Jack Blank and the End of Infinity (10 page)

Jack grimaced. “You don’t think there’s any chance I make it? Not even a little?”

“You lied to me.” Skerren flipped open Jack’s collar to get a look at the glowing core in his chest. “You lied about that thing inside you. You don’t get another chance.” Jack could see that the friend he once had in Skerren was gone. It was as if he never existed. Skerren reached for the sword in the backseat. “Any last words?”

Jack nodded as he pushed down on the gas. “Buckle up.”

Jack fired the car up a hill, and the wall surrounding Machina came into view. He was coming up on a fork in the road. A floating holographic sign laid out his options: Hightown to the left, and Machina to the right. Jack aimed for the divider in the middle.

Skerren forgot about the sword for a second and gripped the armrest. “Jack . . .”

Khalix forced his way to the front of Jack’s consciousness,
crying out with the same fear Skerren felt. “JACK, NO!”

Skerren tried to grab the wheel, but Jack fought him off and drove right at the wall. He knew this one wasn’t going to move, but thanks to his powers, he also knew something Skerren and Khalix didn’t. The safety features in Noteworthy’s HoverCar were state-of-the-art. Seconds before impact, extra seat belts shot out of the cushions, connecting around Jack’s and Skerren’s waists and chests. That was nice, but the car’s real value became clear when its front end put up three separate layers of force fields to soften the crash.

When the car hit, it still hit hard. It hurt, just like Jack knew it would, but aside from a sore head and a ringing in his ears, he was fine. And if not, he’d
be
fine with a little rest. That was all he needed. Just a second to catch his breath. He blinked his eyes, and time seemed to jump forward. Zhi, Trea, Lorem, and Roka had all caught up to him. They were talking, but Jack didn’t hear a word they said. He locked eyes with Skerren and couldn’t help but notice that his former friend looked a little out of it. He almost felt bad for him. After that, things got fuzzy. Jack leaned back in his seat, and the world faded to black.

8

Head Games

“Jack. Wake up, Jack . . .”

Khalix’s voice crept into Jack’s ears like a spider. He came to in total darkness. It could have been an hour after the crash or it could have been a week. Nothing would have surprised him at this point. The last time he closed his eyes, he lost a full year. Jack looked around. Why couldn’t he see? Where was he? Where had everybody gone?

“You gave me quite a scare back there,” the Rüstov prince told Jack. “For a moment I was afraid you’d decided to follow your friend’s advice and do the ‘honorable’ thing.
I should have known better. That’s not your style.”

Jack ignored Khalix and took a second to concentrate on once again shutting the royal parasite out of his mind.
Royal pain is more like it
, Jack thought. Once he was satisfied he’d silenced Khalix, he got up on his feet. He found it odd that he didn’t feel any aches and pains after hitting the wall like that. He moved about cautiously in the pitch-black void, reaching his arms out in front of him as he went.

“I suppose he’s really more of a former friend, isn’t he?” Khalix asked Jack. “He doesn’t seem to like you very much now that you’re one of us.”

Jack nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard Khalix pop up again, undeterred. “I’m not one of you,” he shot back. Then he walked into a wall. His face rammed into a hard steel plane, and Khalix laughed at him in the darkness.

“You don’t know what you are, Jack. Not anymore.”

That was when Jack realized the Rüstov prince’s voice wasn’t in his head. It was there in the room with him. Jack spun around, half expecting to find Khalix standing right behind him. “Where are you?”

“Where am I? Where do you think? I’m here. I’m always here.”

The power core in Jack’s chest lit up, flashing on and off with a faint red glow. Jack’s shoulders tensed up and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He’d almost forgotten about the core. Just the thought of Rüstov machinery in his body gave him goose bumps all over. The fact that it had become so much a part of him that it escaped his notice absolutely filled him with dread. Jack’s first instinct was to try and turn it off, but he couldn’t do that. He decided instead to use the light to look for Khalix. He sounded like he was close by. How was that even possible? Jack panned around the room, using his chest like a flashlight. The walls had all the characteristics of Rüstov design. They were a disorganized assembly of various metals welded together without rhyme or reason. It was if someone had told a mason to craft a wall using broken machine parts instead of bricks. Jack inched around the room, keeping one hand on the wall, as the light blinked on and off. He saw a dim red light that held for a few seconds, then nothing . . . a dim red light, then nothing. Then the light blinked back on and Khalix was two inches away from his face.

“Boo.”

“Aah!” Jack jumped back. He tripped over his feet and fell to the floor. Khalix stood over him, laughing. He was enjoying himself immensely. Jack stayed on the ground looking up as red light washed over his parasite a few seconds at a time. His blood ran cold when he realized what he was looking at—a vision of himself in the final stages of Rüstov infection. Khalix had his body . . . he had his face! The Rüstov mark around his eye was pronounced and metallic. Circuits ran all along the surface of his skin. Cybernetic growths protruded out from underneath.

“So you’re the famous Jack,” Khalix said with a smile. “I’m so glad we finally have the chance to meet . . . face-to-face.”

Jack shook his head. “This isn’t happening. You’re not here.”

“I’m not?”

“No. You’re a hallucination. I’m woozy from the crash. Or maybe I’m out cold.” Jack snapped his fingers. “That’s it. This is a dream.”

Khalix smiled like a boxer who knew the fight had been fixed in his favor. “Whose dream, Jack? Yours or mine? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not in control here.
You might be able to shut me out while you’re awake, but that requires concentration. When you sleep . . . that’s my time.” He leaned down and tapped at the glowing light in Jack’s chest. “Soon, all your time is going to be mine.”

Jack had nothing to say to that. He felt at the glowing power core in his chest and shuddered as he sat on the cold metal floor.

“Here, allow me,” Khalix said, offering to help Jack up. Jack batted away the hand Khalix had offered and stood up on his own. The Rüstov prince looked wounded. “Jack . . . don’t be like that. We’re going to be together for quite some time. The least we can do is try to get along.”

Jack’s lip curled up. “Get along? Are you kidding?”

Khalix raised his shoulders. “I agree you’ve been anything but a gracious host up to this point, but I’m willing to forgive all that. It’s always better when we work together.”

Jack couldn’t believe his ears. “
You’re
willing to forgive
me
?”

Khalix offered his hand again. “We can be partners, you and I. Let’s start over. You might as well. We both know how this is going to end.”

Jack turned his back on Khalix, looking for a way out of the dream or, at the very least, the conversation. “You’re just trying to mess with my head.”

Khalix snickered. “Oh, we’ve already done that. You can’t
imagine
the things we’ve done to you. Perhaps you’d like to see for yourself?”

Khalix held his hand out and a spotlight switched on across the room. Jack shielded his eyes, which were sensitive to the light after being in the dark for so long. Still, he couldn’t turn away. The light seemed impossibly bright, but there was no way he could ignore what was going on beneath it. A surgical team was prepping a patient on an operating table. It all seemed eerily familiar to Jack, and he had a good idea why. When his eyes finally adjusted, his suspicions were confirmed. The patient on the table was him.

“What is this?” Jack asked.

Khalix walked toward the light with his hands clasped behind his back. “The first day of the rest of your life.”

Jack steeled his nerves and followed Khalix to the operating table. He saw himself lying there, heavily sedated and stripped to the waist. Rüstov scientists dressed in clear plastic scrubs surrounded the table, checking instruments,
strapping sensors to his body, and monitoring his vitals. None of them paid Jack any mind as he approached. He turned to Khalix. “Can they hear us?”

Khalix shook his head. “This is just a memory. One of mine. Not yours.”

Jack watched the surgical team move about the lab, getting things ready. It was a surreal experience for Jack to stand apart from himself and watch this all play out. He felt like he was watching actors on the stage. He wanted to believe this was all just a dream, but he remembered flashes of this moment. Some of them had hit him in the swamps next to St. Barnaby’s. Snippets of Khalix’s memory were bleeding into his own.

At the edge of the light, a Rüstov doctor, presumably the head surgeon, was speaking with someone else Jack remembered. Glave. He was still using Obscuro the Secreteer as a host.

“I don’t want to hear any more excuses,” Glave told the surgeon. “There will be no more delays. The Magus has waited long enough already.”

“But, sir . . . ,” the doctor began.

“He’s not known for his patience. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that?”

The doctor sighed. “No, sir. Of course not, but this is the Magus’s son we’re talking about. This procedure . . . it’s untested. Entirely theoretical. We never even considered such a possibility before you returned to Rüst with this talk of Revile.”

“I grow tired of this argument, Doctor.”

“We’re pushing too far. Too fast. Augmenting the infection this way could very well kill the host, and that would mean the death of the—”

“Enough,” Glave interrupted, putting up a hand. “It’s going to work,” he assured the surgeon. Jack watched Glave tap on his forehead like he was a prop. “I know the host’s mind. He has actually come face-to-face with the results of your work. He’s seen the future. You’ve already succeeded, Doctor. There can be no other outcome.”

“But what we’ve discovered here . . . the possibilities are endless. There are options that don’t risk the prince’s life. I just need more time.”

A Rüstov guard marched up to Glave and snapped to
attention. “Sir. The Magus awaits your presence on the observation deck.” Jack looked up, and more light faded in from above. He saw the Magus sitting in a gallery overlooking the lab.

Glave nodded to the guard. “I’ll be there at once,” he said, and then turned back to the surgeon. “I’m afraid the time is now, Doctor. Not to worry. If you don’t believe me about the future, just remember that necessity is the mother of invention.”

The surgeon frowned at Glave. “What are you talking about?”

Glave grinned. “I’m talking about the fact that if you
do
happen to harm the Magus’s son, you will experience pain like never before, and it will last a very long time. I say you can’t help but succeed, but you know full well that you can’t afford to fail.” Glave clapped the surgeon on the shoulder and laughed. “Good luck, Doctor. You have my full faith and confidence.”

Glave followed the guard out of the operating room, and the surgeon muttered something unpleasant about Glave’s mother once he was out of earshot. Jack was inclined to agree with the doctor.

“You don’t like Glave either, I see,” Khalix said. “I can understand that. Most people don’t. He’s not very nice, but he does get results. That’s how he got where he is today. My father has rewarded him handsomely for his role in my rescue and safe return.”

Jack didn’t respond to Khalix. He was transfixed by the scene before him. The Rüstov surgeon barked a few orders at his staff, and the members of the surgical team took their positions around the table, making final preparations. Two holo-screen monitors popped up, showing images of Jack’s body lying still on the table with action all around. The word “Recording” was flashing in red on each screen. Jack felt his stomach tighten as he watched one of the Rüstov doctors draw a black dotted line from his neck to his abdomen, laying out the points of incision. Meanwhile, two more doctors were running through a checklist of surgical tools. As each terrible new tool came into view, Jack’s anxiety jumped ten levels. It didn’t even matter that it was just a memory of him lying there on the table. The idea of these things being used on him was bad enough. Out of all the items on the list, the Rüstov saved the worst for last:

“Is the implant ready?” the first doctor asked.

“Ready,” the other replied, holding up a crystal shard. It was a thin, red sliver of glass no larger than a blade of grass, but Jack could tell mountains of power nested within it. He knew in an instant that it was the same red crystal that powered the Rüstov core in his chest. It terrified him to see how much the object had grown while inside his body.

“There it is,” Khalix marveled. “From little packages, big things come, eh, Jack?”

Jack swallowed hard. “Why are you showing me this? Trying to scare me?”

“I’m just trying to help you understand your situation. It’s high time you accepted that this isn’t your body anymore. It’s
our
body. Your conscious mind might be able to tune me out, but I’m still there beneath the surface of every thought, tightening my grip on your subconscious. How else could I have rendered your powers useless against us? Your powers aren’t enough to stop me anymore. The truth is, they never were. This is about willpower as much as anything else, and we broke your will, Jack. Don’t bother trying to deny it.”

Jack had no snappy comeback for Khalix. The cold logic of his reasoning was hard to dismiss.

“We had you for a year. A whole year. What you see here is just the beginning. I haven’t even gotten to the Theater of War yet.”

“What’s that?”

Khalix smiled. “You’ll see. We’ve done more than infect your body, Jack. We’ve infected your brain. Changed the way you think. Deep inside your mind, you already know how to be one of us, and when my father gets here . . . you will be.”