FOR A MOMENT NELLIE felt everything about her—the room, Ayne’s divided body, even her own body—di solve into a panorama of quick, high-singing vibrations. Then the solid world returned, but in a completely altered form. Instead of standing between the divided halves of Ayne’s body, Nellie found herself stepping out of a set of metal brackets that rose approximately a foot above her head. In front of her lay a small room that was obviously an office. Filing cabinets and bookcases lined the walls, and a desk, with a computer stood to her left. Seated at the desk, with his back to her and completely engrossed in the screen before him, was a man wearing headphones. Turning to warn Deller and his mother, Nellie saw Deller’s eyes already riveted to the man’s back. Beside him stood his mother, eyes closed and swaying slightly. Nellie’s gaze lingered briefly on a cut beneath the woman’s left eye. It was still bleeding and looked deep, but for now it was going to have to wait. Reluctantly she turned her attention back to the room.
The brackets through which they’d emerged were positioned several feet from the nearest wall. A red light was blinking on the right bracket, probably signaling their arrival. Clearly the brackets acted as a kind of a receiving gate, but why, thought Nellie, would they connect to a gate in a human being? She’d expected to have to deal with whatever it was that had stolen Ayne’s soul, not a mechanical device. And where was her double, and Deller’s and his mother’s? The vibrations through which they’d traveled en route to this level hadn’t been much quicker than their home level’s. This meant they couldn’t have gone more than one or two levels, and everything should be more or less exactly the same as the place they’d just left—unless they’d hit a major pocket of flux, or somehow jumped to one of the unfixed levels her double in the gold-brocaded dress had mentioned. But those started at the eleventh level, which would mean a much quicker vibratory rate.
Without warning, Deller’s mother gave a quiet moan and slumped against her son. As Deller steadied her, Nellie’s eyes darted toward the man at the computer, but the music blaring from his headphones had blocked the small sound. Still, they had to get moving. Catching Deller’s eyes, Nellie pointed to an open doorway across the room, then tiptoed toward it. A quick glance through it revealed a reception area with a large desk, the usual office equipment and a few chairs. Beyond the lobby she could see the beginning of a hallway, and to her right another door. The entire scene ached with emptiness. The man at the computer seemed to be the only person around.
Of course, thought Nellie. It was the seventh of Lulunar, the day the Festival of the Return was celebrated. Businesses and offices would be closed, and everyone would be outdoors at the various carnivals. The guy at the computer was either a workaholic or an utter pagan. Gesturing to Deller, Nellie slipped into the reception area, then leaned against a wall and opened her mind to the molecular field. Hadden would be searching for them, might even at this moment be coming through the set of brackets in the office behind her, but she had to get a feel for this place, figure out its vibratory rate and how many levels they’d gone. But as solid reality dissolved into glowing silhouettes of energy, she felt only more confusion. No onslaught of wails and screams hit her, and as far as she could tell the surrounding vibratory rate matched her home level’s exactly.
That meant this was her home level, but from the lack of wails and screams in the molecular field it was obvious they were no longer in the Temple of the Blessed Heart. How was that possible? Almost against her will, Nellie glanced toward a long window that ran the length of the opposite wall, and her jaw dropped. She was obviously on the upper floor of a very tall building, for the view before her was tremendous. More importantly, it wasn’t a tremendous view of Dorniver’s downtown area, or any of its meandering suburbs. Instead she saw, stretching toward the horizon, a city whose streets and buildings were far too sophisticated, utilitarian and orderly to belong to any Outbacks city. And yet, Nellie thought, scanning the main river, parks and downtown area, the landscape looked familiar. To her right she could see the planetarium and Museum of Natural History her mother used to take her to, as well as a rec center at which she’d taken swimming lessons. With deft familiarity, her eyes followed the gridwork streets past the Goddess’s Redemption Cathedral toward a suburb where she’d lived until she was eight. This was Marnan, one of the Interior’s largest cities and the last place she remembered being happy, before she and her mother had started moving so much, running from city to city.
They were in the Interior. Numb with shock, Nellie turned to face Deller as he led his mother into the lobby. How in the Goddess’s name was she supposed to explain this? Here she’d been trying to help them, and had made the situation ten times worse.
“Where are we, sweetie?” Deller’s mother whispered. Eyes half-open, she leaned heavily on her son’s shoulder. Under the harsh overhead lighting, the cuts and bruises on her face were clearly visible, and her skin had a grayish pallor.
“I don’t know,” Nellie said helplessly. The soaked patch between her legs had turned cold and was beginning to rub. Desperately she squeezed her legs together and hoped no one would notice the smell.
“Just one of your levels?” With a grimace, the woman touched the bloody cut under her eye.
“Sort of,” said Nellie, watching Deller who’d turned and was peering through the office doorway. Suddenly he tensed and backed toward them. “Hadden,” he mouthed as voices broke out behind him.
“Anyone come through here lately, Lars?” demanded a familiar clipped voice.
“Uh uh,” said another voice carelessly. “Not for hours.” “You sure?” asked Hadden, his voice loud and irritated. “I was following three, in a group—a middle-aged bitch, a boy and a girl. Couldn’t really get a fix on the girl. A lot of her waves were pretty high up. She breached a contact point and left it dysfunctional. Took me a while to get it working again.”
Contact point, thought Nellie weakly. So that was how they thought of Ayne—merely an entry and exit point.
“You think she’s the one they’re looking for?” the other man asked quickly.
“I don’t know,” replied Hadden. “You’re sure they didn’t come through here?”
“Been here for hours,” the other man assured him. “No one’s showed.”
“I’ll have to call headquarters then,” Hadden said. “Could be the contact point screwed up and downloaded them somewhere else in the system. The receiving stations will have to be notified.”
“There’s a direct line at the front desk,” said the other man. “It’s a Goddess freak day and everyone’s on holiday, praying to their star charts.”
Nellie’s eyes slitted. A pagan, just as she’d thought. She turned toward the hallway, intending to run toward it, then felt a hand grab her arm and whirled to find Deller pulling her through a second doorway close to the reception desk. Quickly his mother eased the door shut behind them. Huddled in the dark, they listened as Hadden stalked into the lobby and picked up the phone.
It sounded as if it was going to be a long, very muffled conversation. Restless, Nellie let her mind tilt to the right and began to scan the molecular field. They appeared to be standing in a small storage room. Outlines of several filing cabinets glowed quietly in the dark, and she could make out rows of shelving along the far wall. Further probing revealed what was probably a small lamp sitting on top of a filing cabinet. Tuning back into solid reality, Nellie crossed the room and touched the object. Yes, it was a lamp, and it appeared to be plugged in. Cupping her hands around the knob to muffle any click it might make, she turned it on.
The room lit up with a gentle glow. Immediately Nellie’s eyes flew toward the others, who were still standing by the door. As the light hit him Deller whirled, then relaxed and nodded. His mother simply opened her eyes and closed them again. It must have been twelve hours, Nellie realized, since the woman had had anything to eat. Glancing around, she spotted a box of sugar cubes next to some coffee supplies on a shelf. Carefully she opened the box, wincing as the cardboard rasped slightly, then tiptoed to the door and placed a cube against Deller’s mother’s mouth. The woman’s eyes flew open, and she took the cube from Nellie and fit it carefully between her swollen lips. Handing the box to Deller, Nellie watched him lift another cube to his mother’s mouth.
She turned from them and began to prowl the room. Part of a secretary’s work area, it was consumed by shelves of office supplies, a photocopier and a row of filing cabinets. Stopping in front of the latter, Nellie scanned the labels that appeared on the drawers. MB129QS. Detta 093. Quadrant 74QA. What kind of codes were these? Curious, she pressed a release button and slid open a drawer packed with file folders. But the files were labeled with incomprehensible technical jargon, and none of the diagrams in the folders made any sense. Bored, she moved on to the next filing cabinet and opened the top drawer. Pulling out the first file, she almost grinned as she read the label. Breeding Program? Was the government of the Interior getting into the dog-breeding industry?
Slipping the file back into the drawer, Nellie flipped to the next one and read the name Gemma Abreen on the label. She opened the file and saw the photograph of a seven-year-old girl in the top right-hand corner and her case history typed into the appropriate boxes below. Unease rippled through Nellie and she scowled. What would a seven-year-old girl have to do with a breeding program? Opening the next file, she saw another photograph and name—Phillip Acker, fifteen years old. His mother was an engineer, his father ... See File PRADS01 was typed into the appropriate box. The next several files revealed a similar scenario—a child’s photograph with an address, birthdate, and mother’s occupation, and a similar reference to the father’s identity: See File JQFR1011 or Refer to File MTZFN1201.
Nellie’s heart began to thud painfully. Mysterious unnamed fathers—it had been a sore point between her and her mother. While Interior children didn’t live with their fathers, they were usually given the basic facts about their lineage, including their father’s name, caste and medical history. But all Nellie’s mother would say about her father was, “He’s with the stars now, honey. It doesn’t matter what his name is—he belongs to the Goddess.”
Nellie shivered once, uncontrollably, then got a grip and began leafing through the files until she reached the back of the drawer. The last file contained the case history of a boy named Sean Edden and she shifted to the next drawer, continuing her search. She was looking for the letter K—K for Kammer, Kendricks, Kidder ... And then, there it was—Kinnan, Nellie Joan. Soundless bells tolled in her palms, blackness oozed through her brain and cleared. Slowly she pulled out the file and opened it.
There was her photograph, taken when she was eight, approximately two years before she and her mother fled the Interior. The home address listed was for an apartment she remembered as having bright yellow walls and a landlady two floors down who owned a pet canary named Holy Moley. Her school had been just around the corner, a two-minute dash. Nellie’s eyes roamed the page, scanning her uneven academic record and the lists of her recreational activities and closest friends. Why would anyone want to keep track of her friends? And why had a dark stroke been drawn through the box that listed siblings? She had no siblings. It had been another sore point to pester her mother about.
Without warning, Nellie’s eyes locked onto her mother’s name: Lydia Stella Kinnan. Occupation: elementary schoolteacher. Terminated in Dorniver, traitor’s death. The death date given was sixteen months previous. As Nellie read it, the floor wobbled under her feet and she slumped heavily against the filing cabinet. Deaddeaddead, my mother is dead. Finally it was official, more than a deep dark question hovering at the back of her brain. For a long moment she stood caught in a nothing place, sucking her pain into a small black box and burying it deep within herself. Then she forced her eyes to return to the page and scan for details about her father.
There was the appropriate box, but a heavy stroke had also been drawn through it. Nellie whimpered in dismay, then glanced up, terrified at the sound she’d released. Her eyes locked with Deller’s, and they waited, strung like live wires across the muffled staccato of Hadden’s voice. Finally Nellie shrugged and Deller shrugged back. Handing the box of sugar cubes to his mother, he crossed the room and stopped beside her. Instinctively Nellie’s arm shifted to cover the page, resisting when he tried to move it. Then her eyes fell on the gap in his hand that had once held his missing finger. Everyone had something missing in their life—with Deller it was his father and brother, with her it was her mother and her past. Slowly she let her arm slide off the file.
Deller glanced at the page and his eyebrows rose disbelievingly at the sight of her name. “What is this?” he whispered.
She shrugged, not able to speak the words Breeding Program, and flipped to the file’s second page. Filled with diagrams of the human brain, it was marked with small Xs and arrows. Tiny print gave complex medical explanations. Nellie scowled as she stumbled over the unfamiliar terminology. Biotelemetric, electromagnetic, bio-chip, nerve chip, radio-transmitter—what was this but fancy talk for some kind of machinery that had been stuck inside her head? Shrill stars sang in her ears; for a moment she felt everything she knew and understood slip completely away from her.
“Nellie?” Deller whispered, gripping her arm. The warmth of his hand brought her back to herself, but she shrugged him off and glanced again at the page before her. According to this file she’d been part of a secret government breeding program that wouldn’t even list her father’s coded file number. Her mother had been murdered for trying to rescue her, and her brain was filled with technology she couldn’t begin to understand. Shakily Nellie flipped to the file’s final page and read the last typed entry: Contact lost near Dorniver. The date listed was the same as the one given for her mother’s death. A single hand-scrawled phrase dominated the bottom half of the page: Operation 9Q4L incomplete. Quickly she flipped back to the previous page. There it was—the code 9Q4L, written next to a profile of her brain showing two implants inserted into the right temporal lobe. Was this the reason her mother had taken her and fled to the Outbacks, then died a traitor’s death—for trying to save her from the completion of Operation 9Q4L?
Clutching the file, Nellie stared at the cabinet drawer. There were so many folders, surely one file marked incomplete wouldn’t be missed. But what if she was caught with this information on her? Any Interior agent would immediately know who she was. Long-ingly Nellie traced the phrases typed onto the first page. There was her mother’s name, her own name, the name of her school and her former best friend. She was real, she did exist, and this file was her only evidence that she’d once belonged with people who’d known and loved her. It felt like missing breath.
Without glancing at Deller, she returned the file to the drawer and tucked it into place. She took one last look, straightening the file’s edges, matching it to the previous one. As she did, the following file sagged and she reached for it, intending to straighten it too, but then her heart stopped beating and she was falling through a long silence. When the falling stopped, she found herself once again standing before the filing cabinet, her eyes focused on the new file, repeatedly scanning the label. Nellie Joanne Kinnan—the name came at her like a whisper that had been buried deep underground. Sliding the file out of the drawer, she opened it.
The photograph was obviously recent. The girl facing the camera had long blond hair. Her eyes were gray and curiously slanted, her nose thin and snubbed at the tip, her lips smiling but unsure of their meaning. Something about the corner tuck of her mouth told Nellie this girl could get pretty weasely. Maybe that was why they looked so much alike. But then maybe it was because the girl’s birthdate was the same as Nellie’s, and her mother was also listed as Lydia Stella Kinnan, an elementary schoolteacher who’d died a traitor’s death. Her father’s name had been blacked out, as had the box listing siblings.
Nellie Joanne’s current address was unfamiliar, but Nellie read it several times, imprinting it to memory, as well as the incomprehensible phrase, “Black Core Program: Advanced Stage.” Then she flipped to the second page and saw the same diagrams of the brain, only this time operation 94QL was marked complete. Further operations had followed. A third page revealed a full-scale drawing of the human body with Xs marked all over it. Nellie’s face blanched as she saw some of the sites. The girl was a walking implant factory.
Nellie stood in a terror vast and silent as a slowly spinning universe, and listened to her heart beat. She had a twin. Somewhere in a past she could barely remember they’d probably lived together, shared a bedroom, played with the same toys, and breathed one another’s air. While the details had been forgotten, she finally recognized the sensation of absence that had always been with her, sliding across the edge of her thoughts like a reflection in a mirrored mask. In some deep buried part of herself she’d always known about Nellie Joanne, had always missed her.
Slowly she slid the file into the drawer and closed it. Turning, she saw Deller standing inches from her and staring openmouthed, and his mother beyond him, still leaning against the door listening to the uneven rumble of Hadden’s voice. Frozen, Nellie stared back at Deller, her mouth also open, filled with the same silence. It felt as if it had been years since she’d opened the first filing cabinet drawer, as if she’d traveled several universes since reading the label Breeding Program. Through the door came the muffled click of a phone being returned to its cradle. Footsteps stalked out of the lobby, down the long tiled hallway of her mind, and faded.
“He’s gone,” Deller’s mother mouthed.
Nellie nodded blearily. Crossing the room, she grabbed several sugar cubes and shoved them into her mouth. Grimly she fought off the urge to gag, sucking and swallowing until her head cleared and her blood quickened. “I guess we should try going back now,” she whispered. “Are you okay enough to do that?”
With a grimace, Deller’s mother closed her eyes and murmured, “Dizzy, but I’ll try.”
“C’mon, Mom,” Deller said, slipping an arm under her shoulder.
Quietly Nellie eased open the door and tiptoed across the lobby. Peering into the office, she saw the man still working at his computer and the set of metal brackets just beyond him, close to the far wall. An attack of shivering hit her and she hugged herself fiercely. What would happen this time when they stepped between the brackets? Would they be sent back through Ayne, or downloaded somewhere else in ‘the system’? And if they returned through Ayne, where would that be—to a laboratory full of waiting lab-coated men and priests?
It was only when she was a third of the way into the room that she realized the man at the computer was no longer wearing headphones. Fortunately the floor was carpeted and he was clicking furiously at his keyboard, but as she reached the room’s halfway point a phone sitting next to him began to ring. The man reached to pick it up and his eyes fell on her, frozen mid-step. Briefly he sat, mouth open and staring at her, and then she felt him tense, about to spring.
Sending her mind into the molecular field, Nellie brought it abruptly to a standstill. Shock reverberated through the molecules in her immediate vicinity and she wondered helplessly what this was doing to Deller and his mother. For a long stretched moment she stood fixed in position, watching the man who sat facing her, frozen in his chair. Then she braced herself and revved the vibratory rate back up to its normal speed.
The man at the desk continued to sit with his hand stretched toward the phone, a woozy expression on his face. Whirling, Nellie grabbed Deller and his mother and began dragging them toward the metal brackets. “Wake up,” she hissed, panicking at the stunned looks on their faces. “Wake up.” When Deller continued to stare blankly at her, she slapped him. Abruptly his eyes cleared, and he glanced swiftly around himself.
“I’ll go first,” Nellie hissed at him. “You bring your mom.” Then she turned and stepped between the brackets. Immediately she sensed what seemed to be a large pattern of vibrations with many smaller patterns pulsing within it, as if she was being offered a selection of destinations. Scanning them, she found one that felt familiar and focused on it. As she did, a long vertical seam appeared before her. Quickly she sent her mind into it and began to push. Easily, without pain, the gate opened, and she stepped through it.
She was back in the Temple of the Blessed Heart all right, but in the interim Ayne had been moved from the interrogation room to the laboratory. The first thing Nellie saw as she stepped free of the gate were the three birdlike machines, which had been moved from their original position in a corner to the middle of the room. Beyond them stood a priest in his emerald green robe of daily office, leaning against the door that led to the hall. Several lab-coated men were also standing about, facing him. A discussion was in progress and no one had noticed her arrival.
“We’ve got the kids doped and ready in the van,” said one of the lab-coated men. “There’s a strong alignment between the Susurra and the Moons tonight, and we’re going to check out any new levels that might bring into range. But Hadden said one of the machines wasn’t functioning properly, so I want to give them a quick test before we head out.”
Leaning forward, he flicked a switch on the stem of one of the machines, and all three began to emit a loud hum. At the same moment, Deller and his mother stepped through the divided halves of Ayne’s body. When she saw the scene before her, Deller’s mother let out a cry, and the men whirled toward them.
“Get them!” shouted the priest.
Gibbering softly, Nellie rode out a wave of panic. There was no possible way she could freeze a molecular field with this many people. Behind her stood an open gate, but there was no point in heading back into the Interior. As the men lunged forward, her eyes fell on the birdlike machines. Swiftly, without thinking, she grabbed Deller and his mother and stepped into the space between the machines. A howl of dismay went up from the men and she heard one of them call out, “They’re not stabilized. We won’t know how to bring you ba—”
Nellie’s brain tilted to the right and her head filled with the shrill voices of whirling stars. Heat permeated her body and her vibratory rate shot up. Dimly she felt Deller’s mother’s hand tighten around her own, and then the birdlike machines, the shouting men and the laboratory disappeared.