Rupture (14 page)

Pop-pop-pop
.

Apple-sized pods began popping out of the fabricator like heated popcorn out of a pan. Each one stuck to something solid like the walls, the ceiling, and chairs. Beasley moved with rapid speed to avoid a barrage of fruit, and one particularly large apple flew between her and Hutto and splattered on the wall behind them. The students all ducked behind a sofa.

Each of the pods transformed into black-irised eyes that looked about the room in random motions. All at once they locked onto Simone in the middle of the room dancing through her psy-kata. The invaders knew their target. Her mother continued her dance. Rigon remained impassive, although he was ready to blast the criminal minds who had shown themselves with enough psychic force to knock down the walls. She knew he’d probably kill everyone in the room, as well, so he’d have to be careful.

Simone was on her own, for now.

A voice spoke from the fabricator: “We are Dominion and Pain and Pleasure. We are Life and Love. Hate and Death. We are All. Young one of the Mind, kneel and worship us. And we will give you our brand.”

Simone, though, was enmeshed in the warm embrace of her mantras, the words of her lords on her lips. She heard the commands and the lies and felt herself swelling with power. Her lords would surely come now, she believed, since she was being commanded to worship another. They didn’t demand brands. They loved her unconditionally. They
had
to come.

“Lords of Light and Goodness and Right and Order,” she said, “hear my call, and show yourselves to your servant in her moment of need.”

The seconds that ticked by while she waited were the longest of her life. She said the words again, and waited, each moment her heart growing heavier until it sank into her belly ... and slowed her dance. The calm shattered, and she felt her confidence peel away layer after layer until her bare bones and pulsing organs were exposed.

“No!” She felt the weight of the Rogues force her to her knees. She heard them laugh. “Mother!”

But she couldn’t turn her head. The weight of ten atmospheres bore down on her. She could barely breathe. She tried to call her mother’s name again. She couldn’t do it. She fell, plastered to the floor, under an immovable weight. She faced one of the eyes, and it seemed to grow ... and her mind felt as if it would crack open and never be right again. This can’t be right, she thought, where are they? My lords haven’t come again. They’ve abandoned me …

Mother!

A bubble of light air surrounded her. The crushing weight of gravity disappeared, and she sat up, under her mother’s legs. Her mother straddled her. Simone grabbed onto one leg as if to a buoy in a storm. A ripple of invisible energy fired from her mother’s hands toward each of the eyes, which exploded like jelly donuts. Her mother scanned the room, almost like a machine that wasn’t ready to relent. Rigon walked over and helped Simone to her feet.

“You hoping for something more?” he said to their mother. “They’ve announced their presence and their intent.”

She snapped out of her trance. “Of course not. This was for Simone’s benefit, not theirs.”

All the students were on the floor as well. Kimberlee was weeping, Hutto’s hands shook, and Beasley had blanched. Wally had crawled into the back of her shirt. His little head popped out.

Simone found her breath. She let out a slow groan. She looked at her mother and her brother as the tears welled. She new what they had done to her. Her lords had not come ... they had known her lords would not come.

Her mother leaned in. “Your Lords of Order are just tools, dear. You are the lord of your destiny. Your mind is your tool. You must rely on it. Humanity should not debase itself by worshipping the entities. They worship us. I erred in letting your beliefs go as far as they went. This is a game, one of life and death and one that we should play to win. And we’ll do it with dignity, as masters, not slaves.”

Rigon couldn’t help himself. “What she means is that in our fight against the RAIs, humanity’s ingenuity is the best offense—”

“I know what she means.” Simone yanked herself away from both of them. “What she means is that the lords don’t exist. Right, Mom? They can’t exist because you want to be more powerful than them. So they have to be less than they are. You want to rule them.” She stepped away, struggling to retain control of herself but on the verge of an embarrassing display of hysterics. She saw her new friends staring at her. Kimberlee was crying as well. Simone said to everyone, “My mother wants to be a disembodied Altertranshuman.” To her brother, she commanded, “Arrest her.”

She crossed her arms and waited, knowing what she’d claimed could have her mother executed. Disembodiment was illegal, except for highly regulated Interfacers, like her brother. And the idea of an Alter being disembodied ...

Yancey stared at her son, eye to eye, willing him to act. “Well, Officer?”

“Be quiet, Mom; for once just be quiet.”

FOUR

ON THAT FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE STERLING SCHOOL, the disruption in the girls’ third-floor dormitory was so loud the RA on duty had to move everyone off the hall, except the two principal combatants and noise makers: Association member Yancey Wellborn and her irate daughter.

Most of it was screaming about how “you don’t love me,” and “you lied to me about the entities,” and “you never told me about what happened to Daddy.” Simone did most of the screaming. Her voice lasted longer than anyone imagined. The poor RA would later say, “Three full hours of it.”

By the time Simone’s voice finally cracked, she was a mewling, slobbering mess wrapped up in a blanket, half delirious.

“Are you done?” Yancey asked.

“No.”

Instead of more yelling, Simone resorted to beating her mattress.

“Stop it,” Yancey said, no longer content to sit in a chair and watch the tantrum. “Stop it now.”

“You tricked me. You tricked them. Somehow you ruined them.”

Yancey moved to the bedside in a single leap and stood over her daughter. “Is that what you think? Your Lords of Whatever were tricked? And that they will still save you?”

“Yes!”

Yancey ripped the blanket from her hands.

“Hey!”

Yancey grabbed a hold of the oversized shirt Simone was now wearing, this one a long-sleeved tee with a local music band on the front. Her mother lifted it and yanked it over her head, struggled with her daughter’s arms, and finally freed it.

“Look. Look in the mirror.” She helped her daughter to her feet. “Would your lords allow this?”

Just under Simone’s neck and above her sternum they saw a silver-dollar-sized image of a Rogue brand.

“I don’t know how that ... ”

In it was an upside down isosceles triangle whose nadir failed to come to a point. The tip was open in an unsettling display of a broken triangle.

Simone began to hyperventilate. Inside it, barely perceptible, were four letters. They looked like
SWML
.

“Calm down,” her mother said, “it’s not permanent.”

But Simone acted like she was dying, which increased the adrenaline rushing into her veins, and she passed out, crumpling to the floor.

Yancey saw a brown McDonald’s bag someone had left in the room and used it to help her daughter breathe properly.

She soothed her hair back. “It’ll fade. They all fade.” As her daughter’s eyes focused, she whispered, “Your father’s faded ... with a little work. You just have to be strong.”

* * *

That night Hutto and Wally sat by the window in Wally’s fifth-floor dorm, looking across the courtyard toward the girl’s wing. The RA had told them all the racket was coming from the new girl’s room. They could clearly see movement through the half-open blinds. Simone seemed to be sitting on her bed, flailing her arms every few seconds.

“Cat fight,” Hutto said. “Mom against daughter. God, I wish I could see that.”

“Mom would win,” Wally said.

“Hell, yeah.”

Hutto had knocked on Wally’s door hours ago and only planned to stay a few minutes. Hutto was surprised at how cool his room was. Someone had made a fortress for Wally. A miniature wooden ladder led to a loft with railings and several interior structures. Wally had an apartment within an apartment. Hutto could see several cushions, a bed, a mini-fridge. He even had windows and low-energy light bulbs in there.

“Home away from home,” Wally said.

He’d created a secondary platform under the top of the loft so that he could sit eye-to-eye with any guests. A comfy, regular-sized loveseat meant anyone sitting would actually be a bit lower than him.

Wally couldn’t decide what he liked better: Hutto or the cat fight. He kept flitting his eyes back and forth. He had the finest specimen of masculinity right in front of him, a young man bred to fight, to become a warrior hero. Beasley was great and all, and his very best friend; she’d tear down heaven for him. But she was withdrawn, sullen six days out of seven, and damn near impossible to cheer up when she decided a funk was in order. Hutto, on the other hand, always had a smile, a joke, and a story to tell.

“Did you see her mom tonight?” Hutto asked.

Wally nodded vigorously. He let his legs hang from the platform under his loft. A foam cushion underneath would catch him if he jumped off (usually he targeted the loveseat). “She kicked their asses.”

“Yes she did. Do you have any idea what we saw tonight?”

Wally did, but he wasn’t sure if he should say. “Psy-sorcery.”

“Hell, yeah!” Hutto looked like he would have jumped to his feet if he’d had space. “I’ve heard my brother Nisson talk about it. He’s ... been around that stuff.”

“The Megamech pilot?”

“That’s Almont.” And then, as if on a side note he’d return to later, he said, “Nisson used to glad fight, until he got in trouble.”

Wally nodded and waited, hoping for more info on Hutto’s infamous brother who’d been banned from glad fighting. Everyone had wondered when Hutto would bring him up.

“The psy-sorcerers are one big fuckin’ mystery, man,” Hutto said. “What do you know?”

Wally knew enough not to speculate. The fanboys could go on for hours about who was the most powerful Consortium agents: the original
cy-warriors
, Cybertranshuman Interfacers like Rigon Wellborn who used the vast resources of parallel processing computing systems, the same ones the SAIs used, to surf Cyberspace as disembodied persons; or the new psy-sorcerers, psychic Altertranshumans like them who somehow used their minds and bodies as weapons that channeled and summoned strange powers called entities. “The son versus the mother—”

“They’re both Wellborns.”

Wally knew who the Association Council members were, of course, but he didn’t correct Hutto. “What a family.”

“Reminds me of mine.” Hutto leaned forward after catching more movement in the far window. “They’re really going at it. Looks like her mom is yelling back now. Listen.” They could both hear the yelling, nothing distinct, just enough edge to be of interest.

“The new girl really messed up,” Wally said.

“But mom saved the day.” Hutto smiled, while he watched, as if he was hoping he might spy them naked. “And, boy, is mom hot.”

“She’s natural—”

“I mean hot in the way she moved. Did you see it? And the way she jumped in and just smashed that evil shit. She could fight in the open leagues.”

“Not while she’s Consortium—”

“Just saying. Women like that get me going.”

“You’re a dog.”

Hutto leaned back and ran his fingers through his surfer-boy hair. “You have no idea. My dad said I pull more tail than any of my brothers.” Hutto beamed, his face barely scarred, his nose already healed from Beasley’s punch.

Wally couldn’t help but look at him with open admiration. He was everything Wally wasn’t.

Hutto saw it. “Shit, man. Sorry. You, uh, never been with a girl, right?” Wally shook his head. “I’m an idiot.” As if he hadn’t just spotlighted Wally’s deficiency, he said, “What about Simone? I bet she’s as hot as her mother under all those clothes.”

Wally nodded. “She’s scary, though.”

Hutto nodded as well. “Like her mom.” He edged forward on the loveseat, as if he had a secret to tell. “And what about us? They’ve enlisted us in some secret program. Are we going to learn that stuff?”

Wally had no idea what they would teach Hutto. “Don’t you have a rage problem?”

“I got it under control. Only let it out once or twice. Not pretty at all. A kid got killed.” The charm extinguished, replaced by something darker.

Wally knew about the kid Hutto had accidentally killed. Wally thought about mentioning that fact to Hutto, but he didn’t want Hutto to feel any worse than he did.

“If I didn’t have this problem,” Hutto said, “I could be with my family, still training. And that kid would still be alive.”

Wally stammered a few insensible words, but eventually said, “You know, all of us are really supposed to be the same. I don’t know much about it. But some people say the variety of Alters—Channelers, Summoners, Melders, Animators, Ragers, and Pscyheads, and all the rest—just haven’t learned to use their minds properly. I studied this a little because I think I’ve got the mind thing down. It’s my gift.”