Interphase (25 page)

Shalaron turned to David, stalking him across the room. "For your crimes, murderer, you shall burn!" He pointed the staff, and a stream of flame blazed through the chamber toward David.

Focusing on the Wraithblade, David strengthened the aura with his mind, and he angled the sword's edge in front of him. The line of fire struck the aura and bent to the side. Shalaron snarled and gestured, flinging razor shards of ice toward David. Again, the blade deflected them.

This has gone on long enough.

David drew all of his rage inside, channeling it through his sword. He thrust the blade forward and felt the surge as a lance of force streaked toward Shalaron. The Sage raised his staff to ward off the attack, but the energy wave shattered it and pierced his shoulder. He fell to one knee, gasping.

Drawing the blade back, David charged forward to deliver the finishing blow. The hair on the back of his neck rose as Shalaron stood up, radiating power. A blast of electricity swept through the core, throwing him to the ground next to Clyde. Faint traces of energy cascaded through him, holding him motionless.

Shalaron paused, pulling in ragged breaths. He looked around the chamber at the fallen party, letting his exhaustion show.

David felt a faint mental tingle. Someone was sending him a tell?

=Okay, this guy's a bitch,= Clyde muttered woozily down the link.

=How do we stop him?= David responded. =If we don't, we're all dead.=

=I need a distraction to analyze this field he's snared us in. I may be able to turn it against him.=

=I'll see what—=

David was cut off as a scream ripped through the chamber. Analara was cradling a motionless Jessica, her wails growing louder. She jumped to her feet, facing Shalaron with all of the fury she could muster. "You killed her. I hate you! You, the priests, and the rest."

Shalaron regarded her, his face impassive. "You have no right to speak in my presence. Your actions are darker than anything done to us during the Betrayal." Analara's face paled as he continued. "Your heart has made its home here with these villains. It is only fitting that your grave be here as well."

Raising his hand, Shalaron muttered something under his breath, and Analara choked. Her eyes rolled up, and she collapsed.

Trapped in his immobile body, David screamed silently, frustration and rage overwhelming his thoughts.

=
Shut the hell up
,= Clyde shouted back. =I can't think with you screaming so loudly. Make yourself useful, if you're done with your wailing.=

David felt a formula streaming down the channel. He interlaced it mentally with his avatar, and suddenly he could see the lines of force pinning them to the ground. He could feel the code streams, manipulate them. Gathering the strands of energy with his mind, he glared his fury into Shalaron's eyes and reversed the flow.

A shockwave crushed David into the wall as the air blasted out of the chamber. He opened his eyes, blinking away tears. Shalaron was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 21

David let out his breath in an explosive sigh. He hadn't realized he'd been holding it. His limbs still shook from the intensity of the encounter. Letting the sword fall from his trembling hand, he got up and ran to Analara's side. Her eyes were open and dull, and she whimpered softly. As gently as he could, he picked her up and cradled her in his arms.

Thomas removed his helm, still gasping from Shalaron's attack. David watched him crawl over to Jessica's body, smoothing her hair back and feeling desperately for a pulse. His normally stoic expression crumbled with despair. "No…"

Lucas watched with eyes round from shock. The explosion from Clyde's weapon had destroyed Nadarra's form, returning Lucas to his natural state. His gaze shifted between David and Thomas, tears flowing unnoticed down his cheeks.

"
No
," Thomas yelled and lifted Jessica into his arms. "This can't be happening! It's just her character, right? She's all right outside the network, isn't she? She couldn't… she—" His words choked with sobs.

Clyde shakily rose to his feet, grunting with pain. He tapped the holo-screen on his wrist computer, and a beam of light fired up and down Jessica's body. He sighed. "Her body isn't dead." His flat tone cut through the air like a knife.

"What do you mean?" Thomas demanded.

Clyde closed his eyes; despite his outward demeanor, David suspected that his old friend was more sensitive than he appeared. "Shalaron's attack was meant for Analara. I think he used an energy that would be fatal to his own people. It looks like it worked differently on Jessica. It destroyed her mind." He opened his eyes and scanned the computer readouts while his words sank in. "Right now, her basic autonomous functions are being run by V-Net. As soon as she disconnects, her body will just stop."

A fist closed around David's heart, and he gave a strangled cry. An image filled his mind…

The medical room was packed with observation equipment, faint electronic noises coming from the assembled hardware. Outside, his mother turned away, tears in her eyes. David watched the form of his father, lying in bed, and in his mind he saw the passing of years as the man's brown hair turned gray. Kept alive by technology, but lifeless.

David stared at Jessica, the motionless figure of his best friend, and a hatred for Shalaron smoldered in his heart. The silence of the chamber was broken only by Thomas's weeping.

Analara shuddered in David's arms, and her breathing became irregular. Her face was ashen, and her eyes rolled back as she convulsed. Clyde knelt beside David and performed another scan. David held her close while she trembled.

"What the hell?" Clyde's eyes went wide as he watched the holo-screen. "Part of this scan is gibberish. The system doesn't know what to make of a non-human. Another part looks like standard biological readouts, but this portion…"

David craned to see. "Looks like code-strings," he finished.

"And
that
…" Clyde's finger stabbed at a particular line of code. "…looks like a virus to me. That's what's killing her. I don't know how Shalaron did it, but he infected her with a computer virus."

David stared at Clyde in disbelief. "That's not possible!"

"Not according to this," Clyde snapped. "This thing is brutal. It's breaking down her biological functions, tearing her apart like a real virus, but she's somehow… " Clyde's eyes narrowed, considering several possibilities. "Because she's in the digital world, rather than her own, the virus is working differently. Instead of just destroying her, it's converting her into program code."

David clenched his teeth, fighting back the fear that threatened to drown him. "Okay, if a computer virus is physically killing her, how do we
stop
it?"

Clyde's gaze followed the readouts on the screen. "We can't. At the rate this thing is moving, she'll be dead before I could finish an anti-virus." He gave a frustrated groan. "One of them will die if we do anything, and the other will die if we don't?"

David buried his face in Analara's hair. It took everything he had not to surrender to grief.

"We might…" Clyde's expression became dire. "Jessica's mind is gone, and Analara's body is being destroyed. If I can rig up a transfer program, I might be able to save Analara's 'code' in Jessica's body. It's a long shot, but it's the only idea that could save either of them."

David looked at Analara, then back at Clyde. "But you don't know if—"

"
No
one knows if this will work," Clyde fumed, his emotions bursting forth in a torrent. "Nothing like this has ever been done before. I don't know if I can even pull it off." He raked a hand through his hair, releasing ragged breaths.

Thomas turned toward them, a mixture of grief and hope in his eyes. "Could Jessica still—" His question choked off in a sob.

Clyde's expression twisted in anguish, but he squeezed his eyes shut and seemed to suppress it. "She's already gone," he replied, suddenly emotionless. He had withdrawn into himself. His ability to turn his heart off might be their only chance to salvage the situation.

David tried to catch Thomas's gaze, but his friend was awash in a sea of sorrow; the choice fell to him. Jessica had given her life to save Analara. He had to see her final act through.

I'm about to kill my best friend.

David turned back to Clyde. "What do we do?"

"My mainframe is trashed." Clyde looked more focused than David had ever seen before. "I need a large-scale interface. The amount of data we're dealing with is staggering." He glanced at Analara's readout. "We're running out of time, Harris."

"The VERAsign core office. That's the interface I've used before. Everyone's still out because of the Crash Storm," David said, picking Analara up off the floor.

Clyde nodded and loaded a new program on his wrist computer. "Thomas, get Jessica. Lucas, come here." He waited as the group squeezed together, then punched in a final command.

The dark space of the command core was replaced with a lit office interior. Next to a door in front of them, a sign read 'Large-scale Program Compiler: Authorized Employees Only'.

David's eyes went wide with panic. "Clyde, do you know how many security layers you just hacked through? You'll trigger the module's shut-down code!"

"This is
my
world, Harris," Clyde snapped. He scanned Analara again, typing commands furiously on his screen.

A minute dragged by, like a razor pulled across David's heart, as Clyde finished his preparations. He had just opened the door when a voice rang out.

"Hold it right there, Harris."

David turned slowly, clutching Analara close to him. Behind them, grinning sardonically, stood his V-Cop blackmailer.

"I told you I'd be watching you, boy. Got my own little cameras set up right on this door. I figured sooner or later the draw would be too much for you." The V-Cop raised his D-gun and pointed it directly at David. "You and your friends are in real deep shit now."

=Clyde, we can't let the girls get hit,= David quickly sent. =It would kill them.=

Clyde merely raised his arm, materialized his launcher and fired. The V-Cop looked shocked before he vanished in a burst of light.

David blinked in surprise.

"Move your ass, Harris. We've got work to do."

***

Something tickled Analara's forehead. It was soft and slightly damp. She tried to turn her head, but her muscles wouldn't move. Her entire body felt stiff and unresponsive, and her thoughts were hazy. Dimly she heard voices whispering, then someone touched her cheek.

Analara's eyes blinked open. A man with brown hair and a mustache smiled down at her and said something she didn't understand. She stared at him blankly. Images and sensations collided in her mind. Nothing made any sense. Fear began to well up inside her.

The man tilted his head to one side. Analara could hear his voice clearer now, but could only understand some of his words. "Home" and "awake" she knew, and…

"Jessica…"

Jessica? David's friend. The pretty girl with brown eyes. She had jumped in front of the fire…

Analara stared into Jessica's eyes as the life faded from them. She'd been struck by the flame, the flame that had been aimed at Analara…

A scream escaped from her lips, but the voice did not sound like her own. She lurched to her feet and fell over. The man quickly knelt beside her and took her by the shoulders. "Jessica?"

Jessica was dead! Shalaron had killed her. Analara tried to force the words out, but all that emerged was noise. She felt sick to her stomach. Pulling away from the man's grasp, she rose to her feet and stumbled through a doorway. The room was white and stung her eyes with brightness. Frantic, she looked around, hoping to find a way back to familiar surroundings. A voice called after her, but she ran from it.

Analara stopped in a small chamber, her feet nearly sliding out from under her on the polished floor. For the first time she looked down at her garments: a loose tunic of light blue material, short breeches and white covers on her feet. Movement caught her eye. She turned, and her breath stopped. Jessica was staring at her! Analara reached toward her, but her hand met a hard surface. She pulled back, rubbing her knuckles, and looked down at herself again… at the image of Jessica in front of her…

Someone caught her as she fell, sweeping her up in a strong embrace. A hand stroked her hair. Analara's eyes filled with tears, and without knowing what else to do she sank into the comforting grasp and whimpered.

"Analara. Is that you?"

It was David's voice, whispering in her ear. She nodded.

"Do you remember what happened?"

She swallowed hard and concentrated on forming the words. "Shalaron," she murmured. "He killed—"

"David?" The man with the mustache stood in the doorway, gazing down at them with deep concern. He knelt and touched Analara's face. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

"Mr. Spencer, there was a Crash Storm," David explained. "I got here as quickly as I could. Give us a second if that's all right? She needs some fresh air."