Against The Middle

by Caleb Wachter

  “I am still conducting my interview,” she replied smoothly.

  “You had best do so with c-c-celerity,” the Director said coldly, “or I will do it f-for you.”

  The communication was severed, and Zhongda whirled back around to face her bank of computers. “Just a few more minutes of uninterrupted access to the mainframe should do it,” she said in their native tongue, sparing a triumphant glance at Fei Long as she continued decoding his most delicate, fragile, and meaningful work of virtual art and war.

  If she actually succeeded in discovering the truth of his method, he knew he would have failed utterly against his most potent rival…and the people of the Spineward Sectors would suffer unnecessarily as a result. He could only hope that her recently magnified character flaw would prove instrumental in ensuring that did not happen.

  “You look nervous, Long,” she said, sounding like the proverbial cat that got the cream as she cast a pointed glance over her central monitor. “I thought you might enjoy a front row seat to your greatest failure, so I made sure you could see everything in real time as I tear your pitiful code apart line by line.” She sighed as she encountered the final roadblock to decompiling his code: a system he had developed several years earlier and dubbed ‘The Eight Gates.’ “Really, Long? The Eight Gates?” she clucked her tongue in disappointment. “With my new central processor, I’ll tear this paltry defensive program apart in no more than three minutes, and your code will be stored away in my private caches so I may incorporate what little of it is of benefit to me. What little talent you may have once had has clearly atrophied.”

  “Not unlike your heart, it would seem,” Fei Long retorted, finding himself wanting to actually shed tears as he saw firsthand just how far she had fallen from what she had once been. Betraying him had merely turned her from his ally to her enemy, and in a way he had come to admire her for having done it. It had taken a measure of courage and ambition he had previously thought her to lack, and during his imprisonment he had silently applauded her for the bold move—which had taken her to the top of their particular circle of cyber criminals on the world of his birth.

  But he had never thought she would deface herself as she had done—both physically and psychologically—and it was that defacement of what he had once considered to be a thing of absolute beauty which strained his heart the most.

  “You do not have to do this,” he heard himself say, and he realized he genuinely still cared for her. He no longer had romantic feelings for her in any capacity—beyond those which any teenage man might have when viewing the exquisite work of art which her body had become, of course. But he discovered that after weeks spent preparing for this—almost certainly final—confrontation between the two of them, he found he still cared for the fifteen year old girl he had met as a thirteen year old boy.

  “It’s too late for you, Long,” she declared as her insanely powerful processor rent asunder his most powerful work of virtual defense. “The laws of nature dictate that the strong must consume the weak,” she added snarkily, throwing a slapdash version of long-held wisdom at him, “and you’re the one behind the bars—again. Observe,” she said, entering the final command with a flourish of her wrist before turning and beholding the execution of the program on the screen mounted behind her, “and let me taste your tears!”

  As certainly as a non-tidally-locked planet will rotate around its axis on a regular schedule with only a minimal increase in interval from one rotation to another, Fei Long watched as Zhongda’s program tore the last of his Eight Gates masterpiece apart—a program he had coded as a fourteen year old, not long before his incarceration—and laid bare the source code he had employed during its creation, along with his latest, dormant, modifications.

  In a way, it was a thing of beauty to behold. His digital creation, The Eight Gates, had been unassailable in over twenty three million simulations and uncounted actual attacks, but he had apparently granted her inadvertent access to the program’s source code. As a result she was able to overpower his elegant design using simple, brute force.

  Fei Long understood that overwhelming power had a virtue all its own, and he admired the ruthless efficiency her program had displayed in bringing thousands of times the processing power against his virtual construct than it had ever been theorized to withstand. That it held as long as it did was of no small comfort to Fei Long, who had come to hope that his technique had grown stronger with age—a hypothesis which was about to be put to the test.

  But he knew he was fast running out of time. If he did not complete his task soon, Vali Funar would break into the base and attempt to recover Doctor Schillinger before setting the bomb and blowing the flimsy hab domes to their constituent atoms with the modified Starfire warhead.

  “That concludes this particular demonstration,” Zhongda said as she began to power down her workstations.

  Fei Long slumped to the edge of the cot, an expression of absolute defeat plain to see on his face. “You have bested my Eight Gates,” he said distantly.

  “Indeed,” she replied as she continued powering down her gear, but then a thought seemed to occur to her. “Although…perhaps you would care to see if you could defeat my version of your rudimentary technique?”

  Fei Long blinked once, twice, and then a third time. He could not believe what he was hearing; Sima Yi’s inheritor was actually inviting him to attack her Eight Gates formation. It seemed impossible, unless…

  He narrowed his eyes. There were only two satisfactory explanations for her having made the unexpected offer. The first was that she was throwing his own study of the most hallowed story in human history in his face in a coarse, uncharacteristically nostalgic gesture on her part. But the second was even more incredible—incredible in the literal sense of the word.

  In that moment, it was as though the universe had aligned itself as he chose to believe the reason for her offer had been the latter, and Fei Long nodded slowly as he said, “I would relish the chance to do so.”

  “Well, too bad,” she cackled gleefully, shattering his short-lived faith in the irrepressible symmetry of the universe. “Caged though you may be, you’re still more dangerous than the wildest of animals; there’s no way I’d give you access to anything with more processing power than a pencil.” She withdrew a trio of data crystals from the portable workstations she had just used and shook her head before sighing, “This really was much less entertaining than I thought it would be.”

  Fei Long felt himself wilt, but he knew he needed to maintain his composure as his rival unzipped her body glove halfway down her chest, tucked the data crystals between her now more-than-ample breasts, and then zipped up again before snorting haughtily as she fixed her hair with a hairclip.

  “What happens now?” Fei Long asked, mindful of the waning time left to him before Lancer Funar would intervene.

  “Now,” she replied, turning to face him, “you tell me everything you know about your ship, its capabilities, your crew strength, and anything else that might be of use to Commodore Raubach. If you don’t tell me…” she trailed off pointedly before finishing, “the Director has had ample time to perfect his own methods of interrogation while stationed here. I can assure you that his touch will be far less gentle than mine.”

  Fei Long shook his head and met her gaze steadily, “You know I will not betray them. I never betray my friends.”

  “That is merely one of your many weaknesses, Long, and one you would do well to abandon if you wish to achieve anything meaningful,” she chided in disappointment. “I don’t suppose a little…physical coercion would change your mind?” She gave him a clearly seductive look and began to run her fingers up the line of the zipper on the front of her body glove.

  “It would not,” he replied with a firm shake of his head—a gesture intended as much for himself as for her.

  Her hand stopped mid-motion and her mouth formed a perfect little pout. “Oh well; it’s entirely your loss.” She turned to leave and said over he
r shoulder, “The Director will be here shortly. If you change your mind, I’ll be just two rooms over.” She snickered as she opened the door and added, “Just scream if you have something to say…one way or the other, you’ll be doing it before the day is through.”

  She closed the door behind herself and he heard a series of mag-locks engage, followed by the sound of her feet padding down the hallway.

  Just as he was about to sit back and take stock of his situation, something unthinkable happened: the bars of his cell slid apart, with half drawing upward and the other half sliding down, until a two foot wide exit appeared.

  Just then, the lump in the back of his neck began to throb, but this time his senses did not desert him and the sensation was less painful and more…odd.

  “Hurry,” he heard a man’s weak, creaking voice from the next cell say, “we haven’t…much time.”

  Stepping warily through the newly-made doorway, he saw that the cell with the formerly white-eyed man was open in the same manner as his own cell was. He saw the man was looking intently at him with his normal-looking, blue eyes, and Fei Long moved into his cell, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder.

  “Who are you?” Fei Long asked as he approached.

  “Take…my hand,” the man said, barely lifting his shriveled, sickly-looking left hand from the mattress, “we must…hurry!” His words were labored, and his lips were covered in deep, red cracks which Fei Long assumed were from dehydration.

  “Who are you?” Fei Long repeated steadily, unwilling to play the fool for this mysterious man.

  The man’s eyes seemed to harden as he met Fei Long’s intent look, “Your salvation…but only if you…take my hand…”

  The man’s eyes began to flutter, and since the young hacker was only minutes away from what would almost certainly be fatal torture—and more importantly, possibly failing to do his duty to his shipmates, chief among them Lu Bu—Fei Long did the only thing he could reasonably do in that situation:

  He took his hand.

  The man’s body arched violently, and Fei Long immediately felt as though he was receiving a severe electric shock which wrested control of his muscles away from him and focalized the intense pain in the back of his neck.

  The man’s eyes had turned white in the brief instant during which Fei Long had looked away in surprise from the shocking sensation, and after only a few moments of their conjoined agony, the world spun into whiteness.

  Chapter XXVI: Every Gift Has Its Price

  Fei Long opened his eyes and saw that everything was white. It was akin to a dream sequence in a cheap holo-vid, with an almost deadened sound to the environment and a total lack of character to the endless white surroundings which possessed neither depth, nor substance, nor feature, but somehow it did not lack those qualities either. It was as though there was something surrounding him, but he could not actually see it, hear it, or in any other way experience it, but he grew increasingly convinced that it was indeed there.

  He stood to his feet before realizing that there was no floor, or ground, or other firm surface against which to place his feet. Looking down, he realized he did not have feet at all! The disorientation of that particular realization was drowned by his short-lived fascination with how vivid the scene was; he had experienced lifelike dreams in the past, but never anything so nuanced, detailed, and all-encompassing as this.

  “Who are you?” he heard a voice demand from behind him, and he turned to see the man from the next cell standing. His body was significantly more vibrant and healthy in appearance than the one Fei Long knew the man in the cell actually possessed, but before he could ponder the significance of the difference the man stepped forward—apparently standing on firm ground as he did so. “You would do well to answer me,” he said, his voice having turned as cold as one of Fei Long’s long-string algorithms.

  Fei Long jutted his chin out—realizing as he did so that he very possible did not even have a chin in this strange place—and replied, “I am Fei Long.”

  “No,” the man shook his head, “that is but a name—and one which you yourself do not believe in. I say again,” the man stepped forward menacingly, “who are you?”

  Fei Long was equally fascinated and annoyed with the inquest, but decided to give the question some thought before replying, “I am Kongming.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed and he nodded, as though partially satisfied by this answer. “Why did you—” he began clearly, but his words suddenly turned to static noise as the world began to spin around Fei Long, causing an intense wave of something similar to vertigo to sweep through every fiber of his being. The stream of static continued for a few seconds before cutting out, and when it did the vertigo dissipated almost instantly from Fei Long’s consciousness.

  He refocused on the man, and saw that he appeared to have become somehow fainter, or thinner, but his physical dimensions had not changed. At the same time, the endless, featureless white surroundings seemed to have gained some measure of definition, but Fei Long was unable to ascertain anything specific…it simply felt as though a veil was wearing thin between his mind and whatever lay beyond in this strange, some might say ‘magical,’ place.

  “We have no time,” the man said, reaching out and taking Fei Long by the collar, “are you of the Dark?”

  Fei Long was more surprised to find that he seemed to once again possess a throat, than he was panicked by the choking sensation he felt as the man’s grip tightened around it.

  “I know nothing of the Dark,” Fei Long replied truthfully, and the man’s grip tightened.

  “Yet you defiled the purity of the Masters’ legacy,” the man growled, “and sought to gain their gifts for yourself—if not for the Dark, then why?!”

  “Gifts?” Fei Long gasped, barely able to form the word through the ever-tightening sensation.

  “You dare to defile the Masters’ gifts,” the man seethed, drawing Fei Long closer to his now-bared teeth, “and then proclaim ignorance of their boons? The mark is plain upon your flesh!”

  Fei Long felt his neck burn painfully enough to make his want to scream, but his throat was too constricted. He tried to speak but found he was unable to do so, and just before he was certain he would lose consciousness the world fell into static once again.

  He gasped for air—even though his logical mind had deduced that his body and therefore his lungs were not physically present in this place—and saw that the man’s appearance had faded even more. Inversely, the previously indistinguishable whiteness around him had now darkened just enough that he could see writhing shapes and indistinct movements on the other side of the aforementioned veil. He found his curiosity getting the better of him, and he took a trio of steps toward one such writhing motion before the man’s breathless voice said, “Stop!”

  Broken from the momentary fascination which had drawn him near to the shape, Fei Long turned and saw the man stagger to his knees.

  “You are not of the Dark,” the man said, “but neither are you one of the Initiated.”

  “No,” Fei Long agreed, stepping away from the writhing shape which had previously held his mind enthralled with wonderment, “I am neither Dark nor Initiated.”

  “Then what brings you to this sacred place?” he asked, a note of genuine curiosity in his increasingly strained voice.

  Fei Long stopped and thought about that question, and it seemed as though time stood still as he did so before he finally replied, “I came here to help.”

  The man scoffed softly as he shook his head, “A noble, if infantile purpose.”

  “Where are we?” Fei Long asked, risking a glance over his shoulder toward the dark, shifting shapes lying just beyond his ability to comprehend.

  “There is no name for it,” the man replied, shaking his head as though the question were immaterial, “it was created by the Masters, that we might better serve them. But they are nearly all gone from our realm…”

  “Do you mean the Ancients?” Fei Long asked, his cur
iosity well-and-truly piqued.

  “A crude word…” the man replied, drawing deep, measured breaths. As he did so, Fei Long realized that the whiteness surrounding them seemed to brighten and fade in rhythm with those breaths. “They sought to free all life from the bondage of the unnatural, and in doing so attained perfection for themselves.” The man’s gaze wavered, as a man’s might do when first awakening from unconsciousness, before once again fixing on Fei Long, “You spoke the poison which she now commands.”

  It was more of a statement than a question—and a barely comprehensible one, at that—but Fei Long felt as though the strange man was somehow curious about some part of his own query.

  “The poison?” Fei Long repeated finally, unable to ascertain his true meaning. “I do not understand…”

  Between them sprang into existence a virtual model of the screen in front of which Zhongda had sat, and a replay of her program’s dismantling of one of his most prized creations commenced. Several portions of his code seemed to become highlighted, and they were extracted from the virtual screen before being assembled in some strange, yet oddly familiar, arrangement.

  “The poison,” the man repeated, gesturing to the string of code fragments as he began to wince in pain, “it is only a…fragment…but did you truly speak it? Or did you merely…find it, as she did?”

  He realized the man was referring to his code—and that he had called in ‘poison’ was more than slightly alarming—and he nodded quickly, “Yes…I, err, spoke it. I have never seen these strings of code before I ‘spoke’ them, and they are present in many of my constructs.”

  The man nodded slowly, “Then there may yet be hope…for, if your mind can conceive of even a fraction of the Elder’s language…there may yet be time to save the Masters’ legacy…and preserve their…design…”

  “The Elders?” Fei Long repeated in abject shock. “What does my code have to do with the Elders?!”

  “There is no time,” the man said, and the squirming—somehow menacing looking—shapes just beyond his consciousness began to move quickly and in a coordinated, predatory manner, “it has begun.”