The Beam: Season Two (42 page)

“He was driven,” said York. “Obsessed.”
 

“Visionary?”
 

“For sure. He was my idol. Fresh out of school, I was working for a game company. Quark recruited me after I won an award — I guess the award you already know about; I forget you’ve read the diary and know me better than I know myself.”
 

“It’s okay.”
 

“It was hard not to love Noah. But he loved his work most of all. He wanted to change the world, and he did. Twice. He was a genius the likes of which nobody has seen before or since.”
 

“The voice when we first got onto the train. Was that him? Like, for real
him?”
 

York made a condescending face.
 

“Okay, fine,” said Leah. “Obviously, it wasn’t really him. But I can’t help but be a fangirl. This is
Noah Fucking West,
and you’re telling me he’s still actually out there, for real. A literal ghost in the machine.”
 

“I didn’t tell you that.”
 

Leah tapped her dilapidated canvas pack, which held York’s diary. “This did.”
 

“Yeah, well. That was the work of another Stephen York. What’s in there is largely news to me.”

“You really don’t remember it?”
 

“Largely
news to me
.
I remember bits and pieces. Like a puzzle. It’s maddening.”
 

“So what about this panel?”

York shook his head. “I’ve been trying to riddle that out for the…” He stopped then made a face at her. “Seriously, Leah. Do you need to be alone with your lover?”
 

Leah paused, looking down. York was still staring at her mobile, which she’d pulled from her pocket yet again. She was looking at it, fussing with buttons. The screen was lit with an incoming message. She looked up, face guilty, then returned her attention to the mobile when it buzzed in her hand.
 

“I’m sorry.”
 

“What’s so vital?”
 

“Messages. I’m sorry.” Again, the thing buzzed.

York laughed. “Can I be an old man for a second?”
 

“Why not? I’m used to it from Leo. And you’ve always been an old man to me, albeit one with Cap’n Crunch in your beard.” Leah gave York a small smile.
 

He considered saying what had been at the edge of his lips — that he remembered writing the journal by hand in part because it was a fuck-you to the omnipresence of the networks he was helping to create — but decided not to. She wasn’t kidding about being used to it from Leo. York only had a small non-Crumb impression of the Organa leader from his visits to Serenity’s school, but that was enough to see that Leo was much older than he looked, and that he could out-geezer York any day of the week. That plus Leo’s granola bearing meant that any tech-lashing York could give her would feel like feathers compared to the heavy hippie sack being swung by Leo Booker.

“Never mind.” He saw movement, noticed Leah’s handheld light up again (the vibration and sound were off, but she was still getting silent notifications), and decided to say nothing. “I was saying that ever since the ‘panel’ idea popped into my head, I’ve been trying to pick it out and have a look. But I can’t. I only know there was a body called Panel, that it was ‘Panel’ but not ‘a panel’ or ‘the panel,’ like the name of the group itself. I feel so irritated about not being able to get at my memories of it, as if I am — or once was — irritated by Panel itself.”
 

“How can you be annoyed by something and not know why?”
 

“I’m not sure.”
 

“But you’re saying it was…like a committee or something.”
 

“Maybe. I don’t know.”
 

“And you were on it.”
 

“I don’t know.”
 

“Do you know
anyone
who was on it, other than Noah?” Again, Leah slapped her pack. “Anyone from the journal, that you worked with?”
 

“I can’t figure it out.” He shook his head, agitated. “I don’t know. I almost do, but I can’t get at it.”
 

“Well, what did they do? Maybe you’re thinking of Quark? Could we look up the Quark board of directors at the time, and…”
 

“I don’t know!”
York blurted.
 

Leah looked stunned. York raised an apologetic hand, and she returned a dismissive gesture, neither of them saying a word or needing to. York felt one more set of internal controls crumble as he reset. His mind was full of holes, his temper showing through all of them.
 

“It’s not the Quark board. It’s maddening to think about. I have memories of emotions, but not the memories themselves.”
 

Tentatively, making her body language helpful rather than prying, Leah said, “Could you say…you know…what
kinds
of emotions?”
 

“Annoyed, like I said. Maybe frustrated. Resentful? But also awed. I remember awe.”
 

“Maybe you were awed by Noah.”
 

York nodded his head slowly. “I definitely was. But this was more. So was I awed by the group itself? By someone in it? I seem to remember a sense of discovery. Finding something, and being amazed.” He shook his head, the gesture almost spiteful, as if he wanted to punish his brain by rattling his skull. “Damn. You can’t imagine how obnoxious this is. If this is what it’s like to get old and go senile, I want to die young.” He looked down at his wrinkled hands. “Oops, too late for that.”
 

On the seat beside Leah, the handheld’s screen lit. Her eyes flicked toward it. She slipped the phone back into her pocket. Again, York decided to say nothing. If the diary and his piecemeal memories were any indication, he was largely responsible for Leah’s dependence on the network. Same for the entire NAU.

The rest of the trip passed mostly in silence. The quiet felt deliberate — different from a natural absence of discussion. York felt himself holding his lips because he had nothing worthwhile to say (nothing that wouldn’t spin him in frustrating circles and rile him up) and got the impression that Leah was trying to avoid salting his memory-related wounds. She excused herself twice to use the bathroom, but the trips were too close together for legitimate visits, and she returned wearing the same frustrated look that he himself felt. He guessed her mobile was to blame for the obsession, but didn’t want to ask. Each of them had a thorn in their shoe, and drawing attention to either now would only remind them about something they were trying to let go.
 

They switched trains then rode the second to the end of the line in silence. They found Missy still in her stall, but two adults riding double would be an uncomfortable squeeze. Still, the weather was nice, so they set out on foot. York didn’t mind. He’d been bedridden for a few days after Leah had blown his gaskets, and even though he’d had some time to get back to his feet, his legs still felt slower and heavier than they used to. Like it or not, life as Crumb had kept him in good shape. Crumb had been crazy, but Crumb had without question been an outdoorsman. He’d lived in a mostly tech-dark compound, had spent his days outdoors, and, York suspected, probably slept outside a good chunk of the time. Crumb could hike into the clearing on foot, so it was Stephen York’s duty to make himself do the same.
 

By the time they’d walked down the road between the fenced-in pastures fronting the compound (the gate where Crumb once stood guard screaming out with familiarity in York’s mind), his legs felt like noodles. He wanted to get somewhere comfortable, plop into a chair, and stay seated for hours, or days.
 

But before he could, an overweight man with a lined face and salt-and-pepper stubble emerged from a hut and gawked at their approach, mostly ignoring Leah. His wide eyes were fixed on York, and his mouth was hanging open like a door on a broken hinge.

York found himself recalling Times Square. He remembered milling through a crowd, feeling himself locked down and unable to control his ranting. He remembered a contingent of approaching police. It was as crystal clear as any memory, as if it had been cut from the foggy backdrop and polished to a shine. He could see every detail. He could see how the man in front of him had aged, but how his hard, steely eyes had stayed the same. And as in the memory, he could see the duality in those eyes. They
were
hard. But soft, too, beneath the surface.
 

“Holy shit,” said the man, walking closer.
 

“You’re Dominic,” York said. “Capt. Dominic Long.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure how I know that.”
 

“Holy shit,” said Dominic, closing the last of the distance between them. He grasped York’s arms just above the wrists, like a parent reuniting with a child who’s been away, and who’s grown in their absence.

“You saved my life,” said York, memory blooming like a flower. “You’re the reason I didn’t go to Respero.”
 

“Holy fucking shit, Crumb,” said Dominic, shaking his head. “What’s happened to you?”

Chapter 3

Sam couldn’t get comfortable.
 

He was sitting in a Starbucks chair, in a private cubicle near the back, using his own laptop canvas rather than one of the Starbucks access points. He didn’t need coffee (hypercaffeine made his obsessiveness and distractibility worse), but he’d accidentally ordered a full-octane brew anyway when he’d come in, flustered for no good reason, and had sipped it compulsively once it arrived through the Warp delivery table. The mug was now beside him, mostly empty. He could feel the drug running around inside his head, bouncing between skull and cortex.

After sending the Null forum message to Integer7, Sam had lapsed into a panicky stew, alternating between feeling that he was doing what needed to be done and feeling that he’d tossed a lit match into a pool of fossil fuel.
 

Something was fishy with Shift. He needed help to get inside, and that meant adding flies to the ointment. The only body large enough and anarchical enough to disrupt Shift was Null. Getting them to move would require the arm-in-arm efforts of both Shadow and Integer7. And so back in the park, he’d taken a necessary step in contacting the man (or woman, or kid in his basement, or brain in a vat, or whatever), but it’s not like Integer7 was stable. Integer7 had a history of saying some pretty crazy shit. Just like how Shadow had his own history of saying crazy shit.
 

“It’s cool, man.” Sam shifted in his chair, trying to convince himself. “Be cool.”
 

But no matter what Sam said to himself, he refused to listen. He couldn’t be cool. He’d
never
been cool…except when he was Shadow — because Shadow was always in control. Shadow was everything that Sam wanted to be. Shadow said what he meant and never thought about it twice. Shadow could stand (digitally) in front of a large audience and lead them boldly forward. Shadow didn’t burn soup or let baths overflow. And if Sam had to guess, Shadow probably didn’t have to convince himself, out loud and alone in a Starbucks cubicle, that everything was cool.

It had been three hours since he’d messaged Integer7. After sending the message, Sam had immediately switched over to his masked mail account and had waited for a reply to arrive, any messages there having been routed through six different anonymous remailers. The page refreshed automatically, but Sam still clicked reload over and over. This went on for 120 seconds, and then the panic started.
 

Integer7 always responded
immediately
to queries. Clearly, he’d gotten the message but thought that Shadow was crazy. Or he thought Shadow was a problem and was quietly rallying his own Null group to bomb Shadow’s page at its newly relocated address, to expose him for the insurgent (or fraud) that he was. Somehow, Sam began to feel, Integer7 even
knew who Shadow was.
He
knew
that Shadow wasn’t a large, intimidating revolutionary with a chiseled jawline. He knew he was actually a scrawny kid in his twenties — a Generation N with glasses and tattoos that fooled nobody into believing he was older.
 

The scenario opened inside Sam’s imagination like a blighted blossom.
 

Once Integer7 figured out who Shadow was, he’d of course start pulling Sam Dial’s news stories from his days with the
Sentinel
, collecting vital information to use against him. Or (and this was far more interesting) perhaps Integer7’s Null troopers were altering those stories to make them something new and profane — or authoring
new
stories as Sam, verified with Sam’s own Beam ID — so that soon, Sam Dial would be the subject of ridicule and remonstration. A target. A whipping boy. Ousted and alone.

Or perhaps Integer7 was a deadhead NPS agent, hiding on the Null forum and waiting for Shadow to show his true colors so he could pounce. That one kind of made sense. Everyone was after Shadow, trying to find out who he was, where he was, and how to stop him. Leave it to Sam to blow his own cover.

Sam forced himself to stop pacing the small room’s floor. This was stupid. His paranoia was stupid. It was the hypercaffeine.