by Jace Kang
“I’ve never heard of anyone recovering so quickly after getting hit by one on the lowest setting. Even when you were hit by six beams, you woke up in an hour.”
Ryu shrugged. “Yes.”
“And this time,” Ken said, “you were able to avoid the shots. Why did you let them capture you before?”
Ryu put two palms over his Core. “Had I dodged those attacks, bystanders would’ve been struck.”
Ken’s eyes widened. “So you sacrificed yourself?”
“It’s the Code of Rivers and Lakes.”
“Rivers and Lakes?”
Ryu nodded. “The World of Rivers and Lakes is the world of martial Cultivators...and supernatural creatures.”
“Like the secret societies from Imperial China?” Excitement rising in his voice, Ken made a sharp turn into a new hall.
They looked just about the same, cold and sterile. Ryu touched the smooth wall. “Yes. Like those groups, we lay both outside the margin of society and also hidden within.”
“Where is it?”
“Here, but not here.”
Predictably, the boy looked confused. “How so?”
How to explain it? “Imagine this place on the planet. Layers of reality are stacked on one another.” Ryu set one hand on top of the other.
Ken looked no less bewildered.
“Same place, different realities. Where I’m from, there’s no gleaming city of concrete, glass, and lights, but a town of wood and dirt roads.”
“How do you get there?”
Ryu studied the young man. “There are portals.”
“I’d love to go to your world.”
Ryu snorted. The boy wouldn’t last long there.
“And what’s this about a Code?” Ken asked.
The kid sure had a lot of questions. Ryu chuckled. “To quote a great muse from the…what did you call it, the Age of Greed? ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”
“I’ve never heard of this. Who said it? Confucius? Lao Zi?”
“Stan Lee.”
Ken’s head rose and fell in slow bobs. “I heard the men you fought weren’t seriously injured.”
“No, part of the Code is that we do only as much damage as we need to, especially against those who have not yet started practicing Cultivation.” Ryu stopped, then pointed at a pair of doors up ahead. “Is that a maglift?”
With a wide smile, Ken nodded. He lengthened his stride—only to fall back on his butt. He rubbed his nose. “Ow!”
“What happened?”
Clambering to his feet, Ken reached out. His hands stopped flat, and he moved them up and down, left to right. Anyone on the other side would think he was doing his best impression of an Age of Greed mime.
Ryu came up beside him and extended his own palm out. It hit a flat surface, as if the air had become solid. “What is this?”
“Another force field.” Shuffling on his feet, Ken slapped the invisible wall. Panic rose in his voice. “What are we going to do? They’re herding us into a trap. What—”
“Wait. Stop fidgeting,” Ryu said. The boy’s Core gave him potential, but he’d never amount to anything if he didn’t stop and focus. “Take a deep breath.”
“What?”
“To quote another great sage, ‘Just do it.’”
“Which great sage was that?”
Which one was it? “Either the Bodhidharma, George Lucas, or Michael Jordan.” Ryu put one hand on Ken’s belly. Beneath, the network of energy channels had vast potential, but his Core would never solidify without Cultivation. “Grip the floor with your toes, bend your knees, and tilt your hips forward.”
“Why?”
“To anchor your Spirit. It will help you clear your mind.”
Head bobbing up and down, the boy did as he was told, following the pressure of Ryu’s hands to adjust his stance. He was actually a quick learner.
“All right,” he said. “It’s a dead end. We need to backtrack.”
“There’s another way,” came a sing-songy male voice behind them.
Nobody ever snuck up on Ryu without him sensing their Qi. He spun around and threw a punch.
His fist passed right through an impossibly handsome young man. His long black hair was tied up in a topknot. His skin tone was lighter than everyone else’s, and with his high cheekbones and large, angular eyes, he probably belonged to Ken’s Purebred class.
Except that he wore white robes similar in fashion to Ryu’s confiscated ones.
Another Cultivator? It would explain how he’d snuck up without Ryu sensing their Qi, and the white marked him as a practitioner of the Metal Path. Over the centuries, a handful of Cultivators had left the World of Rivers and Lakes for this world, never to return. This must be one of them, though his plain robes didn’t mark a rank.
Still, for Ryu’s hand to pass right through him… Projecting an image of oneself while cloaking one’s actual position was the province of the Fire Path’s Fourth Rank. Very few people ever reached even the Third Rank of another discipline. Certainly not a Metal Cultivator, who risked Scorching his Core with the Fire Path. Which meant…
This man must have transcended the Elemental Paths! And maintained mastery in this world, no less. “A Transcendent,” he said, awe in his voice.
For a Transcendent to be here meant he must know of Ryu’s mission. Withdrawing his hand, Ryu set a fist into his other palm and bowed low. “My apologies for attacking you, Great Sage.”
Ken was just turning around, and Ryu reached out and nudged him into a bow.
“It’s okay,” the Transcendent said, eyes roving over him.
Okay? Transcendents supposedly used only formal wording. Then again, he must’ve been in the mundane world for a long time and picked up some of their more unrefined language. And if Ryu weren’t already almost naked, he’d swear the Transcendent’s eyes were undressing him.
Ryu straightened, hands covering his manhood. “I am—”
“Ryusuke Ishihara.” The man returned the salute. “I know.”
Of course he did. “May I know your name?”
“No.”
“Forgive my impertinence, Great Sage. Do you know my mission?”
The Transcendent’s expression betrayed nothing. “Tell me.”
Ryu looked sidelong at Ken. “The boy says we are being watched.”
Ken threw his hands up and waved his hands back and forth through the image.
Such disrespect. Ryu pulled him back. “You mustn’t!”
“It’s a hologram!” Ken pointed up at the ceiling again. “That’s one way people communicate from long distances!”
A hologram? Ryu scowled. “Just who are you?”
Chapter 6:
The Hacker
I n her excitement to return to the EtherCloud, Aya had cleared her lungs as quickly as she could and jacked back in. So much could’ve happened in the few minutes she’d been coughing out all the phlegm!
Again donning a Sentinel Shell, she returned to the Peacekeeper EtherSpace and navigated the castle town until she came to an observatory. In truth, it was the surveillance partition of the EtherSpace, which controlled all the cameras throughout the Kyoto Central region. Level Three Operators, appearing as young Dwarves, turned gears representing the cameras’ operating code. A million different telescopes pointed in different directions, though hundreds of human Avatars crowded around a single one.
That must be the one currently monitoring Ishihara.
Another telescope rotated into their view as Ishihara moved to a different surveillance zone. Aya created an observation app and attached it to one of the Avatars. It was simple, because after getting past Sentinels at the entrance to the Peacekeeper EtherSpace with biometric credentials, a real person’s Avatar code was unencrypted. In her SI perception, she affixed a collar, visible only to herself. Tethering it to her, she jumped over to the Communications partition.
The tether fed her the Avatar’s datastream. Watching the almost-naked Ishihar
a’s confrontation with Keiko had given her great pleasure. At the same time, her SI perceived the Communications partition as a hilltop where more tethered Avatars worked as drummers and flag signalers.
While Ishihara was rampaging through the medical unit, she took control of the holoprojectors by inserting code into their operating systems. In her SI, it appeared as if she’d added a cog to the gears of the holoprojectors’ virtual machinery. Only a Repairer of Level Five or above would even be able to find it.
She paused. To her surprise, the stranger had taken the Purebred, Kentaro, with him. After a few minutes observing the way Ishihara touched Kentaro, it became clear why: he was attracted to the boy.
Which was why when she hacked the holo-projectors, she chose the guise of a handsome young man. Ishihara became deferential, almost obsequious, believing her to be Transcendent.
Within a virtual shell inside her Operator Shell—a risky multi-tasking proposition given the limits of her brains perceptive capacity—Ai’s search through old archives revealed that Transcendent was an old religious term for someone who’d reached a spiritual pinnacle, unbound by life and death.
Such a strange superstition! Still, she’d planned to use it to win Ishihara’s trust.
Now, though, it looked like Aya was about to lose all the trust she’d started to gain. She bowed—or rather, the Transcendent’s hologram bowed—to Ishihara. “I can help you escape.”
“I’m not trying to escape.” Ishihara shook his head. “Not yet. I need my effects.”
Within the shell, Aya darted back to Ishihara’s file and opened it. A research team was in a high-security third-floor lab, examining all evidence from his fight with the Peacekeepers: a black robe, made from an extinct fiber known as hemp. A wooden staff, made from an extinct tree known as oak—though it seemed to have some mineral components embedded inside. And most curiously, several glowing marbles, made up of botanical and mineral compounds that emitted a bioenergetic radiation. Because of the latter, they’d invited science envoys from the Elestrae delegation in Kyoto to come examine the tiny spheres.
Another research team was studying damage to the Peacekeepers’ light armor, as well as the remains of the shocktrooper’s minigun. As was to be expected given the friction between the Ministry of Defense and the Peacekeepers, correspondence between governmental branches showed the MoD was demanding the weapon’s return, as well as access to Ishihara.
To save real time, she took a snapshot of the lab and recorded past video. Aya returned to Ishihara and Ken, half-expecting to see the two locked in a passionate kiss. Of course, only a split-second had passed in real time, and Ryu’s mouth was half open, while Kentaro frowned at her.
“—and why would you want to help me?”
Because she needed to know how to cure her lung disease, the one thing that kept her from staying in the EtherCloud indefinitely. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that, since people from the Age of Greed didn’t have an altruistic cell in their bodies. “I want to tell your story. It will make us both rich.”
Ishihara looked down at his pet, who half-shrugged, half-nodded, before turning back to her. “Just who are you? The truth, this time.”
The truth. That she was a genetic mistake. No, he wouldn’t take her seriously. “I’m a reporter with All News Network.”
“And you just appeared here?” Kentaro shook his head.
“I cover Peacekeeper affairs.”
“They wouldn’t let you use their projectors.” Kentaro waved a finger back and forth, pointing at the ceiling.
It was a time for a half-truth. “I’m a hacker, too.” One who, beyond these two’s sight, appeared as an Operator to the thousands of Avatars and Sentinels in the EtherSpace right now.
“Hacker?” Kentaro cocked his head, looking very much like a puppy.
“I remember those,” Ryusuke said. “They were able to take control of electronic devices.”
When did she start thinking of him as Ryusuke instead of Ishihara?
Kentaro shook his head. “There’s no such thing as a hacker anymore.”
If only the Purebred knew about the handful of people like her. If Aya’s EtherCloud Avatar could laugh, she would. Despite her best efforts, her projection did. “Watch this.” With a few waves of her hand, she sent code through the tether to erase Ryusuke—no, Ishihara—and Kentaro from the camera feed, and then projected a new image of them into the hall beside them.
Gasping, the man extended a finger and touched the image of himself, then jerked his hand back. “There’s nothing there.”
“I’ve hidden you from their cameras, and I am sending these holograms back the way you came. That will give you some time to get to the main level.”
“What about the force field?” Kentaro went to lean against the invisible barrier.
Leaving another app controlled by an AI to maintain control of the projectors, she moved to the Building Operations partition of the EtherSpace, which appeared as a fortress with the same layout as Peacekeeper Central. She went to their current location and lifted the gate representing the force field.
Ken stumbled as the force field disappeared.
Chuckling, Ryusuke—might as well think of him as Ryusuke—caught him.
Face flushing hot, Kentaro pointed a finger at her projection. “How do we know you aren’t leading us into a more dangerous trap?”
Ryusuke nodded. “It’s hard to trust someone whose name I don’t know, and who probably doesn’t look the way he appears. For all I know, you’re catfishing us.”
Whatever ‘catfishing’ meant. And a name…she’d have to assign Ai to research a good name. Aya threw up the Transcendent’s hands. “You don’t have a choice, if you don’t want to be caught. You have about three minutes to reach the exit before the Ministry of Defense shocktroopers have Peacekeeper Headquarters surrounded. And you’ll still have to fight your way through anyone who can see you with their own eyes.”
“Fine.” Ryusuke took Kentaro’s hand, stirring Aya’s jealousy, and pulled him toward the maglift.
“All right,” she said. “Head down the corridor.”
When they continued on their way, she activated the force field behind them, brought the maglift down to their level, and opened the doors. With a dubious eye, Ryusuke stepped in, followed by an even more dubious Kentaro.
“What should I call you?” Ryu asked, studying the Transcendent’s virile projection waiting in the corridor.
“Ficus Religiosa,” she said, blurting out the first name that her fox spirit Ai suggested. Apparently, it was some kind of rare tree associated with enlightenment.
Kentaro exchanged a perplexed expression with Ryusuke before turning back. “What kind of name is that?”
“Bodhi,” she said a thousandth of a second after Ai provided the common name of the tree. “You can call me Bodhi. Now, wait a second while I scout ahead.” Operating too many apps in different partitions, she released her control of the projector, closed the doors, and sent the maglift up toward the main level.
For now, her lungs were holding up in the real world, and no one in the EtherSpace suspected the Level Two Operator moving between the Operations and Communications partitions was really an outsider. Commandeering the cameras, she scanned the Peacekeeper Headquarters’ vaulting entrance hall. Dozens of officers in unenhanced burgundy uniforms bustled about, several watching footage of the holograms of Ryusuke that she’d projected into the medical wing. Six waited at the maglift, most likely on their way to reinforce their comrades. Their side arms remained holstered.
With that information, she looked back into the maglift camera, where Kentaro and Ryu stood as close as lovers. One of the elder’s hands pushed on the kid’s ass, while the other pressed his belly.
If she didn’t know any better, she’d think a pit of jealousy was forming in her real body.
Maybe it was jealousy, because Ryusuke’s lithe but sculpted form was nothing short of magnificent, like the holograms she program
med beyond her firewall. If only she could feel their actual touch.
“Better,” Ishihara said. “You need to tilt your hips forward to open up your Governing vessel.”
Was this some kind of weird kink? Shaking the notion out of her head, Aya spoke through the maglift’s speaker. “All right. I have information for you.”
Both men startled.
Ryusuke’s head raked back and forth. “Where are you, Bodhi?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She transferred an image of the activity on the main level to another projector. “There are six unsuspecting Peacekeepers waiting outside the maglift doors. Another thirty-two are moving about the entrance hall.”
Ryusuke’s eyes roved over the scene, expression somewhere between amazed and calculating.
Expecting more of his fighting prowess, she decided it was time to test out the adaptive combat algorithms she’d copied from the Peacekeeper’s prototype tactical suit.
The doors slid open.
The six unarmored Peacekeepers stood there, their chatter coming to an abrupt end. They reached for their sidearms, but before they could draw, Ryusuke was swimming among them, slapping their bellies in a mesmerizing whirlwind of palms. All six collapsed.
The Purebred boy peeked out of the maglift, but ducked back when particle beams from several of the remaining Peacekeepers crisscrossed the hall.
None hit Ryusuke.
How was this even possible? With swipes of her EtherCloud hands inside her virtual Shell, Aya recreated the hall from the current camera feeds, sped up her perception to slow time to quarter speed, and set her Avatar in the simulation.
Ryu moved like a torrent, never pausing as he spun through the shots as he closed the distance.
Still, all it took was one shot. Maybe she could help him.
“Ai,” Aya said, “Project me as a copy of Ryu on top of him, and smooth my motions to imitate his.”
It was a program that was coded into the AI of the Peacekeeper’s prototype tactical suit, which she’d lifted a few months ago. She’d since integrated it into Ai’s code as a subroutine. In one-trillionth of a second, the new algorithm analyzed and compiled all of Ryu’s motions up to now, then hacked the hall emitters to project an image of him. It was just like how she copied Sentinels and Operators in the EtherSpace. Aya shifted her perception to his hologram and slowed to half-time.
