Versim (10 page)

“What I’m asking you, Specialist Cole, is to wake up the host of
The Collides
Rend-V. Can you do that for me? Wake up the host? One way or another?”

“One way or another?” he asked.
 

“Yes, sir, one way or another.”

She knew he would do it as he nodded his head. She could hear his thoughts:
I have to break into a Rend-V and either wake or kill a host. I’m going outlaw.
Still, she batted her eyes and even pretended to cry as she laid the trap for him.

14

A knock at her door snapped her out of her reverie. She wrapped her robe around tighter before running her hand through the nanofog.

The projection disappeared.

She cracked the door. Her assistant peeked in, two eyes in the darkness. “Are you ready?”

“Is he ready?”

“He’s just waking up. He was in for a full day planning how to flip the V. He’s groggy.” Miesha dropped her robe. Her assistant pushed in. “You’re not ready.”

“Give me a second.”

Miesha stood in panties and nothing else. She grabbed a little black dress that fit her like a charm and stepped into two high-heeled pumps. In seconds, she looked like she was put together perfectly: some sexy, alien creature.
 

“All done.”

She hurried into a large chamber with a corner view of the Upper Deck arcologies, each massive hive complex a pyramid of light in the distance. They stretched along the entire Eastern seaboard from Boston to Atlanta. And, if you were high enough you imagined you could see all the way south.

A table for two had been set in the corner. The rest of the dining room was kept in darkness. Her assistant had even lit a candle and left a bottle of opened wine. Miesha sat on one of the chairs and poured a glass of a deeply rich Shiraz that left a touch of blackberry and spice in the air.

Out of the shadows emerged Ervé. He was dressed in a fine dinner jacket, slacks, open collar. She caught her breath.

“My patron,” he said, grinning at her as if he might take her right there on the table. She half expected the night to end that way.

“My killer,” she said and tipped her glass at him. “Let’s eat first. And I prefer
director
. You know that.”

He continued to grin. “Whatever you say.”

“So how is it looking inside?”

“Splendid.” He poured himself a glass of wine. He had dampened his mind, but just being near him was like edging toward a tornado that might scoop you up at any minute. “Your plan, my love, is genius. I’ve jumped in a few times. But I am ready to go deep.”

She tipped her glass at him. “Your immersion vat is down stairs with our tunneler. I’ll be sad to see you go—”

“It’ll play like a grand orchestra. Already, people are clamoring to know who this mysterious stranger is who saved Celia Preston from kidnappers. That was genius trying to get her yourself. Those three goons stood no chance against Cole.”

“And now everyone knows a futuristic superhero is at work in the V,” she said.

“And when they see what you have planned …”

“They’ll all come running in droves.”

15

Hark stood with Celia and Frankie on the west side of Broadway, just south of 42
nd
Street, outside the fashionable new Hiku hotel. Hark had chosen it because they needed a more comfortable place to wait for his memory return.
 

He’d bought a cheap pair of sunglasses from a street vendor and smiled up at the noon sunshine warming his face.
 

Ah, he thought, Times Square before bleedover, the Rupture, the arcologies. It had a quaint, almost small-city feel. The sunshine was delicious. The smell of exhaust and the din of noisy vehicles also provided an old-world timber. The tourists in the streets often stopped to point with delight at the still advertisements that decorated the buildings. A few large digital displays hinted at what the future held. But, here, in the central artery of the first great metropolis of modernity, the world that once had been buzzed around him.

Frankie chomped on a hotdog loaded with relish, still reeling from his wakeup. All Hark had explained was that Frankie’s memories would soon start to fade, up to the point he’d truly begun living.
 

Hark feared that wasn’t much earlier than a few hours ago. Hark hadn’t told him yet that he was a constructed person meant to be a supporting character in a drama taking place around him—something about to happen soon. But he would soon enough.

 
An oblivious Celia stood tight-lipped, brim of her hat pulled down by her shawl, hiding behind her sunglasses. Hark had spent the last ten minutes convincing her to go upstairs to the hotel room. Celia was well known enough that a few people stopped for signatures and one picture. Hark eventually began glaring, and people gave a wide berth. Binda was inside, perusing
haute couture
in a small boutique in the lobby, waiting for the rest of them.

Hark tapped Frankie on the shoulder. “I’ve had enough of this. Take Celia upstairs. Tell Binda to go with you guys.”

Frankie nodded obediently, but paused.

“What is it?” Hark asked.

“What’s going on, sir? I can’t remember anything prior to my tenth birthday.”

“You’re a big help. That’s what’s going on.”
 

Hark glanced at the hotel. The Hiku was Times Square’s most exclusive hotel that catered to entertainment types. Celia would fit in—even though her regular suite at the Four Seasons was where she wanted to be. At least here, they didn’t know her. Hark had already plopped down enough cash for a room for a week. He’d surveyed the suite upstairs. Fifth floor, just above a fancy restaurant with a great view.
 

“Get her up there, Frankie, and I’ll explain it to you later.”

He watched a befuddled Frankie lead Celia into the hotel.

When Hark turned back toward the sea of people on the sidewalk, he saw another specialist, Caleb Paratore, crossing a street.

Hark triggered his slow-down mode. It didn’t actually slow time, of course, but his brain did the opposite: it jumped into an over-clock mode that made him a compounded genius in a nanosecond.
 

Caleb stood there looking like a buff model on his way to the gym. He’d immerse in similar casual gear to what Hark had worn upon immersing. He didn’t have a kit, which meant he’d just arrived.
 

“You know why you’re here?” Hark asked.
 

Caleb stopped a few feet away and glanced at a film poster glued to a barrier wall hiding construction behind it: a man that looked just like Hark running down a street, a title underneath that read
Kill Harken Cole
.
 

“Clever,” Hark said. “That for you?”

“A nice touch,” Caleb said. “I just woke up in a cab a few minutes ago. He let me out here. I’m walking with a single objective, Hark. I’m also walking with my full memory. That clue’s just a reminder.”

“So you ain’t staying long?”

“We’ll be done soon enough, I guess.”

Caleb’s polite behavior couldn’t be faulted. He’d been an accomplished specialist for years. Caleb was a company man, though, and the tension between their different approaches had turned into rivalry a few years ago when Hark learned what Caleb thought about him.
 

Hark had never wanted to have to run him down inside, and certainly didn’t want to be chased. They’d never been paired as opposites in a Rend-V. And here he was, standing on a corner, bearing the gift of conversation, before he tried to take Hark out.

“We got riders?” Hark asked, wondering how many people were jumping in to ride along with him and experience what he was about to experience.

“You’re little stunt, as well as a few others, just pushed
Collides
to the top. The bosses are torn. Revenue’s up. When I immersed, a gaggle of viewers were following you around. Already, three top-tier payers are riding along with you as we speak.”

“I bet the bosses do like the ratings.”

“Beside the point.” A few beats of silence between them meant Caleb was preparing. Hark felt all his systems ramp up to optimal. “You still in the dark, Hark?”

“I seen a few clues. You here to add some spice, then let me go, or to take me back?”

“What do you think?”

They both nodded. “So we tango ’til the lights go out. How about some information, before we do?”

“Here’s what I can tell you,” Caleb said. “It won’t make a difference and won’t scramble your brains when you wake up. Word in the halls of EA: a month ago you met a woman who asked you to do something. You thought coming in here illegally could help her. You weren’t that discreet about keeping it a secret.”

The Promise.

“Do what?”

“If I tell you and you win, your wires get crossed. That’s vital info. Your neural net needs that space clean.”

“Right.”

“It’s gotta be this way.”

“I take you out, Caleb, you’re off the roster for at least six months for major cogno-therapy. You know how it goes. Death inside is no joke, especially for us. You’ve immersed too many times. Dying in-V could mess you up for life, Caleb.”

“You really think you can win?”

Caleb looked young, but he was older than Hark by decades. He was also good, but he had a weakness: he didn’t care as much. Whatever brought Hark here had to be important, especially for them to send Caleb. But, Hark had come all on his own.

“Yeah?” Hark asked, knowing Caleb wouldn’t back down. “We doing this?”

“I got a trump card, Hark. You know how it goes. For emergencies, they give you something special.”

“Shame, these are new clothes.”

“It doesn’t have to be the hard way.” Caleb nodded with the kind of sincerity that meant he genuinely wanted to avoid the fight. “Use your parachute.”

Caleb obviously wanted Hark to wake up secure and healthy in an immersion clinic. Every specialist who had gone as deep as many times as Hark and Caleb had specially made parachutes. Like the Han Solo alarm clock object that had woken up Frankie, Hark simply needed to look around until he found … he saw a curio shop across the street that looked like it sold every type of NYC kitsch imaginable.
 

In the store window under a Lego Statue of Liberty were two souvenir books of the city. Next to them, as out of place as can be, was a large coffee-table book with Hark on the cover. Hark never looked for his parachute, had never used one, and didn’t plan to now. All he had to do was open it, begin reading, and he’d wake up in the hive apartment they were using, his mind no worse for wear since he hadn’t been in long.

“I can’t do that.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

Caleb punched a vicious jab forward, an energized spike lancing from his fist.
 

Hark hadn’t seen that sneak attack before but ducked in time, his energy carapace sizzling from close proximity.
 

The scene around Hark blurred into a still picture as every bit of his working mind switched into a highly sensitive spatial ratiocination mode:
He just tried to punch a hole in my defense. He failed. My counter attack is …
Hark retreated with an oblique dive. He didn’t feel the hard sidewalk, his reactive Skinsuit cushioning the blow even as his jacket shredded.
 

Hark swung a wide, scythe-like stroke from a backhand that just missed Caleb’s head.

The world around him froze as he focused on Caleb’s moving figure.

They’ll die, Hark,
he imagined Magdalena saying.
That family of three who sounds like they’re from France. The father has his camera out. He’s taking a picture of his wife and daughter. If either of you cause an explosion, everyone on this corner is toast.

Caleb must have been thinking the same thing. To avoid a catastrophe, he bore down on Hark like a conquering hero with twin indigo energy spears snaking along both of his arms.
 

This is new. This is unexpected. He’s showing his hand early. He doesn’t think I have anything. He thinks I’m weak. Yes, he thinks I’m weak. I can handle it. I can take the blow. I can—

Hark felt the impact of the strike on his energy carapace as if an uprooted tree trunk had slammed into him.
 

Without Magdalena, he couldn’t modulate a dynamic defensive posture, and Caleb’s attack smashed through his carapace into his reactive armor.
 

His Skinsuit did its best to deflect the force. Hark heard the reverberation explosion.
 

A man selling hotdogs shrieked and abandoned his cart, while two Nigerians with open brief cases full of fake designer watches both fell into the gutter.
 

Hark felt the heat sink into his torso. Autonomic painkillers released from synth glands.
 

The psychology of violence. I know this well. I have taught this course. I am one with the truth. The pain is gone. The damage can be repaired. What I am in this moment will define me. I am unwilling to lose. I am …
Hark dove for Caleb’s legs in the most unexpected posture imaginable: a double-leg take down.
 

His carapace negated his opponent’s. And they tumbled into the street. Cars careened around them. The sound of honking was a faraway thing.

Hark felt the rest of his clothes burn away, the smell of singed cloth in his nostrils. He smelled heated engine oil on the asphalt, the slick material of the old world coating him in grime.
 

Caleb, a master of distance.

Hark, a master of … he opened his mouth and extended a series of electric teeth that he clamped down on his colleague’s neck. He felt Caleb punching holes into his back, his reactive armor unable to withstand the attack. But Caleb had used up his energy. And Hark bit down harder.

In the last moment, before he felt the body beneath him die, he saw the familiar light in a specialist’s eyes blank.

Caleb had an insurance policy.

The hackers yanked him before the moment of death.