by John Meaney
“I say we—”
“No way. They're real bad asses. Haven't you heard?”
“I—Ah, shit. Let's go.”
Strike the wrist—
The pressure came off, and Yoshiko almost swooned at the release.
“No, Braz!”
She sank down.
“Come on!”
Their boots clattered loudly as they ran.
Black boot and trouser leg. A swirl of black cape, edged with silver.
Yoshiko was sitting on the cold ground, hugging her knees, trembling uncontrollably. Shock, she knew. The aftereffect of adrenaline-dump.
It made no difference; her mind was rational but her body still shook.
Silver trim, not gold: a Pilot Noviciate.
A strong hand helped Yoshiko to her feet.
She could not speak.
“Let's get you indoors.” The young Pilot held her tightly around her shoulders, supporting her, and with his free hand used a square of silk to dab at Yoshiko's face.
Tears, too. Embarrassing.
“Thank—” She cleared her throat. “Thank you, Edralix.”
Remembered his name, at least. The young man she had spoken to from Lori's house.
“Just a moment.”
When he was sure Yoshiko could stand unassisted, Edralix bent and picked something up.
It was the small folded paper bird.
“From Roger?” He smiled when Yoshiko nodded. “Jana will like that.”
They started along the broken tiled path. As the tiles gave way to cobbles, they passed a building which might have been a church, and crossed a small arched bridge spanning a stream. On a wide green, tables were set out for picnics, and small groups of children were flying kites.
Amazing, how the city could change character in such a short distance.
“How did you know I was there?” asked Yoshiko, as they walked through the grass.
Beyond, a gravelled track led to ornate black iron gates set in a grey stone wall.
“Roger called, asking if you'd arrived safely.”
“The storekeeper. Kind of him.”
The gates rolled open at their approach.
“He's a little more than a shopkeeper.”
“Yes.” The gates closed behind them. “I thought he might be.”
The building was low, its façade all square pillars and round arches, surrounded by grass. It looked like a genteel country house. Only a discreet golden holo logo, floating by the main oak doors, proclaimed this a Pilots’ Sanctuary.
“Home,” said Edralix, and led Yoshiko inside.
She was a ghostly giantess, huge and insubstantial, wading through a knee-deep pool of inky black, laced with a fine silver grid.
The hundred frozen dancers were fifteen or so centimetres high. The whole image filled the circular tortoiseshell-walled chamber, and the dancers were startlingly clear, their tiny expressions so detailed and real that, when Yoshiko passed her hand through a figure, it seemed that Yoshiko herself was the illusion.
“Good enough?” Edralix's voice came from the edge of the room, where he was intent on the terminal pad held in the palm of his hand.
“Amazing.” Yoshiko bent close, examining the detail.
It was Neliptha, tiny and beautiful, still intact.
Behind Edralix, Jana watched silently, with eyes of glittering jet.
“Can we play forwards?” Yoshiko steeled herself to see it once more. “Without the sound?”
The miniature dancers formed their whirling cruciform, passing through Yoshiko again and again. At the triumphant conclusion, every dancer dropped to one knee, and you could see the tiny chests heaving for breath, the proud but exhausted smiles, the joyous light in their eyes.
“Oh—Freeze.”
Near the real room's walls, the ballroom-image's stately pillars soared. By one of them, near a tiny buffet table, Yoshiko crouched.
Her eyes were sore, and her headache had returned in force. Could she be certain of her memory?
“Here.” She pointed to the pillar's base. “Rafael was standing right here.”
“Can you hold that for a moment, please?”
Edralix passed his terminal pad to Jana, and waded through the frozen dancers, and crouched down by Yoshiko.
“Just here. You're sure?”
“I—Yes. I'm certain.”
“Hmm.”
He moved his head around, checking the pillar and floor from various angles.
“No visible sign of editing,” he said.
“He was there.”
“Of course.” Edralix looked up. He might have been startled or apologetic; in this light, his eyes were shadowed pits, revealing nothing. “I didn't mean to doubt you. But the traces aren't obvious.”
“I guess—If you can break into a Luculentus house system, you can do what you like without leaving tracks.”
A smile tugged at Edralix's lips. “I wouldn't go that far.”
At the room's edge, Jana held up the pad. “Want me to play forwards a bit?”
“Just jump on, forty-three seconds.”
Yoshiko made no comment. Edralix had seen the recording once through, on a small display, but already knew the timing of it.
Six dancers, stumbling towards Xanthia, impaled on scarlet beams. The beams were rods of bloody light, radiating out from Xanthia's tortured figure.
“Rafael was damned lucky.” With his finger, Edralix followed the path of one of the beams. “See? Missed him by a metre.”
What a shame, thought Yoshiko, but said nothing.
The beam carried on past the pillar to the image's edge, drilling into the surface of the ballroom's ornate wall.
“Still can't see anything.” The beam cast devilish scarlet sparks in Edralix's eyes. “We might as well sit down. This is going to take a while.”
They joined Jana on cushions by the wall, and Yoshiko sank down, feeling an almost overwhelming desire just to lie down on her side and go to sleep.
“You look tired, Yoshiko,” said Jana, as she handed the terminal back to Edralix.
“Exhausted.”
“Then you must stay here overnight.”
“I couldn't—Well, perhaps. Thank you.”
Memory flash: three youths, the pitiless smile and crazed eyes of the one called Braz, and the crackling of the lattice-blade.
Jana turned to Edralix. “What do you reckon?”
“I'm trying the obvious, first. Seeing if the crystal has neg images stored, and if they're different from the positives.” As he spoke, his fingers danced through control gestures, and small display volumes shifted and whirled with cascading displays of code and data.
Jana looked at Yoshiko, and shrugged.
“That's OK.” Yoshiko raised a tired grin. “I didn't understand, either.”
“Sorry.” Edralix looked back over his shoulder. “See—Let's say you take a holo still with one camera. When you view it, there's a virtual image the right way round—that's the one they used in the early days—and the real image, which you can walk around and is actually there, like this.”
He gestured vaguely at the wide tableau of frozen dancers, of impaled Luculenti.
“We're with you so far,” said Jana.
“Well, you see—The real image is reversed. Inside out, in fact. So what a holo terminal displays is a reversal of the original reversed real image.”
“And the reversal is done by software?”
“Right. If the Maximilians’ house system performs the calcs real-time when recording, then it's no good for us. If it stores the original and reverses it afterwards, maybe the editing was only done on the afterimage.”
Yoshiko intently watched the code displays. She knew enough to see that the video-log's object interface was objecting to a contents scan, Edralix was overriding, using valid lower-level object-management codes to list the semi-autonomous objects within the log.
He began to mutter coding instructions.
Finally, he l
ooked up.
“Got ’em.”
“Well done,” said Jana. “So there were two images, then?”
“No, that would have been too easy. But the editing algorithm wasn't perfect, partly because of nonunique solutions to the sum of Fresnel zone-plates over the original physical objects.”
“Of course.” Jana smiled.
Terminal in hand, Edralix got up and walked through the dancers, and stopped by the pillar where Rafael had stood.
“Where you view the pillar through the space which Rafael occupied, there's a difference in resolution from the original.” He pointed, but the pillar looked the same to Yoshiko, no matter how she moved her head. “Partly because of the calculation resolution, and partly because this—” He indicated the frozen scarlet beam of light, passing the pillar and striking the wall. “—is intense enough to cause nonlinearities, which the editing model ignores.”
Yoshiko stood up. “So where does—?”
A shadow was forming. A black man-shaped absence of light, blending to diffuse grey at the edges, standing by the pillar.
“I'm sorry.” Edralix shook his head. “That's the best I can do. It's the same problem the editing ware had: multiple possible solutions to filling in an image.”
“Well done.” Jana gave a tight smile. “You've proven at least that the log was altered.”
“Oh, yes. That was obvious.”
“Describe him again.” Jana's inky black eyes were intent on Yoshiko. “How he acted when Xanthia began to convulse.”
The room was empty of recorded images now, and quite relaxing.
Yoshiko half closed her eyes, summoning up the memory. “Hooded eyes, body tight—I thought he was in agony, at the time.”
“And now? What do you think now?”
“I saw the log image before it got edited out, remember? There was a look of, I don't know, hunger in his eyes. And satisfaction: half pain, half pleasure, you know?”
Jana let out a slow breath.
“Nothing that would hold up in court,” said Edralix.
“No.” Jana shook her head. “And we're talking about a crime that's almost literally unthinkable to Luculenti.”
Yoshiko stared at her.
“Think of it from their point of view.” Jana paused, considering her words. “They move through Skein the way a fish swims in the ocean. And their own minds are distributed across an array of internal processors called plexcores.”
“But surely—” Edralix frowned. “That gives them all the more reason to be concerned, if someone can get through the safeguards on those interfaces.”
“More reason, yes,” said Jana. “But it's like doubting your own mind. If the interfaces are corruptible, how can you trust your own thoughts and dreams?”
Yoshiko looked from one to the other.
“Are they aware of their executing mindware? Day to day, I mean.” An unbidden thought: I could have asked Vin. But it's too late now.
“No.” Jana shook her head. “I would think that in Skein they just wish for a thing, and it's there. As natural as moving a limb: you don't work out the mechanics of the motion.”
“I understand.” Yoshiko thought. “I see what you mean about a psychological blind spot.”
“Yes, but—” Edralix, sitting back in his chair, crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling. “Our friend Rafael is different, I bet. He's hacking into his own mindware, not to mention other people's. I'd bet he dives right down to low-level op-codes.”
“Other people's? Plural?”
“He's right. We may not be sure what he's doing—” Jana's black eyes glinted. “—but why should we believe this is the first time?”
Yoshiko swallowed.
That suicide, what was her name? She closed her eyes, trying to remember.
There was a hand on her shoulder, and she jerked awake.
Embarrassing.
“Edralix will show you to your room.”
“Thanks, Jana. But—”
“I made a call, while you were, ah, resting just now. I'm going to be staying on Fulgor for a while longer.”
Yoshiko's body swayed as she stood up. “I don't know what—”
“We'll talk in the morning.”
Edralix led her along a narrow hall. To one side, an open sliding screen led to a pine-floor dojo, with wooden bokken practice swords racked along the walls. Holostills of the legendary Dart, and his daughter Ro, discreetly occupied a corner.
Edralix stopped, instructing the building's system to give Yoshiko access to the residential apartments.
Looking at the empty dojo, she thought about those early UNSA Pilots, ordinary men and women with their brains virally rewired and eyes removed, bodies trained in spatial awareness through aikido and Feldenkrais movement, minds steeped in the scientific disciplines, sacrificing their sight for their careers.
“Such courage,” she murmured.
“Yes.” Edralix seemed to follow the direction of her thoughts. “Only really alive when they were carrying other people's cargo—” He stopped, as though embarrassed.
What a strange remark, thought Yoshiko, wondering if it were only her own tiredness which made it seem odd. Was that not how Pilots still were today?
Retaining one's eyesight, of course, was a nontrivial advantage over the old days.
“Here you are.” Edralix waved a membrane into permeability. “Er—Sleep well.”
Yoshiko, stumbling forwards as though drawn towards the bed, saw it rising up to meet her as she fell into blackness.
Violet fumes wafted from the tall tower's crown.
“Got it.”
Perched on the escarpment's edge, the tower was both a forbidding sentinel and a monument to humankind's impudence. It was tall and narrow, surmounted by an ellipsoid control centre.
Behind Tetsuo, an Agrazzus scrambled down from a low crest, leaving behind a glowing blue chest. It had come from Tetsuo's backpack; he had not known what he was carrying.
From his hiding place, hunkered down behind a sorry-looking ragged bush, Tetsuo looked out at their objective.
Around the terraformer tower, a cloud of sparkling silver motes slowly coalesced.
“Twenty seconds.” Kerrigan's voice was flat. “Go!”
The others burst from cover, and sprinted across the broken ground towards the tower's base.
Tetsuo, heart and lungs pumping crazily, staggered along behind them, cursing himself for taking the risk.
Seventeen seconds.
If the smartatom miasma self-healed, or the tower's system recognized the false all-OK signals being beamed to it, he would be fried.
Twelve seconds.
Not there yet. Nowhere near halfway.
Trust Dhana.
Ten seconds.
He stopped, slowing to a walk, chest heaving. He could not reach safety in time, no matter how hard he pushed himself.
Five seconds.
They were at the doorway now. Arcs of white light hurt his eyes, and he looked away.
Two seconds.
He should have stayed behind, safely hidden, until they managed to deactivate—
A raised hand: the OK signal.
The door was still intact, but the deadly defences were down. Dhana waved, and gave a cheery grin.
Tetsuo dropped to his knees and threw up.
When she awoke it was dark and cold, and she was half-lying on top of the bed, face down, her feet touching the floor.
Vin. Call Lori—
Wrist terminal was gone. Stolen.
Decades of training had deserted her…
Yoshiko pulled herself fully onto the bed, and the sheet wrapped itself snugly around as the mattress floated free on its lev-strips.
“Vin,” she mumbled, and sank back into oblivion.
“Solid ceramic.” Tetsuo rapped cautiously. “Really solid.”
He leaned back out of the doorway. Looking up, it was like an artist's paintbrush dipped in a running stream: at the tower's apex, some hund
red metres above, violet vapour still spumed into the winds.
“We are going in through the door, aren't we?”
Kerrigan, standing at one side of the arched stone doorway, looked at him curiously. “How did you think we were going to get in?”
“Never mind.” Tetsuo shook his head. “So what's next? We fight our way up through fifty levels of warriors, each a master of a different deadly art?”
One of the Agrazzi sniggered. “You been inhaling some of them funny smokes Brevan has?”
Kerrigan looked away, trying not to smile.
“Well?” Tetsuo pressed his palm against the door. “Who's going to open—?”
[[[Begin: Module = Node089C.1067: Type = BinaryHyperCode Axes = 2
Execute
End_Execute]]]
“You are,” said Kerrigan.
Pain hammered into Tetsuo's head.
<<
“God, you bastards.” Tetsuo screwed up his face in suffering, and pressed his fist against his forehead. “You bloody bastards.”
Plumes of scarlet light blossomed in his vision. Slowly, one by one, he blinked them away.
The big ceramic door slid open.
“Sorry,” said Kerrigan, with no trace of apology in his voice. “I had no idea it would be difficult.”
Dhana pushed her way past Kerrigan, deliberately knocking him with her shoulder. She stopped inside the tower's entrance and looked around.
Tetsuo, sniffing and wishing he were less of a wimp, followed her inside. It was not his fault he had no tolerance for pain, but in this company it was embarrassing.
He did not look at Kerrigan.
Inside, an old stone staircase spiralled clockwise around a central shaft.
“Oh, my God.”
Tetsuo looked at the steps to the left, leading up.
“You guessed it.” Dhana grinned at him brightly. “See you up there.”
She took the steps at a slow but steady jog. Tetsuo shook his head.
Brevan and the tallest of the Agrazzi slipped past Tetsuo, heading right, where the steps continued downwards.
Brevan winked at Tetsuo, then followed his companion down.
