" she left the room.
"She's freezing," Rob said to Doctor Blanket, knowing the Avernian could understand that communication just as easily. "Like her brain's not keeping her body going. What can we do to help?"
"Holy shit," Rob muttered. The whole idea was terrifying. "We? You and me?"
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"Could we get trapped, too?" What would it be like to die inside a computer?
A sound from the living room brought him out of it. It was Ch'eng. He could envision the Asian's broad, gentle smile. Nothing fazed Ch'eng. He'd seen it all.
The doctor swallowed, and allowed his hand to rest on his Avernian friend's gently undulating cilia. "Just as soon as Ch'eng and I get her on life support, we'll go," he promised steadily. "We'll go together, old friend."
At first it had been easy. Heather had slid into the machine, just
like the last time. No resistance. Once again, she was in a place that her mind perceived as physical, though in reality, she knew, most of it was just an illusion of physicality--a way for her limited senses to deal with her surroundings.
At first it was darkness and brightness, following a maze of grids in infinite space. This time, it was familiar, so there was less disorientation. It almost felt comfortable. She traveled the bright grids, her mind searching ahead, looking for markers.
The first thing she eliminated was her money-collection program. It hurt her to do it, and she stood there for a little while, watching the balance increase by fractions, quickly building up to a sum she could barely imagine. A sum that belonged to her. But, finally, she wiped it out, plus its backup, and any traces that it had ever existed. It seemed to take forever, following all the thin strands that ran to so many other programs. But she did it the hard way, eliminating each individual one. Creating the program had been so much easier.
Then she went after the phone call to the broker. That was harder. There were defense systems around that, waiting to trap her. Her mind perceived them as big STOP signs in all the wrong colors, heavy road barriers in eye-searing shades. They liked to be able to account for every call, be able to know who was talking to who. The snoops. What business was it of theirs anyway? She dodged the defenses, crawling under the barriers, around the STOP signs.
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The defenses were sophisticated, but not perfect. She wiped the call.
Unfortunately, that left a huge hole behind, a telltale spot of tampering. She tried to eliminate it, but could not close the gap.
It'd be easy to find such a big space, and that worried her. They'd know someone had erased something, but there was no way for them to find out what it had been. Heather turned to the next item on her list.
Now mesh fencing had sprung up under the road barriers, around the stop signs. Fuschia pink. Boy, she hated that color! It took forever to travel the program, searching for a weak spot. She finally found one, a break in the mesh, worked at it, and eventually squeezed through.
She lay on the other side, gasping, exhausted--just as though she'd actually done it physically. That must have taken hours, getting through! Her mind accessed the computer's chronos. Three minutes. She'd only been inside three minutes. Heather couldn't accept that; her time disorientation was complete. She was starving. She had to have been here hours--no, days!
Yeah, days .. . days of wandering this weird place, looking for the markers she'd put here, for markers others had put here but that she'd be familiar with.
Do Heathertoo next, something told her, but she shrugged it off. Heathertoo would be easy to eliminate, after all, she'd built her. That wouldn't take any time at all. She needed to tackle the big jobs while she still had the energy.
She could wipe Heathertoo on her way out.
That thought tugged at her oddly. She realized she didn't want to eliminate her grown-up self.
You've got to! Do it now!
She stuck out her lower lip. No. Not now. Later. Now, I'm going after the money. That'll take a long time, a lot of work. Lots harder than just a simple phone call. I'll wipe Heathertoo on my way back.. . I promise. She felt oddly despondent about making that commitment. It seemed like murder, almost.
The girl got back on the grid and followed it a long time before she found herself in front of what her mind perceived to be a huge vault. There was still the tiny remnant of a bright glowing string leading from her money-accumulation program right into the vault. That's where it is, Heather thought.
All the money. My money.
She would have to go in there and wipe it out, make it go away. Her chest felt tight, her eyes stung. She wanted to weep, but couldn't. That money would've gotten her off this rock, away to freedom. With the help of Heathertoo, she could've lived a
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great life, had anything she wanted, gone anywhere ... But that was before she'd killed anybody. If she got caught now, the only place she'd be going was jail, for a long, long time.
Her lip trembled, so she bit it, and stepped up to the vault. She concentrated, and a keypad appeared at exactly her eye level. She smiled. Now she was on familiar territory. She rubbed her hands together, then wiped them on her coverall.
Biting her lip in concentration, she rested the fingertips of her right hand on the pad. Now, be careful! her inner voice warned. She tapped in a sequence.
Heard something in the giant door click and shudder. She tapped in another.
More clicks, a groan. She smiled. Slowly she tapped in another cadence.
Suddenly the keypad glowed bright red and felt burning hot. She yelped, tried to yank her hand away, found it was glued to the pad. The heat seared her. She screamed, grabbed her wrist with her left hand, pulled and tugged desperately to no avail. Suddenly police sirens wailed, just like in the movies. A thousand aircars were circling the vault, their sirens flashing, the alarms threatening to shatter her eardrums.
Remember, they're just illusions the defense system is sending you! her inner self said calmly. Keep working. They haven't nailed you yet. You can still defeat them.
Sweat poured down Heather's face, dripping into her eyes. She
concentrated on her burning hand, telling herself it was just a computer illusion, that her fingers weren't blistering on the keypad, that she could still do whatever she wanted. The heat abated. She swallowed, tapped another sequence. The heat stopped completely, and there was a loud click from inside the vault door. She tried another combination.
The police sirens stopped, and the aircars slowed, but kept hovering.
Heather felt a surge of optimism. She continued her combinations, the patterns coming from the computer itself as she tapped its mind. The aircars slowed, then disappeared. And finally, with a massive groan, the vault door slid open.
Her hand was freed from the keypad, which promptly disappeared.
The youngster stared into the vault, an endless chamber filled to bursting with stack after sky-high stack of crisp new bills. All denominations. From all over the galaxy. Her eyes widened as she stared at it all, even though she knew it wasn't real. Physical money didn't look like that anymore. Mizari credit disks were greenish, and they were the common method of physical exchange these days.
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She prodded the computer's mind. Would something terrible happen if she crossed the threshold? She looked down. A wire-thin ray of blue light stretched across the doorway. She probed deeper into the alien mind. The light winked out.
Once she got inside, would the door slam shut behind her? She closed her eyes, concentrated. The vault door dissolved, leaving the chamber wide open. Someone else could worry about sealing it back up.
Cautiously, Heather stepped inside.
All the time, of course, she knew this wasn't real, that she was actually inside the computer, but the imagery her own brain constructed to help her fathom out these challenges was so real, she could feel the marble beneath her feet, smell the unique smell of real money. Just like that time Mom and Dad had taken her to that museum, the old Treasury, where they showed how money used to be made....
She shook the thought away, knowing she couldn't afford the distraction.
She followed the narrow aisleway that wound through the bottomless vault, searching for her account. Heather thought she must've walked ten miles before finally finding it. It sat on a shelf just at her eye level, with a little sign under it that said, "Heather's money."
She looked at it, stunned.
It was a tiny pile compared to the huge mounds of cash surrounding it. She touched it, estimated how much there was there. To her it was still a frightening amount, more than she'd ever had, more than she could ever imagine earning. Yet, compared to what was here, it was nothing.
The child suddenly felt smal , tiny, insignificant in this huge place. All the work she'd done, yet the fortune she'd amassed seemed so trivial compared to all of this.
Stop worry
ing about that, a voice inside hissed at her. You don't have all day. Get rid of this stuff, and get out of here!
She nodded obediently, touched the money reverently one more time, then dipped again into the computer mind. One by one, she redistributed her tiny stacks over to surrounding ones, where their small amounts would never be noticed. It would be nothing to those accounts. Nothing. Yet, it had been so much to her.
The last stack sat there, ready to be moved, when Heather reached out impulsively and grabbed it. She couldn't let it all go, she just couldn't. She couldn't be left with nothing.
Don't! her inner voice warned. It's just an image. It's not real! Don't do it!
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It was too late. She ignored the voice, grabbed the money, and shoved it into her pockets. Then she ran--ran as hard and as fast as she could. Through the twisting corridors of the vault, to the door, to freedom. An alarm sounded in her ears, but she ignored it. There was no door on the vault. She'd get out easy.
The yawning opening came into view. She raced for it, chest heaving, just as a gate of bars began descending from the ceiling, ready to trap her. The gate slammed to the ground seconds before she got there, and she hit the bars hard, squeezing, pushing, forcing her body through.
Then she was out, running down the grids, police sirens loud now, aircars giving chase. Panic rose in her chest.
Throw away the money, her voice said. Then get away!
"No!" Heather screamed. "I won't!"
She felt the stacks of bills grow heavy in her pockets, turn to solid gold, weigh her down, make her feel as if she were racing through molasses. The aircars were catching up.
"Dammit!" she screamed, trying to pull the huge, impossibly heavy bars out of her pockets, but they were too large to force out past the tight, strong material. One of the police aircars buzzed her as the weight of gold grew too heavy. She fell, expecting to land hard, but she pitched forward off the grill into endless blackness, plummeting down and down.
She screamed for just a second, then flailed her arms, trying to plunge into the computer mind, make it grant her wings, a parachute, an a-grav belt, anything. But nothing appeared and she kept falling. The gold in her pockets crumbled to dust, spilling out, swirling around her in a tornado of shining particles, blowing away. When not a speck was left, she finally hit bottom, with a rude thud, but no injuries.
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