Freedom (48 page)

“Help
me
? I don’t need help!”

“What are you going to do to me, Roy? You’re a fucking ghost!” Loki turned to the crowd. “No one’s powers can be turned on me. That’s part of the
peaceful
nature of our new society, isn’t it?” He laughed. “I’ll do what I damned well please!” Loki sent a command that caused his army of razorbacks to surge forward, smashing at the mansion doors.

“You leave me no choice, sir. I’ll need to hold on to these. . . .”
Merritt’s avatar reached up its hand and actually pulled the level numbers off of Loki’s call-out—suddenly dropping the numbers down from sixtieth level to merely tenth level.
“
.
. . until you feel better.”

The Merritt avatar was no longer two-hundredth level—he was now only one-hundred-fifieth level, and it was immediately apparent to all that the Burning Man had sacrificed his own levels to disable some of Loki’s.

Loki watched in mute terror as all of the razorbacks around him and the microjets in the sky suddenly turned and departed. He got off his bike and staggered, finally falling to his knees in the realization of all he’d just lost—and the price he’d paid as well.

Even as people watched, Merritt’s levels started to rise again, as people from around the darknet donated hard-won levels—at a ratio of a thousand to one—to replace those Merritt had tied up.

In just a few moments, Merritt was back to his maximum two hundred levels.

Merritt stood over Loki.
“Sir, we all need help from time to time. That’s why there’s more than one of us. . . .”

Loki stared up at an avatar created out of the popular will of millions of people—programmed to react in times of dire need. It was apparently part of the darknet. And what the darknet was evolving to become.

Loki collapsed onto the ground, silently wracked with sobs, his metallic eyes unable to shed tears or look away. The crowd, no longer hostile, gathered around him. A nearby woman placed her hand on his shoulder.

Merritt turned to the crowd.
“Everything’s okay here folks. Nothing to see. . . .”

And suddenly Sebeck heard a chime. He looked to see a gold-colored Thread wind away from him, leading north, toward the distant horizon. “Price!”

“I’m right
here
, man.”

“We need to find our gear.
Now
.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“No. We’ve got to leave right away.”

“To
where
?”

Sebeck was already pushing through the crowd. “To the Cloud Gate.”

P
ete Sebeck’s final Thread led him north to Houston, and then east toward a once bustling container port at Morgan’s Point, Texas. The glowing, golden line ran toward a massive shipping container facility that lay alongside a stretch of shipping channel named Barbour’s Cut.

In recent days the dollar had slowly begun to rise from its historic low—no doubt in large part from Sobol’s vengeance against the plutocrats. But as Sebeck brought their newly assigned Lincoln Town Car through the vast industrial wasteland and utterly subjugated landscape of Morgan’s Point, he wondered if this place would ever thrive again. The days of ten-thousand-mile supply chains might have gone for good.

He turned to see Laney Price sitting in the front seat next to him, wolfing down chicken nuggets and sipping a jumbo soda. Sebeck just laughed and shook his head.

“What?”

“You have no sense of irony, Laney. Do you know that?”

“I told you, I was hungry.”

“Well, I guess you’ve earned the right to eat crap.”

A female voice came from the backseat. “Leave him alone, Sergeant. Each of us celebrates in our own way.”

“She’s right, Pete.”

Philips turned to Jon Ross. Their look lingered longer than necessary.

Price scowled. “What the hell kind of name is ‘Ivan Borovich,’ anyway? I just got used to calling you Jon.”

“Call me whatever you like, Laney. I won’t be listening anyway.”

Philips leaned against Ross. “I like the name Ivan.”

Price chuckled and spoke in a Russian accent. “Yeah, I’m sure the NSA will like Ivan, too.”

Philips waved him off. “Defending the U.S. government against a hostile takeover should be worth a green card.”

“I don’t know. I hear the requirements are getting tougher.” Sebeck slowed the car. “Here we go. . . .”

“We’re there?”

“No, but I think were running out of land pretty quickly on this peninsula.”

They were now heading down along a wide concrete road apparently made to deal with a high volume of container truck traffic. The traffic seemed much reduced. They had the place mostly to themselves—although a veritable skyline of multicolored shipping containers rose to their left across several lanes of highway.

Philips studied them. “What is the Daemon’s fascination with shipping containers?”

Ross looked as well. “They helped spread the consumer culture virus to every corner of the world. It’s no wonder the Daemon found them useful.”

Sebeck slowed the car again as they came alongside a truck yard, and he turned across the highway to a frontage road.

Price nodded. “A container yard. You’re going to open a container that contains
something
. Something Sobol sent to himself. Or—”

“Price, would you please? I can’t hear myself think.”

“Then think
louder
, man.”

Sebeck pulled into a driveway that surprised everyone. As he followed the golden Thread down the narrow lane, they all gazed through the windshield.

Ross looked puzzled. “A
cemetery
? In the middle of all
this
?”

Before them stood a rusted metal sign that read MORGAN’S POINT CEMETERY. The parcel was perhaps a couple of acres in size, and stood at the end of a long drive that placed it in the middle of a massive container yard. It was surrounded on three—and very nearly four—sides by towering container stacks. However, the driveway and the cemetery beyond looked green. Trees and shrubs covered the grounds, and a barbed-wire fence separated it from the surrounding shipyard.

Sebeck sighed. “Well, this is where it’s leading me.” He came to a stop in a small, empty parking lot. Everyone got out and glanced around.

“This place is positively surrounded.” Philips gazed up at all the containers looming above them.

Price pointed at the names on the sides of the center container in each wall. In big blue sans serif letters was the word “HORAE” painted along the corrugated steel. “Sergeant. Just like Riley told us.” He turned to Philips. “Doctor, you’ve read some Greek mythology, yes?”

“Yes, quite a bit. In native Greek.”

“Prove to us you are deadly boring: what are the Horae in Greek mythology?”

She shrugged. “They were the three goddesses who controlled orderly life. Daughters of Themis. The word means ‘the correct moment.’ And the earliest mention is in the
Iliad
, where they appear as keepers of the cloud gates.”

Price just threw up his hands. “Well that’s pretty damned impressive.”

“Is it a code?”

Ross stood alongside her. “Or an arrangement, perhaps. Like tumblers in a lock.”

“You mean these containers need to be arranged precisely like this to unlock something?”

He shrugged. “You tell me, Doctor. You’re the code breaker.”

Sebeck was already walking forward. “It’s no code. It’s symbolism. And as you know by now, Sobol’s worlds are chock-full of symbols.”

Price followed. Ross waited for Philips, and soon they were all walking down a cracked sidewalk toward an ornate, wrought-iron gate. It, too, was somewhat rusted, but the iconography of the gate was unmistakable—three female guardians holding long spears loomed in bas-relief on either side, wreathed in ironwork clouds. The gate was closed.

As Sebeck approached the gate, D-Space avatars of three towering female forms in robes and enclosed, plumed helms materialized from the shadows, holding tall golden spears.

Philips looked puzzled as all three men in the group backed away from the shadows. “What is it?”

Ross held her hand and tapped his HUD glasses. “Female avatars. The Horae, I gather.”

One of them spoke in a booming female voice. “Only the quest-taker may pass through the gates.”

Price held up his hands. “No problemo.”

Ross nodded. “I guess we’ll wait for you here, Sergeant.”

Sebeck glanced to Price as he stood with his hand on the gate.

“You know, Laney, I don’t think I would have made it here without you.”

Price shrugged. “Well, let’s wait to see if it’s good or bad before you go thanking me.”

Sebeck shook his head and entered the gate. It closed and locked behind him with an audible
click
.

As he continued to follow the golden Thread along the cemetery path, he noticed the graves were widely spaced. It was more like a shady garden—albeit one with colorful shipping containers as a backdrop.

Before long Sebeck’s path brought him to another D-Space apparition: a young, healthy-looking Matthew Sobol, sitting on a stone bench beneath a tree. There was an identical bench across from him.

As Sebeck approached, this younger, healthier Sobol nodded to him in greeting. “Detective. I’m very happy that you’re here.”

Sebeck couldn’t get over how vibrant and healthy Sobol looked, with his tousled hair, khakis, crisp button-down shirt, and suit jacket. He looked the very image of a successful man with his whole life ahead of him.

“Please, join me.” The avatar gestured to the open seat.

Sebeck swept off some leaves and dirt and sat.

“You might be wondering why I look different from the way I will . . . or
did
. . . earlier.” He sat back in his seat. “It’s because I started here at the end. Where you are now. I have no idea where here is or now is at the moment. But I did know that if I started from the end of the story and moved to the beginning, then the Daemon couldn’t begin unless it was complete. So really, your beginning is my end, and my end is your beginning.”

Sobol gazed directly at Sebeck’s eyes. “When I realized what our world had become, how humanity had become cogs in its own machine, I resolved to do something terrible . . . perhaps one of the worse things ever done. To exploit the automation of our world in order to plant the seed of a new system is reckless and irresponsible. But I didn’t see any other way we would change. Or could change.

“But now that humans have accomplished this quest, and you have arrived to tell me of their success, the question I need to ask you is this: was I right or wrong, Sergeant? Should I
destroy
the Daemon? Should I undo everything I’ve done? Yes, or no?”

Sebeck felt the shock work through him. He was speechless.

“You of all people would know, Sergeant. Should the Daemon be ended? Yes, or no? I will wait for your answer.”

Sebeck took a deep breath and looked back toward the gate. He could see no one. Just himself and this long-dead genius-madman. He sat recalling the entirety of his journey, from the point he received the Sobol murder case up to this very day. It had been years. He thought of his lost wife, Laura, and their son, Chris. Of his colleagues and friends who were dead or to whom he was now dead. He recalled all the people he had met who were building new lives on the Daemon’s darknet, and all the people who had perished in its birth—and in its defense. A procession of faces came to him. What was society, after all, but a group of people making up rules. At least on the darknet, it was a large group of people making up the rules instead of a small one.

Sobol had waited patiently, but when Sebeck met his gaze again, the avatar repeated the question. “Should I destroy the Daemon, Sergeant?”

Sebeck took a deep breath. Then shook his head. “No.”

“Let me confirm your answer. Should I destroy the Daemon? Yes or no?”

“No.”

There was a flicker in the image, and Sobol looked grimly relieved. He gazed directly at Sebeck again. “You don’t know how much I dream for this to be the ending. There are so many ways for it to end. If you’re really there, Sergeant, good luck to you. Good luck to you all. And don’t be afraid of change. It’s the only thing that can save us.”

Sobol stood, nodded farewell, and walked toward the nearby gardens. In a few moments he vanished into thin air.

Sebeck sat in the garden for an unknowable time by himself, contemplating what had just occurred. Until finally he received an alert in his HUD display. It was from a network handle he was too afraid to recognize. He read it over and over: Chris_Sebeck

After bracing himself, he opened the message and read it slowly . . .

Sebeck felt the tears come forth from him—coming from some place he thought hadn’t existed in his heart. He had a family. He was a father.

He was going home. . . .

I
t had taken over a century for Sky Ranch to evolve from the ancestral home of a wealthy family into the heavily fortified executive retreat and End-Times bunker complex it ultimately became. However, The Major knew these things didn’t happen overnight. They accrued in layers over decades—and so they had secrets.

It was
knowing
those secrets that set The Major apart from his colleagues. He planned for the worst, and was seldom disappointed. His brand of “black sky thinking” had kept him alive on more than one occasion when all around him had perished. Even now as he looked through a 1960s-era periscope at the cleaned-out storage rooms beyond his secret hiding place, he realized that, once again, paranoia had prevailed.