Lea’s hands shook as the lift doors closed. The shiver spread from the tips of her fingers up the length of her arms, and from there made a stab into her heart. She clenched her hands until her knuckles burned white, waiting for pain to kick the shakes. It had happened a few times since Chernobyl—mostly in her sleep, at the terminal end of some nightmare she could never remember when she awoke. The attacks were less frequent now, but more intense, postcombat stress adding fuel to the fire.
It’s just the speedtecs, Lea repeated in a mantra. They’ll be out of your system soon.
Lea closed her eyes and prayed she was right, listening to the hum of the magnetic column while she tried to equalize. Underneath that, a status indicator chimed a steady beat as it ticked off the floors to her destination, slowing as it approached one hundred. By then Lea had composed herself, nerves opening to drain her adrenal tremens—a classic sign of tec withdrawal, which she greeted with stale relief. Residual fear was another matter. It remained like an opiate afterimage, tugging at her in places where the essential worry never ceased.
The lift stopped, doors opening into a heavy, rarefied atmosphere. In the corridor beyond, various bodies passed back and forth—a purposeful commotion of noise, a din of voices intermingling with the artificial rhythms of the Works itself. Lea drifted into that human stream, losing herself momentarily as she took in the scope of the activity. The sheer momentum of everything suddenly struck her as strange, even though Lea had been the one to set it all in motion. For the first time, she wondered: How much longer can this go on?
How much longer can I protect Cray?
Lea had no way of knowing. Aside from some nebulous progress reports, she hadn’t provided much information to the Collective regarding her research. It had been deliberate on her part—a way to stall for time while she figured out what to do about the bionucleic unit, which the project engineers had code-named Lyssa. Lea, however, knew the unit by a much different name, a fact she carefully concealed from her employers. Shielding that identity was the only thing that mattered—because if the Assembly ever found out, Lea was certain they would terminate everything and everyone associated with the project.
Including the unit itself.
Lea set aside her anxiety, tucking it away in her subconscious like so many other aspects of her life. Making her way down the corridor, she swung by the executive offices and chatted briefly with a few of her program managers. She did it mostly to pick up the corporate grapevine and get a feel for the rumor mill, usually a far better source of information than the electronic memos that crossed her desk.
With that finished, Lea headed toward the bionucleic division. Along the way she passed several layers of security, which grew progressively intrusive the deeper she went. At the outer perimeter, she only needed to provide a code key and identification to proceed; by the time she neared the vaulted lab, a contingent of armed guards confronted her, backed up by a series of lethal containment fields that infused the air with an electric tingle. The guards were all T-Branch, and snapped her a familiar salute as soon as she arrived at their post—but they still went through the formality of confirming her credentials before they allowed her to continue. Lea had devised the procedures herself, to make certain nobody would ever be able to repeat her own success breaking into the facility.
The guards motioned her forward, into a refracting arch that functioned as a gateway through the protective field. There, clusters of biometric sensors mapped her body down to the last detail, comparing her physiology and DNA to the readings the Works had on record. Only a half dozen people in the world were authorized to enter, the few people Lea trusted enough to get close to Lyssa—but even at that, only one person had ever had actual contact with the unit. As secrets went, this was one of the darkest in the Collective. And when the force fields dropped, the guards didn’t even dare to watch Lea as she entered.
The lab itself lay behind a heavy door of double-chambered titanium alloy, flanked by frosted windows of carbon glass. Filtered light spilled through those narrow slits, marred by passing shadows that suggested all manner of secrets on the other side. Lea had never lost that image of the place, because she never forgot its origins—or her part in perpetuating the evils that had started here. As the door slid open with a quiet hiss, she hoped—as she always did—that she could accumulate enough good karma to buy some redemption.
Inside, the pulse of the lab was frantic. Rows of virtual displays churned out numerics that represented only a tiny portion of the data generated by the bionucleic unit. All of Lyssa’s output was dumped into the Works’ conventional core, which worked twenty-four hours a day to generate a working model of her mind: a snapshot of its reasoning, its pathways, and its logic, no matter how chaotic. The crew that monitored the work consisted mainly of nanopsychologists—system shrinks who spent most of their careers speculating about synthetic intelligence and now hoped to see their theories work in practice. From all the shouting and arguments going on, Lea guessed that most of them had been at it for several days, fueled by stims instead of sleep.
“See?” one of them said pointedly, stabbing a finger into one of the floating images while three of his colleagues gathered behind him. “I told you that you can’t count on these Hammond algorithms to extrapolate neural patterns within the baseline matrix! It just doesn’t work that way!”
“Then how the hell are we supposed to differentiate autonomic functions from higher-directed functions?” another one grumbled. “We need to set down some basic rules if we’re going to develop a road map for this thing’s thought patterns.”
“You’re approaching this thing on the wrong terms,” the first one said, taking offense. “She’s not a biological entity in the way you understand it—she’s the living embodiment of uncertainty.”
“So how are we supposed to observe her if she’s changing all the time?”
“You do what you would with any woman,” Lea said, stepping into the fray. All of the shrinks looked up at the same time, but only one smiled when he saw her—the same man who had chastised the others for their unexceptional thinking.
“And what would that be?” he asked cheerfully, Irish brogue on full display.
“You stay on your toes.”
“Now that,” the man announced, moving out from behind the display, “is the most sensible diagnosis I’ve heard in weeks.” He left the others to mutter among themselves, while he greeted Lea with open arms. “It’s good to see you again, Lea. I was starting to worry that we’d scared you off once and for all.”
“Not a chance, Drew,” she said, gladly returning his hug. “You know I can’t resist a man with three doctorates.”
“Four,” Andrew Talbot corrected her, a glint of mischief in his gray eyes. “I just completed my boards in theoretical xenopathology. You really should have been at the graduation party. My homemade poitín was quite a success.”
“Street legal, I assume.”
“Technically, yes,” Talbot confided, “but only if you happen to be from the Zone.”
“I’m surprised anyone made it out alive.”
“They most certainly did,” he assured Lea, taking her by the arm and escorting her to the other side of the lab. The other scientists, meanwhile, carried on their work, immersing themselves in their virtual screens. “Poor jibbers,” he observed. “If they weren’t so insufferable, I’d feel sorry for them.”
“Looks like somebody’s been cracking the whip.”
“A whip would be kind compared to this,” Talbot deadpanned—the closest Lea had ever heard him come to complaining. “It’s a grand experiment, really: lock a few nanopsychologists together for days on end and see how long it takes them to kill each other. I confess, I was just about to give in to temptation when you arrived.”
“Bostic call them in?” Lea asked, knowing the answer.
“I prefer to call him Satan without the charm.”
Trevor Bostic was the Special Services corporate liaison, a lawyer w
ho facilitated relations between the Collective’s security apparatus and its civilian leadership. It was an influential position, held by a man whose ambition matched his fanatic dedication. Bostic’s only positive trait was that he usually played by the rules, which made him predictable—a useful quality in a company shark. He was also Lea’s boss, and the main reason she was still breathing.
“What’s so important that he’s pushing you this hard?” she asked. “Has he imposed some kind of deadline I don’t know about?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Then again, Mr. Bostic is not famous for sharing information with his employees.”
“Anything strike you as odd?”
“My dear, everything strikes you as odd when you haven’t had a nap or a drink for as long as I have.” The two of them stopped outside an airlock, its entrance sealed by a translucent revolving door. “But he did seem especially agitated that we hadn’t yet developed a usable personality profile for Lyssa. I informed Mr. Bostic that this required close personal contact with the unit—which, as we both know, is rather problematic given the circumstances.”
Lea averted her eyes. There was an uneasy pause.
“I’m sorry,” she said, a token gesture at best.
“No need to apologize,” Talbot said, while Lea keyed an access code on the panel next to the airlock. “Lyssa is an intelligent being and entitled to choose the company she keeps.” The pressure seal disengaged with a loud hiss and the door rolled open. Talbot took a conspicuous step back as Lea entered. Beyond this point, he was not welcome. She didn’t like shutting Talbot out, but there were some things she just couldn’t disclose—some secrets she needed to keep.
“I will confess some jealousy, however,” he finished. “Perhaps one day, you’ll trust me enough to explain Lyssa’s curious fixation with you—and why she refuses even to speak with anyone else.”
“It’ll happen, Drew,” Lea assured him. “Soon.”
“Of course,” he said, clearly not believing a word.
Talbot stayed in the same spot as the door rolled shut, an impressionistic blur in the thickness of carbon glass. Lea watched him until the image peeled away, and she was alone in an atmosphere of sterilized air. As microrads scrubbed the impurities from the surface of her body and clothes, she made no excuses that he was anything but right—but like the microbes on her skin, her remorse over it died a quick and necessary death.
You don’t want to be in here, Drew. You don’t want to know what I know.
An inner door slid open behind Lea, letting in a flood of conflicting impulses broadcast on a frequency only she could hear. The multitude of voices gradually melded into one, while she gathered her ebbing reserves of control. Coming here was an addiction in many ways—always tearing her up but never satisfying her need. Already the rush propelled through her bloodstream, beckoning her with an alien yet welcoming touch.
Lea fell into its embrace.
A tapestry of colors brushed the edges of her vision, a spectrum that implied warmth and familiarity. Lea’s first impulse was to run toward it—but then she remembered where she was. Watch out for the euphoria, she had been warned, back when these encounters were new, and she didn’t know what to expect. Never forget that I’m not the only one in here.
Heeding that advice, Lea steeled herself against the onslaught—sifting her own thoughts and emotions from the chaff of sentience that floated around, plucking her consciousness from the particles of dust. After a few moments, she reached a state of equilibrium and focused all her faculties on generating a stable perception of her surroundings. It was like rendering a computer model from tiny pieces of data, an abstract sense of self projecting outward until a concrete reality formed around it. Lea suddenly became aware of the floor beneath her—a stark white platform that tapered into walls of equal brilliance, a halo effect that gave the impression of vast emptiness. Then the dimensions of the chamber fell into place, everything confined to a few square meters.
The transition made Lea dizzy but passed quickly. It happened every time, the confusion of reentry not unlike waking from an intense dream. She heard the inner door closing behind her, locks snapping into place and cutting her off from the outside. The space wasn’t much bigger than a prison cell—just a featureless, rectangular chamber that could have doubled as a deprivation tank—but to Lea, this was the one place she could truly feel free. On the inside, there was no such thing as pretense, no reason for secrecy—just the total liberation that came from being where surveillance could never follow.
An interface chair stood at the center of the chamber, electrodes sprouting from its head. Body straps dangled at its sides, suggesting dark relics that had never been used. Lea ran her hand along the chair’s contours as she walked inside. She had thought about it many times, imagining what it would be like, but had never dared to plug herself in. It was already far too easy to lose herself in here, even without the hard link. If she ever did try it, Lea doubted she would ever leave.
Instead, she perched herself on the end of the chair and rested her elbows on her knees. Directly in front of her, a glass screen stretched from floor to ceiling, across the entire width of the room. Her own reflection stared back at her from its surface, while behind an abject darkness seemed to swallow all light.
“I’m back,” she said to the Tank.
Lea waited a few moments for a response, but heard nothing. She stood and approached the glass, and only then did she realize that her reflection hadn’t moved with her. Frozen in still life, only its eyes followed her.
“That your idea of a joke?”
“Give me a break,” the reflection said, the voice of an old friend—not some approximation of speech. “Try losing your corporeal self sometime. You gotta take your fun where you can find it. Besides,” it finished, dissolving into dark matter, “it worked, didn’t it?”
Lea turned aside, her lips parting in a smile. She did her best to hide it, but her unseen companion knew her too well.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” it said. “You need to do that more often.”
“Maybe I will,” Lea said, one hand hovering over the Tank, just short of touching the glass. “When we can stop meeting like this.”
“I know a great place for sushi just up Church Street.”
“Sounds great.”
“It’s a date, then. Hold on a sec while I put something on.”
A bloom of color appeared beneath Lea’s hand, delicate strands of electricity radiating from her fingers. It swirled into a tiny cyclone, which quickly gathered speed and spread outward, drawing in blackness and ejecting a stellar mass of light. In an instant, the entire Tank was filled with oscillating constellations—ribbons of color assuming shapes and proportions, dividing and recombining like primordial life. Lea tried to follow the patterns, to find the logic inside the madness, but they only shifted in response to her stare. What existed inside the Tank was chaos personified, creation and evolution all rolled into one entity.
This is what God saw when He first got the idea for the cosmos.
Those elements gradually coalesced into a more concrete reality—at least in conventions Lea could understand. Novae and nebulae stretched themselves across the Tank, dramatic colors fading into white and forming a mirror image of the chamber where Lea stood. Planets and stars fell into one another, taking an amorphous shape that warped itself into an exact copy of the interface chair. Its back was turned to Lea, surrounded by strings of interstellar particles that sublimated out of an illusion of empty space—bright electrons assuming a spin state around one another, orbiting closer and closer until they gelled into human form. The glow subsided as it settled into the chair, which slowly rotated around to present its occupant to Lea.
The image of Cray Alden stretched out there, hands behind his head as if relaxing in a hammock on a hot summer day. He appeared so real that Lea started toward him, before the glass—and everything else that separated them—stopped her.
“You know
how to make an entrance,” she said quietly.
“Nothing but the best for you,” he replied, cocking his head curiously. “Didn’t mean to make you blue, though. Maybe I should stick with the whole encapsulated universe thing.”
“No,” Lea told him. Seeing him was always more intense than she expected, more vivid—a clash of the physical and the spiritual. “Please…it’s not just you. It’s a lot of things. Just…” She hesitated over how much to say, while he looked on and studied her. “Just don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“No place I’d rather be.”
“I can think of a few places.”
“Sounds intriguing. You got a plan to bust me out of here?”
He was kidding, of course—a way to get Lea to accept his condition. How he came to be at peace with it was something she could never comprehend.
“Cray, I—” she began.
“Vortex.”
He cut her off at the sound of his human name. His tone was sympathetic but firm, as was his expression. Though Lea still thought of him as Cray Alden, he had insisted since his transformation that she call him by his hammerjack name—his own delineation between what he was and what he had become.
“Vortex,” she repeated.
Satisfied, he gave her a wink. He leaned toward her, while the construct around him shimmered in spots, the chamber breaking up and rearranging itself until he could assert more control over his environment. Even when he finished, gaps still remained—open gashes through which the flotsam of his bionucleic matrix moved in an iridescent flow. They opened and closed at random, rips in the fabric of his manufactured reality.
Something on the outside trying to look in.
Vortex released an impatient sigh.
“She gets jealous,” he explained. “You never know what’s going to set her off.”
On that cue, a cacophony of voices joined in a disjointed chorus. Mostly screams, they penetrated the walls of the construct—psychotic rants behind closed doors, like the halls of an insane asylum. Vortex waved them off, but couldn’t banish them entirely.
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