Neurolink

by M M Buckner

  “Stop. Put your hands behind your heads,” the recording blared. Then a bullet sang through the air—a warning shot.

  “Hold me tight and just step back,” she said. “Close your eyes if you need to.”

  Dominic saw a tiny red light gleam in Qi’s hair. One of the cops was taking aim with a laser beam. He wrenched her sideways, and what happened next was unclear. He felt the effects of gravity. There was a jolting, flopping sensation as they slammed against the building. Qi kicked off, and rope slid through a ring. But something was wrong. The rope kept hanging up. Cop cars swooped past, blinding them with spotlights.

  “You’re wasting time, Dominic. You can’t escape me.” The NP’s harmonic voice poured from multiple loudspeakers in several hovering police cars.

  The two black-suited strangers leaned out from the shattered roof over their heads. Don’t cut that rope, he mentally prayed to whatever chaotic probabilities ruled his fate. But of course, the NP would not destroy its flesh flunky. That would mean waiting two decades for a replacement. They dropped again, but only a short distance, and as Dominic’s head slammed into Qi’s bony back, he heard her fretting over her snarled rope. In the smog below, tiny figures swarmed across the dome.

  “Look!” he shouted.

  They sailed down another couple of meters, and Qi brought them to a bouncing stop against the building. Then they hung in silence, peering through the smog at the luminous white dome far below, where an army of cops milled around like gutterbugs waiting for them. Something large and black was unfolding in their midst like a huge ominous flower. What was that thing?

  “They’re inflating an air pillow,” Qi said through her helmet speaker. “To catch us if we fall. Nice.”

  Overhead, the two black-suited figures were already wriggling down the rappelling rope. A cop car closed in and projected a shimmery beam through the haze, and the NP’s hologram materialized in the smog.

  “You’ve got guts, Dominic. Join me. Help me sire a new class of being. I’ll even let you keep your black whore.”

  Qi must have lost her hold. She let out a little cry, and they dropped fast. The rope reeled out of control as they bashed and bounced down the lacy amber façade, but ten meters down, the rope hung up again and jerked them to a halt. Dominic felt Qi trembling through her Kevlax suit.

  “Easy. It’s all right,” he said as the wind whistled around them. “I’m sorry I got you into this, Qi.”

  She said something, but he couldn’t understand it. He thought she was laughing. The external speaker in her helmet seemed to be broken.

  Without warning, she started running sideways along the face of the spire with Dominic still clinging to her back. He was amazed. Where did she get the strength to do that? She ran as far as she could before gravity took over and swung them back in the opposite direction. The woman must have thighs of titanium. They made a wide, sweeping arc, and she used the momentum to run higher up the other side before gravity pulled them back again. Back and forth they flew like a pendulum, and on each swing, she kicked at the wall to make them soar in wider and wider arcs. Dominic clung tight and wondered if she’d gone mad. He was getting airsick. Ten meters higher up the rope, their two pursuers fluttered like flags.

  Something came loose and sailed by Dominic’s head. At first, he thought it was one of the men above, but it was Qi’s helmet. She had ripped it off. “On the next swing, grab for that ledge!” she shouted.

  What ledge? As they flew across the spire, faceted windows reflected the brilliant sun, and Dominic searched the façade for a ledge. Then he saw it, the wide sweep of the windowsill that opened from the executive conference room. How well he knew that broad, thick window—from the inside, not from out here. As they swung toward it, he stretched his leg and hooked his boot around the window jamb. For an instant, he held them. Then his boot slipped, and they went flying again. On the following swing, he lunged and grabbed the window frame with both hands. Qi wedged her knee into the angle, and with a tremendous grunt, Dominic pulled them both into the shallow recess of the window ledge. Before he knew what was happening, Qi cut their rope, and the weight of the two men above swung it away.

  They sat with their backs against the glass. Hot ashy wind tossed their hair and burned Dominic’s throat. Now they had no way up or down. Spotlights swept around them, and the NP materialized in the smog, clenching its fists.

  “Show some fuckin’ dignity,” it said. “You’re president of ZahlenBank.”

  Qi was working at the glass with one of her spy tools. Dominic found the blue eye patch dangling around his neck, and he nonchalantly untied it. “NP, I have a couple of questions about your merger proposal.”

  “You’re stalling.” The hologram seemed to float in a smoggy halo of rose-colored clouds.

  “For instance, after the merger, what will our name be? I assume that’s a negotiable point.” Dominic retied the patch over his eye at a rakish angle.

  “Yeah, that’s droll. My people have a nice, comfy mattress waiting below. All you have to do is jump.”

  The NP surged forward and gave Dominic an electric shock that made him shiver and jerk. Qi caught him around the waist. “Hold on to me,” she whispered.

  Dominic gripped her belt and pulled his eye patch back into place. “Another thing. Who decides where we go for vacation? Do we build consensus or just take a vote?”

  The NP lifted its hand, and an arc of blue-white static jumped from its fingertip into Dominic’s chest. The jolt threw him back against the window and knocked out his breath. Qi held him while he rasped and fought to get his lungs working again.

  “You’re just hurting yourself,” the NP said.

  Dominic heard the glass cracking behind him. Qi had worked her magic again. A moment later, he tumbled backward into the conference room and fell on top of her. Glass beads lay half a meter deep under the window, and when he rolled, they made a shrill, grinding sound. They stuck in his beard and hair.

  Bank guards were waiting inside to seize them, but as soon as the clouds of toxic atmosphere rolled in, they fled and slammed the double doors behind them. Qi tried to drag one of the heavy chairs to block the doors, and when Dominic realized what she was doing, he palmed the door lock and input a new password. Then he helped her lift another chair. While they were building their barricade, a cop car slowed to a hover just outside the broken window and beamed the NP in beside them.

  The genie materialized sitting calmly in the chair they were carrying. “You think a pile of furniture can stop ZahlenBank guards?”

  Dominic knew the effort was pointless. Very soon, the guards would return in surface gear, and no stack of chairs could stand against them. He only hoped the new password would delay them for a while.

  “Do you have a plan?” he whispered to Qi.

  She shook her head. Her face had gone a paler shade of dark, and her movements were brittle. So, he thought, the indestructible Major Qi is afraid. He did not find this comforting.

  “No, she doesn’t have a fucking plan,” the NP said, “She’s a prote. Yeah, I know all about her ‘big confession.’ You’d be amazed what I know.”

  Dominic stuck his fingers through the NP’s face. “You’re not attractive when you frown,” he said. Then he marched to the head of the U-shaped table, picked up the handheld remote he’d used so many times before, and whispered into its tiny microphone. “Activate Net link.”

  A screen glided down from the ceiling, already displaying the luminous gold Z of the ZahlenBank home page. Dominic unzipped his surfsuit and pulled his personal Net node from his right breast pocket. He flipped it open and spoke the commands for infrared linkage. Outside in the corridor, something very large battered against the conference room doors.

  He said, “Dominic Jedes personal accounts. Display all balances.”

  There was no pause. The screen immediately presented a red circle crossed with a forward slash, and the machine voice said, “Access denied. If you have questions, please check our h
elpful FAQ.”

  The pounding at the doors set up a loud, clattering rhythm. Those doors weren’t designed to withstand that kind of assault, and with every thud, the stack of chairs vibrated.

  “What did you do to my accounts?” he said to the NP.

  “I froze your assets. Did you expect something different?”

  Dominic took a deep breath through his nose. In a taut, calm voice, he spoke to his handheld. “Override. This is Dominic Jedes, president of ZahlenBank.”

  The red circle and slash blinked once, and the machine voice repeated its formula. “Access denied. If you have questions, please check our helpful FAQ.”

  The NP leaned back in the chair and crossed its legs. “You need deep code to get past me. Flesh interfaces are defunct in my world.”

  The banging at the door grew louder. The. guards must have been using a battering ram. Outside the window, half a dozen cop cars jockeyed for position. When red laser dots started dancing across the walls, Dominic made Qi lie on the floor under the window.

  “They won’t shoot me,” he said. “I’m too valuable.”

  “Oh, they might wing you.” The NP snickered. “I can always have you patched up later.”

  Dominic dropped to the floor beside Qi, just as she rose and peeked over the sill. “Cops are rigging a gantry,” she whispered. “They’re gonna come in through the window. This was all my stupid idea.”

  He yanked her back down. “Only one person deserves credit for this circus. Richter Jedes. The visionary.”

  Qi caught Dominic’s head between her hands and pulled his face close. “Don’t let that monster rape me,” she whispered. “Promise, Nick. If he takes over your body, don’t let him have me.”

  Dominic opened his mouth, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, he pressed her head to his chest and stroked the back of her neck.

  On the table, his personal Net node beeped with an incoming call. He saw the tiny green light. It had to be the NP, trying to lure him out into the open where the cops could “wing” him. He shifted in the screeching bed of glass, held Qi in his arms, and calculated options. Qi, Tooksook, Benito, they’re counting on me, he told himself, still finding it hard to believe.

  Bang! The guards rammed the doors so hard, a chair tumbled off the barricade and crashed to the floor. His Net node beeped again. Qi was punching his shoulder, mumbling into his chest that she should have thought of a better plan, so he caught her wrist and squeezed her tighter. A grappling hook landed on the window ledge and bit into the metal frame.

  “Doesn’t it intrigue you just a little, the idea of becoming an entirely new category of organism?” The NP’s hologram perched on the sill like a glowing Buddha.

  “You can’t take me without my consent,” Dominic said through his teeth.

  The NP frowned. “I’m not a monster. We’re patterned after the same man. A man you once respected and loved.”

  Dominic ignored this hypocrisy. “My consent, how much is it worth to you?”

  The NP spread its hands on its knees and rocked forward. The guards walloped against the door, and another chair fell off the barricade. “You want a deal?”

  “Tell your guards to stand down,” he said. “I want two things. Qi goes free, and the miners get their loan.”

  The NP rocked back, slapped its belly and roared with laughter. Above the hologram, a very real bank guard stepped onto the window ledge and pointed a rifle. Its laser made a red smudge on Qi’s forehead, and Dominic covered her face with his arm.

  A second later, the barricade of chairs broke apart, and more surfsuited guards pushed in through the doors. Half a dozen rifles bristled at them, and red lasers swarmed over their bodies like motes of dust. Dominic helped Qi sit up. He brushed glass from her hair and felt her trembling. She gripped fistfuls of glass beads in both hands. His Net node beeped again.

  He glowered at the NP. “Meet my terms, and I’ll accept your degenerate merger. Otherwise, I’ll fight you till one of us dies. You have my word.”

  “Nick, you can’t,” Qi whispered. He hushed her with a look.

  Rifle muzzles bore down on them like staring eyes, and Qi sat still and tense, fingering her gear bag. Very slightly, the NP moved its jaw.

  “Bad precedent,” the NP said at last. “Dealing with protes. It’ll come back to bite us.”

  “It’s good business,” Dominic said quickly.

  He sensed the NP was wavering. One well-phrased argument might cinch the deal, but he had only a few seconds to compose his line. It had to be solid, rational, irrefutable. It had to be the truth. Yes, only a real benefit would be potent enough to sway the NP’s calculating mind. He drew a breath through his nose, and as he lined up his thoughts, a tremendous blast of heat bowled everyone to the floor.

  There was a clash of cymbals, a profound shredding rumble, and the NP’s holographic projection flew backward out of the room.

  “The cop car crashed!” Qi was the first on her feet, pointing out the window. “Look!”

  The NP had been projecting its image from the police cruiser. While the guards were busy shaking themselves off and retrieving their weapons, Dominic crawled through the slippery glass beads and leaned over the window ledge. A ragged eddy of black smoke swirled up from the dome where the cop car had gone down. And something was happening in the sky. Air cars churned through the smog, spinning up whorls of turbulence. It was hard to see what disturbed them.

  “Wish I hadn’t thrown my helmet away,” Qi said at his elbow. “It was rigged for metavision.”

  Out of the billowing smog, a small white car skidded in and bumped sideways into the ledge. Its side panels were dented and scraped, and the entire front section was bashed in. Two people in surfsuits knelt in the open door holding a double armload of rope. No, it wasn’t rope, it was a cargo net. They flung it over Dominic just as Qi made a flying leap toward him. The net caught them both, and the aircar jetted away, trailing them behind. In midflight, their abductors hauled them into the tiny cabin and slammed the door.

  Dominic fought at the heavy net, but the best he could do was force his head through one of the holes. His eye patch had blown off. Sunlight splintered through the car’s windows, and he turned his one good eye away from the glare. The driver banked a sharp right turn, then a left, and Dominic bounced around like loose change. In the commotion, he saw Qi work free from the net and grab the back of the driver’s seat to steady herself. Dominic rammed his hands through the net and clutched the other seat back, just as the passenger turned to face him. When she removed her helmet, mousy brown hair stuck to her forehead.

  She said, “Sir, I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  Dominic blinked his single eye. “Elsa?”

  CHAPTER 22

  * * *

  CAPITAL PRESERVATION

  “YES, sir. It’s me, sir. This is my brother, Offener. We came as fast as we could.” Elsa Bremen ducked her head and swiped at her sweaty bangs. Her hair stuck out in soft damp wings where the helmet had pressed it. She gave a shy smile.

  Dominic introduced Qi, and when the car settled into a glide for a few seconds, he shook hands with Offener Bremen, the driver. Then the car flipped on its side and hurtled through a forest of communication towers. Blue lights flashed through the smog as a cop cruiser zoomed up behind them.

  “How did you know where I was, Elsa? And why did you do this? You’ve taken a terrible risk.” Dominic glanced through the rear window. Their car was jetting white smoke. That meant engine damage. Not far behind, the cop cruiser skidded between two antennas and kept coming.

  “Sharon called. You know, sir. Sharon at the gym. When she saw your…” Elsa indicated her left eye and blushed. “Sharon was worried, sir. You hadn’t cut your hair, and you were wearing the wrong uniform.”

  “Oh, the wrong uniform. I see.” Dominic slammed against the ceiling as Offener careened the car through another sharp turn. When he thumped back to the floor, he patted Elsa’s shoulder. “You saved my
life.”

  “We’re going back into the dome, sir. We’re too easy to spot outside.”

  “Sweet costume, Nick.” Qi helped him disentangle his head and arms from the cargo net.

  “Halt!” blared the cruiser’s loudspeaker.

  “You can’t escape me,” blared the NP’s voice.

  Dominic reached for a hold as the car flipped on edge again. He said, “Elsa, I’m afraid you’ve sided with the losing team.”

  “Don’t worry about the car, sir. It’s a rental. We didn’t mean to crash that police cruiser. We just wanted to bump it out of the way.” Elsa had cinched her seat belt so tight, when her brother inverted the car in a barrel roll, she barely moved.

  Dominic, however, spun sideways, smacked his teeth against the ceiling panel, then ricocheted into Qi. He grabbed the loose cargo net, but it didn’t do him any good at all.

  “Nicky, control yourself,” Qi said.

  Elsa tucked her chin down and gave him her shy little smile again. “I don’t mind about losing my job, sir.”

  Dominic felt certain that wasn’t the worst she would lose. Poor innocent Elsa. What had her loyalty cost her? As the car took a nosedive, he grabbed her seat back and held on tight.

  “We’re going into the main airport, sir. Lots of traffic to hide in.” Elsa faced front again.

  Offener hunched over the steering yoke and maneuvered through an obstacle course of surface equipment. Clearly, he was a man of action and few words. Qi clutched Offener’s seat back and leaned into the turns as if her body language could help steer. She glanced at Dominic and grinned. She was enjoying the ride.

  “Do you want to hear about the mess I’ve dragged you into,” he asked Elsa.

  “The Neural Profile, sir. I understand. You’re trying to get the miners a loan.”