Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) (28 page)

“What does that mean?” Mara asked.

“They’ve programmed every light in the city to emit the same series of pulses as the diodes they are carrying around,” he said.

“So they don’t need the diodes anymore.”

“And everyone in the valley is having their physiology altered to make them susceptible to addiction or euphoria.”

Mara straightened and turned around to look at the city lights. No wonder the city seems like it’s twinkling. Every streetlight, every screen is rewriting the software of every person all over the valley. Then something dawned on her, and she turned to Cam.

“That Ernie guy said they attempted to access the transceiver node array—all the nodes everywhere. Did they get this subroutine out, or is it still isolated to Portland?”

Cam’s face went pale. “I don’t know.” He hunched over the keyboard and typed for several minutes. “They definitely accessed the larger array, but I’m not seeing the distribution of the subroutine.” He clicked a few more minutes and then froze. Falling back in his seat, he grabbed his forehead and groaned.

“What?” Mara said.

“It’s out. They sent the routine over the array. It’s everywhere!”

Mara tapped the desk next to the keyboard with a finger. “Get it back. Can we get it back?”

Cam’s expression answered her question.

“They sent it a couple hours ago. Lights have been flashing all over the planet for more than an hour. It’s too late to even try.”

Mara leaned against the desk with both hands and bowed her head. She took a deep breath and tried to unclench her mind. She couldn’t think until a sense of surrender had overwhelmed her. She had to give up on the idea of preventing Abby’s plan from going forward.
That horse was out of the barn. But where was it going?

“We still don’t know why she’s doing this. Why alter people’s ability to resist addiction or to feel euphoria?” Mara asked.

Cam said, “I don’t know. This stuff is completely foreign to me. I’m not sure I will ever understand the rationale of doing something like this.”

“Well, I think we can safely say the diode thing is off the table. She’s no longer addicting people via access to the diodes. She basically just distributed the Euphoria drug for free to every light on the planet. She’s attempting to control everyone in a synthetic body through a larger distribution channel. But why?”

“Something metaphysical?” Cam asked.

“Definitely something metaphysical,” Mara said. “I just can’t seem to figure it out.”

“Ernie said something about them accessing the data of the PRI, the Physiology Research Institute. Maybe we should look there to see what they were interested in.”

“Research on how to create the subroutine and distribute it to lights throughout the world?” Mara asked.

“Unlikely. The Aphotis already had the basic research in place to create and program the diodes. The PRI information wouldn’t help with the technical aspect of distributing it across the transceiver node array. I’m betting the staff downstairs helped the blonde with that.”

Mara shrugged. “We probably should at least see what they were up to with the PRI.”

Cam leaned over the keyboard again. After just a few seconds, he leaned back but stared at the screen, his features twisted into a look of confusion.

“What? What were they looking at?”

“Holographic research. They downloaded everything in the system about holographic physiology research. Strange,” he said.

“You mean the projections, like in the repository lab, that allowed them to talk to you while diagnosing your body?”

“No, this is the advanced stuff that the PRI is working on that would allow our mechanical bodies to be replaced by holographic bodies,” he said. He shook his head, none of it making sense to him. “It’s ridiculous. This research is in its infancy. It’s nowhere close to something that can be achieved in reality.” He looked up from the monitor and asked, “What do you think they are doing?”

“I take them at their word,” Mara said.

He shook his head. “I don’t follow.”

“They want to
be the light
.”

Mara pulled Cam from the seat by his shoulders and shuffled him toward the door of the auxiliary diagnostics office. Once she decided she had all the information she needed from the terminal, she wanted to get back to her brother. Without delay.

“Wait a minute!” Cam said. “You don’t seriously think they are attempting to create living, breathing holograms. Do you? Because I have to tell you, from what I’ve read in the past and what I’ve seen in the materials they accessed, the whole concept is little more than a pie-in-the-sky theory. We are decades from even building a prototype of such a system.”

Opening the door, Mara pushed him through it and said, “We can discuss it on the way to get Sam. No point in just sitting in the office.”

They made a point of staying close to the wall, as far as possible from the railing at the edge of the atrium. While they walked, Mara glanced across the open expanse of the atrium to the glowing column on the opposite side, where Sam waited, hidden.

“I’m concerned you might be jumping to erroneous conclusions about all this,” Cam said.

Mara didn’t slow her pace. “I understand that the technology doesn’t exist to turn people into living holograms, but, like I said earlier, Abby isn’t necessarily constrained by science to get what she wants. I’ve got to consider what is possible metaphysically as well.”

“What would be the point of turning people into holograms?” he asked.

“I don’t know. If that’s what she doing, it must give her some kind of advantage in this battle of existence she seems determined to have.” They didn’t speak for a few minutes as they approached the corner, not wanting to make any noise in case someone stood around the bend, out of sight. After clearing the corner, Mara added, “The whole thing could be a wild goose chase. I could be totally wrong about this.”

“I certainly hope you are. I don’t find the notion of being a wisp of light very appealing at all,” Cam said.

“Why is that?”

“I just think that it would be one step too far technologically. I think, without the physicality of having a body—a body made of real, tangible matter—we would cease being human.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Why is the idea of being made of light so unappealing to you, but the multitudes downstairs and downtown seem enthralled with the concept?” she asked.

“Perhaps there are benefits that I’m not aware of. I haven’t really given it much thought since it has never been a serious possibility.”

“Or maybe it’s just not appealing to you because you haven’t
seen the light
like all those other—”

Mara stopped walking and reached out to grab Cam’s shoulder. When he stared at her with a quizzical expression, she nodded ahead and pushed him toward the wall. Looking around for some place to hide, she spotted a door a few feet behind them. It was slightly recessed into the wall. Grabbing Cam’s hand, she pulled him toward it.

About thirty yards away, two policemen stood next to the column where Sam was supposed to be hiding. They looked at the floor at something blocked from Mara’s view. When Mara followed their gaze, she saw Sam’s sneakered foot slowly lolling back and forth. Glancing back up at the policemen, she wasn’t sure if they were the same pair they had encountered from the first floor, but they didn’t have their Tasers drawn.

“What are you going to do?” Cam whispered.

“Nothing yet. He might have the situation under control. I just can’t tell from this angle,” she said.

One of the police officers bent forward, his torso disappearing behind the column. When he straightened, he had slipped his arms beneath Sam’s shoulders and lifted him in a clumsy bear hug. Sam was sagging in the cop’s arms. The second cop slipped in behind and locked arms with his partner so both of them could support Sam’s weight. They walked toward the stairwell with Sam dangling between them, his feet dragging uselessly on the floor.

Mara sprang from the shallow doorway and sprinted toward them. Cam, caught off guard by her sudden move, trailed behind.

“Hey, you guys! Leave him alone!” Mara shouted.

The two cops slowly pivoted to face her. As she approached, she recognized them. It was the cops from the first floor. The one called McGuire pulled out his Taser and pointed it at Mara. “Hold it right there, young lady.”

Mara slowed from a fast trot to a slow walk, but she didn’t stop advancing. She stared at her brother, whose head lolled to the right. “What did you do to him?”

“Just calm down. We’re taking him downstairs for questioning,” the other cop said.

“No, you’re not,” she said. “Let him go.”

Cam caught up to them, and McGuire pointed his Taser at them both. “I want the two of you to walk toward the stairs and don’t make any sudden moves, or you’ll get the same as this guy. I don’t want to have to carry all three of you down the stairs.”

Off to their left, they heard a door slam. Someone had just entered from the stairwell, but Mara couldn’t take her gaze off Sam. His cheeks were bright red, and she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Panic welled up in her chest.

“That’s her! That’s the one they warned us about,” said an elderly woman in cat-eye glasses, standing next to a bald man in front of the stairwell door. Both wore pale blue lab coats. She pointed an accusing finger and shouted, “Arrest her and take her to the Aphotis.”

Mara’s mind seized up. For a split second her only thought was,
why does a woman with a synthetic body who sees through her skin need cat-eye glasses?
Then Sam groaned, and Mara’s heart leapt.

She splayed her hands in front of her, and McGuire exploded into a shower of tiny translucent cubes. Sam slumped away from the other cop, knocking him off balance. While maintaining a grip on Sam with one hand, the cop reached for his earpiece with the other and said, “We’ve located the—”

Mara turned on him, and he too exploded. A cascade of shimmering pixels slowly rained down over them and disappeared before reaching the floor. Mara ran forward to catch Sam but could only manage to break his fall and tumble with him to the floor. As Cam ran up, Mara slid out from under her brother and slowly rolled him to his back. His eyes fluttered open but not another muscle in his body moved.

Leaning over him, Mara said, “What happened? Did they Taser you?”

He swallowed with effort. His lips barely moved. “Yes, but it’s not that.”

“What? Not what?”

“My skin is numb. I can’t feel anything,” he said.

“The effects should wear off in a few minutes.” She looked up to Cam for confirmation.

He nodded. “Usually. I believe that’s the case.”

“No. I was going numb before the Taser. I can’t feel anything,” Sam said.

“You mean you’re paralyzed?”

“I don’t think so.” His eyes shifted to his side, and he raised his arm. “My muscles are working. I just can’t feel anything when I touch it. It makes it hard to move, because I can’t tell when the movement has happened.”

Cam knelt next to them and said, “It’s the virus. It’s compromising his sense of touch. It’s one of the first-stage symptoms that Dr. Canfield told you about, just like Mr. Ping’s loss of hearing.”

Mara touched her brother’s cheek and said, “You
do
have a fever. We need to get you to the receptacle before it gets worse.”

Her gaze shifted to Sam’s feet and a flash of light burst over his shoes. When it faded, his sneakers were gone, replaced by a pair of the permeable socks they had seen on Ping’s feet before he entered the receptacle.

Sam flopped on the ground, trying to sit up. “No! Wait!” he said.

Mara helped him get upright and said, “We can’t put this off any longer. I won’t just sit by and watch you die.”

“You had this planned the whole time. How did you even know where to get a pair of those receptacle socks?” His face reddened even more.

“I asked Dr. Canfield, and she showed me. We both knew this was a possibility before we left the repository.”

His eyes shone in the ambient glow of the plasma light coming from the column close by. He blinked several times and cleared his throat. “I don’t want to go into the tube. What if you don’t come back? What will happen to me and Ping? We won’t be able to get home.”

She put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I still don’t know what we’re facing here, but I do know one thing—I’m not leaving you guys in those tubes. I will get back there and take you home. I promise.”

“But—”

She put a finger over his lips and said, “No buts. Just close your eyes, and, before you know it, we’ll be on our way home.”

A flash of light enveloped Sam.

Several miles away he appeared in the tube next to Ping’s. The console at the base of the receptacle lit up, and silent lines crawled across its screen.

Mara squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back the tears she’d held in while attending to her brother. Wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, she looked at Cam and said, “We can’t stay here. As soon as those people get to the ground floor, they will sound the alarm, and then we’ll get mobbed.”

“I suppose making a discreet exit is out of the question?” Cam asked.

Bending over to retrieve the book bag, she said, “I can’t leave until I understand what is happening, and I need you here to help me find my way around. You’ve got access to the schematics of this place. Is there someplace we can hide, where every pedestrian here won’t trip over us? Preferably so we can see what’s going on downstairs.”

“What if we returned to the diagnostics office and observed what was happening using the network video feed? Ernie said he had access to security video from that system.”

“Normally that would be ideal, but I don’t want to be backed into a corner. And they know we’re on the third floor, so I would assume they will eventually get around to checking all the offices. I was thinking something a little more off the beaten path.”

Cam’s eyes slid upward and moved back and forth as he considered it. “I’m not finding anything. The perimeter of the atrium is wide open. It’s not like this place was designed to accommodate clandestine observation.”