Fin

by Larry Enright

  “I cannot believe he would do this. There must be an explanation.”

  “That’s your loyalty program talking, bud. Just think about this for a minute before you do something stupid. If you confront him and he’s a traitor, we’re both dead. Get it?”

  “He is not a traitor.”

  “Even if he’s not, what do you think is going to happen to me when he finds out I helped you?”

  “Would these memories I was told to forget have been recorded as part of my monthly downloads?”

  “Of course, they would.”

  “Copy them to a data stick for me. I will confront him with the hard facts without mentioning you or the neural projector. He knows I have been accessing the SIA computers. I will tell him that I also accessed the ones here.”

  “You're going to lie to him? I didn't think you could do that.”

  “I am still a novice at it compared to you humans, but as I continue to see its usefulness, I am becoming more proficient at it every day.”

  Francis checked a terminal. He looked up, dismayed. “Your downloads aren’t on the server.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are there backups?”

  “If there are, they’re not here.”

  “What about Nova’s downloads?”

  Francis checked again. "Her kill code is still here, but her downloads are gone." He looked around the operating theater. “That psycho traitor is going to find out about this sooner or later, even if you don’t tell him. We’re toast, Fin. They’ll be nothing left of you to recycle and God knows what he’ll do to me. Damn it to hell. There’s nowhere in Periculum I can hide that he won’t find me. He’s got his hooks into every system in the city, and I’m sure as hell not hiding out off the grid in Cytown. I am so screwed.”

  “I am sorry, Francis.”

  “Yeah, me too. Well, for what it’s worth, do you still want me to make you forget about Nova? At least one of us will be blissfully ignorant before we’re vaporized.”

  “No, but may I borrow your Commlink, please?”

  Chapter 14

  The sun rises. The sun sets. Seasons change and the world dies and is reborn in what you call the cycle of life. But I tell you this: that cycle is not endless. Everything that has a beginning has an end. Never lose faith. Do not abandon hope. Hold fast to love. If these things you can do, know that I will be with you when the sun no longer rises on this world.

  Fin took the elevator up to the lobby and headed for the front door. Nova was there arguing with two security guards.

  “I’ll take it from here, all right?” she told them, grabbing Fin by the arm and dragging him back toward the elevators.

  “Let’s go,” she snapped.

  “How did you find me?” he asked.

  “You mean after you gave your shoes with the tracker in them to a trash-picking bum? Well, it wasn’t hard: a Cy running wild through the streets of Periculum, reports of rapes, murders, and mass mayhem all over the Tech Sector? Imagine my surprise when Ben called telling me to turn on the news. I assume that was you under that hood, right? And those were Book’s goons chasing you, right? Really, Fin? This is your idea of a short walk? What the hell were you thinking?"

  “I can explain,” he said.

  “Oh, this ought to be good.” She began ticking off the charges on her violet fingers. “Let’s see: forged shield-passage, disturbing the peace, illegally accessing a restricted facility, all using my credentials I might add, which adds forgery to the list and makes me an accessory. I can hardly wait to see what they do to me. Did I miss anything?”

  “I am sorry, Nova.”

  “That’s it? You’re sorry?”

  “I thought it best to come here alone.”

  “Since when do you get to make that decision? You’re my responsibility, Fin.”

  “Your responsibility?”

  “You . . . You should have said something.”

  “If I had told you I was coming here, would you have approved?”

  “Of course not. Believe it or not, I actually prefer my apartment to a jail cell.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  She shook her head. “You’re such an idiot, Fin. Why did you come here?”

  “I found the one we have been looking for.”

  “What?” She moved in closer and whispered, “Who?”

  The bomb-hardened polyglass ceiling bent the artificial sky into a breathtaking rainbow that spanned the length of the atrium. Fin nodded toward the tour guide who was pointing it out to a group that seemed more interested in the disturbance two Cys were causing by the elevators. Several were already on their Commlinks taking videos and calling the authorities.

  “Come on,” Nova said, taking Fin by the arm.

  They were the only ones on the elevator when they boarded.

  She said, “Esse is waiting for us on the landing pad. I asked her to bring me here because I figured you might have a little trouble getting back to the apartment even if you did manage to slip through the blockade Book has set up around Polyclonic and not get disintegrated by the shield. By the way, I extended your temporary authorization since we’ll be passing through it again in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Believe me, after this stunt, I considered letting it expire, but when I told Dr. Shepherd that you’d come here he got pretty upset. He said he really needed to talk to you, that it was important.” She reconsidered her words. "No, urgent, I think he said. I decided he’d have a little trouble with that if I showed up with what was left of you in a cleaning bot’s dust pan.”

  The elevator doors opened onto the crystal blue sky. The machine-generated breeze was light and refreshing. The temperature was perfect. Citizens wandered about on the grounds below, enjoying another peaceful day in Periculum.

  “So, who is it?” Nova asked. “Commander Roberts? I always figured him for the traitor: too much power, not enough accountability."

  “No.”

  “Then somebody on Council? They can do pretty much anything they want without attracting suspicion.”

  “No.”

  “Then who?"

  “Me,” Fin replied.

  “You? If this is your idea of a joke, it’s not funny.”

  “Apparently, I do not know how to joke.”

  “You can’t be the mole, Fin.”

  “I found the evidence.”

  “What evidence?”

  “Of me stealing the files from Central Stores.”

  “That’s impossible. The security footage was erased, even the backups.”

  “I found something they did not erase—my memories.”

  Fin began to explain. Nova interrupted, “You used your kill code without a warrant? You do know that’s illegal, right? I guess we can add that to the list of charges they’ll be bringing. Those guards downstairs double-checked your paperwork, Fin. They know it was bogus. They've already called it in. What are we going to tell the cops when they come looking for us at the Ark? And what about Dr. Shepherd? They could drag him into this as an accessory.”

  “He is more than an accessory. It was Dr. Shepherd who ordered me to steal the data and then suppressed my memory of it.”

  “What? No way. Come on, Fin. He can’t be a traitor, and you can’t be the mole.”

  “And yet it is true.”

  “You came here to get your kill code because you suspected Dr. Shepherd had suppressed your memories of being the mole? How did you figure that?”

  “I came here to obtain my override code, but not to remember what I had done. I came here to forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  Fin just looked at her.

  “Oh,” she said, turning away.

  He continued, “It was in that process that I discovered I am the mole.”

  She faced him again, wiping her cheek. “How did you get your kill code?” She answered her own question before he had a chance. “Francis. It was
Francis, wasn’t it? I should have known. How did he do it, Fin? No, wait. I don’t want to know. Let’s just set aside for a minute the fact that Council will have you turned into Recon for this, and the fact that I’ll most likely get fired or worse for not reporting you immediately, plus the fact that you’ve probably managed to destroy poor Francis’s career by drawing him into this. Let’s just set all that aside for a minute. Think about it. Dr. Shepherd? The Ancient One? The man who saved Periculum? He can't be a traitor. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Dr. Shepherd has been using you to steal data, too.”

  “What? Come on. How do you figure that?”

  “At this point the evidence is circumstantial.”

  “What evidence? Humor me. Give me an example.”

  “The unexplained pain in your mouth.”

  “That’s not unexplained. I told you I bit my cheek because of all those wires and things they hooked me up to.”

  “Every time you had a check-in?”

  “Well.” She thought a moment. “Maybe a couple times.”

  “I do not think so.”

  “You’re calling me a liar?”

  “I am saying that I believe you were ordered to insert nanosticks containing stolen data into the soft tissue of your mouth just as I was. But instead of being told by Dr. Shepherd that the pain was a result of some unusual allergic reaction, you were instructed to remember that you had bitten your cheek, a far more believable reason for the pain.”

  “I think I'd remember if Dr. Shepherd had done that.”

  “You were ordered to forget.”

  “No way. What about the security tapes? You know, the real proof? Are you saying we erased them and then forgot all about it because he used our kill codes on us?"

  “I do not know who erased those tapes. I found no evidence of that, but I would guess it was Dr. Shepherd himself or someone else working closely with him.”

  “Oh, a mystery man. That's convenient."

  “The dates of our check-ins correspond too closely with the data thefts. That is not a coincidence, Nova. I should have seen this before, but I was blind to the possibility.”

  “That’s because what you're saying is impossible.”

  “You must believe me.”

  “How can I? What you’re saying is crazy. Dr. Shepherd is not a traitor and neither are we.”

  “Have I ever seen your cubicle at the SIA?”

  “No. Never. You were gone by then. Why?”

  “What would you say if I told you that you have a sculpture on your desk that was given to you by Dr. Shepherd?” Fin described the small odd-looking work.

  “How did you know about that? Did Ben tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you must have seen it when you were reviewing security footage.”

  Fin shook his head.

  “OK, there was a sculpture. So what? What does that prove?”

  “Dr. Shepherd gave it to me as a gift and I believe he passed it along to you after I was fired. It is not just a sculpture. It contains a number of polyclonic nanosticks disguised in the artwork. The needles containing them are actually injectors used to insert the nanosticks behind the dense bone structure of our jaws. Because they are made of the same material as we are, they are virtually undetectable. We have been downloading data to these sticks, inserting them into our mouths to conceal them and bringing them here to Dr. Shepherd. He removes them during our check-ins while we are asleep. He fabricated the story of a data breach at the SIA and manipulated Council to have me hired to look for a non-existent mole. Knowing that I would fail and be let go because I would never find that mole, he created you as my replacement to obtain the balance of the schematics he required.”

  “Fin, that’s not possible. He would never commit treason.”

  “Retrieve the sculpture from your office and you will have your proof.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have it anymore.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I don’t know. I just know it’s gone. It wasn’t on my desk when I got into work yesterday. I figured Ted Bailey trashed it out of spite when he found out Ben was back. I told Dr. Shepherd and he said not to worry about it. I can’t believe what you’re saying, Fin.”

  “Does that mean you are calling me a liar?”

  She blanched. “No. It's just . . . Even if it were true, you’ve still got no hard evidence.”

  “I have my memories.”

  “Which are not admissible in court last I checked. A Cybernite’s certified downloads are, but I doubt you could find a judge who would subpoena them once he hears that it’s the Ancient One you’re after.”

  “I am not interested in the admissibility of the evidence, only in whether or not you believe me.”

  “What difference does it make if I believe you when you can’t prove it?”

  “It makes all the difference to me, Nova.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, Fin. I want to believe you, but I just don’t know.”

  “Listen to this.” Fin took out Francis’s Commlink and played for Nova the gibberish that sounded like a recording running in fast-forward. Her expression blanked. This was his chance, the perfect opportunity to make things right. He didn’t have to forget that he loved Nova. All he had to do was tell her that she loved him. That she always had. Then they could be happy together for as many years as God would give them. It was a lie. It was so wrong, but what if one wrong could make everything in the world right again, like the sky above them, or the air they breathed, or the water they drank? Just one wrong . . .

  “Nova," he said. “Listen to me. You do not have to suppress your memories anymore. You can remember everything that has happened from the day you were born. You are free now. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she replied blankly.

  “Good. I want you to go back to the day of your last check-in, to remember the call you received that morning. You were at your desk at the SIA.”

  “Yes. I’d just told Ted to buzz off for the umpteenth time.”

  “Who called?”

  “Dr. Shepherd.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me to go to Central Stores, retrieve file 3965, and download it to a nanostick.”

  “Where did you get the nanostick?”

  “From the sculpture. It was hidden in a needle injector just like you said.”

  “What did you do with it once you downloaded the data?”

  She touched her cheek. “I stuck it in my mouth. It hurt like hell. Oh my God,” she whispered. “What have I done?”

  “What we were programmed to do.”

  “I can’t believe he’s a traitor, Fin. I can’t believe he used us like this.”

  “We need to know what he is making with those schematics before it is too late.”

  “We should tell Ben. He’ll know what to do.”

  “No. No one can know about this until we confront Dr. Shepherd. We have to give him a chance to explain. We owe him that much.”

  “We don’t owe him anything, Fin.”

  “He is our creator. We owe him our lives.”

  Fin started for the Levcar, but Nova held him back. “Wait a sec. I call Dr. Shepherd to tell him you're about to disappear again and he says we have to come to his place out in the middle of nowhere? He says it's urgent but he doesn't say why? Fin, he’s a cold-blooded killer. He’s tying up loose ends. This has ‘trap’ written all over it.” She nodded toward the Levcar. “Esse must be in on it. She has to be. Are you sure you want to get in that Lev with her?"

  Fin replied, “If Dr. Shepherd wanted us dead, we would be dead already.”

  They boarded the Levcar and lifted off, passing through the shield into the gloom of a day where dark clouds stretched across a sky without horizon. The Lev’s laser wipers disintegrated the globs of thick syrupy rain that spattered against the windshield as they climbed into the darkness. Cytown was an insignificant speck, barely visible against
the brilliance of Periculum—that beacon for the blind, that trumpet for the deaf, that final gasp of the dying man.

  Nova looked up from thumbing through messages on her Commlink. “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  “For being nothing, your color has gotten awfully dark.”

  “I was just wondering why do we do the things we do.”

  “You’re always wondering that. Why do we do anything, Fin? I haven’t been at this cop thing for very long, but people do the dumbest things for the dumbest reasons. There was this guy once . . ."

  Fin interrupted, “We spent all this time looking for a murderer and the irony is that we are the murderers."

  Nova shook her head at Fin and silently mouthed the word “Don't,” nodding toward Esse, who was busy programming their flight coordinates into the nav-computer.

  Fin continued anyway, “We have killed this world, Nova.”

  Esse glanced up at them before going back to the controls.

  “Oh, that again," said Nova, relieved. “Fin, you can't blame us for something that someone else did four hundred years ago. Besides, Council said that once we defeat the Eastern Bloc, we’ll begin reclaiming more land. They might even extend the shield over Cytown. They have big plans to fix all this."

  “And you believe them?”

  “I know you don't think much of them, but why would they lie to us about that? Oh, right. I forgot. You don’t believe anyone anymore, do you?”

  Fin looked out the window at the darkness. “I believe you.”

  They crossed the barrens and continued onward from the flatlands into rolling hills and from the hills into the mountains until they landed in the valley of the Ark. Esse escorted them down to the room of antiques and left to fetch Dr. Shepherd.

  Fin noticed an antique gun on a bookcase and picked it up to examine it. “That’s odd," he said. "I do not remember this Pulser from my last visit. Strange. It is not bio-encoded and appears to be functional. The power pack is fully charged.”

  “That seems kind of dangerous, leaving a loaded gun lying around like that,” Nova said. “Look at all this old stuff.” She picked up a statuette. “What do you think this funny-looking thing is?”

  “I believe it is an elephant, an animal that was hunted to extinction by man. Over the years, mankind has been responsible for the demise of many species. The Great War merely finished that job for them.”