Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5)

by Dean C. Moore

  “He’s dug into that basement like an Alabama tick in my backside. It’s carved out of solid granite, reinforced with hi-tech metals. Entirely bombproof. Can you verify with your scanners? Probably not.”

  Perdue checked, glancing down at the floor. He just didn’t have that kind of penetration with the goggles. About all he could verify was he was perched on top of some kind of well-constructed vault.

  “I’m telling you, now’s the time to upgrade to Pembroke’s network, Perdue.”

  “Your loyalty is grossly appreciated,” Perdue snapped.

  “Don’t be that way. You know I go where the best tech toys are. You did your best staying ahead of the learning curve. Not your fault this guy’s better.”

  Perdue thought about it and decided that was not the remark of someone who hadn’t been turned. He checked out the interiors of the house with his solid-object-tunneling goggles, found he couldn’t see much farther than the fridge Widget was hiding behind. “Where are the others?”

  “You can’t tell? I’m not entirely surprised. I was pretty much blinded myself until Pembroke transferred me over to his grid. The magnetic fields in here are too strong to penetrate beyond a small halo-radius of your body. Is this guy fun, or what?”

  “Be more fun coming up against him, don’t you think?” Perdue coaxed.

  “Nice try. You should see what level I’m up to in POSTAL. About ten levels past anything you can get away with in the real world. I may just upload myself to his network. This body is becoming a real drag.”

  “You’re an inspiration, Widget. You and all that superior training.” Perdue doubted Widget could appreciate the sarcasm in his current state.

  He cocked his front-loader, slipped a grenade into its firing chamber. Perdue fired into the fridge, sending the shrapnel across hill and dale. The idea was to trigger as many of those trip wires intended for him, and take out as many other bad guys as possible. The blast trajectories of those pieces of shrapnel would be hard to calculate even for his seasoned fighters.

  Seconds prior to depressing the trigger, Perdue lowered the visor on his head gear, and relaxed his body to ride the concussion wave along with everyone else. He’d be blasted back the direction in which he’d entered, and that path was already cleared, so no worry about triggering trip wires on his short flight.

  He landed fully conscious, if a little sore from the blast, his rifle cocked before his feet were all the way back on the ground.

  Perdue surveyed the field to see how well reality conformed to the thought experiment in his head. He’d triggered several other explosions, gutting the ground level of Pembroke’s home. Perdue was impressed the windows to the house hadn’t blown out. That meant they were several grades up from bulletproof. The guy was nearly as good at building impenetrable forts as he was at building video game worlds. Possibly a hobby growing out of his paranoia.

  There were no bodies lying about, save for Widget. That meant the others were downstairs, on reality-turned-video-game-level two.

  Perdue examined Widget, checked for a pulse. It was strong. He was unconscious, but his grip on his iPad remained resolute. The pressure of his thumb continued to issue game commands.

  He rewound the scene on his visor from the instant he depressed his trigger. The VR replay showed him the other trip wires he’d set off with the shrapnel from his grenade. It also highlighted the region of the ground floor not cleared by the blast radius. He would steer clear of those zones on his way downstairs.

  He was about to set himself in motion when he decided better of it. Think, Perdue. He needed to change his strategy to suit the adversary. A player this good would have profiled him, figured out a dozen ways to neutralize him with his zombie-drones. Recruited from his own forces, they barely needed Pembroke’s help to undo him; they knew his moves better than he did.

  He pried the iPad out of Widget’s hands. “How are you coming with those tweaks, RP?” he said into his com, after pulling the chin-mike down. RP answered by changing the display on the iPad for him; it now showed the positions of his other men in red, Pembroke in purple.

  “Hope you’re not color blind, Perdue,” RP said. “Hate for you to miss the punch line.”

  Perdue watched as the red lights on his screen turned green. A few seconds later, Pembroke’s purple turned green, as well. “I presume that means they’re neutralized.”

  “They’re comatose. It’ll allow me to reprogram them faster.”

  “How? I thought they actually had to be playing the game?”

  “So long as their bodies are in contact with the control devices, POSTAL will communicate by way of brainwaves and the person’s own EMF fields.”

  “You sure Pembroke isn’t playing possum? Find it hard to believe you neutralized him so quickly.”

  “The guy’s spent so much time in virtual reality, he’s about ten times as suggestible as his drones. I set the queen bee to hatching makeover worlds even more creative than I can manage on my own. When he’s done, he’ll be more responsible for shortening the boys’ recovery time than me.”

  “Remind me to thank him.”

  “What about me? I never get thanked for anything,” RP groused.

  “Stop whining, and send Purnell in here to help me drag the bodies out. I need to check their field patches to see which ones need additional mending ASAP. Just give me a few minutes to finish clearing the house of the remaining trip wires and booby traps.”

  RP replied, “Purnell says take all the time you need. He’ll get back to riding your ass when it’s a little less sore.”

  Perdue smiled. Realizing Purnell was listening in to the com exchange, he said, “What are you going to do when there is one of these Renaissance types out there I can’t get to, huh? And whoever else is on the scene isn’t up to the task of bringing them down? You gonna hate me then? Or hate yourself?”

  TWENTY-NINE

  It was the night of the party at Hartman’s mansion, and Winona had her last minute work cut out for her if her drama therapy exercises were to amount to anything. A tweak on the dinner theater concept, Winona intended the activities to support the metamorphosis Hartman was forever struggling to drive in his students. Though, she hoped helping him get over himself would prove even more invaluable.

  It was time to put those psychic hits she got off Hartman’s students when they brushed up against her, registering for class, to good ends. She’d long since learned to oil the machine by handing them her pen, which they would be coaxed to hand back, or lend them a stapler, or a paperclip. She might “mistakenly” hand them duplicate brochures which they would be kind enough to touch before handing back…

  She did a flyby of Murray’s suite to make sure everything was as it should be in order that he could be all he could be. She wanted to encourage Hartman’s students to flower; and, as with any good actor, costumes and props went far to get one into character.

  She fussed over her alcohol selections, hoping she hadn’t lost her touch. The liquors were chosen to highlight moods Murray would have trouble locking in on his own. They would create the kind of emotional dissonance that would lead him to be more reflective, see shades of gray easy to miss under the light of his fallback personality. When Murray returned her extra brochures, and Winona was able to get a psychic read from the brief contact, she had gotten an impressive data dump of party scenes: On rum, he was quite mellow. On Jagermeister, the life of the party. On gin it was talk, talk, talk. On tequilla, he was dancing. That left her to select more exotic blends for their ingredients and strengths of alcohol to procure the desired effects based on what she had gleaned of his reactions to “the staples.”

  Meanwhile, the comfort foods from the cannoli to the pasta would make him feel at home, lowering his guard enough to not notice the pump had been primed with the aim of helping him see into the darker corners of his mind.

  Winona had stuffed the closet with Asian clothing, including a mock-geisha outfit, one that didn’t require a retinue to put on
. Murray liked to dress up as a woman from time to time for laughs. No repressed homosexuality implied; it was the kind of thing some straight men did as a way of highlighting just how comfortable they were with their sexuality.

  As an afterthought, she tied a ribbon around some of the boxes with dessert selections. That way, Murray could feel as if he were opening presents, which would put him of a mind to surprise himself with what was inside him come show time. Such associations were quite the leap for the conscious mind, but she had set her sights on tunneling straight through to his unconscious – and keeping the path open.

  Winona wrote on a small card on her way out the room, “Let me know if I misjudged anything,” signed the card with her name, and jotted down her cell number.

  She realized she hadn’t done anything for Lorie. She had no idea why she had a mental block regarding that woman. But it was too late now to delve into it.

  Winona left to check on the layout for Spence.

  When Spence had handed back her stapler, Winona saw the womanizer that he was. Her mind flipped through possible explanations: a closet homosexual; playing the field for no better reason than he lacked maturity; someone determined to get over the love of his life. As soon as she had landed on that last thought, images of Spence and his ex popped into her mind. She had dug a little further into the identity of Spence’s ex-girlfriend, Victoria, and then she set up his suite so that everything reminded him of her.

  Nothing obvious though. The lime-green curtains were the color of his beloved’s eyes. Winona adjusted the room lighting to accentuate the viridian hue. Spence’s lady love had had trouble walking, due to scoliosis, and in her home she was never more than three strides away from whatever she needed. In Spence’s suite, he was never more than three strides away from anything he desired. The paisley pattern in the lace doilies echoed the shape of her favorite earrings. Winona had flashed on just how much Victoria’s work with Special Olympics compatriots elicited tearful hugs and embraces. From the teardrop chandelier to the caps on the crystal bottles holding the liquor, there was nowhere Spence could look and avoid the teardrop motif.

  There was nothing more to do here.

  Winona moved rapidly to the next room.

  She sorted through the games she’d set aside as pastimes for Adam and Jeannie. There was something about the fun-loving nature of those two; part defense mechanism, part just who they were. But if living for merriment was high on their agenda, Winona would make it as easy as possible on them. She added the Twister game to the pile. It was probably over the top, but playing the game to raucous laughter with the inherent physical release from all the stretching, was a great way to expose the steel box of security they kept about themselves and hidden from conscious awareness. Moreover, by enticing them to retreat into their traditional defense mechanisms when things got rough, she could more easily expose the inadequacy of those coping strategies.

  “God damn it! I swear I’m going to take a dump in the hall!” Murray’s voice punctured the wood-paneled walls to the suite the way an ice pick to the throat clears the way to a collapsed lung. Winona exited Adam and Jeannie’s room, appeared in the hallway seconds later.

  “Thank God,” Murray said. “If the curator of this mausoleum wouldn’t mind showing me the way to the bathroom!”

  Winona didn’t want him disturbing any of the suites she had just prepared. “Left at the next junction, up a flight of stairs, sharp right, down two hallways… You know what, I think I’ll draw the diagram on the back of your hand. These old homes can be challenging.” She deliberately accentuated the labyrinth in hopes the twists and turns would help him get outside his own head, exactly the purpose for which English hedge mazes on castle estates had been designed.

  Murray dutifully followed the map. Winona waited for him to disappear around the bend before she finished dressing the last of the rooms.

  As to Danny Sparks’s suite, she left that stripped to the bone. If anything, she had played up its jail cell quality. There was something in his eyes, and the way her blood ran cold when he touched her handing back his papers. Whatever evil that boy had been committing his whole life, he had to live in fear of getting caught. Being stuck in a jail cell was probably his worst nightmare. He could stand to be more on edge than the others; his defense mechanisms were that much better. He’d been hiding the monster in him in plain sight all his life, after all. Winona had no real evidence to prove she wasn’t barking up the wrong tree, just a gut instinct backed by psychic insight. She’d play it out and hope for the best.

  Not all of the suites in Hartman’s house were oversized. Some were undersized, stuffed into nooks and crannies. Danny’s room was one of them. She pressed down on the cot’s mattress and listened to the cloying squeak of the springs beneath with satisfaction. Passing her hands along the fabrics, she confirmed the starchiness of the sheets and the grating quality of the worn woolen blanket, not to mention its drab color. She stripped the blanket off the sheet covers and folded it with military precision at the foot of the bed, adding one more subtle dimension of coldness to the room, and to the institutional air. And she departed.

  At last she was in Fiona’s room; she had taken the greatest delight in setting the stage for her. By rights, Fiona wasn’t one of Hartman’s students, but to Winona’s way of thinking, she might have more upside potential than the whole lot of them. The trick was getting her to see it as much as Hartman. The girl had a dreadful inferiority complex that was amplified by close proximity to all these self-proclaimed geniuses that crowded the halls of the philosophy buildings. Though Winona had to agree with Hartman’s opinion that high IQs did not reflect high ideals.

  Winona was convinced Fiona was not just smarter, but would be truer to Hartman’s humanitarian standards given half a chance. Her blond bimbo act was her way of setting expectations so low her male consorts couldn’t help but be charmed by her when they saw past the ruse. She would then lead her courter on a magical mystery tour, her self-image rising in her suitor’s eyes as his impression of her continued to drift upwards.

  Problem was, Fiona had been living the part so long, the part was playing her. And so far, no one had taken the bait of the dense-enough-to-be-easily-played act to be snagged, hook, line, and sinker.

  Winona added some of the fashion magazines Fiona was so fond of to the coffee table. Maybe if she could encourage the girl to make herself over, it would be all the distance she needed from the role in which she had become stuck.

  She drew one last item out of her carry bag, a hair-coloring kit. She had added some other colors already to the bathroom vanity, but something told her at the last minute to add black. It occurred to Winona, setting out the latest bottle, that she may have more to go on than her psychic hits.

  She was to psychology what Hartman was to philosophy.

  Winona could certainly remember when her observations into fellow humans weren’t so astute. But she dismissed that period in her life as the self-absorbed era, the holier-than-thou period when she simply couldn’t be bothered.

  Occasionally Winona wondered if there was something else underlying her metamorphosis. Maybe there was. Maybe it was her wanting to stand out to Hartman, catch his eye, and make him aware of her worthiness as a mate.

  Winded and perspiring, she reached into her pockets for an airplane bag of peanuts and a small carton of milk she had grown used to carrying around with her to tackle her hypoglycemia. She took a hit off both containers.

  When she put her arm through the wrought-iron bars to open one of the windows to help cool her down, the draft instantly slammed the door to the room shut.

  Winona walked calmly to the door whereupon she realized the true nature of the room. It was booby-trapped. Once locked in, there was no way out.

  She was completely imprisoned.

  ***

  “My, my, if this isn’t an added bonus.” There would be no students walking out on their drama therapy sessions tonight. Their fight-or-flight responses coul
d only take them deeper into their own psyches.

  Winona just as calmly started feeling about with her hands, smiling with delight.

  It occurred to her that if the room was one elaborate puzzle box, it might have been built with the purpose of developing a child’s problem solving skills. Hartman had grown up in the house. Evidently his parents put a premium on escaping any impossible situation as the prima facie psychological defense mechanism against a harsh and cruel world. It was a mindset they had no qualms embodying in the difficulty of escaping the rooms of the mansion.

  She was sure there was a way to unlock the door from the inside by sliding the right combination of panels. But she was equally sure that the way to take the game to the next level was to ensure the way out of the room never worked exactly the same way twice. Confirming her suspicions, she heard what she thought was a rat crawling about behind the walls. The sounds of its scurrying rose and faded without moving significantly across the wall, indicating there was quite a bit of depth back there. Could there be hidden passageways leading from the egress points to add dimensions of difficulty to the labyrinths of the house?