Wildcard (16 page)

“I need to know where you are. Status
fluid.”

“What?” Karl asked.

“Juniper’s death has created power vacuums
everywhere. Most likely, you will be unaffected. The movement is at
the power level, shifting secret governments, intelligence agencies
and the like. Not at your level.”

Karl was in Biarritz, relaxing, waiting for
something to happen, eating out and taking long walks. He made some
friends, a couple named Pierre and Celeste who owned a sailboat.
They invited him sailing and he accepted happily. They went for a
two day trip in the Mediterranean. It was cramped, but they got
along very well, so no one minded much. Eight days after Juniper
disappeared, LuvRay disappeared, too.

“Lockdown. Protocol 3.” A system-wide
command. Karl had heard the Sergeant say things like that before
and was used to it. It bolted one to attention, to what was
happening. Suddenly, he felt like a soldier. The command impacted
everyone, by intent. Karl’s Trident link became encased in a
gelatinous substance which quickly hardened. He could not remove
it. What was protocol 2 or 1, if this was 3? Perhaps they increased
in intensity as the numbers rose.

“Trident, what’s happening?”

“LuvRay and the Sergeant are having a
disagreement.”

“I want to listen.

“I’ll check with the Sergeant.”

Dead air for 2 seconds.

“What are you doing, Luvray?” The Sergeant
sounded like he had been sleeping. Karl wondered how he could
possibly emerge from sleep and start barking orders.

“Make it off.”

“No. You tried to clip out without approval.
We are in yellow alert right now. I cannot have you disappear
during fluid state. You are on-mission, to remind you.”

“Not care. Make it off. Or I cut off.”

“You can’t. A knife won’t cut that
material.”

A pause.

“I cut away hand.”

“LuvRay, I think you’re overreacting,” Karl
said. “Why do you want it off so badly?”

“Talk to me, LuvRay. What’s the
problem?”

“Not explain. Make it off.”

“Talk to me for 2 minutes first.”

“I cut hand away.”

“Trident, if he attempts it, immobilize him
by electrical impulse. Trident will stop you, LuvRay, put you to
sleep.”

“I wake, try again.”

“Why? Just tell me why.”

“LuvRay,” Karl said. “Just talk to us.
Please. Why do you want it off?”

LuvRay calmed, a bit. “Because I want.”

“Something happened,” the Sergeant said.
“You heard something. You found something out. What is it? I need
it there for your safety.”

“My safety? You not care of my safety.”

“Personally, no, I don’t give a shit whether
you live or die, but my orders are to keep you alive, and I intend
to. Professionally, I care about your safety. I need you to finish
your mission. I need to know where you are and the mission
status.”

“No. Make it off. If no, I work against you.
I find you enemies.”

“You won’t be able to. You’ll just go
unconscious. Tell me what happened.”

“Speaking to Seeker.”

“What? You’re kidding. One, how did he find
you? Two, how did he speak to you without our knowing? Three, how
do you know it was really Seeker? Four, why do you trust him more
than us? Five,”

“Shut up and make it off. Now. Why I answer
you?”

“Why should I get Trident off you if I think
you might betray us?”

“Betray? No. I want you not follow me. Want
being alone. No people.”

“Tell me the information and I will let you
go.”

“Information? I don’t tell. I not want.”

“I don’t want to let you go, then. Looks
like we have a problem.”

“No problem of me. I tell my answer. You
make me sleep. When sleep, I am alone.”

“He is pulling out his knife,” Trident said.
“Shall I immobilize?”

“Wait. LuvRay, will you speak to Karl?
Explain it to him?”

Pause. “Yes. I do.”

“OK. Answer my questions and I will take
Trident off.”

“Karl ask questions, not your. What you want
knowing, Karl?”

“I trust the Sergeant’s questions. I do have
one, though.”

They waited for Karl.

“Did he smell right?”

“No. Foreign.”

“Like Juniper?”

“No. Only wrong.”

“What were your questions again,
Sergeant?”

“How did he find you?”

“Found each other.”

“Explain.”

“I looking for Martha. Finded Seeker.”

“Found. You found Seeker.”

“Yes, I found Seeker. I smelled a trail to a
coffee…a coffee?”

“A café,” Karl said.

“A café. I waited. She camed.”

“She? Seeker is a she?”

“How did she speak to you without Trident
detecting?” the Sergeant asked.

“Not know. Not care.”

“How do you know it was Seeker?”

“Not know.”

“You don’t know it was Seeker or you don’t
know how you know?”

“Not understand question.”

“Skip it. It wasn’t Seeker, anyway.”

“You know this?”

“Pretty sure of it. Seeker is from Masworld
- he’s a Mans from across the barrier, named because he’s got some
spiritual trip about meditation. Anyway, if he smells wrong, why do
you trust him more than you trust me?”

“Not trust more. But there is no Seeker
chain to my hand, and there is Sergeant chain.”

“How does Trident smell?” Karl asked.

“No smell. No right or wrong smell, I mean.
No friend or enemy smell.”

“But some smell?”

“Like Sergeant, but different. Like rock
Sergeant holded, or clothes he weared.”

“How long ago?” Trident said. “2 hours, 37
minutes?”

“Maybe. Close.”

“I know how he did it, boss. In part.”

“Go ahead. We were testing the weapons
simulator then, right?”

“Yes. The exercise was utilizing 98% of my
resources. I have a record of LuvRay leaving the café one minute
after our exercise began and sleeping in a park, but that did not
happen, did it?”

“No park, no. I stayed in café, speaked to
Seeker. Speaked?”

“Spoke. The agent knew I was engaged in the
exercise and used the opportunity to falsify the record. I show
LuvRay leaving the park and walking past the café four minutes
before the exercise ended. I would have detected the simulation,
otherwise.”

“How could they know that?” Karl asked.

“Easy,” said the Sergeant. “We aren’t
keeping our schedule secret over here. We weren’t, at least. They
cracked it through the company. Very clever. The Mechanic, I
bet.”

“Where are you?” Karl asked.

“Korea.”

“What are you doing in Korea?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“What allowed them to fool your recording,
Trident? And how can you detect the fake?”

“I have a simple rotating agent which
monitors and performs basic analysis upon the activity of our field
agents. It is always active, but it only detects crisis parameters,
communication requests, and certain anomalies. Looking at the
record, I detect two very subtle anomalies. As LuvRay left the
café, the ambient noise subsided at a very sharp vector, dropping
away in less than a microsecond. Listen.”

Trident played it back. They heard the buzz
of a crowd, then abruptly nothing.

“If we can hear it, how come you couldn’t?”
Karl said.

“The agent was not programmed to detect it.
I will do so now.”

“Probably not worth it,” said the Sergeant.
“They won’t use it again.”

“It is a simple matter to add the detection
capability to the agent.”

“OK, do it, then. What was the other
anomaly?”

“LuvRay’s arm was in two places at
once.”

“I don’t get it.”

“When the simulation ended, the simulated
arm was not in the same place as LuvRay’s actual arm. It was off by
several millimeters, in fact. Quite a large error.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s huge.” The Sergeant
laughed.

“They wanted us to know?” Karl asked.

“Mission was over,” said the Sergeant. “That
part of it, anyway. They didn’t care anymore.”

“What did he want?”

No answer.

“What did he say?”

“He said the General make disease. Wrote on
paper. Hibrid…hibridiz…

“Hold it in front of me,” said Trident.
“Hybridizing viral agent.”

“Yes. It changes, this thing. Mutate, is
word he say. This is an awfulness. I am no team you now. He
explained me disease. It can kill everyone. Entire earth. Is true?
I not want. General is crazy. Not in tribe. I want away his
machine.”

The Sergeant was thrown off-balance. This
was an unexpected attack, and not in his list of specialties. “I
don’t know where the Seeker obtained this data. The General has no
plans to wipe out everyone. You have been misinformed.”

“Misinformed?”

“Lied to. This false Seeker was lying to
divide you from our team.” He needed to confer with the Boss
privately in live-action status. “Trident, isolate coms-General,
are you listening? I have cut them out and they cannot hear. How do
I proceed? Trident, anything between me and the General is not
heard by them.”

“
Ne dites pas ce projet.”
Don’t tell them this project.

“This disease real?” LuvRay asked.

“Not exactly.”

“He made or not?”

“No.”

“Then why this lie?”

“They’re in process,” said Karl. “He’s still
working on them. Isn’t he?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“Why does he want them if he doesn’t want to
wipe everything out, then?”

“Defense.”

“Defense? But that’s insane. It doesn’t make
any sense at all.”

“Not to you, but you don’t operate at the
world power level. The General’s enemies will not kill him because,
if they do, the weapons will be triggered.”

“Jesus Christ! I’m with LuvRay. I don’t want
to work for him, either.”

“The weapons can only be triggered by his
full and complete death.”

“Full and complete? What the hell does that
mean?”

“Tenez votre equipe, Sergeant.” Hold your
team together. “It will pass badly if I enter the conversation a ce
point.”

“It means he has to really be dead. Not just
out of commission for life. Or captured.”

“It means no clones, doesn’t it? No biopids
of him left?”

He didn’t answer.

“He only wants to destroy the world if he
dies first?”

“Pretty much.”

“Not be on team. Make it off.”

“LuvRay,” Karl said. “What else did Seeker
say? There is more, isn’t there?”

Pause. “Yes. La Rumeuse. I must speak at
this person.”

“Who is it?”

“I not know. Sergeant?”

“Yeah. OK. We don’t know much about La
Rumeuse. It could be a man pretending to be a woman, even. Anyway,
she leaves clues, diversions, disinformation, all sorts of things,
by confessing to a network of priests, by making false news
stories, planting it underground somehow. It’s conflated with
truth, so no one knows what or where the rumours are
spreading.”

“Why?”

“We have no idea. La Rumeuse is very deeply
hidden. Perhaps the Benefactor knows more.”

“What rumours?”

“Well, that’s the thing. We don’t know. La
Rumeuse may not even exist. Nothing can be pinned to her. We don’t
pursue that line of the game. The General thinks it’s a false lead.
Perhaps one of the M-Es is doing it.”

“Wildcard?”

“Wildcard does not do things. He creates,
but then the creations act independently. The General phrases it
that way, and I agree with his analysis.”

“So maybe he created La Rumeuse and let her
do whatever it is she’s doing.”

“Possible.”

“What about these art installations? The
endless poems.”

“What do you mean?”

“They seem active. Like something Wildcard
does.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. I think that
Wildcard has some part of him, some spinoff, that is doing that.
Something was created to make the poems.”

“I look for her. I find Martha first. I do
nothing before am free. I want for you no can follow me.”

“All right, LuvRay. Fine. Promise me one
thing.”

“What?”

“Hide Trident where you can find it. You
will need it again. And let me know when you find Martha. Karl’s
life may depend on it.”

The Doctor was a Mans who specialized in
mind surgery and reconditioning on Mans and on humans. His
experiment record was ghastly. He had transplanted brains, trained
people to believe they were animals, induced schizophrenia in
healthy individuals, and cured it in others. He had created new
mental illnesses and chemicals for inducing them.

He always shared his findings openly. His
main motive, he said, was to advance the field of human-Mans
interpenetrating mind/brain analogous medicine. A phrase he
invented. If someone else advanced the field, that was good. He had
implanted the nanotic eye in the first Sergeant, and invented the
nerve linkages to make it possible.

He worked at :3: labs, one of the few places
with a reliable humanspace-Mansworld phone link.

The phone rang one day. A man asked him
questions about his work. He answered them gladly. They concerned
memory recovery and transfer in clones, an odd topic. The Doctor
talked about quantum technology which was set for a breakthrough. A
link between minds was possible. He had linked two minds in
Mansworld, and was anxious to try it on humans. The scenario would
require extensive resources.

“My name is the Mechanic,” the voice said.
“Would you like to do business?”

Martha located RJ Sublime. He was easy to
find, tracks in the snow. He probably knew she was looking, and did
it deliberately. Maybe he just didn’t care who found him. She found
out some things about him before she made contact. He was a loner,
but in the game, who wasn’t? But no partner, no boss, no brother
-nobody. Like her.