To Hold Infinity

by John Meaney

<<>>

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  “Vin! Lavinia…”

  <>

  “He made it fail. Rafael did.”

  Sounds of disturbances, pandemonium, taking place on the ground where she could not see, drifted through the still, chilled air.

  “He's coming for me, Lavinia. Break this link, or he'll get you, too.”

  <>

  “It's too late.”

  <>

  Pilots?

  On hands and knees, ignoring the pain, Yoshiko crawled to the roof's edge. Though gravel bit into her knuckles, she still clutched the tanto in her hand.

  Green slopes. Down below, among a profusion of demonstrators who were dressed in every fashion imaginable, green-uniformed men and women were placing their weapons on the ground, as dark-uniformed proctors surrounded them. Here and there, Pilots moved among them.

  If only she could call to them…but Rafael could strike through Skein. No time to get assistance, no way to seek escape.

  <>

  The world blurred.

  A screeching sound, like ten thousand fingernails scraping slate, rose up from the smashed skylight, and Yoshiko knew immediately what it was. A lev-platform, wrenching itself from the crashed heap in the auditorium.

  Rafael.

  Desperately, she looked up. Like a gull's wings, the hovering roof spread above. Flimsily translucent areas suggested membranes which might lead to the upper surface.

  “Lavinia?”

  <>

  “The Baton Ceremony code. I need to access it.”

  <>

  <>

  <>

  “It's the only way. He's coming. Rafael.”

  {{{Priority obj_ident: ∞}}}

  {{{HeaderBegin: Module = Node0000.00000: Type = n-way: Axes = unlimited

  ScanWare.load

  On_confirm( ): ScanWare.execute}}}

  <<>>

  She was on her own. The SkeinLink to Lavinia was cut without any warning, as the scanware took precedence in her mind.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  “No.” Her voice was cold.

  Lines of code shimmered before her eyes. A true Luculenta swam in a beautiful universe of Skein, where images were summoned at a whim, information was absorbed without pain, and perceptions ranged through dimensions unknown to ordinary minds. But Yoshiko, who would never see those wonders, had to root among the nuts and bolts, the fabric of that other world.

  She concentrated, and the underlying code changed and shifted, and then she breathed out, a long slow relaxing breath, as the editing concluded.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  Reversal achieved. Scanware loaded, and ready to run.

  Execution time.

  Molecules danced. Copper orbs, freed by old-fashioned sound, were carried along the broken expanse of lattice. Some were diverted to resonate in microcavities, finally lasing free. Sound and matter-waves converged, laying down nanofactors: metallic-hued arrays, rotating in time to soothing background music.

  Behind the display, Rafael turned his face against the wall as his cape tuned to chameleon mode, while a team of proctors hurried by. As he waited, crouched, a ghost-Rafael came to him in Skein. The NetAngel deposited its find—a schematic of the conference centre, falling into place in Rafael's perceptions—and vanished.

  Rafael trembled. Felice's bright and lovely mind sang in his cache, awaiting his loving attention, but he had to find Yoshiko before he could take time for integration.

  When the proctors had gone, Rafael slipped out from behind the image, and its depiction of historical manufacturing techniques. Rushing now—for the lev-platform he had set to divert Yoshiko's attention would already be ascending—he stepped straight into the corridor wall, as the schematic in his mind's eye lit up, highlighting maintenance access-membranes.

  A vertical shaft led all the way up. Swaying from vertigo, Rafael stepped onto the elevator disk which formed the shaft's apparent floor, and executed the command.

  The disk whisked him upwards, slowing as it approached the membrane-ceiling. A brief sensation of dampness as he ascended through the membrane, and then the disk was level with the roof and he was in open air. He stepped off, and gravel scrunched underfoot.

  No sign of the Earther woman.

  Across the roofs flat expanse, nothing. Beyond, other roofs lay at lower or higher levels. Had she really jumped onto one of them?

  “Yoshiko?” he called softly. “Where are you, Yoshiko?”

  One metre above his head, the great wing-shaped hovering roof floated. Its underside was marred here and there with rusty streaks. Access membranes, leading to its upper surface, glistened softly.

  There.

  Just a tiny shift in opacity, but it was enough. A membrane, rehardened no more than seconds ago.

  Her courage was admirable.

  Stepping beneath the membrane, he extended his arms, palms raised as though to heaven. A shaft of liquefied membrane flowed down to him, enwrapped him, and carried him upwards.

  Ships.

  Mu-space ships!

  Rafael staggered slightly, as he stepped out onto the upper surface. All around, the broad wing-shaped expanse, the hovering roof, shimmered with rainbow hues. It was beautiful in its simplicity, a great curve of diffracted light high above the ground, and he was a tiny figure on its grand surface.

  No Yoshiko. But, high in the storm-darkened sky, three mu-space vessels glinted, bronze and silver, unnaturally bright against the inky clouds.

  A chill wind suddenly blew, and Rafael dropped to one knee, and pulled his cape about him. It was high, up here—far too high—and he felt suddenly exposed. He crouched lower, as the wind's force increased. It began to buffet him, and its slipstream tugged his breath away.

  Damn the woman. Where was she?

  And were the ships observing him?

  Icy rain fell.

  It plunged from the sky, dropped in torrents, and sprayed across the hovering roof like a field of metallic grass.

  Wait—

  <>>

  Yoshiko.

  Love sang in his breast. Yoshiko was opening up herself to him.

  Felice's soul seemed to cry with joy from his cache as he loosed her, subsumed her, and every thought and hope and dream of that bright mind, that joyful spirit, that childlike sense of wonder and enquiry, flooded through his being. He cried aloud as a maelstrom of fragmented images whirled through his extended mind.

  Threshold. Power thrummed inside him, for his mind, spread across his Fulgor-wide nexus, had reached some new point of criticality.

  Hold back, hold back. There was Yoshiko to deal with.

  Her SkeinLink request shimmered in his soul.

  A second mind, so quickly?

  Yes.

  Do it now.

  Yoshiko must think she could lock him, while Felice's mind swirled through his, but she was wrong. This time, he was ready to defuse her lock code and plunge through her defences and strip her mind, like plucking petals from a flower.

  Crouching on hands and knees, palms splayed upon the suddenly wet and slippery roof, Rafael squeezed his eyes shut against ricocheting rain, and focussed his thoughts.

  {{{HeaderBegin: Module = Node12A3.33Q8: Type = Quatern
aryHyperCode: Axes = 256

  Concurrent_Execute

  ThreadOne:.linkfile = Infiltrate.Alpha

  ThreadTwo:.linkfile = Infiltrate.Beta

  ThreadThree:.linkfile = CodeSmash

  ThreadFour:.linkfile = SubvertArray

  ThreadFive:.linkfile = MindWolf

  End_Concurrent_Execute}}}

  Rafael struck at Yoshiko, as thunder crashed and rain fell.

  The white chrysanthemum.

  A white globe of florets, floating in her mind's eye: in the absence of a death-poem, the last construct of her imagining, before her death.

  <<>>

  Yoshiko shuddered, as Rafael's code plunged into her.

  Eyes flickering open, involuntarily. The blue comms-crystal was blindingly bright, as she directed her SkeinLink through its instantaneous relay.

  Gravel biting into her knees. One ankle very sore: she had twisted it when she had dropped down to this lower roof, out of Rafael's line of sight.

  The glowing crystal struck sapphire reflections from the steel, as she gripped the tanto dagger in both hands.

  Something, at the edge of her awareness…

  In samurai days, a woman would have bound her ankles to prevent immodesty in death, but Yoshiko wore a jumpsuit and her battleground was now. This was more than suicide, it was ai-uchi: striking simultaneously with the enemy; throwing away her life to take the enemy's own.

  Rafael's code tore into her. She felt his dark joy, his cold power, the huge extent of his mind piercing into hers.

  Blade, stinging her throat, as sweetly as a lover's kiss.

  Be firm.

  Be strong.

  Never give in.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  As Yoshiko cut into her own carotid artery, she centred herself, dug deep into her spirit, and visualized the invocation for her waiting scanware.

  A simple symbol:

  ∞

  The trigger.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  Scanware, impelled by the infinity symbol, dragged Rafael's mind into hers. Offering herself, reversing the process of a Baton Ceremony, pulling a layer of consciousness through the comms-channel created by Rafael's own infiltration code. He dragged in her executing scanware, which ploughed through his extended mind and spewed it back towards her.

  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  ((SOURCE ACTIVE)) ((TARGET ACTIVE))

  The bitch, what is she—? Come on, Rafael. Come into me.

  Scanning. That's it. Show me everything.

  You dare to scan me. All the dark—

  Get out! Get out! Oh, God. Oh, dear God.

  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  Horror screamed inside Yoshiko.

  Rafael's fear, or her own?

  But then, but then…

  That other she had felt, at the edge of her awareness, became scattered perceptions, tiny mind-fragments, tenuously connected…

  There were hundreds of them…

  Raw, and alive. Hundreds of minds: flying, running, burrowing, swimming…

  There was a place for her. A tiny splinter of Yoshiko would live in each of them, every soaring bird and sprinting mammal, after she was dead.

  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  ((SOURCE STATUS: ((TARGET STATUS:

  SEND)) RECEIVE))

  <> “Too…late…Rafael…”

  <>

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  <>

  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  There was an escape route. He could follow Yoshiko along the path to the scattered animals, but the connection would vanish when the scanware was done, and only scattered splinters of scarcely sentient awareness would remain among the hundreds of disconnected tiny brains. No consciousness at all. Everything that made him Rafael Garcia de la Vega would be gone.

  Death sang amid the howling storm.

  Some part of her was aware, then, of chill wind and distant motion; regardless, she drew her blade across her throat as surely as she drew Rafael into her dying brain.

  Adrenaline's rush; blood in her mouth as her fangs bit into the kill; crisp air cutting cleanly beneath her soaring wings; a universe of pungent forest scents as she tracked her prey.

  No! No! No! No!

  Dirty, crawling animals. Links to the primitive, the disgusting…To all that he had grown beyond.

  Damn you. NO!

  Rafael's fear screamed, and her connection to the distant animals was lost.

  Just her, then, and Rafael.

  Everything stopped.

  For a moment, the universe froze into icy stillness, as he locked his own mind.

  Clever, clever…

  Yoshiko, redirecting scanware, scanning his mind into hers. But Rafael was the greatest Luculentus of them all. His mind covered the face of Fulgor.

  He was Fulgor.

  He was the planet, and he was its god. No one, no one could stop—

  A mind, across the face of the world.

  Hold…

  I will not give in.

  <<>>

  Disintegration…

  <<>>

  He/she screamed as the blade's pain burned into her/his throat.

  Don't—

  The hand holding the knife—

  Too late.

  He was here, trapped inside Yoshiko. There was no escape.

  Cutting her own throat. But he was here, too…

  Yoshiko's will was unbreakable. The hand, set into motion, could not be stopped.

  Spitting hatred, Rafael learned his final lesson.

  Defeat.

  <<>>

  <<>>

  <<>>

  Phase transition.

  Rafael and Yoshiko becoming one…

  Oh Ken. You should see this!

  …one with the universe.

  Perception: distinction versus pattern.

  <<>>

  Yoshiko/Rafael, thoughts spanning the Fulgor-wide nexus, fostering new modes of cognition, intuitively merging with the Tao Function's flow, the cosmic-connective wave-pattern, the dance of Shiva. All those lives. All that wonder.

  She/he simultaneously saw:

  —subquantum fluctuations, birthing particles in antichaotic simplicity,

  —autocatalytic feedback: life itself arising,

  —species’ state-spaces’ complicit intersection: parasitism, predation, and evolution,

  —from a sea of bacteria, eukaryotic cells,

  —from an ocean of people: love, economies, racial hatreds, cooperation,

  —biospheres; stellar systems; galaxies and clusters; the Great Attractor,

  —and, tantalizing, the overarching pattern, the self-awareness, the living thoughts of God Itself, the universe.

  She/he did not know how, but silver rain drenched her/his distant self or selves.

  Storm. Dying, dying, in the raging of the storm. Sweeping away the world.

  Thunder crashed, for the very last time. Tears bade the universe farewell.

  Lightning. Blade. Throat.

  The storm howled and blessed water swept scarlet blood away; lightning flickered once and it was cold, cold, the chilly dark, and icy cold; oh, wait for me, my love; sleep now; as darkness falls and shadows come to rest and the cold, cold dark goes on forever;
and we're at the end: goodbye my friends, goodbye, for love is all; and light, drawing back in all directions: black, inky black, final black, as all thought ends, all feeling fades, and the universe itself grows cold and silent.

  Sliding sideways through the air, amid the torrential downpour, it edged away from the clustered buildings with rainbows glittering across its surface. It spun, and arced slowly downwards, and crashed onto a plaza.

  “My God.” Dhana gripped his arm. “I think there was a man on that roof.”

  Tetsuo said nothing. A blast of static had shaken him: a random burst of control code. Whatever had generated it, the secondary effect must have been to shut down the lev-field generators of the conference centre's hovering roof.

  Through the heavy rain, from here at least, no body was visible among the crumpled wreckage.

  Inhaling, Tetsuo's breath was shaky. The scents of grass and mud were fresh in his nostrils. Life.

  Beside him, the lynxette hissed.

  “Shush,” said Dhana. “It's all right.”

  Tetsuo's head swam. He had not asked her about the injured girl, the girl she had pulled from the mob. He did not even know how Dhana had found him.

  The TacCorps agents, weaponless, were making their way down towards their surrendering comrades. They paused as a skimmer drew close, but it ignored them and they carried on.

  The skimmer was heading towards Tetsuo and Dhana.

  “Listen, I wanted to tell you—”

  “Tetsuo, it's all right. There'll be time to talk, later.”

  Later. He had thought there would be no more time, none at all.

  As the skimmer drew close, a woman jumped down and strode towards them. She pushed rain-soaked hair back from her grim features.