Prometheus Road (21 page)

“What mutants? There are no mutants here, my lord.” He watched as a mosquito buzzed around his face, then made the foolhardy mistake of landing on the floor of the shock box—it vanished in a flash and a tiny puff of smoke.

“Haven’t you heard the news, Elder? The western region is crawling with mutants. They’re everywhere you look.”

“I don’t understand, my lord. I want to help you, but I don’t understand.” Despite his effort to conceal it, he heard the edge of panic in his voice.

Hermes paused before answering. The hum in the metal walls of the box got louder. “You know, you’ve finally convinced me that you know nothing useful, Elder Memphis.”

Memphis took a deep, shuddering breath. He wanted to relax, but it wasn’t safe yet, and his stomach was almost touching the hot steel. Then he heard Hermes’ footsteps receding into the distance, and his eyes went wide. “My lord! Wait! Where are you going?”

The footsteps continued crunching on the gravel. “They don’t look kindly on failures where I come from,” Hermes said, his voice getting fainter with distance. “I’m off to try to stay alive.”

TEMPEST and Rose were trying to elude the four security knights in the slot machine rain forest when one of the white-haired gamblers smiled and beckoned for them to follow her. Up until then, Tempest had not seen any live tourists in the casino, so it was startling to have one pop up in front of them like that. She didn’t know how to respond at first, but her goal of self-preservation prompted her to follow the old woman, who was dressed in a flowing white gown that trailed behind her like a misty waterfall. When the woman in white ducked behind a slot machine bank decorated with images of excited monkeys being pelted by showers of gold coins, Tempest looked back briefly, then darted around the slot machines with Rose right behind her. The four knights weren’t far behind, crashing through rows of seated gamblers and hurling them from their stools. Maybe the old woman had a handy weapon hidden behind the bank of Golden Rain-A-Plenty machines.

Tempest thought the woman had led them into a trap when they came up against a rock wall. They were in a narrow maintenance space between the deafening sounds of the ringing, singing slot machines. The old woman pressed her hands against the rock and a hidden door revealed itself, popping open with a slight gust of steamy air. Holding the rock door to one side, she motioned for them to enter. Lacking any other escape route, Tempest nodded at the woman and plunged forward onto a granite staircase dimly illuminated by red lights. Rose thanked the old woman and pulled the rock door shut behind them, sealing out the noise of the casino. Tempest’s ears throbbed in the sudden silence.

“Who was that?” Tempest asked, starting down the staircase. The old woman had looked familiar, but she couldn’t place the face.

Rose shrugged. “Tourist, I guess. A live one.”

“But why did she help us?”

“Maybe she was losing.”

Tempest nearly stumbled on the next step when she remembered. “Oracle!”

“What?”

“That was the Oracle from Marinwood! How did she get here?”

Rose sounded worried. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I wouldn’t trust an oracle any farther than I could throw her. The oracles work for the bad guys.”

“Then why did she help us out back there?”

“Yeah, that’s strange. They’re always interfering with things, but I’ve never heard of one that’s helpful like that.”

“Have you ever seen an oracle in a casino before?”

“Are you kidding? They can see the future, right? What casino in its right mind would let an oracle through the door? What oracle in her right mind would throw her money away in a casino?”

Tempest started to doubt her memory. An oracle in a casino really didn’t seem to make any sense, so maybe the woman just looked similar to the Marinwood Oracle. She shook her head as they continued jogging down the staircase. If the woman had led them into a trap, there wasn’t much they could do about it now.

TOM rubbed his eyes and stared out through the observation blister into the murky waters of the bay. Magnus was guiding the sub into what appeared to be an enormous hole in the bank. Old pilings and rotting ships that had sunk alongside their docks poked up from the bay mud, and Magnus avoided most of the obstructions as he piloted the sub toward the black hole.

“Cooling system outfall pipe,” Magnus said. “Leads right into the subbasement of the train station.”

Tom barely understood what Magnus was saying. He was still stunned by the events in his dreams—the Oracle, the River of Light, the dreamlike terrain with its brilliant colors, and his close approach to the Road.

“We won’t have much time when we arrive at the station,” Magnus continued. “I know you almost reached the Road just now, and I’m impressed with your abilities, but I have to tell you a few things, and I need all of your attention.” The sub bounced as some part of the hull struck the edge of the cooling pipe. Magnus cleared his throat. “Sorry. Tight fit here.”

The sub’s impact with the pipe had jarred Tom back to reality, along with his awareness of the danger they were in. Tom blinked at the darkness outside the sub, trying to make out any kind of detail. Magnus snapped on the forward light, giving them a view of the rusty pipe surrounding them.

“I’m listening,” Tom said.

“The freight train runs the circuit between here and Las Vegas every two hours. Usually it just moves freight for the siliboys, along with the occasional prisoner being sent to rehab, so don’t expect a pleasant ride. It was originally built to haul gamblers back and forth from the bay area, but the Dominion made some improvements to the train after they assumed control. We can expect to see security at both ends of the track, so we’ll have to be very careful.”

Tom remembered something and frowned. “Magnus, I thought you said you never managed to cross the western barrier?”

“Just pay attention to what I’m telling you now. When we reach Las Vegas, we’ll make contact with a man named Lebowski. He’s a musician in the Old District, which is the mostly demolished low-tech side of town. He knows people who can help us, and he knows how to reach the data center where the Dominion core personalities are housed. Dead Man trusts him, so I trust him. Dead Man will rendezvous with us at Lebowski’s casino bar, The Golden Fleece, and explain the rest of the plan. Basically, we’re going to put a crimp in the Dominion’s ability to control and monitor the western region by destroying their data center nexus. Doing so has not been possible until now, because we didn’t have you available to distract the siliboys in Stronghold while we attacked the data center. You’re almost ready for it, and we’ll finish training you before we make the attempt. Sounds like fun, eh?”

“Sounds dangerous,” Tom said, once again wondering what he had gotten himself into. However, thoughts of his family firmed his resolve. If he could do any kind of damage at all to Telemachus, he would have finally accomplished something with his life. He’d wanted out of Marinwood, to get away from the farm and see new things, and that’s what was happening now, although he would have preferred that it all happen under better circumstances.

“You say destroying this data center will interfere with the Dominion, but it won’t stop them completely?”

The sub gently bumped the wall of the cooling pipe as they angled upward. The water on the sub’s floor drained back away from Tom, who was still positioned on his stomach where he could look out through the forward observation blister.

“We have to learn to take small steps before we can take big ones,” Magnus said. “If we can eliminate the data center, that will be a good start, and we’ll learn from it. The real brains that drive the siliboys are duplicated in data centers all over the world; but if we can learn how to sever their connections and bring down the net that allows them to communicate, we’ll be free of the AIs. Our lives will be our own once more.”

Tom couldn’t imagine a world without the gods. Of course, without any experience of the country beyond the western region, he couldn’t really imagine the rest of the world anyway. Did the gods have as much control of events there as they did in Marinwood? He’d know more once he’d seen Las Vegas. Despite the dangers involved, he was excited by the idea of the trip. Even the freight train would be an interesting new experience, assuming they could actually get aboard.

Tom frowned when he thought about what Magnus had just told him. “You said I’m supposed to distract the gods in Stronghold during the attack. How am I supposed to do that?”

Magnus chuckled softly. “That’s your own special gift, Tom. When Dead Man created Stronghold, he created a fail-safe so he could ‘pull the plug’ if the siliboys got out of hand. There are some things that the siliboys can only do in their virtual ‘game’ world. Of course, he didn’t anticipate how quickly the AIs would develop, or that they’d learn how to protect the switch that kept Stronghold alive. When the Dominion took over, Dead Man couldn’t shut them down.”

“And the switch is in Stronghold itself?”

“The simple answer is yes. You’ll have to find the Tree of Dreams. It’s a reflection of the ancient tree that binds all of the worlds together. Dead Man placed the software—the core operating system that drives Stronghold—among its branches. The software lies within the Jewel of Dreaming.”

“And this jewel is what the gods are protecting?”

“It’s important to them, yes. And you’ll have to get past Telemachus to reach it. Dead Man created the Jewel of Dreaming to fit in with the fantasy environment he’d built, but the great tree itself was always something of a mystery to him. He didn’t learn more about the tree, or why he had been drawn to it, until much later. The jewel itself seems to have changed over time as a result of its close proximity to the Tree of Dreams.”

Light ahead, rippling on the surface of the water. Magnus shut off the forward lamps. The sub was in a steep climb now, randomly scraping against the sides of the pipe, requiring more of Magnus’s attention at the controls. Helix had already moved off Tom’s back so that he could get to a more secure resting place between Tom’s head and his left shoulder.

“We’ll have to move fast once I’ve stopped the sub,” Magnus said, “so just do what I tell you and don’t ask any questions. We’re a few minutes behind schedule, and that train isn’t going to wait for us. Got it?”

“I’ll be right behind you every step of the way,” Tom replied.

The sub nosed into the air like a surfacing whale. Through the water streaming down the observation window, Tom got a blurred image of a wide concrete room full of catwalks and thick white pipes before the sub settled toward the horizontal and the window submerged once more.

“I need more practice with this thing, but I got us here in one piece,” Magnus said, snapping switches and brushing past Tom’s feet as he swung onto the ladder leading up to the exit hatch.

Tom rolled over, scooped Helix under his arm as he curled into a crouch, then moved over to the base of the ladder as the hatch creaked open and fresh air poured in. Tom took a deep breath, then followed Magnus up through the narrow hatchway.

The room was about sixty feet long with a ceiling twenty feet above their heads. Bright white overhead lights reflected on the water and illuminated the heavy machinery connected to the webwork of white pipes and catwalks. The air was humid and cool. Leaving the sub behind, they quickly jogged along the concrete walkway about two feet above water level, then climbed up onto a catwalk that led to a green door high on the end wall.

Magnus placed one hand on the doorknob, then turned and put his other hand on Tom’s shoulder as he looked into his eyes with a frown. “Tom, whatever happens, you have to get on that train. Without me, I doubt that you can operate the sub, and there will be too many guards for you to reach the main entrance door, so the train is your only way out without being captured. If they do catch you, they’ll probably kill you, unless Hermes has issued orders to send you to the rehab facility, in which case they’ll put you on the train with guards. There is a way for us to get off the train at the other end without anyone seeing us, but it’s best if no one sees us here to warn them at the other end. You understand all that?”

Tom nodded. “Get on the train or die.”

“Basically, yes. If there’s a passenger space with some padding in it, we’ll try to get in there, but I’m afraid we’ll be riding with the freight.”

Magnus opened the door.

They ran forward in an area of relative shadow, already at the level of the train’s loading platform. A short distance ahead of them was the pointed back end of the dingy gray mag-lev train, hovering above a thick rail about six feet off the floor of its concrete trench. The service trench beneath the train was lit by orange lights. The upper arch of the tunnel was ten feet above the train’s roof. As they ran, Magnus pointed at two open freight doors near the back, where automated loaders were shoving the last of the freight pallets out onto the platform. The air smelled of machine oil and ozone.

After waiting for the last pallet to roll past, Magnus peeked into the dim interior of the train’s freight bay and motioned Tom inside. Tom was more than ready, as he had just spotted two guards with their backs to them at the other end of the platform. Once inside, he turned when he heard Magnus gasp; he was still standing on the platform, his hand resting on the side of the train, with a startled look on his upraised face. Tom heard footsteps on the roof.

“Magnus Eliot?” boomed the voice of Hermes. Apparently he was standing on top of the train. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Tom realized that Hermes wasn’t aware of his uncle’s name change from Eliot to Prufrock, but he was impressed that the nanoborg could recognize the old man after so many years. He was also impressed that Hermes had managed to locate them, but some part of him had always suspected that the enforcer of the gods would eventually track them down.

“I might say the same for you,” Magnus said, regaining his poise. He took a few steps back away from the freight door without looking at Tom.