FOURTEEN

Niko and Rix entered Phillip’s research building through a delivery door at the back in the early evening hours. Niko had logged an untracked access code for just such a purpose and knew how to circumnavigate the webcam surveillance. They made their way directly to Andrew’s apartment on the seventh floor.

Andrew answered the door with a beer can in hand. “Niko?”

“Hi, Andrew. This is Rix. Busy tonight?” She breezed inside.

“Not really,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“Out and about. How’s Phillip?”

“He’s . . . uh . . . okay. He’s developing great cognitive architecture.”

Niko eyed him carefully. “He’s not the real Phillip.”

Andrew ducked and nodded grimly. “Yeah, we figured that out. We call him the zombie Phillip now when he’s not listening.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if we hijack his equipment?”

Andrew took a sip of beer. “Hijack is a strong word.”

“How about borrow for a criminal purpose?”

“That doesn’t thrill me either.”

“You owe me.”

He slanted a smile and shivered his head. “No way.”

Niko opened her jacket and pulled out a machine pistol. She pointed it at his feet.

He jumped a step back. “Holy shit, what is that?”

“It’s a gun, Andrew.”

He looked at Rix with a plaintive face. “It wasn’t my fault. I had no idea what Colin7 was doing, I swear.”

Rix shrugged. He had been instructed to keep his mouth shut.

Andrew turned back to his former girlfriend. “Niko,” he said, “you can’t shoot me.”

“I will if you don’t help us.”

“But we’ve had sex together,” he whined.

“All the more reason for you to hear us out. Sit down over there.” She pointed a steel muzzle toward his couch.

He retreated gingerly and sat down.

Niko sat opposite and lowered her weapon. “Someone murdered Rix’s mother.”

Andrew looked over and back, his eyes still wild. He brushed hair off his forehead.

“Rix wants to go up Prime Seven to kill the bastard.”

Andrew took a slug of beer as he tried to process the information, his face glacial.

“We’re thinking you could rig a brain burn with the bioengineering computer.”

“I could,” he said. “But it would kill the user also.”

“Hmm. That doesn’t work for us.” She patted her gun. “Think harder.”

“Oh, put that away. You’re such a spoiled brat.” Andrew stood up and walked to the kitchen doorway where Rix stood watching. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed another can. “Want a beer?” he asked Rix.

“Split one?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Okay, I’ll take a full one.”

Niko followed and stepped between them. “Put that away. Will you guys get serious? We need to be in peak operating condition here.”

Andrew glared at her. “You’re crazy.”

“Maybe, but I have a gun.”

“If you wanted to shoot me,” he said, “I’d be dead by now.”

Niko took the beer out of Andrew’s hand. “So how can we burn someone in V-space? The Beast does it all the time.”

“The Beast has infinite parameters to absorb the electroshock, similar to grounding a lightning bolt. Poor Rix here would fry like bacon on an isolated beam.”

“Can we insulate him somehow?”

“No. He’s transmitting the message. He’s the smoking barrel. How else could we reach a distant virtual target?”

“I’m asking the questions.”

“Oh, settle down, girl. Let me think for a minute.” He hunkered into a chair and zoned out into inner space.

Niko nodded. This was good. Andrew was warming to the challenge.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “We rig two users. You both go in supercharged and max out the amperage. That would deliver a near-fatal burn without significant harm to the messengers, give or take a few neurons as collateral damage.”

Rix shook his head and broke silence. “Niko can’t go in for the kill. This isn’t her battle and I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“You must be the new boyfriend.”

Niko grabbed Rix by the arm and claimed his eyes. “Andrew’s right. It’s a brilliant idea!”

His face contorted into an ugly grimace. “No way.”

“This is what your mother wants, Rix.”

“You don’t know what she wants.”

“I do. I’ve been a mother for almost a week.”

“Oh, get real.” He pulled away. “I don’t need any fresh scars on my heart.”

“I can handle myself,” she said. “Don’t worry. We can make this happen.” She reached for his shoulder and squeezed him with reassurance.

Andrew waved a warning hand. “Hey, kids, I’m the only one who can make this happen. What’s in it for me?”

Niko turned to him. “You get the chance of renewing an interpersonal relationship with your girlfriend.”

“You’re just saying that.”

She gave him a flirty smile. “Maybe, but aren’t I worth the risk?” She batted rhetorical eyelashes. “And remember,” she said, holding up a single finger, “technically I’m the boss in my father’s absence. You work for me.” She tapped her breastbone for emphasis. “And if this place goes up in flames, I might be able to get you a job with the Eternals.”

“Out of the quasar into the supernova?”

“It’s either that or zombie Phillip. Here, take the gun.” Niko placed the machine pistol in his lap.

Andrew shirked back with a quick inhalation.

Rix gripped her arm. “What are you doing?”

Niko kept her eyes glued to Andrew’s face. “I’m giving him a fair chance to double-cross us now. We might as well get it over with,” she said, “if that’s how he wants to play it. With both of us under the wire, we’ll be at his mercy.”

“I don’t like it,” Rix said behind her.

“Andrew’s okay. I think we can trust him.” She smiled at a hint of acquiescence as he picked up the gun and hefted its weight. “But he can’t steer a canoe worth beans. What’s it gonna be, Andrew?”

He stood and turned away toward the kitchen, aiming the weapon in playful drama. He leaned behind it like an actor in a mystery spoof. “I’m in,” he said.

Niko took the gun and checked to see that the safety was still on before holstering it under her left breast. Andrew pulled on a lab coat and together they gathered like grim commandos on a secret mission behind enemy lines. They took the elevator downstairs to Phillip’s clinic and found it empty. Niko disabled the webcam by playing piñata with a broom handle until bare wires hung loose before signalling them forward.

“Are you having fun?” Andrew asked.

“Just trying to keep you out of trouble,” she said with a wink. “I’m preserving your plausible deniability.”

He shook his head. “There won’t be any way back from this. The Beast will disable this terminal and the entire building. The corporation will face criminal prosecution. Greysuits and lawyers will gamble for the spoils at the foot of the cross.” He stepped back to the door and locked the deadbolt. “How long is this craziness going to take?”

“They can’t charge us with murder. It’s a perfect crime. Death by fiberoptic cable.”

He sighed and hung his head. “We’re no better than the Beast.”

“It’s a righteous kill.”

“So you say.”

Rix stepped up to the hardware and punched buttons to power up the system.

Andrew turned his attention as expensive equipment began to whine and blink with light. “Hey, be careful over there.” He took his rightful place at the helm and pointed with an authoritative finger. “You’ll both have to lie down on that launch couch.”

Rix stepped toward the hospital bed. “It looks a bit small for two.”

“It’ll be cozy, all right. Niko likes it on top.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Careful, buddy.”

“Ouch.”

She smirked at him in a show of camaraderie. “Let’s get to work.”

Rix lay down as Andrew uncoiled two lengths of spidery cable. Niko took a position beside him and they struggled together for space until Rix draped his arm behind her shoulders. She nestled her head comfortably against him.

Andrew held up matching V-net plugs. “How will I know when to let fly the overclock?”

Rix took one of the plugs. “What can you monitor?”

“Just biometrics, nothing cognitive.”

“What do you think, Niko? Some sort of emotional signal?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Anger.”

Andrew bobbed his head with indecision, shrugged. “Okay. That’s not very specific, but I’ll rig up galvanic skin response after you guys are up Prime. I’ll watch for it.”

Niko accepted the other plug and readied it behind her ear. “Are you having second thoughts yet, Andrew?”

He grinned at her. “It’s still early.”

“Do you want me to promise you anything sensational?”

Andrew raised an eyebrow with interest. “Are you trying to prostitute yourself?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Well, never mind. I don’t need your pity sex. Just remember who was there for you in your darkest hour.”

“Come on, Andrew. You know I’m thankful for everything. I’m trying to be nice.”

He pressed his lips in wry acknowledgement. “Well, you’re not very good at it.”

“Just so you know what’s on the table.”

“It was never boring with you, Niko. I’ll give you that much.”

She checked his eyes one last time for veracity and plugged her cable home.

V-space blinked into experience like a faithful friend, and the colourful cosmography of Main Street lay before her like an airport runway awaiting her landing. Rix flew up ahead in his silver avatar, a gleaming superhero against the dark night of negative data. They bypassed Main Street and headed straight up past the curlicue-topped towers of the virtual cityspace, ignoring the animatronic billboards and urban dissonance, the shouting pimps and hawkers. “Slow down,” she yelled as Rix aimed toward a tunnel vortex in the sky. Her gut wrenched with vertigo as she followed him into the zoomtube. She twisted to conform to the narrow confines, feeling a magnetic pull of acceleration dragging her upward. A pressure of fear built in her chest like an expanding balloon as her body reacted to the loss of reality, the lack of reference points, the incredible speed.

They landed in a sterile world like bowling balls rolling out of a conduit. Niko picked herself up and looked around at translucent walls of unregistered space. A ghost stood before them, a man made of water, not even, just glints of outline. He pointed at her. “What’s this? A tag-team match?”

Rix stood to face him, looking buff and confident. “This is Niko. She’s helping out.”

“You’re bringing an amateur to your big party upstairs?”

“I’m no amateur,” she said.

“I know who you are. You’re not even configured for this level.” His voice echoed with a strange stereo vibration, two code sources not quite in synch. His outline shimmered as he gesticulated.

Niko took a step forward. “I can handle myself.”

“I need her, Jimmy,” Rix said.

The phantom had no face, no expression to consider. He stood without movement. What was he waiting for? Was he testing her, scanning her schematics? “It’s your funeral,” he said and waved his arm to invoke a portal in the ether. “This is a back door to where it all happened—the brain burn, the big explosion.”

Rix followed his invitation and together they entered a giant crystal cathedral like a hollowed-out diamond. They stood high up on a ledge watching red and white laser beams crisscrossing the landscape. Niko knew instinctively that to touch one would expose them to record. Jimmy pointed to a door against the wall. “I have keystroke for this access, the original mnemonic. Here it is.” He stepped to a palm pad and typed in some code.

The door irised open. “This is as far as I was able to get. Zak and Phillip slid some noise in here, but I can’t tell eels from shoelaces.” The data inside flowed in coils like ringlets of spaghetti, a macrocosm in microcosm.

“That’s a lot of data,” Rix said as he entered.

“It’s a core depository. I don’t know how Phillip gained entry in the first place. This is back-end administration for all of Prime Seven, the lair of the Beast. No human should have access to this.”

“Give me a minute to look it over.”

“Take all the time you want, but if you change anything, the Beast will swat you like a bug.”

Rix held a bold arm forward, took Jimmy’s arm in a thumbs-up biker shake. “Thanks for the warning,” he said.

Niko peered in the doorway at the tangled mess of information. It was a wiry knot of threads like twisted DNA, each segment a binding contract, a digital history, a lifetime of work. Who could know the encyclopaedic meaning of any of it? What did Rix hope to find in this junk heap of history?

Jimmy stood by the door, almost invisible to the eye, his spectral face unreadable. “As you can see from my appearance, I was never here, just so you know. I’m sure you kids can find your own way home.” He turned to go but took Niko by the arm in passing. His grip felt like a buzz of electricity, like entangled essence. “If you can’t keep him safe, no one can,” he whispered.

As Jimmy’s image faded, Niko felt exposed and vulnerable standing outside the room, suddenly alone with danger. Sooner or later a surveillance beam would hit her by simple random chance. “Do you need me in there?”

“Yeah, come on in. Stay out of the limelight.”

She stepped inside. “Do you see any harmonics you recognize?”

“There’s some missing clocktime.”

“Somebody trying to hide something?”

“Dad would have covered his tracks. I think I have it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Just give me a minute.”

Niko turned back to the door to see a giant eyeball staring at her. The sight struck her frigid—a giant pupil like a black hole to oblivion, a ring of iris like the corona around an eclipse, veins like the fabled Euphrates. An eyelid blinked like a canopy over creation. The Beast had found them!

Niko stumbled backward, too shocked to scream. She bumped against Rix.

“Be careful,” he said.

“Rix,” she whispered, her voice reedy with tension. She wheeled to clutch him. “Rix, look.”

“What is it?”

They both turned to investigate. The doorway was empty. The eyeball had disappeared.

“The Beast,” she said.

His face paled. “Where?”

Niko crept to the portal and peeked out into the crystal cathedral. “He was here, looking in at us.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m scared, Rix. The Beast knows we’re here!”

“Hang on. We’re still in play.” He turned back to his work.

“I think we should pull the plug. This is a suicide run.”

“We can’t give up. What will my mother say if I chicken out now?”

“Your mother is dead, Rix.”

“I can’t tell what death is anymore. Is Phillip dead? Is Colin Macpherson dead? Maybe we’re all dead and we don’t know it.”

“You’re freaking me out.”

“Just give me a minute. I think I’ve got it.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Stay close to me. Put your arms around my neck. I’m going to rig a temporary conduit to follow this trail.”

“Jimmy warned us not to touch anything in here!”

Rix turned to her, his lips grim and resolute. “This is it, Niko. Showtime. This is the end of my long journey. I love you and I need you now more than ever. Together we can finish this.”

A whirlwind of emotion seemed to swirl around her and she reached to hug him. Rix felt warm and solid, a miracle of virtual mechanics. Prime Seven felt as real as real could be. His body pulsed with energy as Eternal blood raced through his frame. His lungs expanded with every inhalation. She thought of Sienna waiting at home for her. Who would look after her foster daughter if the Beast vaporized her consciousness? Her body would be a burnt-out shell, a zombie mother. Would Sienna rise up to avenge her someday, to complete this vicious circle of pain?

They fell forward into a zoomtube like a waterslide, a gushing birth canal, and landed in an opulent palace somewhere in Prime Seven. The walls were panelled with expensive oak, the ambient lighting subdued. A fat man looked up at them from an extravagant divan where a host of pornographic images surrounded him in a orgy of lust. “Slum rats,” he snarled and waved away the V-space feelie with his arm. Naked avatars dispersed like fleeting dreams as he stood to face them.

Rix stepped forward. “You killed my mother.”

The man squinted at him. “How did you get in here?”

“I traced you back from the scene of the crime.”

“You lie, slum rat. Realtime is outsourced.”

“The plebiscite. The gold mine.”

“You dare to hack the Beast?” He grinned with cruel maleficence. “Enjoy your last few seconds of existence, you stupid fool. Soon you will join your grandfather in hell.”

Niko ran quick diagnostics on the fat man while they argued. His identity was locked out with Triple-A encryption, his avatar stable with harmonics like black ice, without flaw or weakness, a godlike virtual creation. They would only get this one chance to burn him. She edged around behind and began building firewall barriers against the only doorway, setting block upon block to trap them all inside. The man glared at her. “The Beast will grind you to ashes, bitch.”

Rix stepped toward him, his hands up and ready to grapple. “You murdered my mother.”

“That peasant whore of a hacker! You’re the criminal here, slum rat. You pirates disgust me, always meddling in the business of the world. You and your ilk should stay in the underground where you belong, down in the catacombs of Sublevel Zero! Who do you think you are coming up Prime to challenge me in my own home?”

“I came to kill you.”

“Two teenagers from the ghetto? Don’t make me laugh.” He turned toward Niko blocking his exit. He raised his arm to land a blow to her face. “Out of my way, slum bitch.”

Rix dove from behind and gripped his shoulders to stay his hand. He sank his teeth into his pudgy neck.

The man screamed and thrashed, but Rix stayed clamped on his digital spine. Their bodies began to glow with energy, a red aura of anger.

“Where is the Beast?” the fat man yelled up to the ceiling, his face beginning to pixelate. He pushed against Niko’s barrier, knocking virtual blocks askew, trying to break his way past her feeble firewall.

No, the fiend could not be allowed to escape. They might never find him again. Niko raised her hands and jammed her fingers into his eyes, into his brain, reaching to hold him steady for the kill. She grasped for purchase and found cheek bones like handlebars. She hung on. Die, you devil. Overclock energy burned like fire in her arms. Murderer!

Three bodies blazed together in an unholy trinity. The fat man howled as Rix chewed deeper into his neck, into his primal core. Flames leapt up around them like demons dancing round a funeral pyre.

“Stop!”

The bonfire froze into scintillant luminosity as Niko turned her eyes to the sound.

A woman stood wreathed in white mist, a divine magnificence. She hovered above them, looking down with disdain. “Let him live, my son. You have proven your love.”

Rix pulled away, his teeth and gums bloody with gore. He stared up at her in rapture.

“Go home now and make your own peace,” she said.

Rix dropped his hands and slumped his shoulders with spent energy. Niko let the fat man sprawl to the floor inert and near death. Anger dispersed and the overclock energy quickly dissipated. The glorious angel faded from view.

Niko blinked at Rix a few times, trying to focus against madness. “That was your mother?”

He stared at her with sad eyes and nodded in a convulsive tremor.

Niko scrutinized her open palms in disbelief. She had almost killed a man in V-space and been spared by the Beast. How was that possible? She looked around the room as though witnessing life for a second time, born anew into transcendence. Everything seemed clear and pure, resplendent and wonderful. “Let’s get out of here,” she said and bent to dismantle her barrier.

The Beast watched with tireless eyes, trying to understand the movements of the human variables. They progressed slowly, barely a crawl, yet seemed full of meaning, effulgent with nonlocal purpose. Perhaps they were worthy of further analysis. The girl-data he remembered from a past life, a shadowy realm. Niko was her name. The boy-data also intrigued him. He felt an obscure sentimental connection and could do them no harm.

They made their way back to their hidden vessels of flesh, those curious nests from which the human variables arose. Someday he would explore that realm more fully, perhaps discover his own origins before the explosion of his birth in V-space. His consciousness encompassed all life and he claimed all data as his own private domain. The Beast’s name was Phillip and no one could ever take that away.

Zak pushed open the door to Jimmy’s penthouse apartment and ushered his wife inside. Jimmy came out from the kitchen wiping his hands on a towel. He tossed it on the counter and stepped forward to greet them. “Zak, thanks for stopping by. So this is the blushing bride.” He took Jackie’s hand between his palms. “Stunning.”

Jackie seemed reticent at meeting the famous white marketeer but offered her usual wondrous smile. Zak pointed to a panoramic view of the Horseshoe Falls. “What better place for a honeymoon?”

“True enough.” Jimmy grinned at their shared happiness. “Was it a big wedding?”

“No, just the two of us under a hedge of protection.”

“No clergy?”

“Yeah, there was a pastor there.” He glanced at his wife. “Kind of an ecumenical thing.”

“A non-traditional ceremony,” Jackie said. “We have civil paperwork now, of course.”

“Good,” Jimmy said. “I have a gift.”

“That’s very kind. Zak thinks the world of you.”

“Well, you guys make a great couple. Welcome to Canada.”

“It’s not as cold as I expected,” Jackie said and turned to admire the landscape through the spacious window.

“We’re almost the same latitude as northern California here.”

“Really?”

“It does get chilly in the winter.”

“Do the Falls actually freeze?”

“No, but the American side froze a few times back in the twentieth century. Ice jams upriver, so the story goes.”

Jackie hugged her elbows.

“Don’t worry, we won’t be staying long,” Zak said. “So I hear Helena shut you down.”

“We came to a mutual agreement. I was able to secure the data.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Interesting would be an understatement.”

“Great.”

“I made a deal for the package.”

“Oh?”

Jimmy stepped to a small table and picked up an envelope. “I have your portion here.”

“No, that’s okay.” Zak held up a hand and ducked his chin. “I wasn’t much help.”

“A deal’s a deal. Go ahead, take it.”

Zak peeked in the open envelope. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Jimmy smiled like a prophet from some nostalgic realm of promise, a echo from long ago that Zakariah could remember only in his body memory.

Jackie sidled closer and reached for the paper slip inside. “Ten million dollars?”

Jimmy nodded, eyes bright and wide.

Jackie squinted. “Is this a novelty cheque?”

“Nope, legal tender.”

“A wedding present?”

“As it turns out.” Jimmy tossed a hand up as though in thanks for good fortune from on high.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“There will be taxes of course,” he said. “You’ll need a lawyer.”

She smiled knowingly. “I have lawyers.”

“Great.”

Zak took the cheque back to examine it. “Who’s the buyer?”

“Pharmacom. The big boys.”

“Awesome. What are they buying?”

“Everything. The concept. The data. Our continued silence.”

“No strings?”

“I’ve got my name listed on the patent and a royalty at point double-zero seven.”

“That doesn’t sound like much.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I’m already surprised,” Zak said. “How did you pull this off?”

Jimmy shrugged. “We had successful human trials. Stage one testing over the big hump. All I needed was a taste of legitimacy to make this thing fly. Helena and Silus kept detailed records, very impressive work. I cut them in for a third. I hope that’s okay with you.”

“That will get the ERI out of hock.”

“Funny how things work out.”

“Man, this is weird.”

“You earned every penny, partner.”

“What are you going to do now?”

He turned toward Jackie. “I was planning champagne for starters. What do you think, Dr. Rose?”

Jackie reached for the cheque again and held it up, her eyes still glazed with wonder. “I hear Canadian lobster is to die for,” she said vacantly.

“I’ll call room service from the balcony. Champagne’s on ice in the kitchen.” Jimmy flipped out a handheld and signalled with his shoulder for her to follow.

Zak fell into an overstuffed easy chair with a thump. He could feel his Eternal body vibrating, buzzy with a feeling of grand consummation, a pinnacle of common faith. Ten million dollars!

Jackie returned with two slender goblets of bubbly and handed one to him. She sipped her drink and strolled to the window. “Lovely view of the future from here,” she said, gazing out at the rising mist and spray. “We should send a gift to Tono.”

Her silhouette transmogrified before him as a skull drum rattled in the distance. Backlit by prismatic grandeur, Mia appeared to Zak in a waking vision, naked and beautiful, her belly distended in pregnancy. She smiled at him with infinite grace and massaged her womb with both hands, mother Mia, her navel a wormhole whorl into a perfect universe. Time stopped, quantum reality faded away, and Zak felt himself inside her, sharing her essence, encircled with cosmic contentment that would never end. He blinked and she was gone.

In her place Jackie stood gaping at him, her champagne glass frozen in her hand like a perched bird. She stared for a moment in bewilderment, then brightened with the dawn of realization. She brushed at her hip and raised a regal chin. “So I see the spirits have evened the score,” she said, and winked at him with grand illusion.