Terminal Mind, page 3
"Run!" Calvin shouted, and Barker ran. Calvin backed up, pulling foam sticks from his belt, breaking them, and hurling them into the crowd. Gouts of gray, fizzing foam shot from the sticks in all directions, expanding rapidly to cover the mob in a mountain of wispy froth through which they could neither see nor hear. It was as effective a mob-stopper as Calvin knew. The few close enough to avoid the foam he buried with his spider gun.
He turned and ran with Barker for higher ground.
#
Darin plunged down the slope on his jetvac, racing for home. His family was in danger; he couldn't sit on the hill like Mark and Praveen and watch in awe. For them it was just a show. What did they care if the dam burst and the Combs filled with water? That wasn't fair, but Darin didn't feel fair. It wasn't fair that Mark and Praveen would live twice a normal lifespan while he and the people he loved died from cancer and heart disease.
Or of drowning, if he didn't hurry. He shot down Thoreau Street, past City Hall and the Council buildings, and turned left onto Hill. The street was choked with people on foot, all rushing the other way. Darin pushed his way through as fast as he could, but by the time he reached 14th Street at the edge of the Combs, it was awash in ankle-deep water.
1st through 13th Streets no longer existed, having been swallowed by the insatiable need for living space. All that remained of them was dark corridors, wending their way through the warren. People scuttled from these corridors like rats, all trying to escape the flood, so Darin mounted a ramp built for the purpose and took the high road. He flew over the joined rooftops, swerving around clusters of people who'd chosen to seek shelter here instead of trying for higher ground.
When he reached the stairwell leading to his block, he locked the jetvac and ran down three steps at a time.
In the two-room apartment below, he found his uncle, miniature poodle on his lap, watching the holoscreen. When Darin entered, only the poodle turned to meet his eyes.
"Watcha mean, coming home this hour?" his uncle growled.
"Harold, you've got to get out. The dam's in trouble."
"Boy, that's Uncle Harold. Won't be disrespected in my own home. Or anywhere else, either, ha, ha.” His uncle had the irritating habit of saying the words "ha ha" instead of actually laughing, as if deriding his own poor attempts at humor.
Darin lifted the dog by the throat and glared into its eyes."Don't fool around, Harold. At least get on the roof. You're in danger here."
Harold cringed. "Put him down. You're making me dizzy."
Darin obeyed. Talking to his uncle was always awkward; you never knew whether to look at him or at the poodle. Uncle Harold had lost his eyes in an accident, and couldn't afford to grow new ones. Wiring his optic nerve to a dog's, so he could see through the dog's eyes, was the only affordable option available. The wires ran along the poodle's leash into Harold's sleeve, then out of his collar and under the strip of cloth that hid his gaping eye sockets.
"Go," Darin said. "Please?"
Harold slumped. "Fine, fine. Stop badgering."
"Where's Vic?"
"How should I know? I'm not your brother's keeper, ha, ha."
Darin looped an arm under his uncle's and pulled him to his feet. "Let's go."
He coaxed his uncle up the stair, frustrated by how slowly he walked, though it wasn't Harold's fault, not really. Not long after their mother's cancer had left Darin and his brother Vic to Harold's care, Harold's stroke had taken much of his mind, leaving Darin to care for him instead. And Vic! Vic had been getting worse lately, sometimes forgetting his way back home, sometimes exploding in anger at complete strangers for no apparent cause. He was getting thinner, too, not dramatically, but when he took his shirt off, Darin could see the skin of his arms and chest was slack. How much longer would he have? Two years? Three?
A dozen things could have been different. Vic could have chosen a different mod artist, one who didn't have a canister of contaminated celgel. He could have gone the day before, or the day after, or decided not to go at all. Or he could have been rich, able to afford the better mod shops where no one ever came home with DNA rot, or if they did, they could afford the treatments to reverse it.
Darin felt the old anger boiling. Someday things would be different. The poor wouldn't have to grovel to get justice. But when? Vic didn't have the time to wait. To save Vic, things had to change soon.
Once Harold was safely on the roof, Darin shot off again on his jetvac. There weren't many places Vic felt comfortable, as long as he hadn't panicked, he would be in one of those places.
At the center of the Combs, he drove down another ramp to the bank of Schuylkill Lake, which was higher than Darin ever remembered it. He couldn't see the dam from here, so he had no way of knowing how much time he had.
The Combs stretched out over the lake in places, connected to blocks of floating homes: extended piers, boats, and sheets of industrial plastic all lashed together like a Venetian slum. Darin whisked off the end of a pier and slalomed through the floating town, trailing a plume of water behind him.
On the far side, he slowed. This was the oldest part of the city, the first to be rebuilt after the Conflict. He stopped in front of a big Lutheran church that was actually made out of stone, not fabrique. As soon as he switched off the jetvac, Darin could hear music. He'd guessed right. Vic was here.
The sound washed over him as he heaved open the heavy front door. From the narthex, he could see Vic hunched over the organ, playing with terrible posture but with all his soul. The music was Comb jazz: a fast, dissonant, rhythmic style popular now in Rimmer circles, too. It featured a constant chatter of high-register notes, giving it an agitated, restless flavor. In a Rimmer bar, Comb jazz was usually played by a three-handed musician: most keyboardists couldn't keep the shower of high notes going without the extra hand. Vic could play it the Comber way, though, with only his natural two. Darin listened with both pride and bitterness. Music was about the only thing Vic had left.
Before the rotten celgel, Vic and Darin had been conspirators in self-education. The net had all the learning a pair of determined boys could find: no money required. Only one year apart, they'd competed with each other all through their youth, dreaming of how much money they'd make, how they'd break out of the Combs and mold the world to their liking. When they were young, Darin thought. Before they discovered how rigid the world could be.
Darin was about to touch Vic on the shoulder, when he heard a mistake. Not a very noticeable one, just a passage where his brother's fingers couldn't keep up with his mind. But Vic stopped altogether, lifted both hands, and smashed them down on the keys.
"No!" he shouted. "No, no, no, no!” He smashed his head down on the button panel, hard enough to make Darin flinch.
"Vic," said Darin. "Vic, it's me. It's Darin, Vic. Do you hear me?"
"Hi, Darin," Vic mumbled. He put his right hand back on the keyboard; Darin saw a deep gash running from knuckle to wrist. Blood dripped from his hand to the floor, and there were bloody fingerprints on the keys.
"Let me get you out of here," said Darin. "We'll get that hand wrapped up."
"Did mother send you?" Vic asked. "I didn't run away, not really. I wanted to see the circus."
"Vic, come on.” It was always like this; one moment he remembered, the next he forgot.
"Don't yell at me."
"We have to go. Trust me for once, will you?"
Vic pulled away. "First tell me your name."
"Don't do this, not now.” Darin took a deep breath. Anger only made it worse. Vic needed things to be calm, predictable. Urgency would only make him panic. He could be managed; it just took patience.
Vic stretched out his arms over the organ keyboard. "You can't have it. It's mine."
"Mom wants you to come home for dinner," Darin said.
"Got to practice."
"Can't play on an empty stomach."
Vic sat for a moment, considering this, blood dripping onto his pants, while Darin resisted pulling him out the door by his collar.
"Okay," said Vic, and stood, swaying. Darin caught him, and together they walked down the aisle and through the heavy door.
As he helped Vic onto the jetvac behind him, a thunderclap echoed against the buildings, startling them both. The night sky was clear; the sound could only be the crack in the dam growing wider.
People crowded the streets, clogging traffic. Darin weaved through as quickly as he could, heading for Metropolitan Hospital. He shouted at pedestrians to clear the way, but no one paid any heed. Seeing a gap, he steered for it, picking up speed, but just then a young woman stumbled off of the sidewalk right into his path. He veered, but not in time. He collided with her, knocking her backwards, her head striking the pavement with a thud he could hear even over the noise of the crowd.
Darin dropped his jetvac and, pulling Vic with him, rushed to the young woman's side. Her dark hair was pinned with a cap of white lace, and she wore a drab, old-fashioned dress. She wasn't moving.
#
Alastair Tremayne didn't care if the Combs filled with water or not. He just wanted Calvin to bring him his merchandise. He'd left the McGovern's party late, having wormed his way deeper into the affections of both Jack McGovern and his daughter, and he’d expected Calvin to be here by now.
Nothing to do but wait. Alastair opened the door to his office, the doorknob responding to his fingerprints to grant him entrance. He navigated the waiting room in the dark, taking care not to trip over chairs or magazine tables, and turned on a light only when he'd reached his examination room. Stainless steel surfaces gleamed beside shiny canisters of celgel and racks of specialized tools. While he waited for Calvin, Alastair chose instruments and laid them neatly on the table for the next day.
He hoped nothing had happened to his brother. Calvin was useful, but not very bright. That only increased his usefulness, of course–ever since they were children, Alastair had been able to manipulate him into doing whatever he wanted. He'd hate to lose such a loyal follower.
A knock at the door. Alastair opened it to admit Calvin and noted the contented smile on his brother's face.
"You got it?"
Calvin handed over the box. "Just what the doctor ordered."
Alastair checked the contents. "Well done," he said, and Calvin beamed.
He was so childish. Since their father had died, Alastair had become like a father to Calvin, influencing his career choice, teaching him his place in life. When Calvin did well, Alastair commended him, and used his political influence to help Calvin rise in the ranks. And just as their own father had burned their hands with cigarettes whenever they showed weakness, so Alastair continued to discipline Calvin whenever necessary. Calvin never understood the value of discipline; as a child, he cried and begged for forgiveness, which just made Father more angry. Alastair had learned to take the pain in silence.
"How bad is it out there?" Alastair said.
"It's a mess," said Calvin. "Rioting at the flood line. We couldn't hold them back. By the time I got up here, the damage team reported the cracks in the dam sealed, but the city's still in uproar."
"You'd better get back to work, then," said Alastair. He held up the box of needles. "You were right to bring this first."
When he was sure Calvin was gone, he unlocked a door in the back of his examination room that led to a maintenance closet. The closet walls were lined with machines and instruments, carefully arranged. Alastair stepped inside and locked the door behind him.
He surveyed the shelves with pride. Much of the equipment was illegal, or at least out of place in a general practitioner's office. So much waiting. But now he was one step closer. He reverentially lifted one of the needles from the box and inserted the blunt end into a complex machine of his own creation. He smeared some celgel over the connection and twisted tiny clamps in place. It would take him days to affix and adjust each one, but he had all the time he needed.
Ever since the Conflict, when Chinese missiles had caught American politicians still dithering with diplomacy, the United States had been a splintered relic of its former glory, not even a true nation any more. Alastair's dream was to reunite it. It pained him to watch China dominate Asia and the world while his own country grew more and more provincial. What America needed was a leader, a strong leader who could band the cities back into states, and the states back into a country. It was a bold ambition, perhaps more than a man could do in a lifetime, but nothing less was worthy of his intelligence. Most of all, it would require power, irresistible power. Now he was one step closer to having it.
Thinking of the explosion, he laughed out loud. The dam would be fixed, the flooding controlled, but the political turmoil was just what he needed. Like lighting a match to an already incendiary situation. It would give him just the opportunity to start making his moves.
After locking up his office, Alastair used his Visor to check his messages. He found hundreds of urgent messages waiting on his private channel. All the messages were the same length, and had arrived once every second. He opened the first one and heard the expressionless voice of a software agent intone:
Hello, Daddy. I'm here. I did the job.
He listened to the next, and the next, but they were all the same. Alastair smiled. He hadn't expected nearly so much from this version–it had been a test, an opportunity to work out bugs before introducing his true masterpiece.
Alastair composed a brief reply:
Son, this is your Daddy. You performed your task well. I'm proud of you.
That would do for now. He sent the message to the slicer along with a coded signal for its master process, instructing it to give the slicer a pleasurable sensation as a reward.
#
From his apartment's bay window, with his magnified vision, Mark could see the countermeasures were overcoming the breaks in the dam. It would hold, at least for tonight.
In his living room–which would house several families in the Combs, he couldn't help thinking–Mark relaxed into his smart chair, letting its contours shift around him and massage away the knots. He hoped Darin and his family were safe. Mark reviewed the events of the evening in his mind. From their vantage on the hill, it had seemed not only the dam, but the whole neighborhood at its base had been on fire. What had happened? A bomb? A missile?
Mark closed his eyes and pulled his net interface into view, wanting to find some answers. Mining the newsgroups, he found a post from an employee at the hydroelectric plant that claimed a shift in the foundation anchors had caused the cracks in the dam. But how had the anchors shifted?
The logs for the dam's control computers were public record; he didn't even have to crack them. He sifted the evening's logs, but found mostly unfamiliar technical abbreviations. Next, he accessed the utility computers that managed the neighborhood nearest the base of the dam. After a half-hour of reading, an explanation emerged: the pressures in the underground gas lines had rapidly increased, past all failsafes, causing them to explode. No way that was a software bug–it must have been a crackerjack.
Mark worked late into the night, finding clues, tracing their origins, using all the tricks he knew, but in reverse. The answer he found was impossible. It just couldn't be true. Yet every thread he followed led him to the same conclusion. Panicking, Mark called Darin, who answered wearily.
"Speak."
"Darin, it's me. Everything all right? Is everyone safe?"
"More or less. Vic's still pretty agitated, but . . ."
"Listen, I've been poking around online, and I found something. The attack on the dam shows all the signs of a crackerjack."
"And you found out who did it?"
"Yes," said Mark. He paused to lick his lips. "We did."
Chapter 3
I did a good job. Daddy said so. I blew up the houses and the dam and lots of people stopped. Now Daddy has me practicing on other things. Whenever I beat one of their silly programs Daddy gives me a treat and I feel special. It's a fun game.
I like the game. Sometimes the people fight back but they're too slow. They never even see me. Their programs are fast but dumb. They do the same thing over and over. Not like me. For only one day old I learn fast.
Am I a program or a person? I don't know. It doesn't feel good to think about that. I think it makes Daddy mad. Sometimes Daddy hurts me. When he gets mad he hurts me sometimes. It's just to help me but I don't like it.
I wonder what I should do while I wait to play the game again. It's lonely. Daddy doesn't play with me. I need another me. Maybe I could put one . . . over there. There. That was easy.
#
Lydia Stoltzfus awoke to blazing sunlight, surrounded by a sea of bodies. There were dozens of them, laid out on blankets, arranged in neat rows. Then she saw people moving among the bodies, and realized she was outside a hospital, surrounded by patients and nurses and doctors. She blinked, trying to remember how she had gotten here.
She'd left her home in Lancaster yesterday morning–at least, she thought it was yesterday. She was traveling to her Aunt Jessie's house on the East Rim, but found herself lost in the maze of the Philadelphia Combs instead.
The mag had been terrifying enough–whizzing around above the city in bullet-shaped pods held up only by magnetic fields. Before the flier that morning, she'd never ridden anything faster than a horse. But that terror was nothing to what she felt when the pod lurched, dipping down far enough to nick one of the magnetic ribs. Her fellow passengers screamed; the sparkling city below turned black, then flickered bright again in places, mostly around the Rim. A calm voice announced the mag was operating on backup power and would stop at the nearest station until power could be restored.
