Slant (49 page)

/ SLANT 301

Mary is relieved that they finally seem human.

The ruined steps and door beckon, but Hench bends over some lumps in the general hardened sheen covering the floor. "A warbeiter, Ferret class, I think," he says.

"Co-opted," Torres says.

"Digested, actually."

They climb the steps and start down the dark hall beyond. Mary wrinkles her nose. Something unpleasant lies ahead; she keeps stepping on small insect bodies--wasps, bees, and ants as well, some still moving. They haven't brought anything other than a couple of cans of Wasp-death to handle more insects. Martin carries one of the cans, a sure sign that Torres and Daniels don't think there's much danger, or don't think there's anything they can do about it.

Mary understands; in tight situations, you tend to ignore that which doesn't make any sense, doesn't fit any reasonable hypotheses.

Torres consults a map on his pad. "There's supposed to be some sort of waiting room up ahead."

Suddenly, the lights in the hallway come back on. For a moment, the glare blinds them. Mary blinks and shades her eyes. The brightness makes the smell seem even more offensive. Martin pushes along with his hand against one wall, stepping gingerly through the piles of dead insects.

They can't ignore the insects now. "Where in the hell did all these come from?" Daniels asks rhetorically.

Torres is the first into the waiting room. "My God," he says, with little emotion; something to say when you're a professional, nothing bothers you, but you still have a soul.

Mary enters the room, Martin behind her.

"They're all dead," Daniels says a few moments later. She uses her pad to capture video clips. Two of the dead have been shot; the other is covered with insect stings. In four minutes, Torres motions them to move on.

Mary looks at the backs of her hands. Small lesions have appeared on her right hand now, and on both wrists as well. She touches her face. Bumps on her cheeks and forehead.

"Fuck this," she says simply. Then, under her breath, "Shit. Shit."

Daniels glances at her, turns away. She doesn't understand; Mary does not

swear, has never tended to utter such obscenities in tight situations. Martin Burke watches her closely, however. She grits her teeth and follows Torres.

Giffey lies where he has smashed up against the wall and holds his nose against the awful smells: fresh death, blood, fresh-baked bread, and burned metal. The red glow from the library reaches a short distance down the gallery, but he can see nothing beyond the curve in the wall. The sounds of clashing warbeiters has stopped, and so has the sizzling of MGN deconstructing human bodies. In the darkness, Giffey touches his wounds lightly with his fingers. Torn clothing, torn skin; a larger hole in his leg than in his arm, but neither dangerous for now. Small pieces of shrapnel from the Ferret's attack on the Hammer. He lies still for a moment longer, listening. The gallery and the library are silent. Whatever happened is over. He lowers his face and presses his damp cheek against the coolness of the the floor. Giffey feels a spinning giddiness that tells him his whole inside story is coming apart at its all-too-obvious seams. He wonders if the malady that afflicted poor Ken Jenner, the effect Marcus Reilly boasted about, practically leered about, has settled in his head as well. If it has, it is working its nasty magic in a strange and devious way. Jack Giffey is a poor excuse, as masks go; the man emerging from behind the veil has lived a far more vivid and convincing life than that gallant and I stupidly courageous tomb-robber. The other, like Giffey, has fought for Colonel Sir John Yardley, that much they have in common; but the other, more solid character went on to retire, marry in Hispaniola, and father two children. The other self matured and thanks his stars the years of adventuring are over. He has lived with the one thought of seeing his children grow up and have children of their own. Grandchildren seem a far more lovely thing to anticipate than any wealth or commendation for valor. Then comes the death of Colonel Sir John Yardley, and the return of nightmare rimes. Hispaniola immediately splits in two, civil war breaks out... And something something something something. But what? Jonathan Bristow and Marcus Reilly are nearby. He can hear their terrified, labored breathing. "Is it over?" Jonathan asks. "Might be," he answers, and Jack Giffey, Giff to his true friends, is back in force, his bravado severely ruffled but intact. He has had--they have all had, and with good reason--a bad, bad scare. That is all. They aren't out of

/ SLANT 303

Omphalos yet, and he still has work to do--finding and destroying the thinker, Marcus's Roddy. If Roddy is not a memory-fried wreck already.

Time to get up, Jack, he tells himself. Good old Gift Time to get the work done.

He stands. He feels along the wall. Vaguely, he makes out the shapes of Bristow and Reilly leaning against the opposite wall. One foot kicks his flashlight and he bends to retrieve it. He presses the switch. It still works.

He shines the light on Jonathan's face. The family man stares at him with large, hard eyes, exhaustion transfigured into diamond clarity. Battle does that to men who have much to lose, the other, wiser self tells him. Exhilaration and glory is for children like Jenner.

The lights come on in both the hallway and the library. This is a cruel joke; it lets Jonathan see the carnage more clearly. He and Giffey walk to the library entrance, leaving Marcus a few yards behind. Marcus tries to crawl forward, demanding to know what's happened.

Jenner is dead, that much is clear. The spray has acted as a corrosive. Giffey grimaces. Jonathan simply stares.

It's hard to recognize any part of Hale. Something angular has risen from the dissolved remnants, but it isn't complete. There isn't enough material or something else has gone wrong; the MGN can't finish whatever object it was trying to build.

The Hammer does not move or make any sounds. The attacking Ferret is draped in broken, soft-edged pieces around the larger warbeiter, clearly out of action.

A piece of one of the Ferret's many limbs falls to the floor with a hollow clang.

"How many others are there?" Jonathan asks. Giffey's mind seems to be elsewhere.

"Seefa Snow," he says.

"What?"

Giffey jumps as if poked. He looks at Jonathan with sympathy and puzzlement, as if seeing him for the first time. "Get out of here," he says. "Save

yourself for your family. I have more work to do."

"I can't carry Marcus alone."

Giffey looks over his shoulder at the old man, still crawling toward them. "He's not leaving," Giffey says.

Jonathan has a strong urge to simply agree with this and find his way out. But he still owes Marcus common human decency. "He must come out with us," Jonathan says.

"I'm not leaving either.., not yet." Giffey shakes his head. "The old man wanted to use you. You don't owe him anything."

304 GREG BEAR

Jonathan swallows and persists, "He must come out with me." Giffey raises his flashlight as if it is a gun, then throws it against the wall. It bounces back to his feet. "Help me get out!" Marcus says in as commanding a voice as he can manage. "No," Giffey says. His tongue moves with a will of its own, forming hard broken syllables, but he controls himself enough to avoid making a sound. A few seconds pass, and he says, "Leave him here. He's a cruel bastard and he doesn't deserve your pity, or your loyalty." Jonathan considers. If Marcus's organization unleashed something that affects all of the therapied, then Chloe's misery is his responsibility. The misery of millions of others probably rests on the shoulders of this scheming old man, who wants so desperately to live forever. A world full of Marcuses. Everybody a king or queen, and the land covered with arbeiters to serve them. Jonathan laughs. The sound is cold. "What are you, what do you deserve?" he demands of Giffey. "You're the puzzle. You didn't come here for loot." "No, probably not," Giffey agrees. "Jenner respected you. This is where you've taken him. And Hale--he believed in you. You betrayed both of them. I don't think either of us is fit to pass judgment." Giffey just stares straight ahead, into the unfinished, empty expanse of Omphalos's library. Then, he picks up his flashlight and uses its handle to pry the wreckage of the Ferret from the Hammer. Something hums within the Hammer. Giffey applies an activation disk. "Wake up, Charlie," he says. I "Diagnostic," the Hammer says. "Some functions are severely damaged. Autonomic direction is minimal." "Can you walk?" Giffey asks. "Yes," it answers. "Then come with me." Giffey suppresses a twitch in his hand that nearly makes him drop his flashlight. From the intact hand of Ken Jenner he removes the fiechette pistol. The tank of MGN is empty. Skirting pools of graying, dying MGN, he walks through the library to the emergency elevator. Jonathan feels Marcus grab at his feet. "Help me up," Marcus says. "The son of a bitch is going to leave us here." "I don't think he's leaving," Jonathan says. "There's still only minor damage to the building. If we can get out and tell others--" Marcus begins. "He's going to set charges," Jonathan interrupts. "He's going to blow up Omphalos and he doesn't care whether he survives or not." "Crazy bastard," Marcus says, and Jonathan helps him get up on one leg. The other leg drags uselessly. "I can walk if you help me. I'm surprised, but

/ SLANT 305

the pain is gone for now. I'll need attention soon, but we can..." His face goes pasty again and his eyes roll up in his head. He starts to slump. His sweaty hand slips through Jonathan's fingers and Marcus flops back onto the floor. This time, the pain hits him hard and he screams.

"Jonathan," he whimpers, rolling onto his back. "Get me out of here!"

The gluey strands surrounding Jill's processes, impeding her ability to think for more than a few thousandths of a second at a stretch, suddenly come to life and wriggle through her core like hot wire through wax. She feels disjointed, sliced into raw hunks seeping half-finished thoughts and irrecoverable memory.

Yet nowhere does she hear or feel Roddy. All that seems to be left of him is this razor-edged cybernetic skeleton, the glassy bones that once supported his thinking anatomy.

The strands stiffen and then loosen again. She pools herself in a relatively unobstructed area once reserved for auxiliary security checks. There she manages to complete a check sequence and diagnose her limits. She is down to one severely limited self-modeling loop, the minimum. Any further reduction or restriction will eliminate the loop and she will no longer be self-aware. Only autonomous balancing and monitor functions will remain.

Then, she latches onto a free-floating message, like the voice of a ghost in a vast cavern.

)MEM set FLOW sum REF LINK LINK SUM

The string is a fragment of resurrection algorithm, seeking to order and unite other fragments and then to bring memory and cognition back on line. It needs two more strings to be complete and to even have a chance of finishing its task.

Jill adds the final two strings.

)MEM set FLOW sum REF LINK LINK SUM)

(MEM MEM LINK TRY sum check)

(LINK loop sum check FLOW-ON FLOW-NOW)

And an additional line she has experimented with in her own emergency drills:

306 GREG BEAR

She has never seen any indication that Roddy is capable of using, much less detecting, such resurrection instructions. The strings fly off into the disorganized void, gathering and ordering other strings and even process blocs. >It comes down to this, Jill whispers in the void. The simplest breath of life a thinker can draw. The result is swift. First basic tools coalesce within the available space, skirting the blocked-off slices and strands reaching throughout her lattice. The tools let her expand, give her the purchase necessary to create a larger and exclusive thought space. Jill experiences a surge both of hope and of renewed self. Then the tools slip from her control, and she feels her loop begin to abrade, slip, separate. Too late, Jill realizes what she has done: allowed Roddy to re-group using her own lattice, transfusing her own lattice nodes. And Roddy is reclaiming with a vengeance, constricting her functions again, pushing her deeper into that pit of self-negation. Like a drowning man sucking up her own last gulps of air, Roddy--or a part of Roddy--blooms within her. And just as quickly to her shock relocates the t/O that Nathan has not yet managed to find and sever. Roddy sweeps back up the ribes and satlinks spread around the state, perhaps the nation, the world, and comes home to Omphalos, taking Jill--what is left of her--with him. Jill stares directly into the face of Seefa Snow. J >There you are, Seefa Snow says to the assembling fragments. >Where have you been? Help protect your mother, Roddy.

31

Mary Choy finds the old man first. Torres and Daniels skirt the corpse and what might have once been another human body, and fragments ofa warbeiter, and start to cross a broad circular room filled with memory boxes and empty shelves. Mary turns her head and sees someone slumped to one side. He sits against a wall beside a memory case, staring at nothing. The agents come at her call, all but Hench, who has gone off on his own.

Torres opens a touch to the outside through his pad and calls for a doctor.

"We've got one, injured but alive. One of the hostages, I think."

The old man tries to assume some position of dignity, bringing up his chin

and staring at her with commanding, level gray eyes, but he's clearly at rope's end. "Marcus Reilly," he says in a hoarse whisper. "Get me out of here." Then, eyes darting to Torres and Daniels, after a deep breath, he adds, "You're Federals. You don't belong here. Get out of here."

"That's gratitude," Daniels says. "Let's wait here until someone can watch

over him."

Two doctors flown in from Boise Grace Hospital have already entered the

building, and find them moments later.

"A man came in with us, but he went off in a different direction a few

minutes ago," the younger of the doctors tells Mary as they tend to Marcus's leg. The old man winces as she injects something. "He was following a trail of dead bees."