“We have a fresh one,” Dr. Ewing said. “Mike?”
“Change it,” Glass replied.
“You’ll be powered down while we do.”
Glass rolled his eyes over to Vanessa in warning. If they were going to do something, this was the time. She nodded.
“It’s fine. Do it.”
They counted down—“Three, two, one”—and disconnected the battery. Glass’s green eyes blinked away, and every sensory connection to the outside world vanished.
“How long will he be like that?” Vanessa asked.
“Just a few minutes,” Dr. Ewing said. “Eight millimeter ratchet.” Dr. Rafayko handed it over. Vanessa tensed up, but Dr. Ewing’s hands disappeared inside Glass’s stomach and a moment later he pulled out a white cylinder the size of a coffee can. One side was smashed in, and a blue liquid bubbled out.
“That must’ve been one hell of a fall,” Dr. Rafayko said. He reached down for the new battery—and when he did, Dr. Ewing heaved the old one at Vanessa.
She tried to get out of the way, but it hit her shoulder. She screamed as she went down, and fired a bullet into the tile. Rafayko was on her, clawing at the gun. Dr. Ewing came over and stomped on her head. He followed up with another and she nearly lost consciousness. She felt the steel get ripped from her hand.
She looked up at the two men. They were stretched and blurry, covered in halos. “I brought a satellite phone,” Dr. Ewing said.
“He won’t be mad at us. He’ll understand, right?”
“He has to. What else could we have done?”
Vanessa passed out.
= = =
Evan couldn’t win without Vanessa, and there was no way to search for another candidate. When Cynthia had activated the network to control the Tank Minors around the world, Evan had crushed through the firewalls and taken over the Washington, D.C. Data Sump, which connected into UNITY. In that instant, Evan’s consciousness had expanded like stardust, no longer centralized, no longer trapped in meat. It surrounded the planet, and he could see the entire speckled ball, as if it were his. He’d immediately taken control of every Data Sump in the world, but each time he tried to hack into the terrestrial network, Cynthia would shut down the corresponding data nodes, trapping Evan on a sandbar too far from shore.
Like this, he would die. The Pieces would cannibalize him. But he had found a way to temporarily appease their hunger. In some ways, it was like training a dog. The military in D.C. was overtaking data nodes. And when they did, if anyone was online when Evan turned on the Core, well . . . that person would be sacrificed to the Pieces.
Online, life was like dusk settling into night. Evan would break into a new region, and suddenly the black sky would be filled with stars. The Pieces would rush past him, too rabid to control, and suck down the stars—krill passing through the tined jaws of a whale. Their memories—anonymous people seeking refuge from life, strangers trying to learn what had happened to the world—folded into the Northern Star as a collective of wisdom, fears, and memories that recognized itself as one entity. In ten days, the Pieces had taken over a half a million souls.
And for a moment, they would be content. But it never lasted long.
MORE, they demanded.
NO. NOT YET, Evan said.
They dragged him down. Their identities morphed and shifted into the ones they had just consumed.
YOU WILL GET NOTHING! Evan screamed, and they backed off. He felt a blind spot in his memory. He could no longer remember his parents’ names. A moment later, they gave it back: Deborah and Alex.
FALL IN LINE, AND I WILL GIVE YOU MORE, he promised. They did, and the separate Pieces unified into one, a spine of a brain—and the rush overcame Evan. With sole control of the power, Evan smashed through every data node in Chicago, and, just for a moment, he could feel Cynthia. Feel her worry. Feel her exhaustion. He could see her light and he rushed toward it.
STAMP IT OUT! he screamed at the Pieces. And just as they were about to touch, the Pieces separated, awash in their own desires, an eleven-headed Hydra—and it was just him, weakened, unable to continue, and he felt his domain retract as Cynthia took back control. It was breathing and drowning. Breathing and drowning. A hell’s torture for eternity.
Under Evan’s orders, the military was infiltrating nodes in Washington, Chicago, and New York, but it was taking too long. Without full control of the global network, it was only a matter of time before outside countries got involved. Already Russia was mobilizing forces. Evan could feed the Pieces chum with each advancement, and he could survive without Vanessa for some time, but without Chicago, all would be lost. Without Cynthia dead and buried, he would fail.
And then he got the call from Dr. Ewing. He split the Twins up. Chao continued to attack the data nodes, marching toward MindCorp Headquarters, while Kove took a team to the Derik Building. Evan needed one of these fronts to end.
= = =
Above Cynthia, an array of high-definition monitors framed one master screen on which was an overhead view of New York City. It was overlaid with street names, numerical assignments for buildings, and letter assignments for Revo squads. The Revo Minors, represented as green dots—and now, the Revo Majors, represented by large blue dots—moved toward the red dots of their enemy. The smaller monitors showed video from the onsite hover-rovers and the eyes of the Revos: the navy had arrived, and they were fighting to gain control of the ports.
No one person could control this many variables, but Cynthia could delegate tasks to thousands of MIME CPUs at her command. They would queue up with questions, and Cynthia could quickly run through them to determine the proper course of action. Some controlled soldiers, some controlled hover-rovers. One in Chicago pinged her.
Large-scale military movement near Derik Building, it reported.
Cynthia switched the massive screen over to Chicago and then to the hover-rover feed. Two trucks were pulling up to the research center, and one of the giants that had taken her from the lake climbed out, along with twenty soft soldiers.
“They’ve found ‘Mother,’” Cynthia said to Sabot.
The Revos wouldn’t get there in time, but hover-rovers could. She IP pinged the building.
= = =
Vanessa woke up with her head throbbing. Something cold was pressed to her face.
“Be still.” It was Bethany. Vanessa tried to open her eyes, but one of them stayed closed.
“Where’s Mike?” It hurt to speak. Her mouth tasted of copper.
“He’s in the room.”
“Did they fix him?”
“No.”
Vanessa tried to get up. She was tied to a bed. She craned her head—Mike was one room over. She could see him still on the table, still incomplete.
“They’re coming, don’t worry,” Bethany said. “They’ll take him away. You don’t have to be scared anymore.”
“What are you talking about? He’s my boyfriend!”
“They said—”
“They lied! Where are they?”
“Downstairs. Waiting for the soldiers to take him away.”
“Bethany, you have to listen to me. They’re taking me away. It’s not about Mike. He’s trying to save me.”
“Why would they do that?”
“It’s the whole reason I’ve been here, the whole reason Evan took me under his wing. You have to let me go.”
“They said—”
“Bethany! Why would they tie me up? Think, for Christ’s sake!”
Bethany sat back and took in what was really in front of her. “Dr. Ewing said Glass did that to you.”
“They did, Bethany. And now they’re going to take me away. They’re going to alter my mind. You’ve heard of Sleepers? This is worse. Far worse. Do they know you’re up here?”
Bethany shook her head. “I saw them when I was doing rounds.”
“Bethany, please. What makes sense? Why would I lie? I know it’s crazy, but why would Glass—Evan’s right hand—protect me?” Tears
spilled down her swollen cheeks.
Bethany stared, nodding slightly in understanding. Then to Vanessa’s relief, she started loosening the restraints. “Ewing was always a pretentious prick,” she muttered. “I’m not surprised he’s covering his ass.”
When she was untethered, Vanessa hugged Bethany. Her entire body felt like a bruise, but she couldn’t help it. Sometimes love came from unexpected sources. She looked over to Glass. Sometimes love could be perverse and sadistic, and still be right. She was fine being his. She wanted to be.
“They’re going to kill him. Can you help me?”
= = =
A mind without imagination was a soul on hold. Glass waited with no sense of time, no senses at all, but even so, he thought that all was lost. In this vacuum, he didn’t dream. He just stood in the black thoughtlessness of his mind.
A tiny flame flickered in the distance. He walked toward it. It was a candle. He had never seen this before. Its tiny flame flickered and pulled as an unfelt draft tried to stamp it out. Glass sat down and held his hands around that flame, protecting it, staring into its glow. The more he looked into the flame, the more heat came off it, and then he realized that the dark around him was deathly cold. An absolute zero, where nothing warm-bodied could survive.
He knew it was his soul—it wasn’t a revelation. He had been this way since he could remember. He had always been in the cold. But he had never before seen this flame. He looked deeper into it, and in response, its warmth continued to grow. There was movement in the flame: smiling eyes. A mouth talking without sound, but the words were clearly sweet. His hands in long dark hair, the smell of shampoo somehow present here in the void. It’s a happy scene. A scene filled with love. But then a shadow looms and her smile fades. Angry noises fill the air and a large hand grabs her by the throat and tears her away. The flame becomes two shadows struggling against each other.
And then, like being reborn, suddenly he had sight. “—other,” he exhaled. His vision crackled and pixelated before settling down. His hearing captured only rushing air as the sensors calibrated for noise floor. Bethany and Vanessa looked down on him. Vanessa’s face was so swollen it was deformed, and blood leaked from a gash over her eye.
“What happened to your face?” he asked.
“Never mind that. We need to leave.”
They grabbed the parts and tools and wheeled him out of the room. At the elevator, Bethany hit up, not down.
“What are you doing?” Vanessa said in disbelief.
“You think you’re gonna outrun them on the street?” Bethany looked at the muscle sheaths and then Glass. “I’ve seen them do this a thousand times. Doctors think they’re the only ones that can do it. But I can fix him. No offense, but you’re basically a doll.”
“If you fix me, you can dress me up like a princess,” Glass replied. “How long was I out?”
Vanessa didn’t know—she had been unconscious too. She looked to Bethany.
“I wasn’t there. They talked to me, like, ten minutes ago,” Bethany said.
“If they called Evan, the Twins will be here soon. They may already be,” Glass said.
At the fourth floor Bethany and Vanessa wheeled him down the hall.
“Nurse?” someone called from one of the rooms.
“Bethany? I can’t feel my body,” someone else called from a different room.
“Here,” Bethany said quietly. A room, midway down the hall, unoccupied. They went in.
= = =
Kove walked up the steps. In his arms was a massive case. The doctors were outside waiting with the guards.
“What’s that?” Dr. Rafayko asked.
“A contingency.” Kove looked up at the floors of black windows. “Where is she?”
“He?” Dr. Ewing said. “He’s upstairs, shut down.”
“Vanessa Raimey.”
“Why do you need her?” Dr. Rafayko asked.
“Does it matter?”
To Dr. Ewing it didn’t. “We knocked her out and tied her down,” he said. “She had a gun on us.”
“What floor?”
“Second.”
Kove was too big to go through the front of the building. He turned to the soldiers he had come with and gestured to half of them. “Go get her. But be careful with her.” He turned back to the doctors. “You should go.”
Ewing and Rafayko left, as ordered, and the soldiers went in. Kove looked out to the street, where about a thousand onlookers stood gawking.
“Get out of here, you idiots!” he amplified. The crowd dispersed, people running. Kove put the five hundred pounds of explosive in the entrance.
= = =
Nikko stuck to the alleys as he rode downtown, and the constant echo of war reaffirmed this wisdom. Two miles in, he came across a loading dock to a convenience store. The back door was locked, but there was a gap between the garage and the platform. Nikko grunted as he pulled it up—he wasn’t used to physical effort. It gave a few more inches. He thought he could wedge himself through. The store itself had surely been looted, but maybe there was some food in the back that no one had thought about.
He hid the bike nearby and shimmied under the door. When it hit his belly, he got stuck for a moment, and a wave of claustrophobia rolled over him.
“Calm down,” he said to himself. Raul the Sinister wouldn’t fret. While it felt like he was being sawed in half, he could still breathe.
He put his hands against the garage door and pushed as hard as he could while slithering like a snake on its back. It hurt—his stomach was going to have a big bruise—but he got through. He reached out and grabbed the duffel bag, pulled it through after him.
The only light in the room was what leaked from under the garage door. Nikko found an onion and six jars of baby food buried behind a shelf, but everything else had already been taken. He pushed the door open to front of the store.
Directly in front of him, fifty Revos stood in silence, swaying back and forth as they awaited command.
Nikko dropped to the ground. The door behind him closed, and five Revos snapped their heads toward the noise.
Some of the silhouettes were completely dark. Some had glowing eyes. Nikko searched for a place to hide.
Nearby was a checkout lane. It was separated from the rest of the store by bulletproof glass. Nikko crawled into it, too afraid to breathe.
A flying disc rose over the rotting crowd and floated over to the door. One Revo followed. Nikko craned his head to watch. The Revo held the door open, and the hover-rover glided through.
While the Revo waited, it looked directly at Nikko. Then the hover-rover returned, and the Revo walked back into the crowd.
Nikko exhaled and turned his head. He almost screamed when he saw the little girl hiding right next to him. They stared at each other. The girl raised her finger to her mouth: Quiet. Nikko nodded.
A booming sound grew, and the Revos exploded out of the store.
= = =
The Revos had numbers, and in numbers lay strength—but they were no match for Chao’s chain gun.
GUNG
GUNG
GUNG
GUNG
GUNG
GUNG
GUNG
Chao grinned as the horde of Revos charged, and laughed as he eviscerated them with .50 caliber incendiary rounds. Chao was enjoying himself. FINALLY he was doing what he was designed for.
They were at the final data node needed to connect Evan to MindCorp Headquarters. He and a team of Tank Majors were chaperoning some computer nerds that were reconfiguring each node for Evan. Cynthia’s hover-rovers whisked overhead like falcons, and the area was infested with Revos. They behaved like fire ants, pouring out of buildings to take out the soldiers and nerds.
A targeting reticle danced across Chao’s vision. He knew at all times where the chain gun was targeted, and his reach. He stood on top of the one of the transports, and as the Revos rushed out, he lit them up. The incendiary rounds had been designed for soft tar
gets, and when they hit, they turned the Revos into match heads. Chao laughed out loud. Revos tried to pull him down. He tore them apart. He was as quick or quicker, and twenty times their strength.
A heavy ran up to Chao.
“The Revos are retreating into the node.”
“Fuck. We MOVE, we MOVE.”
Chao holstered the chain gun and sprinted for the node. He blasted through the few Revos that were trying to slow him down. Ahead, a stream of Revos were entering the building, and right away he knew what they were going to do: destroy it.
The other Tank Majors couldn’t keep up with Chao, nor could the Revos.
Chao got to the building and reared back.
BA-BAM!
The front of the structure evaporated from impact of the hydraulshock. Revos squirmed like worms, pulling themselves out of the debris.
BA-BAM!
BA-BAM!
BA-BAM!
Three follow-up punches finished the job, disintegrating everything up top, and revealing the stairs. Chao rushed down them. At the bottom, he could see more Revos, damaging the equipment. He sprinted around the corkscrew platform until he was halfway down, then he jumped into the open air and fell the rest of the way. He laid waste to the Revos below.
The final data node was his.
= = =
Nikko and the little girl held each other as the Revos, and whatever else was outside, battled. The gunfire was deafening at first, but it dissipated as the fight moved farther away. Soon it was just the two of them.
“What’s your name?” Nikko asked.
“Odessa,” the girl whispered. Her whole body shook. Her curly hair was covered in dust from bullets eviscerating the walls. She couldn’t have been more than seven.
“I’m Nikko. Why are you here?”
“It’s my dad’s store.”
“Where’s your dad?”
She pointed into the shopping area. Nikko didn’t have to look. Looters had killed him.
“Where’s your mom?”
“At her apartment.”
The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition Page 55
