Interphase (62 page)

"Stopped Totarakh?" Shalaron stepped closer to David and laughed. "You merely tried to ambush me after I spent all of
my
power eliminating him once and for all. If not for me, his evil would have destroyed you and your world!"

"So I'm supposed to thank you?" David shouted.

Shalaron's eyes narrowed. "His cause was foolhardy and self-serving. He cared nothing for the people he was sworn to protect!"

"Unlike you?" David retorted. Tears of anger clouded his vision, and he released the rage he'd been holding within. "You tried to kill a daughter of your own city! An innocent, whose only crime was showing kindness to a stranger. You are more vile than Totarakh at his worst."

"My quarrel with Analara died in that chamber," Shalaron said dangerously.

"Tell that to my murdered friend, you bastard!"

David struck so quickly that even Shalaron was caught off guard. The blow snapped his head to the side. It was fleeting, but it was a victory.

Shalaron rounded on him, eyes ablaze. His punch doubled David over, and a round kick drove him to the ground. "You are no innocent," he roared. "You cut Melarras down in your escape from Ilinar. You slew Halathas…" His breath caught thickly in his throat.

"So you're going to punish my entire race in some mad pursuit of revenge?" David struggled to his feet and advanced on Shalaron again. "Just kill me and be done with it."

"Not before I take my world back," Shalaron screamed into the night. "You have no idea how close your doom is. My men have infiltrated each of your cities. They have taken control of the power that fuels your feeble race. And they will use that power to destroy your immortal leader."

David halted in his tracks as his knees went watery. "You
are
going after VERA."

"She can not control reality here any more than I can. She will be utterly erased." Shalaron grabbed David by the throat. "Analath has operated for thousands of years as a perfect mimicry of our lost home. It is superior to your network in every sense. When VERA is no more, Analath will merge with your system and overwrite it. Every human being will serve as a body for an Anrathian. My people
will
retake their rightful place as lords of this world!"

And humanity will be erased from existence… no, no I won't let this happen!

"You think you are worthy of this world?" David demanded. "My race was nothing more than refugees, fleeing the destruction of our home. We were no invaders. When we found this place, there was no trace of any of you. Nothing at all. I've seen Siath's archives, Shalaron. Your people brought about the destruction of your own planet. You destroyed it all. You don't deserve to have this world back!"

Shalaron's fury exploded in a flurry of blows, and David collapsed under the fresh assault.

Analara… my friends… stop him…

***

Clyde listened to the unfolding beating and winced. David had helped reveal Shalaron's plans, but at what cost? He spared a glance at Analara, who clenched her fists while tears streamed from her closed eyes. Thomas and Lucas both looked on with grim demeanors.

"This can not be allowed to happen," Mierva whispered in his mind. "I have not defended humanity for hundreds of years only to lose them to a vengeful lunatic now."

"I'm still not sure what he meant by 'power'," Clyde whispered back. "What fuels humanity?"

"I can only assume that he is referring to electricity. It powers nearly everything we've created in recent history."

"Let me pull up the security feeds at the city power stations then." Clyde opened the monitoring program and accessed the secure feeds. The screens were all blank. "Um, that isn't good. Can you get any response from the security robots?"

Mierva narrowed her eyes in concentration, before shaking her head. "No. I think we know now what Shalaron targeted with his code attack. The stations are completely undefended."

An alert rang through the chamber, and several new screens opened above the command console. They displayed the power grids of the Nine Cities and indicated that electrical surges were being directed toward small buildings within the power complexes.

The lights in the chamber dimmed momentarily, and Mierva's eyes widened. She gasped in pain. "They've overloaded my power regulators," she said aloud.

Swearing profusely, Clyde started entering commands to reroute and divert an incoming energy surge. "What does that mean?" he asked.

"The regulator stations spread the energy draw from my core mainframe across the Nine Cities to prevent me from sustaining damage from any power irregularities. Without those systems, any severe electrical burst will destroy my mainframe." Mierva looked at Clyde in horror. "It will kill me."

"Like hell," Clyde snarled. "I didn't go through all the trouble of falling in love with you just to watch you get erased." He activated another control sequence and began typing furiously. "I can still utilize the grid control systems from here. I'll divert those power streams away from the mainframe. Those bastards won't get a chance to touch you."

David's transmission had gone quiet. Clyde could only assume that Shalaron was watching and waiting for the power strikes to hit.

Analara looked tearfully around at everyone. "David is still trapped on the roof with that maniac. We have to help him!"

"Someone else think of something," Clyde shouted. "I'm kind of busy here."

"Wait, wait." Lucas snapped his fingers as if trying to jump start a thought. "Could we trap Shalaron in a secure module? We could use a burst connect signal to pull him into a local network, and leave him there."

Clyde choked. "A burst connection signal is fatal if your mind isn't being stabilized by the sub-routines in a link chair."

Lucas glared intently. "That's the general idea."

Thomas pursed his forehead in thought. "So we need to separate Shalaron from David and trap him inside David's apartment? You'll be able to fire the system from there?"

Lucas nodded. "I can use my gaming module as the trap. I'll load it into David's home system and prepare the burst. With the remote link he's given us, we don't even need to route this through V-Net. Shalaron will be totally cut off from the system."

"I'll go and take care of Shalaron then," Thomas stated.

"You'll still need to get David away from him," Clyde warned. The displays showed three power surges. He juggled and danced them across New Terra's power grid in a mad effort to keep them away from Mierva's mainframe.

"The weather system," Analara said. "David told me… you can create things called storms. There is nothing in Analath like it. Shalaron won't know how to react."

"You'll have to set it up, Analara," Thomas said. "The rest of us have tasks to see to." Without a further word, he logged out of the system.

"Try and give David some kind of warning before you fire it off," Lucas cautioned and returned to typing on his wrist interface.

Analara sat down at a console. She seemed unsure of which buttons to press. Her hand hovered over the dizzying array of commands. A soft touch guided her hand to a specific button. "That's the one you want," Mierva told her. "Now press those two commands, and touch the display right here." Analara did as directed, and the system indicated that the storm was brewing.

"Thank you," she whispered.

There were now seven energy surges rolling across New Terra's power grid. Clyde shifted routes and opened new pathways as quickly as he could, but he was reaching his limits.

"Mierva, I may need some help here," he whispered through their link.

"I wish that I could, love," she replied wearily. "But the overload is numbing my senses. I can barely feel the power grid any longer."

Clyde's face grew desperate as the last two power stations fired. Nine surges bent and twisted, seeking to destroy the only thing he had come to love on this planet.

Mierva sighed and closed her eyes, and Clyde sensed a strange signal broadcasting outward. A moment later, the network monitor reported mass disconnections from the system. Everyone on the planet was being logged out of V-Net. "Mierva, what…" he asked as he turned to her.

She pressed her finger against Clyde's lips and opened her eyes. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but he thought he saw tears in her eyes. "My last gift to our people, so that none of them will be lost with me."

The power system rang out a final warning. Mierva embraced Clyde and kissed him as the surges struck home.

He felt her scream through the link as power overloaded her mainframe. The sound echoed through his mind, and her figure fell backward, sparking with coruscating lines of electricity. "Mierva," he shouted.

Alarms blared throughout the chamber, and red warnings flashed on every screen. The room buckled, and the lights flickered, went dark.

Slowly, illumination returned to the chamber. Clyde could barely make out the faces of his friends. Mierva was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened?" Lucas shouted.

Clyde lowered his head and felt tears sliding down his cheeks. "She shut down the network before they killed her. It was the only way she could prevent the merge from taking place. She sacrificed herself… for us."

Analara looked around the room. "How are we still here then? This room was part of her, part of the network."

Clyde touched the nearest console. All of the systems were completely dark. "She must have used what was left of her power to maintain this place, so that we wouldn't be lost in the system crash."

"Doesn't that mean that part of her may still be alive?" Analara touched Clyde's shoulder gently.

Clyde probed at the link, the place where Mierva had come to share his entire life. There was no response, no presence, nothing at all.

Tears continued to roll down his cheeks. He was alone.

Chapter 50

The explosion lit up the horizon, and the surrounding city lights flared brighter. Even at this distance, the force of the detonation shook the building. Through the blood and the bruises, David felt a sinking pit open in his stomach. Had he just witnessed the end of humanity?

Shalaron watched the burning vista with a rapt expression. "It is time. The Awakening is at hand." He reached down to his pocket and pulled out a phone earpiece. Fitting it to his ear, he initiated a call. "Thal, the protector has fallen. Fulfill your mission and bring our people home."

Seconds passed, and David despairingly began to wonder what the Awakening would look like. Would there be a surge of power? Would there be no visible difference at all?

A frown grew on Shalaron's face. "Thal, respond."

A glimmer of hope sparked in the corner of David's mind. Something was not right.

Shalaron cancelled the call and opened another. "Monar, report your status."

David inched closer, straining to hear the other part of the conversation, but it was impossible.

"What do you mean, the dream world is closed to you?" Shalaron snarled. "There is no way that anyone could…" His gaze became distant, and he turned toward the column of smoke billowing up toward the energy dome.

A mechanical whirring sounded from the spire atop the building, and the weather control array unfolded from its storage. Clouds began to form above, and David felt dampness in the air.

The lights in the city had continued to brighten and dim after the explosion, as if raw electricity flowed underneath the streets. Now, surges rose along the buildings, as floor after floor of lights flared. The power was looking for a way out of the city. It was headed for the sky.

A cold downpour of rain cascaded from the nascent clouds. The chill numbed the worst of David's aches and restored some of his senses. The hope within grew stronger. Somehow his friends had disrupted part of Shalaron's design. He stood up with his arms outstretched, welcoming the torrent.

Shalaron had the opposite reaction; the Sage recoiled from the edge of the roof and tried to rub his eyes clear of the droplets. He wheeled on David. "What have you done?" he shouted.

David grinned back at him. "If you intend to take over the planet, the least you could do is familiarize yourself with the weather."

Another hum filled David's ears, this time more potent. The energy surges that had been coursing up the buildings had reached the top. Arcs of electricity leapt from the lightning rods and moisture emitters. Across the cityscape, bolts of lightning launched from skyscrapers, bouncing off the dome to crash into the tops of other towers.

"What manner of assault is this?" Shalaron demanded. He seized David by his shirt.

David felt, more than saw, the approaching bolt. With a burst of desperate strength, he twisted, pulling his shirt from Shalaron's grasp. Nearly slipping on the soaked rooftop, he sprang for the door to the stairs. The hair on his arms stood up, and a blinding light threw his shadow on the wall. He heard Shalaron cry out in pain and surprise, just before his voice was drowned by the crash of thunder.

The heat was intense, and David wondered if he'd been burned as he stumbled down the stairs. His wrist interface crackled slightly; he thought he heard a faint voice. "Bro, get to your apartment!"