Hammerjack Read online

  “You mean this thing can absorb a human mind?”

  “Or worse,” Cray added. “Brain death would be the least of your worries.”

  The warning was graphic, but came off as feeble. Cray buried his only caveat, the thing he dared not mention—that he had been tempted. In spite of the risks, in violation of his own convictions, he had been tempted.

  “I don’t know.” He sighed. “Maybe she is crazy, and all this is just delaying the inevitable. But there was something underneath it all—like the kind of truth you find in a dream, you know? The thing you always knew was there but could never see.”

  Cray got out of his chair, putting distance between himself and Avalon. He stopped at a bank of windows, watching the metropolitan night unfold before him. The lights, the towers—everything reminded him of Kuala Lumpur, which made him think of Zoe.

  “Lyssa mentioned something called the Other.”

  “What does that mean?” Avalon asked.

  Cray turned back toward her. Shadow obscured her face, fine points of reflected fire marking her eyes.

  “I’m not sure,” Cray answered, allowing his thoughts to wander back to that cryptic statement she had made, trying to relate to him in terms his limited intellect would understand: All that time you spent in the Axis, she said, tell me if you never sensed there was something more. It was only when he saw Avalon staring at him that he realized he had repeated Lyssa’s words out loud, making them into his own.

  “It’s a hammerjack legend,” he explained. “Complex networks forming their own neural pathways, achieving spontaneous intelligence in the Axis. Racial memories trapped in a translogic dimension. Just ghost stories.”

  Avalon looked away. The points of light disappeared, as if she had turned them off. So much of her being was synthetic, it was possible she didn’t want to hear about such things.

  “Sounds like a street religion,” she said, her disdain covering something more ominous.

  “People seek faith in familiar places,” Cray suggested. “I can see the reason for it. You spend enough time adrift between the logic streams, you get to feeling that something really is out there—something that knows you and remembers you . . . and keeps a piece of you every time you go in.”

  Avalon regarded him curiously. “That’s why you don’t interface,” she observed. “You don’t want to lose yourself in there.”

  Cray smiled. A moment of understanding passed between them.

  “What’s left of me, in any case.”

  His words provoked a reaction in her—a glimmer of sympathy, perhaps, before her defenses engaged and she became even more distant than before. If Cray hadn’t known better, he would have sworn Avalon felt conflicted.

  “What does this have to do with ‘the Other’?” she asked.

  “Who knows?” Cray shrugged, not really certain of it himself. “Maybe Lyssa is just searching for meaning—trying to find God in the Axis, the same way hammerjacks do. Finding this Other is probably her way of believing that she isn’t alone in the universe.”

  “And she played on your superstitions to make you believe it as well.”

  “No. Hammerjacks say translogic space is populated by fragments of human thought, trapped in the Axis after each interface. Lyssa created the Other in her own image.”

  Avalon tried to be dismissive, but couldn’t seem to find the will. Cray knew the free agent could have killed him in a single stroke—but in that moment, for the first time, he could see a weakness. A fear that perhaps she and Lyssa had something in common.

  “She’s afraid she doesn’t have a soul,” Avalon said.

  “Something like that,” Cray agreed. “The Other might be a manifestation of her desire to find meaning—a force like her, but greater, existing outside the realm of the Axis.”

  “Is that even possible?” Avalon seemed to hang hope on his reply.

  “It’s doubtful,” Cray said. “But real or imagined, it’s the source of her problems. Thus her desire to interface with a human being. If she can absorb what she doesn’t already have—call it a soul, call it whatever you want—she can get what she needs to reach out to the Other.”

  “What do you think?”

  It was an uncommonly frank question coming from her, infused with uncharacteristic emotion. Cray had no doubt—the whole thing had her spooked, or at the very least touched something deep and relevant.

  Cray decided to duck the issue for the time being. “I won’t know anything until I have a look at her logs,” he said.

  Unsatisfied with his reply, Avalon took a step toward him. She hesitated to come any closer, as if something important depended on getting the correct answer. Cray found himself anxious to hear what else she had to say, but then he heard the signal from the free agent’s minicom. The tiny device beeped, abruptly ending their conversation. She lifted a gloved hand to her lips to answer it.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “Transportation has arrived.” The voice on the speaker was unmodified electronic, probably originating in what was left of the building’s security system. “Departure five minutes.”

  “Acknowledged.” Putting away her doubts, she came forward with her veneer fully engaged. “I’ve arranged for a pulser to take us back. The Assembly is awaiting the results of your interview with Lyssa.”

  “I’m not finished yet.”

  “I will inform them of that. They will, however, be expecting a progress report. Bring the logs with you, so you can provide the Assembly with as much accurate detail as possible.”

  “Why can’t I just do it from here?”

  “Because those are our orders,” she snapped, and that was the end of it.

  A small triad of lights approached the restricted gridspace above the Works building, tethered to the air by fine tendrils of blue pulse light. The beams became visible in sporadic bursts, like the ionized trails that followed comets through the night; but when taken together a thousand at a time, as Cray saw them now, the complex web that was the Manhattan pulser grid traced a constant checkerboard pattern across the skies above the city. He followed the progress of those lights as they slid along the edges of the grid, slowing as they flew overhead, then stopping directly over the building’s pyramid summit.

  Through the protective glass that enclosed the boarding gangway, Cray watched as an immense spiral conduit opened up in the middle of the landing pad. From beneath, a deep rumble sounded when the pins that held the tether emitters in place disengaged and what looked like the head of a gigantic cannon emerged from the conduit. There was a final, loud clang as the assembly locked itself in place—then partial darkness as the glass tinted over in preparation for the next chain of events.

  Erupting like a volcano of light, the emitter fired a series of tether beams into the air—coherent streams of high-energy photons from a heliox-fusion laser, in phase with a single particle beam that gave the photons an exponential punch. The effect was spectacular, kicking electrons out of the surrounding air and creating bursts of static electricity that swirled around the beams like a tornado, illuminating the narrow space of the gangway with explosions of radiance and long shadows.

  Up above, tethers reached the triad of lights—strobes on the underside of a hovering pulser. A receptor dish on the ventral side of the craft caught the energy from the beams and focused it into a single point, generating enough lift to keep the pulser suspended while it disengaged from the flight grid. The pulser, swathed in spotlights from below, became a silhouette against the stark granite face of the building apex, giving Cray the impression of something unworldly—like a gigantic spider descending upon him.

  When the pulser came to a rest on the landing pad, it did so quietly. The emitter then reduced itself to a dull glow as the gangway door slid open, flooding the narrow compartment with the distinct chill of autumn air. A muted howl sounded beneath, the sound of a high-altitude wind running its course between the towers.

  The pulser’s canopy opened. Avalon went a
head and climbed inside, checking the course projection on the navigation interface. She punched in a preflight code to verify, then turned back toward Cray. He was still standing in the gangway, watching her watch him.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  The emitters gave them a slight kick, then a brief sensation of weightlessness as Manhattan started to fall away. As the pulser ascended, it swung around so that the front end aligned itself with the approaching flight grid, leaving the pyramid façade of the Works behind. It was clearly none too soon for Avalon, who relaxed only after they had risen above the urban canyons, and the flux contained within. Cray easily noticed the change, even though the free agent tried to hide it.

  The pulser completed its automated ballet as it joined the grid, energy receptors fore and aft syncing with the trajectory beam and polarizing its flow. Outside the canopy, a sudden surge of power went into the forward dish and down the center axis of the small craft. A microscopic vibration followed, then smooth acceleration until the pulser reached its cruising speed.

  Cray reached for the instrument panel, touching the navigation interface. The screen displayed their course, which was taking them toward the east.

  Toward the North Atlantic Franchise Zone.

  “I guess this means we’re not going back to the hotel.”

  Avalon didn’t reply.

  “Strange that the Assembly would want me to bring data from a classified project into the Zone,” he went on. “That’s a bit of a security risk, wouldn’t you say?”

  She remained quiet. It only confirmed Cray’s suspicions.

  “How long have you been working for the Inru?”

  She considered it for a moment, a strategic hesitation.

  “Since my return from Mars,” she answered, apparently deciding it could do no harm. “Their leadership recruited me just before I turned free agent for the Assembly. They believed a person in my position would be of some use to them.” There was a long pause, then she turned to him. “How did you know?”

  “Call it instinct,” Cray said.

  Within the folds of his jacket, Cray’s MFI came to life. Sensors on passive, interface locked down, the small device was on the business end of a low-frequency jack—well below the spectrum of Avalon’s sensuit, well beyond her ability to detect.

  The onboard ROM processed a series of remote directives, commands of such fluid precision that the MFI worked as a living extension of the entity in control. It assessed the conditions in the cabin, listening to the dialogue between the two occupants, while at the same time detecting the frequency of the carrier wave that linked the pulser to its controller at the Port Authority.

  Piggybacking the carrier, the MFI then tunneled into the autoflight subroutines and deployed a salvo of flex viruses. One of them went to work on the airframe monitor, generating false diagnostics and relaying them back to the Port Authority computer that recorded vehicle performance and structural integrity; the other attacked the navigation code, breaking it down into base components and rearranging them so that they would accept new commands from the outside.

  The viruses went inert as soon as their jobs were complete, the tiny bits of code decomposing into the navigation system so they could not be deciphered later. For a period of one second, the pulser dropped off the tracking scopes as the MFI assumed control of the craft. A second after that, the blip returned—but the position it marked was only a figment of the imagination. A virtual construct for the rest of the world to watch, while the real story unfolded in the sky.

  It was time.

  Avalon faced the rush of the oncoming grid.

  “You don’t understand.”

  Cray was unmoved.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “It makes a difference,” Avalon told him. “You of all people need to believe.”

  “Believe what?” Cray snapped. “Some metaphysical Inru ideal? That doesn’t strike me as your style, Avalon. After everything the Collective did to you, this smells like payback plain and simple.”

  “It’s more than that, Cray.”

  That she called him by name startled him. Avalon was plainly making herself vulnerable, because she needed him to comprehend. It was a plea from a spirit Cray never knew she had.

  “What happened at Olympus Mons was only my awakening,” she explained, her body trembling like Zoe’s had before the speedtecs ripped her apart. “The virus opened my eyes, showing me everything in those moments before I went blind. They sent me to defend a world that wasn’t worth saving.”

  “The Inru aren’t going to change any of that, Avalon.”

  “They already have. It’s happening, Cray—even if you don’t know it yet. Humanity was already heading in that direction, long before I got involved.”

  “And now you’re forcing me to be part of it.”

  “It doesn’t need to be that way.” Underneath her words, the high-pitched whine of turbine engines approached the pulser from behind. “You can choose to be one of us. We would welcome you, Cray.” After a difficult silence, she added, “I would welcome you.”

  Cray turned toward the cockpit window, in time to see a pair of hovercraft appear out of the darkness. They came up from below, careful to avoid the photon wash from the grid, turbines throttling back to match the pulser’s speed. Closing to a tight distance, they assumed flanking positions both port and starboard.

  An escort formation.

  “You’re crazy,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” she replied, hailing the two hovercraft. “Signal is alpha. The package is secure and ready for delivery. Maintain positions until we reach haven. Out.”

  An electrostatic charge danced against Cray’s chest. Glancing downward, he saw a pale glow spilling out of his breast pocket. The MFI interface had activated itself and was live—which meant that Heretic was in the cabin with them, riding a wide-open jack and banging away with active sensors.

  It would act like a beacon to Avalon’s sensuit.

  Dammit, Heretic. What the hell are you doing?

  Cray tried to keep her distracted.

  “So what happens now?”

  “We go to the Zone,” she said. “There, our escort craft will take us to a prearranged rendezvous point, where you will turn over all bionucleic project data you downloaded to my Inru contact.”

  Cray’s mouth went dry. It wasn’t the fear of death he tasted, but rather the possibility of something worse.

  “What happens then?”

  “You live out your potential,” Avalon told him, intimating a far darker purpose. “Alive or dead—the choice is up to you. Your life is now ours, Dr. Alden. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not—”

  Her words stopped abruptly, her face contorting as if she had been slapped by some unseen hand. Cray knew the game was up. By now, her sensors would be crawling all over the surface of his body, penetrating the fibers of his clothing until they found the source of a nonbiological emission.

  Avalon drew her left hand back into a fist, a stealthblade popping out of the sheath just above her wrist. At the same time, her right hand shot out and slipped itself into Cray’s jacket pocket—a move so deft that he never felt it going in.

  She clutched the MFI.

  Avalon held it up in front of blank eyes, seeing betrayal instead of a visual sensor construct. Her expression twisted into one of rage and disbelief—then puzzlement as the device spoke to her.

  “What are you looking at, bitch?”

  Then fire and ice broke loose in the cabin.

  Heretic slammed down on the x-axis foils, throwing the pulser into a hard roll to port. Cray’s equilibrium went haywire, his body plunging in the direction of the sudden, violent list until he was snapped back by his restraining belt. The same happened to Avalon—but not before her head smacked into the canopy with a wet, sickening crack. The glass spidered from the force of the impact; the skin above the free agent’s skull did the same. Blood exploded as if a bullet had grazed her temple, spraying
the interior of the cabin in a fine mist.

  The MFI tumbled out of her hand, landing on the floor at Avalon’s feet.

  The pulser righted itself just as quickly, rolling the device in Cray’s direction. Acting on pure impulse, his hand darted down to retrieve it. He just managed to get his fingers around the MFI when another jolt hammered his body. A steely hand clamped down on his shoulder, pushing him back and pinning him with enough force to tear his left arm from its socket.

  Pain. Exquisite pain, blooming and blinding him.

  Then the carved remains of Avalon’s face.

  The blow should have killed her. Instead, it had only strengthened her resolve. Her glasses were smashed and half-hanging from one ear, kaleidoscope eyes peering at him through the rivers of red trickling down her cheeks. Her hair was matted black and thick, fresh blood bubbling from a massive wound above her forehead. But her grip never wavered, nor did her fixation on him. Not as long as power coursed through her sensuit.

  Cray stuffed the MFI back into his jacket.

  Avalon nailed him to his seat.

  Cray screamed as the stealthblade pierced his broken shoulder and buried itself into the rear bulkhead. It was a brutal stroke—but also clean, and worthy of Avalon’s skill. She had deliberately missed all his bones and arteries, impaling him like a bug so she could deal with him more easily.

  She made a hard twist with her hand, unlocking the stealthblade from her wrist. With both hands free, she made another grab for the MFI. Cray wanted to hit her, tried to kick her, needed to put up some kind of fight—but even the slightest twitch was pure torture, pulling fresh screams out of his lungs as the blade sawed through the meat of his shoulder.

  Avalon clamped a hand over Cray’s mouth to stifle him. He tasted an amalgam of her blood and his smeared against his lips. The feel of her touch against his chest was alien, reptilian.