A Game of Universe (27 page)

The boy on the ground tore open his shirt with his left hand, and with his right he pulled something out that reflected the moonlight, something metallic. A blade? She thought it might prove entertaining to let the lamb have a single tooth. It would make his death that much more pleasurable.

But it was not a blade. He had a forbidden weapon.

A polite cough and a hot fist tore into her torso. “I cannot lose,” she cried, then collapsed. Stunned, she watched as the boy crawled to her. He had a pistol. How had he snuck it past the controllers? No cadet could have one.

There were tears on his face. He was crying, and she thought that odd.

He whispered, “Give me your life.”

My mind, and her mind, returned where they belonged, to me, drawn from Medea’s consciousness while I absorbed her intellect.

Her dream ended.

The full moon let me see only a smudge on the silvery grass where we embraced one another and erased the dew, where she stabbed me, and where I shot her. Medea lay at my feet, smoldering where Fifty-five’s gun ripped her apart. I knelt and brushed the hair away from her face, to see her one last time. A sapphire triangle sparkled in the moonlight, caught and froze it in the corner of her eye. It was not Medea. It was Virginia who lay dead in the grass.

I awoke with dread heavy in the pit of my stomach. Reliving Medea’s murder filled me with guilt, especially the part about Virginia being dead. I bet the psychologist was having a field day analyzing that one.

I rolled out of bed, stretched, then checked my pillow. A few stray hairs lay there. I swept them up and tossed them in the disposal—just in case.

I heard Quilp in the living room. He spoke in rapid-fire, uninterrupted words: “These memory cells are folded to their rated capacity; what the hell, let’s do it again; that might do the trick if they don’t pop.”

When I opened the door, I saw my desk disassembled. Its guts covered the Chinese rug: stacks of crystal cubes filled with lightning, display circuits that sputtered rainbows, and liquid memory cores that bubbled with phosphorescence. Quilp sat cross-legged in the center of this chaos. His right hand danced across a disposable computer, and his left wiped his runny nose.

The princess stood a safe distance away and watched him.

Out of thin air, Setebos’s voice said: “Memory insufficient.”

“OK,” Quilp said, “borrow eight blocks from the super user’s nest and loop it through here; he’ll never trace the loss unless he resets the entire system, and while you’re at it, split the two hundred fifty-six tetra-nodes into four sections of sixty-four each; that’ll quadruple our throughput rate.”

The components flared and Quilp’s shadow stood on every wall. His eyes bulged while he watched the streams of information flow, then he declared, “We’re in.”

“In what?” I asked.

He turned. “Hey, Germain, nice to see you’re done with your beauty rest. What happened back on that asteroid? How in blazes did you get here before us?”

“My question first, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” He dropped the datapad. “Setebos is in the Corporation’s operating system.”

“That is not entirely accurate,” replied the disembodied voice of Setebos. “I am partially in the Umbra Corp’s archives, partly on the
Grail Angel,
and partly in your desk, O wise and beneficent Master.”

“Your new girl here said you’d need help getting some data. While you slept, I hot-wired our AI to the Corp’s AI.”

“I apologize,” Lily answered and gingerly stepped through the circuit-littered floor. “This was my idea. When I explored the Atherweb, I found that the rogue and his material possessions were indeed within the black pyramid as you said. Details of their location in the tomb, however, were forbidden to my eyes. When I told your squire, Quilp, of my dilemma, he offered to help. He said there was an artificial spirit, Setebos, who might obtain the information. Was it wrong to do this?”

She must have reopened Cassius’s files. What else had she found? My personal records? They were encrypted, but she had learned so much so quickly already I wouldn’t put anything past her. “No,” I replied, “it’s fine.”

“How about some thanks or a bonus or something for getting the ship here in one piece?” demanded Quilp. “I had to outrun three of those Burning Cross ships.”

“I trust you weren’t followed.”

“No. Setebos lost them.”

“And how deep, exactly, is Setebos into the Umbra Corp database?”

Setebos answered, “Master, I have a working dialogue with the host AI. She will allow me access to files of gamma-level security or less.”

“Good. Please retrieve the architectural designs for the Corporation’s mausoleum, everything from the electrical systems to the foundation. And while you’re at it, try to sweet-talk the host AI into giving you a peek at the security systems.”

“Working,” it told me.

“Quilp, get your gear together. We’ll be moving fast, so take only what you need.”

“Like I haven’t been moving fast already? Look Germain, I came here like you asked. I brought your ship back. I don’t even mind filching a little data for you, but I’m not going to get shot at again. I don’t care how much you pay me.”

“By all means, stay if you wish. I had hoped for your help with the security in the mausoleum, but if you want to remain behind, that’s fine with me.”

He looked at me suspiciously and asked, “What’s the catch?”

“The catch is, Umbra Corp will find out about my visit to Golgotha, especially since I won’t have you to circumvent those security annoyances. Lily and I will be fine. We have the
Grail Angel
to escape in. But you, well, they may want to ask you a few questions.”

He let that sink in. The Corp’s methods of extracting information were extremely effective. “I guess I don’t have a choice,” he grumbled.

“No. You don’t. Setebos?”

“Yes, Master?”

“Put the
Grail Angel
into a high orbit and wait for further instructions.”

“As you wish.”

I made sure Quilp was busy picking through his equipment before I went to the da Vinci, slid it aside, then unscrambled the puzzle lock on the safe behind it. He got through my front door easily enough; I didn’t want him rummaging through my personal things, too.

The safe door silently dissolved, leaving a hole in the alloy wall. There were four lockers inside. The first, I passed over. It contained a few jewels, hard currency, and transport tickets. The second I pulled out and opened. Within was a velvet hand. On each curled finger was a different ring.

Upon my own index finger, I still wore the emerald green band that looked like dark jade to the untrained eye. The core was high explosive, and wrapped about it, a hollow wire filled with nerve toxin. I considered taking another like it, then changed my mind, and chose a circle of cold iron, seven four-leaf clovers welded in a ring. The witch I bought it from swore it was good luck. I believed her, for it was slippery with magic, and gave me a shock when I slipped it on. I’d need all the good fortune I could get.

You were never superstitious,
remarked the psychologist.
Both the wearing of this so-called lucky charm and your dream, they are symptoms of guilt, indications that you are suppressing the loss of Virginia. It will be easier in the long run if you admit this and validate your emotions.

From the third locker, I took new batteries for my shadow skin. Also I removed a set of matte gray boots and matching gloves that let me cling to any surface like a spider.

There was more in the last locker: pistols, sensor webs, robot probes, mines, grenades, virtual image generators, superfluid encapsulated caltrops, and the like. There was a limit, however, to what I could carry. The copper bracelet I wore, and its obscuring mechanisms, would only hide so much from the security systems in Golgotha. I’d bring my blade and a minimal amount of equipment. Any more and I risked being detected.

I sealed the safe, closed my eyes, and mentally prepared myself to absorb the details of the black pyramid. Virginia filtered into my concentration. What happened to her … if she still lived … along with a generous dollop of guilt. Maybe the psychologist was right, maybe I had to face my feelings, but for now, I stuffed the thought of her deep inside me, buried it along with the other deaths I was responsible for.

I needed more time. A theft of this complexity deserved a month of planning. But like Quilp said, we didn’t have much choice.

Lily held a datapad and manipulated the image of a pyramid of obsidian. It spun in the air, and the only two entrances blinked in red: the main entrance to Golgotha’s museum, and an access hatch close to the tip. The schematic indicated this latter entrance could only be opened from the inside. We had to start on the bottom and work our way up.

It had five floors, and on the fourth a white cross flashed. “This,” Lily told me, “is where the knave’s earthly possessions are.”

“Setebos,” I said, “please display the details of the first floor, outline the security circuitry in orange, and show the most likely position of the guards.”

The pyramid sliced into thirds, and the first third cut in half again, revealing the wormlike paths inside, the hallways of the museum on the ground floor, and the security stations. To get to the second level, we’d have to open a vault door, concealed behind a statue of John Wilkes Booth—unguarded, but equipped with a DNA reader that let only authorized personnel in.

“Quilp, can you open it?”

He studied the schematics of the door, traced them with a shaking finger, then asked, “Setebos, delete the first level and add the second, third, and fourth with the same parameters. This door is connected to the main security system on the fourth level.”

“Warning,” Setebos declared, “security measures on the fourth and higher levels unavailable. I shall display an extrapolation of the most probable configuration. Confidence level thirty-five percent.”

Three more levels appeared, and I memorized their details. The twisting corridors reminded me of Osrick’s final resting place. Ironic that he was here to return the favor and loot Cassius’s tomb.

“Yeah, I can open that sucker up,” replied Quilp. “And by the time you get on the third floor, I’ll have the security systems rerouted to monitor the toilets in the museum. Piece of cake. The real problem is on the fourth floor. There’s a guard station with plenty of firepower. You’re gonna have to find another way around.”

“And here,” Lily said, indicating the obvious path that circumvented the danger. “This three-way intersection. You must not pass through it.”

“There’s nothing there,” Quilp said.

“If you trace these lines,” she said, pointing to the plumbing, “they form a sorcerous triangle that binds otherworldly creatures to our reality. Enter and you release whatever is held therein.”

“Magic?” Quilp whispered and licked his lips. “Your Corporation doesn’t bother with that stuff, do they?”

I shrugged. They probably did use magical and psychological means to guard the mausoleum, but Quilp didn’t need to know.

“Setebos,” I said, “give me the fifth level.”

“Access denied,” it replied.

“What’s on the top level?” Quilp inquired.

“Access denied,” repeated the AI.

“That’s where the Corporate traitors are kept,” I told him.

“They’re dead?”

“Alive but unable to move. Their pain receptors are stimulated while their hippocampus is probed. They relive all their fears and nightmares, only amplified.”

“Is that what they’re gonna do to you if you’re caught?” he asked.

“We better go,” I replied, and left his question unanswered. “Get your equipment, Quilp.”

He scooped his junk together into a shoulder sack, and we left my apartment tower, walked past the dragon fountain that spat water high in the air, and onto the school grounds. Manicured lawns stretched to the horizon, broken only by flagstone paths and an occasional patch of wild lupine and edelweiss.

Lily paused once when we strolled through a rose garden. She smelled an apricot-colored
Charisma,
then caught up with us. She had great restraint. If I were kept underground for two hundred years, I doubt I would be so reserved. I’d be running through the grass in my bare feet.

Through the shade of a giant fig tree we strode and interrupted four cadets studying there. They gave me a bow of respect, then returned to their discussion of Plato’s
Republic.
Which of them would graduate? Which would be murdered? Killing to graduate—it was a wasteful policy. Were those Osrick’s feelings or mine?

The black pyramid squatted on the edge of campus. The sun was low and made the golden castles on the mountains seem on fire; it made the tomb look all the more dark. We stepped into the shadows, and the temperature dropped. Goose flesh covered my back. The museum door opened automatically, and reminded us only fifteen minutes remained until closing.

We were in. Easy.

Getting out—that was going to be the tricky part.