Cyberdrome (22 page)

Maya stood and
slid closer to Alek. “What the hell are you?” she whispered.

“What the hell
are you?” Kay asked with a hint of a smile.

Alek turned
toward Maya and pulled her close. “Kay’s a member of a group of people called
the KaNanee. They came to the Core from their
world
.” He emphasized
world
,
hoping Maya would understand, and not refer to them as simulations.

She nodded and
turned to the KaNanee. “I’m very interested in your people, your planet. I
would like to know how you
—
”

Kay lunged at
her, but Maya dropped low and grabbed the KaNanee’s legs, then stood, flipping
Kay onto her back.

“What did I say?”
Maya yelled as she crouched low and spun around to face her attacker. Blood
began to ooze from a deep cut on her cheek.

“Knowledge is
power,” Kay growled as she stood and casually licked the blood from her claws.
She was apparently trying to look undisturbed by the fact that Maya had
deflected the brunt of her attack. “You must give knowledge in order to receive
it,” she said. She then glanced briefly at Maya, and added, “You have nothing I
want.”

Javid and Jas
Kaido’s Tracers raced into the area just then and slid to a stop—quickly ending
the confrontation. When they climbed out, Alek introduced Maya to the Sentinel,
while the two KaNanee walked a short distance away to speak privately. Alek
avoided mentioning the fact that most of the people he had been searching for
were dead, or at least, gone. He didn’t want to think about that fact just then
either.

“You’re a
Sentinel?” Maya asked, holding her palm against her cheek to stop the bleeding.
“I thought they were all deleted in the attack.”

“All but one,”
he said flatly.

“So, you didn’t
find anyone?” Alek asked.

“No survivors
were found,” he said. “However, I did locate the remains of this sector’s Watchport
just over that rise.” He pointed to a pile of debris nearby.

Maya looked
suddenly interested. “I want to see it,” she said as she began walking toward
the rise.

“Stay low,”
Javid warned. “The area is being guarded by a number of Mantids, and we do not
want them alerted to our presence.” He caught up with Maya and began leading
the way. Alek had no idea what a Watchport was, but he ran to catch up with
them.

When they neared
the pile of debris, Javid dropped to his hands and knees and crawled up the
side to peer over the top.

When Alek slid
up next to the Sentinel, he saw a group of Mantids standing in a circle less
than a hundred meters away.

“It is
prohibited for non-system programs to access a Watchport,” Javid whispered. “I
have recorded this location and will attempt to report it at a later date.”

“I don’t see
anything,” Alek said. “Where is this Watchport?”

“The structure
is gone,” Javid said. “Deleted by the same energy wave that destroyed the Sentinels.”

“Watchports were
inhabited by a class of programs called Watchers,” Maya said as she glanced at
Javid. “Like Sentinels, Watchers are born in the simulations and brought to the
Core for service. Their sole purpose is to monitor the integrity of our researchers.”

“You mean they
made sure your researchers did what they were supposed to do, even when your people
weren’t around,” Alek said.

“Right,” she
said. “A sort of quality control measure. They
—
” She paused and glanced at Javid
again. “They could cloak themselves—make themselves invisible so that they
could monitor our researchers without being detected.”

“To do that,
they would need direct access to the simulations,” Alek said.

“Correct,” Javid
said. “That is what the port was used for. Now, the Mantids are trying to
access the simulation for themselves.”

“How can they do
that if the Watchport structure’s gone?” Alek asked.

“There,” Maya
said, pointed to the circle of machines. “In the middle—the floor’s glowing.”
She turned to Javid. “That’s the port opening, isn’t it?”

“Correct,” Javid
said. “Without the Watchers or the structure to guard it, that port is an unprotected
direct connection to this sector’s simulation.”

“This could
explain how the KaNanee and the CeeAut got here,” Alek said. He briefly relayed
the story Kay Broon had told him.

Javid frowned.
“One problem with that story is that Watchports operated on the surface. I do
not see how they could have emerged below the surface as you described.”

“Can you give me
another explanation?” Alek asked.

“The KaNanee are
known to exaggerate,” Javid said. “Their story must be
—
”

“We need to get
a closer look,” Maya interrupted.

Javid turned and
faced her calmly “There are six Mantids protecting it.”

“Find a way,
Alek,” Maya demanded, ignoring Javid’s statement. The cut on her face had finally
stopped bleeding, but the scar was still deep.
It must hurt like hell
,
he thought. No wonder she sounded angry.

“CeeAuts help
Gray Sentinel,” a familiar voice said.

Alek spun around
and saw Persis standing at the bottom of the debris pile.

“Do you know
this creature?” Javid asked, moving quickly toward the CeeAut.

Alek crawled
down the pile and stood next to the Sentinel. “This one is called Persis,” he
said, unconsciously mimicking the CeeAuts unusual speech pattern. “I spoke with
her back when we were trapped inside the border.” He turned to Maya, who had
just climbed down to join them. “She helped me figure out how to get out of
there.”

Maya studied the
woman from head to foot. “Are you going to tell me that she came from one of
the simulations as well?”

“Same world as
the KaNanee, from what I’m told,” Alek said. The sight of Persis standing so
close to Maya made him nervous for some reason. Maybe he was worried that Maya
would pick up on his admittedly strong attraction to the strangely beautiful
creature.

“CeeAuts help
Gray Sentinel,” Persis repeated staring right at Alek.

“If the KaNanee
find you here,” Javid began, but he didn’t need to finish. “I assume that you
have been following us in the Tracer you stole.”

“I gave her the
Tracer,” Alek corrected him.

Maya stepped in
front of Alek to face Persis. “How can you help us?” she asked.

“Show you
opening to world,” Persis said.

“The Watchport
opening is well guarded,” Javid said.

“Tunnels,”
Persis said.

Maya looked up
at Alek. “Who makes the tunnels?”

“They are called
Moles,” Alek replied. “They dig tunnels in the ground. If you haven’t experienced
them yet, consider yourself lucky. The CeeAut use their tunnels to hide from
the KaNanee.

“CeeAuts use
tunnels,” Persis said. “Help others to surface.”

“It is possible
that a Mole tunnel intersected the Watchport beam below the ground,” Javid
said. “They are attracted to energy signatures, and a Watchport beam would be
very powerful.”

“That could
explain how the KaNanee and CeeAut made it out of the simulations,” Alek said.

Maya turned to
the CeeAut. “Is there a tunnel open to this beam?”

Persis nodded
once and then began walking back toward the circle of Tracers. It took Alek a
moment to realize that she expected him to follow. He started to move but Javid
put a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Are you sure
you can trust her?”

“No, but once
again, we don’t seem to have many options at this point. Are you coming with
us?”

Javid released
his grip. “My place is here. I will keep this area secure until you return.”

Maya was already
walking. Alek made a half salute to Javid and then turned and ran after her. In
the exact center of the ring of Tracers, he found Maya standing at a small
opening in the ground. He peered inside and saw a steeply sloping tunnel.

“Mole tunnel,”
he said.

She looked at
the backs of the four Tracers surrounding them. “It can’t be a coincidence that
Roy’s team parked their ships here.”

He looked at
her, then back down at the opening. “You think they escaped down this tunnel?”

“One way to find
out,” she said, and then jumped in. He watched her disappear into the depths.

He took a deep
breath and then jumped in. The sides of the tunnel were smooth as glass and the
slide down was fast. After a few seconds, the bottom leveled out and he slowed
to a stop. Maya stood nearby, motioning for him to follow.

After about ten
minutes of walking in near darkness, the tunnel began to get brighter. He
rounded a slow curve and found the source of the light—a glowing blue beam that
stretched from floor to ceiling. It stood at the center of an intersection
where several tunnels met.

“Must have been
quite a few Moles in the area,” Alek said, counting the number of intersecting
tunnels in the dim light of the beam.

“This has to be
the transportation conduit between the Watchport and the simulation in this sector,”
Maya whispered.

“Wait a minute.
Leconte told me there were all sorts of safeguards to prevent THI programs from
escaping the simulations,” he said. “These conduits seem like a really obvious
escape route to me.”

“Well, escaping
to Core memory is not exactly getting out of the system,” she said, “and don’t
let the name ‘Watcher’ fool you. They had the power and authority to delete any
program that tried to use their technology.”

“Lucky for us
they were destroyed with the Watchports.”

“Yeah, lucky.”

“So, if we step
into this thing, where will it take us?”

She shook her
head. “I’m not sure—wherever they were working when the Watchport was destroyed.
Most likely, somewhere inside the planet’s Survey Vessel, since that’s where
you would expect to find most of the researchers.”

“You think we’ll
find Roy and the others there?”

“I hope so,” she
said. “This is a two-way conduit, so if we find Roy and the others there, we
should be able to bring them back up to the Core with us.”

The thought of
bringing Roy back into the picture didn’t exactly make him happy. Then he
thought of something else. “Do you remember my original plan to get your people
back?”

She nodded. “You
wanted to bring everyone up from the simulations and place them inside the
Core. Then reboot the secondary systems to release Ceejer’s control.”

He nodded,
happy—and surprised—that she remembered. “If we can use these Watchports to get
Roy out, then we might be able to use them to get all of the hostages out of
all of the simulations. If we can do that, we won’t have to worry about finding
deletion routines.”

She chewed on
one of her fingernails a minute before responding. “Your plan might actually
work if there was more time. There are more than forty hostages and each one’s
inside one of a hundred simulations. Assuming that we could locate every
Watchport
and
that we could find tunnels like these underneath them,
what you’re talking about would takes us months, maybe longer. None of our
bodies can be interfaced for that long.”

“We’re all
interfaced at a speed 100 times normal,” he reminded her. “You said that the
interface chambers could keep the hostages alive for three or four more days.
That’s equal to almost a year here. I think we have time to try this.”

“Even if you’re
right, how will Rebecca know what we are doing? How will they know when
everyone’s out of the simulations?”

“They were able
to monitor your team’s locations in your Cartography room, which means they can
see any hostage we bring out of the simulations. I assume that they will be
smart enough to see what we are doing, and once we are all inside Core memory,
they will hopefully do the reboot I suggested and we can all go home.”

 Her face lit up
for the first time since he found her there. “This has to be why Leconte sent
you in here,” she said. “She knew that you would figure something like this
out. You’re a genius, Alek!” She smiled, which reopened the cut on her cheek.
“Damn, this hurts,” she snarled.

Alek looked over
at Persis. “We are going inside and I don’t know how long we will be gone. Can
you help Javid hold this location until we return?”

“The CeeAut
wait,” Persis said.

Alek turned and
faced the blue light. Maybe Maya was right, he thought. Maybe this was why Leconte
sent him in, and maybe his idea would work after all. He reached out and
clasped her hand, and then they stepped into the light together
.

PART THREE