Cyberdrome (42 page)

As he slowly
rose to his feet, hands still held in the air, Maya yelled from behind him,
“There is no benefit to you in killing him. He’s already crossed over, so you
can’t use him now.”

Ceejer looked
over at her. “That may be true, but I still have you, my dear. After I get rid
of him, you and I will have the next dance.”

“Let’s just get
it over with,” Alek snarled.

“Don’t worry,”
Ceejer said with a smile as he aimed the gun right at Alek’s face. “This will
only hurt for...ever.”

Maya screamed as
Ceejer pulled the trigger. Instead of firing a deletion beam at Alek, the gun
suddenly turned inside out and then wrapped itself tightly around Ceejer’s
outstretched arm. Then it started to beep.

“What treachery
is this?” Ceejer screamed as he fought to remove the device. The more he pulled
on it, the tighter it clung to his arm. The beeping sound grew steadily louder.
“What is this?” Ceejer repeated with fire in his eyes.

“Maya was right
when she said that I could write programs in my sleep,” Alek said. “But not a
deletion gun. As I keep telling everyone, there is only one program that I can
write in my sleep.”

“It’s a Swarm,”
Maya said from behind him.

“It won’t
actually kill you,” Alek said as the beeping sound grew louder, “but it will
divide you up into several
million
pieces and scatter them across
HomeSpace. I would call it a punishment befitting your crimes. Your own
personal hell.”

Suddenly, Ceejer
lunged forward and wrapped both arms tightly around him. “Then I’ll take you to
hell with me,” he whispered in Alek’s ear.

Alek fought to
free himself, but Ceejer’s grip was just too strong. The countdown alarm had become
a shrill scream in his ears. He closed his eyes tight and waited for the end.

Just then,
something hit Ceejer hard from the side, knocking him off balance and breaking
his grip. The impact spun Alek around, and when he looked back, he saw Javid
pinning Ceejer down on the ground.

“I’ll kill you
all,” Ceejer yelled, but his voice was cut off as the weapon attached to his
arm began to break into little pieces, taking his arm with it. The pieces
swirled around his torso like a small tornado, taking more of his body with
every revolution. Javid took one last look at Alek before he too was caught up
in the expanding tornado. His face looked…peaceful.

Ceejer’s eyes,
however, were filled with rage as the last of him broke up and joined the
spinning vortex. The tornado continued to expand, pulling in his father’s
lifeless body as well. Alek scrambled to get out of the way, but then, the
tornado collapsed in on itself. A second later, it exploded like a fireworks
display; a sudden white light sending a shower of sparkling pieces in all
directions.

When Alek’s eyes
readjusted to the normal twilight of the Core, he saw no sign of Ceejer, Javid,
or his father’s body. The Swarm program had worked; Ceejer was now spread
across the sector in a million useless pieces. Unfortunately, so was his
friend. Javid had lived his life to protect Cyberdrome and had died in that
cause.

Alek looked at
the place where his father had died, and realized that it was probably for the
best that his body was swarmed as well. He wasn’t sure he could face seeing his
lifeless body a second time. It was also a fitting burial, he realized. It was
the computer-equivalent of having his ashes spread on the wind.

As he stood, one
of the Soldiers near him turned to face him and then crouched slightly. He
thought that it was getting ready to charge, but then several others near it
bowed toward him as well.

Then the entire
circle followed suit. They all remained prostrate for a few moments, then stood
back up in near unison, turned, and walked off in all directions, carrying the
remains of their fallen comrades in their arms.

As the Soldiers
vacated the area, Cloudhopper, Herschel, and the others slowly rose to their
feet, shaking their heads and looking as bewildered by the outcome as he was.
Elsala was still lying on the ground off to one side.

“Is it over?”
Maya asked, coming up to stand beside him.

“I hope so,” he
answered.

“That was quite
a bluff,” she said.

“I thought
Ceejer was bluffing too,” he said. “I didn’t think he would kill
—
”

“It wasn’t your
fault,” she said, but he knew that it was. 

“At least Ceejer
can’t harm anyone else now.”

Just then,
Cloudhopper and the others joined them. “This doesn’t make sense,” Cloudhopper
said. “We should be going home.”

Alek looked up.
“What do you mean?”

“If Ceejer was
the THI, or what the system thought was a THI, then the threat is over. The
system should’ve released us.”

Maya nodded.
“Then Ceejer wasn’t the THI after all.”

“What?” Alek
yelled. “Ceejer has to be. My father arranged all of this; remember? He made
Ceejer into a potential THI to lock everyone inside and cover up what he was
doing in here.” He looked at Maya. “If Ceejer isn’t the THI threat, then who,
or what, is?”

“I’m not an
expert in this field,” Herschel said, “but perhaps we are all jumping to conclusions.
Since you said your Swarm program didn’t actually delete Ceejer, maybe the system
still considers it a threat.”

“A more
important question is; what do we do now?” Maya asked.

Suddenly, the
Watchport sphere began to rotate and lines formed along the sides. As Alek and
the other watched, the lines turned into openings that separated the sphere
into curved segments. The segments then lowered themselves into the ground and
disappeared.

As the outer
sphere vanished, the Holographic planet inside began to stretch upwards,
reaching from the Transport platform toward the sky. As it stretched, it began
to glow and pulsate.

“What in the
world is that?” Maya asked.

“It’s a
temporary Comport beam,” Lorena said from behind them.

Everyone turned
at once. Cloudhopper started toward her but Alek stepped between them. “She’s
not to blame,” he said. “My father planned all of this, and he probably tricked
her into helping him, just like he tricked everyone else.”

“You expect me
to believe her?” Cloudhopper asked, then turned to Lorena. “If that is an exit
out of here, why didn’t you just use it and leave us all here to rot?”

Lorena looked
stunned. “I’m not completely heartless, you know.”

“Either that, or
you knew that we might be able to stop you if you tried to enter it alone,”
Cloudhopper said.

“You and Mathew
had an escape plan all along,” Maya said.

“Actually, this
is my creation,” Lorena said. “It will allow us to bypass the THI lockout, but
it only has enough power for a single use. We all have to step into the beam at
the exact same time and we need to do it in the next three minutes.”

Alek turned and
looked at Elsala and the others. She was up on her feet now and the two KaNanee
and the lone CeeAut were standing on each side of her; close enough to show
they cared about her health, but still maintaining a safe distance from each
other.

“We need to go,
Alek,” Maya said.

“I know,” he
said, “but I have to talk to them first.”

As he walked
toward the group, Elsala met him half way.

“Thank you for
your help, Alek Grey,” she said.

He looked back
at the group of humans near the Comport, then at the group of near-humans behind
her.
“What
will you do now?” he asked her.

“Even though I
have been reformatted to be physically human again,” she said, “I am still a
Sentinel. My future must include rebuilding the Sentinel force and restoring
the system to its original status.” She frowned. “However, without my beloved’s
guidance, I do not see how these goals can be accomplished.”

“I’m sorry to
interrupt,” Maya said from behind him, “but we need to go, Alek. Right now.”

He turned and
saw her standing close to him. She gestured toward the Comport beam where Cloudhopper,
Lorena, and Herschel stood waiting for him.

“You’re right,”
he said. “You’d better go.”

Her face
dropped. “Alek
—
”

He turned back
to Elsala and said, “Your goals can be accomplished because I’m going to stay
here and help you achieve them.”

“You can’t stay
here, Alek,” Maya said cautiously. “You have to come back with me.” She placed
one hand on her stomach and looked into his eyes. “You have to come back with
us.”

He looked at
her, then up at the glowing beam. “I’m sorry, Maya, but I can’t go back,” he
said, not expecting her to accept the truth. “I’m disconnected from my body,
remember? Just like my father.”

Maya took his
hand and tried to pull him toward the Comport beam. “Time is passing a hundred
times slower in the real world,” she reminded him, “which means that your real
brain and body have only been disconnected for a few seconds.”

She was right,
he realized. “It doesn’t change the fact that I have to stay. Besides,” he
added, pointing to his chest with his thumb, “if I really am disconnected, then
this is just a copy. The real Alek Grey is back there, on the other side of the
Comport beam waiting for you.”

 “This is you,
Alek,” she said, grabbing hold of his arm. “You’re not just a copy. Don’t ask
me how I know, but I do. If you step through that beam, you will download this
version of you back into your brain.” He hugged him hard. “I want all of you,
Alek.”

“I can’t,” he
said. She started to protest, but then he grabbed her by both arms. “Before we
came in here, you told me about Nexus points; places in your life where one
decision changes the path of your future.” He looked at the humans standing
near the Comport and then at Elsala and the others standing behind him. “I
think that this is one of those points.”

“But what if
it’s the wrong path you’re choosing,” she pleaded.

He shrugged.
“They need me here,” he said, “and the other hostages are still trapped. None
of that has changed.” He glanced toward Persis and the two KaNanee standing
behind him. “The three of them have experience fighting the machines. I think
that with their help, I have a chance to complete what you and I started. That
has to mean that this is the right decision.”

“Choosing the
right path doesn’t guarantee that you will succeed,” she said. “What if it’s impossible
to get them all out?”

He looked over
at Herschel. “We managed to get him out,” he said. “I’ll try to do the same for
the others.”

Tears were
welling up in her eyes. “You could die,” she said, “just like your father. If
it’s true that you’re disconnected from the real world, your body could be
dying right now, just like your father’s did.”

He hugged her
tightly. “I don’t think so,” he said gently. “My father said that the neuroprobes
were designed to keep us alive, even during disconnection. I’m inside his
chamber right now and I have those same neuroprobes protecting me. My father
only died because Ceejer tried to escape using his body, and his heart and
brain couldn’t handle the stress.”

“Maya,”
Cloudhopper called from behind them. “Lorena believes this makeshift Comport is
beginning to lose power. We need to go—now.”

Maya released
her grip on Alek, wiped the tears from her eyes, and then turned toward the security
chief. “You three go ahead,” she said. “Tell Leconte what we are trying to do.”
She glanced back at Alek. “Correction—tell her what we are
going
to do.”

Alek grabbed her
shoulder. “You can’t stay,” he whispered.

She turned and
looked him square in the eyes. “The hell I can’t,” she said as she patted her
stomach again. “And not just because of this. I lost you once, Alek Grey. If I
can help it, I’m not going to lose you again.” She glanced at the others behind
him. “Besides, no one here knows the simulations better than I do. If you’re
serious about bringing all of my people up to the Core, you’re going to need my
help.”

Alek smiled and
hugged her tightly. After a moment, he looked back at Cloudhopper. “Tell Leconte
to watch the Core,” he said. “When we get everyone out of the simulations, she
needs to perform a secondary systems reboot. It will shut down Cyberdrome and
free the hostages—free us all.”

Cloudhopper
nodded and then turned to Herschel. “You heard the man. Tell Leconte everything.”

“Roy?” Maya
asked.

Cloudhopper
glanced over at her. “If you’re planning what I think you are, then you’re going
to need my help.” He glanced over at the Survey Vessel floating nearby. “Also,
Lorena is the only one among us qualified to pilot that ship, and if she’s staying
in here, then so am I.”

“The Survey
Vessel can pilot itself,” Lorena yelled, but the Security Chief’s grasp on her
arm made her shut up.

“After all
that’s happened, I have reason not to trust anything you programmed,” Cloudhopper
said. When Lorena reluctantly nodded, he added, “Besides, I never leave a
mission until it’s completed, and this one is far from over.”