Catalyst

by Kincaid,S. J.

  Agitation flared in Vik’s dark eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to her. I am. But you’re not being realistic. Think about all the new surveillance. All the new officers. Things have changed. You have to admit that.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “But nothing, Tom.” Vik wore an unusually serious expression on his face. “I talked to Wyatt—yes, the Evil Wench and I actually had a serious discussion about stuff. She and I have been trying to figure out the right time to tell you this, but now’s as good as ever. We both think it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out you’re in contact with that particular girl again, and then all three of us are going to face consequences.”

  “I wouldn’t drag you into that.” Tom resumed flipping the quarter, avoiding Vik’s eyes. “I can’t believe you think I would. And you’re not even considering the possibility that no one will find out.”

  His friends didn’t know what he could do with machines, what Medusa could do . . . the way they could interface with any machine at will, the way their consciousnesses could virtually enter them. They weren’t going to be traced by conventional methods. The one time Tom had been detected was when he’d plunged into Obsidian Corp.’s systems, and that was only because Joseph Vengerov had known to look for someone like him.

  “I get that you have this fixation on her, I get it, but we can’t afford to attract attention.” Agitation edged Vik’s voice. “We frolicked in that icy place together, and did a lot of property damage. That’s not just expulsion from the Spire, that’s hard prison time.”

  Tom caught the quarter in his palm and looked at him. “Look, if it puts your mind at rest, the girl in question and I haven’t talked lately.” His only contact with her had been via the security cameras, when he checked in on her.

  Vik’s shoulders slumped in relief. “That’s great. It’s a start. Now’s the time to explore new vistas. Or are you afraid? I bet that’s it. Twenty bucks says you’re too much of a coward to ask one of these girls out.”

  “I know what you’re doing here, Spicy One. It’s not gonna work.”

  Vik mimed wiping away a tear. “Tommy’s a fragile flower. He can’t take rejection.”

  Tom raked a hand through his hair. “Okay, fine. I will go ask a girl out, then whatever happens, you get off my back about this. I’m taking that twenty bucks from you.”

  He located the nearest girl he sort of knew, then strode over to her. She was at a crowded table with her friends, so Tom figured he was about to get shot down in front of a whole bunch of people. Best to get it done with, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  “Hey, Iman,” he said, leaning his arm on the table next to her.

  Iman Attar, a Middle in Machiavelli Division, looked up with some surprise on her face, her blue-green eyes framed by a mane of butterscotch brown hair. She was pretty, and Tom had always thought so, but he’d already made a huge idiot of himself in one simulation where they played cavemen and he tried to convince her he’d be a good mate. She’d hit him over the head with a stick and called him ugly. It wasn’t the most flattering response to his overtures ever.

  “Go out with me,” Tom blurted.

  Her eyes widened. “On a date?”

  “That’s the idea.” Tom was aware of the dead silence from all her friends at the table, including one of the Middles, Jennifer Nguyen.

  Tom knew her well. He’d once overheard her mocking Vik’s attempt to win her over—and that’s where “Spicy Indian” had come from. He hoped this didn’t lead to some nickname for him later.

  Then Iman said, “Okay.”

  “Okay?” Tom echoed.

  She nodded. “Yeah,” she confirmed.

  Tom nodded, stunned. “Great. Glad we settled that.”

  Then he walked away. And that was that.

  TOM HONESTLY HADN’T expected her to say yes. He gazed at Medusa through the security cameras that night, wondering how to get out of it. It wasn’t that Iman wasn’t gorgeous, and the fact that she wasn’t half a world away and fighting for the enemy made things easier. . . .

  But Tom’s brain, his mind, his thoughts were all tangled up on one person, and he’d been that way ever since he first watched the Achilles of the modern world soaring through the reaches of space, obliterating Indo-American vessels.

  Today, Medusa did something she did a lot: she caught him off guard.

  “You know,” she said to the air in English, “it’s very perverted watching half-dressed girls first thing in the morning.”

  Tom froze up, realizing she was addressing him. Her dark eyes swiveled to the camera.

  “Yes,” she said, “I know you’re there. I’ve thought for a while about what I want to say to you, but I’m ready now. Go back to your own system and I’ll meet you in a second.”

  Tom withdrew from the Citadel’s systems. He remained hooked into the neural access port in his bunk, data buzzing through his brain, and a moment later, Medusa’s mind touched his in the system. One of the games in the trainee system activated around them, and Tom found himself facing Adolf Hitler.

  “Medusa?” he ventured.

  “This is me.”

  She was not attractive when she was Hitler. They were standing on top of a moving train, and when Tom glanced down at himself, the information flashed across his vision center. He was playing Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and a mass murderer who’d killed tens of millions of people. The program name was named Dictators Fistfighting on Top of Trains.

  It was a crude program with blocky landscape, and looked to have been written by a trainee for fun. For some reason, Tom’s thoughts immediately jumped to Walton Covner. In any case, Yaolan could not have chosen two more unappealing avatars, which was a very bad sign.

  She folded her arms. “I know you’ve been visiting my system. I know you’ve been looking in on me.”

  “Seriously, I never do it when you’re, uh—well, I don’t look if you’re not dressed or something.” An optimistic thought sprang up in his mind. “Unless you want me to.”

  “No!”

  “I was being hypothetical,” he said quickly, disappointed. “I’m not some Peeping Tom.”

  She stared at him.

  “I did not mean to make that pun,” Tom added, feeling very lame.

  “Blushing does not suit Stalin,” she remarked.

  “I don’t blush, and neither does Stalin. Why am I Stalin, by the way?”

  “Would you rather be Hitler?”

  “Why are you Hitler?”

  “Because most of the simulations in your system aren’t working for some reason.”

  “We’ve had technical difficulties lately,” Tom admitted.

  “And we’re going to forge a nonaggression pact.”

  “A . . . what?”

  “A pledge of nonaggression against each other.”

  “Listen, listen, Yaolan. I know I used that virus against you, but it wasn’t an act of aggression. I stayed away because you couldn’t hook in yet so I couldn’t explain, and then after waiting a while, I wasn’t sure how I’d do it.”

  “I know why you used the virus.”

  Tom blinked. “You . . . do?”

  “After I heard about the ghost in the machine, it was pretty obvious it was a misguided attempt to protect me.”

  “Wait, Yaolan. You know I did it for you?” Tom said, uncomprehending. “And you’re mad anyway?”

  She stepped forward and punched him. Hard. The pain receptors were on full, so the impact exploded across his cheek, reeling him back. Stalin’s legs recovered their balance somewhat clumsily.

  “Of course,” she cried. “And stop calling me by my name. I never gave it to you—you just found it out by accident.”

  He raised his hands. “Medusa, fine.”

  “Better,” she snarled, and drew toward him.

  Tom socked her this time, watching Hitler tumble to the roof of the train. “I don’t understand. I knew you’d be mad because of the
virus. But you get why I did it, so you’re mad about . . . what, exactly?”

  She reared up, blood dripped into her small mustache, whipped forward, and delivered a roundhouse kick to his ribs. Tom almost tumbled right off the train. “You used a virus on me without my permission. I never would have asked you to take a fall for me like that.”

  Tom struggled against the fierce wind as they rattled down the tracks, his legs dangling toward the wheels churning below them. “You saved us in Antarctica. I owed you.”

  Her hand extended down toward his. After a moment, Tom, took it, and she hoisted him back on top of the train with her. The ground rattled below them, wind tearing through their hair. They stared into each other’s eyes, and Tom felt like some terrible knot had unraveled in his chest. He hadn’t wanted her to think it was because he was trying to get promoted, or because he wanted in with Vengerov.

  He’d done it for her.

  And she’d realized it.

  But it obviously wasn’t okay.

  “You should have asked me first.”

  Tom tightened his grip on hers when she started to pull away. “You wouldn’t have let me do it.”

  She snatched her hand from his. “Of course not. I don’t want a savior, Tom. I never have. That’s the problem.” She reeled back a step, wobbling as the train rocked beneath them. “You want something from me that I can’t give you.”

  “Medusa—”

  “You want to be someone’s hero. You want to be strong for someone. I don’t need your strength and I certainly don’t need your pity.”

  “It’s not pity,” Tom said, appalled.

  “I’ve spent my whole life dealing with this from people because of the way I look.” She gestured to her face, which didn’t show on Hitler, but where he knew she’d been hideously scarred as a young child. “The people who aren’t repulsed by me always seem to feel this terrible pity. It’s infuriating. I’m not broken, I don’t need to be fixed, and I don’t need to be saved.”

  “God, Medusa, it’s not pity. You don’t get it.”

  “What don’t I get?” she blazed at him.

  “I don’t feel sorry for you. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. Ever. I know I don’t need to protect you. What I did, I’d do for anyone who mattered to me. I’d rather Vengerov found me than found you.”

  She studied him, eyes glittering. “Then you have some severe psychological disorder, Mordred, because affection isn’t about destroying yourself for someone else. I don’t want anyone doing that for me.”

  “Vengerov might never find me.”

  “Wasn’t that the entire reason you were even at Obsidian Corp. in the first place? You risked your life there to save a friend.”

  “All my friends did.”

  “But this is a pattern with you. This is how you operate.” Her eyes narrowed a bit. “You’re desperate to be needed.”

  Tom was lost. “I don’t really know what you want me to say.”

  She was silent a moment. “Then don’t say anything,” she finally told him. “Just listen: I don’t need you. I will never need you.”

  Tom couldn’t manage a word, stung.

  “As of today,” Medusa said, “we’re going back to the old arrangement. You don’t come on my server and I won’t come on yours, emergencies aside.” She raised her hand to end the program, then hesitated. “Oh, and I forgot one thing.”

  “What?” Tom said bleakly.

  She flashed him a bright, savage grin. “Thank you for the computer virus.”

  And then the text flashed before his vision center: Datastream received: program Good Luck Explaining Where You Got This to Your Techs initiated.

  Tom snatched out his neural wire. For a moment, nothing happened.

  And then the Good Luck Explaining Where You Got This to Your Techs virus slammed him with a terrible sensation like someone had just driven a boot in between his legs. Tom screamed out, doubling over, tumbling right off his bed and thumping to the floor, gagging.

  He lay there, fighting the need to be sick, the terrible pain easing with nauseating slowness. When he finally found his feet again, Tom shook his head with reluctant amusement, realizing she could’ve done far worse. Medusa wasn’t pleased, but she hadn’t tried to kill him.

  The worst pain was the sense something had finally broken between them for good. It wasn’t like the last times, when she’d been angry at him, because he felt like could deal with anger. She’d been calm. She’d spoken like there was some irreconcilable difference between them and he didn’t know how to—

  And then the virus triggered again.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE TERRIBLE SENSATION of a boot slamming him in the crotch reoccurred every three minutes on the dot and it never grew less awful. Tom was desperate by the time he reached Wyatt’s bunk in Hannibal Division, and he could’ve collapsed with relief to see she was there. The only problem was, so was someone else.

  “I need to talk to you,” Tom blurted. “In private.”

  “What?” said Evelyn Himes, Wyatt’s small blond roommate.

  Wyatt shot to her feet. “What is it, Tom?”

  “Can Wyatt and I talk alone?” Tom said to Evelyn.

  “No. This is my bunk.” Evelyn drew a brush through her crackling blond hair. “You guys can talk somewhere else.”

  But there was nowhere else Tom could go. He saw the time ticking down in his vision center, terrible dread welling in him. One minute left.

  “Please, Evelyn. I’ll give you . . .” He rooted in his pocket. “Twenty bucks. Just give us a few minutes alone.”

  “I said no.”

  “Twenty now, ten later. That’s thirty I’ll give you if you just leave for a bit.”

  “God, can’t you guys talk somewhere else?”

  Desperation gripped Tom. “Fine. Stay. You wanna watch, you can watch. I don’t mind an audience.” Then with a swift look of apology for Wyatt, he seized her waist, declared, “You are looking good today, Wyatt,” swooped his head down and drew her into a kiss.

  Wyatt’s body went rigid against his, and Tom thought, Please don’t punch me too hard for this afterward . . . as he waited for Evelyn to get the message and leave. For a moment, the strangeness of the situation registered as he felt Wyatt’s tightly compressed lips against his, the coolness of her cheek. Her hair smelled like lavender, and her brown eyes looked so enormous this close that she seemed to fill the world.

  And then something seemed to shift, her body softening against his, her lips parting against his. Against his will, a strange tingling excitement moved through him, feeling her hands tentatively slide up his chest, and her slim body became magnetic against his, drawing his hands. He reached back to seize the bedrail he’d backed her against to stop himself from moving his hands elsewhere. He clenched his fists so tightly around the cool metal that they began to throb.

  “Ugh, fine!” Evelyn exclaimed, and her footsteps stomped out. “Have the room to yourselves!” The door slid shut behind her.

  Tom pulled back, releasing the bedrail, and his hands hovered uncertainly in the air as he struggled for the right words to explain this to Wyatt. It was like his brain was melting and electricity pinged his limbs, and her eyes were wide like a frightened doe’s on his.

  In his vision center, time ticked down. 0:05 . . . 0:04 . . . 0:03 . . .

  Oh no.

  It happened. The invisible boot drove into his groin, and Tom groaned out in pain and dropped into a heap of limbs on the floor. Abruptly, he was free of the spell, brutal reality crushing through him, terrible pain displacing the temporary madness.

  He’d deserved this one, too.

  “Tom?”

  Wyatt’s voice sounded high and strangled. She knelt beside him, her hands suspended midair like she didn’t know whether to reach out and help him.
He waved to her painfully, trying to show her he was okay.

  “Tiny Spicy Vikram,” Wyatt called to the air.

  “Tiny spicy Vikram?” Tom echoed.

  “I set it up as a trigger phrase to disable surveillance in my bunk for ten minutes. In case we had to talk about something urgent,” she said.

  Of course she had. Wyatt thought of everything. The nausea was awful, and Tom managed in a strained way, “I’m okay. Kind of. It’s a computer virus. I need your help. That’s why I needed your roommate out.”

  Wyatt was very still.

  “This hurts. It really hurts,” Tom gasped. “It’s happened every three minutes since Medusa used it on me. I can’t tell the techs how I got it and I couldn’t tell you in front of Evelyn. Can you fix this? Please?”

  “Medusa gave it to you?”

  “I can explain—but later. This is going to kill me. Not literally, but you know what I mean!”

  She was very quiet. She moved toward the drawer under her bed and pulled out the diagnostic scanner she used sometimes on neural processors. Tom looked at her stiff, rigid shoulders, the jerking movements of her arms.

  “Sorry for ambushing you with that,” he said to her. “You understand, right? I had to get her out of here. I can’t tell anyone else, since it came from Medusa and . . . I should’ve warned you, or . . .”

  “Good ploy. It worked.” Wyatt’s voice was harsh and clipped. She snapped out the neural wire, moved briskly back over to him, and jabbed one end of it into the access port on the back of his neck hard enough that her knuckles hurt his neck.

  Then she flopped down on the floor next to her bed, curling her fatigue-clad legs up to her chest as she ran the scan.

  Tom managed to heave himself upright, trying not to think of her lips parting under his, of the curve of her hips against his palms. This was Wyatt. Wyatt, Wyatt. It would be profoundly wrong to start thinking about her that way.

  “Yuri’s gonna punch me for this,” Tom murmured.

  “Probably.” Wyatt tapped at her forearm keyboard as Tom watched his the time tick down on his internal chronometer, dread in his heart. As he was bracing himself for pain with fifteen seconds left, code flashed across his vision.