by Kal Spriggs
“Yeah. And one of the ways that some entrants die after Second Screening is withdrawal. Their bodies shut down without the quick heal to keep them going.” She sighed, “Probably combined with withdrawal from the mix of other stuff, too.”
“Including rex,” I growled. “Jesus…” I let out a shuddering breath, trying not to scream in frustration. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would it have changed anything?” Shadow asked me. “I mean, be honest: would knowing that they were injecting you with all kinds of nasty drugs have made you perform any better, enabled you to avoid it at all… or would it have made you worry, made you doubt yourself… maybe made you fail?”
It was my turn to look away. She wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t have done anything. The couple times I hadn’t received my quick heal during Second Screening, my body had been a mass of aches and pains. There was no way I could have finished the final phase unless I’d been able to perform at my fullest. I’d nearly died, even then.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Shadow looked miserable. “Your body is really off-kilter, Will. I mean… it’s bad. I’m worried some of your organs are just going to shut down.”
“So… quick heal?” I asked.
“The last thing you want is more of that stuff in your system,” she shook her head. “Believe me, I know why doctors are so hesitant to use it, now. Yeah, it’s like a miracle as far as healing you up. Drakkus’s stuff is way better than anything we have back on Century, but your body is used to healing that way, instead of healing naturally. Half of why you’re so sick is your immune system is shot, your cells don’t know how to fix themselves, and… yeah. It’s bad. It is really, really bad and I’m afraid.”
“You think I’m going to die?” I asked.
Shadow didn’t answer. She was crying, again.
“Hey,” I gave her a half smile, “that’s not fair, I’m the one getting the bad news, right?”
She laughed and wiped at her tears. “One thing that sucks about creating a realistic simulation is tears. My fully digital version doesn’t do anything embarrassing like cry.” She gave a sigh. “Look, Will, there’s an alternative. I copied your whole consciousness over in here. We could just let you go. You and me, we can port out to the planetary network. I can copy some of my gestalt intelligence coding, enough that you’d still be you, but you’d also be like me. Free of pain, free of worrying about death. I mean, we could technically live forever.”
“As a digital ghost,” I reminded her. “Weren’t you complaining not so long ago about not being able to affect the real world?”
“Yeah,” Shadow looked down at the ground. “Yeah, I was. It’s not perfect, but it’s an option.”
“What else?” I asked.
“The quicksilver in your body is… different. It’s the original pattern, the one mom and dad found. It’s not the adapted version that they created. There’s a lot of really subtle differences… and one of those is that while this stuff is incredibly more expensive and difficult to make, it’s got some potential that I’ve noticed.”
“What kind of potential?” I asked.
She generated an image of my brain, floating there above the grass, the size of a small ground car. “The withdrawal from rex in combination with the lack of quick heal is the big problem. The rex prime was souping up your brain, sort of like overclocking a computer. You were thinking faster, feeling more confident. In the process, though…” She zoomed in down the level of neurons. Angry black spots burned back along the neurons in my brain. “It was burning you out. But the quick heal was healing the damage faster than it could happen.”
“That makes me feel just great,” I did not want to think of how the rex had been eating holes in my brain. “But the rex is out of my system, so it shouldn’t be happening, right?”
“No, your body is still overclocking. The absence of rex just means your neurons are firing randomly and they’re eating themselves up. It’s like when you got that electric shock to your brain, only there’s no quick-heal to repair the damage.”
Hock. “So… how does anyone survive this, then?” I asked.
“Most of them don’t get anywhere near the dosages you’ve received,” Shadow told me. “Double dosages, plus a couple occasions where you got additional double dosages, like when you got electrocuted. On top of that, while you were in the hospital they were pumping you full of this stuff. This was very carefully calculated. That Intelligence guy, Dyer? He probably figures you’ll just cave and ask for more quick heal. That takes you out of the running and it means they’ll keep you on it, plus doses of rex, for the rest of your life. It makes you dependent on them, gives them leverage over you.”
“But you said it wouldn’t help,” I noted.
“No, at this point, I think you’re too far gone. I think Prince Ladon is behind that. Especially the upped doses in the hospital. But again, there was nothing I could do. I even tried to hack their system to bring it back down, but the medics just set it back to high.” Shadow looked away. “And you were in really bad shape. I didn’t know if you would pull through without it.”
“Let’s get back to options,” I reminded her.
“Well, this quicksilver, it’s really versatile. I might be able to spin it out into a fine enough network to help,” she told me. She showed tiny filaments of it spreading out through my brain. “It would essentially be a full interface. It would connect your brain entirely to the stuff, it would patch the damaged sections of your neurons. More than that, you’d be totally interfaced with it, it would give you a huge amount of control over your body and your metabolism. You could probably bring everything back into norms.”
“What’s the down-side?” I asked. I had the feeling she would have started with this if she thought it was a good option.
“Well, there’s a few possible results,” Shadow admitted. “The first is, well, it doesn’t work. I’m not a doctor. I’m able to download a bunch of medical information, but I don’t have any basis of knowledge. I could tear your brain apart even trying. It might kill you.”
“So, horrible death, but that’s a risk anyway, what else?” I asked.
She didn’t answer for a long moment. “Will, I don’t know if you’ll be… you anymore. Before, with me… with the real Jiden, the whole idea of a Tier Three implant was sort of out there. I mean, a full mind-machine interface… the few times they tried it, it drove people nuts. Too many little signals going through the brain, with physical connections that got out of sequence and drove people mad.”
“Tier Three worked, though, right?” I asked.
“Well, there were three people where it didn’t, not exactly. But it changed everyone. I mean, change is part of life, right? But it changed how they think, how they interact with other people. I don’t know if Jiden realizes just how much it’s changed her as a person. The ones with Tier Three implants, they tend to hang out together, to talk via their implants, to spend time in simulated worlds over the real one. And they can do all of that way faster than normal people.”
“Okay, so I might change a bit?” I frowned, not certain I understood what she meant.
“This goes way beyond Tier Three, Will. This is connections through fifty or sixty percent of the neurons in your brain and a lot of them through your nervous system. Maybe more, depending on how much more damage we have to fix versus what I think we can leave too heal over time. And there’s no going back. Once we tie this in, you’ll need those connections to live. They’ll be all through your brain and central nervous system. Every part of you is going to be wired.” She waved her hand and an image appeared, strings of quicksilver running all through my body.
“Won’t it be detectable?” I asked.
“It’s going to be spun out so thin, so fine, that they’d have to do a deep tissue scan to find it. As it is, I’m worried we won’t have enough for the amount of damage we’re going to need to patch. It’s going to run all through yo
u, Will, thousands of meters, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of meters of monofilament quicksilver if I can get it thin enough.” She closed her eyes. “And you’re going to be tied into this so close that I’m going to have to copy over a lot of my gestalt programming to make it work.”
“What’s that do to you?” I asked.
“I’m going to have to transfer out,” Shadow admitted. “There won’t be capacity for me and for it to run all the linkages. But I’ve found a way to tap into the Research Institute’s network and they have all that quicksilver in their basement, I’ve got a place to hide.”
“A place filled with alien data that we haven’t begun to understand, yet,” I noted.
“Yeah, but again, if your body dies, then I’ll sort of have to vacate, anyway,” she reminded me.
I closed my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose in thought. It felt so real. All of this felt so real. I could see the appeal of it. I could be anything, do anything, here in this digital realm. I wouldn’t have to worry about being discovered, wouldn’t have to worry about being killed. I could just hide here, forever.
And what about Kiyu? What about Jonna? What about Osmund and Sanjaya? People were depending on me, could I abandon them? For that matter, what about going home? What about seeing Jiden again, about seeing my grandmother, the Admiral? Could I forsake everything, leave my entire past behind and live in this digital realm? Could I live with myself if people I care about die while I live on?
“What happens if stuff starts to go wrong with this process, will you be able to copy me out, to save me?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. That was answer enough.
“Live like this forever and abandon any hope of going home, of helping my friends,” I said it out loud. “Or try to survive and risk it changing me, maybe into something I won’t like, maybe even driving me mad.” I shook my head. “I’ve got to pick the lesser of two bad choices.”
“Yeah,” Shadow told me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I took a shuddering breath. “Will it hurt?”
“I’m going to put you to sleep. An induced coma, while I thread the filiments through your body. It would hurt a lot, I imagine, but you won’t be conscious for it,” she told me.
“If something goes wrong, I won’t ever realize it,” I nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this. Wire me up.”
She laughed slightly. “I love you, little brother.”
“Love you too,” I told her. I closed my eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”
The world faded to black.
***
Chapter 22: Once More Into The Breach
I woke up in my bunk. My whole body ached.
Shadow? I thought.
I’m here, she told me, but I’ve got to limit transmissions, they picked up the spike in data as I transferred out. It worked, you’re alive. Got to go, they’re trying to find the intrusion to their network.
I sat up. My hands were steady. The pain was there, but it was a throbbing ache rather than a stabbing pain. Sanjaya came up, “Vars, are you… are you okay?” His eyes were big and he looked more than a little skittish.
I could see his pupils dilate, I noticed his pulse throbbing in his neck. He was worried. Probably worried about me, but also about what would happen to him if I died.
“I’m okay,” I told him. My voice felt rough. “Water?” I asked.
He passed me a metal cup and I took a slow, small sip. My implant fed me data on my body. My blood sugar was dangerously low. I was low on electrolytes. I sniffed and wrinkled my nose at how I stank.
I looked around. “Where is everyone?” Most of the bay was empty. I saw Osmund, asleep in his bunk, but there was no one else. I checked my implant and I felt a shock as I realized I had been out for not just days, but weeks.
“Tangun’s Gate, either competing or observing. We’ve been given a temporary pass, until you… that is, until you got better,” Sanjaya told me. I filled in what he’d hesitated to say. They’d assumed I was going to die.
“How long until we’re scheduled to compete?” I asked. I stood and I swayed a bit and had to catch myself on the edge of my bunk. I felt very weak. The quicksilver running through my body told me just how wasted I’d become. First from my stay in the hospital on recovery and now the past five days I’d spent in bed.
I needed food. “Rations?” I asked.
“I’ll get some,” Sanjaya told me, hurrying off. I tried taking a couple steps. I felt an odd mirror sensation as my nerves and the quicksilver both fed responses back up my limbs. The organic responses felt sluggish, but they also felt more real. It was going to take some getting used to.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time.
Sanjaya had woken Osmund and they both hurried over, another cup of water and a ration pack in hand. I took the rations, ripping the package open with quick, precise movements. “How long until we forfeit?” I asked. I had to fight the urge to stuff food in my face. Instead I took a small bite of a cracker and washed it down with a sip of water. I paced myself, almost mechanically, allowing myself thirty seconds between small bites and as my stomach started to protest, lengthening that to a full minute.
“The last set of the first round ends tonight, sometime,” Sanjaya looked at Osmund, “We, uh, we were going to go with a mixed team if you weren’t up to it.”
“You mean ‘when I died,’” I said. I was trying to focus on all the sensations and data that flowed through me. It was a bit much to take in all at once. I had to balance all of it while trying to still think. My brain kept lurching ahead of the rest of me, thinking of the second and third sets of consequences for the different ideas and plans that raced through my mind.
Focus, I told myself, you need to focus.
“I need a little time. I have to try and get some food down,” I closed my eyes. It was easier to stay focused when my brain wasn’t trying to count all of Sanjaya’s eyelashes or noticing that Osmund had missed a spot on the corner of his lip when he’d shaved and that he had a couple longer hairs there that stood out against his skin.
I took a deep breath and the rank smell of sweat and other unpleasant odors assaulted me. I almost gagged. “I need to shower.” I set the cup down, still with my eyes closed, and walked into the bathrooms. I stripped off my soiled undergarments and stepped into the shower, turning it up and scrubbing at myself.
The water felt icy cold, almost painfully so, but I rinsed my entire body two or three times and walked back to my bunk, pulling my towel down out of my wall locker and drying off.
“Uh, Vars, are you okay?” Osmund asked, his voice sounding nervous.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I told him absently. I’d pulled up a data feed of Tangun’s Gate and I started reviewing the past dozen runs, splitting out my focus and watching each of them at four times speed. There didn’t appear to be any monitors inside the Gate itself, so I couldn’t see any of the final actions, just the victors emerging after they’d finished their opponents.
“You haven’t opened your eyes,” Sanjaya told me. “The whole time, to the bathroom and back.”
“Oh,” I opened them. The light was a bit painful but I adjusted my pupils down manually. “Yeah, sorry, the light was kind of bright. I guess I’ve just sort of memorized the path.”
“Yeah…” Osmund shot Sanjaya a look. “Vars, are you sure you’re up to this?”
I’d just finished watching all the other runs. I felt tired, my body hurt. My internal body chemistry was still shot and my stomach rebelled at the thought of eating anything solid, even as my bladder announced that I needed to empty it, and soon.
“Yeah, give me a few minutes and we’ll suit up.” I could do this. I had to do it.
For just a moment, I thought about how Prince Ladon was going to react when I showed up. I began to smile. “This is going to be awesome.”
***
I stood at the entrance, waiting for the door to open. Through my implant, I was listening in to the announceme
nts for the Gate, even as I reviewed movements and tactics for the other teams that had already gone through. We’d shown up right before the cut-off and the officer who’d checked us in had been dismissive. Clearly, he didn’t expect us to do well.
“…Silver Flight, Team Twelve, Entrant Usarhi, Entrant Genlin, and Entrant Kung, Platform Five.” The announcer paused and then went on, his voice mechanical and precise, “Jade Flight, Team Twelve, Entrant Vars, Entrant Sanjaya, and Entrant Osmund.”
The door opened and I led the way out onto the platform. Sections of the huge chamber had been opened up with the addition of observation and viewing areas. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of entrants, initiates, and officers watching us.
With quicksilver giving me the ability to tap into the observation monitors set up throughout the chamber, I had already picked out the location of Prince Ladon, seated next to his father Crown Prince Abrasax.
I’d also located the Emperor, who sat on a platform surrounded by his advisors and confidants. I wondered if it was deliberate, that Crown Prince Abrasax and his son were seated elsewhere, and whether that was a snub by the Emperor or a way to distance himself and not show favor to his officers.
Either way, I had zoomed in on Prince Ladon’s face as they’d announced my name. I didn’t miss how his expression went from bored to shock and then over to rage. Nor did I miss how Crown Prince Abrasax looked at his son. That was a look of irritation and maybe even worry. They had expected me to be dead or, at best, far too sick to be able to compete. They had not expected me to show up.
“Entrants, Long Live the Emperor,” the announcer called out.
I’d watched the other teams enough in the past few hours that I knew what I was supposed to do. As one, my team and all the others turned to face the Emperor’s observation platform and we all took a knee. “Long live the Emperor!” We shouted.
He didn’t look like he much cared. That was fine with me. I didn’t want him to know even my fake identity. Nothing good would come of being on his radar.
