“Alex is right,” Lea finally said. “You don’t make moves like that without causing waves. Besides, even if the Inru had these people running deep immersion, they were in a completely contained system. We didn’t find any live connections to the Axis—or that they even had the capacity for one.”
“Goddamned right,” Pallas snorted. “Bastards must be worse off than we thought. You figure with all that firepower, they’d be using it to launch virtual attacks—not wasting their resources on some crazy experiment.”
“That isn’t the whole story,” the GME interjected, and added another dimension to the graphic. A series of animated frames depicted the advanced progression of chemical changes in the frontal lobes—a steady march into the prefrontal regions, with a thick growth of new blood vessels and what appeared to be aggressive tumors.
Lea could barely contain her revulsion. Dark patches overwhelmed the entire forward half of the cerebral cortex, spreading into every unoccupied fold. She remembered the last time she had seen something like it—only back then, Cray Alden had been the one on the table. That cancer had eaten him from the inside out, consuming his body and spirit until nothing remained but raw intellect.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asked quietly.
“Yes and no,” Novak told them. “I cultured for Ascension-grade flash, along with the other known variants, but failed to get a precise match. I did, however, find an analogous genetic signature with similar replication parameters.” She looked up at Lea. “Whatever this material is, it’s within a few base pairs of the original DNA structure.”
“So they have reconstituted their program.”
“That’s the real mystery,” the GME said, taking her hands off the node and sinking back into her chair. “While the two strains are almost identical, their actual behavior is very different. Ascension-grade flash works much like a reverse virus, with loose bits of genetic code invading host cells and converting them according to its own design. This concoction,” she said, jerking her thumb into the dark matter illusion, “is more like a classic virus. It merely uses host cells to replicate itself—and quite efficiently, if these times are correct.”
Pallas frowned. “Sounds like there’s a catch.”
“Compliments, my boy,” Novak said. She turned back to the display and dissolved out of the construct, switching over to a single cluster of neurons at extreme magnification. “What you see here is a healthy control group that had no previous contact with this new flash. Watch what happens when I introduce our friend to some uninfected cells.”
Lea peered into the image, attuned to any signs of movement. After a few seconds, a slight quiver at the edge of the frame drew her attention. There, a single strand of the unknown agent started bearing down on the neurons. It approached slowly at first—then in a blur it was gone, penetrating the outer membrane of its target cell like a bullet.
“Nasty,” Pallas breathed.
“That isn’t the half of it,” Novak said. “During its little mating dance, the flash seems to alter its own genetic code to mimic temporarily that of the target cell. It allows for easier infiltration with a minimum amount of damage to the host.”
Lea frowned curiously. “That’s unusual behavior for this kind of bug.”
“It gets even better. Watch.”
The GME motioned toward the display, where the neuron appeared to suffer no ill effects. Novak then applied a resonance filter to cross-section the cell in three dimensions, which revealed in terrifying scope what the previous visual did not. Hundreds of viral bodies already teemed within, shuttling back and forth between axon and dendron, reaching a critical mass that threatened to burst the entire body of the cell. Before that could happen, though, the strands began to exit the same way their progenitor had moved in. Effortlessly, they slipped through the outer membrane and into the wider world, where they circled other neurons and started the process all over again.
“Several flash strands remain behind in the original host cell,” Novak explained, “but at that point they seem to go inert. I’m guessing they act as sentinels to keep others from invading once the initial life cycle is complete. At any rate, the host is left essentially intact, while the flash itself supplements the natural functioning of the body.” She smiled thinly, her admiration all but obvious. “Whoever engineered this must be a certifiable genius.”
“Or certifiably insane,” Pallas countered. “This stuff spreads like wildfire, and we don’t even know what the hell it does.”
Lea looked back toward the Inru corpses, their silent tongues hinting at a truth far worse than her worst-case scenario.
“What are the vectors for this thing?” she asked.
“Direct contact only,” the GME answered, putting to rest Lea’s fears about contamination. “Structured like this, it can’t survive outside a living system.”
“What about the incubation period?”
“What we saw here ran at fifty times speed. In actual time, it would be anywhere between twelve and sixteen hours before widespread infection.”
“Unbelievable,” Pallas whispered.
Lea lowered her head, shutting her colleagues out while she considered all the facts. She had never stopped believing that Ascension remained the Inru’s ultimate goal—but she hadn’t prepared herself for such a radical departure. This was totally new technology, developed in a matter of months—not the years it had taken to develop the template for the original strain.
How in God’s name did Avalon do this?
“Didi, can you bring up a base-pair sequence of this new flash?”
Novak flipped the construct again, displacing the microscopic visual with a DNA model. Lea studied the double helix closely, absorbing the endless twists and turns and the seemingly random combinations of nucleotides. It reminded Lea of her own days with the Inru, when the revolution had seemed so real and the possibilities endless. What floated around in that image wasn’t so different from her own design, and yet it was worlds apart. So different, but so familiar that Lea couldn’t escape the notion that she had seen this genetic structure before.
“Was this new flash actually the cause of death?”
“No,” Novak answered, watching Lea closely. “It was some kind of secondary effect—a harmonic wave pattern that attacked chemical bonds down at the molecular level. The bodies literally shook themselves apart.”
“Any clues on the origin?”
“Not yet. Our young Alex is still rebuilding the data recorded on your integrator in the field, which should help with my final analysis.” Novak killed the display. “I did, however, notice some unusual by-products of the replication process that might have something to do with it. Whether these are accidental or by design, I can’t say—but the quantities are sufficiently large to give me pause.”
“Anything in particular?”
“A few chemical inclusions, most of them inert,” she explained, pausing for effect before continuing, “but also high concentrations of biomagnetites. The magnetic interference threw my instruments off so much it would have been difficult to miss.”
Lea was skeptical, but the discovery explained a few things—including the short-range communications problems they had during the mission. With all those bodies pumping out biomagnetic energy at the same time, they must have lit up the radio spectrum like an EMP.
“That kind of output would require some heavy shielding to avoid detection,” Lea thought out loud, “like the background radiation at Chernobyl. From a deployment standpoint, that creates a lot of problems. So why haven’t the Inru figured out a way around it?”
“Maybe biomagnetites aren’t a by-product at all,” Pallas suggested. “Maybe they’re an essential part of the design.”
“What for?”
The hammerjack shrugged. “Industrially, they’re used as cultivation strata for conventional nanotech. Could be that the Inru are using that as a shortcut to jump-start their Ascension research.”
“I don’t see an
y evidence of that here,” Novak said. “Nanoparticles have a very specific signature, and would have appeared on the initial tox screen. What we have here is pure flash, designed to enhance a living system somehow.” She sighed heavily, her own expression creased with serious doubts. “Still, one wonders why the Inru would assume the cost and burden of such a complex experimental scheme. Under these conditions, it would have been much simpler to limit themselves to one or two test subjects instead of the dozens we found.”
“That’s also part of the design,” Lea said with absolute certainty. Avalon wouldn’t have bothered with it otherwise. “The trick now is figuring out how it all fits together.”
Pallas crossed his arms.
“Any ideas, boss?”
“The Inru wouldn’t have confined their research to Chernobyl,” she said, echoing what Vortex told her earlier. “It’s too risky to keep everything in just one place. We have to assume they’re running other sessions in other locations. That’s where we start.”
“There wasn’t anything like that in the intercepts you decoded,” Pallas said. “And since the Inru fell off the grid, Axis signatures won’t be much help—unless you think your source is holding out on you.”
Lyssa could have tainted the intelligence Vortex provided—but only if Vortex wasn’t aware of her actions. For that to happen, Lyssa’s personality would have to be more dominant than either Lea or Vortex suspected—and that opened up possibilities too frightening to consider.
At the very least, you can’t take anything Vortex tells you at face value. Not if there’s a chance that Lyssa is pulling the strings.
“My source is solid,” Lea assured him, in spite of her own doubts. “But I’ll confirm everything, just to be sure. In the meantime, we work with what we’ve got.” She leaned in toward Novak. “How distinct are those biomagnetic fields you detected?”
“Nothing you would find in natural or industrial emissions,” the GME said. “If you happened across an unshielded source, you’d know it straightaway.”
“Good. I need you to upload the frequency ranges to CSS tactical.” Lea turned to Pallas again. “Alex, you’ll be tasking the Spyglass network to do a broad sweep for that spectrum. Anything that’s even a remote match, I want it pinpointed to within half a klick.”
“That could be problematic,” the hammerjack said. “With all the precautions they’ve been taking, I seriously doubt the Inru are going to just drop their pants and give us a freebie.”
“Then look for holes in the spectrum—anything big enough to hide a facility.”
A sudden, mischievous grin bloomed across his lips as he caught her drift.
“Right,” he said, nodding. “That much shielding would act like an electromagnetic sink. All I need to do is look for a great big dead spot. Pretty slick, boss.” His face then fell as he realized the full implications of her plan. “Even if I narrow the search parameters down to likely areas, we’re still talking about a lot of territory. The recon spooks aren’t going to like us burning up that much satellite time.”
“I’ll handle them, Alex. You go find me some bad guys.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Pallas said with a casual salute, then headed out. He pasted the electrodes back on his head and was jacking before the door closed behind him.
Novak swiveled around in her chair. “You do realize that if he succeeds, he’ll be more insufferable than ever.”
“Just make sure he doesn’t overdo it,” Lea said, patting her GME on the shoulder. She started for the exit herself, while Novak went over to one of the exam tables and continued her postmortem on another set of remains. As the GME drew back the plastic sheet and began working, Lea noticed a collection of samples underneath a nearby quarantine hood.
She wandered over and peered through the glass. Inside were a rack of test tubes and several mounted slides, each with a bar code label attached. The slides contained smears of some unknown substance, while the tubes held varying amounts of a dense crimson liquid. It couldn’t have been anything but blood.
“Are these the samples you took at the scene?” Lea asked.
Novak glanced up, still up to her elbows in the body on her table.
“From the Inru squad that attacked us,” she said. “It’s possible that Special Services already has some of their DNA on record from previous arrests. I thought an analysis could aid in identification.”
Lea swallowed hard.
“Does that include Avalon?”
“Yes,” Novak answered. “I recovered small traces of her blood from the injuries you inflicted during combat.” After a long, tense silence, she added, “If you’re concerned about the Mons virus, you needn’t worry. Avalon’s electrostatic implants reduce the disease’s communicability factor to almost zero.”
“It’s not that,” Lea said, turning to face her. “I don’t even know if it’s real. It’s just…”
After a moment, Novak prodded, “Is there something I can do for you, Lea?”
“How long would it take you to do a full workup on Avalon’s blood?”
Novak raised an eyebrow.
“Toward what end?”
“A comparative construct,” Lea said. “I want to know if Avalon injected herself with the same flash the others carried.”
“You have reason to believe she has?”
“Just a hunch.”
Novak studied her carefully, the way a psychologist might study a patient. Lea didn’t much care for it.
“Many times,” the GME ventured, “you can form a close connection with an adversary. Enemies get to know each other even better than friends. Given your history with Avalon, it wouldn’t at all surprise me if that was the case.”
Lea chewed the inside of her lip, irritated but trying not to show it.
“Is there a point to this, Didi?”
“The point, my dear, is that I believe you. Your instincts have always served you, whatever you might think. But you should also remember that no matter how well you understand your enemy, your enemy also understands you. Keep that in mind as you plot your next move.”
Novak then snapped off her rubber gloves and walked over to the quarantine hood. Lea stood aside to let her pass, and didn’t say a word as her GME slipped her hands into the manipulator controls that she used to handle the samples.
“May I assume this is top priority?” Novak asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll have your results in forty-eight hours.” With a wink and a smile she added, “Twenty-four if you toss in a bottle of single-malt.”
Lea nodded, and left the room.
Walking the dim corridors outside, Lea took her time getting back to the stairwell. As she climbed up to the Operations level, she thought about what Novak had said—and wondered what the hell her next move would even be. With all her people doing their jobs, it seemed there was little she could do but wait—and waiting was the worst of all possible options. When her phone rang, Lea actually welcomed the intrusion. That changed as soon as she saw who it was.
“Please hold for Trevor Bostic,” a voice on the other end said.
Lea hated the way Bostic always had his assistant announce him. She swore under her breath, hoping that at least a few of the expletives found their way past his flunky and into the corporate counsel’s ear. She had been dreading this call since her return from Chernobyl but knew there was no way to avoid it.
“Lea!” Bostic greeted her with all the enthusiasm of an old friend—and none of the chill she expected after a failed mission.
“Hello, Trevor,” she managed, wondering what he was up to. “Sorry I haven’t called you before now. I meant to get around to it as soon as I got back—”
“Say no more. You’re a busy woman.”
Now Lea was really worried. Bostic wasn’t this cheerful unless he was about to drop the blade on someone.
“Thanks,” she replied, not knowing what else to say.
“No need to thank me, Lea. In fact, I’m the one who
should be thanking you.”
“Any special reason?”
“I’d rather not explain it on the phone,” Bostic said, lowering his voice. “Any chance we could do this face-to-face? I’m in transit right now, but I’ll be free in a couple of hours.”
“Your office?”
“I was thinking my place.”
Lea felt unclean at the prospect but was too stunned to refuse.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Whatever you say.”
“Wonderful. My driver will swing by to pick you up.”
“Sounds good.”
“Oh—and Lea?”
“Yes, Trevor?”
“I have a little surprise for you—so don’t be late.”
The connection went dead.
Osaka was just the way Avalon remembered it, an experiment in Social Darwinism run amok. Infected with the smells and sounds of a postinformation society, a permanent haze spilled out of the alleyways like toxic ghosts under hemorrhaging streetlamps. Between the shadows and the orange sodium glow, Avalon cast herself out among the street species that packed every corner of the Ebisu-bashi district—a lone pillar trailing a long black coat, her footsteps clicking in sync with the savagespawn beat that seemed to pour from every open doorway. The wild heat of a thousand bodies assaulted her sensuit, but Avalon paid it little mind. Osaka was the subculture, the center of the Asian Sphere, and she knew its pulse the way she knew the species that inhabited it. They fed only on one another, colliding at random—particles in some chaotic flux.
Their passions were legion, as was their hunger, stoked by synthetic pheromones that charged the air with a perverse electricity. Moans and screams, vaguely human, aligned in phase with the music, building into a climax of narcotic energy that rippled through the crowd. Chemical sweat conducted that wavelength, a contact high that carried everyone toward the same agony and ecstasy. As she walked past the brothels and the nightclubs, Avalon studied their faces and gestures—filtering the pertinent data from all the ambient noise, searching for signs of any potential threat. All she found, however, was corruption and decadence: people trafficking themselves, darting in and out of the darkness, slaves to their own skin.
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