Dark Star Calling

by Julia Keller

  Devour me. Riiiiight, she chided herself as a little spurt of self-loathing sizzled on her overheated brain. Drama queen alert.

  She shuddered and pushed forward. If Rez could do this, then so could she.

  They were moving through the series of underground tunnels that, once upon a time, had housed the hardware that ran the Intercept. Up on the surface of New Earth, Protocol Hall didn’t exist anymore; Violet and Kendall had destroyed it, because it was the headquarters of the Intercept.

  But the tunnels were still here. They were dark and silent now, but they were very much present, stretching for mile after mile beneath the streets of New Earth. The tunnels needed to stay intact to preserve the geological stability of New Earth.

  The computers in these tunnels weren’t hooked to the Intercept anymore—they weren’t hooked to anything—and so even if they had been operational, which they weren’t, they posed no danger.

  But a place could be basically harmless and still scare the bejesus out of you.

  The corridor was dramatically dim and insistently chilly. The air smelled rusty and pungent. The faraway sound of dripping water—ka-pock … ka-pock … ka-pock—was like an annoyingly unanswerable question, asked over and over and over again by a bored four-year-old.

  Lining both sides of the narrow tunnel, one of a dozen radiating out from a central access point like the spokes of a giant wheel, were the gray, blank-eyed faces of deactivated computers.

  Back in his lab, Rez had tracked the path of Graygrunge from Mickey’s computer to its most likely destination:

  Right here. Here in the tunnels that constituted a pallid subterranean layer beneath the shining surface of New Earth. From this location, Graygrunge could infect all the systems of New Earth—because back when the Intercept was active, it had been attached to every aspect of the infrastructure, tied to every computer.

  And so Rez had torn himself away from the thing he most wanted to do—that is, get to the bottom of the mysterious signal from Rachel’s chip—to race to the tunnels, with Violet at his side, in hopes of heading off Graygrunge.

  They had arrived minutes ago, after a headlong dash across the city. On the way, Rez had sent a console alert to the rest of the team: Shura, Kendall, and Tin Man. He needed backup. He outlined his plan to them on his console.

  He and Violet had clambered quickly down the long, skinny steel ladder, jumping from the last rung onto the stone floor of the central access point. The moment their feet touched bottom, they heard, over their heads, the small square access panel automatically sliding shut again, an ominous-sounding vvvvv-whumpfff. Instantly, the tender ray of daylight that had guided their progress down the ladder was wiped out.

  “Ever been here before?” Rez asked in a hushed tone as they crept along the corridor.

  “Twice.”

  “Twice?”

  “Yeah. Both times were with my dad. When I was a little girl. The first time was when he’d just installed the Intercept. It was so exciting. They’d finished digging the tunnels and putting all the computers in. My dad had to inspect the job. The second time was right before he ordered the shutdown. He wanted to say goodbye. It was a really sad day for him. He’d thought the Intercept would be his legacy.”

  “Guess it sort of is, right?” Rez said. “But not in the way he thought.”

  “Maybe.” She didn’t want to talk about that. Not with Rez. Not with anybody. “Anyway, the point is, I’m not a rookie.”

  Which means I ought to be used to this by now, Violet scolded herself. My heart shouldn’t be pounding. My palms shouldn’t be all sweaty and gross. Yet she was barely able to keep her fear at a reasonable level as she scrambled to stay close to him.

  “This way,” he declared, directing them. “We’re just about there.”

  A minute passed. Her tension level kept inching up.

  “A few years ago,” Violet said, searching for a topic with which she could distract herself from her agitation, “this place was the nerve center of the Intercept. Running 24-7. Sending out all those Wi-Fi signals. And there we were, in our workstations way up in Protocol Hall, monitoring the Intercept feeds.”

  But it was this place—not Protocol Hall—that was the true soul of the Intercept, the place where the computers buzzed and hummed, collecting and then deploying emotions.

  Now it was … nothing. Just an invisible library of lost echoes. Just a series of corridors packed tight on both sides with cold, silent, shut-down machines that ran, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, across mile upon mile upon mile, under the streets of New Earth.

  “Yeah,” Rez said. “Pretty wild. Okay, so we need to keep the talk to a bare minimum now. We’re close. My tracker says Tunnel Four. And Graygrunge is tricky. It’ll pick up on atmospheric changes from spoken words—the extra carbon dioxide when we exhale. And it’ll slither away.”

  “So the plan is to sneak up on it.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Got it.”

  She knew the reason why Graygrunge had fled here: to take advantage of the central access to every computer system on New Earth. But it was aided by the fact that the tunnels were deserted. Nobody watched them anymore. Why should they? When the Intercept was abandoned, these tunnels were abandoned, too.

  Violet shivered again. The moment she had realized that this was her third time down here, she’d made a pledge to herself:

  Let’s try really, REALLY hard to make sure there’s not a fourth.

  * * *

  The low ceiling meant that she and Rez had to walk in an uncomfortable, bent-over way. They had to contort themselves into an awkward crouch and still somehow keep driving forward.

  The only light came from the illumination app on Rez’s console, which he’d turned to its lowest setting.

  In a few seconds, he’d have to click it off. They couldn’t use a light for very long for the same reason they had to keep the chitchat to a minimum: to stay a step ahead of the wily Graygrunge. It recoiled from light, just as it did from sound. If you hunted it down with a bright light, it would scurry back inside the crevices between the machines, replicating itself wildly as it went, wrapping itself around every gear and sprocket and belt and hose and fitting that it flitted past, choking them off, squeezing them until they became misshapen nubs of uselessness.

  The only possible strategy of capture was to ambush a hunk of Graygrunge and blast it with the special jumping-virus retardant that Shura had been working on. It was still in the beta stage, but they’d have to take the chance.

  Risks abounded. A too-broad blast might ignite a stray spark and start a fire down here, which would be disastrous. So they would have to be patient and delicate as they hunted Graygrunge, and then, once they’d found it, they would have to turn right around and be the opposite: strong and even brutal when they zapped it back into a dormant stage.

  And we have to be and do all those things, Violet reminded herself with a tremor of anticipatory panic, in total darkness.

  Once Rez shut off his console light, they would have to track Graygrunge using only his instincts and expertise about where it might be hiding. He had dealt with at least four previous outbreaks of Graygrunge that Violet knew about and probably several more that she didn’t. Yet this was the first time Graygrunge had made it all the way into the tunnels.

  Violet put a hand on her belly. She’d never admit it to Rez—she’d never admit it to anyone—but she had a stomachache from the anxiety.

  He lifted his console light to check a small round plaque. It was affixed to the stone wall in a slender gap between two computers:

  TUNNEL NO. 4

  “Okay,” he said. He was still murmuring, and his voice sounded like a faint rustling of papers instead of a human being trying to communicate with another human being. “We’re all set. Everything good with you?”

  “Fine.” She wasn’t fine. But she could do this. She hated the idea of weakness.

  “Just keep walking in a straight line,” he whispered. “What
ever you do, don’t touch anything. Not even slightly. Keep your arms at your sides.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. This is wicked, wicked stuff. All it takes is the slightest contact. If you so much as brush past one of these machines, you’ll be making an instant bridge. Machine to skin. They don’t call it the jumping virus for nothing.”

  “Understood. Hey, do the others know that?”

  “Of course. Shura’s in charge. She’ll brief them.” His voice grew determined without gaining any volume. “We’re going to trap the damned thing in a vise grip. They’re coming in through a different tunnel. When we’ve got it cornered, we’ll let loose with Shura’s virus retardant. Blast the sucker straight to hell.”

  “Great.”

  “Getting ready to go dark,” Rez said. He dropped his voice even lower. “Counting backward from three.”

  “Ready.”

  “Three.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Two.” Rez’s voice sounded a trifle shaky. Was he as nervous as she was? Violet hoped not. She was nervous enough for both of them.

  “One.” He clicked off his console.

  The darkness fell like a solid object, something dense and heavy and edgeless.

  * * *

  A skittering sound.

  A rattling sound.

  The sounds reminded Violet of leaves being blown along the street in autumn. The engineers who had concocted New Earth had been careful to add all the familiar accoutrements of Old Earth, especially things like seasons. She’d grown up with the sound of fallen leaves being pushed by the wind, and that was what she heard now.

  Except that it wasn’t leaves. She knew what it was:

  Graygrunge.

  The virus was all around them, darting into the computers like a fluttering phalanx of snakes’ tongues, probing and elongating. The computers were just shells now, but they were conduits to all the working computers on New Earth, and Graygrunge was quickly colonizing them. Each time she and Rez took a step, she imagined that she could feel Graygrunge oozing forward right along with them, and then a bit more after that. It seeped and it scuttled and it spread. It reached and it engulfed.

  A few seconds ago, Rez had risked talking so that he could warn her again: Don’t touch the computers. Even the slightest physical contact with a computer would allow Graygrunge to slip out of the machine and infiltrate a human body, sliding through the veins, encircling the organs, shutting down vital systems, just as it could shut down a computer’s vital systems.

  The thought of Graygrunge rooting around inside her was so repugnant to Violet that her toes curled up in disgust.

  She was vaguely aware of Rez moving in front of her. She could hear his breathing.

  Just keep going, she told herself.

  Just keep going.

  Just keep—

  Violet yelped. She didn’t scream—that would’ve been embarrassing—but she yelped, sending out a sort of high-pitched blurt. She had bumped up against something solid and big.

  “Watch out,” Rez whispered sharply. “You almost knocked me over. Pay attention to where you’re going.”

  She might be scared out of her mind, but she didn’t like his tone. “Well, I can’t see you,” she whispered back. “And why’d you stop, anyway?”

  “Because we’re here. The rendezvous point. We’ve got to wait for— Hold on.” Rez sucked in a breath. Violet’s eye was drawn to what she guessed was the approximate spot where he held his console. No light flashed, but she was sure she’d heard a very, very, very soft click from it. The click was a signal from the rest of the team.

  It meant that they had taken up their positions in the next tunnel over.

  Violet still couldn’t see anything, but she could imagine what must be happening: With a series of featherlight taps, Rez was sending information on his console to Shura.

  Violet was still miffed at the way he’d snapped at her. And then she had a quick epiphany: From the moment Rez had scolded her, she’d forgotten all about her fear. He’d taken her mind off it. Being pissed at him was a great distraction. She could tell him later to cut it out. For now, it had done its job.

  Thanks for being a jerk, Rez.

  She was ready to fight Graygrunge.

  * * *

  Another soft click emanated from Rez’s console.

  “That’s the signal from Shura,” he murmured. “They’re ready.”

  “What should I do?” Violet asked. She’d suddenly realized that she was totally in the dark—in more ways than just the obvious one. Rez and Shura had made their plans silently, through console keys. “I don’t have an assignment. I’ll just hang back and let you guys get on with it.”

  “Oh, you’ve got an assignment,” Rez said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like being the decoy. The thing that preoccupies Graygrunge so that we can get a clear shot at it.”

  “But how can I be the—”

  Before she’d finished her question, she felt Rez’s hand on her arm. He pulled her to one side—not powerfully, in a way that would have hurt her, but just enough so that she momentarily lost her balance. Her back bounced against one of the computers lining the tunnel wall.

  At the instant of contact, she felt something slimy and cold poking into her shoulders. It drilled into her skin, sending forth tiny shoots like a budding plant.

  Graygrunge.

  “Rez—what the hell—” Violet sputtered the words while she twisted around to slap at her back, trying to get rid of the grotesque virus.

  “NOW!” Rez roared into his console.

  A powerful blast of light suddenly flooded the tunnel, followed by an insanely loud noise that sounded to Violet like a thousand air hoses disgorging their contents all at once.

  “AGAIN!”

  A second blast of light and another heavy assault of noise made the whole tunnel vibrate wildly as if somebody had picked it up and were shaking it wildly just to hear the rattle. Dense gray-black smoke boiled up, covering the corridor from top to bottom. A flurry of tiny shrieks from the stricken virus careened against the walls and ceiling, bouncing and spinning.

  And then came a stone cold silence.

  Violet felt the slimy thing sliding out of her back; it reminded her of a strand of pasta being sucked up by a hungry kid. As it withdrew, it made a small popping sound like a soap bubble pierced by a pin. For a moment, she was too grossed out even to demand an explanation. She just stood there, shivering in disgust.

  Rez’s console beeped.

  “Rez?” It was Shura’s voice. “Did we get it?”

  “Got it,” he said. He switched on his illumination app. The only visible evidence of the Thing Formerly Known as Graygrunge was a small puddle of gray liquid on the floor of the tunnel. In another few seconds it, too, was gone, evaporating before their eyes. “All clear, Shura.”

  Now Violet did try to speak. But she couldn’t. Not right away. She was shocked and angry and confused, and the words stuck in her throat.

  Rez reached out for her arm. She flinched.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, almost growling the words. “I’m so mad at you, I can’t—I can’t—” She had to pull herself together in order to go on. “I can’t believe you did that. You let that—that thing—attack me. I can’t … I’ll never—”

  “Violet. Come on.”

  “You used me.”

  “I didn’t use you. Well, I mean, I guess I did, but it’s the same way I used Shura and Tin Man and Kendall, right? We’re a team. Everybody had a job to do. Yours was to distract Graygrunge so we could deploy the retardant.”

  Rez’s console was still connected to their friends in the next tunnel over, which meant they could hear the conversation. Kendall’s voice came through the console. He sounded concerned and—this might have been her imagination, but it made sense—slightly guilty.

  “Violet, are you okay?”

  Instead of answering him, Violet posed a question of her own. �
��Did you know about this, Kendall? Did you know what he was going to do?”

  “First tell me if you’re okay.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’m fine. After I take about ten thousand showers to get any lingering traces of that creepy crud off of me, sure. I’ll be great.”

  “Good,” Kendall said. “Rez said you wouldn’t be hurt, but I was still worried.”

  Violet glared at Rez while she spoke carefully in the direction of his console, wanting to get maximum value from her sarcasm. “So you were worried, were you? Really, really worried? Then why’d you let him do it to me in the first place?”

  “We had to get Graygrunge to focus on something else,” Kendall explained. “Or we’d never have a clean shot. Rez said it was the only way, and he’s the Graygrunge expert. He said we had to make it go after another target.”

  “Meaning me.” Violet closed her eyes. She couldn’t get rid of the awful feeling of Graygrunge slinking along her skin, poking between her shoulder blades.

  “Yeah. Meaning you,” came Kendall’s soft, regretful answer. “We couldn’t warn you beforehand. And you know why, right? You would’ve automatically steeled yourself against the virus. Even if you didn’t intend to. Anybody would have. And Graygrunge would’ve sensed your resistance and held off. It’s canny that way. Our only chance was having you be taken by surprise. Letting Graygrunge show itself when it tried to infiltrate you. Then we could kill it, and you’d be safe. We’d all be safe.”

  “Great theory,” Violet muttered. “I just love being the bait in the little scheme you guys cooked up.” She looked around the tunnel. Even without the threat of Graygrunge, this was a dismal, depressing place, dense with shadow, reeking of leftover smoke. It was like every bad dream she’d ever had, rolled into one.

  And yet …

  And yet the truth was, Violet could feel her anger and her fear receding, inch by inch. She didn’t want to let her friends off the hook just yet, but the bad feeling was being gradually replaced by another emotion entirely: a sort of satisfaction. Yeah, that was it: satisfaction. She’d helped get rid of Graygrunge. Three of her friends—Shura, Rez, and Kendall—were supersmart, and so they were usually the ones who got to solve the problems and save the world. Violet was bright, and she tried hard, but she was no genius.