“Welcome back to the scene of the crime.”
Helena Sharp smiled without obvious hostility, looking younger and stronger than ever. Her blond hair was cut short now, her cheeks thinner, the small cleft in her chin more pronounced. Zak wondered if she had trimmed a few pounds since getting the virus. She looked vibrant and assured, her grey eyes bright with sincerity. With professional grace she turned to the Security officer at the front gate of the Eternal Research Institute. “Mr. Davis is a former Operations Director. Give him a temporary pass until we get his biometrics in the new system.”
The guard fished under his desk and produced a plastic laminate. He loaded code and handed it to Zak, who clipped it to his shirt collar and stepped through a Security gauntlet that looked like a high-tech wedding arbour hung with cactus spines. He heard a buzz of electromagnetics as his body was scanned. Security measures had certainly gone up a few notches since he and Phillip had hacked Prime Level Seven from the basement.
Safe on the other side, Zak stretched a hand toward the Director, but she opened long arms to embrace him instead. She patted his back three times in a manly gesture and pulled back.
“You’re looking well,” he said.
“Why, thank you.” She turned sideways to invite inspection, pulled in her tummy, and brushed theatrically at her hip. “The virus is turning me into a showgirl.”
“I see that.”
“You missed my birthday.”
“Eighty-eight,” he said, “but who’s counting?” She appeared to be about half that, a miracle in motion.
“Are you here to see me or Rix?”
“I’m multitasking.”
“Of course.” Helena smirked knowingly, deliberately putting him ill at ease. She knew more about him than he did himself. She remembered things that had been wiped from his mind long ago. Somewhere in the black hole of his memory, he had betrayed her and they both knew it.
Helena motioned with her head and began walking, her pace determined, businesslike. “Jimmy’s got some new scam,” she said.
“He’s a good man, Helena.”
“I haven’t seen the evidence.”
“Fair enough. Just give us a chance.”
She gave him a haughty glare to indicate the improbability. “What do you need from me?”
“We’re looking for guinea pigs.”
She frowned at his poor attempt at levity. “Eternals?”
“Preferably.”
“So it’s dangerous.”
“Possibly.”
She digested this for a few moments as they passed a work station of young people busy in their cubicles. Zak felt his palms getting cramped and sweaty. This woman made him nervous. He reached in the breast pocket of his jacket and handed her a thick envelope of thousand dollar bills.
She peeked inside. “Cash? How archaic. A bribe?”
“Just a deposit in good faith.”
“Do I look like a hooker to you?”
Zak winced. “Hardly.”
“What do you expect to buy with this?”
She was still not warming past frigid, but he tried to remain calm. “Your confidence.”
“No strings?”
“None at all.”
She studied him as they walked, her grey eyes intense. “If you weren’t so gorgeous I’d throw you out on your cute button bum.”
Zak smiled as he saw a chink in her armour, an open invitation. “It’s not merely physical, is it?”
“Too bad you’re married.”
“There is a bit of an age difference. You’re old enough to be my grandmother.”
She waved a hand and chuckled. “After the first few centuries, a decade here or there won’t make much difference, now will it? So what’s Jimmy selling?”
“Cybernetic neurons. Site-specific robotic symbionts.”
“Is that legal?”
“It’s not illegal,” he said. “Technically, it’s simple prosthesis.”
“What are you hoping for?”
“Vastly improved brain function.”
“Letting the genii out of the bottle?”
He pointed a quick finger at her. “Good one.”
“You know that hyperactivity in certain areas of the cerebrum produces feedback amplification and all kinds of weird side effects.”
“That’s why we’re testing.”
Helena stopped and turned to confront him. She placed her hands on her hips. “Why are you and Jimmy always pulling these crazy stunts?”
Zak squinted at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do. You’re always breaking the rules, pushing the boundaries. You’ve been doing it since you were a teenager. That’s why I enlisted you in the first place, back when I didn’t know better. Call me a fool to trust you again.”
Zak blinked at her mixed messages, wondering if he was winning her over. “This is just science. We could play this gig totally above board. This product could get the ERI out of hock.”
“I want more than money. I want you back on my team.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” Helena began walking again. They reached an elevator and she placed her hand on a palm scanner. More security upgrades. It would be difficult to move around this building now without leaving a biometric trail. Not like the old days.
They stepped inside an empty box and lurched upward. “Do you remember anything about Colin Macpherson?” she asked, staring at the glowing numbers above the door.
“He engineered the Macpherson Doorway, the wormhole to the Cromeus colonies.”
“Do you remember meeting him?”
An icy tension curled in Zak’s stomach. “He’s been dead for years, Helena.”
“He’s been uploaded,” she said. “You called him the Architect and served his purposes by interfacing with the aliens through a temporary virtual conduit. I monitored it myself.”
Zak looked down to express the blank state in his mind, though his body memory confirmed every word with dread.
“Not a thing, huh?”
“Sorry.”
Helena sighed through her nose, a grim sadness darkening her face. “The Architect developed technology to monitor the tiny wormholes through which the Eternal virus is delivered to humanity. Somehow a group of vampires here on Earth now has the capability.”
Zak jerked his eyes up. “What?”
“You see it, don’t you? The balance of power has gone way out of whack. The vampires are plucking up our people like lollipops.”
“Oh, God, no. What are we going to do?”
The Director pursed her lips at him as though pondering the dilemma anew. “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she said.
The elevator door opened to reveal Rix waiting on the other side.
“Dad,” he exclaimed, and Zak jumped into his embrace.
He was taller, stronger, and had coarse stubble on his chin. He had blossomed into a man so soon! He looked tough, muscular in the upper body, with a wary stance that suggested he was ready to fight any instant—the urban hoodlum.
“Are you growing a beard?”
Rix rubbed his chin. “Not really.” He glanced furtively at the Director. “We’ve been busy lately.”
“Vampire trouble?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed, somewhat forced to Zak’s eye. So he knew the problem. Or perhaps there was more, some new teenage disaster, some reticence to Helena’s authority.
“So you guys are off for the weekend, I hear,” Helena piped up to Rix. Her demeanour transformed to that of a happy co-worker, her posture subtly altered. She was bouncy, up on her heels. She traded masks at will.
“Off on vacation,” Rix chimed. “Where’s Mom?”
“At the hotel downtown,” Zak said. “She didn’t feel comfortable coming back here just yet. She has a surprise for you.”
“Really? What is it?”
“She wants to tell you herself. How’s school?”
“Boring. I want to run away and become an artist.”
“A painter?”
“Yeah, or a sculptor.”
“Brilliant.”
“I’ll catch you guys later,” Helena said, just one of the boys, and sauntered away.
Zak clapped his arm around his son, feeling love like a fountain. “Tell me everything,” he said.
They stepped into the elevator and Rix filled him in on all the current crises at the ERI, his burgeoning romance with Niko, and her recent trauma with the vampires. He still had not received any confirmation that she was alive, but the ERI assault team had cleared the building of all Eternal occupants. The vampire administrators and cafeteria staff had put up little resistance once the armed guards had been tranked. Niko was out there somewhere.
They took a cab downtown and Zak recounted his escape to the northern sanctuary and the long weeks living off the grid with Mia. He tried to explain their life of ease to a young man who had known nothing but trouble all his days, the feeling of oneness with Gaia that develops over time in the wilderness, the bond of love shared by a couple living in close quarters.
He didn’t dare tell him about the listless days when his parents had resorted to sexual gymnastics just to pass the time. No point in grossing him out. He hoped one day his teenage son would discover this bond of communion with a woman, that he would learn the joy of service, of mutual respect. A happy marriage seemed like such a rare commodity in this frenetic digital age.
Rix filled him in on the details of school. Good marks in mathematics and physics, some artistic aptitude. He was planning on college and had audited classes by feelies on the V-net. Some universities were still accepting Eternals as undergraduates and a few were openly hostile to the Evolutionary Terrorist Omnibus, the controversial legislation that effectively stripped Eternals of civil rights. Full protection from vampires was being offered on gated campus grounds, and a few free-thinking patrons were offering scholarships to selected candidates.
Not everyone in the world was filled with bloodlust. Not every human was afraid of extinction. The silent majority still lived quiet lives, still went to work and school and debated the current issues of philosophy and ethics. All possible futures were waiting for fulfilment and Rix had high hope that everything would work out for the best. He had a vision of a better world where Eternals and humans could live together in harmony. It made Zak proud to see such purpose in his son, such faith in a post-human destiny. He could hardly wait to see his face when Mia told him about the baby.
They arrived at the hotel room to find the door slightly ajar.
“Mia?”
Zak eased his way inside to see her lying contorted on the floor, eyes open and staring in surprise at the ceiling, unblinking. He dove to her side and reached for her neck in search of a pulse.
Cold. Dead.
He checked her blouse. Three bullet wounds to the heart, closely spaced in a tight triangle. She would have been gone before she hit the floor. Oh, God.
For a moment he was transported out of his skin, looking at the grisly scene from somewhere near the ceiling, looking down at his own tousled hair. He floated in a passionless hysteria, a timeless state of crystal acuity. How could this happen? Why? A robbery attempt? Some random act of violence? A contract killing? It seemed a terrible puzzle, something beyond comprehension.
His wife was dead.
He found himself again in his body, awash in anguish, weeping over her. A pool of blood had soaked into the carpet below her and spread in a widening circle. The stench of iron hung in the air like a heavy metal miasma. He placed his hand in her congealing plasma. Eternal blood. She should have lived forever. She was one of the chosen. Her vast potential had been snuffed out in an instant like a candle wick.
He remembered the baby. Oh, God, no.
His hands went to her womb, searching for warmth, for any vestige of life.
Cold. Dead.
He looked up at Rix, trying to focus through a veil of tears.
His son was bracing himself stiff against the wall, his white face a mask of horror.
“I brought you dinner,” Andrew said as he pressed a package forward with a smile.
Niko looked up from her bedside vigil. She had been sitting with her stepfather all day, inspecting his biosystems moment by moment, listening to the steady chirp of his heart monitor amplified in the sterile laboratory. “Thanks,” she said and began unwrapping wax paper from an egg salad sandwich. She took a bite and chewed mechanically, not bothering to taste.
Andrew lingered, hands in the pockets of his lab coat, watching her.
“He should have awakened by now,” Niko said. “Look at the alpha-EEG.”
“I’ve seen that pattern before. It’s not unusual in post-traumatic patients with fatigue or pain.”
Niko’s body tightened involuntarily. “Is he in pain?”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “We’re certainly not seeing any muscle rigidity on the chart. Hardly even any hypnic twitches. I wouldn’t worry. In any case, pain is an evolutionary building block for the brain, not to be discounted in this form of therapy. All in all, Phillip’s showing regular sleep transition periods from delta to theta. The occasional alpha and beta periods are just not breaking through into full wakefulness.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry. We’re definitely making progress day by day.”
Andrew leaned over to check the bioengineering flatscreens. He scrolled through several views of the mindscan data as Niko stared past his shoulder. He tapped one screen with significance. “The growing activity in the parietal lobe is particularly promising. It does look like a good precognitive pattern for spatial and mathematical reasoning.”
“Don’t try to baby me, Andrew. His whole brain is working just fine, neurons firing, peptide levels stable, possibly memories being recorded. Even the so-called personality centres in the frontal lobes are kicking it out. He should be awake.”
Andrew stood tall to face her. “Most of the complexity of a human neuron is devoted to maintaining life-support functions. Higher information processing is really just a byproduct.”
“But surely consciousness should arise naturally in a healthy brain.”
Andrew nodded. “Metacognition is a bit of a mystery.”
“A bit of a mystery?” Niko bristled. “Is that the best science can offer? With the most transcendent technology money can buy?” She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
Andrew frowned at this challenge to his professional specialty and began to pace back and forth, his exposed thumbs tapping outside the pockets of his sterile lab coat. “Suppose you had a tree,” he said, “a Christmas tree covered with blinking lights and fancy decorations. And you ask a scientist to make you one exactly the same. He has the equipment and he builds it just the way he sees it, an exact duplicate. He plugs it in and measures the result. His creation is perfect in all physical aspects, except for one thing. It’s just a tree, not a Christmas tree. It does not have the metacognition to recognize the meaning behind its existence.”
“The soul?”
He rolled his eyes. “If you must. I think the electrochemical theory of persona is adequate in this sense.”
Niko finished her sandwich and folded paper remnants in her pocket. She looked at Phillip. “He doesn’t realize he’s alive?”
Andrew grimaced at the oversimplification, rocking his head from side to side as he tested it out in his mind. “I think we just need a spark, a catalyst. We do have a plan, if you will allow it. We contacted a specialist in the Cromeus colonies. They have a company there, Soul Savers, that uploads human consciousness to disk. They have a whole menagerie of cyber-souls living in a vast database.”
“I know of it.”
“Right.” Andrew pressed his pretty lips into a flat line. “It’s pretty far out at the moment, beyond what Earthside legislation would allow. Anyway, our specialist suggested uploading foundational schemata to form a personality base.”
“Foundational schemata?”
“A saved soul, if you will.”
“Who?”
“What?”
“Whose soul?”
“Well, nobody in particular, just a framework, a spark of lightning.”
Niko stiffened with scorn. “My dad is not some Frankenstein monster for you to experiment with.”
“Sorry, perhaps that was a poor metaphor.”
“This is my father we’re talking about.”
“Sorry.” Andrew wrung his hands, clearly nonplussed.
“You don’t have very good bedside manner for a doctor.”
“I’ve never done retail medicine, “ he said. “I’m a neuroscientist. Most of my work is done by computer simulation.”
Niko tilted her head at him. “Is there any scientific basis to think this will work?”
“To be honest, I don’t know.” He hissed out a sigh. “Look at the Beast in V-space. Here we have an early cybertracker, not the first, but certainly a robust variant. It was programmed top-down in the beginning, primarily as an encryption ubercomputer, but somehow merged with a spontaneous bottom-up consciousness, a feedback loop caused by patterns of electromagnetism in the cybersphere. It has insight and can make decisions in its quest to keep the V-net free of digital disease. But the Beast does not have metacognition. It does not consider itself as a private entity, as a being that can think about thinking.”
“It has no soul.”
“Loosely speaking.”
“And that’s what’s wrong with Phillip?”
Andrew worked his lips grimly, pressing and pursing them in a weird facial exercise. He was clearly troubled by the whole conversation, the use of abstract terms, the lack of hard data.
“I think it’s worth a try,” he said finally.
Sublevel Zero was bright with colour, vibrant with high-def cortical fluorescence. Pink seemed to be the shade of the month. Market researchers were offering pink hats or jackets as free upgrades to anyone who would carry a temporary hunter for the day. The white market was proving too lucrative to ignore. Advertisers had been moving down from the Prime Levels with slick pop-ups and feelies to take even the underground corporate. Rix could see the trend as nothing but trouble for Eternals. One day soon the white market would be gone completely. Where will the runners run when every protocol is under surveillance? Where will they buy food? Rix glowered at the thought. Mankind should be free inside their own brains.
Niko had poked him to say she had plugged up. He was hot on the trail of the girl he loved. It would be a bittersweet reunion for sure, and he dreaded having to tell her about his mother. He dreaded having to replay that murder scene again and again in his mind for the rest of his Eternal life. He didn’t want to think of Mia ever again. He couldn’t bear it.
“Hey, cousin, you made it.”
Niko stood in an alcove off the main thoroughfare wearing a sexy black skinsuit like polished ebony. She looked exotic and dangerous, her straight hair hanging limp to bare shoulders, her lips like pert pink pillows. Passersby gawked at her skimpy outfit, smiling and nodding, and Rix felt a wave of jealousy, wishing he could throw a blanket of modesty around her perfect body. “You changed your costume,” he said.
“This is my catgirl look. I’m off duty. You like it?”
“It’s a bit revealing.”
A look of surprise crossed her face. She glanced down at herself self-consciously.
“No, really, it looks fabulous. I was just kidding.” Rix recovered quickly, feeling like a covetous idiot. What was he thinking? This was Sublevel Zero, after all; there was a topless animotron on every street corner. He had recently customized his own avatar with a chrome skinsuit and black trim—a new digital kick-back veneer like mirrored glass, difficult for pirates to recognize and remember.
“So who are you supposed to be? The silver surfer? Showing a little package, aren’t we?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“No you didn’t. You said you were kidding.”
“Whatever.”
“Let’s keep moving,” she said. “I hate having all these trackers around.”
They stepped out onto the street where a kaleidoscope of colour shifted around them, hawkers and hookers and government gestapo. They were careful to touch nothing.
“You will be scared out of your mind,” said a megaphone announcer to all and sundry as they passed. “Visit the Caves of Dragonia,” said another in competition directly opposite on the crowded thoroughfare. A sultry female voice offered a free sex feelie called Uncharted Quad-X. The sounds seemed to overlap into a cacophony, a dissonant feedback pulse.
“So thanks for saving me,” Niko said.
“I missed you. I’m glad you’re okay. And you’ve got the virus. That’s awesome.”
She shot him a quick glance. “Well it’s not working out great so far, but thanks anyway.”
He clenched his teeth at the reminder of the torture she must have endured. “They say the Eternal journey is easy to start but difficult to finish,” he offered half-heartedly.
She tossed her hair in dismissal. “I’m glad I could count on you. Goes without saying, I guess.” Her lips compressed with maudlin sentimentality, sharing the now awkward memory of their single intimate encounter, glorious as it had been.
Rix knew exactly what she was thinking and took comfort in the connection—the path to her heart was still open and he loved her more than ever. “Your worm came through in multiple copies. The vectors were easy to track.”
“For you, maybe.”
He shrugged, trying to fake nonchalance. “The cosmetics firm was a necessary clue. How did you get the message out?”
Niko gave him a quirk of a smile. “Let’s just say I had to be creative. How’s the ERI?”
“In an uproar since your bad news.”
A puppet pop-up jarred them with a palpable kinetic displacement. “You guys need a private pleasure dome?” asked the peddler, wearing street jeans and a gaudy collared shirt. He looked like an advertisement for a Hawaiian vacation.
“No, thanks,” said Rix.
“Can I give you an upload brochure?”
“Get lost,” said Niko.
The peddler stepped away, frowning.
“Do you want to drop down a level for more privacy?” Rix asked.
“There’s no privacy anymore. The vampires have got my DNA, my fingerprints, retinal scans. God knows what else. My life is ruined.”
“We could go deep.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t got time. I’m babysitting my stepfather round the clock, cleaning bedpans and feeding him through a straw.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He won’t wake up.”
“Sucks.”
They walked in silence for a few moments. Rix longed to touch her, to make some show of affection. She looked exquisite to his wandering eye, sinewy and strong. He remembered watching her jump off a building back in realtime, her black kite like the wings of a demoness.
“How are your parents?” she asked.
A jolt of anxiety hit him like electricity. So this was it. “My mother’s dead.”
“What the hell?” Niko’s avatar pixelated with trauma as she lost traction, a rookie mistake.
“She was murdered. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Niko stopped and stared, her image fading in and out with emotional overload. A garbled sound erupted from her now faulty transmission. She was losing contact.
Rix reached for her with his hand, grabbed her shoulder. “Stay with me, Niko.”
She closed her eyes as she struggled to stabilize her avatar. “Sorry.”
He kept his hand on her perfect body and began massaging her collarbone with gentle rhythm, watching her breasts heave with ragged breath. “You’ve got to learn to control your emotions Sublevel. Runners can read every nuance of drag.”
“Jesus, Rix. Your mother is dead.”
“I can’t help that now. Neither can Jesus.”
Niko swallowed with obvious effort, her face still a pixelated mask. “She was Eternal.”
He pulled his hand back. “I can’t talk about her. She’s already been cremated. She’s gone, just like that. No church, no funeral, just ashes in an urn buried in a box.”
“Vampires?”
Rix sighed at her persistence. “Doesn’t look like it. They left all her blood behind.”
“Joy bashers?”
He scowled. “Maybe, but it’s hard to believe vigilantes would resort to murder. All that evolutionary terrorism crap makes me sick! I mean, so what if we’re Eternal? It’s not like we’re trying to take over the world.”
“Some people have narrow minds and impossible conceits.”
“My dad thinks it was a professional contract. Three bullets at close range, narrowly spaced. The cops were no help at all—just another cold corpse with no papers.”
Niko paused for a moment, her teeth clenched with anxiety. “How is Zak?”
“Bad.”
“How bad?”
“He’s a basketcase and blames himself for everything. I don’t think he’s bouncing back this time. He says he’ll never plug up again.”
Niko eyes bored into him like lasers searching for his heart. “And how are you handling the loss?”
“I’m coping,” he said and glanced away from her penetrating gaze. “I’m in denial, I guess.” He didn’t want to think about his parents. He wanted to focus on Niko. Could he tell her how he felt? His lovestruck imaginings night after night? Could he express his heartstrings? Did he dare? No, now was not the time. “I could use a friend,” he offered.
“I’ll always be your friend, Rix.”
“Can we meet in realtime? Can we hook up again? There’s lots of space in the dorms at the ERI.”
Niko shook her head—too quickly—and Rix felt his stomach drop into a death spiral.
“I’m living with someone else at the moment.”
“A guy?”
Niko braced her hands on her hips. “Yes, Rix, a guy. His name is Andrew. He’s a neuroscientist.”
“Wirehead?”
“No, straight.”
“Eternal?”
“No.”
“Are you sleeping together?” It was none of his business, perhaps, but he had to know. She could not refuse him.
“I suppose so.”
“You’re having sex?”
She sighed through pursed lips, reluctant to deliver the final blow. “Yes, Rix.”
He could not believe it. “After all we’ve been through together?”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”
“Well, I thought we had something going on, like we were in love.”
She gaped at him. “Love? Because of one weak moment?”
A bridge broke in his mind, a carefully engineered structure now proven faulty and worthless. “That’s all I was to you? A weak moment?”
“No, no, of course not. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”
“So that’s it then.”
“That’s what?”
“The end.”
She huffed her disbelief. “You’re distraught, Rix. Let’s just cool this down.”
“No. Forget it, Niko. We’re done.” He took a step backward, out of her personal sphere.
“Don’t be a child, Rix.”
He held his arms up to ward her off, took another hesitant step back. “I’m too young for you. I get it.”
She extended her palms in supplication. “Rix, I need you. Please don’t do this.”
He wheeled and walked away.
“You will be scared out of your mind,” a hawker shouted behind him.
He took a zoomtube up to Main Street, the now civilized underground, and wandered aimlessly in the digital cosmography, bumping into pedestrians and pop-ups, causing unintentional havoc on the boulevard. He could not seem to focus his thoughts. A couple of greysuits began to monitor his erratic movements. Ladies in lingerie called like sirens from the shadows, promising to assuage his pain. After a time he gave up and unplugged.
Back in his dorm room, he felt a dark reality take shape around him, a black fog of depression trying to smother him. He had lost his girl. He had lost his mother. His father was barely responsive and the vampires were fast closing in. He was Eternal and had nothing left to live for.