Benjamin is in front of me, his hands shaking my shoulders, but they’re going through my shoulders, and my body is rooted firmly in place while he shakes me. I’m disoriented, sick, but the vertigo is different. When I glance back, I’m staring at my own surprised face.
Benjamin stands centimeters from me.
This is a game, Master Zaytsev.
His thoughts are quick, and I can’t sense anything of the technology outside this room. I can’t even sense my tablet. It’s like I’m frozen. Like my body is frozen, but my spirit isn’t.
My spirit?
You play to win, he continues. But some games start with no winning scenario. Do you understand?
I feel like my heart is racing, but right now, I’m pretty sure it’s not moving at all. I nod, numb. One of the rebel’s movies had it so that the only way to win the game is to choose not to play, I try speaking, but my voice comes out as a thought.
Community… what did he do?
Yes, but you don’t have that option. You have to decide now what you want from your life, and what you are willing to die for. I made my choice. What is yours?
You chose to live, I whisper-think. That’s why you became a spirit.
He raises his finger to his nose in confirmation, and then glances at the falling glass. The water reverses its course, inching back toward the cup as it rises to the desk.
Everything comes with a sacrifice, Benjamin warns. Success or failure, the spirits of the Manticore have decided what they want.
The water is in the glass. The glass is almost back to the desk.
You might want to be back in your body before the mercury runs out, Benjamin notes.
Mercury?
The trinket slowly reassembles itself, the vial of mercury hanging midair as the silver liquid trickles to the bottom of the tube.
I panic. How am I supposed to go back into my body? I try running toward it, though I can’t run. Then I’m right there.
A flash of light blankets the room in a single, muted explosion.
Benjamin leans over the desk, tinkering with a ball of scorched metal. He scoffs. Mercury. Unpredictable mess. He turns the trinket over in his hands. He drops into the chair—which is where it was when I first opened the door. I stare at him with a gaping mouth. I’m back in my body.
He raises an eyebrow. Something wrong?
I start to speak, and then shake my head. Either I just imagined everything, or…for a short moment, I was outside of time.
“What were you trying to do?” I ask.
Benjamin shrugs. A little experiment. Didn’t quite turn out as expected, did it? His question carries weight, and I get the feeling he knows exactly what happened. He wanted to warn me, but I’m not sure what good it does if the Manticore could have heard it.
The amber pendant causes time lags when in proximity to at least three of the other pendants, he says thoughtfully. I wonder what would happen if I brought mercury into the equation. Or a spirit. Perhaps it’d mess up the whole property of time. Or, perhaps, it would lock down a moment to one or two individuals, and only they would experience the matter. If a paradox didn’t occur, there would be no trace of the event, despite the whole insight memory of the poor individuals involved. Kind of like those old stories where a child goes on a magical adventure, and everyone thinks she’s just dreaming. He grins mischievously.
I stare at him, speechless. He knows exactly what happened, and from what he’s saying, I’m free to think about the dilemma without the Manticore interfering.
There you have it, Master Zaytsev. I’ve done what I can. He gathers his tools from the desk. I only hope that’s enough. Then he’s gone, leaving a pristine room in his wake.
Val twiddles her thumbs, her hands shifting patterns across her skirt. “If Stuart and Agent Ashby didn’t see anything, well… they’re two of the strongest telepaths here. What else could it be?”
“Maybe the Manticore is stronger,” I suggest. “After all, it’s a hub. They’re… they’re just individual people.” I lower my eyes. I long to be next to her, but my only current option is to telecommute via techno sight and Val’s video camera. I tried to go to the hub so I could return to Cuba, but the Manticore responded with an image of Val slumped across the bed, her eyes blank from overdose.
I push the thought away and focus on the living image in front of me. The Manticore ensured that I can’t leave or get to the commander for help. Every time I try to link to him through technology, the vessel shuts me down. No one believes me except Benjamin.
“Tim.” Val bites her lip. “Do you know how crazy you sound? How crazy I want you to sound?”
My chest constricts. What if her vision is related to the Manticore? “That ship wants to kill me.”
“There are protocols,” she says, her eyes pleading with me to say I’m lying. “You put them there.”
I shake my head fiercely. “It removed them—found a loophole.”
Val reaches her hand to the camera and caresses the screen. Her smile falters. “Can’t you reinstate a backup?”
“I tried. The Manticore created a five-second delay that shoots down any program it doesn’t like.” I sink into the empty bed of my temporary quarters. “Everything’s falling apart.” I touch the emerald pendant around my neck. Part of me wants to throw it across the room. The pendants created this problem. If only the pendants could destroy this problem, too.
Val tilts her head and forces a smile. “We’ve still got each other.”
I close my eyes to keep the overwhelming sense of loss from squashing what little sanity I have left. The back of my mind tickles with the Manticore’s satisfaction.
How long do you think the two of you will last? Outside of the Community, half of all relationships end in breakup. We checked how many female leaders have affairs on the side. You might want to check that the child is really yours.
The air around me is thin, hard to breathe.
“The baby—it’s ours, right?” I know the second Legion Spore is doing everything it can to get rid of me, but still, I have to ask. If she says anything other than “yes,” it’s entirely possible the Manticore is tampering with our conversation.
Her eyes widen. “Tim, I haven’t been with anyone else since we started dating. It’s yours.” She presses her hand to her stomach. Relief floods through me, shoving the Manticore’s warning into a dark recess of my mind. I close my hand around our locket.
“Thank you,” I whisper, wishing I could be with her but knowing I can’t return to the base. If I want to see my child born, if I want to make sure Val lives, I can’t go back.
I have to stop the Manticore from gaining power.
“Commander, I don’t advise this.” I press my hands to my sides, chin up, trying to convey the air of authority he wants from me. “The Manticore isn’t ready for training.” I play solitaire in my mind, distracting the vessel from my desire to speak to the commander away from the hub.
Commander Rick crosses his arms over his sturdy chest. “Agent Ashby, please report to the hangar.” The radio crackles her response, and the elevator dings as it returns to an upper floor. He turns his attention to me and scowls. “I understand you think there is a problem, but refusing to go onto a vessel you reported was fine yesterday is ridiculous.”
Master Zaytsev, perhaps you should tell him how you feel about his tea time? the Manticore chides. We think he’d be delighted with your honesty.
I twist my lips. I’m not sure what the commander heard me say, but I’m getting nowhere while that cursed airship keeps interrupting our conversation.
Red three to black four.
“Sir, perhaps we could talk somewhere private?” I suggest. “Someplace without the Manticore nearby?”
Commander Rick narrows his eyes, and I assume he didn’t get that message, either.
Privacy does not change our ability to read thoughts… nor your pitiful attempts to play a card game. Were you incorporated into our hub, you would have won the g
ame eight turns back.
Sure… but the Manticore can only read thoughts if there’s technology nearby. The vessel needs a network to function. So if I can get someplace where there isn’t any digital tech, I should be able to alert the commander without the Manticore’s interference.
Black eight to red nine.
Agent Ashby rounds the corner, her boots clicking to a stop between us. “Sir?”
Commander Rick turns to the agent. “Despite his objections, Master Zaytsev will take the CLS Manticore to India and train with it. Use telepathy if you must.” He storms down the hall, eyes burning with unspoken rage. I glance at the sparse doors to the hangar. What does he think I said?
A few choice words, the Manticore murmurs, pleased with itself. Bossy, isn’t he?
Agent Ashby sighs, looking between me and the quickly distancing commander. “What this time?”
I square my shoulders and try to look bigger than I am, never mind that she could pulverize me. “The vessel is hostile. I’m not going in until I’ve had a chance to examine it remotely. And I want to talk somewhere where there isn’t any technology a Legion Spore class vessel can link to.”
Ashby rubs her temples. “I agree. If this were a jet, we’d have someone examine it before sending it into flight.”
A smile tugs at my lips, despite her not getting the last part of my message. “Thank you.”
“However—” Agent Ashby frowns, distant, and presses her hand against the metal door. Dazed, she keys the code into the nearby pad. That’s odd… she shouldn’t have the clearance. She strides through the door. I grab her arm. She shoves me hard in the chest, throwing me off balance.
“Ashby?” I whisper, my chest tight.
The next door swishes open. All warmth drains from my body at the sight of the lumpy monstrosity inside. The agent’s lips turn to a curious smile and her hand strokes the air. I take a hesitant step back. Her eyes are clouded with a thick film, her attention drawn to unseen objects clustering above me.
“Agent Ashby?” I ask.
She turns, looking through me. “So strange,” she whispers. Her smile widens, her lips parting in amazement. Her cheeks turn a rosy pink of joyful excitement. “We are legion.”
My eyes widen. Is this what the Manticore did to me yesterday? “Manticore, let her go.”
No answer. Obstinate vessel. But this is no time to argue. “Legion Spore, let her go.”
Very well. You may remove her from us.
The agent unfastens the clip of her holster, extracts her pistol, and then offers me the grip. Her face is blank. The film that coats her eyes is almost pure white.
I shake my head. “No.”
Then let us remove you.
She cocks the gun. Terror flashes through me and I lunge for the weapon. She doesn’t resist as it tumbles out of her hands and into mine. My knees slam against the floor. Pain spasms up my legs. I grunt, but she doesn’t have the gun anymore. I reach into the program, searching for anything to stop this madness, and I smash thought-first into a telepathic firewall. I try to stand, but I’m frozen in place. Except…
My hands are readjusting the gun, uncharacteristically aiming for the agent’s heart with too much accuracy.
Manticore… I mean, Legion Spore— I attempt to lower my hands, but they refuse to respond. Stop this!
Agent Ashby blinks, her blue eyes clear. She curses. Panic stabs my chest. I stand with far more grace than if I had stood on my own.
“Master Zaytsev, put the gun down.” She inches toward the console, eyes trained on the pistol.
Pong… Tetris… My mind stops short at another wall. “Good job, Agent,” my mouth speaks. “You are certainly more resourceful than this boy.” I hear my harsh voice, but it’s not mine. Can’t be mine… “Clever trick, pretending you couldn’t see his thoughts.”
The agent’s body blurs and reforms into the mutilated body from before. It smirks, its eyes cold. “You said you wanted a gun,” the body cajoles. “Go ahead, shoot us.”
All I have to do is pull the trigger. My hands shake, sweat trickling down my back. My uniform clings to my skin, itchy. My finger tightens, but this strange monster can’t be here.
If you don’t shoot, we will.
My body goes rigid. Agent Ashby is a lot closer than she was a second ago. Her fist smashes into my forehead.
She has the gun.
Blue lights swirl overhead. I’m not sure how I got to the infirmary. I push myself up, dropping the cotton sheet covering me onto my lap. My uniform is wrinkled, but I’m not in a hospital gown. No IVs, so I haven’t been out long. I frown. Commander Rick stands in the corner, scrolling over a tablet.
“Care to explain?” He offers me the tablet. The screen shows security footage of Agent Ashby and me talking. Then the agent draws her gun and waves it frantically at me as I try to calm her from a distance.
She brings the gun to her temple and fires.
My breath catches in my throat. That didn’t happen. I’m sure of it. “The Manticore took possession—”
The commander takes his tablet back and strokes his snowy mustache with his free hand. “The Manticore provided records of the event. Evidently, Agent Ashby’s job brought her more stress than I foresaw.” He sighs. “An unfortunate accident. She was one of our best agents.” He glances at me. “I wish you would have spoken to me before allowing anything between you two to flourish.”
I stare at him. “Anything between us?”
“The Manticore supplied a transcript of what transpired. She cared more for you than I thought.” He lays a hand on my forehead. There’s a sudden flash—
Agent Ashby sits beside me, tracing her fingers across my nose and laughing. Neither of us wear more than undergarments, and there’s heady scent of lust. Desire…
The image cuts short before reaching anything I sincerely don’t want to see.
“I thought you were a bit more faithful, though your ambitions are your own.” The commander removes his hand from my head.
Heat flushes through me. It’s a lie. It’s all a terrible lie. “I’ve never—”
The Manticore’s chuckle slips into my mind.
What did you do? I think harshly, using techno sight to send my thought. I mentally dig into the Manticore’s records to find the unaltered version. The logs with Ashby’s telepathic thoughts, where I have the gun and she knocks me out. According to the logs, she knew what the Manticore was trying to do; she tried to run for the door, tried to get help. Before she got there, the Manticore possessed her mind and threw every bad memory, every haunting voice against her. She took the gun from the floor, and it told her to shoot me. She aims for me in the record, but when she fires, the record goes blank.
My lips curl in frustration. A thick layer of clouded thoughts twist the record’s real meaning. A lump forms in my throat. She used her own telepathy against the vessel, let the Legion Spore think it had control, all while desperately aiming at something that wasn’t me.
In the brief moment she could act, she shot herself rather than let it kill me.
I clench my fists and stare at the floor. The Manticore killed Ashby. I don’t care if she pulled the trigger. The Manticore killed her, and she did nothing to deserve it. She protected me, of all people, and she had been the only person who could act against the damned vessel. I don’t care if the commander hears me cursing. I don’t care that I’m not acting like a leader. She understood, and now she’s dead.
A fine agent indeed. The Manticore’s self-satisfaction writhes through my mind like toxic smoke. We were so close to putting a bullet through your chest.
Damn you, I think back. It’s Martinez’s voice I hear when I speak. Martinez’s anger mixed with my own.
The Manticore snorts. You don’t even know what that phrase means, do you, Master Zaytsev? You didn’t even know what a deity was until your rebel friends told you.
I rub the wispy sheets between my fingers. There are more important things to worry about than defi
nitions of words that are woefully hollow.
Oh, Master Zaytsev, you need to do a bit more research.
I’ve done enough research to know I need to stop you, I send through techno sight, and then turn to the commander. “I have never cheated on Val,” I say, my breath tight. “The Manticore is trying to hurt me. It manipulated the cameras using techno sight and made it look like Agent Ashby acted under stress she didn’t have.” I try bringing the records to the forefront of the commander’s tablet, but they evaporate as they near the surface. “Search my memories. Those memories were planted. Commander—you have to believe me—listen to me!”
He can’t hear you, the voices sing.
Commander Rick raises an eyebrow. “I have searched. While you were out, I scoured each and every one of your memories from the past three days you were inside the CLS Manticore. Aside from the glitch, there is no indication of the vessel trying to kill you. It saved your life; you should be thankful.” He removes a china cup from the nearby table and takes a sip. “Unless Agent Ashby planted that memory in a final attempt to take you from Lady Salazar, I doubt—”
I shake my head. I don’t even know if what I’m hearing is him, or if he’s even here. This could be another one of the vessel’s mind tricks.
Not a bad idea. Thank you, Master Zaytsev.
“Commander—”
The commander sighs. “Affair or not, you have completed incredible work. The CLS Legion Spore is doing well, and the CLS Manticore shows the necessary programming to make quick, life-saving decisions. I believe we are ready to move on to the next stage. The Legion Spores are more efficient than individual beasts. As per their research, we shall proceed with creating a third vessel. Of course, we’ll have to put it to a formal vote and gather the resources necessary, but—”
I sit abruptly. “Commander—” I have to find some kind of proof that the commander will believe. “Let me continue training it first. Let me make sure everything’s running fine.” Well played, I think solemnly. Making another one of those things to distract me.
The Glitch Saga- The Complete Collection Page 34
