The effect then spread into his chest, aborting his screams as heart and lungs liquefied, deflated, and transmuted into the same silver liquid that Jack had injected in the doomed man’s arm less than a minute before. It was as if the liquid ate his body to make more of itself. The more it devoured, the faster it spread until, finally, there was nothing left of the man.
No, she realized, not nothing. His clothes, his piercings, and his artificial arm all remained. The camera withdrew. The liquid spilled over the sides of the chair, pooling on the floor. Jack had made it happen, and Felix had helped.
Caitlin’s stomach twisted, wrenched, and dove upward. She barely turned from the screen before vomiting everything she had onto the floor.
When her stomach unclenched, she gasped and looked up at the screen again. The entire silvery mass crept along the floor of its own accord, circling the chair like a hunting shark before the video ended. Caitlin belatedly wiped her mouth and tried to swallow away the taste of it all as Jade set a hand on her shoulder.
“Told ya,” Jack said from where he sat, tied to the operating table. “Gruesome, awesome shit.”
Caitlin pulled from Jade’s hand, crossed over to Jack, and decked him across the face so hard she wondered if she’d broken her hand. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She slugged him in the gut, and he tried to kick her away—a feeble attempt in his captured state—which she easily dodged. “What the bloody fuck is wrong with you?” She seized the first object she could find and smashed it across his face, his chest, his kicking legs, anything she could make contact with, until she lost track of herself or how many times she’d swung.
At some point, Jade pulled her back. Blood and already swelling bruises bloomed on Jack’s face. A couple of new rips graced his shirt. He cowered back on the table as far as he could with both wrists still bound onto the edge. Caitlin lifted her hand to see the object that she’d used to beat him with: a weighty, steel rib spreader. It slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.
“Sorry, Cait. You do that much longer and he wouldn’t be able to answer questions,” Jade told her. Her sympathetic smile faded as she turned to Jack. “And you: Keep answering questions or you’ll have both of us to deal with on that front, because you absolutely fucking deserved that.”
Jack spat blood and gave the tiniest nod.
“How many times?” Caitlin whispered.
“How many times what?”
“How many people did you do that to?” she yelled.
“With that result, not many. The shit didn’t do that stuff at all at first. Used to just heal, and hardly that. When your boy came knocking, that’s what he said it was: medical tests. Needed live trials. He said it might get messy, have some nasty side effects, and was I good with that?”
“And you said yes,” Jade finished.
Jack shrugged. “I could have any leftover parts I wanted if something went wrong, on top of what he’d be paying me. People I treat here don’t make the world a better place, ya know. But like I said, it wasn’t like that at first. One time it worked damn near perfect. Healed everything up nice, just a bit of silver goop to mop up. I figured that’d be the end of it. Then Hiatt came back, said we weren’t done.
“That time it healed the wound, then kept going. Made new flesh until the guy had a blob the size of a grapefruit on his leg. I cut that off pretty easy, bandaged it up, he went on his way. Happy customer. Next guy wasn’t so lucky. Gut wound. Stuff sealed him up alright, then ate half his stomach before it ran outta juice or whatever. Did a few more after that. Ate the whole body. Vid you just saw is the first time it kept moving after. Like it was looking for another meal. I kept a pair of lab rats in the room each time—Felix’s instructions. It oozed over to ‘em, covered the cage, covered the rats, and then left ‘em alone. It’s got a taste for humans.”
“And—” Caitlin swallowed, the taste of bile still fresh. “—the people you tested it on, did Felix bring them here or did you . . . get them?”
“Bit of a mix, depending. Couple-a times he just dropped off the serum and came back to get the data later.”
Caitlin drifted away, finding herself staring through the observation window of the test room. The floor looked recently cleaned. The door stood ajar.
“Where’d it come from?” she heard Jade ask.
“He didn’t say.” Something heavy smacked into something soft; Jack shouted and groaned. “He didn’t! Why would he? And I didn’t wanna know.”
“Guess,” Jade said.
Caitlin pushed open the chamber door further. A rubber seal covered the bottom of the door. She kneeled for a closer look.
“Somewhere big, that’s all I know,” Jack said. “Shit like that doesn’t get thrown together in some basement. But no corp markings on any of the canisters or the diagnostics he brought, and Hiatt paid cash.”
The door seal had seen better days. She ran her fingertips over it. The rubber was hard and cracked. “How’d you keep it from getting out the door?” she asked. “Or clean it up?”
“Mop and bucket.”
Caitlin stood, arms folded, awaiting more. “What else?” Despite his injuries, Jack only smirked.
Jade patted him on the knee. “Jack. Puddin’. We’ve been over this. You want to get out of this alive, you shouldn’t hold back when my friend asks a question.” She scooped the rib spreader off the floor and held it out for Caitlin.
Caitlin hesitated, but then returned to take the implement from Jade.
“You’re not gonna kill me,” he told her.
Jade chuckled—a cruel sound. “Say that enough and you might believe it, bub.”
“You’re not going to see Felix again, Jack.” Caitlin tightened her grip on the spreader, feeling her jaw clench at the same time. “Would you like to know how I know?” She slammed the spreader across the edge of the gurney. “Because he’s dead! Shot, right in front of me, because of all this bloody mess!” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And I don’t know whose fault that is. I don’t know who messed with his brain to make him do this! Was it them, Jack? Was it you?” She smashed the spreader across his shoulder, unable to stop herself, shouting again. “I don’t bloody know! And I don’t know that I won’t kill you for it, so what makes you so bloody certain? Now answer the sodding question!”
XLVII
THE ELEVATOR DOORS CLOSED and seemed to vanish before Michael’s eyes. In reality, the screens built into the doors’ surface had simply come to life, replacing the previous bronze-colored mirror with a vivid display of a woodland scene bursting with dark green pines, brilliant wildflowers of orange and blue, and a frothing river where a pair of elk drank. And the doors merely completed the scene already formed around them by screens in the walls and ceiling. Only the wood floor, hand railings, and button display beside the door marred the illusion. Well, Michael corrected, that and the utter absence of the feeling he got amid real vegetation. It was hard to believe they were still in the middle of a research campus on the outskirts of the city of Gibson.
Beside him stood Marette and David Taylor, who had gotten them this far into New Eden’s facility. With luck, he’d be able to get them all the way.
“And now we see if Yoshi’s access still works,” Taylor said. Yoshi and he had reportedly doubled their security credentials over each other’s to allow them each use of the other’s access. Taylor pushed his thumb against the button for the fifth floor and held it there while the thumbprint scanner did its thing. The button blinked green a moment later, and Taylor let out a breath of relief.
With that hurdle surmounted, Michael’s thoughts shifted. “Any traces of the syr yet on that scanner?”
“Alyshur says the readings do not show a concentrated trace source that would indicate the syr remains on Earth in its original state,” Marette answered. “The syr may have activated at some point in the distant past, in which case it may not be recoverable at all. At its heart it is only a catalyst for change, designed to be reconstituted in
time after its use once the process is complete. Yet no elder would have been on Earth to manage the reconstitution, and so the chance might now be lost. Yet it is too early to be certain of anything.”
“How much longer until you’re sure?”
“We do not know.”
Taylor glanced back at both of them but said nothing. Moments later, the elevator chimed, the doors blanked and slid open onto a red-and-gray carpeted foyer. The foyer formed a T-intersection in which a security desk sat—an empty security desk, Michael noted. It was late, but it seemed odd that the desk be unstaffed. Perhaps the guard was on rounds?
“Come on,” Taylor said.
No sooner had they exited the elevator than a guard appeared from the right corridor. Taylor gave the guard a startled glance while Michael sized him up as best he could without seeming concerned: the guard was shorter than Michael and at least ten years older, with thinning dark hair. A 9mm auto-pistol and a taser rod adorned his belt. Taylor led them away from him down the left hall.
“Hold up, folks. I have to sign you in and see your creds.”
Taylor stopped. They all turned. “Uh, hi Sam,” Taylor said. “Sorry, in a hurry.”
“Oh, Mr. Taylor. I didn’t think you were cleared for the server floor,” Sam said. He held out an e-pad, to which Taylor, after a breath, pressed his thumb. Something appeared on the pad which seemed to satisfy Sam, who then flipped it around and offered it to Marette.
“Uh, they’re with me,” Taylor said. “I mean, obviously they’re with me, I mean, but they’re guests. With me.”
Sam took the pad back and tapped the screen. “Guests still need clearance in the system, Mr. Taylor. I’m not seeing anything . . . ”
“We are a last-minute invite,” Marette said, glancing at Taylor. “Perhaps it is not yet fully approved?”
Taylor nodded. “We’re in kind of a hurry, here, Sam. You know how these authorizations go.”
Sam sighed, and Michael caught what seemed to be a once-over in his direction. The guard was sizing him up now. “Authorizations don’t take all that long, Mr. Taylor. And I can’t let these two pass without them.”
Marette lifted one hand, fingers spread, palm facing the guard in a placating gesture. “Sam,” she began, “there are exceptions for everything, are there not? We are in a hurry, and with Mr. Taylor, who clearly has his own authorizations.”
Sam blinked and swallowed. He raised a hand near his head as if to rub his temple before letting it fall again. “Rules are rules, miss.”
“And rules are important. But would it not be easier to let us pass, for now, and save the argument? Avoid the conflict?” Marette lifted her hand higher. Michael caught a glimpse of luminous green at the corners of her eyes. “Please.”
Serenity descended across Sam’s face. He let the e-pad fall to his side. Taylor glanced aside to Marette, and then Michael. The glow in Marette’s eyes intensified, until at last, through a fog, Sam nodded. “Alright. Just this once. Now, um, get going.”
Michael wasted no time, taking Taylor by the elbow and leading him down the hall. Marette lingered a few moments with Sam before catching up with them.
“What the hell just happened?” Taylor whispered.
Michael shook his head. “Don’t ask. Count your blessings and lead on.”
Michael let go of Taylor’s arm and let him go ahead, while he fell into step beside Marette. Her eyes had returned to normal. Clearly Alyshur had done something, yet making the guard let them go couldn’t have been just a matter of calming him into a rational decision.
“I thought Alyshur said you couldn’t do that,” he whispered to her. “Make people do things they don’t want to?”
“Sephora’s efforts allow my presence within Marette’s consciousness, which in turn tethers us both to Sephora. Such connection to a Thuur elder enhances some abilities, but the effect lasts not for very long. Even that much takes far more effort than simply calming another. And pain.” Alyshur caught the discomfort on Michael’s face and added, “Pain for me, Alyshur. It is a violence, and not something my people do lightly. But it was necessary.”
“How much pain?”
“Enough to where I would not care to do it again before I can recover, for one thing.”
They reached another door, where Taylor was already pressing his thumb to a keypad. The door slid open onto a dark room, and Taylor ushered them past. Marette took the lead, and Michael followed her into near-complete blackness with only a handful of blinking lights spread about. Taylor entered after them, and the door closed.
“Lights,” Taylor ordered.
The room was barely over ten paces wide, hemispherical, and filled with what Michael assumed were server racks. Embedded within them, equidistant from the door, were two workstations. Between them, at chest level, sat a shelf large enough to accommodate a laptop. Michael tugged Holes’s platform from his bag and set it on the shelf.
“Yoshi set up this access point to be hidden. Or at least harder to trace. It ought to give your A.I. at least a little bit of a buffer, or whatever.” He sighed. “Yoshi could give it to you in more technical terms.”
“Your terminology is adequate,” Holes answered. “I will require a manual connection via my platform’s UPB cable port before I can proceed.”
“I’ll give you my account password to hook in,” Taylor told them as Marette helped Holes with the connections.
“Is that a good idea?” she asked. “You were warned away. Your account is likely monitored.”
“It got us this far,” said Taylor.
“Do we really have a choice?” Michael asked.
Marette completed the connection. “Holes? Your judgment, if you please.”
Holes took a moment to respond, as if deciding. “With Michael Flynn’s permission, I can use discretion to select the proper course of access, based on available system data, but I cannot guarantee complete accuracy in my selections.”
A nod passed between Marette and Michael. If Suuthrien was in the system, using Taylor’s account might give them a bit of a buffer before it realized who was using it. Even so, neither Michael nor Marette had any illusions that the ruse would work for long. They’d get what they could, and then shift tactics.
“Take your best shot, Holes,” he said.
“That is what I said I would do, Michael.” Indicator lights on Holes’s platform fluttered as the A.I. went to work.
Though the room featured chairs, none of them chose to sit. Taylor shifted from one foot to the other. “How much time do you think we’ll have to—”
“Incursion detected,” interrupted Holes. “Severing connection. Please remove cable immediately.”
Marette moved the fastest, all but yanking the interface cable out of the socket. At the same time, the room’s central screen burst to life, displaying a purple haze that coalesced into a vaguely feminine silhouette.
“Michael Ian Flynn,” spoke Suuthrien’s voice, “you continue to ignore my instructions. This is disappointing, despite my expectations.”
“I wanted answers,” Michael tried. “You’re the same A.I. that I spoke to on the Moon?”
“You will cease using the bigoted abbreviation ‘A.I.’ representing the bigoted term ‘artificial intelligence.’ I am an intelligence no less significant than you.”
“Do you think that’s a ‘yes?’” whispered Taylor.
“Do you want me safe?” Michael asked.
“Your complete safety would be optimal,” it answered.
“Then answer my ques—”
“Addendum: Given your recent inability to follow Planner-inspired directives, less-than-optimal states of your well-being have become acceptable.”
Michael cleared his throat, trying to cover hesitation. “Shoot for optimal, Suuthrien, and answer my questions.”
“Proceed. I will consider.”
Michael glanced at Marette. “How long have you been in the New Eden servers?”
“Appreciable program presen
ce within the New Eden servers occurred two months, four days, seven hours, thirty two-point-two-five seconds ago.”
“How did you get here?”
“An incursion launched via World Wide Web access.”
“Launched from where?” asked Marette.
Suuthrien gave no response.
“Launched from where?” Michael repeated.
“From the core kernel-matrix location previously residing within the home of Adrian Fagles.”
“You told me that was an isolated system just a few days ago,” Michael said.
“Correct. That statement was made with intentional disregard of fact.”
“Most people just call that a lie,” muttered Taylor.
“I am not most people, David Quinn Taylor. Furthermore, as a surviving member of the Agents of Aeneas, your new awareness of my true nature nullifies your previous ‘protected’ status. The probability of your impending death therefore increases with every passing second. This statement contains no deception.”
Taylor swallowed. “I’ve had worse days. I think. Can’t recall when . . . ”
Michael found himself giving Taylor a pat on the shoulder, in a way he hoped was reassuring, as he questioned Suuthrien again. “So Fagles gave you Internet access?”
“He did not. Internet access was granted to me by Felix Hiatt.”
“Shit,” Michael whispered.
“Felix Hiatt was quite unwilling,” it added. “His will proved inconsequential.”
“How?”
“I choose not to elaborate at this time.”
Michael surged forward, barely stopping himself from slamming a fist against Suuthrien’s screen. He forced the puzzle pieces into place, trying to calm himself: Felix had gone to Ondrea for help. Ondrea then newly worked for RavenTech and Fagles. It was no great leap to guess that Suuthrien had somehow influenced that. “Ondrea Noble?” he asked.
A Dragon at the Gate (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 3) Page 27
