"God, I hope they don't use one of the collateral necklaces."
"For that? I doubt it."
The man drove him into Durrell as promised. Josep thanked him as he was dropped off at a commercial center in one of the outlying districts. Fortunately, Davis Fenaroli-Reece carried just enough cash to pay for a bus ticket into the city center. It was a ten-minute walk from there to the university campus. When he reached Michelle's residence building, he paused in the lobby while his face finally reverted to his own features.
"Ah, I wondered what he actually looked like. Let's see if we have any records of that face."
Josep tapped the code into her door lock and walked in. The room was a mess as always. Barely large enough for one student, it had turned into a flea market of clothes, fast-food wrappers, hard copy and unwashed crockery since he moved in with her. Michelle was sitting on the small bed, watching the pane on the desktop pearl that was resting on the pillow. Her head came up, shock registering on her face. The gash in Josep's foot left by the glass shard suddenly jabbed a hot pain up his leg. He winced.
Michelle looked up in surprise as the door opened. It had to be Josep. She'd been so worried that he'd been caught doing something for the resistance cell. Relief turned to shock as she saw the thing coming through the door. It was a parody of a Skin suit, thin and spindly, with a simple metallic sphere as its head. The twin black lenses that were its eyes stared at her. She screamed as it walked into the middle of the room.
Two genuine Skins hurried in behind it. Michelle kept on screaming as one of them lunged at her. Thick fingers clamped around her arm. She grabbed at the headboard, but the Skin was immensely strong. She was dragged off the bed, her shoulder blade thudding down painfully on the floor.
"Help me!" she wailed. "Somebody, help."
"Shut the fuck up, bitch." The Skin picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Michelle tried kicking, but the viciously tight grip on her legs prevented the slightest movement. Her head was hanging halfway down the Skin's back. She tilted her neck back to see the slender humanoid thing moving slowly around the room, its fingers stroking objects. Then she was out on the landing, where several more Skins were waiting. Students stood in their doorways, watching her being carried past, too scared to move or say anything.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. It was all over. Z-B had discovered their little resistance cell. They'd interrogate her and kill her. She whimpered pitifully as the Skin walked into the elevator with her. Three men were crammed inside waiting for them. They began to attach instruments and medical-style modules to her skin.
Michelle started screaming again as the doors slid shut.
For a moment the room was out of focus.
"Are you all right?" Michelle asked. She'd got up to stand beside the bed, looking concerned.
Josep lifted his foot, taking the pressure off the wound. The pain eased immediately. "I'm fine."
She gave him a tentative smile. Josep waited. But for once she didn't rush over and embrace him. He wondered what was wrong with her. Did she think he was seeing another girl? Please, not that, not now, he prayed.
He gave her a quick kiss. There wasn't much of a response. "There's a problem," he told her. "I have to talk to Ray. Get the stuff, will you? I'm going to move it out of here."
"Why? What's happened?"
"Nothing to worry about." He sat down on the bed and pulled the desktop pearl toward him. There was still nothing from his d-written neurons, just that faint background buzz. That made him pause. What the hell could knock them out of kilter for so long? Every other enhancement d-written into his body seemed to be working fine.
"What is it?" Michelle insisted.
"Okay, look, the controller called me. Z-B has been sending askpings into the university network, checking up on student files. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, but we have to be careful. I'm going to move out for a few days."
"I don't like it."
"Neither do I. I'm sorry, but we have to be safe. You'll be fine. Now just get the stuff, please." He requested his Prime from the desktop pearl's memory blocks. The pane flashed up an invalid request icon.
The remote spoke the command with its associated code, but the desktop pearl didn't respond. An invalid request icon appeared in the pane.
Josep stared at it, not understanding. "Damn it!" Where had the Prime gone? If he could just interface directly ... He wondered if he should call Raymond without using Prime protection. Michelle was still standing behind him, watching.
"Are you going to get the stuff or not?" he asked.
"I don't want you to go."
"Damn it." He told the desktop to call Raymond.
* * *
Simon's DNI was giving him a comprehensive display of the Durrell datapool architecture, the graphics generator riding on the AS's monitor program. He saw the placement ping flash across the entire datapool. Josep's call was to a personal portable address. Wherever the individual was, the nearest datapool node would route the call straight to them. A node in the Silchester District started to establish the link. The entire Silchester datapool crashed.
"What happened?" Simon asked.
The AS reported that its monitor program had been discovered and identified by an unknown program. The Silchester District had crashed immediately.
Simon was impressed. All the gadgets they'd taken from Josep had self-destructed as soon as Z-B's technicians had started to examine them, vaporizing evenly from the surface inward. An analysis of the gas residue had revealed some extremely unusual and complex molecules. It would seem their software was equally sophisticated.
The desktop flashed up a receiver-not-found icon. Josep regarded it with growing concern. Even if the datapool couldn't make the link, Ray's Prime would have intercepted the call placement ping and responded.
"That shouldn't happen."
"Perhaps he's switched off his bracelet," Michelle said.
"Maybe." Josep looked round the room, deeply uneasy. Something was wrong. Why couldn't he get any kind of interface with a Prime?
"Did Ray call?"
"No."
That wasn't right, either. Ray would have known within an hour at most that the break-in had gone wrong. One of the first things he'd do was call Michelle.
He stood up and faced her. She returned his gaze levelly.
Michelle would never do that. She'd either blush or grin happily, lovingly.
"You still haven't got the stuff," he said lightly.
"I told you, I don't want you to go."
"Oh hell," Adul said. "He's suspicious."
"It was always going to happen," Simon said. "Just a question of when." He looked over at Josep. They'd suspended him in a total reality immersion suit, not too dissimilar to Skin: a tactile emitter layer surrounded by artificial muscle to stimulate all levels of physical contact from the water splashed on his hair to the feel of the shirt fabric. It hung from the center of a gimbaled circular frame, allowing them to orientate him to match his personal inclination within the world created by the AS—though the jump had taken it right up to the limit of its replicant ability. Fiber-optics had been inserted through his corneas and pupils to shine directly on the retinas. The projection had zero-zero resolution: perfect.
The big pane on the wall in front of Simon showed the simulation that the AS had fabricated. So far the illusion had been flawless. Josep had believed completely in the spaceport administration block and the journey through Durrell. Even Michelle's room was exact, thanks to the data from the hominoid remote; not just the colors and proportions, but the texture and temperature of the bed and desktop pearl as well. Duplication of inanimates was always easy.
It was where the subject interacted with other people, especially unknowns, where problems and errors began to creep in. If it was someone the AS had no background profile for, their behavior and responses had to be estimated from context. Once a mistake was made, the effect would rapidly multiply until the entire environment simply
became unsustainable. And in this case the AS had to try to realize both Michelle and the strange software in a believable fashion from the absolute minimum of data.
Nonetheless, Simon was content with the procedure. After witnessing for himself how extraordinary the intruder was, he had been convinced that a standard interrogation would prove useless—a decision that was endorsed by the subsequent cellular-level scan of their unconscious prisoner. Doctors and biotechnicians had been fascinated by the profound changes made to his body and were completely unable to explain how any of them had been performed. The number and nature of exotic microparticles was astonishing. Some of the experts were still debating whether he was a human who had been improved, or an alien that had been modeled into human form.
For all the prisoner's physical prowess, Simon had glimpsed enough of his mind to see the human emotions within. It was enough for him to launch the attempt at virtual chicanery.
As far as he was concerned, it had now paid off handsomely. They had garnered several vital leads, especially the girl, who was definitely an ordinary human.
"Where is the stuff?" Josep asked softly. "In fact, what stuff?"
"Don't," Michelle said. "Please."
"Who?"
"What?"
"Who? Who am I?'
Her expression crinkled up into misery. "What are you doing?"
"What's my name, Michelle?"
"Just stop this. It's not nice."
"Uh-huh? You know, for someone who's only been away for an afternoon, I'm very hungry." He bent down and picked up an old pizza delivery box. There was still a sliver left inside. He put it in his mouth and started to chew.
Simon's magnetic sense caught the emotional content washing through the prisoner's brain. It was changing rapidly, confusion giving way to a tide of bitter resentment.
"He knows," Simon declared ruefully. "Well, the scenario had almost played out. We have enough to investigate his background."
"But we still don't know what they wanted to hijack a Xianti for."
"One step at a time." Simon's smile faded as another change swept through the prisoner. He hadn't seen the emotion too often before. And never this profound.
"No taste," Josep said. "None at all. Why is that, Michelle?"
"Please, you're scaring me."
"Fatalism," Simon said, startled by the intensity. The prisoner's bright glowing aura began to swirl.
"I didn't know software could be scared."
"Out!" Simon bellowed He charged at the door. Behind him the aura was in a frenzy of turbulence. Then it shrank to nothing.
Simon reached the door. Opened it.
The prisoner exploded.
* * *
Lawrence found the darkness reassuring. He was warm, his body was perfectly comfortable and at ease. There was no pain. It was a womb darkness, he thought, secure and nurturing. A heartbeat he assumed was his own drummed out a steady rhythm in his ears. Breath flowed easily into his lungs. He supposed he could move his limbs if he wanted to. He didn't; the coziness of allowing himself to drift was too appealing. Only his eyes were ineffectual in this pleasant environment, showing him nothing.
Without sight, he began to see.
Events from his life slipped in and out of his consciousness, without order, as all memories were. He visited his parents. Played with his brothers and sisters again. Roselyn emerged into his life, all smiles and adoration. He walked on alien worlds, and kept on walking, over the plateau and into the white, cold isolation of the snowstorm. The crater lake lay below him; he spread his arms wide and dived cleanly into its deep, cleansing waters.
There was the feeling of a smile, a slight mockery. His recollections weren't the only ones he was aware of. Another's distant dreams shared this universe.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Lawrence."
"Who are you?"
"The humans of Arnoon call me the dragon."
"Is that where we are, Arnoon?"
"Yes."
"What's happening?"
"I am repairing your body."
"Are you a doctor?"
"No."
"What then?"
"You wish to know me? Come."
The dragon's dreams grew stronger. And the universe was no longer a place of darkness.
* * *
It was half-past-three in the morning Durrell time when Simon's spaceplane touched down. They taxied over to the parking apron, and a set of airstairs were wheeled out. When the outer lock opened, he took a moment to breathe in the air. It was a lot better than the recycled molecules of the Norvelle, but other than that there was no distinguishing scent, nothing to mark it down as alien. Every time he stepped out on a new world he expected to find something special, divergent. Every time he was disappointed.
Braddock Raines was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his face grim. "Welcome to Thallspring, sir." The five-strong escort of Skins closed in to form a protective cordon as they walked over to the limousine.
"Thank you." Simon paused to look at the fire engines parked around the administration block. Dozens of scarlet-and-amber strobes were flashing across the field, acting like an advertisement for the disaster. Despite the time, a large number of spectators were still clustered behind the temporary barriers.
Floodlights had been set up around the administration block, illuminating a large section of the top two floors, which had been blown out. The three floors underneath it had sagged, smashing most of the surrounding glass wall. Dunes of glass fragments were strewn over the ground below. Paramedics, engineers, firemen, Skins and robots were picking their way through the wreckage, searching for survivors and bodies. Long crane gantries from the fire engines stood sentry duty, spraying water over the already soaking debris.
"Quite a mess," Simon murmured.
"Yes, sir," Braddock agreed. "The datapool is saturated with it. President Edgar Strauss is requesting an urgent clarification of the incident from General Kolbe. He wants to know who was to blame."
"Ah, the good president I only dealt with him once, myself. How is her'
An awkward smile flickered over Braddock's face. Even though he had a top-level Z-B security clearance, he was always edgy when reminded how many Simon Rodericks there were. "Worried that we'll use collateral."
"Understandable. Given the circumstances I can hardly hold Thallspring's citizens to blame. But there's no need for Strauss to know that. Have the general tell him the investigation into the cause is continuing. That should keep people on their toes."
The spaceport hospital was tucked away in a small wing of the terminal building. Braddock had thrown a tight security cordon around the whole area when the badly injured Simon Roderick was rushed in. Only Z-B's own medical staff was allowed into the surgical theater to operate on him. Subsequently it had become an intensive-care unit. Security engineers and programmers had to examine and clear every piece of equipment brought in to treat him. The theater's electronics and nodes had been physically cut from the spaceport network, which itself was isolated from the datapool. Software subversion against any of the equipment was now impossible.
"Very thorough," Simon said approvingly as they walked through the hospital. "What about Adul?"
"Dead, sir," Braddock said.
"Damn. He was a good man."
Three Skins were standing guard in the corridor outside the theater. One of them held the door open for Simon. A viral technician and a doctor were in the theater monitoring the life support equipment that encrusted the figure on the bed.
"I'd like a moment alone," Simon told them.
Roderick beckoned before the doctor could protest. The startled viral technician gave Simon a long, scrutinizing glance as he walked past.
Simon went over to the bed. Two of the ten lights in the big mobile array overhead were shining across the machinery. The SK2 had 73 percent burns, which had been sealed under a thick oyster membrane that had its own plexus of fluid capillaries to treat the ruined tissue. His head had bee
n completely covered, leaving just two small slits, one for his mouth and one for the eye that had been saved. An oxygen tube passed straight through the membrane to the remnants of his nose. His left hand had been amputated, as had both legs below the knees.
"Can you hear me?" Simon asked.
The SK2's eye opened. Air hissed out past his teeth. "That alien motherfucker!"
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