Halo

by Tom Maddox

  quickly on it, veered toward its torn edges, plunged into it and

  so discovered another hole that opened within the first, and

  another and another through the cracks in the real he went,

  falling without apparent end.

  And emerged from one passage to find the universe empty

  except for a black cube, its faces punctured by numberless holes,

  floating in a bright colorless abyss. As he came closer, the cube

  grew until any sense of its real size was confoundedthere was

  nothing in Gonzales's visual field to measure it by, nothing in

  memory to compare it to.

  He rushed toward the center of a face of the cube and passed

  into it, into blackness and near-silence (though now he could hear

  the wind rushing by him and so knew something was happening)

  Then in the distance he saw a glow, bright and diffuse like

  the lights of a city seen from a distance, and as he continued to

  fall, the glimmer became brighter and larger, spreading out like a

  great basket of light to catch him

  He stood on an endless flat plain beneath a sky of white.

  Small faraway dots grew larger as they seemed to rush toward him,

  then they became indeterminate figures, then they were on him.

  Diana, the Aleph-figure, and HeyMex stood erect, facing Jerry, who

  stood in the center of a triangle formed by the three of them.

  Jerry had become a creature infected with teeming nodules of light

  that seemed to eat at him, thousands of them in continuous motion,

  a silver blanket of luminous insects that boiled from the other

  three in a constant radiant stream. Like Gonzales, Lizzie stood

  watching.

  The Aleph-figure called out to them, "Jerry's very sick," and

  Gonzales felt a moment of superstitious awe and guilt, as if he

  had been the one to trigger this by thinking about it.

  "What can we do?" Lizzie asked.

  "We can try to help him," the Aleph-figure said. "Stay here,

  be patientwith all our resources, I can keep him together."

  "What's the point?" Gonzales asked. "We can't stay like this

  forever."

  "No," the Aleph-figure said. "But if I have enough time, I

  can replicate him here."

  Out of her boiling river of light, Diana said, "Please!" her

  voice ringing with her urgency and fear. Gonzales suddenly felt

  ashamed that he was quibbling about what was possible here and

  what was not, as if he knew. "I'll do it," he said. "I'll do

  what I can."

  "Just watch," the Aleph-figure said. "And wait.

  #

  Gonzales came up hard and crazy, his body shuddering

  involuntarily, his vision reduced to a small, uncertain tunnel

  through black mist, and practically his only coherent thought was,

  what the hell is going on?

  Showalter's voice said, "Is he in any danger?"

  "No," Charley said. "But we didn't allow for proper

  desynching, so his brain chemistry is aberrant."

  "Good," Traynor's voice said, and Gonzales was really spooked

  thenwhat the fuck was Traynor doing here? how long had he been

  in the egg?

  Charley said, "He's pulling his catheters loose. Let's get

  some muscle relaxant in him, for Christ's sake."

  Gonzales felt a brief flash of pain and heard a drug gun's

  hiss, and when mechanical arms lifted him onto a gurney, he lay

  quiet, stunned.

  #

  Gonzales came to full consciousness to find himself in a

  three-bed ward watched over by a sam. Charley arrived within

  minutes of Gonzales's waking, looking strung out, as if he hadn't

  slept in days. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair a chaotic nest

  of free-standing spikes. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure."

  "You're basically all right, but your neurotransmitter

  profiles haven't normalized, and so you might have a rough time

  emotionally and perceptually for a while."

  No shit, Gonzales thought. He'd come out of the egg mighty

  ugly some other times, but had never had to cope with anything

  like this. His body felt alive with nervous, uncontrollable

  energy, as if his skin might jump off him and begin dancing to a

  tune of its own. Everywhere he looked, the world seemed on the

  edge of some vast change, as colors fluctuated ever so slightly,

  and the outlines of objects went wobbly and uncertain. And he

  felt anxiety everywhere, coming off objects like heat waves off a

  desert rock, as if the physical world was radiating dread.

  "For how long?" Gonzales asked.

  "I don't know, but it might take a few days, might take more.

  I've been watching your brain chemistry closely, and the

  readjustment curve looks to me to be smooth but slow."

  "How's Lizzie?"

  "In the same boat, but doing a little better than youshe

  wasn't under as long as you were. Doctor Heywood is still in full

  interface."

  "Why?"

  "Because we couldn't start the desynching sequences."

  "What? Why not?"

  "Impossible to say. Same for your memexshe and it are

  still locked into contact with Aleph and Jerry. At some point,

  we'll have to do a physical disconnect and hope for the best."

  "What the hell is going on here? What's wrong with Jerry?

  Aleph said he was in trouble."

  "His condition has changed for the worse. We're keeping him

  alive now, but I don't know for how much longer. I don't even

  know if we're going to try for much longer. Ask your boss."

  "Traynor. He is here. I thought maybe I'd hallucinated

  that."

  "No, you didn't " As Charley's voice trailed off, Gonzales

  could hear the implied finish: I wish you had. Charley said,

  "I'll have someone find him and bring him in; he said he wanted to

  talk to you as soon as you were awake."

  #

  Gonzales sat in a deep post-interface haze, listening to

  Traynor berate SenTrax Group Halo. "These people have no sense of

  responsibility," Traynor said.

  "To SenTrax Board?" Gonzales asked.

  "To anyone other than Aleph and the Interface Collective.

  It's obvious that Showalter has let them take over the decision-

  making process."

  Even in his foggy mental state, Gonzales saw what Traynor

  would make of this one. Showalter was the sacrificial corporate

  goat, and whoever replaced her would have as first priority

  reasserting Earth-normal SenTrax management strategies. To put it

  another way, through Traynor, the board was taking back control.

  And presumably Traynor would receive appropriate rewards.

  "The collective " Gonzales said. "Aleph " He stopped,

  simply locking up as he thought of trying to explain to Traynor

  how things worked here, how things had to work here, because of

  Aleph.

  "Easy does it," Traynor said. "The doctors say you had a

  rough time in there, and that's what I mean, Mikhail: they don't

  have a rational research protocol; they don't take reasonable

  precautions. Hell, you're lucky to have gotten off as easily as

  you did."

  "How did you get here so quickly?" Gonzales asked. He simply

  couldn't find the words to e
xplain to Traynor where he was going

  wrong.

  "I've consulted with Horn from the beginning." Traynor

  turned away, as if suddenly fascinated by something on the far

  wall. "Standard procedure," he said. "And as soon as Horn let me

  know what was going on, I caught a ride on a military shuttle."

  Cute as a shithouse rat, Gonzales thought. Not that he was

  surprised, thoughTraynor moved his players around without regard

  to their wishes. Gonzales asked, "Will Horn replace Showalter?"

  Traynor turned back to face him. "On an interim basis,

  probably, as soon as I get a course of action okayed by the board.

  Later, we'll see."

  "What now?"

  "Some decisions have to be made. I have let them maintain

  Jerry Chapman until now, but as soon as they can solve the problem

  of getting Doctor Heywood released from this interface, I intend

  to turn control of the project over to Horn and let him take the

  appropriate actions."

  Gonzales was filled with sadness for reasons that he could

  not communicate to this man. He said instead, "Look, Traynor, I'm

  really tired."

  "Sure, Mikhail. You rest, take it easy. Once you're feeling

  better, we'll talk, but I know what I need to at the moment."

  Traynor left, and Gonzales lay for some time in the elevated

  hospital bed, his mind wheeling without apparent pattern, as the

  world around him flashed its cryptic signals and anxiety moved

  through him in strong waves.

  Fucking asshole, Gonzales thought, Traynor's satisfied smile

  looming in his mind's eye. I hate you. And he wondered at the

  violence of what he felt.

  He lay dozing, then sometime later he opened his eyes, and he

  knew he needed to try to function. A sam moved across the floor

  toward him and said, "Do you require my assistance?"

  "Hang on to me while I get out of bed," Gonzales said. "I'm

  not sure how well I'm moving."

  The sam moved next to the bed, extended two clusters of

  extensors, and said, "Hold on and you can use me as a stepping

  place."

  Moving very carefully, Gonzales took hold of the claw-like

  extensors, swung his legs out of bed, and stepped onto the sam's

  back, then to the floor. "Thanks," he said. "I need to wash up."

  "You're welcome. The shower is through that door."

  #

  The sam told Gonzales where he could find Lizzie and Charley.

  On shaky legs, Gonzales walked down a flight of steps and turned

  into a hallway done in blue-painted lunar dust fiberboard with

  aluminum moldings. Halfway down the hall, he came to a door with

  a sign that said Primary Control Facilities. A sign on the

  door lit with the message, Wait for Verification, then said

  Enter, and the door swung open.

  Charley sat amid banks of monitor consoles; in front of him,

  most of the lights flashed red and amber. Gonzales thought he

  looked even sadder and tireder than before. Lizzie stood next to

  him, and Gonzales saw her with joy and relief. "Hello," he said,

  and Charley said, "Hi." Lizzie waved and smiled briefly, but both

  her actions came from somewhere very distant, as if she were

  saying goodbye to a cousin from the window of a departing train.

  Gonzales's anxiety shifted into overdrive, and he found himself

  unable to say a word.

  Eric Chow's voice from the console said, "Charley, we've got

  a problem."

  Charley started to reach for the console, then stopped and

  said, "Do you want to watch this?" He looked at both Lizzie and

  Gonzales.

  "I need to," Lizzie said.

  "Me, too," Gonzales said.

  Charley waved his hands in the air and said, "Okay," and

  flipped a switch. The console's main screen lit with a picture of

  the radical care facility where Jerry was being maintained. Half

  a dozen people floated around the central bubble; they wore white

  neck-to-toe surgical garb and transparent plastic head covers.

  Inside the bubble, the creature that had been Jerry spasmed inside

  a restraining net. His every body surface seemed to vibrate, and

  he made a high keening that Gonzales thought was the worst noise

  he'd ever heard.

  "Eric, have you got a diagnosis?" Charley asked.

  Eric turned to face the room's primary camera.

  "Yeah, total neural collapse."

  "Prognosis?"

  "You're kidding, right?"

  "For the record, Eric."

  Gonzales noticed with some fascination that Eric had begun to

  sweat visibly as he and Charley talked, and now the man's eyes

  seemed to grow larger, and he said, "He's deadhe's been dead, he

  will be deadand he's worse dead than he was before he'll tear

  himself to pieces on the restraints, I supposethat's my

  prognosis. This is not a goddamn patient, Charley. This is a

  frog leg from biology class, that's all. Man, we need to talk

  this thing over with Aleph."

  Charley said, "We can't contact Aleph; no one can."

  "Fucking shit," Eric said.

  Gonzales turned as the door behind him opened, and saw

  Showalter and Horn coming in. Showalter's nostrils were flared

  she was angry and suspiciouswhile Horn was trying to look poker-

  faced, but Gonzales could see through him like he was made of

  glassthe motherfucker was happy; things were going the way he

  wanted.

  "The report I got was half an hour old," Showalter said.

  "What's new?"

  "Talk to Eric," Charley said.

  Lizzie went toward the side door, and Gonzales followed her

  out of the room, along the narrow hallway and into the room where

  Diana lay under black, webbed restraining straps. Her face was

  pale, but her vital signs were strong, and her neural activity was

  high-end normal in all modes. The twins sat next to her, making

  comments unintelligible to anyone but themselves and intently

  watching the monitor screen, where amber and green were the

  predominant colors.

  A great beefy man walked circles around Diana's couch. He

  had thick arms and a pot belly and a low forehead under thick

  black hair; and his brow was wrinkled as if he were to puzzling

  out the nature of things. As he walked, the words tumbled out of

  him. When he saw Lizzie and Gonzales, he said, "Very unusual,

  very tricky. Troubling. Troubling but interesting. Very

  troubling. Very interesting. When whenwhenwwhenwhenwhen when

  I find, find it, hah, I'll know then."

  Lizzie said, "Any recent changes?"

  Shaking his head sideways, he continued to walk.

  Lizzie went back into the hallway, and Gonzales stopped her

  there by putting his hand on her arm. He asked, "Are you all

  right?"

  "I don't know," she said, and he could read some of his own

  trouble in her face. But there was something else there, a closed

  look to her face. She said, "Please don't ask questions. Too

  much is going on now."

  The door opened immediately when they came up, and they found

  Showalter saying, "We are not meddling in those matters. We are

  asking you to give us a choice of actions."

 
"What's up?" Lizzie asked.

  The four of them turned to look at the screen, which had

  suddenly gone silent.

  #

  On the polished steel of the table, a gutted carcass lay. On

  the corpse's ventral surface, flaps of skin had been peeled back

  to reveal the empty abdominal and thoracic cavities; on its dorsal

  surface, the spine stood bare. The top of the head had been sawn

  off, the brain removed, the scalp dropped down to the neck.

  A sam moved around the table, its stalks whispering beneath

  it. It pulled a steel trolley on which sat a number of labeled

  plastic bags, each containing an organ. The sam stopped and took

  one of the bags from the table and set it next to the carcass's

  open skull. It slit the plastic with a serrated extensor, then

  reached into the bag with a pair of spidery seven-fingered

  "hands," gently lifted the brain inside, tilted it, and placed it

  into the skull, then fit the skull's sawn top back in place.

  Using surgical thread and a needle appearing from an extensor, the

  sam quickly basted the scalp flaps to hold the two parts of the

  skull together. As the minutes passed, the sam worked to replace

  the carcass's organs and stitch its frontal edges.

  The sam pushed the trolley aside and brought up a gurney with

  a shroud of white cotton lying open on it. One extensor under the

  corpse's thighs, the other under the top of its spine, the sam

  lifted the corpse and placed it into the shroud. It brought the

  sides of the shroud together and, using again the silk thread and

  needle, sewed the cotton shut.

  The sam stood motionless for a moment, this part of the job

  finished, then gathered the empty plastic bags and placed them in

  a disposal chute. It scrubbed the autopsy table, working quickly

  with four stiff brushes held in its extensors, then washed the

  table with a steam hose that came from the ceiling.

  Guiding itself by infrared, the sam pushed the shroud-laden

  gurney through a darkened hallway and into a freight elevator at

  the hallway's end. The elevator moved out to Halo's farthest

  level, just inside the hull.

  The sam pushed the gurney toward a doorway flanked by red

  warning lights and a lit sign that read:

  NO ACCESS WITHOUT EXPLICIT AUTHORIZATION!

  KEY CODE AND RETINAL CONFIRM REQUIRED!

  The sam transmitted its access codes to the door as it went, got

  the confirming codes, and didn't pause as it went through the

  doors that swung open just in time to let it through. The sam