Point Apocalypse (32 page)

From
the corner of my eye I sensed a movement in the control center. I got up off the floor. Behind the membrane stood Blank, Wladas, Kathy and their guards - the very same cybers who had shot the raiders at the river.

The captain's lips moved soundlessly as he gave orders.
Then he opened the entrance through the membrane and stayed there while letting in my friends and their escort.

"We're leavin
g, Master Specialist," he pointed at the officer at the control panel. "We'll keep in touch through the operator."

"Where's Mira and the baby?" I stepped towa
rd the opening.

"They're going with us," Blank turned away and
ordered the soldiers to prepare the mobile reserve group to set off.

The membrane between us sealed up and clouded over.

I looked at Wladas. He looked surprisingly calm, content and relaxed. He stood by the wall, away from the rest, fondling his sharp stubbly chin and didn't even pay me any attention as if lost in his thoughts. Kathy, by contrast, was looking around everywhere staring open-mouthed at myself, at the semisphere and at the rods showering sparks as the lightning died away overhead.

"
Quit gawking," I walked over to the girl. She turned her back to me and raised her hand to touch the membrane. "I wouldn’t do that if I were you."

"Why?" Kathy gave me a surprised look.

I led her away from the membrane.

"
You'd lose your arm before you knew it. This is the latest means of defense which Blank controls."

"That
miserable scumbag?" She motioned her head toward the membrane.

"
His name's Blank. Captain Rustam Blank, a cyber officer. General Varlamov's adjutant and bodyguard. And his assassin," I added in a whisper so that the guards couldn't hear.

We
stepped behind the pedestal.

"And they told us you
'd killed the general," Kathy whispered quickly.

I
turned to her.

"They didn't really say it to us," she
admitted. "The soldiers were discussing it among themselves."

One of the cybers came towa
rd Wladas and pushed his shoulder motioning him to rejoin us. Another pulled the backpack off his back and slammed it to the floor. "Here's a flask of water and some dry rations."

I
remembered his name. Badry. Aquiline nose, hazel eyes, a broad forehead, black curly hair escaping from under the raised visor of his helmet. Badry had served in Blank's section ever since the building of the Fort. He was the garrison's veteran often mentioned in dispatches by the general.

"How long are we supposed to hang out here?" I asked squatting by the backpack.

"To the bitter end, Master Specialist," Badry answered and stepped back to his men.

I unvelcroed a flap and pulled out the flask.

"Hey," Kathie called out to them, "and what if I need to go for a piss?"

"Hold it," Badry barked over his shoulder.

His dog-faced associate grinned and guffawed. "Why not," he said in a deep voice. "Let her grin and bare it. That would be a sight for sore eyes."

"Shut the fuck up," Badry cut
him short. "This isn't a summer camp, you pervert. You're not in the Fort anymore."

Dog face
sulked under Badry's heavy glare but didn't say a word. Kathy, too, swallowed her pride and kept mum. Clever girl.

I took a swig and splashed my face
with some water to wash off the caked-on blood and bits of brain. Wladas sat next to me, asked for the flask and whispered quickly, "Soldiers were saying that you killed the general. I don't believe them. This Captain Blank, he came to us and let Wong out. You should have seen his eyes when he did it..."

"Where did they keep you?" Whether Wladas believed me or
not mattered little to me at that moment. "Downstairs or up above?"

"Downstairs. In some kind of room, like a cave. We
had to go down a long staircase to get to it. I remember there was a strong smell of food there and all along the hallway. As if there was a kitchen next to it."

I nodded mechanically. They
'd kept them next to the mess hall.

"Did you see a woman and a baby?"

"Nah," Wladas shook his head. "They put all three of us in that room. Then they let Wong go, and then... we heard a noise, and..." He clung to the flask glancing at Badry who was casting us an attentive eye.

Then
Kathy distracted him. She also wanted to drink and sat on the floor next to me. The cybers stood there for a while in silence and then strode over to the opposite wall speaking in hushed voices. Wladas went on,

"From what I heard, they
had all left. Almost all of them. A few guards hung about upstairs. Blank took all of the clones with him. Where they went to, I don't know.

"To New Pang to see McLean," I whispered.

"Oh really?" the girl raised her eyebrows.

"McLean is going to send another carula shipment to the Fort," I took out
the rations and tore the pack open glancing at the cybers. "They've already come to an agreement. The shipment contains a capsule with an assault virus which will open at a preset time."

"
And?" Wladas frowned, uncomprehending. "Okay, so a few people will catch it..."

"Not so," I shook my head. "This is a swamp virus
from an alien world that leaked onto Pangea."

"What do you mean?" Kathy took the
pack from me and rustled open the crackers.

"Let me
finish," I hissed. "It's a long story. You'll have to believe me. They've modified the virus so that it kills slowly to make sure it spreads everywhere on the planet. And when the pandemic gains momentum, it'll be too late because by then, I'd have disconnected Pangea from Earth."

Kathy and Wladas stared at me
without saying a word trying to take it in.

What an idiot I was!
They didn't know anything! Not about biocyne nor about the fact that it was extracted from carula produced at McLean's seaweed farms. Neither did they know about the portal machine nor the beacons.

"In short," I said, "
don't ask questions, just believe me that if the capsule with the virus in it reaches Earth, there'll be hell to pay."

"I
don't give a fuck," Kathy said out of the blue. "Let them all croak. I don't have anyone there."

"But I do have family," Wladas
transfixed her in dismay.

"
Eat," I hissed and shoved a cracker in my mouth. I took a can opener which was included with the rations and ripped open a can of beans. "I don't want the cybers to suspect anything."

"
Yeah right," Kathy opened a pack of disposable spoons. "Can you tell me Mark why you're fussing so much? Is it for the Feds?"

"It's for my wife and daughter," I answered nibbling on a
cracker. "Blank keeps them hostage. And will continue to keep them until he doesn't need me anymore."

"Wait,"
Wladas grabbed my hand preventing me from taking another bite of my cracker. "Did you say, disconnect Earth? How are you going to do that?"

He looked at the semisphere on its pedestal,
then raised his eyes to the rods protruding from the impossibly high vaulted ceiling. "Do you know how this thing works? This machine?" He scratched his cheek and lowered his gaze. "You think it can take you back?"

"It can,"
I whispered before swilling down the rest of the cracker with some water. "I can go back to Earth. I can travel to other worlds. I can..." Now that was a thought! I could use the machine to travel across Pangea itself. If the machine had been able to teleport me from the swamps back to the gasometer, I could now try to get closer to New Pang - either to the beacon in the bay or to the one in the estuary, by the loggers' camp. In the latter case it would be quite a hike to get to the city but nevertheless. I could still catch up with Blank and meet him fully prepared to free Mira and my daughter. He'd never get the virus to Earth.

"Why would
you want to disconnect Earth and Pangea?" Kathy asked.

"To make sure the virus doesn't find its way back," I said.
"Here in the swamps... how can I tell you... the swamps are part of their natural habitat..."

"You mean the swamp was sucked in here just like the Kola Peninsula was?
" Wladas ventured.

"Exactly," I glanced at the cybers.

The soldiers sat on the floor backs to the wall, their legs outstretched. Dog face busied himself with his pulse gun: something was malfunctioning in his video sighting unit. Badry leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Now," I said as quiet as I could, "listen up. We can handle these two. But the operator," I
motioned with my eyes at the communications officer by his equipment stand, "he's behind the membrane."

"There's another way,"
Wladas interrupted without turning to me. "Let's say I know how to turn off this membrane for a while."

For a few seconds I stared at him unblinking. Then I said, "What do we need to do?"

Wladas paused twisting the plastic spoon in his hands.

"
We'll have to kill one of the cybers."

"
I can smoke 'em both if you want," Kathy shot the guards a prickly glare.

"
Wait a sec," I said.

Wladas went on, "
Whenever one of us goes through the optical membrane into the opening, it is in fact activated, but in an integral part the protective field registers a security code which only Blank knows. While letting us pass, the membrane reads our neural parameters. Just like the mind scanner at the jumpgate exit, remember?"

I nodded
. I thought I knew what he was implying.

"The processor's memory," Wladas whispered in excitement, "
controls the membrane. It contains the data of everyone who passes through it."

"
But that data is unique," I butted in. "Our nervous system, our brain, our conscience..."

"Exactly," Wladas' eyes glistened. In his excitement,
he waved his spoon around. "The membrane identifies all who attempt to cross the field as enemies, even if they possess the key. By the key I mean the code that can increase or decrease the protective field's intensity."

"Yeah,"
I promptly shoved a cracker in his mouth because he had suddenly sat up straight staring at us.

Kathy who'd
all this time been stiff with tension, open-mouthed, turned sharply back to her food and dug her spoon into the beans. Dog face nudged Badry with his elbow and asked him aloud to turn on his laser range finder in order to check his sights' settings.

They busied themselves with their guns while we stuffed our faces, pointing their lasers at
various points on the vaulted ceiling. Finally they stopped and started yapping again.

"Carry on," I whispered to Wladas who sat with his back to the soldiers.

"So. The membrane only reacts on the living."

I shook my head, unable to understand what he was driving at.

"It kills all life that passes through it if it doesn't receive the correct security code," he said rapidly. "We've all been in its field. The system remembered us and stored the data in its memory cells. When we cross the field, the system compares the parameters and sends a request to the processor. Then it either lets us through or eliminates us."

"Do you mean," I tapped his shoulder with my spoon, "
that a dead cyber could open the entrance? You think his body could cross the membrane and nothing would happen? The field's status would remain unchanged and its potential wouldn't grow, right?"

"
Yes, that's right. But only for a second, not more, because the processor's brain would come into discord with the sequential algorithm. My colleagues from the Defense Ministry labs still haven't found the solution to this problem. They didn't think much of it and accepted the membrane as is. Who would think of killing themselves one step from the membrane only to get to the other side as a dead man?"

"Yeah," I glanced at Kathy.
She wrinkled her forehead in thought chewing on her spoon.

"So," I started, "
we need to get hold of a gun, kill a cyber, throw the corpse into the membrane and shoot the operator?"

"
We'll only have a second," Wladas reminded.

The
girl shrugged. "So let's try."

And before I could suggest a
plan of further action, she got up and said angrily,

"That's it, I can't hold it
any longer! Open this thing of yours before I piss myself!"

The cybers stared at the girl who stepped
toward the semisphere demonstratively unbuttoning her combat pants. She squatted disappearing from their view.