Night's Pawn (23 page)

"You are Priest," he said. "Your access has been approved."

"And?" said Chase.

"You may enter the Nexus. He is waiting."

When Chase climbed into the vehicle, they blindfolded him with a motorcycle helmet whose faceplate had been blinded with spray paint. Chase had only gotten a glimpse of the Hummer's other occupant as he mounted, but the words scrawny and nervous jumped to mind. The vehicle actually went out the gates to make its U-turn, and then headed back in, winding its way through the junk.

Finally, the winding stopped and the Hummer gained speed as it hit a main road. Chase tried to remember what that road was called. He knew that it became Academy Boulevard and headed down into Colorado Springs just outside the gate where he'd been, but what it was called inside the grounds eluded him.

The ride was rough, probably a combination of the road's poor condition and the questionable driving skills of the scrawny man. This road stretched for a few kilometers before reaching the cluster of buildings that housed the actual data haven and its inhabitants.

"So, I hear you had some problems with Shadowland being compromised in Seattle," Chase said. The Nexus distributed a great deal of its publicly disseminable information through locally controlled, mobile computer bulletin board systems. Called Shadowland, the system could only be accessed by those who knew its daily electronic location. Via the board, fed from Denver, one could download chips full of data, scuttlebutt, and conversation that regularly made the governments and corporations howl, hence the system's mobile nature. Chase had heard from local friends that the Seattle Shadowland system had apparently been infiltrated by corporate agents who'd erased some volatile data, tossed a rather nasty virus back toward Denver, and then killed the maintainers of the system.

Chase waited for their reply, but none came. The Hummer continued on.

"So, how about them Nuggets, eh?" he said.

The truck began to brake, and Chase thought for a moment that he'd crossed that treacherous line hard-core technophiles had about sports, but when it sped up again he realized that they'd simply reached the first of the few turns they'd make to reach the center of the haven.

The Hummer turned again, again, and again, the last time clipping a curb before finally stopping. Chase reached up to remove the helmet, but thin hands stopped him. "This wasn't necessary last time," he said.

He heard a sharp intake of breath, and smelled the long slow stream of fetid exhale. To admit an outsider in the flesh was obviously odd enough to them, but to have one suggest this wasn't his first time might have been blasphemy. The Hummer's side door opened, and Chase felt himself carefully pulled out. Then he felt a hand on his elbow, probably the elfs, guiding him forward and up a short set of stairs. A door opened, and he was hit with a gust of air that reminded him all too much of a locker room. They walked him through a door, and then down a longer flight of stairs.

As they passed through another door, Chase had the distinct impression that a larger group was moving along with him now. He heard noises around him, muffled voices, occasional laughter, the crackle of static, the hum of electronics.

Another door, and more stairs. Now he was certain he was in the midst of a pack. Through a door, down a hallway that echoed noisily with the sounds of dozens of feet. Then the procession stopped. He heard a muttering and the swipe of what could have been a magnetic pass-card. An odd security measure, he thought, in a place where an outsider would be immediately recognized as out of place. The click of an electronic lock, the opening of a door, and the pack moved him forward.

The acoustics here were bigger, for Chase sensed the air flow of a larger room and heard the pack fan out. His ears picked up the distinct sound of electronics and the steady whine of a video monitor.

For the first time in nearly twenty minutes, he clearly heard a voice. "Oh, Christ Almighty, get that damn helmet off him," it said.

Chase started, and then quickly assisted the pairs of hands that worked to remove the helmet. He knew the voice, it was the one he'd been expecting, but there was something wrong with it. The timbre was off, the tone too low. It had come through speakers and been artificially generated.

The helmet finally off, Chase looked around the room. Maybe it had once been some sort of large conference room or classroom. Now, it was empty except for the dozens of cheap, archaic metal folding chairs that filled it. Wires and cables ran everywhere, weaving their way along the floor and across the ceiling. Single strands hung down and swung lazily over the chairs, while other lines were draped casually across the backs of others. He was guided forward by a tall, redheaded boy with near-glowing opal cybereyes, and led to a chair at the center of the room. These chairs were better, but only slightly. Maybe they'd been taken from an office.

The red-haired boy was now joined by others: males, females, whites, blacks, elves, Asians, orks, and Hispanics surrounded Chase and the chair where he now sat. They were all young; a few were older than Cara, but most were younger. They wore clothing of all styles. Some were dirty and unkempt, others fastidiously clean. Some looked him boldly in the eyes, others seemed barely able to summon the will power to be in the same room with him. Most smiled, a few frowned, and one, a bald black girl of about fifteen, cried. The others ignored her.

They circled him, in and among the chairs, and waited.

"Um…" Chase said, and a hand from behind him held out a thin fiber-optic cable with a standard connector on the end. Chase took it carefully, noting the frayed covering where the connector met the cable. "Thanks."

A voice behind him, a new one, said, "He's waiting for you."

Chase nodded and carefully inserted the connector into his datajack. It clicked into place, but then nothing happened. He started to turn around. "I don't think it's—" And then the room exploded into a dazzling dance of millions of neon fireflies, cutting off any more words.

19

The transition took Chase by surprise. Whenever hard core deckers were involved, he always expected a sudden and spectacular interface sequence as the simsense signal overrode his own sensory data and pulled him into the artificial, virtual reality of the Matrix. He wasn't ready, however, to see the young red-haired boy's head become a neon sand sculpture whose molecular adhesion was suddenly lost. Nor was he ready to see every person in the room, and the room itself, explode into particles of light in the same manner.

The lights fell away from their original form, and then soared upward again to join with the others and swirl about him. Faster and faster, brighter and brighter, a great roar grew with it, drowning out even the sounds of his heartbeat and his own thoughts. He reached for the data cable, intending to pull it clear and jack out to end the rising madness, but found he had no arms, no physical body, no existence. Chase looked down at himself just in time to catch the last pieces of light that had been his own body dance away to join the prismatic swirl.

As he felt himself being dragged into it, he screamed, then fell hard against the white marble. He felt its coldness seep quickly into him. He dug his fingers in against the stone, starting a sudden rush of pain from their tips. He stopped screaming and opened his eyes.

He was in an arena, a coliseum perhaps, constructed of brilliant white and pink marble. It was huge, monstrous, far larger than any of the real super-stadiums he'd ever seen. From his view at ground level, the center area seemed flat and featureless and ended against a high wall. Above the wall were rows of benches, room for thousands, rising upward at an incline. They were empty.

Chase rolled over and faced a deep blue sky through which ran ripples of purple and cyan. A cool breeze washed over him. He shuddered. It wasn't real, he told himself. It was all created in a computer. It's not real…

"Mikael,
tovarich
!"

Chase rolled his head toward the voice and saw, finally, the man he'd come to see. Tall and lean as ever, but with a presence no flesh body could ever muster, the man stood a short distance away. His hair was short, layered, and as fine as spun silk. His features were those Michelangelo had failed to perfect in stone, and his clothing was sharp, black, and perfect. And he was young. As young as Chase could ever remember him.

"Fuck you," Chase said.

The man's expression had been almost a frown, and it did not change. "I'm sorry. Are you all right?"

Chase pulled himself up into a sitting position and found the attempt far easier than he'd expected. "I'm fine. Finally getting your revenge?"

"No. That was inexcusable," the man said. "Pardon me a moment." The man looked skyward and said, quietly, "Bash."

For a moment there was nothing, and then the air next to him shimmered as another man formed there. He was unnaturally tall and emaciated, the bones of his face covered by only the barest hint of skin. He wore an archaic mourning coat three sizes too small, and wild red power danced in his eyes.

"Shiva," hissed the newcomer through clenched razor teeth.

"Cut the drek, Bash," said Shiva. "What the frag was that all about?"

Bash turned his head only slightly, but Chase felt his gaze. "He's to blame. I wished some compensation."

"Blame?" said Chase.

Shiva cursed and flexed his black leather-gloved hands. "You had no right. He is a guest here, by my word."

Bash laughed, a quiet, clipped chuckle. "You are not in charge here. By
my
word he was to be punished."

"To blame for what?" asked Chase.

Shiva met Bash's gaze. "You wish to match words? You want to see whose voice rocks the heavens more?"

Bash laughed again. "No, no," he said. "That would be bad for morale, wouldn't it? Besides, it might resolve something. We wouldn't want that, would we?"

Not real, Chase remembered. Everything that he was seeing and sensing was being generated on the Nexus' computer systems, a system that responded to his own cybernetic commands. Chase extended his artificial senses inward to see what kind of hardware or programming he had at his disposal. He didn't know much about decking or computer programming, but figured he could hack together at least a minor something that would get Shiva and Bash's attention. But there was nothing to be found. As far as he could tell he wasn't connected to an actual cyberdeck, but was only being fed the simsense signal. Still, there had to be some two-way communication—he was, after all, a participant in the virtual reality, not merely an observer—but he couldn't find the connection. He stood up.

Shiva looked down and shook his head. "He and I have things to discuss." Chase felt an odd sensation and started to say something, but didn't get it out in time.

"So we'll be leaving," Shiva continued. Chase felt himself suddenly drawn toward Shiva, who seemed to be receding. Chase turned to look at Bash as Shiva reached out an arm toward the taller man. A ball of quicksilver and lightning grew in Shiva's palm, and he tossed it to the suddenly wide-eyed Bash. "Merry Christmas."

Chase felt himself spin away from Bash and into the darkness of Shiva's clothing. For a moment, there was nothing, and then the shapes and forms of a high-tech chrome and black metal office resolved into existence around him. Shiva was already seated behind the massive silver and black desk that dominated the room. Behind him was the unbelievable Matrix vista of the inside of the data haven, the heart of the Nexus. Brilliant geometric constructs and shapes of all sizes representing the massive amounts of computing power hidden within its walls circled a single point of near infinite darkness. Ignoring Shiva and his bemused smile, Chase moved closer to the window to get a better view. Not real, he repeated again.

Blinding lances of light, massed packets of data, intermittently connected the orbiting constructs with each other and occasionally with the dark center. The bursts of light accelerated as they grew closer to that black heart, becoming long, thin shafts and then finally vanishing as they were absorbed in the all-consuming darkness. Chase could see figures moving through the spaces between the systems; deckers in their various electronic personas all showing a healthy respect for what lay at the center. Chase had to get away; it was almost more than he could stand. Sometimes, it was impossible to believe that nothing in the Matrix was real. The images, the feel, were too
right
.

Chase said: "That isn't…"

Shiva shook his head. "You should know better, but it is an intimidating rendering. It's the repository of all the information that passes through here, compiled and compressed for storage. A black hole of data, if you will. Every request and every result obtained," he continued, "is filed away there. And it's all retrievable."

Chase turned toward him. "Retrievable by whom?"

Shiva shrugged. "I will admit access isn't equal. Power has always revolved around who has access to what."

Chase nodded and lowered himself into an unusually comfortable and plush chair. He leaned back and closed his eyes. "How much do you know?" he asked Shiva.

"You are guarding Cara Villiers. Data correlation indicates connections between her, you, Fuchi International, and certain German corporate and antisocial concerns. History repeating itself?" Shiva said.

Chase shook his head. "No. Different set of butt-holes."