Strangers and Shadows

by John Kowalsky

  At two minutes and three seconds, a bright red dot appeared on the map. “Okay, looks like the call was made from the… Third Verse? Geo-tag has it somewhere in Europe… here we go—outside the Louvre in Paris.”

  The Third—it didn’t make any sense. Had Desmond, if in fact that was who was making these calls, found a way out of the Sixth? It was possible, but highly unlikely. It wouldn’t be like Desmond to abandon his world when it needed help the most. “It’s possible that Desmond is not our man, or at least not the focus of these transmissions,” Dorian said.

  “Should I scramble a team for the Third? They can be on site in less than five minutes.”

  “No, don’t bother. They’ll be long gone before our agents arrive on scene,” Dorian replied. “What we really need is to find out who is receiving these calls.”

  “If we can get a little more time on this call, we should have enough data to trace it back to the receiver, no matter how good his encryption is,” Lankford said.

  The timer froze at three minutes seventeen seconds. The call had ended.

  “Did we get enough?” Dorian wanted to know.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to run the trace to find out, but between this transmission and the first, we should have enough. It will take a day or two.”

  Dorian nodded and began to leave. At least they had a lead now. “Let me know as soon as you know anything. I’ll have a strike team on standby.

  “I’ll put my best people on it.”

  “Fine, but I want you to personally over see everything. This one’s too important to fuck up.”

  Agent Saboteur

  Wizard was about to throw the encrypted comm unit into the demoleculizer when it began chirping. He sighed in annoyance. Desmond should know better than to use the burner comm twice. At any rate, the call was probably important if he was willing to risk it. He answered. “Hello, old friend, you really shouldn’t be using this comm code.”

  “Uncle Wizard! Thank the Verse you answered. Dad said you would probably ditch this comm, but it was still the safest way I could think of to reach you in the Seventh.”

  “Celia,” Wizard coughed. “This is a bit of a surprise… You spoke with your father then?”

  “Yes.” They caught each other up quickly on the occurrences since last night.

  Jack and Celia had gated to the Fifth and with a little difficulty got their hands on the equipment to relay a comm to Wizard from the Third, where they were now. They most likely could have done it safely from the Fifth, but Celia didn’t want to risk someone discovering their signal. If the Fifth found out about the other verses, it wouldn’t be from her.

  Wizard, on the other hand, had been busy gathering his notes and research together. So busy, that it had fortunately slipped his mind until a few minutes ago to destroy the burner comm, otherwise they would not be having this conversation. Not that there had been a rush to destroy it, they wouldn’t have been able to trace the comm back to him from the call to Desmond, but now that he’d used it again, all bets were off. He’d have to assemble the project elsewhere. Which was just as well, he thought. Trying to smuggle Jack and Celia into the Seventh would be far too much risk, with very little reward, and besides, it would take him a little while to get everything ready to go.

  “How long is a little while?” Celia asked.

  “Oh, shouldn’t be more than a day or so.”

  They arranged the meeting and said their goodbyes, but not before Wizard warned them to destroy the comm unit. The last thing they needed was an assault team chasing them around the Third.

  At last, Wizard opened the lid on the demoleculizer and tossed the comm unit inside. He closed the lid and activated the machine. Moments later there was no trace left of the comm unit, its molecules having all been disassembled and recycled into the city’s infrastructure for use in some other product.

  With the change in plans, Wizard now had to decide what equipment to bring with him and what he would leave behind. He also needed to make sure he could obtain the missing pieces in the Third.

  He had just located his large black duffel bag when the house comm chimed. The display said it was Dr. Mesham’s office. Curious, Wizard thought. “Accept,” he said. “Hello?”

  “Professor Ander? It’s Lin Park, something’s happened that I think you need to know about, but it’s not comm appropriate. Can you meet me at my apartment tonight, say eight o’clock?”

  Wizard thought it over quickly. “Send me the address.”

  He arrived at Lin’s apartment five minutes before eight, spending the extra five minutes standing on the street corner, pretending to read through the latest news mags. Nothing appeared to be suspicious outside the apartment building, and after a few minutes, Wizard made his way up to the fourteenth floor.

  Lin opened the door almost immediately after he’d knocked. “Professor Ander, come in.” She quickly ushered him into the dimly lit apartment and then stuck her head out into the hallway, checking for anyone following him. When she was satisfied, she closed the door and led Wizard to the living room. “Please, have a seat. I’m sorry for all the cloak and dagger stuff, but I wanted to be as safe as possible.”

  “No need to apologize, dear. What was it that you thought I should know about?”

  Her face grew serious. “Well, remember when you gave that lecture at the tech convention on the evolution of nanites? You said that we must consider the possibilities that the nanites could, and would, begin to change on their own.”

  Wizard instantly recalled giving that speech years and years ago. The memory had stuck because he was nearly laughed off the stage. Soon after that, he had been slowly but surely ostracized from the academic community. Lin had been the only scientist to talk to him after that speech, saying how much she was intrigued by the idea, and asking all sorts of questions he did not have any answers to. That was when he had recruited her to keep an eye out for any changes that she might notice in the nanites as she went on with her career. She was his first recruit into the little spy network that he’d constructed over the years. Since that day, she had fed him little bits of information here and there, which, along with the rest of the network, allowed him to stay abreast of the latest advances in the private, as well as the military sector. “I remember that lecture, Lin. As I recall, it gathered rave reviews.”

  She smiled, despite the seriousness of the meeting. “Quite so. The first piece of news is that Julia White is still alive. Well, in a manner of speaking anyway.” She described what she’d learned about the Prime Minister’s transfer to the young woman’s body. “They have a problem though—the nanites in the body have been shutting down, one by one. The sample we took from her has started shutting down the new nanites that we introduced to it. I think that the nanites have some kind of virus. Or at the very least, something that behaves like a virus.”

  “I thought that sort of thing was impossible these days,” Wizard said, more than a little surprised at Lin’s conclusion. It had been hundreds of years since computer viruses had existed. They had been wiped out before he was born. The code that programmers used today didn’t allow for the possibility of a virus. Which was not to say that code couldn’t be tampered with. There were still plenty of ways to hack into a programmer’s code, but they were extremely difficult. It would require at least one insider, often more, and sometimes the entire code would just be replaced or re-written. “Back doors” were mostly a thing of legend nowadays.

  “That’s just it,” Lin said. “It is impossible. I think that the nanites are experiencing a physical virus. One that they just don’t have the cure for or the brute strength to overcome.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “We’re not entirely sure yet. It only seems to pass on with direct physical contact. As of now, there haven’t been any instances of wireless infection, which is what leads us to believe the virus is at least physical, if not biological, in nature. Personally, I think it has something to do with the girl’s body b
eing from the Fourth.”

  “That would seem to be a factor for sure,” Wizard allowed. Although, if what Lin said about the body rejecting two consciousnesses was true, then it was possible that that was also, or maybe entirely, responsible for the damage to the nanites. “We can’t rule out the effects of the two minds in one body either.”

  “No, I guess not,” Lin said, a little disappointed. The Fourth idea was hers, after all. “Dr. Mesham wants to go to the Fourth and get some biological samples for testing, though.”

  Wizard nodded. He would want to do the same in the doctor’s position. “Whatever the cause of it, we know its effect. I don’t suppose you have a sample of it with you?”

  “No, I’m sorry, all of the samples are back at the lab locked up in the quarantine safe. There’s no way they would ever let me out of there with a sample.”

  Wizard was hoping to get lucky, but no matter. Nothing worth doing was ever easy. He reached into his satchel and pulled out the stunner he kept there. “Sorry about this, Lin.” He fired.

  She collapsed to the floor, her limbs as limp as a rubber band. Wizard maneuvered her onto the couch and removed a second object from his bag, a transdermic injector. It was filled with a powerful sedative. Even with her nanites helping her recover, she would still be out for eight to ten hours, which would give him enough time to do what he needed to. He injected her below her ear on her neck and set about looking for her access key. He regretted what he had to do to Lin, but he couldn’t have her taking the blame for the access key. In a twisted way, he was protecting her.

  Back out on the street, Wizard shoved his hands deeper in his jacket pocket to help shut out the chilly wind that had picked up. His mind was racing, trying to update the plan as he walked along. He hadn’t planned on knocking his informant out, but he couldn’t let an opportunity like this go passing by. If there was a nanite virus, and they were able to weaponize it, then there might not be a need for what he and Desmond had originally had in mind.

  Several blocks later he hailed a hover cab.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  It was a good question. Where did he want to go? He didn’t have a large window of time to break into the lab and steal a sample of the infected nanites before Lin’s sedative wore off, but all of the research for Desmond’s plan was back at his house, he couldn’t leave this Verse without it. He would only be able to gate out once. After that, they would have his transponder, letting them track him almost instantly if he used it to gate back in. No, things were much more likely to be difficult at the lab, better to save his ace in the hole for that job. If things got dicey he would just gate out. Unfortunately, that meant he would have to have everything he needed to leave with on him when he went to the lab. He gave the driver his home address and sat back, preparing to whittle his travel kit down to the bare bones.

  Two hours later, he was standing outside the labs where Lin worked. He was dressed as a lab assistant with an old white lab coat that he’d managed to find in the back of his hallway closet. He had a large pack over his left shoulder, stuffed to the point where zipping it up had taken a considerable amount of effort. Around his waist he had a smaller pack which held Lin’s access key, a small vial of her blood that he had taken from her after he’d sedated her, his stunner, and the pneumatic syringe, loaded with several doses of sedative.

  He was worried about the bulky pack being too conspicuous, but there were several lab assistants walking in and out with back packs on. The building was home to several different labs. Lin’s happened to be on sub-level D.

  After-hours the security was minimal. It would be mostly automated with the actual amount of guards on hand somewhere between two and six.

  The first guard Wizard saw was behind the desk at the front door. He looked to be fairly alert as he stirred his steaming beverage. Every few seconds he would glance at a different security monitor, but he didn’t seem overly concerned with the front door, which had had someone entering or leaving at least every seven seconds for as long as Wizard had been watching.

  The first part of the plan seemed easy enough—waltz past the guard like he belonged there, get on the elevator, and take it down to sub-level D.

  Here we go, Wizard muttered to himself as he walked through the front door.

  “Good evening, sir,” the not-as-pre-occupied-as-he-looked-guard said in a loud crisp voice. “How can I help you, sir?” The guard’s eyes were laser beams that burned into Wizard as they scanned up, down, forward, and back. And there was something Wizard seriously disliked about the way he said sir. He could almost hear the Old Man, which is how the guard was saying it.

  No, Wizard did not like this man at all. So he did what anyone in his position would do—he lied and smiled. “Well, hello there, young man,” he said, speaking so slowly it almost pained him with the effort. He hobbled closer to the security guard, sticking his hand out for a shake.

  The security guard stood up abruptly, backing away from the offered hand like it was oozing with leprosy. His left hand went up to ward the old man off while his right went to the blaster on his hip. “Sir, please stay where you are!” The pitch of his voice rose higher.

  “What’s that you say? Play what?” Wizard asked as he continued shuffling toward the desk. He just needed to get a little closer… there. Now he could reach the waist pack without the guard seeing him, due to the desk in between. He noticed the lobby had cleared out. Shift change must be over, he thought. It suited his purposes just fine—no one to see the scene he was making.

  “Sir, can you understand me? You need to stay where you are!” The guard pulled his blaster from its holster, raising it at Wizard’s chest.

  Jumpy little shit-head, isn’t he? Wizard thought. Well, if he wanted to see a senile old man, who was he to dissuade him?

  “I… I… I’ve had an accident,” Wizard delivered his best over-the-hill-with-one-foot-in-the-grave performance. “Do you know where the bathroom is?” I’m never going to live this down, he thought as he released his bladder, pissing his pants and adding some fact to his fiction.

  “Oh god…” the guard heard the pitter-patter of the urine dripping onto the shiny floor. He holstered his gun and was about to call for back-up when back-up arrived.

  “What’s going on here, Hank?” the second guard asked. “Everything all right?”

  Jesus, another one? This was supposed to be the easy part. Wizard watched as the second guard came closer.

  “Everything’s fine, Tom,” Hank replied. “This gentleman here—has just had an accident.” He nearly choked on the word gentleman. “I was about to explain our bathroom policy as I escorted him from the building, but—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Hank. Have a little compassion,” Tom said, shaking his head as he moved to help poor old Wizard out.

  Wizard, a little touched by the man’s kindness, sighed. “Oh, to hell with this.” He pulled his stunner and fired once into each man. So much for the easy part, he thought as he dragged the guards behind the desk and out of view from the front door. From here on out, Wizard knew, the plan was pretty much smash and grab.

  He checked the pockets of the second guard—Tom, if he recalled correctly. Tom’s access key was in his chest pocket. Wizard didn’t think he would need it, but it couldn’t hurt to have it just in case.

  In the monitors behind the desk, Wizard saw no movement, no flashing lights, and no sign of a tripped alarm. Then again, if it was a silent alarm, he supposed he wouldn’t be privy to it. Either way, speed was of the essence.

  He hurried to the elevators, the first of which opened for him as soon as he reached it. Wizard entered the immaculate lift and the doors wooshed shut behind him. The menu for the elevator destinations was next to the door on the wall. He quickly selected sub-level D and was promptly greeted by a female voice. “Please swipe your access key now.”

  He still had the security guard’s key in his hand. He swiped it across the menu.

  “Access denied
. Insufficient clearance level.”

  Cursing his luck, Wizard dug into his waist pack and fumbled around for Dr. Lin’s card, hoping that no one else tried to use this particular elevator until after he was on his way. Fortunately, if the security guards didn’t have access to the lab then he shouldn’t have to worry about seeing any of them down there. He finally found the key and swiped it.

  “Welcome, Dr. Lin.”

  The lift began to descend, stopping several moments later. A chime sounded and the doors wooshed open. Wizard adjusted his back pack and stepped through the doors at a complete loss for what he found on the other side.

  The elevator opened into a large waiting room. Even after hours, it was well lit. The walls were lined with transparent, cylindrical tanks containing naked bodies. There must be hundreds of them, he thought. Dear god, what were they up to down here? He wasn’t completely naive to what went on in facilities like this one, but being confronted with it firsthand shocked him more than he cared to admit.

  Most of the tanks were holding nondescript bodies, suspended in some kind of liquid or gel. The bodies were neither male nor female. They were very skinny, with almost no muscle definition, and completely hairless.

  There were, however, several bodies that were definitively male or female. Hair had begun growing and there was a noticeable difference in muscle mass. They appeared to be much more healthy than the nondescript bodies. One female in particular caught his eye. The body was younger than he was accustomed to seeing her as, the hair was shorter, unstyled and uncut, and of course it was naked, but there was no doubt that it was the body of Julia White, Prime Minister of the Seventh Verse.

  Wizard stood for a moment, transfixed on the naked form suspended before him. She is certainly beautiful, this enemy of ours, he thought. He spent the next several seconds considering destroying the body, but after further thought, he decided against it. She would only have another one produced, and at best it would only be a nuisance to her—hardly a striking blow. The task at hand was more important.