Fixer 13

by G. Michael Smith

  Chapter 41: Greenway Safe

  In the time of Jayne Wu, the survival of the human species was far from assured. The Swarm was coming. The only thing that changed, since the discovery, were the holes and the spinners. The wall of rock was better described as a chaotic ball of loose rock. Inside that massive ball of rock that was hurtling toward the solar system, were sub-swarms that rotated as if they had already coalesced into planets. Large masses close together were doing what large masses do. They were gradually coming together and forming one much larger mass. They started to spin just like any planet might spin. Some were already massive. This joining, of a billion asteroids into a spinning mass of large masses, created holes in the approaching wall of rock. Some of the holes became so large that things might slip through. Even things as big as a solar system.

  Two months passed. Jayne woke and slipped out of the wooden bunk onto a cold floor of boards worn shiny and smooth by 200 years of feet. The cabin was very old, tucked away in a temperate rainforest on some small island in the Pacific Northwest. She had been recuperating here for nearly two months. She was going a little stir crazy with the lack of company.

  She was now Jayne Wu again. Cassie Kai had been transferred off Biome 7 to a planet-side job after the fiasco in the tunnels. A rumor was circulated that she had only received the job because her father was high up in some government agency or other. The altered records, that resurrected Miss Kai from the dead, reverted back to their original state. Cassandra Kai had, once again, died at age 5. No one was found to be responsible for the deaths and the injection of concrete foam into the tunnels was chalked up to a miscommunication.

  Jayne now knew that Professor Greenway had come upon the canyon and found Joseph Kane’s body and nothing else. There was no evidence as to the actual cause of his death. The entire area had been sanitized. It was assumed he tripped and fell and hit his head on a sharp rock. Poppy had arrive eight minutes after the distress call from Jayne but, by then, she was gone and Joseph was dead. He had suspicions about where she was taken, but he could not pin down her exact location. He had been monitoring the communication frequencies for something from the Sergio Partelli homing beacon. Finally, it came.

  As soon as Jayne called the suit to her and put it on, it became active and signaled Greenway. He had been able to communicate through the suit and get her to safety. She was being held in a university lab on the California coast. Once found, getting her out was simple.

  He brought her here to recuperate. At first, she embraced the solitude. But that had not lasted. She knew she had to get out and be with some people or go crazy. Poppy visited her once a week. There was a security detail, but the men never socialized with her. Jayne suspected that the security people were not really people at all, but automatons with rather limited brain power.

  To kill the boredom, she had taken to paddling a canoe out on the tiny lake that practically surrounded the cabin built on a small treed spit. This morning she grabbed a piece of fruit, walked out on the wharf, untied the canoe and paddled out on the mist-covered lake. She kept in shape by timing herself paddling around the lake as fast as she could. This morning, the silence seemed infinite. She could hear nothing but the dip of the paddle and the drops of water falling from the end of the upstroke. She reached the far side, out of sight of the cabin, when she felt a warning signal in her head that something was different. She had not felt this warning the whole time at the cabin. She let the canoe glide through the water until it stopped. She looked over the side at her reflection. She had not fixed her hair this morning. There was no one to fix it for. The water rippled from a drop falling from her paddle. She blinked and looked again at her reflection. The old dead woman was looking back at her and grinning. She slapped the reflection with her paddle and the shattered image coalesced back into her own face, messy hair and all.

  She started paddling again, and tried to push the image of the dead scientist out of her head. Suddenly she heard a sound. She stopped paddling and listened. At first there was nothing and then she heard her name. “Thirteen. Thirteen.” The sound was coming from the wharf. She listened again and recognized Poppy’s voice. It held no concern. Jayne relaxed and paddled quickly to the cabin. She followed a straight line, instead of her usual path around the edge of the lake. It would only take her a few minutes.

  Poppy came into view. She waved and he waved back. As she approached the wharf, Professor Greenway called to her, “Nice morning for a paddle. I suppose you would like to stay here in this idyllic place forever but I have to tell you that—.”

  Jayne interrupted him. “Are you kidding? I have to get out of here before I go mad. Where am I going?”

  “Tie up the canoe and meet me at the cabin,” he said and walked away.

  Jayne quickly removed her life jacket, tied the canoe to the wharf and ran after him.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked, sniffing the honey sweet tea.

  “I brought a thermos with me. Would you like some?” he asked.

  “Not until you tell me where I am going and what is to happen with my life,” she said, as she pulled up a chair and sat beside him.

  He sipped and warmed his hands on the cup. “Getting chilly here. The leaves have started to turn and the rains will be back soon.”

  “Yes, and Jayne will drown herself in the lake if she has to listen to anymore of this drivel. Poppy, would you please spill the proverbial beans?” she ordered.

  “Alright. I forgot how impatient you are.” He sipped his tea and grinned as Jayne tangled her fingers into her rather messy hair and pretended to pull it out. “Here is the list. It is not really open to discussion, so I will read the items:

  —You will endure a 48-hour complete connectome scan when you leave here. I will record it. The purpose is to be discussed later.

  —You will be required to do a weekly one-hour update of that scan. I always want the latest version of you that is no more than a week old.

  —You are going back to HUB 169 to complete your studies. It is still waiting for your return. According to your record, and all your friends and acquaintances, you have been recovering from an illness you caught in the jungles of Biome 3. If anyone asks for details, just claim ignorance. After all, you are a thirteen-year-old kid.”

  “I get to go back!” exclaimed Jayne, as she clapped her hands with glee. She stopped and her expression changed to concern. “What about the Forevers? What if they come after me?”

  “I don’t think they will, anyway not right away. Dr. Winter Bancroft is dead and Thurston, aka Ranovich 91, is in detention. We did not know what to charge him with, so we charged him with the murder of himself. As far as the courts are concerned, Ranovich murdered Thurston. That was my idea,” said Greenway. “As for other Forevers that may be after you…. Well, we will just have to wait and see.”

  “I will fight back if they come for me!” she said defiantly.

  “You are out in the open now. They will be a lot more cautious and we will be much more alert to their activities. Now, as I was saying:

  —You will return to the classroom and study and practice. Exactly what, will be discussed in great detail later, but I will say it has to do with training for infiltration,” he continued, as he watched her reaction.

  “Infiltration? What the heck does that mean? Who or what will I be infiltrating?” She burst out the words.

  “All in good time, my dear,” he said condescendingly. “Now, as I recall, I was on number five. Yes, number five.

  —You will get an upgrade to the suit. It has proven itself invaluable and so you will continue to use it.”

  “That, and seeing my friends, are the only two things I like.” She looked up at his frowning face. “But I will endure the rest.”

  “Good! Now you need to get cleaned up. You have very little to pack so I will give you 30 minutes to get ready,” he said. He glanced at the time on his VID. “You will find
a new VID with your things. Please sync with it.”

  “Where are we going first?” Jayne asked.

  “The location and purpose are ‘need to know’ and you do not need to know. Now, hurry up if you want to get out of here,” he said cryptically.

  “Yes, Boss,” she said and she saluted him.

  An hour later, they were in a flier headed back to HUB 169. Jayne was so happy to be in her old haunts that she never questioned Professor Greenway. She simply followed him. They arrived at the port and walked to a PUT pad array. Poppy gestured for her to come closer to him. He reached out and tied a blindfold over her eyes.

  “Boy, this is really secret. You realize that this PUT pad will not tell me where we are going. There is no need for a blindfold,” she said and she pulled it down and peeked over the top.

  “Just do what you are told or I will take you back to the cabin,” he threatened with a grin.

  “OK, OK, but this is silly,” she responded, as she stepped on the PUT pad. A few seconds later, she felt Poppy’s hand reach out and lead her off the PUT pad and through a door. Jayne breathed deep. She had no idea where she was or why she was there. That fact made her tense. She was actually afraid that this was not going to turn out well. “Poppy? What is going on? I don’t like this.”

  “Relax,” he said. He reached up and untied her blindfold.

  Jayne blinked a few times to bring the image into focus and, in front of her, was a large sign that read:

  ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THIRTEEN!’

  There was a huge shout of “SURPRISE!” from behind her. She turned and was rushed by Sara, Josie, Olive and Spike. The room was filled with apprentices and GravBall players. Jayne had forgotten that she was one year older today. Today she was fourteen. Today was her birthday.

  “God, I missed you,” bubbled Sara. “I hope you are better. I heard you got that virus. There were a whole bunch of fixers that got sick from that mutated virus in Biome 3. Some didn’t survive. I’m sure glad you did.”

  “I knew you were much too tough for a little old virus,” chimed Spike. He punched her on the shoulder. “You are sure looking good. How old are you today anyway?” he asked.

  Jayne turned to him with an odd smile on her face and spoke in a rough voice that was an octave lower than her normal voice. “One hundred and nineteen years old!” she rasped. She shook her head, bent over and put both hands to her mouth. The nausea flooded her guts and her eyes bulged. She pushed it away, tried to straighten up, but her knees gave way.

  “You OK?” asked Olive, reaching out to support Jayne. “I heard that the virus really hangs on.”

  “I’m fine. I was just being funny. I’m only fourteen. I just feel like I’m much older sometimes, with the virus and all,” lied Jayne. She forced a weak smile onto her face.

  A bubble was begging to form; to encase her; to slow time so she could analyze what had happened. Jayne breathed out slowly and then she knew there was no need for the bubble. She knew what had happened. She knew who had spoken; spoken through her, for she had recognized the rat in her mind. She had seen the telltale turds scatter, as the tail of the rat whipped and vanished. Some of the old woman was left behind in her head. The old crone had set up house in her head. Jayne looked up at the Happy Birthday sign again but the words had been transformed. The sign said something different:

  ‘It will never be over, Bitch!’

  Jayne shook her head and ‘Happy Birthday, Thirteen!’ reappeared on the sign. She smiled. She knew there would be plenty of time to cage the rat and pick her mind clean of pestilence.

  She filled her cheeks with air, puffed it all out and said, “I hope there is cake.”

  Appendix 1: The Gravity Tube

  Any object that approached the gravity tube was pushed gently inward. The playing field curved upwards at its edges to a maximum of 30 degrees. It measured 30 metres across at the 30-degree level. The playing field was made up of normal gravity except the areas surrounding the gravity lines. The following is a diagram of an arena:

  Gravity Ball

  Professional Gravity Ball was played in a tube that was 120 metres long and 32 metres from the floor to the top of the goal panels that stretched across the circular ends. A line of cameras and lights ran from end-to-end, strung just above the goal ends. These lines were protected from player and ball contact by transparent tubing and anti-gravity fields. The goals sitting at each end consisted of horn-like openings that tapered down to a tube only slightly larger than the ball. Once the ball entered the goal, it was spit randomly out of one of four tubes that were equally spaced across the floor on the center line. The goals were placed off-center in the end walls. The end walls rotated randomly, in both time and distance, moving each goal randomly closer to and further from the center point of the end wall.

  There were seven evenly-spaced gravity lines, 3.25 metres apart, extending from one end of the tube to the other. They could change shape from straight to curved. You could not see the gravity lines but you could feel them. The gravity along the entire line could be increased or decreased from normal. The strength of the gravity was the same along the whole length of the line, except in the case of a pulsar. The strength of the gravity varied from line to line. Both the shape of the lines and the strength of the gravity varied throughout game play. All other areas had normal gravity strength. The gravity strength at any given position on the floor extended up to the top of the tube to form a curtain of gravity, but it was referred to as a line. All lines were one metre in width.

  The number of players on a given team was not limited. More players meant a better signaler and knocker system. This came with a price, as the value of each goal would be dramatically reduced. Players would spread out and communicate the location, strength, shape and potential movement of the gravity lines and the goal. The BC (ball carrier) would choose a line that would take him close enough to the goal to score. The BC could only travel on grav lines. Any player bumped off a grav line could not reenter the same line until he/she had entered at least one other line. Other players could go anywhere. Knockers could only knock on the grav lines. They could knock the BC or the seeker off the grav lines. The BC could change at any point during the game but the change must always be a back pass. The opponent team would block all forward progress of the BC in an attempt to recover the ball. (Rules of blocking are too complex for this brief overview.)

  Scoring was determined by the number of players in the tube at the start of play. Equal numbers of players would result in ten points for a goal. As that ratio shifted, so the value of a goal shifted inversely. For example:

  Team A—12 players—a goal would result in a score of 7

  (10 x (OPP/HOME)) = 10 x (8/12) = 10 x .67 = 6.7 points

  Team B—8 players—a goal would result in a score of 15

  (10 x (OPP/HOME)) = 10 x (12/8) = 10 x 1.5 = 15 points

  This scoring system made for some intriguing strategies in game play.

  (… continued in Master Fixer, Book Two of The Forevers)