Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) (33 page)

Mara laughed and blushed. “It really doesn’t feel much different, once you wrap your mind around it.”

“The doctor says you wanted to visit your biological body. Are you sure you are up to it?” he asked.

“Is she really in that bad of shape?”

“She—you—did get banged up pretty bad in the explosion, but that’s not why I asked. It’s generally discouraged for us to obsess about our biological bodies, after we’ve made the transition. Visiting them is not recommended, and most people never do it.”

“Well, this transition is a temporary one, and I want to have a look, just for my peace of mind. If you’d rather wait here, I will understand,” she said.

“No, that’s not necessary. I’ll walk with you.” He gestured toward the end of the hall. “Her room is this way.”

* * *

Mara gasped as she walked into the room and saw her own bruised and swollen face lying in the hospital bed. Her face was all she could see. Her head was bandaged, and the sheets were pulled up to her chin, though Mara could tell her left arm and right leg were both in casts or splints of some kind. Lines jumped up and down on the monitors on the far side of the bed, but, other than that, no sign of life existed in the body in the room.

She slowly approached the bed with Cam right behind her. With one finger, she reached under the head bandage and pulled it slightly away from her skull.

“Her head is shaved,” Mara said.

“There really wasn’t much hair left to shave after the explosion and fire,” he said.

She leaned forward and put her right ear next to her body’s lips. She could barely feel her breath. Straightening, she lifted the sheet and looked at her body. It wore the same sort of hospital gown she had on under the robe. Though her left arm was covered with a splint and bandages, her right was red and blistered, covered in some kind of salve. Her neck and chest had scratches and welts as well. She released the sheet and stepped back.

“Are you okay?” Cam asked.

“Apart from the metaphysical questions raised by me looking at myself like this and wondering if I am actually me or some other version of me, yeah, I’m okay.” She paused and added, “I think.”

“She actually looks much better than when we got back,” he said.

Without taking her gaze off her body, Mara asked, “Exactly how did we get back? The last thing I remember was everyone running from the atrium, and you signaling me that something was going to explode.”

“After you fractured the node’s sphere and released the plasma into the air, it turned into a highly volatile gas that exploded. That’s what I was warning you about.”

“Yes, but you were with Abby. How did you get away?”

“At first they tried to keep me, but, once they understood what was about to happen, they just ran for it, leaving me in the hallway outside the atrium. Luckily that part of the building did not collapse in the explosion.” Nodding down to the bed, he said, “Unfortunately she was not that lucky. Most of the explosion and destruction was in and around the atrium.”

“And how did we get back here?”

“I brought you here, because I knew that Dr. Canfield was already familiar with your situation. If I had taken you to a hospital, there would have been a lot of questions, and, with all the pandemonium going on in the city, this just seemed like the most logical option.”

“You went into the atrium for me and then carried my body all the way back here?” She turned and looked at him.

“You came back for me when I needed help. How could I not do the same? Besides, I just carried you from Rocky Butte to the railcar station, not all the way back.”

“Oh, just down the butte to a station a couple miles away. No big deal.”

“You would have done the same.”

Looking at her damaged body on the bed, she said, “Well, thank you. From both of us.”

Though Dr. Canfield didn’t see the point in Mara going into the repository to check on Ping and Sam, the doctor granted permission but only under the condition that Cam escort Mara, since all the attendants were busy dealing with returnees at the moment. Mara needed to focus on something other than living in a synthetic body, and she hoped checking on Ping and her brother might do the trick. She had no doubts they were okay, but she did feel guilty about consigning her brother to the tube with little preparation or preamble. Maybe the guilt would push away the sense of panic and doubt she felt about being displaced from her own body.

“Considering that you did not grow up expecting to transition to a synthetic body, you seem to be coping with it quite well,” Cam said, as they walked from the offices into the cavernous parking lot. Following the path marked in diagonal yellow lines, they proceeded along the rough-hewn rocky wall until they came to the tunnel leading to the repository complex.

“To be honest with you, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole concept,” she said. “Don’t give me a gold star yet. Some anxiety is bouncing around inside here.”

“Give it time. You’ll get used to it. Before you know it, you won’t even think about it,” he said, as they entered the tunnel.

The low lights reminded Mara about the doctor’s admonition to get as much exposure to light as possible. As they walked the inclined tunnel, Mara asked, “How long can this body survive with limited exposure to light?”

“You shouldn’t worry about running out of energy, if that’s what you mean. Our skin generally draws more energy from even low-light environments than we need to live,” he said.

“But with the transceiver node down, we don’t have a backup, do we?”

“We can draw on the reserves of the repository. In a way, we already are, since the only source of light down here is artificial and powered by the repository systems.”

They approached the two large doors at the end of the tunnel. Cam leaned sideways, placing his face in front of the scanning device mounted on the wall. A band of light passed over his features, and the doors disappeared into the tunnel walls. He waved for her to proceed onto the wire mesh platform overlooking the massive cavern that housed the repository complex.

“What if we draw too much from the repository? What will happen to the bodies in the tubes?” she asked.

Cam chuckled. “Would you stop looking for technical problems? We use a miniscule amount of power compared to what it takes to operate this facility. You can’t draw too much power. Any excess energy that runs through your body flows directly back into the repository systems while you are here. It’s a very efficient design.”

The doors behind them closed, and Cam pushed the button for the bridgeway, which swung up from below the platform on which they stood. He motioned for Mara to cross.

Mara stared into the darkness of the silo as they walked. To deal with the light touch of vertigo she felt, she concentrated on the issue at hand. “Yes, but Dr. Canfield said that, as long as the node was down, I should make sure to get as much exposure to light as possible, so there must be some danger of running short of power.”

“She’s a doctor. It’s her job to be cautious. I’m sure she was just helping you be more aware of your new body’s needs and how it works. Besides, I’m sure they will have a provisional node up and running any day now. Disaster protocol calls for its deployment within five days, and it’s been four since the explosion.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” she said.

They stepped off the bridgeway onto the circular platform that topped the repository structure and headed for the elevator that would take them to where the bodies were stored.

* * *

The peeved expression on Sam’s face might have only been in Mara’s imagination, but she was certain that, when her brother fell into whatever kind of slumber the repository induced, he wasn’t a happy camper. Mara stood on the edge of the platform that held the tube encasing him and stared through its transparent walls. He looked okay. His complexion, normally quite fair, actually looked rosy, as if he’d come in from a game of basketball. It was a healthy glow.

“Somehow I expected him to look paler, with maybe a tinge of blue around the lips,” Mara said.

Cam, who stood a few feet away in front of the console next to the receptacle, said, “He’s in stasis, not refrigeration. His body temperature is maintained at a normal level.”

Mara walked down the small steps alongside the platform and stood next to him. She pointed to the rows of empty receptacle tubes and said, “I know. They just give me a meat-locker vibe I guess.”

He grimaced at her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage—”

Dismissing her concern with the wave of a hand, he said, “Would you like to visit with Mr. Ping?”

She glanced at the tube that held him, stared at his silhouette for several seconds and said, “I guess there’s no point in climbing up there just to stare at him. Maybe Dr. Canfield was right. Why did I bother coming here?”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be near the people you care about, wanting to make sure they are safe and taken care of,” Cam said. “Also you’ve been through a rather radical transition. Reaching out for something familiar is a completely natural human reaction.”

“You’re a good friend, Cam. I’m glad we met. I’ll be very sad when it’s time to go home,” she said.

“You know, there’s no reason that you have to leave. Once your biological body has been placed in the receptacle and cleared of the virus, she should be able to take Mr. Ping and Sam to your realm. Couldn’t you just stay here? With your new body, life would be much easier if you remained in this realm. Believe me, I know. I tried to live in your realm.”

Mara shook her head. “Somehow I don’t think that’s how this is supposed to work out. This realm already has a Mara, and this body belongs to her, not to me.” Turning on her heel, she looked past Sam’s receptacle to the empty one next to it. “When the body they put into that tube tomorrow goes back to my realm, I’m going with her.”

“I don’t understand how that might work,” Cam said.

“Neither do I, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she said. “First, I need to figure out what to do about my friend Abby.”

“You mean, the Aphotis,” Cam said. “And, if I were you, I wouldn’t refer to her as
my friend
in front of anyone, at least not anyone who isn’t a
shimmer
.”

“A
shimmer
?”

“That’s what they are calling the people who have transfigured into living holograms.”

“How many of them are there?” Mara asked.

“Most likely thousands by now,” Cam said. “But virtually all of them are here in the valley, in the Portland area. If you hadn’t destroyed the transceiver node, probably millions of them would be all over the world by now.”

“So she wasn’t able to share this transfiguration experience across the transceiver array. What’s stopping her from going to another regional node somewhere else? It’s been four days since the node exploded. Surely the Aphotis and her followers could have access to another node by now.”

Cam shook his head. “I don’t know for sure, since the Sig-net is down, but I suspect the other regional nodes aren’t just sitting around, waiting to be attacked. Administrators in other regions have to know that Portland’s node is down and that some kind of breach of the transceiver array was attempted. Also you must take into account that most of her followers are here in Portland. It would take her time to muster the strength to overwhelm another node in a different city.”

“It would be easier to spread her reach through a node,” Mara said. “Wait a minute! You said you expect a provisional node to come online any day now.”

“Exactly,” Cam said.

“So you think they will attack the provisional node and once again attempt to upload their transfiguration experience to the rest of the world?”

Cam looked at her intently. “I don’t think they will have to attack. So many people have converted to shimmers now that they are probably the ones in charge of deploying the provisional node.”

“That means the node will not only restore power to everyone but it will also give Abby the means to tap into the array and extend her reach,” Mara said. “You’ll be in danger of coming under the influence of this transfiguration upload.”

“And so will you, now that you have a synthetic body.”

Mara unconsciously touched her own chest. She took a deep breath, then sighed. “Great. Where is this provisional node most likely to be set up?”

“I would think the most logical place would be near the building on Rocky Butte. The node would still need an elevated location, and some of the equipment in the building—like the storage units in the basement or the cubes on the second floor—might be useable,” he said.

“Then I guess we’re going back to Rocky Butte,” she said.

As Cam opened his mouth to reply, a loud, high-pitched tone pierced the air three times. He closed his mouth without saying anything and cocked his head.

“What is it?” Mara asked.

“It’s a facility alarm. It’s only used if there is no Sig-net signal with which to communicate an emergency,” he said.

“What kind of emergency?”

He raised a finger to his lips and said, “There will be an audible announcement. Listen.”

After a moment, a deep male voice echoed throughout the open floor of the repository. “Internal lockdown procedures have been initiated. All entrances and exits have been sealed. Please remain in the section where you are located. Two shimmers have breached this facility and were seen carrying a female patient from the laboratory complex. Please note, the patient is an untransitioned adult female under the care of this facility. If you see these people, please report it to security immediately.”

Mara grabbed Cam’s arms and said, “Please tell me that is not what I think it is.”

Cam tried to keep his voice steady. “I’m sure they’ll—”

“What is happening?” she yelled at him, her face turning red.

He gave up reassuring her and said, “It sounds like someone broke in and stole your body.”