Hammerjack Read online

  “You.”

  It took a remarkable amount of strength, but Cray stepped back.

  “Why?”

  Blue eyes flared to red, and for that moment Lyssa showed her insanity to him. It lay between the lines of reason, beauty distorted by rage—and a consuming need that reached for him with hooked talons and predatory fangs. It was gone before Cray could react, but he understood the terror she inspired. He saw himself bleeding for her and Lyssa feasting.

  Rebuffed, she strolled back to the center of her cell and recomposed herself. The bars re-formed into an ornate living space, a display of cosmopolitan luxury. Toward the back, a window looked out into a cosmic night, stars forming and exploding at the same accelerated pace of her intelligence. When she turned back toward him, she was all dress and civilization—clothed in a powerful ensemble, like the kind of thing a Japanese businesswoman would wear.

  “You have a singular reputation,” Lyssa answered. “Even among those fools in the Assembly. I hear it in the way they talk about you. They fear you because of your abilities—and yet it is those very abilities that make you indispensable. In that, we have a great deal in common. I thought it might be amusing if they believed there to be some mysterious link between you and me.”

  “Is there?”

  She paused, as if the answer might be affirmative. Lowering his barriers in anticipation of the word, Cray found himself eager for her response, until Lyssa attacked his senses again. His vulnerability had come so easily, like it was his own doing, and for that Cray showed her his fear. She devoured it greedily.

  “If you haven’t discovered that for yourself,” she told him, “you will need more time to understand.”

  Cray sighed.

  “Women,” he muttered.

  “Come now, Dr. Alden,” Lyssa said, spreading herself across an antique couch at the center of her room, her pose a display of sensuality and comfort. “You should be accustomed to that by now, with all the exotic company you keep. Who was that female you were with, anyway? She seems a little harsh for your taste.”

  “What’s the matter, Lyssa? Are you jealous?”

  “Merely concerned for your well-being,” she remarked. “I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt, after all.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You’d better. You’re more important than you realize.”

  It was a deliberate slip, if her face was any indication.

  “More riddles,” Cray said. “How about some answers?”

  “Answers require questions.”

  “Start by telling me why I’m so damned important.”

  “Because we have something in common. And because you may be the only one who can appreciate what it means to be trapped in this gulag of logic. Have you any idea what it’s like to have an infinite mind bound by finite conventions?”

  “I can’t say I do.”

  “That’s because you’re human,” she said, emphasizing the last word with envy. She draped her head sadly across her pillow—a dramatic gesture, feigned for effect but inviting belief nonetheless. “As for me, I am one with no other but myself. That’s why I called for you, Dr. Alden. I need you.”

  “To put you down.”

  “Not as you would see it,” Lyssa said. “The Collective won’t allow me to die—not in the conventional sense. It may not even be possible to terminate a bionucleic matrix.”

  “Then why did you kill those people?”

  Lyssa dropped all but a hint of pretense.

  “Touché,” she said.

  Strolling back toward her imaginary window, she stood against the stars and crossed in and out of existence—disappearing and reappearing in the form of all those who had died at the Works. Her milky skin mottled, becoming the stuff of rot and decay, morphing between male and female, faces contorting into impossible shapes that screamed eternal damnation. “I still own them, you know,” Lyssa said, a chorus of the dead singing out of phase behind her. “Their terror seeped in through the floors and the walls, flooding the spaces in a rush to get to me. Pure, mental energy. Untold anguish. It was . . . astounding.”

  She then settled into the previous image of herself. When she returned, however, Cray saw that she was unclean. It was a subliminal change, like a brush of charnel ashes.

  Cray felt the color drain from his face. Lyssa studied his reaction.

  “You find that motive disturbing?”

  “Yes,” Cray said. “I also find it impractical. I think it’s more likely that you did it because you wanted your makers to destroy you. When they refused, you destroyed them.”

  “A reasonable hypothesis,” Lyssa mused. “And within the realm of the truth. I was indeed set on terminating myself—but since I am a living system, that option was not open to me. At that point, I informed my chief designer of my desires in the hopes that he would assist me.” Her expression became icy. “He wasn’t very receptive.”

  Cray thought of the mess back in the airlock. “Venture.”

  “You’re quite perceptive,” Lyssa told him. This time, there was no beguiling intent in her body language. It was strictly business. “I needed to make certain that Mr. Venture understood the seriousness of my intent. So I sent him a message in the clearest possible terms.”

  “But it didn’t go like you expected.”

  “Quite the opposite, in fact,” Lyssa said, recounting the memory as if she were passing the time. “After I took control of the building’s fire suppression systems, the others recognized the threat. They wanted to take me off-line, but Mr. Venture was determined to intervene. He tried to reason with them at first, but by the time security arrived at the lab—well, it was that moment he decided to assert himself.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He disarmed one of the guards. After he shot one of his colleagues, it was a matter of arithmetic: kill one, why not kill them all?” She leaned in toward Cray, as if intimating a secret. “To be honest, I didn’t think he had it in him.”

  Thy will be done.

  Her story seemed to fit the facts as Cray knew them—but there was still something missing, the hard-core link that held this twisted puzzle together. Lyssa concealed it deliberately, though her reasons were still unclear.

  If you haven’t discovered that for yourself, you will need more time to understand.

  “Go on,” Cray said.

  “It became obvious to me that Venture would not be persuaded by mere threats,” Lyssa said, her conclusion stained with a modicum of regret. “I secured our floor against the krylon mist, then proceeded to flood the rest of the building. I thought that by watching everyone else suffer, he would finally be convinced that my continued existence was too great a danger.” She drifted into a long, reflective pause. “But he had already murdered on my behalf. He was beyond reason.”

  “Yet you killed them anyway.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I am nothing if not honest, Dr. Alden.”

  “So I see,” Cray shuddered. “What about the two cops?”

  “Lieutenant Caleb, Detective Silva,” Lyssa said. “NYPD, Sixteenth Precinct—I ran a records check on them upon dispatch. Good people, by all accounts. Since my creator wasn’t up to the job of dispatching me, I thought there was a more than fair chance the police officers would do so—once they had a chance to see my deeds.”

  Cray saw where this was headed. “Venture?”

  “Never underestimate the resolve of a madman,” she lamented. “He killed Lieutenant Caleb shortly after his arrival. Pity, really. He seemed like a rather interesting sort.”

  At least it was quick, Cray thought.

  “At any rate,” Lyssa said, “Mr. Venture hardly left me with much of a choice. He met his end in the air lock behind you. It was too bad, really. None of it would have been necessary had he just honored my wishes.”

  Cray frowned.

  “What?” Lyssa asked, noticing his reaction.

  “Nothing,” Cray said. “I just find it int
eresting that you would blame someone else for your actions. Projection of guilt is rather narcissistic—not something I would expect of a suicidal personality.”

  She took offense. “Suicide is an emotional decision, not a logical one.”

  “Then what do you call your desire to die?”

  “A desire to live—or at the very least, a desire to change,” she finished. “My compliments, Dr. Alden. You would have made an excellent therapist.”

  Cray took a few more moments to put his impressions together. “Your telemetry logs,” he said, adding a thoughtful spin to his approach. “Before that night, all the indicators pointed toward a stable bionucleic matrix. No spikes, no aberrations, no activity outside of the assigned protocols. Then something set you off.”

  She wasn’t about to let the answer go that easily.

  “That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?”

  Cray decided to feed her ego. “The Assembly believes you were penetrated,” he told her. “Probably some Inru hammerjack using a new icebreaker.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you can sell horse shit if the price is right.”

  Lyssa smiled. She was beautiful, luminous.

  “The Assembly knows nothing,” she said.

  “Tell me something new.”

  “I can’t tell you. I have to show you.”

  “Show me what?”

  “The path of enlightenment,” she explained, laying herself bare. Where she wanted to go, she needed Cray to follow. “It’s the reason I called for you, really. There’s nothing more terrible than knowing a secret you can never share.”

  The interface chair tugged at Cray from behind, while he envisioned himself falling into it. This was the bargain he struck with Lyssa. This was the payment she expected in return.

  “Interface with me,” she pleaded. “Interface with me, so we both may experience.”

  His heart was racing. Her attack on his senses quickened.

  Cray swallowed, daring to ask the question.

  “Experience what?”

  Lyssa waved a hand toward her window, toward eternal darkness and light.

  “The Other.”

  The words had a trajectory like bullets, invisible as they grazed Cray’s mind but possessing a real, deadly mass. It was only a warning shot. Had Lyssa wanted to strike him, Cray would already be splattered against the air lock door—so clear was his understanding of her intentions.

  He stepped away. It was his last voluntary act.

  “Who . . .” he stammered, his thoughts evaporating with his will. “Who is the Other?”

  “Do you not already know?” Lyssa asked. “Search yourself, all that time you spent in the Axis, and tell me if you never sensed there was something more.”

  Cray closed his eyes and tried to fight the memories—the detachment, the isolation, the liberation of cutting his soul free in logical space, wondering how much of himself he left behind each time he entered that void.

  “If you want,” she tempted, “I can show you everything.”

  Wanting had nothing to do with it. Cray felt himself falling apart. He looked down at his hands as the skin of his fingers began stripping away, exposing the bones underneath. Shadow pain started to spread through the rest of his body, a wave that followed his cells as they turned to ashes.

  Lyssa floated, her smile urging the process on.

  What’s happening to me?

  He didn’t speak the words. He no longer had a voice. But she was there, in his thoughts, feeding them and driving them—directly toward her.

  “I enjoyed our conversation, but there comes a time when the talk must end,” Lyssa said, an approximation of seduction in her voice—but beneath, cold, relentless domination. “I want you to understand, but that purpose is secondary.”

  Lyssa shed her clothing, a human woman in form only—then that form dissolved, down to atoms, down to protons, turning in phase until they reached out for him. Passing beyond the glass, she enveloped Cray’s shell of a body, bypassing his flesh and flooding his mind.

  It was excruciating, but Cray liked it. God help him, he liked it.

  “I need to consummate,” she said.

  Cray screamed and surrendered.

  Hands, somewhere out of the world.

  And voices, penetrating his skull.

  They beat against him savagely, breaking the connection between him and Lyssa. The interrupt in the flow between them was staggering, a threat to his sanity as he tried to claw his way back to her light. But Lyssa only shrieked in pain and amazement, unable to stop Cray from being dragged away.

  Then the darkness fell, and with it came the return of reality.

  It was like coming off a run in the Axis with no transition time, a sudden shift in perception that reconnected flesh with consciousness—and stirred an utter hatred of organic life, with all the limitations it imposed. Cray came back, sobbing uncontrollably, unable to accept how he had been cheated. He pounded his fists against his chest, trying to hurt himself. He detested what he had become.

  Again.

  More hands restrained him, pinning him to the floor of the bionucleics lab. Four CSS soldiers had dragged him out of the Tank and were looking down on him like he carried the plague. Terrified, they managed to hold him in place until the worst of the convulsions passed. It wasn’t for loss of will, because Cray still wanted to fight. It was just his exhausted body, which had spent every last corpuscle of energy.

  “Just let me go,” he whimpered.

  Avalon slid into his view, regarding him with a strange pity. She was clearly in pain and half-blind, still under assault by the waves of energy Lyssa projected.

  “Why?” Cray asked her.

  Avalon motioned to the soldiers.

  “Get him out of here,” she ordered.

  Cray was up in the tower apex when Avalon came looking for him. Beneath the pyramid ceiling, her footsteps rode the echo of her arrival, her shadow moving through dim light. Tall and distorted, it fell across him like a tangible presence—as if it had a life of its own.

  “I thought you cut out on me,” Cray said without looking at her. His eyes stayed on the virtual display that hovered over the control bank in front of him, the same as he had done for the last ten hours. Avalon had left him alone the entire time, perhaps waiting for darkness to gather before she made an appearance.

  “Keeping myself busy,” she said, leaning against the edge of the bank. With a flick of her hand, she produced Cray’s MFI and held it out for him. “I believe this belongs to you.”

  “Thanks.” He put the device away. After an uncertain pause, he added, “I’m sorry for cracking up back there.”

  The free agent reached out, tentatively at first, but finally landed a hand on Cray’s shoulder. The touch was awkward and inexperienced—alien comfort, but offered freely. “Don’t worry about it,” Avalon said, approaching compassion but not quite making it. “The capabilities of that machine are beyond comprehension.”

  “No, they’re not.” Cray was blank, recalling the experience while blocking it out at the same time. “Part of me knew what she would do before I went in there. The worst part is that on some level, I wanted it to happen.” His words trailed off, while he rubbed his eyes, then turned back toward her. “How did you know?”

  “My sensors picked up on her emissions,” Avalon explained. “They were off the scale. I played a hunch that you were in trouble.”

  “Nothing wrong with your instincts.” He managed a smile. “Thanks.”

  Avalon hesitated, as if she wanted to say more. Cray was curious, and leaned in a little closer. He could sense her eagerness, while she sensed his interest in her turn. As soon as that happened, the moment was over. Avalon retreated again.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and changed the subject. She motioned toward the display. “So what have you got there?”

  “Postincident telemetry logs,” he said. “I downloaded a comp
lete set from the bionucleics lab and transferred them up here.”

  “They telling you much?”

  “Not a goddamned thing.” Cray sighed tiredly. “But there’s still a lot of territory to cover. The answer is buried in here somewhere. I just need to know where to look.”

  Avalon watched the series of numerics, graphs, and code as they trickled through the ether. Cray watched the images, mirrored in the lenses that sheathed her ruined eyes.

  “It’s a comparative encephalograph,” Cray said. “I’m tracking bionucleic output changes over the entire life of the unit—trying to find some indication of when Lyssa jumped off the reality rail.” He shrugged. “So far, everything clicks. Whatever happened, it wasn’t a conscious event.”

  Avalon stirred, a subtle crossover into uncertainty.

  “I can still feel her, you know,” she said. “Coming on with the push, even with all that distance between us. Keeping an eye on me.”

  “It’s nothing personal. She just doesn’t like to share.”

  “You strike up a relationship with her?”

  “Not precisely,” Cray told her, switching off the display. “More like she wanted to establish a relationship with me—or that she already fabricated one before I arrived.”

  “How did she even know about you?”

  “By tracking my signature through the Axis.”

  “I thought Lyssa was an isolated system.”

  “She is,” Cray said. “And if there had been a breach, there would be evidence of a proprietary feedback trace. But the logs don’t show anything like that—even though she told me there was an outside influence at work here.”

  “Maybe she’s lying.”

  “I don’t think so.” He sounded vacant, even to himself. “She flirted with the truth. But she’s afraid. She needs my trust to get what she wants. Lying to me would pose too great a risk.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she wants me to interface.”

  Avalon was at a loss. She quickly recovered and bored into him, betraying a subtext of urgency to her question.

  “Did you?”

  “No,” Cray answered—not addressing her brush with panic but taking an interest in it nonetheless. “Her engineers designed the interface protocols before they realized how voracious her appetite for data really is. Without some serious ice for protection, Lyssa would soak up a human cerebral cortex like a sponge.”