Interphase (47 page)

Analara blinked and found herself in VERA's white walled palace. One by one her companions joined her, each bearing a grim or worried expression.

"Okay." Clyde nervously ran both hands through his hair. "Anyone want to take a stab at explaining just what the hell happened out there?"

"You mean,
besides
giant robots bursting up from the ground and annihilating everything?" Lucas responded.

"It appears that David's theory was correct," Thomas added gravely. "Those titans must have been the doom that Totarakh sent us digging toward."

David frowned. "Where could he have gotten them? I've never seen anything on Analath remotely near that level of technology. Have you, Analara?"

A memory tickled at the back of Analara's mind. "I've never seen anything like that either, but I recall hearing stories from the Artisan of Lost Times. Long ago, it is said that the people of my world walked about as giants and made war on each other."

"As giants?" David creased his brow. "Is it possible that Totarakh discovered some ancient Anrathian weapons and smuggled them here?"

"We can ponder where they came from later," Thomas said. "Right now, our primary task is to stop them."

Analara blanched at the thought. Those monsters were nothing short of invincible, capable of squashing them all with a single stomp. They would have been hard pressed to defeat just one of them inside V-Net, with full access to their talents and abilities. But on Phoenix, as mortals…

A thoughtful sound from Clyde drew her attention. His gaze was distant again, and when he spoke his tone was quite serious. "The Talan soldiers are still engaged. Exchanging heavy fire. The enemy behemoths are coordinated, choosing priority targets and covering each other. Someone has to be controlling—" Clyde suddenly blinked and turned around.

A shimmer of blue flickered in the air, and VERA appeared before them. She was openly angry. The sight frightened Analara.

"Those monstrosities are adept killing machines," she fumed. "The New Mercury dig site has been completely decimated!"

"Dr. Bell?" David asked.

Solemnly, VERA shook her head. "My Talans are holding the line, and I am bringing up every spare troop I have, but it will be close. The invaders must
not
reach New Mercury. We have to find a way to shut them down before they reach their full power."

Lucas paled. "You mean they're getting stronger?"

"Yes. My scans indicate that they are currently at 12% power output and growing. For the time being, their primary weapon systems remain offline. There is some good news, however. I discovered a signal linking both machines to a command source."

Clyde closed his eyes. "Show me?" A faint blue glow flowed from VERA to Clyde, and he frowned. "That almost looks like…"

"Yes," VERA acknowledged. "Code strings from the Analath gateway. They're coming from within V-Net and hijacking our equipment to broadcast to the robots."

Analara felt her breath come up short. "Totarakh. He must be controlling these things. This was his trap all along."

"So in order to stop the big, nasty robots," Lucas said, "we've got to find that asshole again?"

"Thankfully, the old bastard left us some breadcrumbs." Clyde opened his eyes. "The signals trace directly into the V-Net command level. He's running the show from the site of the last invasion."

VERA made a gesture, and a doorway opened behind them. She turned to Clyde, grasping his hand, and it seemed to Analara that she forgot the rest of them were there. "That level is still heavily damaged. Please be careful."

Clyde touched her cheek then tapped his forehead. "You'll know if something goes wrong. Now go show those invaders how we do things on Phoenix."

Nodding, VERA let go of his hand and faded away.

David's fingers slipped into Analara's, and she gave them a squeeze. Staying close together, they moved through the doorway.

What little remained within the enormous chamber still bore testimony to the battle that had taken place. The far terminal lay broken upon the floor; the walls were burnt and cracked. However, there was no sign of Totarakh. Analara gazed at the spot where the original gateway had stood. Something moved in the air just above the platform, and she squinted, trying to make it out. "David? What is that?"

They gathered around it. Analara could scarcely believe her eyes, but there it was: a dim, wavering outline of a midnight gateway.

"The dark portal," Clyde muttered. "How many gateways did he open?"

David stepped forward, and his image shimmered. He tipped a strange, broad-brimmed hat back on his head and knelt in front of the portal. He activated his wrist instrument and waited several seconds. Frowning, he tapped his chin. "This scenario is familiar. I can tell it leads
somewhere
, but couldn't tell you exactly where."

"Move aside." Clyde stepped forward, waved his fingers, and a screen similar to David's appeared in mid-air.

"That's a neat trick," David said enviously.

"Gift from the lady. Apparently the Architect gets to play with the really cool toys." He keyed in a series of commands, and Analara quickly lost interest. She turned to the gateway itself, watching the ripples of half-light that flowed across its surface. It reminded her of a spring bubbling up from below the ground.

"Ouch," Clyde exclaimed. "This thing's got some major protection on it. The code barriers are so thick, I can't slip a single probe through. The readouts show that this
is
the source of the signal though. Totarakh may be inside."

The waves continued to play over the sealed gate, never shifting in their paths, not even in response to Clyde's fiddling. They seemed almost alive. Analara reached up and traced her fingers along the path of an energy ripple. She felt a weak pressure against her skin, like a piece of sheer fabric wrapped over her fingertip, and a track of color appeared where she had touched. She pulled back, startled.

"Whoa, Annie! How did you do that?" Lucas asked.

"I don't…" Analara stared at her hand.

"Try it again," Thomas urged. She reached up and pressed her palm against the gateway this time. Light flared and spread across a large area, and she thought she could see something beyond. She glanced at David over her shoulder. He nodded encouragingly.

With both hands, Analara opened the dark portal and stepped through.

***

Clyde gaped in awe of the scene in front of him. He and his friends stood on a glass floor hanging over a sea of pale green light. The floor extended up in a gentle arc, leading toward a large suspended platform. There were no walls or roof to be seen, just light suffusing everything with a verdant glow. Though he'd been certain Totarakh would be inside, their nemesis was nowhere to be seen.

"VERA… are you seeing this?" Clyde whispered to her.

"Yes. It is beautiful," she responded.

The others seemed similarly dumbstruck, except Analara. She squinted at their surroundings, as if trying to pierce through the shadows to what lay beyond.

Clyde caught David's glance, and they nodded to each other. They led the way up the glass arch.

When they reached the platform, Clyde saw that it was ringed by banks of terminals. Empty monitors stood above row after row of controls, and a strange pointed device hung over a raised central dais. He stared at the controls with a hunger in his eyes.

Displays. Monitoring. Projection. Clyde could infer the purpose of many of the machines, but the text was completely unreadable. "VERA, can you run a translation program through our link?" he asked. "The normal V-Net interpreter doesn't appear to be functioning here."

"Executing now. It will take a few minutes for it to become fully effective," she replied.

"This… this can't be on Analath," Lucas murmured. "Can it?"

"This is where the control signal is coming from," David replied. "It would have to be."

"The source of the signal?" Analara began, then stopped. She frowned. "Then where is Totarakh?"

Clyde waved his hands through the air, trying to call up his display, but nothing happened. He tried again, with the same result. Something wasn't right. He looked over at David and noticed for the first time that the hat and trench coat were gone. "My interface program isn't loading. Are any of yours working?"

David reached for his coat pocket, a surprised look coming over his face when he realized that it was no longer there. "No. We've all reverted to our natural personas. Whatever this place is, it's highly protected."

Glancing over at Analara, Clyde noted that she still looked like her original self; she hadn't shifted back into Jessica's appearance. He looked at the nearest terminal, then back at her. "Dave, is it just me, or is the system treating Analara differently from the rest of us?"

David blinked and pursed his lips in thought. "I think you may be onto something."

"Analara, you got us here. Try using one of the consoles. Maybe you can get it to work," Clyde said.

Analara looked dubious, but she stepped forward. Experimentally she tapped at a few keys. A musical chime sounded, and a gentle voice spoke in a foreign language. All around the platform, consoles and monitors lit up.

The translator program wasn't operational yet, so Clyde had to ask. "Did you understand any of that?"

Nodding hesitantly, Analara looked at the keyboard with confusion. "It said that my… bio-coding? That it was a match."

Clyde nodded. "There's our answer. This system is definitely in Analath. It's probably keyed to be usable by Anrathians. I wond—"

"While this is all really cool, we've gotta find a way to jack up those mechs," Lucas interrupted.

Clyde glared at him. "I was getting to that, sweet cheeks. Now, at the moment, we don't have access to any translation code. VERA is running an interpreter program through our link, but it hasn't finished loading through this system's barrier. This means that you, Analara, are going to operate the controls for us."

Analara backed away from the console. "I don't know how to use any of this. What if I mess something up?"

Laying his hand on her shoulder, David spoke in a calm voice, "Clyde and I will walk you through it. There's nothing to be afraid of. Right now, you're the only one who can understand or use the system. If we're going to have any hope of saving Phoenix, it has to be you."

"I-I will try." Analara swallowed hard.

Clyde stepped closer to a console, motioning for her to join him. He pointed at a line of symbols near the top of the screen. "What does that say?"

Analara mouthed the words to herself, as if mulling them over. "Environmental System… Control."

"Okay. Find the key that opens a command menu."

"Command menu?" Analara's gaze roamed across the keys, searching for the right match. Her finger moved above a large key. "I think this is it."

"Hit it."

Tentatively, Analara pressed the key. A warning tone sounded, and a message flashed onto the screen.

"What does it say?" Clyde demanded.

"Controls sealed by command user override."

Clyde swore. "Someone has locked the system down already. Totarakh must have figured out how to use it when he was moving the robots to our world."

Concern flashed in David's eyes. "What does that mean?"

"It means we may be screwed. I can't hack a system without any bloody tools." Clyde pressed his hand to his forehead, his mind racing. "All right. Everyone spread out, try using each of the consoles. I don't care which buttons you press, let's just see if we can find one that hasn't been locked down and go from there."

The group separated, tapping keys at random and staring with frustration as the same error message displayed each time. Clyde began to feel the icy grip of despair crawling through him when David gave a shout. "I think I've got something here!"

Everyone rushed to his console, and Clyde saw what looked like a command prompt. Analara squinted at the screen. "External… Security Controls. Emergency Override… Enabled."

David cracked his knuckles. "I don't entirely know what I'm doing, but let's see what happens." He punched several keys, and strange characters typed out on screen. An odd sequence of chimes sounded.

Suddenly, a flash of light emanated from the screen, blinding Clyde. He blinked, and the world slowly came back into view.

David was gone.

Chapter 39

Protect.

The thought pervaded David's mind. He opened his eyes and stared at a horizon of tiny hills and pinpricks of light. A field of miniscule, gray objects swarmed across his field of vision.

Protect.

That single notion surrounded and encompassed him, and David struggled to wrest his thoughts from its grip. He focused on the memory of his own identity, blocking out the alien thoughts and images that tried to sweep him away in a flood.

Fighting back panic, David looked around. His friends were gone, along with the strange control chamber. The only thing he could see was the landscape stretching on beneath him. In the distance, a glowing dome arced high into the sky. A glowing dome…