Sorcerer: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance (20 page)

The terrain changed. Mammoth shapes rose up around them in scattered, broken chunks, like the remains of city buildings after an earthquake. Light
lines snaked and hissed like severed power lines, and the air was full of the throat-scarring smells of smoke and ash. The temperature rose, making Jill feel hot and uncomfortably sticky in her skin-tight bodysuit. “Can’t we have Felix whip up an iceberg or something?”

“Jillian,” Ian sighed, “one doesn’t just ‘whip up’ something in cyberspace. Topology generation is an intricate and exacting science. Physical laws have to be adhered to, just as they are in the real world.”

“I guess there’s no law about neatness,” she said, glancing at the devastation around her. Despite the heat, a cold chill shivered up her back.
Someone just walked over my grave
.

As they walked on, the landscape became even more perilous. Toppled shapes lay across their path, boulders crisscrossed with sputtering, fading light. PINK flew past the obstacles, but Jill and Ian had to climb over the rubble, slipping and skidding on the loose, treacherous talus. Wide fissures opened in the ground, and more than once Ian’s anchoring grasp saved Jill from plunging into one of the dark pits.

Finally, they reached what appeared to be a stable plateau. Jill sank down against a broken half-sphere, exhausted beyond words. Ian was just as winded, but instead of resting he knelt beside what appeared to be a severed cobalt-blue power grid line.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” he muttered as he stared at the cut grid line. “The simulator matrix is supposed to prevent this kind of disintegration. It
goes against every law of cyberphysics. It’s not … logical.”

Jill was quickly growing to hate that word. “Well, logical or not, it’s happening. Apparently someone’s taken ‘raping the environment’ into the virtual plane.”

“It’s more than that. Someone’s warping the fabric of cyberspace itself. Someone … or something.”

Ian stood up, his tall form towering over the broken shapes on the plateau. Jill couldn’t take her eyes off him. Against the black backdrop, the crimson lines of his bodysuit pulsed like hellfire.
He’s part of this world
, she thought as she watched him move confidently through the weird landscape.
A sorcerer in his magic realm
. Once again a shiver crept up Jill’s spine, but this time for the man, not the environment. “What do you mean by ‘something’?”

“I’m not sure,” Ian said, shooting his silver gaze back at her. “But I am sure that you’re leaving. Now.”

“Not unless you are,” she answered as she got to her feet and raised her chin defiantly. “And if I have to step into one of those stupid blue lines again to stay, I will.”

“Dammit, Jill.” He strode over to her and grasped her by the shoulders. “This isn’t a game. This isn’t even an experiment anymore. Something very evil is going on in here, and I’ve got to find out what it is.”

“We’ve got to—”

“No,” he said with devastating softness. “Not this time.”

She tried to pull away, but his firm grip prevented it. Too late she realized he’d trapped her, preventing her from moving into one of the nearby lines. “This isn’t fair,” she cried as she struggled against his hold.

“Yes, well, we’ll argue about ethics later,” he said smoothly, turning his gaze heavenward. “Sadie, I want you to—”

“There’s not going to be a later,” Jill interrupted furiously. “I turned in my resignation.”

Ian’s whole body went stone still. “You
what
?”

“I’m quitting,” she replied, words rushing out of her like wine from an uncorked bottle. Tears pricked her eyes, but whether from frustration or despair she didn’t know. “I’m not one of your simulations. You can’t order me around. You can’t make me do what I don’t want to do, even if a part of me wants to do it.…” Her words dwindled off, ending in a sob. “I can’t take it anymore, Ian. I can’t take
you
.”

If she’d run a broadsword through his heart, he couldn’t have looked more shocked. “Is that what you honestly believe?”

“Yes. No,” she said, the pain in his eyes tearing her apart. Suddenly Einstein, the voyeuristic cybertechs, even the bizarre world around them, ceased to matter. She lifted her hand to his cheek, caressing him with a bittersweet tenderness. “I love you, but I can’t be with you. If I stayed, I know I’d give in to you on everything—and it would eventually
destroy me. I’d be going against everything I believed in, and … and if we ever made a child—”

Ian’s grip tightened almost painfully. “I would never allow that to happen to you.”

“Darling, there are some things even you can’t guarantee,” she replied, smiling sadly. “I can’t live without a commitment, and you can’t live with one. It’s better if I leave. It’s … it’s the only
logical
solution.”

Emotions burned in his eyes, but Jill couldn’t read the nuances in his virtually synthesized features. He started to speak, but at that moment PINK began buzzing around them like a miniature comet. She made several passes before flying over to a nearby pile of rubble and beginning her circuit all over again.

“She must want us over there,” Jill said, welcoming the distraction from her own troubles. “Perhaps there’s something in the pile that will lead us to Einstein.”

She started to move, but Ian held her back. “Jill,” he said quietly, his gaze riveted on the heap, “that’s no ordinary pile of rubble.”

As he spoke, a thin black layer peeled off the top of the pile and flew off with an inhuman grace of an undersea manta ray. Jill stiffened, revolted by the strange creature in a way that defied logic. It was as if someone had taken her worst dreams and rolled them into one chilling nightmare. “What is that thing?”

“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t appear to be alone,”
Ian replied, nodding to the rubble. “The pile’s swarming with them.”

He was right. Looking closely, Jill saw the surface of the pile undulate as the black sheet creatures moved in and around each other. She shivered, this time in real fear. She wanted to run, to get as far away from the chillingly weird beings as possible. But one thing made it impossible for her to leave. When one of the sheet creatures moved, she saw a spark of blue beneath the black layer. A pulsing blue, beating in perfect unison with PINK’s burning globe.

Apparently Ian’s thoughts mirrored her own. “Jillie,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid we’ve finally found your Einstein.”

Ian froze, feeling as though he’d been catapulted back into one of his childhood nightmares. The gloomy, cavernous corridors of his ancient castle filled his young subconscious with a battalion of monstrosities—from cannibal ghosts and headless ghouls, to a purple-tongued bogeyman with glowing eyes who lived in the shadows under his bed. Science and maturity had overcome these childhood beliefs, but there was still a small, secret part of him that remembered the monsters and recalled the soul-numbing terror felt by a lonely, imaginative boy in the dark hours of the night.

But this was no nightmare. Despite the simulated topology, this danger was very, very real. Ignoring the knot of fear in his stomach, he took a few steps in the direction of the pile. “Get a reading on this, Sadie. The things look like some kind of stray data strings or rogue viruses, but I’ve never seen them
swarm in a community before. I’m going to try to touch one—”

“No!” Jill cried, grasping his arm to hold him back. “Those things are feeding on Einstein. What if they feed on you too?”

“I’m a much weaker energy source. I doubt they’ll be interested,” he assured her as he removed her hand, holding it a bit longer than was absolutely necessary.
A child. Good Lord, why hadn’t he considered what the possibility of having an illegitimate child would do to her?

Well, there was no time to consider it now. He approached the pile with a hunter’s caution, grateful for once for his sportsman grandfather’s meticulously drilled instructions.
Never take your eyes off your prey. Never show fear. They can smell it
. He lifted his boot and gave one of the creatures a small shove. The thing didn’t even turn in his direction, but merely reshifted to its former position.

Encouraged, he reached down and gripped one, pulling it off the pile. Its slick, undulating surface sent out a strange vibration that repulsed him to the point of nausea, but he held it firm, and threw it with all his strength into the distance. The creature flapped off in the direction he’d thrown it. Apparently its intelligence was limited—it made no attempt to return to the food source.

Once again Ian lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Control, how much time have I got left?”

“Twenty minutes,” Sadie’s voice returned.

Only twenty minutes
, he thought, grimly surveying
the large number of creatures covering Einstein. There were dozens. He couldn’t remove them all in that short a time.

A shuffle at his side alerted him. He glanced down and saw Jill kneeling beside him, pulling at one of the creatures. The look on her face told him she found them just as vile as he did.

“You’ll need help,” she said simply.

“Jill, get away from there,” he ordered, appalled at having her so close to the nightmare creatures. “These things could be capable of all sorts of unpredictable mutations. You have to toss them away hard enough to set them on a new trajectory, to prevent them from returning. And we don’t know if or when one might morph into something that prefers human energy to electronic. It’s too dangerous. It’s—”

“Save it for someone who cares, Doctor,” she stated, gripping the edge of another creature. “I’m staying. Now, are you going to stand around wasting precious time, or are you going to help me get this computer equivalent of toxic waste off E?”

Put that way, he had little choice.

They worked together, peeling off the layers of noxious creatures from Einstein. Twice Jill had to stop, nearly gagging on the revolting smell and feel of the unholy things. She wiped her hands on her bodysuit, wondering if she’d ever be clean again. Only PINK’s continual worried buzz kept her reaching back for more. Only PINK’s buzz, and Ian’s incredible dedication to the task.

The scientist never faltered from his objective,
removing the monstrosities with an almost machine-like dedication. But Jill saw the waves of nausea that crossed his face.
He hates these loathsome things as much as I do, maybe more
.

“I would take care of it,” he said suddenly.

“Take care of what?”

“Our child, if we had one. I’d make sure he—or she—was supported financially and emotionally.” He rested a scant second, whipping his sweating brow with the back of his arm. “I wouldn’t turn my back on our child—or you.”

He was trying to be kind, she knew that. But all he managed to do was twist the knife deeper into her heart. “Ian, children need more than financial and emotional support. They need security. They need to know that the people who love them will be there for them—and for each other. They need … a loving family.”

“Marriage is no guarantee of that,” he told her curtly.

“No,” she agreed, “but
not
marrying is almost a guarantee against it.”

He started to say something, but he never got the words out. A sudden wave of nausea rocked him, causing him to lose his balance and crumble to the ground.

“Ian!” Jill was at his side in an instant. She pushed and pulled him over to the side of a nearby rectangle. He leaned back against the surface and closed his eyes, clearly exhausted. “You’ve got to
rest. These things are affecting you much more than they are me.”

“No, can’t give up—”

“You not only can, you will,” she said sternly. “That’s an order, Doctor.”

He started to argue, but stopped as his practical side got the better of him. “All right,” he agreed as his mouth curved into a reluctant smile. “And next time I’m letting
you
take on the orc.”

Jill turned away before he could see the wince of pain cross her face.
There’s not going to be a next time
.

She scrambled back to the pile and began yanking off the creatures with a vengeance. She was making a difference. Before long she could see Einstein’s form clearly between the remaining layers of creatures. Apparently, before he’d been attacked, he’d rearranged his data bytes into a human pattern, perhaps believing that his uncomputerlike shape would drive the things off. But if that had been his plan, it had backfired. The creatures had attacked him anyway, draining him of his electronic power, like vampire bats sucking blood. He lay facedown on the ground, his blue and gold diagonally striped skin fading to a sickly pallor. Even his faint energy pulse had stopped beating.

“Einstein!” she said as she shook his shoulder. “Get up!”

No response.

She shook harder. “We’ve pulled these damn things off you. We’ve saved you. Now do your bit and get up!”

“Jill.” Ian knelt beside her and reached out, gently extracting her hands from their death grip on Einstein. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“Of course it will. He’s just unconscious.”

“He’s more than unconscious,” Ian told her, his tone gentle in a way she’d never heard before. He stared at her hands, rubbing his thumbs gently along the back of her fingers. “I know you cared for him, but … sometimes you can’t make things right, no matter how hard you want to.”

Jill stiffened, pulling her hands from his grasp. “You think he’s dead. Well, you’re wrong. He’s in there somewhere. I can feel it.”

“His electronic resonance might exist, like the brainwave patterns in a coma patient, but that’s all. They’ve drained him dry. He’s gone, Jillie. You’ll have to accept it.”

Accept it. She’d been accepting things all her life. She’d lived with the fact that her mother never cared deeply for anyone besides herself. She dealt with the reality that her mother’s boyfriends never wanted or returned the love her childish heart offered. She understood that Ian’s love was not the kind she could build a future on.
Deal with it
, she’d always told herself.
Swallow your disappointment and move on
.

But not this time.

“Help me, Ian. I can’t do it alone.”