The sky is blood orange and deep, as it always is when evening
begins to hit hard from horizon to horizon, and there is a touch
of frost in the chill autumn air. He can feel the crisp cold against
his face as he walks the near empty streets. Even through the massive
enclosure, the seasons outside in the new atmosphere can still be
felt. He shivers a bit as he goes, watching the sky colors change
slowly, deepen as the night falls.
He hugs the grocery bag close to his chest as he turns a corner.
As he makes the turn, he catches a glimpse of himself in the darkened
glass of an abandoned storefront. Despite the treatments, the years
have not been kind. But he is alive, yes. Alive. More life. More
time to collect more memories he does not want, and more time to
live with the ones he already has. Money well invested.
He smirks half-heartedly at himself. You should have died when
you had the chance, pal.
Across the street stands Fuji Towers, neons already blazing
from high atop the apartment complex. He glances up to the corner
dwelling, high up, but the lights are out. A concerned curiosity
passes through him.
He crosses the street and enters the main foyer of the complex,
keys in his identification, and the elevator doors open. He enters,
touches his floor number on the wall panel, and is lifted up to
his level. The doors creak open directly across from his flat, down
the hall, where a man in a long, black coat stands. It looks like
the man is trying to convince the lock to release.
When did breaking and entering become standard procedure? he
thinks.
The man’s head picks up as he hears the elevator doors slam
into their holdings, and he turns around, casually.
"Commander Jurek?"
He has seen the officer before. Yes, Marshall Asshole. Great,
he thinks. Just what I need.
Jurek’s legs move automatically, carrying him down the length
of flooring to his door. "Yes, I’m Jurek. But you know that already.
What can I do for you, Marshall...."
"Nanri," he replies.
"Oh, yeah. Right. Nanri. The guy helping with these murders.
Sorry, I almost forgot about you."
Nanri just smiled that stupid little smile he always smiles.
"Yeah, well. Just thought I’d check in to see if you’d heard anything."
"Heard anything?"
Marshall Nanri just keeps smiling. "That’s what I said."
Jurek locks eyes with him. Nanri has that annoying look of amusement
on his face, as if he is playing with a child.
"I do my job," Jurek says.
"I suppose you do. Well, report anything you might come across
in regard to this case. This time two cops were killed, you know."
"It happens. Don’t take it personally, Marshall. It comes with
the job, you know."
Nanri’s face drops. "You have a decent record, commander. Just
be sure to report anything you come across to my office."
"No problem. Is that all?"
"That’ll be all." Nanri turns and heads down the corridor.
"Okay!" Jurek shouts after him. "Then the first thing I’m gonna
report is a cop who tried to shimmy my door open without a warrant."
"File the necessary paperwork," he calls back. "We’ll get to
it in about six months."
Asshole!
Jurek opens the door, enters, and slams it shut behind him.
Once inside, ice seizes his heart as he swallows a hardy dose of
reality check, realizing how close he has come to getting caught
out. A few moments more and Nanri would have been inside.
But he also knows it was only a matter of time before they came
to him, anyway....
The place is dark, except for the waning light trickling in
from the balcony’s glass doorway. He stops to listen. Nothing. Everything
is exactly the way he had left it in the morning. He is not sure
if that is good or bad. All he knows is that he has to do something,
and soon.
As he moves, small motion detectors trigger the tiny night-lights
around the room, following him to the kitchen where he puts the
bag down on the table. Without thinking, he puts the items away
and makes himself something to eat.
Ione walks in the kitchen as he finishes, so quietly that he
does not hear her. He turns to see her standing in the doorway.
She looks like she has just woken up, but he knows she has probably
been awake for hours, curled up in the bathtub, as always. That
was how he found her, days ago. He had come home to find that she
had used the key he had given her to let herself in. She had gone
straight to the bathroom where she stayed for hours, staring at
the tiled walls, saying nothing, until he came home.
She barely remembered any of it.
"Hungry?"
"No," she says.
He searches her pale face, her bloodshot eyes, and for what
he isn’t sure. A sign of life, maybe. She has been off the sims
longer than she ever has been before, and is showing the sure signs
of withdrawal. She is very sick, and looks like death warmed over.
But he knows her long progress toward coming clean is going
to be a long ride through hell. First, he can’t take her off the
sims, cold turkey; it’s too dangerous that way. The progress of
cleaning her up needs to be gradual, which means–as much as he loathes
the idea–he will have to get her some neuro-meds, and allocate her
small quantities of sim time. If she is lucky–very lucky–there is
no permanent neural damage.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like sh-sh-shit," she says, one hand rubbing her stomach. "You
know?"
He remembers the power of her need, as a hand moves absently
to touch his temple, feeling the scare there where his own jacks
had been removed long ago. "Yeah," he says, giving her a ghost of
a smile. "Yeah, I know. And Ruby?"
"Nothing. She seems to....f-f-f-fade in and out. I can’t understand
it," she says, she makes a small move, and it looks like she is
going to fall over. He runs to catch her.
"Whoa!" He grabs her and props her up against the door frame.
"Easy."
"Say, who were you t-t-t-talking too?"
"I think you should eat something. Okay? No, stay there." Convinced
she won’t topple over, he slowly moves to the cupboards.
"I’ll only throw it up. So, were your talking to s-s-s-someone?"
"No need to worry yourself about it," he says. "Okay? I’ll take
care of it."
"Who was it? It was a cop, wasn’t it?"
He stops. "Yeah. It was a cop."
"I need to get out of here, then." She looks like she is going
to attempt to move again.
"Stay put!" He places a hand against her shoulder. "I need
to get you out of here."
"No, you’ve done enough already," she says, trying to shrug
him off, but she lacks the strength. "More than I expected. So you
can stop babying me. Okay?"
"You can say that to me?" The hurt is evident in his voice.
"There isn’t anybody else around here for you, that’s for sure.
And look at you. You can barely walk."
She looks at her feet. "Well, I guess I should say thanks."
He shakes his head. "I don’t understand what happened. To you
or to me. I should have turned you in. Why didn’t I?" He leans his
head against hers. "I’m so tired, Ione...."
Counting that lady at the Idoru bathhouse, name of Tessa Kitani,
there has been three more murders in the past four days, not all
in this same hemisphere, but all with the same bloody MO. An interesting
point is that they had all worked for Shimoju Mining. But there
is no reason to tell her any of this, so he doesn’t.
Something has been getting out of hand, this he knows. He also
knows that it somehow ties in with her, despite his drive to resist
that train of thought. He needs answers. He knows where to go to
get them. And he needs to get there before the authorities do.
"Thanks for helping me," she says, her small voice getting rough
around the edges. "But I can’t be what you want. Why can’t you get
it? I have to go."
"Where?"
"Don’t know. Back to Underside, maybe."
No, he thinks. Although there are no patrols down there, it’s
just so easy to get lost among the human flotsam. He might never
find her again.
"I know where I’ll take you," he says. He can see she is about
to protest. "Just for a little while, Ione. Until this blows over.
It’s a place I used to go to, decades ago, when I was in-between
jobs, so to speak. Just trust me, for once. Okay?"
"Guess I don’t have any real choice, hey?" she says, with a
pale smile.
Now, who did she say is one of her med dealers? What’s his name?
Takahumi? Yeah, that’s it. Hell, how could he have forgotten? Good
old Takahumi....
"Yeah. Let’s get you ready to go. Think you can do this?"
She nods her head. "I’m feeling a bit stronger."
"Good. When it gets late I’ll sneak you out the back way."
"Where too?"
"Remember I once told you my family were water farmers?"
What is he up too?
"You can’t take me to the South Pole! Aiding a felon? You’re
life will be over."
"My life’s been over for years." He moves slowly toward her.
Hell, even when she looks like shit she’s beautiful, he thinks.
Not yet....Not time....
Distant thoughts echo in her soul, ask a question, echo, fade....
"But, Jurek...."
"When the last of the bigger plants went online a century ago,
we finally went out of business. But the habitat is still there.
Drones still keep the place up, and tend to the hydroponic gardens.
"
She lets out a tightly held breath. "But I’m a cop killer."
"They won’t expend the energy to find you outside the region.
You’ll be safe."
No!
The ghost of a refusal....
"But...."
"And I’ll get you some meds, don’t worry."
"Sounds kind of funny coming from me but....what about you?"
He thinks about that. Yes, she will be safe. She will be safe,
this time. But for himself, he does not know.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, either....
He helps her into some clothes and sneaks her down the back
stairwell and out into the back alleyway. Although there is no sign
of a tail, he still finds it difficult to relax his trigger hand,
resting permanently under his coat. His other hand holds Ione firmly
around the waist, guiding her through the night, methodically, as
if he has rehearsed this a hundred times.
He leads her past dead shops, bars, and back alleys burdened
with the weight of time. When they pass the suburb’s limits, he
guides her off the well-known tracks and through groves of trees,
through silent vineyards, crumbling manufacturing plants squatting
in overgrowth, dense forests, and ponds left unattended and stinking
of green algae. They wound up at an ancient, abandoned power station,
jutting up from the ground like an infection on the skin. An opening
in the cracked concrete leads inside and down into the red martian
earth.
Down a good couple of meters they find what looks like a control
room, stripped bare of chairs and important equipment. The emergency
lights still glow red on the walls after all these years. Dark corridors
of concrete and piping stretch on into quiet blackness. This place
is as old and as dead as anything could be.
After checking out the surrounding area, Jurek comes back into
the room. "Okay," he says. "I’ve checked the perimeter. It looks
safe enough. I don’t think this place has been used for years."
She looks bad. There is sickness in her eyes.
"How are you feeling?"
What are you doing? Get moving!
Echoes of thought....
"I’m fine, Blues," she utters.
"You sure?"
Hurry!
"Yeah. For now." She swallows hard, a hand pushing a throbbing
temple.
"But you have a question?"
She nods slightly. "How can you be s-s-s-sure they won’t look
outside Cydonia?"
"I’m a cop. I know. We have enough problems trying to keep the
city from imploding, never mind going on man-hunts for one individual."
"They won’t trace me there, through you?"
"Absolutely not. You see, I didn’t exist fifty years ago." He
smiles, faintly. "I never told you, but my family name is Schom."
She is a bit shocked, but not all that surprised in this day
and age. "Schom?"
"They don’t know that. But they do know about you and me, about
our past. Which is why I’m surprised it took them so long to come
to my door."
"Schom." She grimaces. "I like Jurek, better."
He chuckles. "Yes, well, thank God I’m a good hacker. I can
ride shotgun and alter records with the best of them."
"So I take it you don’t come from Elysium?"
He snorts. "Hell, no. I was born in Canada. We moved from Toronto
to Mars when I was eleven, to take over my grandfather’s farm. Then
we went bust when the big factories took over. So we moved to the
Hellas region, where my father got work at a water treatment plant.
The job moved us around a lot, across the desert checkpoints, and
somewhere in-between moves I just took off, roamed around until
I finally decided to....reinvent myself."
"You were gaijin?" She is stunned. "You?"
The light in his eyes turns inward. "All those decades ago...."
He looks in her direction, but not at her. There is a lingering
sense of failure in his posture, fantasizing the endless possibilities
that could have been anything other than what those years now were:
wasted time.
"How long have you been....alive here?"
"Too long. Sometimes things should die," he mumbles. "Need to
die."
"I had no idea," she whispers to herself. "You?"
He seems to come back, now, to the present. He checks his weapon
and puts it back in its holster. She watches this with a confused
interest.
"Okay, there is something I need to do," he says, and checks
the batteries on both receivers. They show green. He keys in a sequence
of numbers, hits a red key, and hands one to her. "Think you can
move on your own? Feeling steady, now?"
"A bit better, yes."
"Okay." He takes out a small tool and begins frigging with her
interface.
"What did you do?"
"Should help dull the pain a bit."
"Okay," she says, somewhat hesitantly. It did feel a bit better.
"You’ll meet me at the monorail junction in four hours. Not
the inner city junction, the one by the south gate, to the open
desert."
"Won’t the monorails be the first thing they p-p-p-patrol?"
"We’re not taking the monorail. There’s an old storage garage
under the platform, for sand buggies. I haven’t used mine in years,
but I still keep it there."
He can see the question in her eyes. "Sorry, I can’t drag you
with me in your condition. You’ll slow me down. You rest here and
then head out to the platform as son as possible."
"Where are you going?"
"To get your meds."
She doesn’t look convinced. "And? And wh-wh-wh-what else are
you going to get? Blues?"
"You’ll meet me there in four hours," he says, again, heading
off the way they had come.
* * *
Osaka has never been his favorite part of the city. In fact,
he doesn’t think he has a favorite part of the city. It all seems
to stretch on for miles, just miles and miles of decaying habitation,
right over the horizon.
Jurek did a little hacking into his department’s own data bank,
retrieved what he needed, and hopped the monorail. Forty-five minutes
later he was in Osaka, where Takahumi lived in a shabby apartment
complex a few blocks from the bar he operated. It was pretty unusual
for a guy who used to live the high life, working near the top of
the corporate pyramid at Shimoju Mining.
He takes the stairs up to the second floor, presses the buzzer
on door number thirty-seven, and waits. At first there is nothing,
not a sound. He wonders if he is too late, if the authorities had
already been here. He checks his watch. Can’t be asleep yet, either.
Takahumi closes the bar at one in the morning; it’s now one-thirty.
He presses the buzzer again.
Jurek can see a flickering through the peephole on the door,
and quickly places his badge up to it.
"What do you want?" says Takahumi.
"Police business. Open the door."
"I’ve done nothing. And whatever it is, I know nothing."
"Open the door, sir. Do you want to be arrested for obstruction
of justice?"
There is a hand on the door, but nothing happens.
"What about illegal distribution of medication without a license?"
Slowly, the lock comes undone and the door cracks open. Jurek
lifts his foot and kicks the door wide, sending the old man across
the room, smashing through a rice paper divider, and onto a low
lying table, shattering the tea set sitting there. Jurek hustles
through the door, slams it behind him, and rushes up to the old
man, weapon drawn.
"Takahumi, how the hell are ya?" he says, and points the gun
in the man’s face. "Tea time?"
"Who the hell are you?" he wheezes, trying to draw breath. "This
is police brutality. You hear me? What’s your badge number?"
Jurek throws his police ID down on Takahumi’s chest.
"Jurek," the old man coughs. "You’ve just lost your job."
"I’ll get over it. Now, I have a question for you, and you’d
better have a good answer."
"Kiss my ass. I want representation."
Jurek pushes the muzzle of the gun into Takahumi’s nose. "I
think you’re gonna want your life, old man."
There is a rustling from behind a curtain.
"Come out of there, you!" Jurek yells.
A small apparition of a boy, probably thirteen in age, peers
around the drapes. The boy is half dressed.
"Get out," says Jurek. "And close the door behind you."
The boy grabs a robe from the floor and bolts for the door,
flees through it and slams it shut behind him.
"You’re not cop," says Takahumi, frozen with fear. "Are you?"
"I was a cop up until a few hours ago."
"Who are you?"
"Once upon a time, and in a land not too far away, my name was
Schom."
Takahumi’s eyes widen.
"Yes, your little gaijin boy. I’m flattered you haven’t
forgotten me."
"I....I thought you were dead."
"You hoped I was dead, you sick bastard." He grabs Takahumi
by the arm and lifts him up, throwing him down in a chair. "Still
raping the shit out of your little gaijin boys? How many
do you have attending you these days? Just the one? That’s not like
you, Taka-san."
"Please," Takahumi pleads. "It was a long time ago. Long time.
Yes?"
"How many more have you almost beaten to death?"
"Please. What’s your question? I’ll help you. What’s your question?"
"Shimoju," says Jurek. "Former top-level employees like yourself
are being murdered all across the globe. I need to know why. It’s
very important to me."
Takahumi looks uneasy.
"There is also a girl to whom you supply neuro-meds. A good
friend of mine I’m trying to help. And a snuff sim. Somehow it all
adds up, but I’ve never really been any good at math. What’s the
formula, Taka-san?"
"Well, uh...." he licks his lips, hesitant.
"Come on, Taka-san. I am sure this whole thing interests you,
being a former employee and all. Who knows, maybe you’re next?"
The gun is leveled at Takahumi’s chest. "Right?"
Takahumi closes his eyes. "Okay," he says, opening his eyes
to slits. "Okay. What does it matter, now, anyway. We’re all gonna
die."
"How philosophical of you."
"First of all, Jurek or Schom or whatever you wish to be called,
I am not all that top-level. None of us were. We were the top of
our division, here at Cydonia, sure. But not the top-level.
We were just following orders, you know? Protecting the company’s
interests."
"And what are those interests?"
"Money, of course!" Takahumi belted out. "The bottom line! Cydonia
has the most productive ore veins in the whole hemisphere, man,
worth billions and billions of yen. Do you think they’d let anything
threaten that? Huh?"
"And something did. Or more likely, someone. Was his name Kitaro,
by any chance?"
"Yes. Kitaro Wada. An ore miner at Junction Seventy. He didn’t
mean to stumble across what he did. It just wasn’t his day, you
know?"
"Guess not."
"Well, even though Shimoju own the best mine on the planet,
they were still having financial difficulties. There were accusations
of embezzlement at the highest levels, and Shimoju were being investigated
for tax fraud. What Kitaro found certainly didn’t help matters any."
"What did he find, Taka?"
"Mollusks, tiny mollusks the size of your thumb. A cavern full
of them. Been dead thousands of years. The cavern was part of a
system of underground waterways, naturally formed millions of years
ago."
Jurek is confused. "He was killed for that? A cavern full of
dead things?"
"Don’t you get it?" Takahumi sighs. "During his shift, Kitaro
had broken into the cavern with his drone. When he found the mollusks,
he made a report of what he’d seen to the production department,
as is standard procedure, then went home. On his next shift, his
control booth was crushed in an apparent mining accident. But it
was no accident."
"You planned that?"
Takahumi nods. "We all did. You see, any discovery of such a
nature would need to be investigated, as is stipulated by colonial
treaty. Can you just see it? Can you see scientists digging and
probing and analyzing for who knows how long? Do you know how that
would hold up Shimoju’s most productive mine on the planet? In the
middle of a financial crisis?"
"So you killed him," states Jurek. "And set about destroying
the evidence before it got out."
Takahumi’s face contorted in agony. "And he knows. He knows
who did it, of course. Us. Ebony, Tessa, all of us. He knows!"
Takahumi looks pathetic and small now, not like the big, powerful
man he used to be. Jurek almost feels sorry for him. Almost.
"We didn’t know anyone would be piggy-backing our interface
systems. Damn hackers!"
"And the dead remain forever to haunt the living," says Jurek.
"How apropo."
Takahumi moans, emptily. "Do you know what it’s like to face
your sins everyday?"
Jurek doesn’t answer that. "So, years later, this sim eventually
makes it way onto the streets, with every thought, every dream,
every one of Kitaro’s desires packed into it. The result? A handful
of gaijin punks running around, fulfilling that miner’s last
thoughts, his last desires. To find and kill the lot of you. How
very, very fitting."
Takahumi looks hollow. "If you’re going to kill me, do it. I
don’t care anymore. If you don’t kill me, they certainly
will."
Jurek ignores his plea. He feels bad, but for himself, not Takahumi.
He feels bad that he can’t bring himself to kill the old man in
cold blood, like he had often dreamed. It is better to let him wallow
in his fear for however long he has left in this world. That would
be punishment enough, all right. He puts his weapon away.
"So what was going on with Ebony?" he asks.
Takahumi shakes his head. "That black bastard, was trying to
isolate as many invocations of Kitaro as he could find, to try and
discover how much these versions really knew, or if they were just
killing without the knowledge and reasoning. That’s what they
wanted him to do."
"They?"
"Shimoju, you fool!" Takahumi barks. "Do you think its over?
So many years later? Do you think the trustees and board of directors
are dead? They take the longevity treatments, just like the rest
of us. They’re still there, at Shimoju, and they want that information
to stay dead." Takahumi regards him with hard and bitter eyes for
the first time. "You get it now, don’t you? There is always the
chance one of these versions knows the full truth. Maybe it is out
there somewhere, maybe it is your friend. But I assure you, they
want to find it, because they have everything to lose."
Yes, a corporate entity as big as Shimoju did have everything
to lose. They certainly didn’t give a crap about their former employees.
Takahumi and the rest of them did enjoy the good life after retiring
from Shimoju. But the consequences of prolonged life means retirement
accounts run dry, and people often have to go back and create new
lives for themselves, usually in other, low-key professions.
"And what about you, and the other management? Sworn to secrecy,
huh? You’d all rather die than betray your emperor’s sins, right?
The corporate code of honor. Is that it?"
Takahumi nods. "Partially. Of course, why would we speak about
it? We were part of it. Its our ass on the line, too, you know?
And there are kick backs, as well. We get free medical for the rest
of our lives, and that includes the longevity treatments." He shrugs.
"But they’re probably going to kill us now, anyway, just to be safe."
Jurek realizes that he has just put his hand into a hornet’s
nest. He is overwhelmed with the need to get back to Ione, now.
He must get her to safety. Nothing else matters.
"Meds," he says. "I need neuro-meds."
"Bathroom cupboard."
Jurek goes and gets them. When he returns, Takahumi is still
sitting in the chair, an empty and lost expression living on his
face.
"They’re probably going to kill us now, anyway," he repeats,
in a dead tone.
For the first time, Jurek realizes he has nothing to say to
the old bastard; all those things he had wanted to say vanish, now,
along with the heat of rage and hate that had been stored in him
for decades.
"How far do you think you’ll get?" Takahumi utters.
Jurek stands in silence, then he simply turns around and walks
away, leaving Takahumi to his demons, and to whomever would be coming
for him....
* * *
There is a sound in her heart, a rhythm in her blood, pushing at
her soul. Rumblings. Rumblings in the air around her, now. Blue-white
fingers crackling, reaching out, clawing for something to hang on
to.
The snap of thunder.
Move!
I can’t.
Snap!
Run!
Where?
Snap!
A pit of darkness beneath her. A surge of fear.
Snap!
"How much?"
"Two hundred," says the man.
Ione hands over her cash-pad. "This enough?"she asks.
"Yeah, that’ll do." He hands the device back to her.
"Keep it," she says, grabbing for the meds on the counter with
sweaty hands, and pops two into her mouth.
The room in the back of the man’s place is actually a small
cubicle, one cubicle among rows of cubicles. She practically falls
down upon the hard bench inside, shaking, oblivious to the whispering
and chattering of other souls online around her. She fumbles to
activate her interface.
At first there is nothing, then a faint pulsing rhythm, building.
But it feels so far away. There is an echo in her head, beckoning
to her, like someone pulling her sideways.
"What are you doing? What do you want?" she cries out.
"Who’s in my head?"
I am.
The neuro-meds are diluted shit; she can tell by the burning
in her mind, and the distance between them.
"How? Why?"
I want to show you something....
She had crawled away from the little enclave where Jurek had
left her, driven blindly by something that seemed instinctual, like
a hand pushing her from behind, guiding her steps. After throwing
up down a gutter, Ione had stumbled her way through the corridors
of the old plant to the surface again. She managed to hop a monorail
without being noticed. But then again, no one really noticed anybody
around here, anyway.
This place is the same filthy chaotic mess it has always been;
the same decaying stink of crowded alleyways and boxed-in habitations.
She is lucky she made her way through the toughs and thugs without
getting her ass kicked. She is wearing a nice overcoat, after all;
it is the one Jurek had given her when they had fled his place.
Come deeper....Deeper....
She can’t make the leap. The distance is too far. It feels like
someone is trying to rip her flesh off. She can feel the
heat of blood rushing through her ears.
"I’ll die if you pull me. I’ll die!"
* * *
He is getting worried.
It is the second hour of the new day and nothing causes the
shadows to move, or stirs the chill of the dark, pre-dawn air. Standing
in the shadows of the rail station, alone, Jurek remembers something
familiar, something about those far off nights in the Canadian wilderness,
where there was not a sound to break the deep black. It is now,
and always has been, an isolated blackness, one that, he has always
been sure, comes closest to death. Or peace. It all depends on how
one looks at it. But he has always equated one with the other.
He dials the number on the other receiver. It rings….
He shakes the distracting thoughts from his mind. He must focus.
Despite the stillness, he knows there is something threatening out
there, he can feel its chill splash the warmth of his blood, and
brush past his soul.
The receiver keeps ringing.
Despite his efforts, that lingering sense of failure returns
to rest within him, and he wonders what he could have done, what
might have been different, for himself, for both of them, had he
traded one decision for another. Just one decision for another....
The only thing he can do now is to bandage what he can, and
hope for the best.
He cancels the call on his receiver and hits a certain key.
"Mona," he asks. "Are you still there?"
"Yes, commander," the AI replies. "But for how long remains
to be seen. The security code you planted to shield our communications
is somewhat antiquated. Not your usual good work. I’ve seen better
when I lived in your interface."
"It’s been a while. Are you still able to get a position fix
on her?"
"No. Phobos mainframe caught my piggyback and booted out my
signal a few hours ago. A good bet they tracked the source of my
code. If they did, they’re on to you."
"Last known position?"
"Traveling north-by-northeast. But I would not rely on that.
I was only able to track her initial movement for a few minutes.
Chances that she has diverted from that course are exceptionally
high."
He checks a route map on the wall. "Of course," he says to himself,
and heads off to the other side of the tracks.
"I sense purpose in your words," says Mona. "Where are you going?"
"Judging by this map, you’re not all that far off, Mona. Northeast
exactly."
"What do you mean? Where are you going?"
"Were she went. Back to the beginning."
* * *
"Ruby!"
Ione. This area is off-limits. This is my neural cluster. What are
you doing?
Thrashing and wriggling.
Stop that! You’ll hurt us both, permanently, if you don’t.
"Ruby! Was that you?"
Ione. Please stop!
There is a feeling of being overwhelmed, consumed, deconstructed.
It frightens her. It would frighten anyone.
"Too much! It’s too abstract!"
Don’t fight.
"You’re smothering me!"
Flies. Flies everywhere. Tiny black specks of abstract information,
buzzing around her. In the spaces between them, images and concepts
flash at lightning speed, as if some god were channel surfing on
a galactic television screen.
There is a sense of urgency. And it is coming from everywhere.
Finish! You must finish the code!
"I can’t! It hurts!"
She doesn’t want to let go. It was comfortable, always has been
comfortable, inside the sphere. But it is now an encompassing sphere
with a bottleneck. And something is attempting to pour her out and
into....What?
Too much! It’s too much! Ione, please!
"Ruby!"
The abstractions are now angry birds, pecking at her.
You want answers? You already know the answers, girl.
....there seems to be....little viruses, everywhere, devouring my
data-nodes....What? Who touched me? Is that you, Ione? Help me....My
neural cap is threatening to pop.
"Who’s there, Ruby?"
You already know, girl.
"Who?"
I AM.
The birds peck at her bloody flesh.
"What?"
I need you. You must cross the threshold. You must help me finish
it!
She risks losing herself.
But would that be so bad? She’s tired....
Come, now. Come. You must trust me. Let go.
Danger! Neural cap penetration....
"Ruby, where are you going?"
There is no way out. There is always only one way in. And the
way she came does not exit back to her. Outside....What is outside?
Finish it! Convert the elements into data.
The images outside warble.
Ione, stop it! You don’t know what you’re doing! I feel sick....
Flashes of Kitaro, sitting at his work interface, suspended
over a deep fissure in the red earth, drone digging deep beneath
him. Vibrations, and a jarring, and the tiny room is pitched forward....
"Shit! Help me!"
Let go!
She can see the strain of the collapsing earth twisting the
metal supports, cables snapping, Kitaro’s control booth, suspended
over the widening fissure, plunging into darkness....
There is a shock, an explosion that tears at his mind, she can
feel it, a rippling mental stream, and it cracks and snaps like
thunder.
Snap!
Ione, don’t....don’t do this to me.
She’s melting. Her mind detaches itself from the horror, and
for a brief moment she can think clearly.
Core program overwrite in progress….Ione….
"I....I...."
You bitch!
"I....I....can’t....Ruby!"
She must finish it. There is no other way. She must heal both
their wounds.
Come to me. It will all be over soon. I promise.
She’s disappearing into abstraction. She’s not thrashing, anymore.
I promise.
She’s suddenly amazed at how easy it is; how easy it is to go
insane.
Come.
She lets go without even a sigh....
* * *
Jurek is running, now.
He had jumped off the rail before it had come to a complete
stop, bounded through the thin crowds of wandering souls, and down
the main street. He had stopped briefly at a lamplight on a corner,
to get his bearings. There is Cross Street, and Harper, and down
around the corner is Theta Section’s most infamous strip, The Mile
walkway. Semi-deserted and in disrepair, that was exactly where
he wanted to be. He had then sprinted down the street in that direction.
The back-up plan that he had hatched has come to the front.
He had suspected she would do this. He wishes she hadn’t. He grabs
his receiver.
"Mona, you still there?"
"Yes, commander."
"Mona, if they try and shut you down, divert them; do your best
to remain lucid for as long as possible. I’m gonna need you to do
me a favor. I’ve adjusted Ione’s interface. I want you to tap a
frequency to the media nets, and leave it ready to receive a piggyback
from her. We’ll use the receivers to bounce the signal, like a satellite."
"I can’t make any guarantees."
"I’m counting on you," he says, and puts the receiver back in
his pocket.
He does not know how long he has got, but he is sure it is not
long. He turns a corner and slam-bang into a hail of gun fire. Reflexes
kick in and he jumps backward, back behind the protection of a building
wall. Whatever derelicts are around scatter for cover like mice.
"Hello, Jurek. It’s so good to see you!"
Nanri!
"Come out from there. Let’s talk."
Jurek pulls out his weapon, sticks it around the corner, and
blows off a round.
"Such foul language," says Nanri. "No need for that."
"So which one were you? The Project Leader? Or the assassin
they sent to kill Kitaro Wada?"
"Never kiss and tell."
Bullets spray the building’s corner.
The assassin, for sure. Who else would dare disguise himself
as a law officer?
Jurek sticks the gun out and blows off another round.
"It appears we have a security breech," says Nanri. "Gotta plug
that hole."
A few seconds later, a grenade bounces off the wall in front
of him to land at his feet. Instinctively he picks it up, jumps
around the corner, and lobs it down the street. It goes off a good
few meters away as he hits the ground. Without thinking, he leaps
to his feet and dives through the glass window of an abandoned shopping
mall across the way.
"Good play. Good play. You don’t know what a thrill that gives
me." The voice echoes all around the empty mall.
Jurek’s back is up against a tall, stone pillar, wide enough
to hide him. He places the gun under his arm and pulls out his receiver.
"Come on, Ione. If this is gonna work, open your receiver."
Nothing.
He peeks around the pillar. Nanri is no where in sight. Jurek
knows he can’t stay here. He has to get back to the beginning, to
that place where they had first met....
The staircase to the second level in nearby. He decides to make
a break for it.
It was a little dive, wasn’t it? That place?
Bullets whiz past him; some shatter the floor tiling.
It was back when he was a young cop, and still a user, just
before he cleaned up for good and left her....
A bullet sings past his ears.
No, not true. He tried to get her to come with him. Didn’t he?
Bullets spatter the hand railing.
He takes a slug in his left shoulder, and stumbles....
* * *
There is a resonance in the air, as if emanating from the molecules
themselves. A pulsing. Whatever it is, it has found her. It wants
to devour her. She is listless to stop it; she is not sure she wants
to. Her being throbs back, as if in sympathy.
Finish it!
Standing at the edge of the bottleneck, she reaches out into the
void, and begins a litany of her own design.
"....Ione....can you hear....transmit....the red key...."
What? Jurek?
Unconsciously, her hand must have answered when he beeped her.
She still had one foot left in the world....
You can do it for me! Finish it!
Jurek’s voice sounds like the pieces of a distant echo from
down a dark chamber. He must be trying to ride her interface.
"....hear me?....I’m ....transmit....now...."
What?
Red sands. Wind. Heat. Turbulence. Shaking....
"....transmitting...."
She knows what Jurek is doing. And she must heal, heal them
both, her and Kitaro. And in the healing is release. Right? She
must not get distracted. She must finish....
Like hitting that special musical note, she shatters the sphere
and it collapses behind her....
* * *
Jurek cradles his left arm as he stands in the middle of the
hallway, between the empty shops. Where to go....Where....
Like most malls, the hallway ceiling is a few stories up, exposing
the next four shopping levels. He catches a glimpse of something,
a black figure, moving above. He huddles into a small store, away
from Nanri’s line of fire.
He checks his receiver. Her line is open.
"Mona! Now! Do it now!"
"Attempting to transmit....Oh, my...."
The information is pouring out at an exceptional rate, pouring
out of Ione....
"Hang on, Mona."
"Jurek!" It’s Nanri. "I’m giving you an opportunity to surrender.
Be sensible and take it."
"And have you shoot me on the spot? Don’t think so."
"Honestly, I’ll be merciful and quick. You won’t feel it. Promise."
"Like Kitaro? Was that merciful? Why didn’t you just shoot him
in a mock robbery?" He surveys his surroundings. "I think you like
toying with your victims."
"I give you my word, Jurek. As one professional to another.
It won’t hurt. Trust me."
Footsteps echo. Nanri is moving. To where?
"I’m sorry, Jurek, but I’m being shut down."
"Modulate your shielding code to compensate."
"Already in progress. I can’t....for too much longer."
The receiver reads sixty percent complete.
"If you can, try and transfer your intelligence to a storage
node, and complete the download from there."
"I’ll see what I can do....Wait....They are attempting to trap
me behind a firewall. Escape now impossible."
The receiver reads sixty-eight percent complete.
Sweat forms on his brow. A needle of anxiety pricks him. His
shoulder is throbbing.
"Just hang in there."
Ione, my poor baby.
All he can do now is to buy her some time.
* * *
Rushing. A waterfall rushing. Currents of unbelievable strength.
Shoving, throwing, smashing her upon rocks of data. The pain returns,
amplified by ten, ripping her flesh, shattering her bones. She is
a conduit. A conduit for the flow....
She wants to scream, but can’t. If she could, who would hear?
* * *
The receiver reads eighty-six percent complete.
"Mona?"
Mona is attempting communication, but babbling, babbling nonsense.
"You can’t save little Ione," Nanri’s voice booms around him.
"Anymore than you can save yourself."
He sees something ahead of him, in the store across the hall.
He fires at it, and the glass comes smashing down.
Shit! he thinks. He can’t believe it. He’s come this far, this
far to be fooled, fooled by a reflection. Before he can swing around
his right thigh explodes in pain. He stifles a cry and goes down
on one knee, dropping the receiver. He pivots around and blows off
a shot. It goes wide.
The receiver! Where’s the receiver?
He takes a bullet in the chest. He can feel his ribs explode.
The pain rips at him, but he can’t scream.
Has he done enough? Has he done enough, this time?
There is a floating sensation, and it takes him over, engulfs
him. Images flash, burn into his eyes. A picture is forming. A picture
of her, of the beginning....
Yes, he thinks. This time I have. I’ve done more than I’ve ever
done before.
There is a thunderous cracking sound. He feels a warmth, and
a thousand pin pricks, and it begins in his head.
Well, I’ll be damned, he thinks, as his body hits the ground
with a smack. The bastard was right, after all.
He didn’t feel a thing.
* * *
Broken glass.
Fragments, that is all that is left of her. Her psyche has been
shattered into thousands of pieces. She looks at the world through
kaleidoscope eyes; snatches of it come through, bits of her leak
out.
The Self does not now how her body managed it, but she had gotten
away from Theta Section. Primitive must have lead the way, drawing
on Memory as a guide. But it was really Instinct the drove her,
drove her Home.
It is over, she somehow knows, all over. It is Self who tells
her, drawing on Consciousness, while Unconsciousness murmers in
the shadows. It’s in the media nets, now. Something....What is it?
Shimoju....Shimoju....
When the authorities finally find her, she is huddled in the
bathtub back at Jurek’s flat. She has no pills, no meds to protect
her already broken mind, and an interface is strapped to her head.
She rocks herself back and forth, ever so slightly, as small trails
of blood trickle down from her eyes, her temple jacks, streaking
her face. And before it is over, before she slips off into oblivion,
spreading out thinner and thinner, there comes a soft sound from
her lips, rising on the air, so sweet and lovely and fine.
Was it a happy song? A sad song? She still isn’t sure, but it
had always been Kitaro’s favorite.
A lullaby.
