Velvet Dogma About 3300 wds (30 page)

But Maria couldn't have been more pleased than to sit Rebecca down over a cup of tea and tell her about the new CONEX that her grandma had moved into in the underground city after having been Shanghai'd by a squad of gravBoarders, the records hacked by Velvet Dogma, and the aboveground coordination conducted by Darshan. No wonder the slumlord had smiled so broadly. He'd held a secret the entire time.

Rebecca was ecstatic. She wanted to contact her grandma immediately, but knew that that wasn't a good idea. Too many people were looking for Rebecca. She had to leave. Even though they might never see each other in person again, it couldn't be helped.

For that, Rebecca mourned.

But not for long, because there was one place where she could be with her grandma. Rebecca promised herself that one day she'd sail the high seas and find the Pirate Queen. For all the disparaging remarks she'd both thought and said about the POD people and their addictions in inDramas, it turned out after all that she wanted to be in one.

The irony wasn't lost on her.

Still, Grandma was her last link to her past and Rebecca didn't want to be the only one of her family left alive. What a rotten predicament for anyone to be in. The last one standing—an unexpected responsibility to continue the line and something she'd wish on no one.

Rebecca sighed. Would it ever end?

"Why such a long face, Bec? This is it. We've made it."
 

Andy strode down the aisle of wide seats and tables with a tray of food grasped in both hands. His grin was as bright as the sun streaming through the windows.

"I'm all right. Just thinking about everything that's happened."

He handed her a drink and a plate of fruit. Once he grabbed his own tall glass, he saw down beside her. The seat was wide enough so he could pull his knee up and turn towards her.

"What happens next?"
 
She popped a grape into her mouth and couldn't help but close her eyes at its sweet taste.

"Next we go to Mammoth Cave and get Velvet Dogma started. They've run through a few simulations and think we can begin retrieving data right away once we capture the program."

"Are the servers big enough?"

"Are they big enough?"
 
His eyes rolled as he laughed. "What we've gathered has the capacity to store one zettabyte of information, or ten to the twenty-first power. You remember megabytes and terabytes right? The zettabyte is three orders of magnitude larger than a terabyte. Technically speaking it's a unit of computer storage equal to one sextillion bytes. To put it in perspective, one zettabyte is equal to the total amount of printed information in the world plus a good chunk of digitized information. Imagine every letter from every word on every page in every book in every library in every city in the world and a zettabyte is
more
than that."

"Velvet Dogma is that big?"

"The servers are, but the program is a bit smaller. The best guess is that your program has increased in size to a little more than a terabyte or ten to the fourteenth power."

Rebecca shook her head. "And to think the original program was 63 kilobytes."

"We know. We've gone over the code back and forth. It was really elegant the way you pieced it all together."

"There wasn't anything elegant about it. I was pissed off at the Patriot Act and wanted to create a program that would ferret out all of the hidden information. Not so hard, really. Like most bad things, they had to invite the program into their servers. Once there it replicated and went to work."
 
She ate a piece of brie she'd scooped onto the end of a slice of apple. "Everyone tends to secure their classified information the same way. If you know how that's done, then getting to it isn't half as hard as most people believe."

"Do you think you'll be able to retrieve it?"

"That's the billion dollar questions, isn't it?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know. The whole interface has changed. If I'm going to use one of the PODs, then I'll have to learn with a curve. Back in the days of keyboards I could fly across the keys."

"No more of that."

"No kidding. I guess to answer your question, I don't know. I suppose I'll just wing it."

"Wing it?"

"Yep."
 
She grinned. She was feeling strong and her confidence was building. There was only one last thing she had to deal with before everything would be perfect. But she waited a moment and watched as Andy grabbed small pieces of cheese from the tray and made mini sandwiches with the crackers. One, two, three disappeared into his mouth. As if on afterthought, he slid half a dozen grapes in until his cheeks chipmunked.

"Andy?"

He turned to her, a look of surprise on his face. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too full. His eyes popped wide. She couldn't help it. She broke down in a fit of laughter. She covered her face until her giggles subsided. When she looked again, Andy' face was normal. What he did with the food, she didn't know. Maybe he actually swallowed it. All she knew was that she was content.

He stared at her, his expression one of exaggerated patience.

She ignored the look and crooked her finger at him. "Come here."

He hesitated, pushed aside the tray of food and slid beside her. The food clattered to the floor, but she was too busy to care. Andy's lips met hers and slid sideways as he kissed her, tongue slowly tasting her mouth, hers tasting his. He lifted her so he could slide beneath. Without breaking their kiss, she ended up sitting on his lap, her arms around his neck. She squeezed him as his hands roamed her chest, cupping first one, then her other breast. She moaned into his mouth, the sound vibrating their tongues.

A tightness expanded from her abdomen until it encompassed her. Skin sizzling at the slightest touch, she buried her head in his shoulder and moved her hands across his chest. Where he touched her left goosebumps. A few seconds more and she could take it no longer.

She twisted until she was straddling him. She wrenched his shirt off, then removed her own. He tried to get up, but she shoved him back on the sea, then pushed the recline button. Suddenly he was horizontal and she was in control. Her lips met his in a crash of emotion. All the loss and pain she'd experienced these last few days poured into the connection until she was crying, her tears lubricating their faces as their lips slid to encompass everything about each of them—eyes, ears, noses, chins.

She fumbled with first her pants, then his. Completely naked she sank atop him, the heat from their intercourse slicing deep within her. She cried out once, then settled on his chest as they made love. Once she raised her head to look into his eyes, but they were closed, his lips upturned in a self-possessed smile.

She lay atop him for a long while after it was over, willing her heartbeat to match his,
thumping-thumping
their shared destiny. She sighed as she sat up, happy to be who she was, where she was.

The plane lurched.

Andy's eyes shot wide. He fought to sit up straight, holding Rebecca so she wouldn't fall to the floor. She staggered to her feet and grabbed her.

The plane lurched again.

"Turbulence?"

Andy shook his head. "The plane would have steered around or over it. No, this is something different."
 
He snatched his shirt from the ground and put it on as he headed for the cockpit door. "I have a
bad
feeling about this!"

Rebecca stepped into her pants and pulled them up as he checked inside the cockpit. The plane was on autopilot, so he was probably checking the instrumentation. Just as she finished adjusting her clothes, all hell broke loose.

A hurricane wind smashed into the cabin as a piece of metal from the ceiling fell to the aisle at the back of the plane. The wind died almost to nothing as another vehicle covered the hole like a patch on a tire. Six figures dropped through a hole and into the cabin. Five wore the black garb of the Hei Xin. The sixth was none other than Kumi Rasangawan. A smile of vile satisfaction ruined her beauty.

"You shouldn't have run, Rebecca."
 
Although the roar had faded, Kumi still had to yell to be heard over the noise.

"What do you want with me?" Rebecca yelled back.

"Everything. Nothing. Don't worry, it'll all be over soon."
 
She turned to the Hei Xin. "
Zou ba
."

They moved towards Rebecca on the balls of their feet, climbing over the seats, careful to keep evenly spaced and not give her a chance to escape. Although their faces were covered, each set of eyes held a malevolent gleam.

Rebecca jerked her head around, desperate to find some sort of salvation, some way to get away from the assassins. A desperate whine escaped her lips. But at thirty thousand feet, there was nowhere to go. Looking down at her hands, she realized that she was still holding her shirt. She brought it to her naked chest for a moment, then threw it in the face of the nearest Black Heart.

As she turned to run, she saw Andy step from the pilot's cabin. Shock and fear swept over his face. Rebecca made it one step before she felt a hand grip her hair and jerk her back. She lost her footing and hit the aisle floor hard enough to drive the air from her lungs.

Kumi hove into view standing over her. The woman smiled a moment, then saluted her. Rebecca wanted to beg for her life, but a hot spike seemed to impale her arm. Sounds slowed as her vision blurred around the edges. Her muscles jumped and locked.

Paralyzed.

I don't want to die.

She tried to look away as the knife descended, but she couldn't move.

Please.

Not me.

H
er head felt miles away. Memories had taken a taxi and never come back. Commands waited their turn. A needle-pain lingered behind her eyes.

Where was she?

Who was she?

She cracked open her eyelids. A wall made of rough hewn basalt was her horizon. Shadows moved upon it, sometimes interacting with other shadows, sometimes remaining alone. From edge to edge, the shadows played upon the basalt wall. The longer she watched, the more the forms took shape. Cars. People. Animals. A colorless movie was being played out before her.

She suddenly felt the weight of her head. As she brought her hands to it, she realized she was hanging upside down, her arms dangling. She examined the floor not more than five feet beneath her. Twisting, she looked up. The chain that was wrapped around her legs descended several feet from where it was wrapped around a stalactite. Blood had long ago crusted on the chain's links, giving them a dull, rust-colored patina.

And she wasn't alone. She couldn't see the others, but she knew as a person knows there's someone in the closet next to them that she wasn't alone. She felt other bodies around her, all hanging, all watching the wall. What was it? Why were they there?

A light suddenly flared and the shadows deepened on the wall. A monster with slit eyes lurched towards her out of the basalt. She bit her lip to fight back a scream. Another monster joined the first and rushed toward her. She tried to close her eyes but lacked the control. A third joined the two. This one spoke to her, its voice deep and mean.

"Beccawakeup."

She screamed.

"Beccawakeup!"

A hand pushed against her mouth, then her forehead. The wall vanished and

in its place were three men kneeling beside her.

"Howareyoufeeling?"

She struggled to focus, to concentrate on what they were saying. She knew it was important. She just didn't have the ability to understand.

One of the men reached towards the top of her head, fiddled with something, then stood back.

"ThereIthinkthatwasit."

"Howlongwillittake?"

"Only a few seconds and then she should have enough temporary memory to function."

"Andy?"

One of the figures turned and leaned in close. He kissed her and as he did, Rebecca remembered his face. "Becca? How do you feel?"

" Everything is fuzzy. I can't feel my fingers. I can't feel my toes."
 
Her voice sounded like it came from the end of a long windowless hall. "What's happened to me?"

Andy glanced over his shoulder, shook his head at someone, then turned back to her. "You've reached Velvet Dogma. You're here."
 
He grinned, but there was something missing in it.

She tried to sit up to see, but her body refused to answer her call. "What's happened to me? I can't move. I can't think straight. And I feel so cold."
 
She shivered.

Andy turned to the man behind him. "Why does she feel cold?"

"She doesn't. It's a sense memory. We can't filter them all and for the life of me, I can't figure out why they keep coming."

She recognized the cadence of the man's speech. "Panchet? Is that you?"

"Yes, Rebecca."