Point Apocalypse (10 page)

Wong
pulled off his shotgun and sat on the bed to the left of the door. He inspected the bedside cabinet, took off what looked suspiciously like an old-fashioned oil lamp and started studying it. I had a look around. The walls were lined with laminate panels. The same kind of fluffy matting covered the floor. You could barely hear what was going on downstairs.

Someone knocked. The Chinese placed the lamp back and
took up his gun. Wladas sat up. I lay one hand on the gun under my belt and opened the door.

"Dinner," the voice
chanted on the doorstep. The drunken patrons downstairs started a new song.

The girl walked in holding a tray with two
pitchers, three mugs and three platefuls of food.

"Why are you sitting here in the dark?" she looked around.

"Actually..." Wladas rose. Claudie shoved the tray at him and crouched by Wong's bed with her back to me. The Chinese watched as she fiddled with the lamp on the cabinet. In a second, something clinked. The room filled with a soft white glow.

Wong
passed me a meaningful look and gave the girl a wink.

"Thanks a lot, Claudie,
" I nodded at the door. "I hope for some peace and quiet till morning."

"Depend upon it," the girl left the room. In the hallway, she turned around and added, "If you need anything,
I'll be at my desk."

"
And if you're not?"

"Ask
Uncle Vanya."

"Which is who?"

"He's got a beard like this big. He fills in for me."

"Will do," I locked the door and walked to the last vacant bed.
Wladas kept standing, tray in hand, staring at the lamp.

"What're you standing here for?" I leaned the shotgun against the backrest, shoved the
pistol under the pillow and started unlacing my boots. "Time for some grub, a shower and some shut-eye."

"Time to be making some plans,"
Wladas placed the tray onto his bedside table and brought two of the plates to Wong and me. "We need to decide what to do next. Don't you think?"

"Let's eat first," I
reached to my plate for a greenish fruit that looked a lot like an unripe plum. "That's not too bad," I mumbled munching it whole. "Tastes nice."

Wong
nodded, smiling, and attacked his dinner.

I placed the plate on top
of the cabinet, kicked my boots off, peeled off the tank top and my pants, threw the belt and the holster onto the bed and headed for the shower. I needed to have a think. Lots of things to discuss, many of which my new friends had no business knowing.

The warm shower left a metallic taste in my mouth. I lifted my face to the weak jet thinking of everything that had happened at the jump base
, of the Information in my head, of the silent Chinese and my strange urge to head for the Sea Pearl.

Now why would I come here? Wh
y the hurry? I shook my head, ran a hand against my outgrown crew cut, picked up a sliver of soap and started to rub my neck, chest and stomach washing off all the sweat and brine.

Rita's stare, her
hesitation... she seemed to question my actions.

I rinsed
off the soap and closed the tap. Wiped my face with one of the towels on the hooks. I lingered staring at the shower curtain before me. Wladas was a chartered neurotech. He had to understand military mnemotechnics as well as I did guns. He had to know all about the latest research developments. About brain-installed wetware. Wouldn't be a bad thing asking him. But how would I begin?

I wrapped the towel around my hips and
headed back to my bed.

"Is it edible?"

Wladas took a large swig from the pitcher,

"You could
say that! Consider yourself lucky we didn't demolish your plate."

The Chinese removed his clothes and walked into the shower.

"Here," Wladas went on, "try their fruit juice. Or energy drink, whatever." He filled a mug and reached it out to me without getting up, "Have a taste. It's a bit tart but really clears one's head. Great stuff."

I lifted the mug
catching a whiff of oranges and took a large swig. I concentrated. My belly lurched and started rumbling, and that was that.

"So,"
Wladas nodded at the mug, "how does it feel?"

I took ano
ther swig, returned the mug to the cabinet and shrugged.

"Good enough.
" With that, I attacked my plate.

The shower curtain rustled and the water
started gurgling. Wong whistled a cheerful quiet tune. If I needed to speak to Wladas, I had to do it now while the Chinese couldn't hear.

"Feeling better?" I asked him munching on a handful of bilberry-type fruit.

"Actually..." the neurotech paused, "no, I'm all right."

He turned to the window, then sat up.
"No. I'm not all right. I mean, I don't know what to think. Too many things have happened." Wladas groped the air in front of him. "My head is a mess. But overall, I'm fine. I really am."

I lifted my face
and shoveled the remaining berries into my mouth. "I need to ask you a few questions," I said with a full mouth and washed the food down with my drink. "You might find them a bit out of the ordinary."

"In our situation, any question
would sound out of the ordinary. We're-"

I raised my hand forcing him to stop.
"Wait till I ask."

The Chinese stopped whistling and said something
quick. Then he started up the tune again.

Wladas
and I looked at his wet brown feet beneath the shower curtain.

"He's weird," the neurotech said.

"It's not about him I want to ask you," I turned to Wladas. "What do you know about memory implants? And downloadable wetware? Only the latest research, please. Come on, I'm listening."

Wladas
placed his elbows onto his knees and locked his fingers.

"
Go ahead, spill. What's the purpose of such implants and the possible size of downloadable files? Can you give me the figures?"

His complexion darkened, eyes glistened with agitation.
He didn't look at ease with my questions. "Why would you need them?"

I raised my hand again.
"Just answer my question, okay? I mean the Feds' research where they decided to use chemicals instead of memory chips."

"U
rban legends," Wladas unlocked his fingers and shook his head. "To download a file into a brain, you need a memory chip. You know that as well as I do."

I nodded
. "I do. But imagine an information file installed into one's brain via a memory chip. Then they remove the chip. Is it possible?"

"Well, theoretically.
.." Wladas looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "Everything's possible. But," he shook his head again, "but that's theory. The Feds haven't made much headway on the army in this respect. I do know they experimented with chemicals. But experimentation is one thing, and getting results is something totally-"

"Who did you work for? The Feds or the army?
What did you do back on Earth? Tell me."

Wladas
sighed and stared at the floor. I looked at the shower curtain. Soapy water ran down Wong's legs. He'd nearly finished washing while I hadn't gotten anywhere with my questions.

"I used to be deputy head of one of the General Staff's laboratories
," Wladas spoke in a hollow voice, staring blankly. Blood had left his face. "I served in Sector B."

He looked up at me. I raised my eyebrows.

"You should know it controls the ground forces," Wladas looked down again.

Holy shit. I was talking to a man privy to the country's top classified
crap. People like him were the backbone of our defense. What idiot was responsible for sending him down here? Sector B, for chrissakes... I had another look at the neurotech. He was still staring into the distance, his sallow face frozen. Not good. Our conversation had taken a bad turn.

The faucet
screeched. The shower curtain rustled. Wong walked back to his bed, lay the shotgun across his lap and began to dismantle it.

"So you were responsible for the top brass' brains," I ventured. "Why are you here, then?"

Wladas took a deep breath, rubbed his face and let the air out. "I..." he scratched his hollow cheek with a thumb, "I was found guilty of grave negligence. The investigation confirmed multimillion ruble losses that had undermined our defense..."

"
Which is what?" I interrupted him. "Can you tell me in two words?"

"Just a
bad supplier I signed up. Should have read the fine print. So - here I am."

I was itching to ask him about
the size of his cut. I was more than sure that the said supplier had then paid a nice amount into some shady overseas bank account - either Wladas', or his chief's. But I refrained from commenting. We all had our skeletons in the closet, otherwise we wouldn't have ended up here in the first place. But now we had to decide what to do next.

"I digress," I yawned and rubbed my eyes.
I felt as if I hadn't slept for three nights at least. "How would you introduce information into one's memory so that the file unpacks at a particular moment?"

Wladas
lifted a glazed stare. He wasn't good at switching subjects.

"Well,
provided you have a memory chip installed..." he frowned and moved his lips. "What am I talking about? Once the chip's introduced into the brain, you set the timer. The file unpacks at the set time."

"
And without a chip? Can you think of anything?"

Wong
clicked the firing pin, looked into the barrel, blew into it and looked again against the lamp light.

"Well,"
Wladas cocked his head rubbing his chin, "there's this memory layering technique. Simply put, they program the information carrier through the chip, then introduce the trigger code. Later, when the carrier perceives the trigger code, the file unpacks in his brain."

I
felt lightning-struck. But of course. I remembered the jumpgate corridor on the Base when I'd very nearly picked a fight with the now-drowned miner. I'd looked at the ceiling, and...

"Does the code have
a particular shape? How is it introduced?"

"Through visual perception, or alternatively, certain memory areas can be activated by a vocal command.
That's when the carrier reacts to a particular trigger word or phrase. Visually, it can be any kind of image, like a snapshot or an object of some sort."

Oh well. I closed my eyes trying to tie everything together.
First, my brain had reacted to the Fort's colors on the jumpgate ceiling. That's when the Information had first come on. Then it had to be the biocyne facts - yes, that's right, it had happened when Grunt had spoken about carula, and I had reacted by remembering the trigger word,
biocyne
. What else? Yes, the map of the Continent, it showed up twice. Most likely, similar objects or their recognizable characteristics triggered the installed images. First it had happened when I'd seen the ocean and the Pangean coastline. The second time the map had been conjured up by Georgie's sketching the Continent's outline in the sand.

Okay, that much I now understood.
Images and words activated certain memories installed in my brain. And still I must have overlooked something. There was more to it, but what?

A cartridge
popped down the barrel. I instinctively forced my eyes open. Wong put aside his shotgun and reached for the other indifferently. Wladas, pitcher in hand, gave me an expectant look. I yawned and rubbed my temples. My head felt heavy. I couldn't keep my eyes open.

"And what if-" I
paused, trying to locate a fleeting thought. A very important one which stayed restless at the fringes of my mind exhausted by today's events and the data overload. "What if..."

Wait
. My mind scan. Had the mind scan operator detected the slightest deviation in my identity from the one in their database, they would have detained me on the spot. Most likely, they'd have sent me back to Earth for further investigation. True, the mind scan had glitched. They'd had to do it twice. But at the end of the day, it had worked.

"
Wladas? And what if, say, the carrier is subjected to such identity-altering memory layering against his will? Say, if they could put him to sleep or something? Can the mind scan show he's been tampered with?"

The neurotech
's grin had just a touch of condescension.

"Mind scan
s detect any deviation from the existing pattern. You can't fool a machine. That's why the Feds have dropped biometrics. They have no need for them anymore," Wladas grabbed the pitcher and finished the fruit drink. "Actually... Your questions
are
a bit off, don't you think? We wanted to discuss what to do next. And you-"