Less Than Human (35 page)

“Which country?”

He didn’t answer.

“What happens to me, physically?” In spite of herself she wanted to know what it felt like. Wanted to know if it was real.

Fujinaka/Gagiel grabbed her left arm and wound the bandages off her hand. They came off easily, only sticking a bit around
the fingertips. It wasn’t as unpleasant-looking as she’d expected. They’d attached biometal to her fingertips and three long
strands down the tendons on the back of her hand. There weren’t any obvious ports—perhaps the whole surface of the metal was
sensitized. Purple bruises mottled the skin. Without the painkillers it would hurt like hell.

“Sit down.” Gagiel’s fingers dug into her shoulders as he pulled her down into the chair beside Akita and tugged the straps
tight. Panic welled in her throat like vomit.

She glanced sideways. Akita looked into nothing and thrust his artificial hand into one of the apertures, almost up to the
elbow. His body stiffened immediately, and his head thrust back against the headrest. His eyes rolled slowly upward, and Eleanor
looked away from the sight.

My God, what if he
has
developed a direct interface? Everything we do with computers will change. She felt herself on the crest of a swell that
could build to a tidal wave, ready to crunch down on life as they knew it.

Before Fujinaka could do it for her, she poked her hand into the hole.

Gentle resistance surrounded her fingers, as if she’d put her hand in a huge pot of glue. She flexed her fingers experimentally.
As they widened, suddenly they were locked in. She couldn’t move them at all. And she couldn’t move her body, either. Sparks
of pain shot up her arm and her breath faltered with the shock.

Another memory of sudden fear rose unbidden—several years ago Masao took her to one of the popular indoor fun parks. They
rode a huge roller coaster, and she thought that because it was inside a building it might not be as scary …

She fell, screaming, Masao’s grip on her wrist leaving a bruise … but he wasn’t there now. Nor could she hear the rattle of
the machinery or the frenetic music, but she was still falling. She plummeted into a dark abyss—her heart should have faltered,
her head should have swollen with blood, her arms and legs should have flailed against rushing air.

But not only was she unafraid, she couldn’t do anything like that. She could “feel” herself—she still had a tongue to run
around her teeth and fingers to clench into fists, but she couldn’t touch the world around her. All she knew was the certainty
of falling. How did she know? Lights flashed by all around her. Yet when she focused on one, it stopped. Or she stopped. She
tried to touch the light but it winked out, and she fell again. The universe expanded, and she grew smaller in comparison
until the weight of her own insignificance smothered her.

Don’t panic, she told herself. If Akita can do this, you can. Panic is only a shadow, a habit of mind unsupported by sensation
or enzyme. You don’t have a body to fall with.

Think. If this console connects me—whatever “I” am in here—to a network, there should be an exit point.

It wasn’t dark, after all. When she noticed something, it lit up, although she didn’t understand how light was possible without
eyes to see it. She couldn’t stop classifying the world in terms of sensation; it was a million-year-old habit, after all.

The “light” showed her that the place was more than just a hole—it branched in crystalline towers and bridges in all the directions.
As she noticed more of the structures around her, the dive slowed. She imagined feathers, parachutes, gentle updrafts, and
her fall slowed further. When she looked at a part of the structure, that part grew closer. Or maybe her “looking” created
the details …

The crystalline maze around her had a definite order. Akita had done it, developed a direct interface. The programmer’s dream
come true. A pity she couldn’t feel elation, any more than she could feel terror.

She explored the grottos of light and ever-changing forms, and concentrated on one of the crystal towers. It zoomed close,
and she began to fall into it, but one of the sidewalls extruded a tongue that flicked her away. She tried a different tower.
This one let her fall in.

She could identify myriad patterns. They clicked as a word—“systems.” Then “subsystems.” This must be the part of the computers
networked at the Silver Angels’ hideaway. The interfering tongue must be a protection program.

Below her, rushing closer, flecks of light flicked off a swirling hole. It irised shut, then opened again. A gate, she thought.
To the outside?

Lilith.
Akita’s spoke to her without voice. Or he might have said
McGuire
or
Eleanor.
He called her, at any rate.
You must practice manipulating the Microcosm.

Something—in the sensory world it would be a shadow—hovered around her as she fluttered around.

Did they share thoughts in here? She tried thinking of Akita falling off his chair while his mind was occupied here, but got
no response. Then she “said,”
What kind of practice?

Find a body to touch the world of sense,
he replied.

I have a body,
she started to say, then realized what he meant. She skimmed a narrow orifice, surrounded by a simpler edifice. Another tower
to fall into. But she was buffeted by unseen currents and slid away, falling. No control. Was this how Nakamura felt when
he tried to manipulate the Kawanishi robot from miles away? No wonder it hit Mito.

She tried falling into the smaller tower again, thinking slow and subtle …

And she had a body again.

She felt … hard, flat … ridges so must turn … dark/light … movement, so must stop. Wheels, gears. Activation sequence. She
was a helpbot, perhaps the one she saw earlier. Simple infrared sensors told her there were several people in the room. She
tried to make the helpbot move and immediately it turned into the wall with a grinding of gears. Just like the one she saw
in the corridor with Mari.

Manipulating the Microcosm was harder than it looked.

Someone gave an order to her audio sensors, which translated into
get me some water.
This time she waited while the helpbot’s program responded, and all she had to do was follow along as it filled a glass from
a low sink and carried the water on its “head” tray. Fascinating to watch the complex sequence from inside.

Pile of junk,
said the person after grabbing the glass.

Oh yeah? bristled Eleanor. She activated the carrying arm program and tweaked it enough to whack the person in the shin. Loud
cries jammed her audio receiver.

Very good,
purred Akita.
You are the most advanced pupil I have ever had. See what else we may do to influence the Microcosm.

She drew back from the helpbot, back to the crystal towers and currents.

The shadow of Akita’s presence extended around part of the tower’s pale filigree, and it dulled. That small subsystem would
malfunction. No wonder he could enter her Betta without an ID, part of her mind remembered.

If Akita could enter her Betta, perhaps she could enter a different system. Such as the police database or, even better, their
communications network …

That is sufficient for a first try.
Akita’s shadow crowded her in a particular direction. Before she grasped what was happening, she was falling again, faster
and faster into …

Headache. With every throb her shoulders ached. Pain prickled down her wrist from her hand. Her heart thudded against the
strap that pinned her to the chair.

Akita slumped beside her. Already Fujinaka/Gagiel had released him and was injecting him in his upper arm.

Eleanor felt as though she’d been dragged along an assembly line backward. Every muscle in her body ached. It took her three
tries before she found the strength to pull her hand out of the console. It was coated with soft bluish goo that came off
easily when she wiped it on her trousers.

Seeing that Fujinaka was still fussing over Akita, who lay with his head on the console and his eyes closed, she picked feebly
at her own straps. She needed that drink more than ever. How long had she been in there? For that matter, where was “there”?
She couldn’t grasp the enormity of what she’d just experienced, her brain felt as though it was stuffed with foam.

Outside. There was a way to get out of the Silver Angels’ retreat from inside the interface … the gate, that’s it. A live-line
input converter, probably, designed to attach the required random biological markers to allow data to be sent via liveline.
Maybe that’s how it worked—Akita could travel from system to system using liveline because he already had biological markers.
She wasn’t too sure how live-line functioned. Nor were the technicians who laid it, by all accounts.

If Akita could access her Betta, surely she could access the police communication system, warn them.

She finally released her chest strap, but by then Fujinaka had finished with Akita. He undid her straps with sure, swift tugs
from strong fingers. Eleanor was very conscious of the proximity of those hands, of the firmness of the young muscles, the
long puff of his breath … she was hyperconscious of the whole room, in fact. Every rustle of cloth or scrape of chair leg
on the carpet was magnified. The light glinted painfully off the console. What was wrong with her?

“Can I have a drink?” she croaked.

“You’ll be fed and watered now.” He glanced at Akita. “Shall I take her to the meditation room?”

Akita straightened with a groan. He stretched his arms sideways, and the artificial hand extended in front of her, long tongues
twirling.

“No, bring our meal here. And tell the others we will meet here when it is time for the broadcast.”

Fujinaka/Gagiel bowed low to Akita, shot Eleanor a stare that said clearly, no tricks, and left. Whatever delusions Akita
had about her being there by choice, the Angels knew she was a prisoner.

Akita rose from his chair, slowly, and with many grunts and groans, tottered the few paces to his “throne” and sank into it.

“Come,” he said, his voice almost as croaky as Eleanor’s. “Sit.” He pointed at the dais beside the throne.

No cushions, Eleanor noted sourly. Her knees were wobbly, but she could stand. She sat where Akita pointed, on the top step
of the dais. The step was a plywood board nailed sloppily over a frame, and felt hard under her seat bones.

“Aki … Adam, what happened at Zecom?”

He started, as though he was half-asleep. “Do not worry about Zecom,” he said thickly. “It was but a stage on the road to
enlightenment. We do not dwell there for longer than we must.”

“Of course I worry about it. Samael meant to do something dangerous.”

“Tell me what you think of the Macrocosm,” he said with more energy.

“It will change our relationship with computers forever.” She meant it.

He smirked. “I knew you would understand the greatness of my discovery.” Then seriously, “Did you feel yourself spreading
through the universe? Did you feel the enlightenment?”

“Not quite,” she said cautiously. She was getting a crick in her neck from staring up at him, so she stood, her head pounding
with the sudden movement. “What do you intend doing with this interface?”

He blinked at her, his eyes vague and his heavy cheeks slack. Stoned. Maybe he gets a headache after using the interface,
too.

“By entering the Macrocosm we can eventually be free of the constraints of our bodies,” he said, his lips forming the words
carefully. “We are readying ourselves to assume leadership of the Microcosm. The Angels will traverse the two realms. After
the initial stage, I will ascend permanently to the Macrocosm and receive the souls that follow.”

Eleanor rubbed her head. Her left arm was starting to ache, too, with an increasing intensity that suggested she would soon
need more painkillers.

“I don’t understand. Do you want everybody to use the Macrocosm?”

He hesitated. “Not everybody. People will need to serve in the Microcosm, at least until our bodies become unnecessary.”

“That won’t happen,” said Eleanor gently. “What if someone turns off the power to the console? You’ll be lost like unbacked-up
data.”

His eyes lit up. “No. Soon we will be able to move along livelines using our brain’s power. Of course, only that of trained,
sophisticated minds. And wireless frequencies,” he added. “Our next task is to create a liveline-high-frequency converter.”

It sounded unlikely. But pushing her hand into a hole and transferring her thoughts to a computer network also sounded unlikely.
And what would happen when a reliable, renewable source of power was developed? Akita wouldn’t need his human body anymore.
Immortality.

She crouched in front of him and took his human hand in hers, staring into his eyes and willing him to listen. “Look, you’ve
made an outstanding discovery. You could be hailed as the greatest computer genius of the twenty-first century. Patent this
and develop it properly. I can help you if you like. But please don’t use it to hurt other people, even if they don’t believe
what you believe.”

“I use it to save people.” Akita’s voice rose on the word “save.” He reached over with his artificial hand and grasped both
her wrists. The long tongues, smooth and cool, bound her as effectively as chains. Akita thrust his face into hers. His bloodshot
eyes saw things she didn’t want to know about. For a horrible moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he
pushed hard on her hands, forcing her down on her knees.

“Soon you will feel enlightenment as I do. You do want to join me, don’t you?” he pleaded.

Or what? Or he might get rid of his foreign toy as Samael and Fujinaka obviously thought he should.

“Yes,” she said, her voice muffled. “Of course I do.”

She heard voices in the corridor, then the door opened, to admit a man carrying a tray.

Akita released his hold on Eleanor’s wrists. “Iroel, thank you. The wants of the body are as intrusive as ever.”