“You made a bracelet … for her?” she asked, holding back tears. “For her?” Allegra looked at the bracelet on her own wrist as if it were something she’d once treasured that had been stripped of all value. She took it off and walked to the edge of the platform, ready to throw it out into the sea. She stopped herself just short of doing so. Why she stopped, Jack didn’t know. He just knew that the pained look in Allegra’s eyes would gnaw at him more than anything Skerren or Zhi had said that day.
“I want to know what Obscuro told Smart before he took off,” Skerren said. “What is it? What else are you hiding?”
Jack tried to speak, but only gibberish came out.
“Don’t bother,” Allegra said, wiping her eyes. “Lorem scrambled him—he can’t talk.”
“Great,” Skerren said. “That’s perfect. We can’t trust anything we did with him now,” he told Allegra and Zhi. “There’s something deeper at work here, and we don’t have time anymore to figure out what. We wasted four out of five days listening to Jack, and he’s still keeping secrets from us. Now we find out the SmarterNet has some hidden purpose too?”
“Should Smart be a suspect?” Zhi asked.
“I don’t know,” Allegra said. “We can’t figure this out on our own. We need to tell someone what’s going on.”
“We don’t even know what’s going on!” Skerren said. “That’s the problem! Jack hasn’t shared that with us. And who do we tell? Our mentors? Midknight is off hiding who knows where and may or may not be a Rüstov spy! I don’t know what to think; I don’t know who to trust…. Gah!” Skerren blurted out, kicking over a tool chest that was sitting in the corner of the hangar.
“We’ll tell the Inner Circle,” Allegra said. “That’s who we tell.”
Skerren looked daggers down at Jack, and then nodded at Allegra. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “Let’s go. I need to talk to Hovarth. Now.”
Zhi had the other dragons come around through the open hangar doors, and he, Skerren, and Allegra all climbed onto their backs. “Find your own way home,” he said to Jack, just before taking off. “We’re done.”
Jack watched his friends fly off in silence, leaving him alone in hangar 17. He made it back to Cognito later that afternoon, returned to his apartment, and sank into a couch in his living room, defeated. The Lorem Ipsum effect had worn off at last, but it was too late to matter.
Jack took stock of his situation after the debacle with Smart, Obscuro, and Lorem Ipsum. It was almost too horrible to wrap his mind around. Smart knew everything. Everything. Jack wondered what the old buzzard was waiting for. He’d expected the story to be all over the NewsNets by the time he got home. So far there was nothing, but it was only a matter of time. A SmartNews special report was sure to break in any minute. Tired and depressed, Jack just wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. Trea had no intention of letting him do anything of the sort.
“It’s about time you came back,” Jack heard Trea say. He whipped his head around to see her walking out of his kitchen carrying three energy drinks from his refrigerator. “C’mon,” she said on her way down to the lab. “We’re all downstairs working.”
Jack plunged his head into a pillow on the couch and sighed heavily. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he grumbled, but she was already gone. Jack dutifully picked himself up and followed Trea downstairs. When Jack entered the lab, he found that things were not at all as he had left them.
Jack looked around, marveling at the miraculous transformation of his work space. There were no piles of anything on the floor. The lab was brighter. More spacious. It smelled better. His piles of computer components and Mecha parts were all separated by category and neatly organized into labeled bins. The surfaces of his lab stations were cleaned off and wiped down. The red-hot atomic-death chicken wings he had ordered the week before were gone, even though Jack was pretty sure there had been a few of them left in the container that were still good. He took a closer look and found that any leftover food lying about had been thrown into the garbage, and the garbage itself had been thrown out. The last time his lab had been this clean was the day he’d moved in.
Jack saw two of Trea’s selves comparing notes and typing away at a computer terminal. The third was taking a break and gulping down her beverage at a lab station. “Wow,” he said, looking around. “I didn’t know you guys were still here.”
“We never left,” the three Treas replied at once.
Jack wandered around the lab, looking at the spotless countertops and organized bookshelves. “You’ve been busy,” he said.
“You have no idea,” the Trea behind Jack said. “What do you think? Everything is organized. There’s a system now.”
“I had a system,” Jack maintained. “There was always a system.”
The three Treas gave Jack skeptical looks. “You didn’t have a system, Jack,” one of the Treas at the computer terminal observed with a wry grin. “You had a breeding ground for bacteria.”
“Exactly,” the Trea next to her added. “You had a systematic avoidance of cleaning products. That’s about it.”
Jack frowned. He was in no mood to deal with his lab partner’s triple talk.
“You ready to get to work?” the Trea behind him asked.
Jack shook his head. He had never been less ready. “Listen, Trea,” he began, “I know what I said this morning, but I really don’t think I can work on this thing right now. My head isn’t in a very good place at the moment.”
All three Treas stopped what they were doing and looked up.
“At the moment?” asked the Trea at the lab station. “You’re joking, right? Your head’s been somewhere else the entire time I’ve been working with you.” She downed the rest of her drink and threw the empty can into the recycling bin, trading disappointed looks with her other selves along the way. “I’m not sure I can even really say I’ve been working with you at all. Jack, really … this is ridiculous. If you’re not going to work on this now, when are you going to work on it? You’ve been putting this off forever. What’s the reason this time? More running around with Skerren and Allegra?”
“No,” Jack said. “No, I think that’s over with.”
The Trea behind Jack gave him a puzzled look, and he asked her to sit down with the others. Once she had, he proceeded to tell her everything that had happened that day. He told her about following Smart’s trail to Obscuro, the fight in hangar 17, the deal he’d cut with Lorem Ipsum, and how it had all gone sideways. He told her how Smart knew all his secrets now, even the one he’d never told anyone but Stendeval, but he didn’t tell her what that secret was. When he was finished, everyone was speechless. All three Treas were staring, captivated. “It’s over for me in Empire City,” Jack told them. “It’s about to be, anyway. No one’s going to believe a word I say after this comes out.”
The three Treas took a minute to think about everything Jack had just told them, putting their heads together and discussing the matter quietly so Jack couldn’t hear. Eventually one of them stood up. “You can sulk about what’s happened or you can do something about it,” she told Jack. “Nothing is over. Not yet,” she added, cueing up displays of her work on the virus on multiple holo-screens around the lab. “You’re going to need something to answer back with when your story hits the NewsNets. What if that something is the cure-code we’ve been trying to crack?”
Jack shrugged. “Wouldn’t that be something?” He went over to the screens to look at Trea’s work. “Too bad I don’t have any ideas about what to do next with it.”
“Take a look at what we’ve done so far. Maybe something will come to you.”
That was when Jack noticed the Treas were all being nice to him, even the abrasive T1, who usually got on his nerves so quickly. “Hey, which one of you is which here?” he asked. “Who’s the supersmart Trea?”
“We all are,” they answered in unison. Jack looked at them, confused.
“It’s all about balance,” one of the Treas at the lab s
tation explained. “You and I were supposed to work together because two heads are better than one, only you were never here to help. That got me really mad, but eventually I realized I had all the help I needed right here. Three heads are better than two, so I pushed myself. And I grew. I found a way to spread out my intelligence across all my divisions,” Trea said, motioning to her second and third selves. “I should thank you,” she told Jack. “Your absence forced me to finally listen to Master Chi’s lessons and find a way to balance my powers.”
“That’s amazing,” Jack said, marveling at the evolution of Trea’s abilities. Really, this new aspect of her power was something she could have done all along. She had just never tried it, despite the urgings of her teachers. It made Jack think of his own situation and all the guidance he’d ignored over the last year, trying to do things his own way. Jack cursed his stubborn nature and wondered aloud why good advice was always so hard to take.
Jack looked over what Trea had been up to the last few days, and he was stunned. The project had benefited incredibly from her fresh perspective and dedication. Trea had pored over all of Jack’s work from the past year and done some of her own. She had organized it, added to it, reorganized it, and advanced it. She was looking for patterns. Ideas. Anything that might help stop the spyware virus. From the looks of things, she’d found one.
“I wrote a code language that should deactivate and uninstall the virus, but I’ve still hit a wall,” Trea said. “I don’t understand Rüstov technology well enough to go after the virus. We have to make sure the cure-code attacks the virus only, or the cure will be worse than the disease. I’m nearly there, but it’s an unfinished sentence. I need you to fill in the blanks.”
“But we’re still missing the Rüstov tech we need for that,” Jack said.
“And you know where to find it,” Trea said. “What’s wrong with you, Jack? Why are you avoiding this? You need to investigate the Rüstov parasite you have inside you. The answer could be right here in this room.”
“I can’t do that,” Jack said.
“Why not?”
“Because I already tried it,” Jack said. “And it woke up my parasite. I made it stronger, Trea. I heard its voice.”
Trea gave Jack a look that told him she didn’t want to hear any self-pity. “So what?” she said. “If your parasite is getting stronger, then you have to get stronger too. You don’t have time to be afraid. As long as you’re holding back, you’re not growing your powers to the point that you should. That’s not the only thing keeping you from curing this virus either. You’re not focusing. If Master Chi taught me anything, he taught me how important it is to stay focused. You … you’re all over the place.”
“Yeah, well … I’ve got a lot going on,” Jack said. He got up and went to the room in the back of his lab with the virus-resistant prototype. The three Treas followed. “You were right when you said I was afraid,” Jack told them. “I’m afraid of failing and what that would mean for me and for everyone else.” Jack sealed off the back room and opened the coffin, revealing his prototype.
Trea was so shocked that she pulled herself back into one piece. She leaned over the coffin, her eyes wide. “Jack, is that—”
“It’s just a prototype,” Jack said. “That’s all I can think of it as at this point. I don’t want to get my hopes up. Not yet.”
Trea stepped back from the coffin. “More secrets,” she said, shaking her head. “You do have a lot going on,” Trea told Jack. “I don’t know how you keep it all together.”
“I don’t,” Jack admitted. “That’s the problem.” Jack looked at his chest, where he always imagined the parasite inside him to be. He was scared to death that unlocking that voice would lead to more danger for everyone, but the alternative was no better. “I have to do this, don’t I?”
Trea nodded. “Good luck, Jack,” she said. “I’ve done all I can. The rest is up to you.”
Trea left Jack alone in the apartment. Once she was gone, he spent a short while going through his notes, which were now more her notes than his, before finally getting down to business. Trea was right. He would need something positive to come back with once Smart started broadcasting his secrets. A breakthrough on the virus was the only chance he had. It was probably the last chance the Mechas had too. Jack thought about the Rüstov spies Glave and Khalix, so close to achieving their goals…. He couldn’t put this off any longer. It was time to do the hard thing, which, as usual, happened to be the right thing as well.
Jack powered down his lab and found himself a comfortable seat. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and reached out to open the very door he’d worked so hard to keep shut. The one that led to the Rüstov inside him.
CHAPTER
21
Bad Connections
Reaching out to the malevolent machine inside him was like diving into a whirlpool of subconscious thought. Jack was no longer in his lab; he was tumbling down a well, falling deeper and deeper into a mind hidden within his own. Even with his eyes closed, he felt the room spinning. It was noisy, too. The lab was quiet and still, but Jack heard a hundred voices speaking at once from a dozen different directions. He could feel it out there … the parasite. It was getting stronger. Bolder. More confident. After lying dormant for so long, the parasite was suddenly feeling like its day had come, and it didn’t want to waste the opportunity. Jack could feel it getting ready to say something. He tried to ignore it and focus on getting what he’d come for. Curing the virus, that was the only thing that mattered. He tried to ignore the parasite, but no force on Earth could have made the parasite ignore him.
Static filled the silent darkness, followed by the voice that Jack dreaded more than any other. It was a voice that sounded not much older than his own. Much like his voice, it had a quality that was aged beyond its years. “Well, well … look who’s back,” the parasite mocked. “After the way you ran off last time, I was afraid you weren’t ever going to speak to me again.”
“Shut up,” Jack said, trying to stay focused. “I’m not here to speak to you. I’m here to study you.”
The parasite laughed, and the volume of the static grew along with its amusement. “Just like last time,” it told Jack, half muffled by white noise. “I hope you find what you need quickly. You don’t have much time left.”
Jack knew better than to take the Rüstov’s bait, but he couldn’t help himself. The parasite had gotten his attention with that remark. “What do you know about how much time I have?” he asked. “Time before what?”
There was a high-pitched noise, like feedback from a microphone. Jack winced as the sound stung his ears. “Ask … KSCCHHCH … father,” the parasite said between bursts of static.
Now the parasite really had Jack hooked. The Rüstov’s voice in his head was giving him a migraine, but he couldn’t stop talking to it, despite the pain. “What about my father?” Jack asked. “Where is he? What do you know about it?”
The parasite’s sinister laugh rang out again, this time much louder. After thirteen years under Jack’s thumb, it was clearly enjoying the leverage it commanded at the moment. “You’ll find out soon enough,” it told Jack. “It’s inevitable.”
“Nothing’s inevitable,” Jack said. “I’ll fight you. I’m going to keep fighting you.”
“And you’ll lose,” the parasite replied. “I am meant for so much more than this. We are meant for more. The moment is nearly upon us. Glave is here now. Destiny cannot be denied.”
“What destiny?” Jack asked, getting fired up. His head was throbbing now. “There is no destiny! Stop talking in riddles. What’s your plan? What’s going on here?”
Jack’s parasite snickered. “You’ll see,” it replied. “Everyone will see. What we’ve set in motion cannot be stopped by anyone. It’s already too late. You’re going to lose everything.” The parasite’s voice trailed off into static. The line went dead. Jack called out after it, but it was like listening to a radio that was tuned in to nothing. The Rüst
ov bug would say no more. The good news was, the pain in Jack’s head was starting to subside.
Jack took a breath. The dead air helped clear his mind. He was getting distracted again, and he couldn’t let that happen. The Rüstov was playing on his fears, trying to throw him off his game. Jack didn’t have time to think about what the parasite had said. He had to focus on the task at hand. Jack pushed the parasite’s taunts and warnings to the back of his mind and went back to inspecting the elements of his infection that he could see and feel. Jack’s parasite would never voluntarily give him any help, and he didn’t understand their technology well enough to control it by force, but he could still use his powers to look through it. Jack peered deep into the inner workings of the Rüstov nanobots swimming in his bloodstream. There were millions of tiny little microchips inside of him, each one with its own distinct circuits and unique codes. Jack didn’t run away from them this time. This time he took as long as he needed. He became so focused that it would have been impossible to tell if the parasite had started talking again, because Jack had simply stopped listening. He was in a zone. Eventually he broke off the connection. After he got what he was looking for.
Back in his lab, Jack opened his eyes. He was sweating profusely. Outside, the sun was going down. Several hours had passed in what felt like mere minutes to Jack. He leaped out of his chair and turned on the machines in his lab. There wasn’t a moment to lose.
Jack dove back into his work with renewed enthusiasm. He checked what he’d just learned against the data that Trea had left behind. Sure enough, he found a commonality between the prototype’s circuits and the parasite’s operating system almost immediately. Internal scans of the prototype revealed traces of the same Rüstov technology that was nesting inside Jack’s own body. It was layered deep within the prototype’s central processing unit, but it couldn’t hide from Jack now that he knew what he was looking for. String after string of suspicious code jumped right out at him. Jack could see and hear it running commands on renegade applications inside the prototype.
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