by Sean Platt
And so Leah had ended their communication and reported back to Dominic after paying Dom’s idea some more lip service. But the thought of someone chasing down Steve York, aka Crumb, had lingered, bugging Leah like a splinter.
Someone is looking for him like we were, Serenity had said, referring to the search she and her children had undertaken to find souls like York’s online. It looks like two someones, actually, though one stopped trying.
Interesting, Leah had said dismissively. And then she’d changed the topic because a chord was striking inside that she very much didn’t like hearing.
She’d pinged Shadow. She could trust Shadow, no matter what Dominic had said before running back to the station for the big event’s preparation — the big event where something seemed a degree from boiling, where Dominic planned fragile upheaval with the help of two people that Dominic, always a Scout, didn’t even trust. Shadow kept an eye on such things. Shadow had discovered the Beau Monde identifiers on Beam IDs, like big, fat get-out-of-jail-free cards. And when n33t had told Shadow about the tags upon tags — about the group that called itself “Panel,” sensibly withholding the subject of Panel side groups and assassins — Shadow had leaped right on that train, too.
Of course he’d report back, right after he was through with something that seemed to be stressing him way the hell out.
The way planning a big fundraising event as an unseen hand was stressful, maybe.
Leah sighed. Now who was being paranoid?
A voice came from behind her. They were walking through the old subway system, at a fork, resting on their ascent from the prison’s ruins.
“Did you decide?” said the voice.
Leah turned. Leo was standing behind her, looking exactly as he always had. Because his ancient hardware had mysteriously rebooted in the presence of the prison’s old but central-core Fi, he hadn’t taken new add-ons like the others. The switcharoo at NPS had happened so fast and amid such turmoil, they hadn’t even put him in a jumpsuit. The Organas were all wearing their normal clothes — some torn, some still stained with the remnants of blood. But the prison laundry had featured an industrial nano-wash/particle-dry setup that Leah’s digits had been able to partially restore, so the fugitives were at least somewhat clean.
“Leo, can I tell you something?” Leah asked, deflecting his uncomfortable question.
“Always.”
“I’m a little worried about Crumb.”
“York?” Leo appeared to be taken off guard by the random thought. “Why?”
“I talked to Serenity while you were fixing up the others. She said…I don’t know…The Beam is fuzzy or fragmenting around stuff that’s coming up. And Crumb — ”
“Are you saying she senses a disturbance in the Force?”
Leah stopped, confused.
“Never mind,” Leo said, rolling his eyes. “What about Crumb?”
“She says it looks like someone’s after him.”
“We knew that. He said it back at Serenity’s school, remember?”
Leah did. It’s why they’d gone back into the mountains. Crumb, who was now York, had spoken of it in a casually fatalistic way: “Whoever’s after me, I’m sure they’ve already found me,” or something similar. But found in the way he’d meant it then wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the mere following, Serenity had spoken of, at least in Leah’s mind. The first was conceptual, as if a pursuer had identified him. But the second — the following — was a real thing. The way a murderer followed his victim while holding a knife.
“This seems different.”
“Different how?”
“She said there were two people in pursuit. Whoever was after him at first has…detoured or something. Or quit.”
“I call that a win.”
“But now there’s someone else.”
“Win some, lose some.”
“Leo, I’m serious.”
Leo exhaled, then looked toward the tunnel’s left-side branch — the one he and the others were supposed to take. Leah still hadn’t summoned the strength to give him a decision about whether she was coming with them or not. They both knew the truth: if Leah went with the newly jacked-in Organas, she’d be there as a babysitter, not a companion, wearing an immobilizer on her hip in case they got out of line — in case Leo’s technological cure failed and they reverted to animals.
Leo’s sigh now, though, told Leah that time was wasting. Her nanos inside Quark would have erased most of today’s records by now, including the official authorization for Leo Booker’s arrest. Technically, the Organas were free. But she couldn’t erase memories from Austin Smith or his agents, and NPS’s comeuppance felt like only a matter of time. They had to move. They needed black market add-ons with less deadly roots, a satellite hookup to provide steady Beam access wherever they went next, and a quick flight from the city.
But Leo had known Leah long enough to provide a delicate touch when needed, and she definitely needed it now. She watched the old man’s face soften.
He sat beside her. “Tell me about it.”
“It has to be the assassin. The one from the transcript. There’s nobody else it could be.”
“Which one? The person who’s given up or the person still after him?”
“It feels like too much to hope it’s the first one. I doubt assassins just stop trying.”
“But that transcript was from forever ago, Leah. What makes you think there still is an assassin? Why would he just keep waiting, when he probably thought York was dead or gone?”
“It’s just a feeling I get.” Leah didn’t want to go into much depth right now because Leo had plenty of his own problems. She’d found the transcript during his arrest, and only in the past night had they been able to discuss it. But there were assumptions that Leo, not having seen the raw stream and without Leah’s Beam nativity, wouldn’t understand. Serenity would understand. And Serenity, though they’d both pretended to be casual, knew someone was still out there.
“So where is Steve? Still at Bontauk, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Serenity can’t pinpoint him? She found him the first time.”
“It’s all metaphor. You know how she speaks. But I get the feeling he’s…close.”
“I do too,” Leo said.
Leah looked over. “You do?”
“Hey, you’re not the only one who can swim The Beam these days. Maybe all of the Organas can get onboard. Stop being a commune, start forming a collective. Like the Borg.”
“The what?”
Leo shook his head, waving it away. “If he’s close, why don’t you go to him first? Warn him, if he doesn’t know.”
“I don’t know where he is exactly. I don’t think Serenity does, either…at least not yet.” Leah paused, wondering if she should bother trying to explain what Serenity had told her about the knot, the event, the confluence. That was all happening today. But Leo, who’d been offline for decades, would still be thinking linearly.
“Do you know about this big Respero event? They’re shutting down half of the East Side. Dominic is being promoted to commissioner for the day to manage security.”
Leo shook his head.
“I’ve been following it on Beam Headlines. It keeps growing. Now the presidents are coming in. Well, Vale, anyway.” She stopped again, wondering how much of the knot Leo could understand.
“What, you think Steve is going to pop in on some big political event?” Leo tried a smile. “That’s a bit dim if he’s on the run, don’t you think?
“If he decides to enter the city to follow up on something he finds, he might get caught in it whether he means to or not. Besides, Serenity sees him orbiting it somehow.” Yes, almost like he’s attending the thing. But Leah wouldn’t say that to Leo because the notion was absurd.
Leo slapped Leah’s leg and stood. He’d put in his time massaging her fears, but her neuroses weren’t the issue.
“Look,” Leo said. “The only question is whethe
r or not you believe Steve York is Crumb. Meaning: Do you believe he’s running around with no idea where he is, smelling bad, warning people about plots by the Central Park squirrels?”
“No, of course not. But — ”
“Then he’s smart enough to take care of himself, Leah. You read the journal, same as I did. The man isn’t just a genius, he’s the genius. He and West, and now West is dead.”
That bugged Leah, too. The end of York’s journal, where he claimed to have done what Carter Vale had promised the nation as a naive pipe dream: uploaded a mind to The Beam, where it could live forever. The master admin behind the entire network, pulling all the switches.
“But if there’s someone after him…”
“He knows there’s someone after him. He’s not a fool. He’ll be okay.” Leo looked back at the tunnel and muttered, “More okay than us, maybe.”
Leah still didn’t stand. She wasn’t finished, even though she suspected Leo was right.
“Okay.” He sighed. “Go after him if you insist. But what can you tell him that he doesn’t already know? If someone’s still after him, how do you plan to identify an assassin? How would you have any idea who it is — then intercept the killer without getting killed yourself?”
Leah finally stood. This was a dead end. Leo was trying to help, but his mind was clearly divided. Of course she didn’t plan to storm in, jump in front of slamshots, and save the day. And the only thing she’d surmised about what might identify the assassin by checking into Serenity’s clues was worse than useless. The person following York seemed to be locked down the way York himself had been. Maybe she should watch everyone, everywhere in the city, while high on Lunis. Then she could hack every person’s privacy filters and wait to see if an internal firewall fell and sent repressed memories streaming back. It wasn’t the most practical approach.
“You’re right,” Leah said. “Of course you’re right.”
After a nodding glance at Leah, Leo looked down one of the fork’s tunnels then the other. “So?”
“You go on without me. I created a temporary blind spot through the Quark network at the old grate I showed you on the map. Do you remember where it is?”
Leo nodded. His eyes flicked toward the waiting Organas, who seemed almost entirely pacified as they milled and waited, their minds adjusting to the new peripherals. The Beam, Leah thought, a better opiate than drugs.
“I’m going back up here.” Leah nodded toward the opposite tunnel. “I have something I need to do.”
Leo didn’t ask what it was. Leah was glad because the answer was as simple as it was stupid and useless: There was nothing at all she could do to stop what her gut felt certain was coming. And so instead of acting, Leah planned to worry.
The Organas were halfway down the long, dark tunnel when Scooter, in the lead, raised a hand.
“Hold up, Chief.”
Leo waited a moment, giving Scooter the quiet seconds he seemed to need. But after a half minute, he began to feel like the big man was stuck in a loop.
“What’s up, Scooter?”
Behind Leo, the others jostled. They rattled a bit with their antiquated hardware installed, and the journey through the subway with the illegal after-market wares had sounded like the progress of a troupe hauling appliances. Leo had realized a while ago that the plan would require modifications or they’d never get away clean. They had barely-held-at-bay criminal records and looked ridiculous. Half the assembly had visible metal body parts. Who looked like that in this day and age? Prisoners — especially those from a long time ago — had had to improvise add-ons the way they’d improvise a shiv or toilet wine. But the same wares on civilians emerging from the blocked subway tunnels might attract some attention.
Leo didn’t like the idea of deceiving Leah, but he was glad she’d taken her own path and left them alone. Thanks to her already-tech-adept status, she hadn’t suffered as they had and wouldn’t understand certain necessities. But there were levels of greater goods and evils at play now, and they weren’t all things that Leo could control.
“I’m reading,” Scooter said.
“Read on your own time,” a woman at the back yelled.
“I’m reading about something going on ahead,” Scooter replied, an annoyed edge in his voice.
“Scooter,” Leo said. “What’s the issue?”
“I think traffic’s been diverted.”
Leo resisted the urge to instruct Scooter on how to set his preferences. Leo had spent many years wired, whereas Scooter, like many of the others, had merely been conditioned to Beam life as children. Scooter didn’t realize that reading Beam Headlines on his HUD wasn’t the most efficient way to let his environment respond to him, but now wasn’t the time to say so.
“Okay.” Leo took a step.
Scooter held out a hand to keep Leo from passing, still facing forward. “It’s diverted to the street we’re supposed to come up in.”
“So we’ll take another grate,” said a woman at the group’s rear.
Leo felt his mind turning. “That’s the only one Leah cleared. It won’t last long. It has to be that grate, and it has to be quickly, or else The Beam will register and report us.”
Scooter turned. Leo could tell that half of his attention was still on Beam Headlines. That was something the Organas would need to learn if they kept their add-ons: You didn’t read The Beam the way you read a book. The process was deeper, skipping the interpretation step where eyes met brain. Although maybe they were too old to learn that trick. Yet another difference between Beam natives and the older generation — or corporeal holdovers like the Organa.
“Leo, we have a problem. They’ve barricaded every other side street to control the traffic through one checkpoint. Says here it was going to be somewhere else, but they moved it at the last minute.”
“What’s going on?” a man asked.
“It’s a big city event,” Leo answered. “A political thing masquerading as charity.”
“I didn’t know anything about that,” a woman said, sounding entitled, as if she resented being left out of the loop.
Scooter was still reading, still relaying. The digital-to-analog process was hard to watch. Leo didn’t know why, but ever since his long-dormant peripherals had woken up, he’d found himself slipping into The Beam with sickening ease. It was as if he’d never been Organa at all, and the network had held its hooks in him all along. Leo could see past data to its meaning, the way Leah sometimes described. He’d watched his old pathways unlock. Leonidas of Gaia’s Hammer rises again, digital as his birthright.
“The checkpoint is right near the subway entrance,” Scooter said, his voice almost sad. “We’ll never get up that way without being seen.”
“Maybe we can go through the grate now then hang out in the old subway station until the event is over?” the man behind Leo said.
“The sensors will see us in the station,” Leo answered.
“Call Leah. Have her open another one for us.”
“She can’t do any more with the nanobots she has inside. She said the encryption’s already cycled.”
Leo heard the words leave his mouth. The encryption has cycled? That was how Leah spoke, not Leo. And he wasn’t really answering questions, either. He was giving orders like he used to, momentarily disguising them as answers. Supposedly, smell evoked memories. Leo was finding that familiar scents of The Beam’s Fi did the same.
“Maybe we can stay in the tunnels. Live like trolls.” Scooter laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
“The tunnels are watched, too.”
“Then the prison. Can we go back there?”
Leo found himself becoming annoyed. A rudimentary hive was already forming among them, yet everyone was still using their mouths. They were syncing like any group connected to the same hub, but these idiots couldn’t see it. They kept asking questions the hive already knew the answer to.
Leo didn’t bother to respond. Of course they couldn’t go back. Even if there weren
’t unspoofed sensors or crawlers down there now, they’d be heard by any one of millions of auditory pickups as they moved around in the prison’s shell, probably getting caught in less than an hour. Leah had bought them some time, but the network couldn’t be fooled forever.
How were the Organas not seeing the hive? Why were they not tapping it? Why didn’t they see the full picture? The hive had all of their eyes, ears, and brains. Just like the Hammer days.
The stream was still coming at Leo. The sensation was strange and welcome. He’d forgotten the way Beam-offloaded processing could make the mind faster. Two engines, churning the same data. Or millions online, if you set your permissions to allow it.
And then he saw it.
There was a way. It was as outside-the-box as the way he’d solved the Lunis problem by getting them all arrested, and he was afraid Leah wouldn’t have liked it one bit. But it was Leo who saw the solution, not any of the others. And if he was reading the new hive mind right, he could probably show them. Forcibly, by resetting preferences they were too dumb and slow to realize they should change themselves. If he did that — in the name of efficiency, if nothing else — then he could make them see.
The solution to their problem was simple: They were going to be discovered? Then let them be discovered.
Leo could feel the force that had awakened his implants percolating from his body, into the cloud, into the hive. He could feel it crossing the Fi to the prison hub and accessing the code Leah had used to neuter their cobbled-together, prison-confiscated add-ons. Then he felt that same force undo the safeties Leah had given them all when they’d passed through her detector. Doing so was easy. Easy as pie.
Inside, that same old, hidden code began to dismantle an internal firewall, and Leo felt repressed memories streaming back.
He pushed into the hive, changing preferences. Infecting the group’s hive mind like a virus.
Something clicked.
