by Sean Platt
“I know how to unplug and replug my connection,” Sam interrupted. “That’s not the issue. The issue is the loop.”
“I’m not showing a loop, Mr. Dial. I’m showing that you are accessing The Beam through a 2085 standalone console unit with extensive modifications and a power switch. Perhaps power cycling your unit will — ”
“I know how to turn my shit on and off! It’s the loop! I’m stuck in a motherfucking hole!”
“There’s no need for profanity, sir,” the agent chided. “I’m sensing fractured biometric data. Your heart rate is rising, and your brainwaves appear erratic. I would like to suggest calming breaths.”
“Calming breaths?”
“In over a count of three, hold one second, out over a count of six. Please breathe with me now.”
Sam shoved the console away, stood, and furiously paced. He kicked the table. He punched the wall. Both strikes hurt his foot and hand, respectively. Onscreen, the connection icon indicated that the support agent was still waiting patiently for her customer to get over his irrational hissy fit.
Maybe he was being irrational.
His foot and hand did hurt, after all. And this did look like his apartment. Everything seemed solid enough. Why would he have gone to a Starbucks? He thought he’d gone, but he was cheap, poor, and surrounded by evidence to the contrary.
The longer he looked around, the clearer his conviction felt.
He’d taken Lunis.
He was, admittedly, scattered by nature.
So what was more likely? That he’d become fixed in some sort of a hyper-realistic, mind-invading Beam glitch that had fabricated an elaborate hallucination as good as any simulation? That he’d been invaded by microfragments that had reprogrammed his sense of time and place? Was that paranoid, bizarre idea honestly the truth?
Or was it, instead, more likely that it was midafternoon the day before Craig Braemon’s party and that he was in his apartment, chasing Nicolai’s signature?
Sam’s door opened. Nicolai Costa entered, appearing to have been shot in the face with a slamgun. His head was barely there, but his lips managed to say, “Thanks a lot, asshole.”
Then he was gone, and Sam found himself no longer standing, now sitting tall in his chair, cracking his knuckles, and adjusting his screen.
“Dammit, BEAM CENTRAL SUPPORT!” Sam suddenly bellowed, his calm shattering. “BEAM CENTRAL SUPPORT, MY NAME IS SAM DIAL, AND I’M STUCK IN A HOLE!”
With his fractured mind — half at 4:16 p.m. the day before the party and half at some point in the unknown future — Sam felt a clock continue to tick, millimeters from a midnight Armageddon.
Chapter Eight
Kai emerged from Nicolai’s bedroom. He thought she looked like something out of a game.
Nicolai hadn’t grown up playing video games, considering how many of his formative years had been spent clawing through the remains of a decaying Europe, but he’d seen plenty and played a few early on. To his eye now, Kai looked like an artist’s conception of the perfect combination of danger and beauty.
She was wearing typical Kai seduction gear but had added a heavy touch of class. She was in fire-engine red heels, tall but not overly so, strapped to her foot at the ankle with an extra loop of synthetic leather. Her dress was red to match. It came to well below her knees, almost to the shoe straps, and flowed at the bottom hem with a long slit up one leg that made it nearly to her upper thigh. Higher up, the garment hugged Kai’s slight curves, accentuating what God, nanotechnology, and a lot of training had given her. The dress had thin straps and non-gratuitous cleavage that still showed off her smallish assets.
Her lipstick was the same shade as dress and shoes, set off by deceptively meager eye shadow and mascara. She’d used real makeup, Nicolai thought, rather than letting her cosmetic add-ons do the work for her. A subtle nod to ways of the past. Among the elite classes, applied cosmetics were a rarity. Why bother with painting your face when your canvas could instantly put color exactly where you wanted? But Kai did little without meaning, and if Nicolai had to guess, this particular game of facial dress-up was for Rachel’s benefit — or in tribute. The Ryan boys’ mother had been around for a century and a half. When she’d been trying to look pretty, she hadn’t had the options of a modern woman.
But when Kai moved, Nicolai could see a black something on her leg, behind the swaying slit, that reminded him of a holster — for an old firearm, for a newer gun, for something. The way she’d done her eyes made her a specific kind of sexy: a praying mantis breed of seductive that told a man she’d kill him, yes…but he’d almost go willingly, under her expert hand. Her chestnut-brown hair was up in a complicated knot without a single loose end. And of course there was the way she moved that brought it all together: like a cat, stalking a mouse.
“Shit,” Nicolai told her. “You look…good.”
He thought Kai would reply with her trademark sarcasm, but instead she almost blushed and thanked him. These past weeks had changed their relationship in strange ways. They’d been through torture; he’d forgotten the torment; they’d had their memories modified, fled the modern Mafia, and turned social saboteurs. They were tied to others in a web: Kai to Doc, Nicolai to Doc, both of them to Micah, Micah to Rachel, Rachel to Isaac, Isaac to Carter fucking Vale. Nicolai had been sent to Braemon’s by three different parties: Sam Dial, Micah Ryan, and Kate, who’d once been Doc. His mission could be one of several, and he still didn’t know which way to go.
And today? Today, they planned to create a power vacuum for one of their enemies to fill, in the hopes that it would open a new one a rung lower for Kai, Nicolai, and maybe Kate/Doc to grab. Kate brought baggage in the form of Omar and the cop, but those were a few of the million loose ends and potential pitfalls surrounding Nicolai today. He was wearing another man’s ID, could now open Beam doors that should have been far above his pay grade, and might hold the secret to unlocking the most powerful technology the world had ever seen.
Compared to the twin ideas of validating Project Mindbender and cracking Shift open like a walnut, Kai killing a woman who was well past her expiration date felt like a small thing. Looking at her now, Nicolai — who’d done his share of justified murder — found no room or reason to judge.
“You look pretty sexy yourself,” Kai said.
Nicolai nodded his thanks. He’d slapped on a tuxedo after a quick shower. His nanobots had done the rest.
“Did it feel like dressing that Steve guy? Or are you still Nicolai?”
Kai walked forward and put her hands around Nicolai’s waist, just inches between them. He shrugged, playing along.
“I don’t know. Nicolai couldn’t have sent out party invitations to Kate and her buddy.”
“Omar Jones?”
“Apparently. You don’t know him, do you?”
“I think I met him once or twice when…” She trailed off, and Nicolai knew she was trying to be discreet. It seemed strange to back away from Kai’s profession considering he’d helped her refresh the deadly cloned blood under her nails that she’d be using to stop Rachel Ryan’s clock, but right now she didn’t seem eager to discuss sleeping with Omar.
“Through Doc,” she finished, her brown eyes flicking away before returning to Nicolai. “But no, I don’t really know him.”
“I looked up a bit while you were getting ready. Seems as slippery as…as Kate said,” Nicolai told Kai, still stumbling over Kate and Doc’s confusing identity. “But this Steve York suit Rachel gave us has a lot of bells and whistles. It’s like I have backdoor access to half of The Beam. I have prison records in my web. Looks like Omar once shared a span of incarceration with one Craig Braemon in Flat 4. The island prison, in the Great Lake?”
“So you think Kate is right? That Omar’s planning some kind of double-cross?”
“I don’t know. I’m getting lost here. How many times do you have to double-cross back and forth before you’re right back where you started? Omar and Kate might be after the s
ame thing in the end, even if Omar’s version of how it’s supposed to work is a lie. And it probably is. Kate has a shell, too, like my York suit. But hers is Doc. What kind of a plan is that? He…she…says Omar thinks Doc’s strange absence from the network will give him access to things he shouldn’t have. So does he really think it will work? Or is Omar after something else…and does that something else end up looping back to something Doc would have agreed to all along?”
Kai put a thumb and forefinger to her forehead. “I’m getting a headache trying to keep it all straight.”
Nicolai, nervous but feeling that this web of lies had to collapse soon, pulled Kai into a half embrace.
“Well, tell your nanos to fix it,” he said, smiling, feeling her warmth against him, “because we need to catch a cab. It’s showtime.”
Chapter Nine
Shadow wasn’t responding.
Leah checked her inbox repeatedly, somehow sure that all of her notification systems were experiencing errors. Shadow should respond to her pings. He would if he was who Leah thought he was — and not who Dominic had implied. But Dominic had to be wrong.
Everything he’d spooled out earlier (Omar’s many allegiances, most of which were to himself, Kate, some guy named Doc, another guy named Nicolai) seemed to Leah like an overly complicated puzzle. There was a fake Stephen York out there somewhere? Really? Leah barely knew the real Stephen York, and it’s not like he was high-profile. Why would he be worth duplicating in most people’s minds — especially for Omar Jones’s purposes, of all people?
But despite all that perfectly rational logic, Shadow still hadn’t responded to n33t’s message. Shadow, like his name, had gone suspiciously dark.
And there was the other thing. The thing she’d rationalized not telling Dominic because Dominic would only take it the wrong way. The thing she’d discovered when she’d been out on The Beam, blindly searching for some evidence of a decoy York, whatever that might be.
She hadn’t mentioned it because it was nothing — but if she told Dominic, it would only give him ideas.
It had made sense to check in with SerenityBlue. And why not? Her errand for Dominic was ridiculous and only required lip service. So she’d checked in with the school. And sure, she could ask Serenity about the idea of a York shell because Serenity had helped uncork York in the first place, and because she seemed to know freaky shit about The Beam in the same way Leah did.
A Stephen York clone? Har-har. No, of course Serenity had never heard of such a thing. The idea was ridiculous.
But oh, by the way, it did seem like someone out there was looking for Stephen York. No big deal, though.
And also (just because it was worth mentioning as a surely-not-an-issue coincidence), Serenity had added that there was also a big Beam knot that seemed to center on Braemon’s party, with an unseen hand pulling the strings. But hey: probably no big deal either.
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 assa
ssin. 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.
