The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation (16 page)

“Excellent,” Macpherson exclaimed above a steady din of warning alarms and sirens. “Do we have everything recorded?”

“A wealth of data. More than we could ever have imagined. A first communication with the aliens. Hard evidence from a new multiverse. The Alpha and Omega program has been a resounding success, a brilliant step forward.” Colin5 raised both hands in the air, reaching for the stars. “Today we are giants of time!”

He dropped his arms and glanced toward Helena. “Any last words for the record?”

Helena sobbed, confined in her launch couch under the neural monitor, still hotwired to her twin avatar. She choked and gasped for air. “No, nothing else.”

“Is the runner alive?” Macpherson asked.

“Yes, biometrics are stable,” Colin5 said. “Can you find any consciousness, Helena?”

Helena probed the laboratory V-space in search of Zakariah. “He's back in the grey room, but I'm not getting a clear signal. His mind is curled up like a turtle shell. His heart is broken.”

“Brainscan data?”

“Theta waves, possible dreamlike state,” spoke a technician. “Feedback pattern in the amygdalic region consistent with emotional breakdown.”

“Any permanent damage or disease in anyone's estimation?”

Silence stretched out in the negative.

“Very well,” the Architect said. “Trigger his mindwipe circuit and upload the return package for our business associates. Prepare the runner for transport back through the Doorway.”

Colin5 typed in appropriate computer codes.

“No,” Helena whispered, too weak to intervene.

S
ilus Mundazo examined the small sheaf of documents carefully. He frowned and glanced up over his reading glasses at Zakariah in the seat opposite his desk. He threw the papers on his desk with disdain.

“What do they say?” Zakariah asked.

“You expect me to believe you haven't read them?”

“The diplomatic pouch was sealed.”

“A minor detail to someone of your kin.”

“Have we met before?”

“So that much is true. You've been mindwiped.”

Zakariah nodded, juggling the weight of foreboding that he now took for granted. “That much is true.”

Silus Mundazo grimaced and shook his head. “These papers reportedly come from Director Sharp, asking me to cooperate in a ludicrous scheme to allow you access to her launch couch so that you can impersonate her in V-space.”

“I noticed the hybrid avatar. Is that your work?”

“Hardly. I was against the whole procedure. It was Helena's idea.”

“She must have had good reason.”

“You don't remember a thing?”

“Not much.”

“You have a wife and son, did you know that?”

“Sounds complicated.”

“You poor sap. You're in no position to take Helena's place. You don't even know who you are.”

“I'm a quick study. All I need is Prime access and a few hours to run the numbers.”

“What proof do I have that she's alive?”

“I've seen her in person. She's been unavoidably detained.”

“So you say.”

“I need your help, Doctor.”

“Why should I trust you? On the basis of this flimsy evidence?” He pointed at the paperwork before him.

“I have one more bargaining chip.” Zakariah reached in an inner pocket and brought out a black velvet jewellery case. He handed it forward.

Silus Mundazo took the case and lifted up the hinged lid. He winced as a flash of light bathed his face. “My God,” he said. “An activated sample.”

“Is that enough?”

“Where did you get it?”

“I can't remember. I found it in my personal effects.”

“Do you know who it's for?”

“I'm offering it to you for your cooperation, Silus.”

Dr. Mundazo closed the case with a snap. He offered an outstretched hand. “Deal,” he said. “We'll kick-start the inoculation program immediately.”

Zakariah reached forward and shook his hand in a traditional groundspace contract. He resumed his seat. “So what's the latest news?”

Silus opened the velvet case again, as though to test reality one more time. He peered closer into the light, tipping the case back and forth in study. “Madame Shakura has been making threats and noise again,” he said. “Now that Chairman Tao has been hospitalized, she's vying for the Chair as an interim measure.” He looked over with a scowl. “About as interim as taxes and crypto. World Council funding will quickly dry up unless you make an appearance as the Director. If you want to play Broadway, that will be your first step.”

Mia tracked down Jimmy at his downtown office in the back of a defunct computer repair shop. She stood outside a plain wooden door, still dressed in her khaki flightsuit, and composed herself as best she could. She felt lost and out of place, an invisible ghost walking a strange planet she could no longer recognize. So much had changed in so little time. She pushed open the door and called his name to the glimmering shadows beyond.

“Mia. You made it.” Jimmy stepped into view from a doorway near the back. He looked gaunt and worried, like a man who has gone too long without sleeping. He came to her and grasped her hand with genuine affection. He hugged her like a father.

“How did it go?” he asked, but his voice said he knew too much already.

“Terrible,” she said.

Jimmy stepped back, holding her arms and peering into her face.

“You don't look so good. Come and sit down.”

He led her behind a chipped and dented countertop to a black swivel chair with foam stuffing poking out at the seams. He set her into it carefully. “Can I get you a drink or a sublingual sedative?”

She waved him away. “No drugs. I've got to work this out.” She rubbed her knees with both palms, pressing the fabric down, smoothing every wrinkle.

He nodded his bald head, his eyes squinting with shared pain. “What can you tell me?”

Obsolete computer parts lay on shelves under the counter, the carefully printed tags yellowing with age. Coils of wire hung on the austere wall behind her, dead and dormant. “I can't find Rix. Everything has fallen apart. Zakariah has been turned into a zombie.”

Jimmy grimaced with new pain. “Mindwiped?”

“Or worse. Brainwashed. An armed security team was guarding him like visiting royalty while I was treated like a peasant.” Mia held a palm to her throat to catch her breath. Her words were spilling too quickly from her lips, rushing out in raw catharsis. “I could not even get eye contact from my husband on the shuttle trip back. It was so frustrating. I can't believe it. He doesn't even recognize his own wife.” She slumped into her chair.

Jimmy stared at her in puzzlement, his brow furrowed above bushy grey eyebrows.

“Zakariah came back?”

“Yes.”

“With you?”

“Not with me, no. He was blanketed by security goons.”

“You were on the transport with him, though?”

“Yes, of course.” Mia stopped abruptly, frozen with alarm. “What's wrong, Jimmy? What have you heard?”

Jimmy shifted his body weight uncomfortably, puzzling some new paradox. “Zakariah has been reported missing on the far side of the Macpherson Doorway—presumed dead.”

“He's not dead. He's home.”

“Official reports indicate the Director returned alone. Is it possible that you made some mistake? Perhaps from a distance someone looked a lot like Zakariah?”

Mia eyed Jimmy narrowly, wondering why on Earth he would not believe her. Could there be some other complication? Some reason why they could no longer speak heart to heart? She wondered why she had ever trusted him. “Is that what Rix has been told? That his father is dead?”

Jimmy sucked air through gritted teeth. “V-space has been buzzing with his obituary. Rix would be right on the bubble. He's being groomed as a runner.”

“He must be devastated, poor kid. Do you know where I can find him?”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Did you set me up, Jimmy? Did you see this coming?”

“You can't really believe that, Mia.”

“What
can
I believe, Jimmy? You tell me.” She rose to confront him, wanting to clutch his shirt collar and wring his neck for information. She could torture the truth out of him with a few simple pressure points. What was he trying to hide? Who was he working for? Phillip?

Instead she stood impotent and defenceless before him. She could no longer muster her chi. “I've lost everything, Jimmy.”

Again his face seemed to mirror her internal agony. “We'll figure this out, Mia. Everybody knows Zak was working closely with the
ERI
when he disappeared offplanet. He was seen arm in arm with the Director, Helena Sharp, strolling the grounds like a prince in waiting.”

“He would never sell out. Not Zakariah.”

“He was using her, Mia. He was playing her like a friggin' piccolo. Maybe this is all an act, a complicated charade. Maybe Zak is pulling the strings at the
ERI
.”

Mia squinted at this new possibility. She thought back to the shuttle trip home. She remembered the vacancy in her husband's eyes. “He's gone, Jimmy. He didn't recognize me.”

“He could still be in play, though. Mindwiped or not. Rumour has it that an activated sample is up for bids on the white market.”

For a moment Mia gaped at him, fighting back exhaustion, feeling dangerously close to a breaking point. An activated sample? Up for auction like a computer trinket? Finally she noticed her tongue drying out from the rush of her panted breath. She closed her mouth and swallowed.

“Stay here with me, Mia. Let me plug up and search for his shadow sublevel. There's a cot in the back.” Jimmy thumbed over his shoulder. “Get some rest and shrug off the space lag while I find out what I can.”

Mia noted the smell of stale cologne and perspiration in the air. She found the sensation vaguely comforting—a memory from a simpler time not long ago, a time when her soulmate risked his life regularly but at least remembered the sound of her voice. She had nowhere to go now. She had lost everything. “Don't try anything funny, old man. I'm still a married woman.”

Jimmy's eyebrows popped with surprise, and his face took on new animation, new hope. He nodded with a hearty chuckle. “No wonder Zak thinks you're the greatest.”

Mia mumbled thanks and perfunctory blessings as Jimmy showed her to a supply room with a rumpled bed and a makeshift table fashioned from an old door laid over two metal filing cabinets. The grey walls were lined with shelves full of obsolete computer parts—boxlike disk drives, video cards, buckets of archaic memory chips with tiny copper contacts like piano keys. She smelled dust and inexorable decay.

She lay down fully clothed and pulled a blanket up onto her legs. She thought about Zakariah. Could he still be out there somewhere, hardcopied behind a veil? Was he impersonating the Director, pretending to the crown? Or was he a soulless automaton, programmed like a robot now that his memory had been wiped clean? She shivered at the thought. How could she blame her husband for seeking sanctuary with the
ERI
? She had suggested the same thing to him just weeks ago. Perhaps it was all her fault. She remembered their time together at the north sanctuary. She remembered the weight of his body. Oh God, she would give anything to have him back.

Rix slipped through Sublevel Zero like a needle through smoke, leaving barely a whisper behind. His lithe and muscular avatar was cloaked in pure silver like a molten mirror, an image he had produced himself with Niko's illicit upgrade access. He was recognizable to only a few chosen users and left behind an after-image that could not easily be recalled or measured. Posthuman and invincible, he slid past the token guardians in this unregistered area—no one could stop his smooth and effortless journey to his goal.

A band of pirates cornered him, crowing at their good fortune.

“Look what we got here,” one said triumphantly, “some kid with illegal wetware.”

“Chinese manufacture,” said another, a grey giant with a barely discernable outline.

“Out wanderin' with more money than good sense.”

Four pirates shifted positions warily, looking for access, hoping for a system lock. The echo of their mumbled voices sounded ghostlike, eerie.

The pirate leader, a stocky white avatar with a hideous grin, began to set up barriers of grey steel in the background, systematically closing down backdoors and access tunnels. The ether around them darkened perceptively.

“You cannot take me,” Rix stated. He set a splay of rainbow encryption in front of him with a wave of his arm as a warning.

The pirate leader paused to study him momentarily, then quietly resumed his work.

Rix altered his programming so that suddenly his avatar appeared in spectral reverse to his original orientation—his pupils white, his face dark, all colours replaced by a haunting, solarized opposite like a photo negative. It was an old trick but usually enough to build incompatibility. Three henchmen followed his example, chuckling to themselves as they tugged impenetrable grey walls behind them, leaving one avenue open, back to the fourth pirate steadily programming below. He launched golden parameter lines from his abdomen like gossamer webs that clung to Rix on impact.

“Don't even think about it,” Rix said and cut the wires loose with a short anti-viral knife. They flew away like kite wires.

The pirate leader frowned. He gesticulated an unspoken code to his compatriots. He snapped his fingers and a spider web of cable fell up from below Rix, tangling around his legs.

Rix stooped to slash the net free with his cyberknife, but as he did the three pirates facing him pushed forward and locked their grey walls together into a box. By nature the grey walls were mathematically infinite top and bottom, leaving one narrow doorway open.

Rix had seen this trap before, schematically, and recognized its efficiency. At the moment he had more to lose than the pirates imagined and therefore had a significant advantage in will, which, at this depth sublevel, put him in a supreme position. Time was not to his advantage, so he quickly activated his escape subprogram and launched into the thick grey walls, careening off them like a billiard ball, sucking energy and inertia from them and accelerating toward the fourth pirate, who had time merely to gape in alarm before imminent collision. At the last nanosecond, Rix shut his system to drone status with full and powerful shielding, collapsing into a silver projectile which pierced the pirate instantly and blew him into shards as his system crashed. A shock wave hit the other pirates like a concussion, a red flash of turbulence, and they cringed and scattered.

Rix stepped into a darkened antechamber precisely on schedule.

“You remembered our emergency cipher. I'm so glad.” A woman stood before him with slender cheeks and crinkled eyes, old enough to be his grandmother but young enough to pass for his mother, a rejuve user or perhaps Eternal. Her sandy brown hair was parted at the side and swept across her brow, her nose long and narrow. She carried the official harmonics of a regent—an expensive avatar out slumming.

“Who are you?” he asked, keeping full defence systems up and his presence ghostlike, uncommitted.

“You know better who I am than I do.” The woman smiled and tilted her face at him as though inviting recognition. Her hand crept up to her chest as she waited for his response.