Cyberdrome (25 page)

Suddenly she was
back in the room, standing in front of the green woman. She stumbled backward
and held her abdomen with both hands. “This can’t be right,” she whispered.

“The Gift,” the
woman repeated.

I’m pregnant
, she realized.
But,
how?
She did a quick calculation in her head and figured that she had been
somewhere in the middle of her ovulation cycle when the mission started. That
would mean that Alek was the father, but that was impossible. The embryo inside
her was several weeks old, and it had only been a few hours of real time since
she and Alek had made love.

It’s the fast
interface, she realized. Time was passing inside Cyberdrome one hundred times
faster than in the real world. Both her ovum and Alek’s sperm inside her
would’ve been scanned when she was. Apparently, her Avatar’s ovum had been
fertilized and was now developing at the speed of the simulations.

“This is not the
Gift?” the woman asked, the flutes in her voice changing to distant wind
chimes. She was worried, or perhaps sad.

“Listen, I don’t
know who you are or even what you are, but this thing inside me is a person, or
at least, it will be some day.” She thought about that, and then added,
“Assuming that the same thing’s happening in my real body—which of course, is
anyone’s guess. Anyway, it’s not a gift, at least in the way I think you mean
it.”

The woman’s face
drooped for a moment, but then lightened. “I understand,” she said, her voice
again whistling with the sound of flutes. “You are replicating. It is the other
who carries the Gift.”

“What other?”
Maya asked.

“Time to go,” the woman said as
she looked past Maya’s shoulder. Maya turned around just as a group of men came
into the hangar. She turned to run but strong hands grabbed her and held her
firm. As they pulled her backward toward the door, she saw that the green woman
was gone. Like a ghost—there one moment and gone the next.

TWELVE

A
man tied Alek’s
hands with a coarse rope and then led him around the base of the saucer. All
attempts to explain his presence were met with sharp jabs from the ends of
their rifles.
So much for my people skills
, he thought.

They took him to
what looked like a large all-terrain vehicle parked on top of a sand dune. It
had four huge tires that were taller than he was, and what looked like a
detachable compartment in back. They shoved him into the compartment, and
slammed the metal door shut, plunging him into a hot and stifling darkness.

He tried for
quite a while to loosen the ropes, but couldn’t budge them. With sweat running
down his face and stinging his eyes, he finally gave up and tried to think cool
thoughts. It didn’t work.

At some point,
he either dozed off—or passed out from the heat—because the next thing he knew,
the door opened and Maya came tumbling in. He tried to break her fall, but his
bound hands prevented it. The door slammed shut again, and the vehicle began to
move.

A hand brushed
his face in the darkness. “Are you okay, Alek?” she asked.

“Good as you
are, I guess,” he replied.

“Where do you
think they are taking us?”

“My guess is
that fort we saw. We should try to get out of this vehicle before we get there.
By the way, what is this thing? It looks a little too advanced for the people
who built that fort.”

He felt her
slide up against him. The warmth of her body touching his arm felt nice, even in
the sweltering heat of the cabin. “This is a Rover,” she said. “One of the
surface vehicles we use. The locals must’ve scavenged this one after the
crash.”

He sat up and
worked to loosen the ropes binding her wrists. “Can you find a light?”

“I’ll try,” she
said. A few moments later, a single dim light bar flickered to life on the ceiling.
The room looked like some sort of mobile laboratory.

He stood and
approached her. “Quick, untie me.”

When she
finished, he turned around to face her. In the dim light, he saw that she had
tears on her face.

“Maya, what’s
wrong?”

“Nothing,” she
said, turning away. “Sand in my eyes, that’s all.”

Alek tried to
open the door, but it was locked. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the
room.

“This is a
Research Pod. They are used for studying the people in the simulations up
close.”

Alek walked
around, touching panels. “Is it part of the Rover?”

“No, it’s
detachable.”

He smiled.
“That’s what I thought. Let’s see if we can find a way to detach it.”

“It’s controlled
from the cockpit,” she said. “Listen, Alek, there’s something I need to tell
you.”

“What?” he said
as he continued to search the room.

“I don’t know if
this is the best time, but I think you should know.”

He stopped and
returned to stand beside her. Something was up—he could tell by the slight
quiver in her voice. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he whispered.

She put both
hands on her abdomen, and was about to say something when the Rover lurched to
a stop.

They heard the
sounds of people running and shouting all around the vehicle. Maya pushed Alek
down to the floor and then quickly turned off the lights just before the door
opened to full sunlight. Several men stepped inside and pulled them both out.

As Alek’s eyes
readjusted to the bright light, he saw that they were inside a walled courtyard
and surrounded by dozens of armed men and women. Several strong men were
closing a large metal gate at the entrance to the courtyard. It would not be
easy to escape this place, he realized.

As they were led
across the courtyard, a man with dirty skin and yellow teeth stepped out of a
building and stopped them.

“General Kazak
will see them first,” he said. The armed men grunted their disappointment, but
then released their holds on Alek and Maya.

“Is this a good
thing?” Alek whispered to Maya. She shrugged her shoulders as they followed the
man into the building.

Inside, the
temperature was at least twenty degrees cooler. A loud and overworked air
conditioning unit sat in a nearby window, whirring and chattering. The unit
looked at least fifty years old, maybe older.

Yellow-tooth led
them into a smaller back room where it was still cool but much quieter. A
middle-aged man with black hair and graying moustache sat behind a wooden desk
and nodded as they entered.

“Excellent,” the
man said. He then looked past them and asked, “Are these colleagues of yours,
Dr. Lyman?”

“I need to see
their faces, General,” a scratchy voice replied.

Alek turned and
saw a short balding man sitting on a fold-up metal chair in the back of the
room. His hands were behind him and his face was bruised and scarred. Alek
guessed that someone had severely beaten him recently. His guess was yellow-tooth.

“Oh, my God,”
Maya exclaimed when she turned and saw the man. “You’re Herschel Lyman.” She
turned to Alek. “He’s one of the hostages. I saw him right before the attack.
He almost knocked me over trying to get to my chamber.”

“Yes, I
recognize the woman,” the man said, gazing up at Maya. “She’s one of us. Dr.
Maya Rivero, as I recall.” He looked up at Alek and frowned. “Him, I’ve never
seen before.”

Maya looked at
the man. “We are here to get you out, Dr. Lyman.”

“I’m afraid that
neither of you will be going anywhere,” General Kazak said. He looked at Alek
and snapped his fingers. “However, this man will be executed immediately.”

Yellow-tooth
grabbed Alek’s arm, pulling him forcefully toward the door.

“Wait,” Maya
yelled. “Dr. Lyman, this is Mathew Grey’s son, Alek.” She nodded her head toward
the General. “Tell them that he’s one of us.”

Herschel peered
up at Alek. “I guess there is a family resemblance,” he finally said. He turned
to General Kazak. “He’s all right. If he’s Grey’s son, he might even be more
use to you than the woman.”

With a nod from
the General, yellow-tooth muttered under his foul breath, then released his
grip and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Use us for
what?” Maya asked Herschel. When he simply lowered his head, she looked up at
Kazak.

“You will assist
me in defeating my enemy,” he said, returning to sit behind his desk. “For this
help, you will be rewarded with a comfortable life here. Food, drink, women.”
He looked at Maya. “Or men, if you prefer.”

Alek imagined
yellow-tooth with Maya and shuttered. “Who’s this enemy of yours?” he asked, hoping
to drive the image from his mind.

Kazak lifted a
pipe from a clay ashtray and put it in his mouth without lighting it. “They
call themselves, ‘Medari.’ They live in the high desert and attack our village
nearly every night. They are, quite literally, monsters.”

“The enemy
usually is,” Alek said. “And if we refuse to help you?”

Kazak nodded to
Herschel, who seemed to shrink in his chair. Alek noticed for the first time
the stains on Herschel’s pants and the large brownish-yellow puddle under his
chair.

“I believe that
Dr. Lyman asked himself that same question just a few days ago. I have four
simple rules here. Please tell them my rules, Dr. Lyman.”

Herschel looked
up—tears were running down his dirty cheeks. “Do what he asks,” he said. “Don’t
question his orders, don’t try to escape, and don’t try to trick him.”

Kazak smiled.
“Very good, Dr. Lyman. I believe that you have learned your lesson. Please escort
Dr. Rivero and Mr. Grey to your quarters.” He paused and then added, “Do clean
yourself up, won’t you.”

“Thank you,
General,” Herschel said. “I’ll come back later to mop this up.”

“Nonsense, Dr.
Lyman. You are my Minister of Defense, and have more important matters to attend.
My guards will take care of this.”

Herschel stood
slowly, and Alek realized that his hands were not tied after all. He remained
hunched as he walked toward the door. How long had Kazak made him sit there?
Alek wondered. Two days? Three?

The poor guy
reeked of his own urine, and when they stepped into the heat of the afternoon
sun, the smell became overpowering. Maya, always the caring person, put her
shoulder under Herschel’s arm and tried to help him walk. Alek winced at the
smell, but then remembered that he apparently owed his life to this smelly
little man. He supported Herschel’s other arm as they walked across the courtyard.

“It’s not going
to be easy to get out of here,” Maya whispered as she looked up at the tall
walls surrounding the courtyard.

“I don’t do well
as a servant,” Alek whispered back. “So, we either find a way out of here, or
we die trying.”

Herschel looked
up at Maya and then Alek. “Kazak won’t allow you to die. We are too important
to him.”

“Good. Then we
have nothing to lose,” Alek said.

“There are worse
punishments than death,” Herschel said as he lifted his left hand toward Alek.
Two of his fingers were missing, cut off below the second knuckle.