Cyberdrome (21 page)

He quickly
looked away. Maybe it was just part of their culture, he thought. The female
lures unsuspecting males in by acting interested, and then the male kills them.
It would fit what he knew of the KaNanee, he realized. Either way, it would be
better if he avoided the female altogether.

“What do you
know of the shape-changers, Alek Grey?” It was the first time he had heard her
voice. It was softer than he expected.

He looked out
his side window at her and shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I refer to the
creatures that Javid Rho calls Species-Five.

“Species-Five?”
he asked. Klaxon told him there were four Predators in the Core.
Where would
a fifth come from?
”

“Surely, you
know of them,” she said. “We call them shape-changers because they can become
something they are not.”

“I’m new to this
part of HomeSpace,” he said, remembering to keep up the pretext of being a Sentinel.
“So, you’re telling me that there’s a creature out here that can change its
shape?”

She nodded at
him through her ship’s window. “It can assume the shape of what Javid Rho calls
Species-One through Three.”

“Sounds like a
Polymorph,” he replied.
What would a polymorphic program be doing out here?
The answer came to him immediately. “Have you seen any sign of interbreeding
between the different species?” he blurted out, before he realized that the
question might be inappropriate.

“Do not be
embarrassed,” she said with a smirk. “We KaNanee are experienced in breeding
our food sources. Are you telling me that this species is a mutation?”

“That would be
my guess. Some sort of genetic accident, maybe.”

“But they are
machines.”

“They are more
than that,” he replied. “You should know that by now.”

Kay Broon smiled
at him through her window, revealing her oversized, sharpened teeth, and added.
“Knowledge is power. I owe you a debt, Alek Grey.”

The last thing
he needed was Jas Kaido’s mate owing him anything. “You can repay me with
knowledge, as well,” he ventured. “Tell me about your world, how you made it up
to HomeSpace.”

There was a long
silence, and he was afraid that he had asked too much. Then she spoke. “My
mother’s mother told me that our world was once a paradise. Then a plague wiped
out all but a few thousand, who fled the cities and hid deep in the mountains.
That is when the Glory came.”

“What do you
mean by glory?” he asked.

“I was told that
we were once similar to you—small, weak, eaters of roots and leaves. Then the
Glory came and changed us, made us stronger, larger, and afraid of nothing.
Even the plague could not affect us. We began to hunt other animals for our
food, and then we realized that we also had to protect that which we hunted. It
became our two-fold reason for living. Hunt what you protect and protect what
you hunt. That is when we became KaNanee.”

Nothing she said
made any sense. Maya had told him that the simulations running in Cyberdrome
were of humans living in Earth-type worlds. Kay was describing something out of
a horror novel. “So, you’re hunters with a sense of conservation. What brought
you to HomeSpace?” he asked.

“We were
transporting prisoners from the Southern continent when a strange hole opened
in the world and ripped apart our ship. By the time we surveyed the damage and
counted the dead, we discovered that the prisoners had escaped into the hole.
We, of course, followed them in and ended up in dark tunnels beneath this
ground.”

“You’re talking
about the CeeAut, aren’t you?” he said. “You both come from the same world?”

“The CeeAut
infested most of the Southern continent until the Great War. Now we use them as
servants.”

“And you
actually eat them?” he asked, remembering his encounter with the CeeAut. It
seemed barbaric—even cannibalistic—to think of the KaNanee using them as food.

She bared her
teeth in something resembling a smile. “My mate told you that to cover up the
CeeAut’s real value to us.”

“And what’s
that?” he asked, even though he was sure he didn’t want to know.

She smiled
again. “That information will be saved for a later discussion,” she said, “when
you have more to offer.”

“But this group
got away from you?”

“They are
nocturnal by nature and therefore could see in the darkness of the tunnels
better than my people. They escaped from us and we have been hunting them ever
since.”

When he realized
that she had finished speaking, he glanced at his scanner and noticed several
Tracers in the center of the battlefield, separate from the others, and
arranged in a sort of star pattern. A little too organized compared to the
chaos surrounding it, he thought. It might be nothing, but he had to check it
out.

“I’m going to
look at something,” he said as he turned his Tracer toward the signal. “Stay
here. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

She didn’t
respond. When he was about a hundred meters into the debris field, he saw on
his scanner that her ship was following him at a distance. Always the
protector, he thought.

Alek rounded a
debris pile a short time later and saw four Tracers sitting in a circle with
their backs almost touching—an obvious defensive position. A fifth Tracer sat
on the ground a few meters away. Next to the lone vehicle, he saw a woman with
dark hair crouched on the ground. His heart skipped a beat when she lifted her
head and he saw that it was Maya.

He ordered his
ship to stop and then scrambled out when the canopy opened. He slipped on the
outer hull and landed on his knees on the ground. When he looked up, Maya was
already running toward him. He barely had time to stand up when she leapt into
his arms, knocking him back down to the ground.

“What the hell
are you doing here, Alek?” she asked. Her face was dirty and she looked somehow
much older, even with the simplified Core rendering.

“I was about to
ask you the same thing,” he said.

“We were
attacked by a group of robot things almost a week ago. I got separated.” She
climbed off him and sat next to him on the ground, facing the other ships.
“Yesterday I came across this battlefield and found their empty ships. I’ve
been sitting here ever since then trying to deal with what happened and figure
out what to do next.” She looked back at him. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you
standing just before I knocked you down? How are you able to walk?”

“I don’t really
know,” he said with a smile. “I guess something got tweaked in my brain when I
they scanned me for interface. Whatever it was, I’m glad it happened.”

“So, how in the
world did you find me?” she asked. “And what the hell are you even doing inside
Cyberdrome?”

It took a while
to tell her of his conversation with Leconte, and then the subsequent discovery
that Lorena was actually Klaxon, the person responsible for the attack on Cyberdrome.

“I can’t believe
that Lorena was involved,” she said when he finished. “I also can’t understand
why Rebecca would send you in here.”

“As I said, I
was never told.”

“And the THI
threat? Do you think it’s real?”

He shook his
head. “Something’s keeping my father’s neuroprobes from disengaging. If it’s
not a THI threat, then someone reprogrammed them to act this way. If it was
Klaxon, I can’t imagine what her motive would be, since she’s trapped—”

“Alek, I’m not
sure how to tell you this,” she interrupted.

 “Tell me what?”

She took a deep
breath before answering. “Right before this mess all started, your father told
me a lie—something that got me out of Cyberdrome just before the attack. At
first, I thought—or at least hoped—that it was just a coincidence, but now I’m
not so sure.”

He stared at her
as his mind tried to put the pieces together. Then he remembered what Lorena
had told him when he accused her of killing his father—that his father had
killed himself. “Do you think my father had something to do with the takeover
of Cyberdrome? You think he trapped himself inside on purpose?”

“If he did, he
paid the ultimate price for his actions,” she admitted. Her eyes began to swell
with tears. “I’m just glad you’re in here with me,” she said.

He pulled her
over to him and kissed her. She seemed reluctant at first, but then she pressed
hard against his mouth. Her lips were moist and slightly salty. He felt warm
tears running down her face and onto his.

She lifted away
from him, “Oh, Alek. It’s horrible,” she sobbed.

“Let me try that
again,” he said as he gave her a squeeze. “I think it’s this weird rendering.
My lips feel like rubber.”

“It’s not that,”
she whispered, then pushed off him and began walking back to the circle of
ships. He stood, brushed himself off, and followed her.

As he approached
the Tracers, he realized that they had to belong to the rest of the team. “So,
where are Cloudhopper and the others?”

She didn’t
respond, but when she reached the nearest Tracer, she leaned up against it and
peered into the cockpit window. He did the same but didn’t see what she was
looking at.

“It looks
empty,” he said.

“It’s not,” she
said flatly.

He looked again
and finally saw what she was staring at—a pile of black material in the seat.
He spun around and looked at the debris field surrounding him. Suddenly, the
pattern of the damaged area around him came into focus and he could see how it
happened.

“There must have
been a group of Predators still alive in the debris field,” he said. “Maybe
they were hiding and using it as a trap. Cloudhopper’s team wandered into the
field and the machines surrounded them. They formed a defensive circle, facing
outwards. That’s what I would’ve done.”

She backed up
and turned toward him. “I think you’re right. But look at the size of the blast
field in front of each ship.”

He turned and
surveyed the damage. “It looks like they each launched some sort of killer weapon,
probably all at the same time.” He looked at the circle of Tracers.
“Apparently, the blast was a lot stronger than they expected. It must have
vaporized them all, right inside their ships. Left nothing behind but their
Omnisuits.” Then he remembered that Maya was friends with these people. He
turned toward her. “I mean, it vaporized their Avatars, of course.

She dropped to
the ground, holding her stomach. “Oh God, this can’t be happening,” she yelled.
“Tell me this is all a horrible dream.”

He dropped to
his knees and held her head against his chest. He stroked her hair and looked
over at the ships. Cloudhopper had been here—she must have really cared for him
after all. “Roy’s about as tough as anyone could be,” he said. “Right this
moment, he’s probably back in the real world, wondering when we are going to
complete the mission for him.”

“I hope you’re
right, Alek, but it’s more than that. We can’t complete the mission now.”

“Apparently, you
underestimate me,” he said, feigning indignation. “I may not have Cloudhopper’s
military training, but I’ve managed to make some important friends in my short
time here. We can make a new mission team. Together we can delete the control
nodes and destroy Ceejer.”

“We can’t
complete the mission,” she repeated, “We can’t delete the nodes.”

“Why not?”

She stood and
pointed to the four ships. “I think you were right. Roy and his team were outnumbered
and had no chance of winning.”

“I can see that,
but what does it have to do with us not being able to complete the mission?”
Then he got it. “Holy shit! They used the deletion routines.”

“It’s the only
explanation I can think of,” she said. “The deletion routines were designed to
obliterate software—not hardware. The blasts destroyed every living program
within a hundred meters.” She paused, looking at the circle of ships.
“Including themselves.”

“Can’t we get
more deletion routines?” he asked.

She stood there,
staring at the ships and holding her stomach. She looked like she wanted to
throw up. “You don’t get it, Alek. The other deletion routines are inside the
Survey Vessel.”

“And Lorena has
the Survey Vessel,” he added, realizing there would be little chance of finding
her in an area as vast as the Core.

“Even if we
found her somehow,” she said, completing his thoughts, “it’s a sure bet that
she’s deactivated or destroyed them all by now, which means that we can’t
finish the mission.”

He looked down
at her. “It also means that we’re trapped in here unless we—”

“Is this your
mate?” Kay Broon interrupted. Alek jumped forward when he heard the KaNanee’s
voice right behind his ear, knocking Maya backward.

“Don’t sneak up
on me like that,” he yelled. “You almost gave me a heart attack.” He patted his
chest several times, trying to catch his breath. Then he noticed Maya sitting
on the ground, staring wide-eyed at the KaNanee female. He reached down to give
her a hand up. “I’m sorry. Maya, this is Kay Broon. Kay, Maya Rivero.”