by Guy Haley
"I am sure that it is directly linked to the Qifang case," Santiago said. "He is in there somewhere, somehow, running a pimsim on the server's spare capacities."
"Then why are you so damn calm about it? An illegal pimsim would be swallowed up in there! This is something bigger." Ron looked like he wanted to yell in the Latino's face, but was shrivelling up inside just thinking about it. "We need to get him out, Santiago, we need to send someone in right away." Ron's voice betrayed him, becoming a plaintive whine. He fiddled with his top button, like his shirt was throttling him. He paused, trying to calm himself, lowered his voice in volume and pitch. "There's no telling what a mess he's making. The Reality Realms are still keyed to humans. If we leave it, we'll go in there to find half of them altered or worse." Ron stuttered to a stop.
"Worse? How so?" said Santiago, disingenuous.
Ron finally lost his temper. "You know damn well what I mean, dammit, Santiago! Dead, I mean dead, wiped out, ruined, gone. That clear enough for you? Do you take this seriously at all? These are our jobs on the line! Man, do you even care? Qifang is, was, is, damn, is… he knows things about how the Realms work that absolutely no one else does. He could do anything he wants in there, and not just to the Realms. If we don't act now, it could impact on the Heaven Levels, Virtua Resorts… anything that uses the same architecture as the Realms. He could get out into the wider Grid and then…"
Santiago gave a frown that stopped the tech chief in his tracks. "Don't talk to me like that, Ron." He waved his hand irritably and sat forward. "For the love of God, stop hovering there. Sit down, Ron. Director Sobieski won't bite you, neither will I."
"You're right there, Agent Chures," said Sobieski. The EuGene was sitting on the leather sofa by Santiago's coffee table. If Chures was intelligent and dangerous by chance, Sobieski was ten times more so by design. Ron could outperform most men and many AIs on any logic puzzle you cared to mention, but what he had in that department had cost him in others; likewise with Chures, his genes trading specific genius in favour of wider vision. Sobieski had no weaknesses; his rich parents had had them all engineered out, and replaced with more strengths.
Santiago poured Ron a coffee from the pot on his desk without asking if he wanted one or not, or how he would take it. Today, Ron was having cream and sugar. Ron did not take sugar. "Stop thinking about your job and start thinking about the millions of sentients in the Realms, that is what you are paid for."
"I, look, I'm sorry, it's just…"
"I understand your concern, Ronald, but I promise you, I am not about to lose one more of the Realms. How long is it since the collapse of Reality 19?"
Ron rolled his eyes. "Santiago…"
"Assistant Director Sobieski?"
"Four years, Agent Chures, and not a major incursion since then. You're doing a good job."
This time Ron did look round. "With all due respect, sir, this is Zhang Qifang we're talking about. He's different, he's…"
"Four years," said Chures. "This is no hacker, this is the man who fought for all Neukind rights, for a decade alone to secure the future of the Realms. He will not wantonly start tearing things apart. That is not in his nature. Do you think it is, Ron?"
"But the energy signatures…"
"Are at the upper end but well within normal parameters. Leave him be. I want them both, Qifang and his accomplice Valdaire. While she is missing, so is the v-jack headpiece, and that is a door that cannot be left open. Once we have her, we will arrest them both. Qifang can do his time and then go back to his afterlife legally. Valdaire better start looking at a new career. If we move too soon, we'll lose one of them."
"How can you be sure you didn't just spook her, Santiago? We have no evidence that she's in there, by the time we…"
"Drink your coffee, Ron." He gestured, fluttering his hands upwards. Ron complied reluctantly. "If we drive Qifang out, we will never know. Remain calm. Focus on your job, let me do mine. If you wish," said Santiago, "speak to Sobieski about cutting the Realms off from the wider Grid flow."
"Sure, come by later. My door's always open, Ron," said Sobieski. He was habitually friendly, a trait that only made him more terrifying.
"That'll only close down the main pipes. The damn things are entangled on virtually every level with the Grid," protested Ron.
"Ron, the 'damn things' are your charges. Close the main pipes," Santiago said. "Valdaire would have to be an idiot to try the main approach, but this is basic protocol, Ron. I am unimpressed."
Ron flushed. "I… I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Watch the perimeter, keep your eyes open. If the fluctuations go beyond the sigma level and it looks like other sites are being affected, put a temporary stop on the Realms. Freeze them."
"No one will authorise that, Chures, it's too risky. The systems are too old to take it."
"Ron, I just authorised it."
Ron risked a glance at the Assistant Director.
He shrugged. "I'd do what he says, if I were you."
"Now," said Santiago, "was there anything else?"
Ron's face twitched. There was something else, but he couldn't get it out. His lips flapped, no sound came forth. He gave up. "No, Agent Chures," he said, bobbed a ridiculous curtsey and walked out of Chures' office.
Chures wiped Ron's palmprints from his desk with a handerchief and put it aside to be washed.
Sobieksi looked out of the door. "Listen to Ron, Chures, he knows his onions. Don't be hard on him." He smoothed his tie, came across the room, dusted the chair the technician had vacated and sat in it.
"Maybe," said Santiago noncommitally. "He is clever, but easily panicked."
"Not like the machines, eh, Chures?"
"I respect the machines, Assistant Director, like I respect you."
"They're not going to be happy when they find out what has happened to Qifang," said Sobieski mildly.
"Only we know as yet that he is dead," countered Chures. "I have made sure of that. We did a remote sweep, no bodies on the ground. I will make sure it remains this way until we have him in custody. We'll leave it to somebody else to 'officially' discover the corpse at his house, and call in the LAPD."
"About that. I dropped in to tell you, I'm not sure we are alone. I had word from our agents in Europe: The EuPol Five has put a big embargo in place on something. Qifang's name came up."
"The anomalous Grid signatures we detected?"
"Got it in one. I hear he's got that Five, what's he called? Richards, he's looking into it."
Chures sighed and sat back. "Richards is an annoyance."
"I'm expecting the machines to butt in and demand clemency," said Sobieski. He fidgeted; the man was never still. He was tiring of the exchange, too many things turning over in his gengineered brain.
"Qifang has overstepped himself. He should have booked a standard post-mortem simulation, or a place on one of the Heaven Levels; he was rich enough for either. No matter how much he loved the Realms, or how hard he worked to protect them, he has no right to be in them. He has become a hypocrite." Chures stood up, walked over to the window. The Virginian countryside was overlaid with a fluorescent landscape on the glass – the VIA grounds within the Grid.
"We'll see." Sobieski stood. He checked his watch, six months' pay worth of jewellery, and shook his head. "Damn, time's got away from me. Look, I gotta shoot. I've got two senate committees and Uncle Sam Two breathing down my neck about some goddamned illicit Gridpipe up between the habitats. I can guarantee it's kids swapping dirty pictures, but they won't listen. Gotta send a whole team up there, sort it out, scare the bejeezus out of some luckless teen onanist. If I get a spare moment, I'll look into getting Qifang's sentence commuted to reparative service. If there's anything left of his mind once we drag him out, convince Qifang to come and work with the VIA, he'd be useful. It may buy us a few favours with the machines."
"It will be difficult," said Chures. "Well then," Sobieski said, "don't give him a choice."
Santiago
nodded. "That would be a good outcome."
"Just you see you catch him Chures, there'll be hell to pay for both of us if you don't."
"I will. I have not let you down yet," said Chures.
"See you keep it that way. See you tomorrow?"
"I cannot make it. I have a lead I need to follow. Karlsson. He wants to see me."
"That figures," said Sobieski.
"He was the last man Qifang went to see before his Gridsig… malfunctioned," said Chures.
"You're using that line."
Chures nodded. "We have to tell the Gridfeeds something. Someone is going to find out Qifang is dead and put it all over the system. This will keep them quiet for a while."
The eugene got up to leave but stopped on his way to the door. "Be careful with Karlsson. Don't listen to any of his bullshit."
"We should have killed him."
"We would, but he'd covered his ass with dirty secrets seven ways till Sunday," said Sobieski regretfully. "He has his uses. Valdaire," Sobieski said, changing the subject, "are you any closer to finding her? She's high profile herself, in certain circles. It won't be long until it's noticed she's gone on the lam."
"We have a solid cover story in place. We've got the company Six on it, directing a choir drawn from the Four pool. They'll find her. I am expecting results any time now."
"You are tracing her near-I, what's her name…?"
"Chloe. I've a team tracking that. I am concentrating my personal efforts on the Realms themselves."
"Good. I trust you've got it all in hand." Sobieski relaxed. "Now, what about Tuesday? You'll have this wrapped up by then? Get a bit of unwind time?"
"Sure."
"Excellent. I'll see you on court. Prepare for a pounding, Agent Chures, I've been practising!" Not that Sobieski needed to practise. His tinkered genome had the talents of a tennis pro spliced into it. He waved an imaginary racket through the air. Then he was gone, to do whatever terrible things he had to do.
Santiago left the window and went back to his desk. Text flashed on to the desktop as he brought up Valdaire's files. She had a good mind, exemplary military service record, minor misdemeanours at college for radicalism, otherwise clean. Why had she run?
He ordered Bartolomeo to pipe immersive sensations direct into his mind, requesting something he'd not seen yet. Bartolomeo selected a senscapt record, and prodded Chures' imagination into place. Santiago found himself in a bar, a swanky place festooned with birthday streamers, looking out from where the senscapt recorder would have been. His field of vision jiggled with movements not his own. The recorder fixed on Valdaire, laughing with a group of others. She was pretty enough, although not to his tastes. It was plausible Qifang and she had been sleeping together; there were guys Qifang's age running marathons. Had they made a lover's pact, run away together to the Realms? He shot Bartolomeo a mental command to hunt down any indications of a romance: credit bills, survnet recordings, so on, low-grade AI scutwork.
A wordless call came in, the company Six. Its analysis of the sysadmin datalog of the Realm's primary server was over. Its report took four minutes to copy over to Bartolomeo. His AI running the Six's analysis, Santiago leant his head back. The sensation of the Bartolomeo working was pleasant, his own mind resting on top of the AI's like oil on water. He could feel and see what Bartolomeo was thinking as he meditated. He'd made sure the relationship wasn't reciprocal.
That was the way it should be.
Two days ago, against the background information radiation of the Realms was a spike of external data, quite distinct, but brief, disappearing into the morass of calculation that made up the Reality Realms. Easy to miss, and the trail back was convoluted. Santiago tapped at the desk glass, bringing a hyper-dimensional representation of Grid datastreams into view. He set hunter near-I off to sniff round the world from relay to relay, following the undeniable spoor of numbers, drawing in on Valdaire's physical location.
He should have guessed she'd go back to where she felt safe. People were so predictable.
He checked the stability of the Reality Realms. Everything was within tolerance, for the time being. Valdaire and Qifang weren't going anywhere.
First he would pay his call on Karlsson.
Chapter 10
Reality 36
The night rang with calls of creatures that should not have been there. To the exorcists of godlings, this was disturbing, more so than the roaring that rumbled from the jungle, accompanied by the crash of trees as something huge and ponderous forced its passage.
Morning came. The sun rose unnaturally swiftly, teasing streamers of mist from the surface of the pools in the clearing. Wary of these ponds, the pair decided on a circuitous path along firmer ground. It was hard going, and several times the lion sank deep into the moss. He slowed, his multi-jointed tongue switching back and forth, bouncing sonar through the soft earth before he would proceed. Eventually Tarquinius asked that the knight dismount, though his weight was negligible next to the lion's multi-ton heft.
At night they rested upon a low hill as far away from open water as possible. Their second day's travel was harder. They had gone barely a third of the way over the morass.
On the third day, they encountered a broad expanse of moss broken by many pools. For the fourteenth time in a handful of hours, Tarquinius found himself immersed to his haunches in black muck. The basalt golf ball remained frustratingly distant.
"Damn it, Jag!" said the lion. "We're getting nowhere. We have to come up with some other plan."
Jag slapped a mosquito the size of a fist, mashing it to ruin against his filthy coat of plates. "Perhaps then, dear comrade, I should go on alone."
"Jag, don't be ridiculous. You would fail, you have no hope on your own. Perhaps if we were to... Wait!" Tarquinius' head swung round. "To the east; I hear screams."
"What?"
"Female." Tarquinius' tongue disgorged itself. "164 centimetres, 59 kilogrammes. She is assailed by… something. I can't get a fix on it."
"That has happened too often recently for my continued ease."
"Ah. So now you are also concerned, I see." Tarquinius' stentorian voice disappeared to be replaced by an amplification of the encounter. The woman's cries were mingled with the chatter of weapons fire, drowning out her obscenities. Over all, a low and dreadful humming.
"She seems spirited."
"She only has a thirteen point two percent chance of survival. We should aid her."
"Why? The lives of many more depend upon the alacritous completion of our task," said Jagadith.
"Because she is what she is."
"Yes?"
"She is one of them, not one of us – a person; with a capital H," said Tarquinius.
"How so?" Jagadith leapt aboard his mount. "Is it she we must confront?" He paused. "Why do her own creatures attack her?"
"Because she is not our prey." Tarquinius grunted hard as he hauled himself out of the ooze. "Her access protocols are intact; outmoded, forbidden, perdita – but intact and distinct from whatever is causing that vortex. The attackers are not of her fashioning."
"Then we must aid her, and expel her. Ah! This is a regrettable diversion."
Tarquinius shook out his metal mane, flinging out mud and strings of algae. "You must hold fast. I have a low probability of making the dash without becoming mired. It would serve you ill if you were to be thrown. Ready?"
"As always." Jag drew his sword. "Let us not be delaying any longer, I am eager to learn why this goddess breaks the seals."
With a roar that sent clouds of birds screaming from the marsh, Tarquinius leapt forward. His paws gouged sucking holes from the mud as he ran. A few times he slipped, a few more he faltered. Once he went crashing on to his chest, and it was all the knight could do to keep in the saddle.
The lion played the goddess's voice as they ran. Slowly its defiance seeped away.
"Quickly Tarquinius! Quickly!"
"I see her. I see her!" bellowed the lion. With a lurch,
Tarquinius stumbled on to more solid ground, and he accelerated to impossible speed. Wind streamed through the lion's hair, bending the feather back on Jagadith's turban and stinging tears from his eyes. Ahead, a woman was running frantically through the swamp, turning to shoot behind her.
Her pursuers were abominations. Fat flies the size of children, their bodies stopped halfway in the transformation from maggot. Their heads were those of hags, multifaceted eyes erupting from their putrescent flesh, mouths frothing drool. They formed a shifting mass of airborne flesh, its parts moving too quickly for Jag to count, though he estimated at least twenty. One fell from the sky, pinwheeling, its wings shattered by bullets, but there were too many for the woman to defeat.
