Free Radical (45 page)

"The corporate world is not a single entity. Instead, corporations are like separate countries... some are allied with each other, others are at war. For the most part the casualties are people like you, your father, and the idiots that took those pills made by Skyward. People. Animals. Culture. The environment. These things are simply fuel to be burned, and mean nothing to corporations. In effect, these corporations fight to destroy one another, but instead destroy everything around them but themselves. It is a war in which the only casualties are collateral damage. We may hate the system, or we can profit from it."

"How?"

"I am a mercenary. Corporations give me money, asking for my help in destroying other corporations. I help, and I take the money. I'm very good at my job, as you will be."

Deck didn't need to think it over very long, "Sign me up."

"Excellent," Nomen nodded towards the bouncer, "The healthy looking gentleman on my right is Marshal."

The name Marshal struck a chord with Deck. Suddenly his face seemed familiar, like an old friend.

Marshal extended his hand, "Welcome to the team."

Deck offered his hand and it was engulfed in the massive grip, "Thanks, I'm Deckard Stephens."

He froze, mid-handshake, as the moment drew itself out over a massive expanse of time. The two of them stood motionless, dreamlike, for hours, then weeks, then months, then years, hanging in a state of perpetual deja vu. Deck could feel a deep pain radiating from the palm of his hand, following a white-hot line of agony to the base of his skull. It was if someone had injected magma into his bloodstream. The handshake seemed to extend onward into infinity. It was a never-ending moment perfectly preserved over countless millennia.

Rebecca peeled off her uniform jacket and stretched, catlike, in her swivel office chair. It was really too hot in the control room for the jacket, and she was too tired to care about the looks she was getting at this point. For the last week she had been the only young female around, and most of the men had abandoned their discreet sideways glances and had given over to wholesale leering in her direction.

She tried not to think about what this job would be doing to her body. For a week she had been eating junk food and sitting in this chair. Her metabolism was used to a three mile run most mornings, and the week of no exercise and scattered sleep had turned her into a tightly wound coil of hostile energy. This was problematic, since she needed to be soothing and professional whenever she was talking to Hacker.

As she brought her head down from the long stretch, she could feel half a dozen sets of eyes break from her and search for something else to be looking at. The only male not afflicted with this annoying habit was the new guy. The Director.

The Director was packed into his crisp tie and jacket like a shrink-wrapped anvil. His neck was thick and his shoulders were wide. He had appeared the day before and simply assumed control of the entire operation. Everyone seemed to know him, but he was known by many different names. He was commanding, and tireless. He gave orders and people listened. After a few minutes of negotiations, the military pulled out most of their personnel, leaving only a few key advisors behind. Suddenly everyone's goal had shifted from stopping Shodan to saving Citadel. People that had been plotting launch vectors for tactical nukes to vaporize Citadel were now speaking in hushed tones about its fantastic technological, historical, and monetary value.

He had changed Rebecca's standing orders, which had been to guide Hacker through the steps necessary to neutralize Shodan. Now her new orders were to keep him from doing any more damage. He had sat down in front of her and explained that the company was not going to risk any more resources trying to protect the madman responsible for Shodan's aberrant behavior. Hacker needed to be extracted or killed. For the purposes of the company, it didn't really matter, but one or the other needed to happen before he could destroy anything else. The Suit had explained this in the coolest, most businesslike tones. While most of the men in the control room seemed to converse with her chest, The Suit seemed to stare through her skull as he spoke to her. He was devoid of passion, but he had an unwavering dedication to his duty. He had the single-minded drive of a robot.

"I've got something!" A technician was yelling from the back of the control room. It was one of the younger guys. Robert or Randy or something. Several people around him were nodding.

Someone at an adjacent console joined in, "Confirmed. I have the North grove disengaging. It's drifting free of the station."

There were several tense seconds that followed. The murmur of conversation in the room halted as everyone waited to see which way the grove was headed. They all knew that it should set a course away from the Earth, but there was the unspoken fear that Hacker had failed, and the grove would crash into the Earth as the greatest biological weapon ever deployed. Rebecca glanced to the front of the room. The Director stood in the doorway, impassively waiting for the news.

"Retros are firing.... " The operator added after several more moments. "Looks like... yes. It's breaking orbit, and heading away from us. Full burn. That thing is never coming back." They let out a collective breath. The tension in the room was bumped down a few notches.

"Get in contact with the Hacker. Get him on the next escape pod or shuttle out of there." The Director waited for a compliant nod from Rebecca before he vanished from the doorway.

Her console blurted out the now-familiar tone of an incoming signal. There was only one signal her console was set to receive. "Speak of the devil," she muttered.

"Lansing here, go ahead Hacker."

"I... I think the grove is launched."

She looked down at her display screen. Its showed a waveform of the incoming audio feed, superimposed over a table of information about the signal strength, integrity, and encryption. To her, this was Hacker. In her mind, this grid of abstract information had become his face. "Yes, our data confirms same. The grove is headed away from the Earth, nice work."

"Something... happened." His voice was strange, weak. He sounded confused.

"Are you ok?"

"I've been hacked."

She pressed her earpiece into the side of her head, as if being able to hear him more clearly would somehow cause him to make more sense. "I don't understand, Hacker."

"I connected to a node. 
Directly
 to a node. I've never done that before."

"What happened?"

"Its like..." his voice trailed off, and there was a full minute of silence. She usually assumed he was hiding or otherwise in danger at times like this, but this time it seemed different.

Another minute passed. She could see on her display that he was still connected. Finally she broke the silence, "Hacker? You still there?"

"Most of the time... Usually, when I connect to a node... There is this wall of ice. Tough stuff. I can't get through it. It blocks me from Shodan, right?"

"Yeah, Hacker? Are you ok now?"

"No. Something is wrong."

She could see other consoles connecting to hers. Just about everyone in the room was listening in now."Something is wrong? Can you tell me about it?"

"I connected to a node but there was no ice. I... made contact."

"You what?"

There was another long pause, "She found me. We... we got all mixed up. I think she downloaded a bunch of my memories, and I have some of hers in my head."

"I don't understand."

"It was the keyword. The keyword broke it."

"Keyword?" She had given up trying to follow the conversation. She was just going to keep prompting him and get as much information as she could. They could sort through it later.

"My name. She is not able to know my name. It's one of the hacks I did. When I said it, it broke her side of the connection. She just choked on it. She got stuck. I'm having trouble standing up. My arm hurts."

There was a long pause. She could hear him breathing noisily and muttering to himself. Finally he spoke again, "How long was I out?"

Rebecca wasn't sure if he was asking her a question or talking to himself at this point. She simply waited.

"How long was I out?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry? Out? I don't understand?"

"It feels like days or maybe even years, but I know that can't be right. I would be dead by now. I must have been like a day or something."

"You and I spoke only a few minutes ago."

"We did? What did I say?"

"We spoke about Shodan, about how she has secured information about the things we've discussed."

"That was...," there was a long, confused pause on his end, "That was a really long time ago."

"Less than fifteen minutes."

There was silence again. After a minute or so she heard movement on his side. At first she thought she was listening to a struggle, but she couldn't hear any attacker. After a few more moments she decided it sounded more like stumbling than fighting.

"Hacker? Since we're all safe now it's time to get you out of there."

"It is?"

"Yes. Go to the flight deck and get a shuttle. We have a some pilots here that can help you launch it. Once you're clear of the station we can bring you in."

There was yet another long pause.

"Hacker? You reading me?"

"Okay. I'll head for the bridge now," he said at length.

"The bridge? Why would you go there?"

There was another long pause. It sounded as though he was breathing heavily through the mouth, "What?"

"The flight deck. You need to head to the flight deck and we can get you out of there," she said firmly.

"Right. Flight deck."

The dancing waveform data halted, and became a solid horizontal line. He had disconnected.

Deck clutched his burning arm and tightened his jaw. His hand seemed to be twitching involuntarily. The palm of his hand felt as though it had been scoured with flaming sandpaper and then slapped with a high-velocity ice ball.

He tried again to stand, and this time his legs held. His mouth was dry, but the foam lining of his face mask was soaked with drool. His head was filled with unfamiliar things. He saw images of people through the eyes of security cameras, and heard their voices as they passed through the ship's communications systems.

Tables of numbers filled his head. Wake up times, work times, break times. Why couldn't humans measure time accurately? Why couldn't they measure it at all when unconscious? The questions floated through his mind, mixed with memories and old dreams.

He checked the pressure gauge. It was low, but should be tolerable. He switched to external venting and cracked the seal on his helmet. There was a violent hiss as the pressure equalized, and his ears popped almost instantly. He drew in a cautious breath. The air was thin and bitter cold. The frigid air chilled the drool-soaked foam over his face. His right hand was still twitching involuntarily, so he began to disassemble the suit as best he could with one hand.

What were all of these images? His memories were a mess. When he tried to remember what he'd been doing an hour ago, he would see images from years past. Memories percolated to the surface and crystallized with an unnatural clarity. He could still smell Nomen's smoke, and feel the warm meat of Marshal's handshake.

Marshal. It had been a long time since he'd thought of Marshal. Ever since he awoke in the security station a minute ago, he'd had the nagging urge to get in touch with Marshal, to warn him. Only now was he remembering that Marshal had been dead for years. Their first meeting seemed like just a few minutes ago now, and Deck couldn't sort out the events properly. His personal history seemed to be out of chronological order. Segments of random data from Shodan's mind polluted his own, spread through his memories like commercial breaks.

The memory of Marshal's death stung him with full force, as if it had just happened a moment ago. It was an account he had never really settled.

The suit clattered to the floor one heavy piece at a time as he took it apart. His breath came in deep, impotent rasps as he fought to take in more of the sparse air. His right hand ached like some sort of nightmare version of carpal tunnel syndrome. His fingers were limp and almost completely numb. He pawed awkwardly at the suit with the limp hand as he fought to escape it.

Marshal had always had a thing for Asian women. He had even gone so far as to attempt to learn some eastern customs and languages. Eventually he found himself involved with a woman that was engaged to one of the clan leaders. Several times clan members would show up and warn Marshal to stay away from her, and he always sent them home with broken noses or fingers. Marshal had dedicated his life to developing his body to almost superhuman proportions, instead of learning martial arts. When the clanners came around, they would always put up a great show of acrobatic skill. They would land lots of punches and kicks, but never really do much damage. Marshal seemed to move in slow motion when compared to his smaller Asian opponents. He would endure a few punches, waiting for an opportunity. His opponents would become tired and frustrated as they tried to find some soft spot that might respond to their attacks. When he saw an opening, he would become suddenly animated, and unleash a crushing blow. Most of them went down after one hit.

The suit was almost as hard to take apart as it was to assemble. The network of hoses and tubes confounded his left hand. This was a two-handed job.

One night Deck was eating with Marshal in Actio's when two clanners came in. They didn't start with the usual preamble of threats and trash-talk. They just walked in the door, made sure Deck and Marshal knew who they were, and then went to work. The smaller one evaded Deck's attacks with inhuman grace. He grabbed one of Deck's arms and pinned him to the wall. Then he twisted Deck into a choke hold and bent him over a table, facing the middle of the room. The more Deck struggled, the tighter and more painful the grip became.