Mythos (34 page)

“Now I see,” I said. “If AI free will is itself a quantum effect, then there could be some sort of observer resonance between AIs.”

“Wait a second,” said Loki. “Wouldn’t that go both ways? If the nature of the data flow is changed by your observing it here, then Mimir might be able to sense that.”

Melchior nodded. “If he’s looking for it. This is all guesswork, and it’s a tiny effect, but if I’m right, and he starts paying attention, it would be very hard for him to miss.”

“Then,” said Loki, looking directly into my eyes, “unless you want to try to crack MimirNet with Odin ready and waiting for you, you’d better get a move on.”

I hate being rushed into dangerous actions, yet it happens often enough that I should probably set up a macro in my calendar software—type
RID
and it pops up
7:15 rushed into danger
, or something like that. I suppose that could be the whole Fate-meets-Slapstick part of my nature again, but I’d rather believe I am more of a free agent than that.

No matter what the reason, here I was again. If I was going to crack MimirNet and help break this universe free of the deterministic claws of Fate, I had to act quickly. The fact that the future of the planet Earth and the lives of all the gods and monsters who made up my local peer group hung in the balance just added to the pressure.

We had a major problem, and his name was Heimdall.

Melchior and I had backtracked the virtual twists and turns of MimirNet from our point of electronic entry to a junction where dozens of MimirNet’s rainbow threads met and merged into one broad trunkway. We had found the backbone that connected the threads of the multiworld network with the physical heart of MimirNet, the server farm hidden within the roots of Yggdrasil. It was the sole access route, and it was protected by something infinitely worse than a run-of-the-mill firewall. Heimdall.

The stretch of rainbow network arched off into the misty distance, echoing the Bifrost of the real world, right down to the guardian god riding his horse back and forth across its surface and blocking our path.

I lowered the virtual telescope I’d conjured to spy out the way and vigorously suppressed an urge to swear. We’d had one bit of luck in that he was moving away from us at the moment, but that wouldn’t help us with his ears. I caught Melchior’s eye and put a finger to my lips to indicate quiet before holding up the scope so that he could see the problem as well.

Melchior had assumed his winged-serpent shape once again and coiled himself neatly around my shoulder, so I barely had to move the eyepiece. A moment later he pulled his face away from the scope and started very gently banging his tiny head on the side of my own. I reached up and stopped him, afraid that even such a small noise might give us away. I shook my head and jerked my thumb backwards. He nodded his agreement, and we withdrew to the outer fringes of the network.

“We’ve got a serious problem,” I said, when we’d removed ourselves the virtual equivalent of several miles.

“I’m confused,” said Melchior. “I mean, according to that Edda thing, Bifrost connects Midgard to Asgard and Heimdall guards it twenty-four/seven, right?”

I nodded.

“Yet here’s Heimdall smack in the middle of the network trunk just when we want to make use of it. How does that work? Why isn’t he home on his bridge in the real world?”

“Actually, I might have a theory on that,” I said, thinking aloud. “According to the Edda, Bifrost runs from Heimdall’s palace on the Asgard end to the roots of Yggdrasil in Midgard/Earth. But since ten minutes with any geographical search engine is going to show there’s no forty-mile-tall ash tree anywhere on planet Earth, you have to figure the Edda took some license here and there.”

“That, or the gods lied to humans about something . . . again,” said Melchior.

“There’s always that possibility. In either case, I think Bifrost is more of a Greatspell than it is a physical bridge between two defined places. One that connects Asgard to any and every place Odin wants it connected, including purely magical places like Yggdrasil and Mimir’s Well. I also suspect it provides the physical backbone of MimirNet.” I bent and tapped the rainbow segment beneath us. “This whole network is part and parcel of Bifrost. It doesn’t just look like the Rainbow Bridge; it
is
the Rainbow Bridge. Heimdall doesn’t have to leave his guard post in the physical world, because in this one special place, the virtual and the physical are one and the same.”

“That almost makes sense, Boss. Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine, Mel. Thanks for asking so politely.”

“So, what do we do about Heimdall?”

“I think we’re going to need a distraction. Let’s head back to Rune and see what we can cook up.”

That was when everything went momentarily dim and quiet. For just an instant the rainbow beneath us went grayscale, and the invisible walls ghosted into translucent visibility, suggesting tank armor rendered in mist or smoke.

“What the—” I began, but Melchior’s winged snake grew from thirty inches to thirty feet in an instant and caught me in its coils, holding me tight as we rocketed into motion.

“—hell!” I heard myself gasp as I slammed back into my physical body, all unprepared, for the second time in a week.

My body did what bodies do in such circumstances, and I spent the next couple of minutes arguing with it about whether or not we should press the emergency-eject button on the contents of my stomach. Around me the world bustled with noise and movement made fuzzy by the tears that filled my eyes and the hollow ringing in my ears. Eventually, the whirling and buzzing mellowed enough that I managed to withdraw the athame from my hand and whistle the wound closed.

“What’s going on?” I croaked.

No one answered.

What
was
going on? I rubbed the blurriness from my eyes and tried to make sense of the scene around me. Melchior, Tisiphone, and the two-headed giant had drawn close around Ahllan’s chair, blocking my view of the old troll. Loki, Fenris, Laginn, and several more giants had scattered among the servers, where they were frantically doing things that didn’t immediately make sense.

Willing my stomach to quiet, I dragged myself upright and headed for the cluster around Ahllan. I might not know what was going on, but I had no question about where my first loyalties lay. As I got close enough to see around Tisiphone’s wings, my stomach’s contents made another bid for freedom, and I had to lock my jaw to keep them down. Surely, no one could look that gray and beaten and still live. But no, Tisiphone wouldn’t have been massaging cramps out of the arms of a dead troll.

“Tisiphone,” I quietly said to alert her to my presence before touching her shoulder, “what happened?”

“Ahllan had some kind of seizure, and it rippled through the whole system.” She pointed at RuneNet with a wing while continuing to rub Ahllan’s arms. “It was a nasty business with major convulsions. Look at her hands.”

I did as she suggested, then winced. The paired athames driven through the backs of Ahllan’s hands and into the chair had torn the tissue around them into a gory mess.

“That’s why we had that flicker,” said Melchior, from his spot in front of the chair. “All the connections went dicey when she did that.”

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he replied. “As far as I can tell from what’s coming off the feeds, she’s still conscious in there somewhere. But she’s not responding to the outside world, only to electronic input. I wanted to wait until Tisiphone finished loosening her up before I attempted direct contact. I’ll try in just a . . . Oh, hang on. I’m getting something.” His expression went abstract and far away. “Back in a minute.” His body froze in place as he projected his entire consciousness into the network.

“What started it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Tisiphone. “She let out a little yelp, then started jerking around.” Tisiphone’s eyes met mine, and I saw something I’d never seen there before—not fear exactly, more its close cousin, worry. “She would have torn the athames out completely if I hadn’t pinned her when I did. It was so fast, I barely made it. If I hadn’t . . .” She swallowed hard. “If I hadn’t, I’d have lost you without even a chance to say good-bye.”

It was only in that instant that the full implications hit me. Ahllan was our connection to MimirNet, the link that allowed Melchior and me to project ourselves into the network. If she’d gone down while we were on the other side, it would have severed that link. We would both have died. That flicker of gray and indistinct armor was our lives flashing before our eyes, and I hadn’t even realized it, though I certainly should have. If not in that instant, then moments later when Melchior had thrown me back into my body.

“We may have a problem,” Loki said, coming up beside me.

I half turned so I could see both him and Ahllan. “Tell me about it, and I’ll add it to the ever-growing list.”

“RuneNet is locked up.” He ran his hand through his hair. “No, that’s not right. The system is still running; it’s just not responding to any of our input.”

“That’s my fault,” said Ahllan’s voice through Melchior’s lips. “Melchior has graciously agreed to let me talk through him.” Mel nodded, pointed at Ahllan, and tapped the side of his jaw.

“I’m sorry.” Ahllan’s voice—so weak and spidery of late—sounded strong and confident coming from Mel’s lips. “My seizure was caused by the chaos tap that powers my CPU. It’s eroding away under the pressure of the more corrosive Primal Chaos in this MythOS. A pulse in the flow fused my connection to RuneNet. There are only three things that can sever or interfere with that link now: a full RuneNet system restore and reboot, physically breaking the connection between the two of us, or my death. Any of the three will effectively cause the other two at this point.”

Melchior’s eyes went wide, telling me he was getting Ahllan’s words at the same time as the rest of us.

“Ugly,” said Loki. “A full-system restore would put RuneNet out of commission for at least a day. That’s time we can’t easily afford.”

“At a price we won’t pay,” I added firmly.

“The coin might as well be in the hands of the ferryman already,” said Ahllan’s voice. “I had to shut down most of my troll body’s systems to prevent the surge from disabling or destroying RuneNet. I won’t be able to reactivate them. I would guess that I have a day or two to live at most.” She snorted. “Ironic that chaos ultimately does me in, as I was originally built to tame and channel chaos into the electronic web of Fate. Unfortunately, the flavor here is too foreign for this old palate. But let’s leave the rest of the whys to answer themselves as it’s the hows that matter now. How to use the time I have left. How to crack MimirNet. How you can protect yourselves in that effort if I happen to have overestimated my longevity.”

I nodded inwardly, as she ticked off questions that had started tickling away at the back of my mind.

“Any suggestions?” I asked, forcing my grief for her into a little box for the moment. Before she could answer, I held up a hand. “Wait just a moment before you answer though. I should probably give a quick summary of what we found on our scouting run.” I briefly outlined what we had learned and my thoughts on the subject, finishing with, “We’ll need a distraction if we’re going to get past Heimdall, and we’ll need it soon. I hate to mention it, but once Ahllan goes, there’s no telling how long it might take us to reaccess the network with Melchior acting as our conduit.”

“To say nothing of the fact that it would probably kill him,” said Ahllan, and again Melchior’s eyes went wide. “The loop we inserted into the network takes enormous magical energy to run, energy
I’ve
been supplying since RuneNet can’t perform magic itself. I’ve had to run my chaos tap flat out in order to supply the necessary power. I was designed for exactly such a task, and it is still killing me. I doubt Melchior would last an hour under the strain.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Melchior demanded, seizing control of his own mouth for a moment.

“Because I knew you’d try to stop me, to protect me,” she answered simply. “What Loki wants to do here is too important for that. Unalloyed Fate is an evil I’ve fought my entire life. I will not allow an entire multiverse filled with humans and gods and all kinds of wondrous creatures to be destroyed because some foolish destiny says that is
the way things must be.
Nor to prove the power of persistence in the face of despair or whatever high-minded reason Odin might have for not fighting this to the bitter end. Ragnarok isn’t just a war of good against evil. It is an evil itself, an evil of the highest order, and I will gladly die if that’s what it takes to stop it.”

“And we will stop it,” I said, though a tight, hard throat made the words taste like broken glass. “Let’s do this, people. As the lady said, we don’t have a lot of time.”

“I’ll cover the distraction,” said Loki with a grin. “I’ve the perfect idea. It’ll even be a bit of a lark.”