Cyberdrome (40 page)

NINETEEN

 
“N
o!” Alek shouted
as he pushed Maya aside. “We can’t let him win.”

“Ceejer’s an
‘it,’ not a ‘him,’” Maya replied, nervously surveying the room. “Besides, we
seem to be out of options as well as time.”

The water was
now up to their waist, but he didn’t care. He turned to her and grabbed her
arms. “We can still beat him,” he said as he squared his shoulders. “I can beat
him.”

“How, Alek? How
can you beat a supervisor-class program with delusions of grandeur? The Core is
Ceejer’s domain. He has the upper hand there.”

“Now who’s
calling Ceejer a ‘he?’”

“We can’t beat
Ceejer, Alek. You can’t beat him.”

“Yes, I can,” he
said firmly.

“How?”

The water was
climbing rapidly now, and he pushed himself toward the window. “It’s time to
try your plan,” he said. “Let’s find something heavy before that glass breaks
all the way.”

“What are you up
to?” she asked as she came up beside him. “What the hell are you planning now?”

He touched the
glass with his outstretched hand. It was vibrating slightly and he thought he
could feel it bending inwards. She touched his shoulder, and he turned and
kissed her deeply.

“You have to
trust me,” he whispered a moment later.

“What do you
mean?”

“There’s only
one way to beat Ceejer, but I need your help.”

She hugged him.
“I’ll do anything, Alek. You know that.”

“You won’t want
to do this,” he said cryptically.

“Stop hinting at
it and just tell me what the hell you’re planning.”

“My father can
create any program he wants,” he said, “just by imagining it.”

“I realize
that,” she said. “How does that help us?”

“I need to
acquire that ability,” he said. “Then, if I can hold the thought of a deletion
gun program in my mind long enough, I should be able to create a real one
inside the Core and use it to defeat Ceejer.”

She pulled away
from him, “That’s your plan? It’s crazy.”

“Why?”

“Well, for
starters, you’re not like him. You’re not a so-called living program. You’re a
human being lying in an interface chamber, receiving sensory signals from the
life-like Avatar in front of me.”

“But, what if I
was disconnected like my father?” He let the question hang there. Better to let
her figure it out for herself.

“The only way
you can be disconnected from your body is to die in here,” she said.

He stared at
her, but didn’t say a word.

Her face
suddenly turned pale. “No,” she whispered.

He placed one
hand on the glass beside them. “We grab something heavy and jump out of this
window, just like you said. When we get near the opening to the Core, I’ll suck
water into my lungs and drown myself.”

“No,” she
repeated, slightly louder.

“The interface
hardware back home will detect the death of my Avatar and disconnect my brain
from the interface. At that exact moment, you pull me into the opening.

“You will die.”

He pointed to
his chest. “The Watchport beam will revive this body. I’ll become a living program,
just like my father. I’ll have the power to beat Ceejer.”

She tried to
pull away from him. “You’re as crazy as your father, and I won’t help you.”

“Maya.”

“I won’t help
you kill yourself,” she yelled.

“You’re not
getting it, Maya. The moment my brain disconnects from the interface, I won’t
be here anymore. The person you will pull into the Watchport beam will not be
me. It will just be a copy of me.”

She stood there,
saying nothing, but he could see in her eyes that she had a thousand questions
flashing through her mind.

“Ceejer tried to
enter your father’s body when he was disconnected,” she said. “What is to stop
him from trying the same thing with you?”

“This is
different,” he assured her, hoping it was true. “I think Ceejer had to have
some sort of physical contact with my father when he was disconnected, some way
to upload his program into my father’s data stream.” He waved his hand around
the room. “He’s not here.”

“I can see
that,” she whispered.

“Besides, if we
go back, if we surrender, Ceejer will do this to me anyway. Only then, he will
either kill my real body when he tries to get out, or he will actually make it
out, which is worse.”

“Worse than
dying?” she asked.

“I’ll have a
hostile program running inside my brain,” he reminded her. “Isn’t that worse
than death?”

She looked
around the room. “There has to be another way.”

“This will
work,” he said.

“Even if it
does, I’ll be left all alone here.”

“You’ll have my
copy,” he said. “And if my copy is as good as the copy of my father, you’ll
never know the difference.”

“I’ll know.”

“Maya,” he
whispered, reaching out to her.

She looked into
his eyes. “I’m not sure that I can do this, Alek. I’m not sure I can help you
drown yourself.”

“Leave that to
me,” he said as he hugged her. “You’re job is to get me to the Watchport opening
and help revive me.”

Just then, the
window panel on the far side of the room imploded and the sea came rushing in.
In one swift motion, Alek grabbed her arm and then used all of his strength to
shove a nearby desk toward the floor-to-ceiling window beside them.

When the window
broke, there was a momentary backwashing of seawater, and he almost lost his
grip on the desk. He closed his eyes against the rush of water and broken
glass, but managed to keep his grip on both her hand and the desk. Then he felt
the desk begin to fall which pulled them both out of the window and down toward
the submerged city street.

o     o     o

In Maya’s later
recollection, what happened next felt like it took a lifetime, even though it
all occurred in less than five minutes—a few moments of time stretched beyond
all reason.

It started with
the sound of breaking glass. She barely managed to suck in a lungful of air before
the ice-cold seawater hit her square in the face. After the initial rush of
water passed, she forced herself to open her eyes. She was surprised how well
she could see, but then remembered that seawater contained nearly the same
concentration of salts and other trace minerals as human tears. A holdover from
our origins in the sea, she reminded herself.

She saw the desk
that Alek was holding onto begin to fall through the window opening. He almost
lost his grip on her arm, but she did a quick scissor-kick and grabbed his
pants leg with her free hand.

When they passed
through the opening, she saw the submerged street below. It was only six stories
down, less than 30 meters, but it looked much farther. As the weight of the
desk pulled them down, she felt the pressure building on her inner ears. She
released her grip on Alek’s leg, pinched her nose with her thumb and index
finger, and blew hard. She heard a squeak as the air pushed down her Eustachian
tubes to fill the space behind the tympani of her ears.

She realized
that with one hand holding the desk and the other holding onto her forearm,
Alek would not be able to equalize his own ears. She did a quick calculation
and realized that with pressure doubling every ten meters, there would be
almost triple the pressure at street level. Then she remembered that this was a
submerged city, which meant that the pressure would depend on how deep the city
was under water. In any case, his ears would not be able to withstand the
pressure and would soon rupture.

By the time she
had gone through all of this in her mind, they were halfway down the side of
the building. A movement down the main street caught her eye, and when she
looked in that direction, she realized that water pressure was the least of
their worries.

She saw both
Soldier machines swimming directly toward them. She started to panic, but then
noticed that their movements were both erratic and inefficient. Luckily, the
Soldier’s feet weren’t designed for swimming. They just might have time to make
it to the Watchport opening before the Soldiers reached them.

When the desk
finally hit the street, Alek released his death-grip on her arm. Now he can
clear his ears, she thought, but then saw that he was not doing so. He was just
floating there; eyes closed tight, one hand still clutching the desk.

He’s panicking,
she thought. Afraid to move. He needs my help. When she grabbed his arm, he
opened his eyes. At first, she saw the panic she believed he was feeling, but
then saw something quite different—determination. He was trying to go through
with it—trying to muster the willpower to inhale water into his lungs and die.

As both a
lifelong swimmer and a student of human physiology, she knew of the mammalian instinct
that caused newborn babies to hold their breath when submerged in water. It was
one of the few instincts that humans possessed, and it was a strong one.

He shook his
head and closed his eyes again. He’s struggling, she realized. Fighting to overcome
his will to live. In less than a minute, the carbon dioxide content in his
blood stream would reach a critical level, and then another, even more primitive
part of his brain, would try to force him to take a breath.

At that point,
the two opposing forces inside him would collide. That was when he would begin
to panic. Moments later, the need to breathe would override his will to live,
and compel him to take that fatal breath.

His body would
go into convulsions then, as his diaphragm spasmed, trying to force the water
out of his lungs. Since he was submerged, he would only suck in more water.
With any luck, he would pass out at that point, sparing him any more agony.

His face began
to tighten and he reached up with a free hand and pinched his nose; the first
sign that carbon dioxide was beginning to build up in his blood. She saw his
chest heaving, almost as if he were breathing. He was instinctively trying to
suck up the last of the oxygen in his lungs.

As she watched
him, she felt her own chest begin to tighten and realized that she was also
running out of time. Then she remembered the Soldiers and glanced down the
street. They were closer than before, but only slightly. She was relieved, but
also surprised by their slow progress. Had it really only been a few minutes
since they passed through the broken window above? Was time really moving so
slowly?

She noticed that
they were in the middle of the street, instead of at the base of the building
from which they had jumped. They must’ve had a fair amount of forward velocity
when they pushed through the window, which caused them to fall in an arc away
from the building. When she looked toward the wall where she knew the Watchport
opening was located, she saw that it was less than ten meters away.

Without
thinking, she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him toward the wall. At first,
he came with her, but then stopped and broke free from her grasp. When she
looked back at him, she saw that his eyes were wide open again and he was
shaking his head slowly back and forth. His mouth shaped the word, “No.”

She was starting
to feel desperate, and realized that soon she would have to make a decision
herself—to stay and die, or go and live. If she didn’t make the decision
herself, her lower brain would eventually take over and make it for her.

Alek seemed to
see this in her eyes, because his face suddenly relaxed. He even smiled. His
mouth then seemed to shape the words, “Goodbye,” just before he inhaled deeply.

Immediately, he
began to cough and then his arms started failing wildly. She could almost hear
him screaming in her mind. Before she could react, he shook one last time and
then it was over.

His body floated
silently before her. She was less than a meter away but she was afraid to touch
him. He was dead and she didn’t want to feel his lifeless skin against hers.
That would make it too real, she thought. That would force her to realize the
truth of what had just happened.