Vortex (21 page)

There was something so hot about those words, that Tom again had to remind himself that Heather was somewhat poisonous. “I can tell you right now,” he replied, “I’m going to bring you back a head.”

“Or how about not?”

Tom grinned sheepishly. “No heads coming up.” He set out in search of a foe. Soon he ditched the warhorse, ditched the armor, and traded his lance for a sword.

He jumped atop a stone wall and began searching the castle grounds from the high vantage point, seeking a simulated character of sufficient deadliness. That’s how he noticed a hidden nook in the yard, where Karl was accosting one of the serving wenches.

Tom felt a dark thrill, spotting him. Yes. Here it was. Forget simulated enemies. Here was what he’d been looking for.

He sauntered over, then settled on a low wall right above them.

“Hiya, Karl,” he called loudly, startling Karl into jumping to his feet. “Wow, she is
not
having a good time. I guess even simulated girls don’t like you. That’s kind of pathetic, man.”

Karl shoved the character away and with a flick of his hand, deleted her. Then he turned on Tom, adjusting his garb, his face bright red. “I’ll have you know, Old Yeller,” he said smugly, chest swelling, “I’m a celebrity now, so—”

“Wow, a celebrity and you
still
have to settle for simulated girls?” Tom interrupted. “That’s just sad.”

Karl leered at him, a nasty glint in his eyes. “I know what this is about. You’re frustrated and hoping to take it out on someone, aren’t ya, Benji? I know what’s up with you. You blew it. You’re never gonna make CamCo now. It’s gotta really be sinking in.”

It was, but Tom would never admit it. “Nah, I’m here because I like spending time with you, Karl.”

“I’ll give you what you want.” Karl drew his sword, his meaty fist gripping its hilt. “I’ll fight you. I’ll smash you into the ground.”

“Yeah, it’s not like you’re already oh for three. But, hey, I really respect your prowess on the battlefield . . .” Tom couldn’t go on. “Man, I can’t even get that out with a straight face.”

Karl gave a roar of fury and sprang, slashing viciously at his legs. Tom jumped in time as the blade arced beneath him, flashing with the pale light of the sky. He hurled himself around, delivering a slam of his boot across Karl’s face, knocking him to the ground. With an exultant whoop, Tom lunged forward as Karl was rising. Tom crashed the pommel of his sword across Karl’s jaw, knocking him back down. Then he dove forward in a roll, evading Karl’s massive arms as they groped the air where he’d just been. Tom scurried clear, panting for breath. Karl lumbered to his feet like some great, baited bear. Tom kept him in his sight. Karl was a wrestling champ, and huge, besides. If he got his hands on him, it would be over. Tom didn’t intend to let that happen.

Sheer hatred twisted Karl’s features as they faced each other down. “You like being a real tough guy in simulations,” Karl sneered, “but out there, you’re a skinny little punk.”

Tom didn’t point out that they had the same physical builds in this sim that they did in real life, so it wasn’t like he had an advantage here. “No, I like sims because I can actually kill you here.”

Karl gave an ugly grin. And then he vanished.

Tom frowned. Wait. He couldn’t possibly be wimping out. . . .

And then his eyes snapped open in the training room as Karl’s fist slammed into his real, nonsimulated stomach, doubling him over on the cot and driving the breath from him, shooting acid up through his torso.

“Let’s see how real life compares,” Karl snarled, his fist slamming Tom’s ribs over and over as Tom struggled to draw breath. Karl seized his collar and hurled him off the cot, tumbling him to the floor, his head slamming the base of a nearby cot, stars dancing before his eyes—along with some text.

Error: Connection lost. Download paused. 98% complete.

Huh?
Air burst into his lungs in a great gush, and Tom’s brain was torn between the urgent focus on Karl and the other part of him that registered that text, which was not supposed to be there. What was . . . what the . . .

Karl ducked to get him, and in a split second, Tom’s neural processor presented the best move: drive his palm up into Karl’s nose, knocking the cartilage back into his brain.

No, he couldn’t do that. He’d kill him.

Instead, he slammed his foot into Karl’s face, then lanced up and snared his arms around Karl’s neck, pivoting all his weight to unbalance him, knock him down. Tom drove a knee into his neck, pinning him there, and raised a fist to slam into Karl’s face, but he’d been stupid to count on his weight keeping Karl down—Karl hooked his hands under Tom’s legs, and lifted him straight into the air, then threw him with a frightening strength. Tom landed in a heap at the foot of Emefa’s cot, then yanked himself upright as Karl advanced again. He backed up, trying to think of some advantage here, then dodged Karl’s next swing and shoved him while he was unbalanced, looping his leg around Karl’s, sending Karl stumbling against his empty cot. Unthinkingly, Tom seized his stray neural wire and whipped it around Karl’s throat. He tightened it, pressing his back against Karl’s so his full weight would hang from it as Karl tried to buck him off.

And then he realized he was doing it again: about to kill the guy—here, in real life, where he’d go to prison for it—and why couldn’t he think of anything nonlethal? His suddenly slack grip gave Karl the chance to snatch off the wire and seize him. Tom knew it was about to be over, so desperately he slammed his head forward into Karl’s as hard as he could and—

Ow. Owwwwww.
Tom stumbled back, feeling like a mallet had whacked him between the eyes, his vision reeling. Across from him, Karl was stumbling, too, clutching his large, meaty fists over his nose, blood gushing between his fingers.

“You idiot! Why did you do that?” Karl cried.

“It works in video games,” Tom shot back. “Everything else I thought of was gonna kill you.”

Karl waved his arm. “That’s normal. You gotta relearn how to fight in real life after you get all the downloads about killing people. Beat up some kids, and it comes right back.”

Tom started laughing, half hysterical. “Yeah, great idea, except I don’t think it’ll work for me because I’m not a
total psychopath
who runs around beating up people! Well, other than you!”

For a moment, Tom and Karl glared at each other, cradling head and nose, respectively, and the drive to battle someone receded from Tom. It must’ve disappeared for Karl, too, because he cursed, shoved his sleeve against his nose, and left, muttering about the infirmary. Tom settled back down on his cot to clutch his aching head, and he remembered something. He took a moment to rewind his memory until he saw that message again, the message he’d only seen because Karl had ripped out his neural wire and woken him up early.

Error: Connection lost. Download paused. 98% complete.

What had been downloaded from his processor? He scanned through his logs, but whoever had done it had concealed whatever it was they were plundering from him. If he’d stayed in the simulation a bit longer, he wouldn’t have even realized it had happened.

A
T MIDNIGHT, A
number of the officers migrated to the fourteenth floor along with the trainees, to gaze through the large, windowed walls at the fireworks that began to splutter through the night to usher in the New Year. Lieutenant Blackburn was among them. Tom rubbed his hand over his sore head, certain he knew who’d been taking stuff from his processor.

Of course it was Blackburn. There was no one else who’d be intensely interested in his neural processor.

Had he done this more than once—plundered Tom’s brain during Applied Scrimmages before without his realizing it? He glared at Blackburn’s large back, but the lieutenant gazed out the window, talking to no one, not even the other soldiers.

Tom became aware of Heather’s fixed gaze. A bit perplexed by the intensity of her eyes, he tipped his can of soda to her.

Heather tipped her glass back to him from where she stood amid the crowd of CamCos, triumph radiating from every plane of her face, flickering with the bright lights.

Tom didn’t even think to wonder about it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
HERE WERE SEVERAL
reasons most trainees weren’t enthused about the meet and greet at Obsidian Corp. during their first week back after the holiday. First and foremost, it was a waste of time, since Obsidian didn’t sponsor Combatants. Second, people hated visiting because Blackburn was absolutely paranoid about Joseph Vengerov taking advantage of the visit to mess with their processors. Whenever they returned from Obsidian Corp., they had to be isolated from the Pentagonal Spire’s systems and subjected to a five-hour deep scan to check for malware.

It was a great deal of trouble for everyone, and all for very little payoff, but they had to go. Vengerov’s tech waged the wars in space. His surveillance systems and automated weapons protected the other Coalition executives. The codes on his voting machines determined which politicians oversaw the war effort. Obsidian Corp. was too much of a giant in the world to be ignored, so if Joseph Vengerov wanted a visit, the trainees had to go.

The first week back at the Spire after everyone returned from break, Wyatt and the other new Uppers were hard to find.

Vik thoughtfully took advantage of Wyatt’s absence to invade her new bunk and modify her new bunk template. He copied the old one and expanded upon it, adding more photos. One was an outline of Connecticut with some very sad, black-and-white images of people superimposed over it—depressed adults and crying children who had just realized they lived in Connecticut.

“It’s not officially a Connecticut joke, since it’s a Connecticut
poster
,” he told Tom uncertainly, when Tom reminded him of Wyatt’s relentless android.

He also added a couple more pictures of himself: another shirtless picture and one black-and-white, artistic photo of himself posing philosophically by a window, cupping his chin, looking broodingly at the sky in a very un-Vik-like manner that amused Tom immensely.

The day of the winter meet and greets, Tom hung out for a bit in the weight room behind the Calisthenics Arena, spotting Yuri while he bench-pressed almost three times his own weight. All the other Middles were visiting companies that Tom had been banned from. His only appointment was late in the afternoon, a direct shot on the Interstice to Vengerov’s facilities in Antarctica. Yuri had not been permitted to attend this round of meetings.

“So, what are you up to?” Tom asked, even though it was obvious.

“Exercising,” Yuri said, gazing up at him from under the weight bar.

“Okay, that was a stupid question. Can I ask your advice about something?”

“Of course.”

Tom considered how to phrase his question about Medusa, before blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “Girls like you. A lot.”

If Yuri was surprised, he didn’t show it. He gave a humble shrug. “I believe it is my muscular physique.” He sat up and flexed his biceps thoughtfully. “But that is only the surface. The only girl whose regard I care for—”

“Is Wyatt, I know, I know. Okay. I have a question: let’s say a girl kind of feels bad about the way she looks and I accidentally insulted her about that. How can I fix it?”

Yuri tugged at his thin white T-shirt, plastered to his skin with sweat. “What did you say to this girl?”

“I kind of pointed out that we only meet online and we’re never gonna meet in person, so we can use avatars and I won’t even see how she looks. That’s why it’ll never matter to me if she’s ugly.”

Yuri twisted around to frown at him. “I hope you did not say such a thing, Thomas. This is no good.”

“Not in those exact words, but, uh . . . Come on, you’ve gotta have some advice. I thought you might know what to say to make her feel better, or how I can apologize. You know, since Wyatt’s horseface thing is—”

Yuri half rose from the bench. “Horseface?”

Tom noticed, not for the first time, how much larger Yuri was than him. He raised his hands. “The thing where she
thinks
she has a horseface. I’m not insulting your girlfriend, man.”

“Ah. Of course.” Yuri settled back down. He rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “Wyatt has indeed expressed to me that she feels troubled over her appearance. It is always an awkward conversation, because if I say, ‘You do not have a horseface,’ she is believing I am lying. But if I ever were to say, ‘Very well, I concede. You have a horseface,’ then I am certain she would also find it upsetting.”

“Yeah,” Tom said, imagining it. “Just a bit.”

“So this is what I do,” Yuri went on, leaning closer. “I take her hand and stare into her eyes. Then I say this: ‘If you were indeed resembling a horse, then I would see the horse and be thinking it is a very beautiful horse, and I would be feeling alarmed and think there is something very wrong with me that I am finding a horse so very lovely and attractive.’” He concluded with a satisfied nod.

“And that works?” Tom blurted.

“She always is responding the same way: ‘That’s really weird, Yuri.’” Yuri gave another satisfied nod.

“So it doesn’t work.”

“Ah, but it does.” Yuri raised a finger. “In fact, Thomas, she grows very concerned with how weird it is, and she is no longer thinking of whether she has a horseface.” He spread his hands, like he’d performed a magic trick. “Do you see? The problem is solved.”

Tom was in awe of him. “You’re like some genius diplomat.”

Yuri smiled. “This I am.”

Suddenly, something occurred to Tom. He rested his elbows on the bar and dropped his voice. “Listen, man, you can’t tell anyone I asked you about this girl. Not anyone. Especially not Joseph Vengerov.”

For a moment, Yuri’s eyes flashed up to his, like he hadn’t really been listening and something Tom said had caught his attention.

“Who is this online girl?” Yuri asked. His voice grew very soft, his eyes intent on Tom’s. “Is this the online girl you were meeting with before, Tom? Is it Medusa?”

“I’m not full-blown meeting with her again. I’ve only talked to her a couple times,” Tom said. “Vengerov asked me about her, and I can’t really tell you more than that, but he wants me to do something to her that I can’t do. So as far as he’s concerned, as far as anyone is concerned, I haven’t spoken to her since I got charged with treason. Okay?” He raised his eyebrows significantly. I am going to officially inform him that she refuses to see me again.”

Yuri’s eyes dropped, and all the sharpness disappeared from his face, replaced by a mild sort of confusion.

“Yuri, you can’t tell,” Tom said, disturbed by the way he hadn’t responded.

Yuri blinked. “On my life, Thomas,” he said, “I will never tell anyone.” He frowned. “I hope you are being wise.”

“Come on. It’s me, man.”

“I know this,” Yuri said dubiously, sprawling back on the bench again to resume his bench presses. “And this is what concerns me.”

T
HE DARKENED VACTUBE
was slightly ominous when Tom was alone, especially the long ride to Antarctica. Tom was glad to enter the elevator and rise into Obsidian Corp. There, he met the other exhausted Middles who’d been doing meet and greets all day.

It came as a profound shock to Tom when he found Lieutenant Blackburn there, radiating tension.

“All of you will remain in my sight at all times, am I understood?” Blackburn said. His gray eyes roved over them, bitter lines etched on his face in the facility’s artificial lights. “Your wireless functions should be nonoperational while you’re here. I’m wearing a jamming device.” He pulled back his sleeve to expose something that resembled a wristwatch. “If for some reason your wireless comes back online, you’re to assume someone is hacking you, and you’ll notify me immediately. Now let’s go.”

He snapped around and led them forward through an automated turnstile that scanned their retinas. Praetorians flanked them as they walked, their metal camera eyes fixed on the passing trainees.

As Tom walked, the undeniable sensation of being watched tickled up his spine. He threw a careless glance over his shoulder.

All the Praetorians had their camera eyes fixed straight on him.

Tom was so jolted by the sight, he almost sprang a foot in the air. The crowd jostled around him, mounting a set of stairs. Weird. Creepy. Tom moved on, darting his own eyes around warily.

There was something distinctly unsettling about Obsidian Corp. All the corridors were dimly lit and very chilly. They passed massive, warehouse-sized rooms with elaborate supercomputers. Those rooms were devoid of people. In fact, there were almost no humans around, not even custodial personnel or mechanics. Just Praetorians and mechanized surveillance cameras. It took Tom a few minutes to pinpoint what was so wrong about the complex, but then he figured it out: the building seemed to have been created for the machines inside it. It was like human beings were unwelcome intruders.

Even the low-level Obsidian Corp. techs who led them on a tour of the facilities seemed nervous and out of place. They joked uneasily about the way Antarctica saved the company billions in air-conditioning. When trainees laughed, the techs blinked.

“That’s the truth. It really does save the company billions in air-conditioning. Quantum supercomputers get very hot,” one tech said. “We actually have to wear parkas to move through most of the facility.”

Then they led the trainees past expansive windows overlooking the icy tundra. The sky was a dull gray. It was the time of year in this part of Antarctica where night never descended, but there was no brightness this day.

In each room, Tom couldn’t help darting his eyes to the surveillance cameras and the stationary Praetorians. Tom kept waiting for Vengerov or someone else to approach him about using the virus on Medusa—Vengerov had said he wanted Tom to answer him during this visit. But no one came. He was never summoned or signaled. And the mechanized eyes followed him, always long enough for him to detect their scrutiny, never long enough for anyone else to notice—not even Vik, a foot ahead of him. Tom’s skin was crawling.

Vengerov knows somehow,
Tom thought.
He knows I’m going to say no.

Tom pictured Joseph Vengerov’s sharp, angular features and pale eyes and those silvery eyebrows that blended into his forehead—lurking on the other side of that surveillance system, just watching him. But how could Vengerov already know his answer? How could he be sure?

Tom hadn’t talked to anyone about it except Yuri, but he wasn’t even here.

Just to be absolutely certain he wasn’t being paranoid, Tom intentionally dropped back to the very edge of the group, so the surveillance devices would have to be very obvious about tracking him.

As their group trickled into the next room, from the corner of his eye, Tom saw a Praetorian moving toward him. He whirled around, startled. The machine was still again.

But then he heard a hiss behind him. Tom whipped around to find the door between him and the rest of the group closing with a decisive clang.

“Hey!” Tom rushed toward it, his hands meeting cold metal. There was no handle, no doorknob. He tried pushing, he tried pounding his fist on it. There wasn’t a single peep from the other side.

Soundproof. Great.

Tom drew a bracing breath and turned. The Praetorians were openly fixing their single, pinpoint camera eyes on him. His skin crawled. The hum of machinery was the only sound in the room, and it was mounting louder and louder on the air. Tom’s reflection moved across the polished black floor with him, swam against the massive window revealing the gray sky over the glacial landscape. He finally turned to see the nearest overhead surveillance camera.

“I’m locked out,” Tom told whoever was on the other side. “Open the door.”

His voice rang out in the empty air and he wondered if anyone even heard him. He willed on his net-send and tried to use a thought interface to alert Vik, but words flashed across his vision center:
Error: Frequency unavailable. Message not sent.

Blackburn’s stupid jammer. Of course.

Then Tom felt a strange prickling sensation move all over his feet. The prickle turned to tiny jabs, which became stabbing needles, an electrical current carrying across the floor. Tom leaped a few steps away from the Praetorians, and got some momentary relief, but the prickle mounted into a stronger electric charge, until his legs were viciously buzzing and Tom was forced to bolt through the other door, away from the very floor that seemed to be trying to electrocute him.

He leaped right into the next open chamber, but the Praetorians in that room also homed in on him, blocking his path.

They drew so close, he had to squeeze to the side to avoid being crushed; but when he brushed one of the metal Praetorians in passing, a sharp bolt of electricity seared him, and Tom couldn’t help the shout that ripped from his lips as he stumbled away from it. He backed up, step by step, and they advanced on him, relentless. For a moment, Tom’s thoughts flickered to people in the places used as testing grounds for military tech, where small-scale insurgents were swarmed with these machines. He’d never realized how frightening such unrelenting inhumanity could be.

But there was a human being behind this. There had to be a man behind the curtain controlling the actions of these machines. Tom turned to the nearest surveillance camera, hoping his watcher knew he was talking directly to him when he said, “I am not afraid of you.”

In response, a Praetorian whirled toward him. Tom kicked at it, trying to knock it back, but it swung around pendulously, its base still advancing toward him, and a shock jolted up his leg and locked his muscles as he clumsily stumbled back again. He backed away from the others, trying to avoid more shocks, and in that manner, they herded him down a hallway until his back thumped against an icy wall.

Tom pressed against it, nowhere else to go, Praetorians advancing on him. Joseph Vengerov couldn’t kill him. He couldn’t. Even if he
did
know somehow that Tom was refusing his demand to use a virus on Medusa, he couldn’t simply murder him. He was trying to scare him. Tom was sure of it. Vengerov’s last words to him rang in his ears:
The real question here is, will you fulfill this reasonable request, or will I have to resort to unpleasant means of persuasion?