by Isaac Hooke
44
Ari watched the scene unfold groggily from where she lay in the sand.
"No no no!" Seven's voice sounded distant. "I can't reach the Core. What have you done? What have you done!"
Tanner stood behind the Dwarf. A chain dangled from Tanner's fist, connected to the collar.
Seven fell to its knees and struggled to tear the collar free. "No no no!"
Ari smiled. "We did it," she said. Or rather, mouthed. That lightning bolt had affected her worse than she thought.
Her head fell back and darkness veiled her vision.
She opened her eyes in the Outside, to walls of cold metal. To the severed cords on the floor, some sparking with electricity. To the dim slabs of light in the ceiling, one flickering. To the view of the stars outside, and Jupiter with its all-seeing eye. To the broken window and the crumpled desks beneath it that formed a ramp to the dead moon outside. To the wide window frame, rimmed by fragments of glass.
To the glass fragment that had Hoodwink's blood on it.
You've died twice for me now, father. I won't let you down. I swear it.
She lay against a desk, in a protective suit whose metallic skin reflected the light. A thin cord ran from the center of her suit to the desk. This was her umbilical to the Inside, when active.
She looked at Tanner. He was tethered to the desk across from her, the only other desk beside hers that was undamaged. She squinted in the dim light and peered into his helmet. He was awake.
"What happened?" she said.
"You fainted." His voice sounded tinny in her ear. "I got you out after I used the handmirror to disbelieve reality. I hit pretty close to my record of seven minutes."
Her stomach rumbled. The hunger pangs were getting worse. And she had one of those lack-of-food headaches, the kind that insistently drummed the skull with each heartbeat.
"I can't believe you still need that," she said. Though she needed the mirror too. On a good day it took her minutes to disbelieve. On a bad day, hours. Thankfully Tanner could bring her out with a press of a button on that terminal of his. Usually.
She brought a hand to her face, wanting to rub her temples, but her gloved fingers found only the glass of her helmet. "What took you so long to collar the Dwarf anyway? And why didn't you get me out when Seven roped me up like that?"
"Sorry." Tanner sounded sheepish. "The Dwarf had the place shielded somehow." That's right. "I came in outside the shield, and I had to crawl forward in the sand so that Seven wouldn't see me. It was only when you got him to launch his lightning that I had a chance to strike."
"Well, thanks for getting me out." She focused on the inside of her helmet. "How much air do we have?"
In answer, the intelligence that lived in her suit projected a message onto the helmet glass.
Estimated Oxygen: 23 Hours.
"It's only been about a day altogether," Tanner said. "If we keep going Inside, and stay in hibernation? Might have another day left out here. That's at least ten days on the Inside."
"And the Dwarf?"
"Collared, and delivered as promised to our New User friends."
Seven's collar was a specially modified bitch. In addition to blocking vitra, it also dampened the Dwarf's links to the system, and prevented the gol from teleporting from place to place. The collar also had a tracker in it, so Tanner could move the Dwarf where he wanted from that terminal of his. Ari had worried that the gols would eventually track Seven down, and then launch an offensive to get the Dwarf back, so she'd had the New Users prepare a specially fortified holding cell in the Black Den, that section of town known for its murderers and thieves. The whole quarter was cordoned off, and the Black Faction which ruled the Den had implemented an elaborate system of checks and balances to prevent any gol from ever obtaining entrance. Well, those gols they didn't want in, that is. Ari wasn't sure the Faction's promise of protection would be enough, and she'd told those New Users assigned to the Den to flee at the first sign of trouble. She'd already lost too many good men. The death of Marks at Jeremy's hands weighed heavily on her conscience.
"I don't think Seven can talk to Hoodwink anymore," she said.
"What makes you say that?"
"Seven said Hoodwink checks the messages on the Outside. But as you know, Hoodwink isn't here anymore, on the Outside. When I told Seven that I saw Hoodwink die, the gol couldn't believe it."
Tanner was silent a moment. "I was afraid of something like this. We'll just have to go on without Hoodwink for now."
"You're certain he's coming back?" Ari said.
Tanner shifted uncomfortably. "He's coming back. Though I have no idea how, he's coming."
Ari searched for any sign of deceit, but as far as she could tell he was telling the truth. Or believed he was, anyway.
There was something else she hoped he could explain. "The Dwarf mentioned someone—or something—named One who can overhear every message in the system. Have you heard of such a thing?"
"One?" Tanner frowned. "Sounds like an A.I. name. There's different levels of A.I.s in the system. It's a hierarchy of sorts. Each of the numbered A.I.s controls a subset of those beneath it. The lower you go in the hierarchy, the more control you have. If there is a One, it would have indirect control of every last subsystem."
"How about control of Seven?"
Tanner shrugged. "It's possible. But with the damping effects of the collar, we're in control of what reaches Seven, or what the gol sends out."
Even so, she didn't think that was good. She sat back, and the helmet bumped the desk. She cursed quietly.
Her stomach growled. She closed her eyes. What she wouldn't have given for a nice steak right about now.
Tanner's voice spoke rudely in her ear.
"What did you want to be when you were little?" Tanner said.
She looked at him through the glass of her helmet. "Seriously?" When he didn't answer, she couldn't help but smile. "You're flirting with me?"
"It's just a question," Tanner said. "Don't read too much into it."
Her smile widened. "Sure. Just a question. Okay. What I wanted to be when I was a little girl. A princess. No I'm kidding. Well, I remember my father used to take me up on his shoulders when I was little, and he'd walk me to the square by our house. I'd get to see everyone from the same perspective as him. All the merchants in the square. The buyers. The world looked so much smaller from up there. And I knew then I wanted to be someone who could explain the world to others, make it smaller, show it to them from different perspectives."
"Wow, you really got all that out of piggyback rides?"
She laughed. "Yeah."
"But that's not really an occupation," Tanner said.
"No, I suppose not."
"Actually, I got it." He clapped his gloved hands together. "A teacher. You wanted to be a teacher. Am I right? Explaining the world, showing it from different perspectives. That has to be a teacher."
"Sure."
"Hoodwink must have been a good father," Tanner said.
He didn't mean anything by it. Of course he didn't. But Ari literally felt like she'd been struck in the stomach, and she almost threw up.
"No," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
45
"No." Ari closed her eyes. "It was fake. All fake."
"The virtual world, you mean?" Tanner said.
Ari shot him a withering look. "Jeremy's revision! Those memories... the piggyback rides... they weren't real. Injected memories. They weren't of Hoodwink. Though I wish they were."
"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. I forgot."
"I was only eighteen years old when Jeremy took me. Or so they tell me. I don't remember any of it."
Tanner hugged the thin metal of the suit that sheathed his chest, as if he were cold. "I can't imagine what it's like. Being revised. Sure, I was strapped into the machine a few days ago. I saw the island. Saw the vortex of new memories competing with the old. Felt the pain. But I didn't have my memories ripped away and
replaced with something else."
Ari was quiet for a time. "Being revised isn't much different from being on the Inside. Except when you're revised, it's only your memories that are false, rather than the current moment. At least this is real." She waved a hand to indicate the room.
"Is it?" Tanner said.
She cocked her head. "What do you know, Tanner?"
"Nothing."
"Tell me."
Tanner let out a small, nervous laugh. "Ari, I only meant, what we have here, right now. Is this truly real?"
Ari still didn't understand. "You're talking about this room with its cold walls of metal? With its broken window that opens out to a broken moon? Answer me."
Tanner screwed up his lips. "No, I meant between me and you."
"Oh."
The silence stretched.
Tanner was the first to break it. "Ari, I—"
"Tanner," she interrupted. "You're my friend." She'd decided to harden herself after that night with Jeremy. She'd been hard before, in the past, but she'd grown weak lately, and had almost become attached to Tanner. But that was something she couldn't allow. Jeremy, or someone else, might use Tanner to get to her. Jeremy had basically done that very thing already. It wasn't a pleasant experience. She had to stop this now, cut the sapling off at the root before it grew into a full-blown thorn-bush. "We're just friends and that's it. There's nothing more between us. And there can't be, not until this is done."
"That could be years, Ari." He sounded hurt.
Pity welled in her but she forced iron into her voice. "Are you so sure? Feels like we're at a tipping point to me. What we do here, now, in the next few days, will decide the fate of humanity."
"That's a bit melodramatic, and a little self-centered, isn't it?"
"But it's the truth."
"Okay, Teach." He was still flirting.
"Tanner. Look, when this is done, I'll ask you out on a date."
"Oh you will, will you?" Tanner said. She wished he'd wipe that smirk off his face.
"Yes. And until then all I can give you is friendship."
Tanner still didn't seem to get it. "But if the world's ending like you claim, maybe we should hook-up before—"
"Tanner. Shh. Just shh. No more."
He uncrossed his arms. "A date."
"Yes." She smiled at the thought. It'd been so long since she'd gone on a simple date. "A dinner date. Lobster from the agri-tanks of the south. I'll pay."
"Well, it will have to be on the Inside then, but that'll do. I'll hold you to it."
She slapped the floor beside her, signaling the end to this turn of the conversation.
"Come on," she said. "Let's get back. We're wasting precious air. We should be having talks like this on the Inside." Where the moments passed more slowly.
"Sure," Tanner said. "But it's time you learned how to inject Inside on your own. Just in case I'm not around someday. Sidle on up to that Terminal."
"You will be around someday," Ari said. But she forced herself to her feet anyway, and the leg braces inside her suit whirred to life. She hunched over the desk. The "terminal," as he called it, was a glass pad set at an angle in the desk. Words, numbers and pictures were written into the glass.
Tanner began the lesson. "There are more complex user interfaces than these pads of course, especially now that you've linked the terminal with your umbilical. Controlling the thing with your mind is freaking awesome I tell you. It gives direct feedback, right onto the Brodmann area 17 of the occipital lobe. But we'll start with the basics. Fingers on the pad please."
"Brodmann what?" she shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder about you Tanner. You're a little too smart for your own good." And you like to show off those smarts. Well, he had good reason to impress her, she supposed. When you liked someone, and cared about them... no. She wouldn't go there. She wouldn't allow herself any weaknesses.
She rested her fingers on the pad, and Tanner walked her through a test run. She memorized every step.
When it was done, Tanner asked her to repeat the process on her own. She followed the steps Tanner had shown her. She chose the tracker in the mayor's house as her position, and specified where the swords and handmirrors should appear in relation to that position. You could inject to a random place in the city, or in the desert outside the city walls, but if you wanted to go somewhere specific you needed a tracker.
"Done," she said. Her fingers floated above the confirmation message. She almost felt like initiating the entry and confronting Jeremy now. She feared him, more than anything, but she knew also that the longer she delayed, the more that fear would grow. And if she went in alone, she'd be the only one at risk. No other lives would be at stake except her own.
Her finger neared the pad.
"Whoa whoa whoa," Tanner said. "What are you doing Ari?"
"I'll go in alone. Pull me out after thirty seconds. I just want to scout."
"What coordinates did you use?" Tanner said.
Her finger was only a fraction of an inch away. "The tracker in the mayor's house."
On his side of the room, Tanner stood. "Don't you touch that screen, don't you dare. We said we wouldn't make the same rash mistakes we made last time, remember? When Marks died."
Ari's finger retreated from the pad as if she were stung. "You're right. You're absolutely right. What am I doing?"
"Good," Tanner said. "You scared me there."
"I scared myself," she said.
"What if a shield went up after you'd gone in, and I couldn't get you out?"
"You're right, I'm sorry."
The pad beside her was still flashing.
"Mind canceling that?" Tanner nodded toward the pad.
She glanced at it. The words Entry Confirmation were flashing. "Oh." Her finger approached Cancel, but never got there because the text blanked. "What?"
The female voice inside her suit spoke. "Simulator Access Requested. Allow?"
Two options appeared on the inside of the helmet, yes and no.
"What? No. No." She focused on no.
"Ari, what are you doing?" Tanner said. But then she heard him tapping frantically at his own terminal. "What the fu—"
The word yes flashed.
"Access Granted," the female voice intoned.
Ari was sucked Inside.
46
Ari stood once more in the Black Room, that brooding chamber with its too-tight walls, ceiling and floor. The chamber that haunted her nightmares.
The chamber where Jeremy had tortured Marks to death.
She waited for someone to rush her. For Jeremy's mocking voice. For shackles to close around her arms and legs. For something.
But the room remained still.
The place was dark, lit only by the dim glow of the fire swords she'd placed as part of the inject. The table was clear of torture implements today. She searched the floor in front of it, and felt the small abrasion where she'd injected the tracker the last time she was here.
Motion drew her attention to the right.
It was just Tanner.
"Why did you send us in?" she said. "I thought you were all for making a plan first?"
Tanner shook his head. "I didn't do this. We were pulled in. By what, I'm not sure. The germ has affected the entry subsystem, maybe." He was dressed in the livery of a household servant, just as she was.
"Great. Just great." She picked up one of the fire swords and felt the surge of vitra from the hilt. It was a comfort. Vitra always was.
The blade brightened, sending the shadows fleeing. On the steel was etched a fire-spitting raven, its wings trailing cinders.
Tanner grabbed the other sword. Ari stashed the handmirror from the table into a pocket of her livery.
"Wait," Tanner said. "Let's just go back."
"Sure, you can start heading back," Ari said. Tanner was faster than her at disbelieving reality, but even his record with the mirror was still seven minutes. So although she hated this place, she found herself adding,
"And meanwhile I'll have a look around. Might as well." She wanted to confront her fears now before they worsened. Maybe she'd come across Jeremy while he slept. That would be perfect. She'd wake him up just long enough to stare into his eyes and let him know who killed him.
But she doubted it would be that easy. It never was. His bedsheets would probably come alive and choke her.
"What did we just talk about?" Tanner said. "About having plans and all?"
"Something's not right," Ari said.
"Of course something's not right." Tanner folded his arms. "We were sucked in here against our will."
She ignored him, and peered into the hallway, using the sword's glow as her torch. She heard Tanner curse in frustration behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and offered him the mirror. "As I said, you can start disbelieving reality whenever you want."
He batted the mirror aside. "We take a quick look around, then we go. Got it?"
"Fine." She would have preferred to do this alone, but apparently Tanner wasn't going to let her.
The hallway outside looked innocent enough. White walls, gold-rimmed red carpet.
Except none of the candelabras were lit.
"This is damn peculiar," Ari said. "Jeremy always keeps his candles lit. He's kind of afraid of the dark."
"Jeremy?" The disbelief was obvious in Tanner's voice. "Doesn't seem the type to be scared of monsters in the night."
"It's not monsters he's afraid of. It's assassins."
"Ah." Tanner peered down the hall. "Maybe he's abandoned the place?"
"Then it's a good thing we came after all." Ari moved the blade to and fro, illuminating various sections of the corridor. "Imagine we'd spent days preparing and making plans, only to come here and find the place empty? The Control Room moved?"
The Control Room was sourced from a Box—little more than a bedside chest—that, once opened, expanded into a complete operational center that let one monitor every gol in the city. When closed, the Control Room would fold back into its Box, allowing it to be transferred from the house of the outgoing mayor to the new one.
She edged forward, keeping to the space between the wall and the rug, while Tanner took the opposite side of the hall. Both of them were very careful not to touch the carpet. The last time she was here, a certain incident had soured her to carpets. Ari didn't like it so much when the rug you stood on grew hands and snatched you. But who was to say the walls or ceiling wouldn't grow limbs too? The thought made her quicken her step.