There was a keypad by the door, and when Leah pushed the door handle, it didn’t budge. Panic gripped Leah for the few seconds it took her to realize she needed to pull the door open. She blushed, imagining the women laughing at her behind her back, pulled the door open and slipped into the control room beyond.
The room with the computers was on the left, halfway down the wall. Leah strode toward it, trying to look as though she had every right to be there. There were two men in the control center. They stood hunched over one of the panels, deep in conversation. Leah kept one eye on them, but they didn’t look up.
Leah’s mouth was still dry by the time she reached the door to the computer room. She hurriedly pushed it open and slipped inside. She’d let the door click shut behind her and taken a couple of steps into the room before she realized she wasn’t alone.
There were four long desks, two on either side of the room. Two computers sat on each, and all but one of them were empty. A woman, maybe in her early twenties, was sitting at the nearest desk. The computer screen was blank, but the woman was hunched over, scribbling in a notepad.
At the sound of the door, the woman looked up. Her hair was cropped close to her scalp and she had two metal rings through her nose, but her smile seemed welcoming enough.
“Hi,” said the woman. “You here to access the DB?”
“Yes,” said Leah, a little too quickly.
The woman pointed toward the computer next to her “I’ll be going in a minute, so you’ll have some peace and quiet. You can use that one; the VRI has cooled down.”
Leah had no idea what a VRI was, but she thanked the woman and sat down at the desk anyway. The screen was blank apart from a white symbol in the middle—the same one that had been on the memory module that had cost Leah’s father his life.
The desk was almost empty apart from the monitor and the computer—a rectangular black case about three feet square. The front of the case was covered with a dozen or so switches with various labels like GAIN, UNLD and LPASS. There were two large dials marked H1 and L1. None of the labels meant anything to Leah.
A long silver cable leading from the box was coiled beside the monitor. It had a metal device attached to the end, like a four-legged spider, a bit smaller than Leah’s hand.
Leah glanced across at the woman. She was still leaning over the notepad, writing with her left hand. The two pages Leah could see were filled with extremely neat, extremely small writing. The woman didn’t seem to be at all interested in Leah.
Leah picked up the spider. The metal was cool and hard, but the device was a lot lighter than she’d expected. She turned it over. There was a circle of rubber on the underside of the body. It was slightly tacky to the touch and when Leah removed her finger, its print was left behind. A few seconds later, it faded away.
“Are you okay?” said the woman.
“Err… yeah, yeah,” said Leah.
The woman smiled again. “You haven’t used one of those things before, huh?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“They’re a bit hacked together and they take a bit of getting used to, but once you’re in, it’s just like having your BICE chip back.”
Leah was beginning to wish she did have a BICE chip. It might have made finding Katherine a whole lot easier.
“It goes onto the back of your neck,” said the woman. She pointed at the circle of rubber. “That’s where the neural interface connects. Just press it against your skin where your BICE chip was.”
To Leah’s relief, the woman tapped the back of her neck to show where exactly that was.
“Got it, thanks.”
The woman smiled and went back to writing in her notebook.
Tentatively, Leah uncoiled the cable. It crackled like plastic as it moved. She reached around and pulled her hair away from the base of her skull. Her hands shook as she placed the spider against her skin. The thing’s legs tickled her as she adjusted its position. They were cold, and she had to suppress a slight shudder.
She pushed the body of the spider against her neck. The legs moved, latching onto her as though they were alive. She almost let out a squeal. Something cold and wet slipped across her skin. Leah felt a tiny pinprick of pain at the base of her skull, and then it was gone.
A moment later, the world popped out of existence as though someone had turned out the light.
17
Red flared in front of Leah’s face, the color smeared and smudged. A wave of dizziness crashed over her. She felt the world beneath her feet move, but her body didn’t react. She didn’t stagger or fall; she simply stood there without moving an inch. For a moment she felt weightless, then gravity reasserted its grip and the dizziness passed.
Slowly the red resolved itself, solidifying into a painted door. Black spheres appeared on its surface—thousands of tiny orbs forming and reforming until they took on the appearance of a cast iron doorknocker in the shape of a lion’s head. More spheres created a door handle, yet more a letterbox. A cluster of yellow spheres appeared and created a brass number 3 above the knocker.
Leah reached out and ran her fingers across the door. It was solid. She willed herself to take a step back so that she could look at whatever house the door belonged to, but her body refused to move. She contented herself with tilting her head and looking up.
From what she could see, she was in front of a large, three-story house built of red brick. There were two large, white-framed windows on either side of the door and five similar windows on the second and third floors. Gabled windows in the roof betrayed the presence of attic rooms.
Everything about the house was perfect. There were no marks on the brick; each one was identical to its neighbor. The red paint on the door was smooth as glass. Each window matched the one beside it, their lines crisp and clean.
Leah had never lived anywhere like this, but still, there was something familiar about it.
She raised the iron ring hanging from the lion’s mouth and rapped on the door. The metal knocker made a solid thunk. Leah waited, counting off one minute without a reply before knocking again. One more minute, and she knocked a third time.
When she still got no reply, she turned the handle, pushed open the door. Again she tried to move, and this time, her body responded. She stepped inside the house.
Leah recognized the expansive entrance hall immediately. The wallpaper was pale blue with white flowers, and she’d picked it out herself. She’d chosen the curved wooden coat stand that was just inside the door and the narrow wooden table that ran along the wall opposite. She’d picked the oriental rug that covered the floor, the paint for the banister that ran along either side of the broad staircase sweeping up to the second floor, the chandeliers, and the paintings of landscapes that adorned the walls.
This was her house. Her dollhouse. The one her father had built for her. The one Transport had smashed.
To the left would be the dining room and the ballroom. To the right, a library. The first floor would hold four large bedrooms, the second floor six smaller ones. The attic was one big room, lit by the gabled windows she’d seen outside.
Leah walked to the right. Her footsteps felt light, almost effortless, and as she approached the door to the library it swung open on silent hinges.
When she stepped through the doorway, she got a sudden feeling of weightlessness again. She reached for the door frame to stop herself floating away, but gravity returned once more before she took flight.
The library was just as Leah had built it. Bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling lined the walls. Luxuriously thick red carpet covered the floor. The shelves were laden down with hundreds of books. A huge desk, its wood stained a deep caramel brown, dominated the far end of the room. A plush leather chair sat behind it.
As Leah drew close to the shelves, she saw the books were all identical—all leather-bound with spines that were blank. She pulled the nearest volume from the shelf. As soon as she touched it, words appeared on the spine in gold embosse
d lettering.
LEAH KING
When she opened the book she found the pages filled with details of her and her life.
NAME: Leah Susannah King
FATHER: Andrew King
MOTHER: Susannah King (née Timmins)
BORN: Lancaster 2106
DIED: Columbia 2121
SEX: FEMALE
MARITAL STATUS: Single
RESIDENCE: Columbia
TRID: Exempt
The book continued, detailing her school history and details of the handful of friends she’d had in the City, all the illnesses she’d had and even copies of the dozen or so job applications she’d filled out when she was still trying to earn a living legitimately.
The information was all presented in the perfunctory style of a government document, and Leah found the book faintly depressing. Seeing her life laid out like that in stark black and white brought home how inconsequential it had been.
The last entry was most disturbing.
CURRENT STATUS: Deceased. Killed in the Columbia okcillium disaster.
There were no more pages. Somehow when she opened the book, it had become only the length required to contain the empty facts of her existence.
Leah closed the book and placed it back on the shelf. The writing on the spine broke apart and vanished. As it did, Leah felt the world shift beneath her feet, and nausea churned in her stomach.
She tried to ignore it and concentrate on the book instead. If the spider-thing was the interface to a TRACE database, then maybe the book was the way the system had chosen to represent the information that database contained. Which meant TRACE already knew about her—at least that she existed.
With trepidation, Leah realized there was no mention of New Leighton in the database. If Alice or Billingham decided to check on her story, they’d quickly know she was lying. That was another reason for Leah to get away from TRACE as quickly as possible.
Leah touched one of the other books with her index finger. The same title appeared on the spine.
LEAH KING
Leah removed her finger, and the words melted away. Frowning, she focused on a different book, imagining the name of her father on its spine. She touched the book. Nothing happened for several seconds, and then words appeared.
ANDREW KING
Leah’s breath caught in her throat, and she started to remove the book. She’d gotten it halfway when her nerve broke and she pushed it back onto the shelf. She didn’t need to read about her father; she had her memories of him.
“This is a database,” she said. Years of ingrained reverence for libraries kept her voice soft.
She tried again, imagining the word Katherine, but when she opened the book she found a directory of thousands upon thousands of Katherines. Without a last name, she’d never find what she was looking for. She pushed the book back onto the shelf.
Next, she tried Oakdale. The resultant book was packed with dense text—summaries of “security incidents,” legal documents, financial and safety reports. Even if Katherine was mentioned anywhere, the chances of Leah finding out who she was were close to zero. There was no address or other indication where Oakdale actually was, beyond the fact it was in Pennsylvania.
As Leah put the book back on the shelf, her vision blurred slightly. She rocked back on her heels. A wave of pixelation swept across the room. It turned everything into large, uneven blocks of color as it passed, the wave’s trailing edge twisting and distorting the air.
Leah stepped back from the bookshelves. The floor beneath her feet seemed suddenly hard. She looked down. The dark-hued carpet had faded slightly. The sense of being lighter than air and in danger of floating away returned for a few seconds and then was gone.
The pixel wave passed and the room returned to normal, but the carpet kept its washed-out look. A dull ache formed in Leah’s temples. She pressed her fingertips against them to ease the pressure, but it felt odd. Her temples seemed soft to the touch. She became convinced her fingers would sink into her skull if she pressed too hard, and she removed them again.
The room had been wrapped in silence, but now there was a sharp click. A brass lamp on the desk sputtered to life. A brown rectangular file lay in the circle of light cast by the lamp.
Leah approached it, nerves fluttering in her stomach. She didn’t know why, but something about the file made her nervous. She walked around the desk without looking directly at it. Only once she’d sat in the huge leather chair did she look at the label stuck to the folder’s tab.
JAMES BRADLEY
The name didn’t mean anything to her. As far as she could remember she didn’t know anyone called James or Bradley.
The machine she’d connected to herself must be doing this. It must be using her memories to create a world she could recognize and interact with somehow. But why had information on James Bradley, someone she didn’t even know, been singled out for special attention?
The folder was well used. The edges were bumped, and the once-white label had gained a yellow tinge. There was a greasy stain in the bottom right corner. Leah pulled the folder toward her. It made no sound as it slid over the desk.
The ache in Leah’s head was getting stronger. It had deepened and shifted behind her eyes. When she blinked it felt like her eyes were filled with grit.
Nervously, Leah opened the file. It contained a single sheet of paper, a form made up of several labeled boxes. A string of numbers was printed in bold in the top right corner of the file: 8471633001. The first box was labeled Name. James Michael Bradley had been written in the box in blue ink.
As Leah scanned down the form, her vision blurred again. Or rather, the world did. The lines and letters on the page went first. They seemed to shudder, vibrating like a plucked string, then broke apart, dissolving into thousands of blocks that bounced around the desktop then faded to nothing.
There was a pause, and then the ache behind Leah’s eyes turned to white-hot shards of pain. The taste of blood filled her mouth. She screamed and fell forward. As she hit the desk it shattered into tiny blocks that glowed blue and red and green. The blocks bounced around Leah as she fell. The carpeted floor rushed up to meet her. The thick pile turned to hard, unyielding concrete just as Leah’s face collided with it.
18
Blood. It was the first thing Leah thought once she returned to consciousness. She could taste it, the thick tang of iron coating the inside of her mouth. Her jaw was crusted with it.
Leah moaned, softly.
Fingers pressed gently on her chin, and she opened her mouth. Cool, fresh liquid trickled across her tongue. Leah swilled it around and swallowed. As she did, she became aware of the dull thumping in her head. It felt like someone was pounding out a steady rhythm on the base of her skull with a hammer.
She willed her eyes to open. A second later, they did. The light was blindingly bright, and Leah grimaced and squeezed them shut again.
“Welcome back.”
It took Leah a few seconds to place the voice. Alice.
Leah tried to smile, but the muscles in her face didn’t seem to want to respond. They felt detached somehow, as though they belonged to someone else. She frowned, and those muscles felt odd too. She opened her eyes slightly and forced them to adjust to the brightness of the light.
She was back in her room in the power station. Alice was sitting next to the bed, holding a glass of water. Leah turned her head and again felt the movement follow her will by a second or so.
“Don’t worry,” said Alice. “The muscle lag will pass in a few minutes. I’m guessing you haven’t used a VR before.”
“No,” said Leah. The words came out sounding strange, spoken by someone other than her. “What time is it?”
“Just after 10 a.m. You’ve been out for a few hours.”
Alice rubbed her forehead. “What were you thinking, Leah?”
The words stung. Leah could hear her father asking her the same question. Alice had the same disappointed look he’d gotten when
she did something stupid.
Leah let the guilt she was feeling show on her face. “I’m sorry.”
“You can’t just go wandering around poking your nose into things. If the colonel finds out, he’ll throw us both in holding.”
Leah didn’t speak. Guilt and embarrassment churned in her stomach. She swallowed down the urge to vomit.
Alice sighed. “Okay, now that I’ve given you the requisite reprimand, I’ve got to say I’m impressed. You’re a natural.”
The change in tone caught Leah unawares. It took her a few seconds to adjust. “A natural?” she said, eventually.
“At VR integration. I checked the recording of your little trip, and you rendered a fully realized world first time out. It was small, but that’s still very impressive. Most people only manage black rooms with the odd smudge of color where the information they’re looking for should be.”
Leah’s mind tumbled over itself. She’d heard of Virtual Realities, of course, but they were restricted. Only Transport and the very rich had access to them. What was TRACE doing with a VR system?
Her puzzlement must have registered on her face, eventually, because Alice said, “The system was part of the power station. It was used for monitoring and controlling the plant, but I made a few modifications and… voilà, we have access to Transport’s VR network. Not the high-security stuff, of course, but enough to be useful.” Alice smiled. “You look surprised. Girls can be good with computers too.”
Leah blushed, triggering a gentle laugh from Alice. “It’s okay; I’m used to it.”
Leah thought back to the library and the thousands of books, and the file. “Where was I?” she said. Her voice had lost some of its strangeness, although it still didn’t seem to quite be her.
The Girl in the Wilderness (Leah King Book 2) Page 9
