by Needles, Dan
Steve dried his eyes with his shirt. “Yeah, Ron should have Austin’s books figured out by now.”
Allison pulled out her Nexus. He grabbed her arm.
“Wait. Syzygy is after me; he might go after you. I don’t want you inside. I can’t stand losing anybody else.”
“What about the chip you used when you met Syzygy for the first time?” she said.
He shook his head. “I’m using the only prototype. It will take more than two weeks to manufacture more.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. Now come on. Let’s get to work.”
As she headed off, Steve grabbed her arm again. She stopped, looking at his hand on her arm. He moved closer.
“Did you really mean that, about loving me?”
She smiled. “Yes. The more I am with you, the more certain I am.”
He looked into her eyes. They were light again. Very good.
38
Steve stepped into the lobby of Nexus Corporation. Ron had finally put the last touches in place. Tall pillars supported a cluster of domes that made up the ceiling. Imitating the inside of an abalone shell, the iridescent walls, pillars, and ceiling were full of subtle colors that blended imperceptibly into one another, swirling as he walked.
“I decided against the marble. It was too trendy.”
Steve turned.
“You look awful,” Ron said.
“No commentaries. Just tell me about Austin’s second set of books.”
“My friend, you are grumpy! How ’bout a break?”
“I don’t have time.”
“We can talk while we play. It’ll be like the old times, before all this.” Ron pressed the portal button on his wrist. “National Geographic’s spaceport.”
“Wait!” Steve said as Ron entered the portal.
Steve followed him through.
Steve emerged in a crowd. Pushing through, he found an open space and scanned the room. It was tall and crescent shaped with one side exposed to open space. The edge of the floor was notched, resembling a gigantic gear. A space vessel was docked in each notch. Ron stood next to a toboggan-like rocket. Steve walked over to him.
“So, do you want to drive?” Ron asked, jumping in the front seat.
“Guess not,” Steve said. He looked up as two spacecrafts entered the port, slipping through a thin electrical membrane, which prevented the bay’s contents from being sucked into space. National Geographic usually was realistic, but most of what he saw was still decades away.
“Will you try not to be a geek for one minute and stop analyzing everything? Now get in!” Ron said.
Steve slid into the seat behind him. There was no hatch to flip down to cover the cockpit. Instead, the craft used the same electric sheath that the space dock used.
“Tell me what you found,” Steve demanded. He could hear Ron tinkering with the controls. “Ron?”
Ron primed the engines.
“Damn it,” he said. He strapped in.
“Here we go!” Ron said as the magnetic clamps released.
They accelerated rapidly, shooting out of the launch bay.
“Crap, slow down!” Steve felt his distant body’s stomach lurch.
“It’s just VR! Sit back and relax! I’m just getting started!”
Steve groaned.
They approached the belt quickly. From a distance, it appeared as a collection of a hundred or so asteroids. This was just a small part of Kuiper’s belt. The collection of rocks orbited beyond Neptune, creating a gigantic disk two billion miles from earth that was over four billion miles wide. Most of the sparse ring contained empty space, but here and there, the objects clustered, herded together by Neptune.
“Okay, let’s take a closer look, shall we?” Ron said, diving toward a stray asteroid that paralleled the larger group.
Steve tensed as they neared the cluster.
The surface of the rock appeared rough and jagged, covered with rubble.
“As a kid, did you ever wonder how movie stars raced their spaceships through asteroid belts without getting hit?” Ron joked.
Steve tightened his grip on the seat as Ron dove for the main cluster. Again, Steve’s stomach lurched. He thought his corporeal body might lose its breakfast.
They entered the cluster. It proved much more tranquil than Steve expected. The rocks moved with relatively the same direction and speed, long since negotiating their ordered place in the asteroid swarm. Ron swung the craft around one of the larger asteroids. Abruptly, there appeared a smaller asteroid hidden in the shadow of the larger one.
“Hold on!” Ron yelled. He veered the craft hard to starboard and steered into a larger rock. Steve was thrown against the wall of the cockpit as the craft spun wildly. He tensed helplessly, waiting until Ron regained control of the craft. It took Ron only a couple seconds.
“Ron, what the …”
“Uh oh,” Ron said.
“What’s uh oh?” Then Steve saw it. Ron had dislodged one of the asteroids from its place within the swarm. This asteroid, in turn, had knocked a neighboring rock, which set off a chain reaction. Around them, the serene cluster rapidly disintegrated into chaos.
Ron steered for the edge of the cluster, attempting to escape the angry swarm. A rock hit them from the side, knocking Steve’s head against the cockpit again. Then another struck the bottom of the craft and Steve hit his console. After a few more hits, the swarm had turned the craft. They were heading back to the center of the cluster. Like an angry swarm of bees, the asteroid cloud swallowed them up.
“Oh, shit!” Ron screamed.
Steve looked up. A tumbling boulder the size of a two-story house headed straight for them.
“I can’t turn the ship. Try your controls,” Ron said.
Steve touched the stick just as the rock plowed into them.
Everything changed. He was falling. Steve landed hard on a field of grass. His back hurt.
“What happened?”
Steve turned to Ron. “Software bug. I guess the software couldn’t anticipate someone going suicidal and colliding with the largest meteor they could find!”
“Are you sore?”
“Well what do you think? I’m tired of you dragging me through a virtual hell! Just tell me about Austin’s accounts!”
“I meant your back.”
“Oh.” Steve stopped and rubbed his back.
“Well, my friend, where have we landed?” Ron said, looking around.
Steve scanned the horizon. They stood on a small rise above a marshy lake. A scattering of palm trees ran along the crest of the sandy hill behind them. The sun bore down right on top of them and the air was dense and rancid from the swamp.
He felt the warmth burrowing its way into his skin, causing small beads of sweat to form on his virtual arm. A small group of dinosaurs grazed in tall grass and reeds while larger long necks roamed deeper in the lake.
“It looks like we landed in the Smithsonian dinosaur exhibit. It’s on the same VR server.”
“Cool.”
“The accounts, Ron.”
Ron sighed. “You’re always business aren’t you?”
“Yeah, for now. What did you find?”
“Eighteen million shares of Nexus Stock and eighty-one million dollars.”
Steve’s jaw dropped. Nexus Corporation as a whole was not worth half that much. Allison had said Austin got some money out of the deal, but he never imagined …
Ron smiled. “I told you not to worry about Austin. It was just a matter of time until he imploded. He parked the money in your expense account. The stock, like the account, is in both your name and Austin’s. I have power of attorney; the transfer should be a piece of cake. In any event, you’ve got control of your company again. Try not to screw it up.”
Steve sat down on a log and gazed at the grazing dinosaurs. He felt overwhelmed. “I don’t know.”
Ron sat beside him. “Don’t give up now! The hardest part is behind you! D
o you remember what you told me after the lobby was trashed? You said, ‘An undetected virus is like a spy in an organization. Once accepted as one of the fold, you cannot find him without making everyone a suspect.’ You were right. You just didn’t know that Allison was the spy.”
Allison? A spy? Steve turned to Ron. “What are you talking about?”
Click.
Steve froze.
Click.
Syzygy had attacked. Steve’s modified Nexus would protect him; but Ron was another matter.
“What is it?” Ron asked.
“Shh!” Steve scanned the palm trees but saw nothing.
“What’s wrong?” Ron said.
“It’s probably nothing. Try to open a portal.”
Ron shrugged and pressed the button. Nothing happened. “Steve, it doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Exit VR now!” Steve spun around, checking the marsh, searching for movement in the reeds and grass. Still nothing. Where is he? Maybe he’s camouflaged, part of the terrain.
Ron looked up from his left wrist. “It’s not working either.”
Steve pulled out the phaser from his virtual pocket and shot a dinosaur grazing in a field several meters away. It briefly lit up in a bright blue hallo, but continued to graze unaffected.
“What in the hell’s that?” Ron asked.
Syzygy couldn’t bring down my Nexus’ patch. Steve punched his portal button. A seven foot black oval appeared with a wind issuing from it, rustling the surrounding ferns and tall grass. “Jump through!” he shouted.
“You’re messin’ with me, right?” Ron said, looking more concerned.
Steve fired at the pterodactyl in the sky and followed it with a blast at a herd of small dinosaurs, prancing through the meadow grass. Again, nothing.
“I’m not doing anything until you tell me what the hell is going on!” Ron demanded.
Syzygy will just follow Ron through the portal. Damn, what if Syzygy is invisible, not even showing up in VR? What if I don’t even have a target? His heart started to race. He felt panic coming on. Calm down, he told himself. An idea came to him. “Charlie!”
Bounding over a log, the small dog approached, wagging its tail madly. Steve had forgotten to turn Charlie off and he had stayed as a background process, following Steve throughout the Internet.
“Charlie, find the alias Syzygy!”
“Who’s Syzygy?” Ron asked.
The dog ran to a palm tree and sniffed it.
“What is it?” Steve asked.
Charlie proceeded to urinate on the tree.
“Charlie!” Steve said.
The tree’s image quivered. It was Syzygy.
Steve lifted the phaser.
The tree liquefied, metamorphosing into a wall of brown fluid. It flowed toward them.
Ron yelled and stumbled back.
Charlie dove in front of the wall of fluid. It stopped, coiled around the dog, and solidified into a pod.
Charlie struggled to break free of the cocoon. Layers of sinewy muscle flowed over Charlie’s limbs, which jabbed frantically, attempting to punch through.
“Don’t analyze it! Shoot it! Shoot the damned thing!” Ron yelled.
Steve snapped out of his daze and pulled the trigger. A blue halo enveloped the pod, which reverted into a frozen image of Syzygy. The shot had knocked Syzygy off the Internet. He looked around. Charlie had disappeared. “Charlie!”
A copy of the program bounded over a nearby log. “Good boy, can you reset Ron’s interface?”
Charlie barked once.
Steve felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and faced Ron.
“I don’t know what that thing was; but it seems to be after you, my friend.”
39
Allison sat down in front of Ed Davis’ desk in a seat next to Vinnie. Vinnie slouched in his chair and placed his feet on the desk. Ed leveled his gaze at Vinnie. They exchanged a look. Vinnie obliged him and sat up straight.
“Thanks for coming,” Ed said, looking up from a sheet of paper.
Uh, oh, Allison thought. Ed had learned something.
He turned to her. “Do you have any idea why I called you here?” he said, picking up the piece of paper.
“Perhaps,” Allison said, eyeing the paper.
“Would you care to take a guess?”
“Um.” She cleared her throat. “You asked me earlier this week to work with Vinnie, researching Camille Anderson’s death. We found a problem with the Nexus—a defect. It killed her.”
Ed pierced her with a stare. “How long have you known this?”
“Only a couple of days.”
“Why didn’t you tell me right away? I found out about this problem from your mother! A goddamn reporter! Do you know how that looks for the agency, for the President?”
“She was here?” Allison gasped.
He nodded.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Ed fixed her with a finger. “How could you have missed the problem in the first place?”
“We approved the Nexus Transporter in four months instead of two years. A few glitches got through,” she said.
“Oh, was it a glitch that Jamie referred to? That glitch fried people’s brains! In case you haven’t noticed, the list of victims has grown.” Davis handed the piece of paper to her.
Camille Anderson
Shannon Pierce
Skip Harvey
Brooke Donovan
Mike Burns
She cringed. “We had to cut corners to approve the Nexus in time. There was no other way to meet your schedule.”
Ed leaned back. “Oh, so these deaths are my fault now?”
She bit her lip. “No, I’m not saying that!”
“You could have told me the truth, that you were having trouble! I never asked you to lie to me! Bottom line, what’s our liability?”
Allison took a deep breath. “The Nexus has a lethal defect that may kill in the right circumstances. A hardware fix is possible, but it will take two weeks to build the necessary components. I’m working with the Nexus CEO to begin recall proceedings.”
Ed rubbed his temples.
Vinnie spoke up. “Uh, shouldn’t you tell Mr. Davis about Syzygy?”
Oh shit! Allison squirmed.
Ed turned to her. “What about it? What’s Syzygy?”
“An online alias, sir.” Allison nervously crossed her arms. “It appears that someone going by the alias of Syzygy has exploited the defect to kill people online.”
“What? This gets better and better!”
Allison silently shook her head, not knowing what to say.
“Not only have you enabled the release of a hazardous product, but you neglected to tell me about it after the fact. I told you this once. Now try to get this through that thick cranium of yours: this situation could swallow us whole. We might all have to find new lines of work, including the President. Do you understand?”
She nodded. After several minutes, Ed’s gaze released her. She sank back into her chair. Her whole body shook, and her stomach was tied up in knots. Her career was over.
Ed rubbed his brow. “There will be no recall. Too much is at stake. Allison, as I said, Jamie came here to see me about these Nexus deaths. I need you to continue the charade. Talk to her, keep her occupied, but don’t reveal anything. That way you’ll keep out of Vinnie’s hair while he proceeds with the investigation.”
Vinnie smirked at her.
She sank back into her chair, and her gaze dropped to the ground. Inside, she was boiling. She took a deep breath, and her training kicked in. He had caught her lying. Their history meant nothing at this point. He would slowly move her out of the way. Come September, she would be promoted into a dead-end job, another special project. Eventually, when the project was through, she would be routinely let go. She had to regain Ed’s favor.
“Mr. Secretary …”
Ed held his hand up. “We’ve known each other a long time. I knew your father even longer. Pl
ease leave before I say something we’ll both regret.”
Allison had one more card to play, the same card that got her into this mess. As a reporter, her mother had resources that Steve and DARPA did not have. If she could find Syzygy, political pressures would stop Davis from doing anything rash.
Ed’s voice broke through her musing. “I said, you can go.”
She opened a portal.
“One more thing, Allison. Try to remember we’re a team, and there is no ‘I’ in team.”
She nodded her head vacantly and stepped through.
Vinnie rose from his seat.
“Wait, Vinnie,” Ed said.
“What?”
“I wanted to thank you for telling me about the girl’s death. I don’t hold you responsible for what has happened after that. You were just following orders.”
Vinnie gave a terse nod.
He shook his head. “I cannot forgive Allison, though. I’m practically her uncle, for god sakes! I don’t know what got into her.”
Vinnie nodded again in agreement.
“I need you to officially step into her shoes. I want you to be DARPA’s next Director.”
“Will that entail just the title?”
Ed laughed. “If you wanted money, you should have gone into the private sector.”
Vinnie smirked. “True enough, but the question still stands.”
“Let’s see how you handle this situation first. National security isn’t the only reason we have to catch Syzygy.”
Vinnie lost his smirk. “Let me guess, politics?”
Ed nodded. “The fate of I2 Corp is linked with the fate of the Nexus. I don’t need to explain to you what this means. I may be the President’s friend, but when it comes down to it, he is a politician first. We’re both expendable here. If Warscape fails, he’ll blame us.” Ed took a deep breath. “I need to know if you think you can handle this.”