by JM Guillen
The way ahead became a bit more difficult as the density of the fungal forest closed in. Many of the gigantic, willow-like growths clustered together, and those long, almost hair-like tendrils swung from the branches as if moved by the wind.
Yet, no wind graced this strange place.
I eyed the swaying ends of those trees, more than a bit certain that the long hairs would have some horrifying effect if I allowed them to touch my flesh.
“Fuck,” I swore to myself at the thought. Could everything be carnivorous in this place?
Keeping the still-drifting reticule in my sight, I skirted the edge of the small fungal grove, peering through the haunted half-light in an attempt to find a way forward. After only a few moments, I found a game trail, at least that’s what it would have been had I been in an ordinary forest.
Then I remembered that odd purring snarl from earlier. Native creatures definitely lived in this forest. Delacruz’s linked images had told me as much, but I had to admit that the fact felt a touch more harrowing as I crept through the nightmarish fungal trees.
I didn’t want to be the prey.
“Just not my kind of vacation.”
I slunk beneath the gently wafting branches and shifted along in a half squat to remain out of reach.
In about fifteen minutes, I jogged by a jagged ravine and saw two dozen orange beetles the size of footballs. Sulfuric water boiled and steamed, and I saw the print of a something I definitely didn’t want to meet.
I was actively keeping my eye out for horrific monsters when I saw the scarlet glow of a Facility aperture through the trees. The crimson tear in space sang quietly as it hovered among the trees.
“Finally.” The aperture drifted as I watched it, floating slowly through the forest as it spun on its axis.
That made no sense. Apertures queued via stationary quarrels similar to the tangler’s spike. The quarrel didn’t drift through the ground, surely.
How did it move? How could the aperture possibly have freed itself from the tether of its spike?
I’ve made Local One. I tilted my head uncertainly at the warbling rend in space. I’ll admit, the aperture seems off-kilter.
Yeah. I felt the grimness in her link. I’m showing a 72% temporal stability. It’s gonna be a bitch to link. She paused. Is it large enough that you think you can clear it without touching the sides?
Um. I looked at the aperture uncertainly, even as it continued to shift in space. What happens if I touch the sides?
Don’t. How about that? Don’t touch the sides. Delacruz grinned, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the suddenness of it. You have the Adept geared, right? You should be fine.
“Good,” I muttered as I watched the odd undulations of the aperture. “It’s the ‘should’ part that sounds assuring.”
I felt half certain that I might cut something off.
I will ignite an aperture in a safe location near me on your mark. I felt her lack of focus, which made this even more nerve racking. I am currently clear and secure on my end.
But likely not for long. I felt her concern, even though she didn’t voice it.
I sighed, watching the aperture and trying to track if its undulations had any pattern.
No dice.
I decided that I might as well get this over with. Ten seconds until mark, I linked, trying to project far more confidence than I felt.
I took a deep breath, eyeing the aperture. Had it shifted a bit smaller now?
Mark. I took a deep breath as I sent the link.
Ignition achieved .She felt pleased. Stability at 93%
I ran.
The aperture definitely drifted to my left, and I followed it quite attentively. I noted as the thing turned sharply, more than once.
Mike? Delacruz’s link felt somewhat nervous.
I didn’t pay her any heed. I sprinted toward the aperture, moving as it moved, the Adept matching its spinning deftly. The fissure hung a full meter and a half off the ground and turned slowly clockwise, away from me.
The Gatekeeper’s warning, however, never left my thoughts: Don’t touch the sides.
I leapt, arcing myself sideways. I poured every ounce of will I had into the Adept, all but begging every motion to be perfect.
A keening whine sliced into my mind, and I realized my foot might catch as the border of the aperture shifted. I corrected, or tried to, only to find myself hurtling through the air with the grace of a pitched salmon.
This felt wrong. I thought I had understood what Delacruz meant by aberrant vectors, but—
“Fuck! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh—!”
Before I touched the ground again, the entire world exploded into a symphony of pain and weirding colors.
In that eternal instant, I felt as if I had been shot from a cannon and hurled through a tornado of razor blades. Wicked edges gouged into me, slicing my flesh from directions I could not perceive.
I screamed. I screamed through an eternity of shifting shards of space.
No one answered.
I thought that no one ever would.
38
In that eternal moment, I simultaneously existed in every point of space, all within the exact same breath. Each juncture sharp, every sensation serrated. Each microsecond sliced with wicked blades.
Then, like a cracking whip, reality snapped back into existence. The mental wrenching of it exploded through me, like a good hard punch to my liver.
From the inside.
I tried to get my bearings. Indoors, somewhere, in a shadowy but not quite dark building, the ceiling looked like riveted steel, painted gray and black.
My entire field of vision swam, as if I’d awoken in a gutter after a four-day bender. I wiggled my toes to ensure nothing had been cut off.
Somewhere in the distance I heard fighting,
“Assholes!” The explicative had a distinctive Spanish sweetness to it, an accent which softened its fierceness. Following that, the singing hum of the gatekeeper split the air, four shots in rapid succession.
The startled cry of a man was followed by a wet crunch.
Probably the result of some well-done offensive porting, I thought with a grin.
I tried to stand up, I truly did. But, oh, it felt as if most of my inner ear had been left in the hellish not-space between this fucking place and the clearing outside the cave.
Wisely, I slumped back into my supine position as nausea swam over me. For a terrible moment, I worried that Delacruz would find me there, unable to walk and covered in my own vomit.
How did I always get into these binds?
Then I remembered Anya’s teasing link. It’s quite rude to make plans or initiate strategies without discussing them with your cadre.
Fuck. I couldn’t argue with that. I hadn’t even given a second thought for my cadre before making my choice back in the tunnels-o-grotesque. I simply made a gamble and went with it.
“I think I may have lost.”
I felt my gorge rise.
No. I would not throw up.
The walls around me rumbled with what could only be an explosion, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the sudden cacophony. I heard yelling, someone crying out in a tongue my Crown did not know, and then quiet.
“Well now.” Much closer, a man’s voice dripped with menace. “What have we here?”
“Uh,” I croaked as I peered up at the large, shadowed figure, blearily trying to focus. “Nothing?”
“Facility-fuck if I ever saw one.” The man spat to his side. “How about you stand up?”
“Oh, I really don’t think so.” My stomach gurgled just at the thought. “Thank you though.”
“I’m afraid I must insist.” The shadowed figure moved, and I heard the death-knell click of his weapon.
“Oh, don’t be afraid.” I thought my own joke incredibly funny.
The Neanderthal didn’t seem to follow.
Had I used that one before?
I considered explaining the joke, but then he kicked me in
the stomach, his foot like a cinderblock. The sudden, violent impact made my stomach lurch again.
I rolled from the kick, my world swimming. I clearly saw the man’s Sadhana badge—as if I needed proof that the guy might be a jerk.
“Up, asshole.” He gave me another kick, this one a bit harder, in my shoulder. “Let’s talk about how these mongrels figured out our perimeter system, huh? Or who taught them to shoot guns for chrissakes? I bet you have all kinds of information about that.”
“Would you believe I don’t?” The words were more grunted than spoken. Expecting the kick, I rolled so he wouldn’t hit me square in the stomach again.
“No.” The broad man pulled me to my feet, lifting me as easily as a nauseated kitten.
I noted that he must have holstered his weapon to accomplish this, but honestly, it didn’t matter.
Nauseous, I couldn’t act.
I tried protesting instead. “But—”
“I don’t think you understand, fuckface.” He held me off the ground, his scruffy face inches from mine.
“It’s all a mis—” Honestly, I had no idea what else I could say. Then I did finally let go of any slim resolve I had to not be sick.
Thus I unloaded the contents of my stomach squarely upon the face of a Sadhana operative.
“What?!” Horror blended with raw disgust and disbelief. He immediately spit and sputtered, leading me to believe that some of it had gotten in his mouth. “Did you just fucking—?” He threw me to the ground.
I tried not to wheeze with laughter.
“No. Just fucking no.” He pulled his handgun again, almost fumbling it from its shoulder holster.
I turned toward him, searching for anything I could possibly do before the gorilla shot me in sheer outrage.
Instead, I heard a familiar singing hum, and a quarrel from the gatekeeper buried itself in the man’s ribs.
“What th’ hell?” He had all of a half second to look at me in dumb surprise before vanishing in a hissing burst of color.
“Offensive porting for the win!” I coughed, wiping my mouth.
“Are you Mike?” Someone stood over me and shook my shoulder. [Are you drunk?] I need you to get up, right now!
“Yes.” I sat up blinking, trying to figure out how my legs worked. “No. Not drunk.”
Did he hurt you? Are you bleeding?
Bleeding? The thought sent a surge of panic through my mind. Frantically I began patting myself down. I couldn’t be bleeding.
“No… Not now.” I didn’t even know if my personal Big Bad Wolf could find me here, but if I bled …
“Hi there.” A wavering image swam through my Crown. A woman with mocha skin and hair like the sky at midnight crouched before me in the dim light.
Did she have on a headlamp of some kind? My vision remained blurry.
“Please be useful,” she continued. “I could really deal with a single good break. Just one thing going right, just once.”
“Good.” I blinked and stumbled to my feet, trying to pretend as if I understood walking. “If you need useful, I’m your guy.”
“Great.” She put one hand on my shoulder, then withdrew it quickly.
When I glanced down I noticed that some of my sick had splattered on my clothes.
“Sorry.”
“Are you green?” Delacruz peered into the hallway. “We’ve cleared this outpost, so we’re safe for a few minutes.”
“Where are we?” That seemed like pretty important information.
“This is one of several Sadhana research station. It’s outside Rationality.”
“One of?” I burped and it was awful. However, the world slowed its spinning, which almost made up for that.
“Yes. There are several nearby. We’re in a secure zone now, but the clock’s ticking. You’ve dropped in the middle of some pretty intense action.”
“That sounds about right.” God, my breath was awful. That’s right in line with the way things have gone so far.
“It’s going to get real hairy in about twenty minutes.” She paused, giving me a significant glance. “I’m going to need you to kill some things.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I still felt a touch punch-drunk after receiving my uppercut from space-time. Also, my mouth tasted like a full diaper. Still, I nodded and gave the only response possible. Let’s take care of business.
I drew my weapons, katana in my left hand, disruptor in my right. They felt good there, felt right. An unusual choice; I never would have thought to mix the two before being forced to do so.
Usually, I liked all my toys to match.
“Oh, wait.” I realized that I probably needed to use my right hand for something else, just for a moment.
Bishop? Delacruz had already stepped forward into a dimly lit hallway.
“Um.” I rummaged in a pocket and pulled out three vials of viral mecha. “This might help.” I turned to Delacruz, a goofy smile on my face as I looked at her, really looked, for the first time.
Headlamp? I hadn’t been seeing clearly at all. “Oh.” I stepped back, a touch stunned. “You have…” I made a vague waving motion toward my own forehead. “You have… something… on your face.”
Honestly, everything had been so bleary since I jack-knifed through her aperture, that I could understand my missing it. But now that I saw her, really saw her—
“I told you.” Delacruz faced me fully, one fist on her hip. I told you it’s complicated, 108.
You did.
Delacruz smiled, which in no way drew my attention away from the scaly crimson chitin. In the center, a burning yellow design furled and unfurled, changing shape even as I watched.
Sooo... I peered more closely. She exhibited no sign of that scarlet slickness. No quivering goo or grotesque tendrils. Just the chitin with its ever-changing, golden crest gleaming at the center.
From somewhere deep in the great structure came the sound of gunfire.
Delacruz winced but kept her gaze on me. So it’s been a hard four days. She shrugged, trying for nonchalant.
Are you infected? I winced at the bluntness—it seemed so crass to simply ask—but I needed to know.
It’s not an infection. She sighed. This will be easier through a patch. Let me get up to spec.
Delacruz took the injectables and peered at the labels in the dull light of the hallway. She selected one and applied it to her arm.
Bioenergy? I smiled, wanting to stay safely away from the topic of her being a symbiont monster.
A Caduceus can do it 47% more quickly, but—she shrugged—a girl makes do.
It only took her a moment to complete the allocation. Once she did, she glanced back to me.
We’ve gotta go kill some [damned assholes], but I need you fully apprised. You already told me that you had room for a port to memory, so I think that’s best.
Um. I hadn’t actually told her of my resource issue earlier. I intended to, I recalled, but then she indicated that—
The gargantuan patch hit my Crown like a truck made of concrete and hangovers.
MEMORY RESOURCES INSUFFICIENT.
“Ow!” I couldn’t help the reflexive dirty look I gave her. “I didn’t have the space ready!”
You said you did!
No, I said… I trailed off as I got a look at the packet. It hadn’t been able to synch to memory, but it was in my Crown. If Rachel were available, she could re-classify the data.
Perhaps I could move it myself.
But no. Not without a Caduceus.
If I had connection to the Lattice, this would be simple. This happened to be my Crown after all, altering the data on it should be a simple task. We didn’t ever delete things from our Crown— we offloaded to a personal system. A simple task really…
With a Lattice connection.
I swore.
It’s huge. And I have to peruse it. The more I saw, the more I wished she had successfully ported the thing to memory. Now I had to go through the data manually like some kind of savag
e.
At least it wasn’t written material. If I’d had to read all this, I might have thrown myself beneath a bus.
This would take time we didn’t have.
Damn it. She bit her lip in a way I found endearing. This is bad news, Michael. This next bit is [fucking crazy], and you’ll have no idea what’s going on.
You’ll have to give me a moment for that. I paused as I mentally eyed the patch. The thing loomed enormous in my mind. Did you patch me your whole life story?
Don’t be an asshole. Peruse that for a minute. She chuckled. I’ll give you exactly one.
I’ll need a bit more than that. I accessed the patch, which appeared as a blue rectangle in my visual. As the packet opened, I realized again its size and complexity. I felt as if I had an entire college course to study for, and oh, by the way, the final started ten minutes ago.
Also, I forgot my pants.
I flipped through the thing, wondering how much of it I needed to understand to “go kill some assholes.”
“Holy shit.” I shook my head after a few moments.
“Yeah.” She frowned.
“I need all this?”
She vacillated. [Most of it.] Get started, Mike. I’ll keep watch.
I nodded, settling in to punch through the thing. The more I looked, however, the more I realized one thing: Sofia Delacruz had gone through a lot more than four hard days.
39
The first entry happened literally years ago, far before the excursion into Ryuu Tower. Hell, it started before my little dance in Mojave.
How important could that be? I sighed.
I settled in, opening the first bit of data.
_____________________
We don’t know why the packets have this unique effect upon you, to be honest, a tall man with dark hair linked.
Sofia sat at a crescent moon-shaped table in a sterile Facility room across from four Designates. I experienced everything directly from her perspective, including the grave tone in the Designate’s voice.
If we did, it would be a breakthrough in Asset excursions.
With time, we will work out the specifics. This came from a stern-looking woman with fashionable glasses and a pencil skirt. Until we do, we know only one thing for certain.
