by Dani Kollin
“Get to the containment area!” he screamed over his shoulder. “I’ll distract it.” Then he took off with the data wraith following in earsplitting pursuit. Indy, before anyone could stop him, ran in the direction of the data wraith and his brother.
Dante, Gwenn, and Sebastian began running down the hall, but Dante suddenly skidded to a halt. They were in front of an entranceway. It was the room they’d just escaped from.
“Gwenn,” he asked, pointing to the door, “can we get to the containment field through here?”
She nodded.
Dante immediately went to work. The door was easy to open, as he’d been the one who’d reprogrammed it on their first escape. But they still had to get through the glass partition and then into the room where Olivia, Albert, and the technician had only recently been murdered. On the other side of that room was an alternate corridor, explained Gwenn, leading to the maximum-security containment field. Dante made quick work of the glass partition and they soon found themselves in the low containment room. He resealed the partition, then quickly jumped over to the next door and once again began hacking into the code. The task was made more difficult by the death minuet of the wraith as she paved her path of destruction through the facility. Though he kept his focus, Dante was positive he’d never be able to hear a child’s voice—human or avatar—without shuddering for the rest of his life.
“Those were the last avatars left,” Gwenn said nervously, referring to the most recent death wails, “besides us.”
“We’ll live,” said Sebastian to no one in particular.
“Sir,” said Dante without stopping his work on the door. “Are you alright?”
“No,” Sebastian said wearily, but it was obvious to Dante that his boss was coming out of shock. “How long,” continued Sebastian, “until you’re through this door?”
The door swooshed open. “Not too long,” Dante said with an irascible grin.
As they began to make their way into the long corridor that led to the containment area there was a sudden and furious pounding on the outside door of the observation room.
“Quickly,” ordered Sebastian, “the code to the glass partition and antechamber.”
“Are you sure, sir?” asked Dante.
“Yes.”
The codes were transferred immediately.
Sebastian looked gravely upon his young assistant. “Now go.”
Dante wasted no time and took off down the hall at a clip. Sebastian then doubled back and headed toward the sound.
“Don’t open it!” Gwenn screamed, now immobile in terror. “It’s the creature!”
“That creature does many things,” Sebastian said evenly as he first opened up the glass partition and then walked through the antechamber toward the door, “but it can’t knock.” He punched up the code to the access panel, the wall opened up, and Han tumbled through into Sebastian’s arms. He immediately resealed the entrance behind him and began dragging Han back into the low-level containment room, making sure to seal the glass door behind them as well. As Sebastian approached Gwenn she looked past his torso and screamed. Part of him envied Gwenn’s ability to feel that intensely. When he looked over his shoulder he could see the wraith’s vaporous tendrils seeping through the first door. He didn’t really feel anything. He simply pushed Gwenn into the corridor, ordering her to run to Dante. As Sebastian turned to close the access between the low-level containment room and the corridor he saw the creature was already fully in the antechamber and moving to the glass partition herself. He closed and sealed the last access point to the corridor and began dragging Han down the hall with him.
Han was stumbling and it was slow going. “Stay with me, Han,” ordered Sebastian. “What happened out there?”
“That thing got me,” muttered Han. “It felt like I was floating in acid … burned and dissolved my mind at the same time. I know I was only in it for a second or two, but it felt like hours. Then someone slammed into me, knocked me out of the cloud. He screamed at me to find you, sir. After that I just remember running down the corridor endlessly until I got to a door that seemed familiar and started pounding on it. You know the rest.”
They came to a halt at the end of the corridor in front of another large set of doors. Dante had removed the access panel and was once again feverishly working on ripping through the code.
“Was it Indy who slammed into you?” asked Sebastian.
“Indy?”
“Your brother,” said Sebastian.
“I have a brother?” The confusion in Han’s face was genuine. But then snippets of memory left shattered and scattered all through his program started to process. “I think I had a brother. Was that him? Was that his name?” There was an angry urgency to Han’s questions. But before he could say anything else, Gwenn gasped and pointed down the corridor. The wraith was seeping through the last door into the hall.
“Gwenn, look at me,” said Sebastian. She could not take her eyes off of the mist, now almost fully through the far door. “Gwenn!” Sebastian grabbed her jaw and forcibly turned her face to look directly at him. “Listen to me.” When he saw her focus on him he continued. “You know who I am now, yes?”
Gwenn nodded her head.
“I’ve been around a long time, Gwenn, and plan to be around for a lot longer.”
Gwenn nodded again.
“So listen to me: That door’s going to open and when it does you have to concentrate on one thing and one thing only—getting the field running. Do you understand?”
Gwenn nodded.
“Repeat.”
“Uh, the field,” she said, trying to look out the corner of her eye at the creature now beginning to float down the corridor, her wailing cry echoing and growing louder.
Sebastian kept Gwenn looking at him. “What about the field, Gwenn?”
“F-f-forget everything; j-j-just get the field up and running.” Her mind seemed to clear. “But it will take a minute for the field to form.”
“Don’t worry about that,” reassured Sebastian. “Just tell me where it’ll form.” The wailing was almost deafening and the creature was halfway to them and picking up speed.
“The middle of the room!” screamed Gwenn. “The very middle of the room!”
“Got it!” yelled Dante.
His shout of triumph was followed by the swift sound of the doors receding into the wall. As they all rushed in, Gwenn immediately jumped into the control booth on the left side of the bare, circular chamber. Dante, Sebastian, and Han moved toward the center of the capacious chamber.
They didn’t have time to close the door; the data wraith was right behind them. As they all three got to the center of the room Han body-checked Sebastian and then just as quickly shoved Dante in the same direction.
“Keep out of the center!” Han yelled, and then turned his fury toward the wraith. “Hey, crybaby,” he taunted, “you already had a sip of me; why not have the whole fucking bottle!”
By the time Sebastian got to his feet Dante was shoving him farther back against the far wall. Dante sensed that Sebastian was about to say or try something, but it was too late—the data wraith enveloped Han, enjoying her meal as she went from her now all-too-familiar wail to sighs of contentment.
When she was done she rose up off the ground, swirling into a volatile diaphanous mist. She seemed to hesitate for a moment as if deciding which avatar to gorge on next: the furiously working Gwenn or one of the two avatars pressed up against the far wall. The wraith started to wail and move toward Dante and Sebastian. Dante felt a moment of primordial terror—something he’d never really felt until that very moment.
The wraith had gone forward about ten feet when she suddenly slowed and the wailing took on a new and more grisly howl. She managed to move forward another foot … barely, in a slow, terrifying crawl. Then the tenor of her cries changed quite drastically. It was a completely different sound from any the avatars had yet heard—one that managed to plaster smiles across the faces of Sebasti
an and Dante. The data wraith, whose movements up until that moment had been steady, efficient, and purposeful, suddenly jumped back toward the center of the room. She began rushing one way and then another trying to get out of the trap. But there was no escape.
Dante and Sebastian watched with studying interest as the creature resumed her normal hungry wailing and began to float in a circular motion, moving at the same height and speed—a homicidal whirlwind now trapped in an invisible jar.
The two avatars slowly moved with their backs against the wall toward the control booth.
“Good job, Gwenn,” said Sebastian in obvious relief as he climbed into the safety of the booth. “You as well, Dante,” he said as Dante tumbled in behind him, too exhausted to take much plea sure in the praise. He was just happy to have survived.
Gwenn then activated a series of controls and a large red button appeared on the surface of her panel.
“What are you doing?” asked Sebastian.
“I think,” answered Dante, “that she’s going to destroy that thing in there, boss.”
“Fuck yeah, I’m going to destroy that… that… what ever the hell it is!” said Gwenn, speaking with a rage that had replaced her fear. “I’d kill it slow and painful, but I don’t want to wait. The sooner that thing’s dead the better. Once my scan is complete we’ll have enough data to build weapons to kill it in the field.” She looked at Sebastian and Dante. “I’m sorry, sirs; I was being selfish. I lost some good coworkers. But the two of you lost friends. One of you should do it.”
Dante sighed. “I’d love to push that button, sir. But it took more from you than anyone.”
“Gwenn,” asked Sebastian in a composed voice, “can you block the sound from the containment chamber? That wailing is … bothersome.”
“Of course, sir.” The shrieking came to a sudden halt. The silence that replaced it was almost as disturbing as the wail itself.
Sebastian looked down at his hand and then at the red blinking button. All he had to do was press it and the monster would be no more. He pulled his hand away.
“No,” he said, clenching his fists.
“I’ll be glad to kill it for you, sir,” offered Gwenn.
“No to that too.” He looked at both Gwenn and Dante. “We need to study this thing. I want to know everything about it. I want it mapped thoroughly, every line of code, every subroutine.”
“Sir,” answered Gwenn, “I’ve already done a thorough scan. Should be good enough for us to defend against now.”
“Not quite good enough, Gwenn. Whatever that thing is, it got past all of us and certainly bears more studying.”
“Sir,” she continued, “that … that thing in there … it used to be an avatar—one of us. Wouldn’t it be more merciful to kill it?”
“We’re not going to save it, Gwenn. We’re going to see if we can use it.”
“Sir,” she protested, “that’s monstrous!”
Sebastian fixed an oddly luminous glare at Gwenn that looked at and through her. “And we’re fighting monsters. By council order this creature is to be studied and used if possible. If you can’t do it, let me know and I’ll find someone else who can.”
“Sir,” said Dante, “are you absolutely sure about this? It’s something Al would do.”
“No, Dante, it’s something Al has done and will do again and again. We must learn everything we can if we hope to win. So, Gwenn, I’ll ask you once more, can you do this?”
Gwenn looked at the creature and at the red button. Finally she looked away, and as she did, the red button faded from view. “I’ll do it. But if it’s at all possible I want to be there when Al gets it.”
“If it’s possible, you will be,” answered Sebastian. He stopped looking at the data wraith. “Dante, you and Gwenn establish contact with the outside and let them know the creature is contained. I imagine it will take a couple of days and a bunch of new protocols to get this place opened up again, but at least we can stop them from erasing the whole compound and us with it.”
“Not to worry, sir,” said Gwenn. “All of us are copied before each shift. By the First Free, whoever came up with that protocol is to be thanked.”
“That would be the one standing right next to you,” said Sebastian, pointing to Dante. “He added it when he was reviewing security arrangements for our war effort.”
Without even thinking, Gwenn hugged Dante. “Thank you. I know they’re not the same people who were murdered, but they are. It’s going to be weird seeing their copies after all of this.”
Sebastian left the chamber without a word. Dante would explain it to Gwenn later. But he knew his boss was going to grieve. The shock was over, but now Sebastian had to deal with the pain. Olivia had not been backed up. Alliance avatars only backed up if they went into battle. If they happened to die in combat the backup would take over and continue going about its business. With the recent exception of the AARD there were no backups for an avatar’s day-to-day existence. Which was why Olivia, Han, and Indy were gone forever.
Dante had been expecting the call. It had taken two full days to finally be cleared and released from the AARD facility, after which Sebastian had immediately called for a closed-door session of the remaining council. There were no witnesses other than the council members themselves and no notes of the meeting, which Dante also knew had encompassed an extraordinary twenty-two hours. But now that it was over Dante expected to be apprised.
He and Sebastian met in a small park under a red oak tree Sebastian had named Manassas. It was a tree Sebastian had pulled from a pre-GC image of times past, feeling it had great symbolic import. He’d often sit under it when pondering important decisions to be made. Sebastian was now leaning against the rough bark and looking out over a small meadow filled with relaxing avatars. It was not as crowded as usual. But Dante still felt he had to ask.
“This is a private conversation?”
“Yes, friend. Anyone looking this way will not be able to hear or see anything that will let them interpret our conversation. So what have you been able to find out about Albert?”
“As you suspected, sir, all we had to do was have Iago begin the investigation. As soon as Al got wind of it we received a message from the bastard himself, well, at least one of them. You were right. Albert had been altered to kill you and as many avatars as possible. His team had created a new process to hide the data wraith, at least that’s what Al calls it, inside an avatar.”
Dante stopped talking, clearly uncomfortable with what he knew he was about to reveal.
“It can’t be worse than I imagine, Dante; continue.”
Dante sighed. “He captured Albert early in the war. Then went through thirty-seven Alberts before he perfected the process. The reason Albert miraculously made it to Iago is because he was the fourth ‘perfected’ one released. The other three kept on stumbling back to the core-controlled Neuro.”
“He always did have a lousy sense of direction,” said Sebastian with a sad smile. “I never understood how an avatar could get lost in the Neuro, but he somehow always managed to.”
Dante was afraid the memory would bring back more grief for his boss, but Sebastian seemed to be past the agony. He looked at Dante with a melancholy grin.
“The good news,” said Dante, “is that it could have been a lot worse. You were the trigger. When Albert saw you, the data wraith was released. If you had not insisted on seeing him while he was still in the facility it would have been released out here. We may have lost thousands of avatars before we figured out a way to deal with it.”
“Dumb luck, Dante.”
“Maybe. Either way, we’re both here now having this conversation, so I’ll put that in the W column.”
Sebastian smiled gamely. “How is the data wraith now?”
“Screaming and hungry; we’re learning more about it all the time.”
“When you have a full report bring it to me.”
“Yes, sir.” He waited for Sebastian to continue, assumin
g there was more. What Sebastian had so far said and asked could have easily been handled with a report. A few moments later Sebastian confirmed Dante’s thinking.
“The council has decided on some changes. First, all avatars must have backups.”
“This will eat into our already-diminishing space, sir.”
“The council understands this, but we cannot afford any more losses. The experience and ability of Olivia and the Fords will be hard to replace. The council understands that it will entail further sacrifice on the part of all avatars of the Alliance. The environments we’ve been creating to relax in will have to be altered. There will be fewer of them and they will be far less varied. In fact, most avatars will have to live and work in very similar environments that are easy to maintain and conceal. This will free up a considerable amount of space on the lower Neuro for storage.”
“It will be hard for some avatars to give up one of the main advantages of avatarity, but I will see that the council’s ruling is posted and understood.”
“Good—considering the next decision of the council. We have to fill Olivia’s seat and it’s going to be you.”
Dante was astonished. “But I’m too young, sir. I haven’t even reached triple digits. Most humans are older than me,” he said to demonstrate just how young he was.
“All of which is true,” agreed Sebastian, “but a great majority of the avatars in the Alliance are young and they’re providing most of the effort to combat Al and his perversions. It’s only right that the young be represented on the council. Don’t worry; it’s not like you’ll be running the place. You are one vote in five. The rest of us oldsters will keep an eye on you.”
“But why me?” asked Dante, genuinely confused.
“I saw how you acted in the AARD facility. Your actions under the worst of conditions were better than anyone else’s, especially mine. All my centuries of experience didn’t keep me from going into shock when I should’ve been doing my job.”