D'Mok Revival 1: Awakening (13 page)

“They’re good,” she said biting her lip.

Daleron encouraged her. “Hang in there. We may not have another one soon.”

She knew he was right. There wasn’t another choice, regardless of risk. With a final gesture, Toriko activated the virtual reality integrator. Her body shuddered as it interlocked directly with her mind. Her hands and feet went numb, a sensation that quickly swept her body, and passed over her face.

* * * * *

When Toriko opened her eyes, she found herself inside the vast computer network known as the interweb.

“It works!” she said, her words visually rippling away in colored waves from her digital body. “It really works!”

Her time for celebration was cut short, when she noticed sections of her data tunnel begin to glow a burning red. Defense protocols were already eating at her way in. She had to work fast.

* * * * *

“What did she just do?” Palo asked, checking to make sure Toriko was still breathing.

A new projection appeared before her body. Mencari saw an avatar of Toriko moving with blurring speed, reinforcing and building out a tunnel.

“Looks like she’s in there,” Mencari said.

“What?” Palo said confused. “Can she do that?”

“Guess so,” the cat-man shrugged. “Now we know why they wanted her and her sister so badly.”

“What do you know about all this?” Mencari asked, hoping that he had thrown in his lot with the right people.

“We’ve been watching the Purg sisters for some time,” Daleron said.

“Especially after the parents were killed,” Palo added.

“Killed?” Mencari said.

“An accident, at least that’s what it was made to look like,” Daleron said. “If you track what happened next, you know it was anything but. What’s important to know is they’ve made many moves to push the two Purg girls into joining them. We even noticed a number of communications from Bansa blocking Toriko from employment in other firms, probably thinking that would bring Toriko to their doorstep. It appears they also kidnapped the Professor Xabier.”

“But they probably did that to shut him up too,” Palo said. “He was talking to too many people about what he and Toriko found.”

“What did Toriko find?” Mencari asked. “She alluded to something a few times.”

“A beam of energy, although only Toriko could see it,” Daleron said. “Apparently she has some remarkable gifts—seeing transmissions, energy signatures, etc. It turned out to be a Nukari transmission beam coming from the Ninth Version, sent out to a space communications relay.”

“So they’re talking to others off world?” Mencari said.

“Exactly,” Daleron said. “But to whom, and where, we don’t know yet.”

Maybe it involves the contingent I ran into on Aeun
, Mencari wondered.

A flash from the projection with Toriko drew their attention. The tunnel appeared to flood with data. Toriko splashed around joyously. A digital voice chimed through her suit. “I’m in, I’m in!”

Diving into the information, she entered a massive expanse filled with cubes of data floating about.

“OMG!” she cried. “There’s like. . .  yotta-quads of information here! I’ve never seen this much before! Let see how fast I can go through this . . . ”

Her avatar began to glow. Smaller clones emerged from the light. In moments, thousands of mini-Torikos were darting in and out of the cubes.

“Daleron, you won’t believe this!” her digital voice said. “The Nukari really are everywhere: inside universities, corporations, even the Methodology Council. It’s not just Bansa! Now we have proof!”

The myriad of clones suddenly stopped, frozen in place.

“Oh, not now!” she moaned. “Hold on.”

They waited and watched as her avatar produced a new control cube, working on patching the clone bug. Mencari noticed on the periphery, the cubes turning brown and shriveling away.

“Toriko—” Mencari said.

“One second . . . ”

As the moments passed, the phenomenon appeared to accelerate, collapsing in towards Toriko.

“Toriko, check your perimeter,” Mencari warned sternly. “What’s going on out there? Is that normal?”

“Got it!” she said, as the clones returned to action. “I think I’ve found some things on. . . ”

“Did you hear me, Toriko?” he said with growing concern. “There’s something happening with the data cubes.”

“What?” she said, confused.

Clones near the edge exhibited the same browning before shriveling away. He could see her look around nervously at the shrinking sea of data.

“Oh my god!” she cried. “They found me!”

“Get out of there!” Palo yelled. “GO!”

With a gesture the clones burst like fireworks, and the expanse extruded away, funneling into a single point. She was back inside the hacking tunnel, fleeing with incredible speed.

“I need to focus on what I’m doing,” she said. “I’m going to change the display so you can tell me if I’m being followed.”

“How do we do that?”

“Like this,” she said as the projection changed angles, as if sitting on her back, showing the tunnel behind her. A dark void with long tentacles ripped apart the tunnel behind her.

“Eudora help us!” Palo said flatly.

“Is it that bad?” Toriko said, attempting levity.

“Just keep going, and don’t look back,” Mencari added.

The chasing mass was closing fast.

“It’s gaining,” Palo warned.

“I have to keep opening new tunnels, it’s taking me too long,” she said panicked. “Have to slow it down.”

Pulses began to fire from her avatar. After traveling along the tunnel walls towards the chasing mass, they exploded into electric barriers, like big fishing nets. Despite getting snagged, the mass attempted to push its tentacles through, which were instantly vaporized in a cloud of zeros and ones.

“It’s working!” Palo cheered.

“Just keep going!” Mencari said.

In horror, Mencari saw the barrier radiate, as if being superheated.

“They’re taking it down!” Daleron warned.

“I know,” Toriko said confidently. “I’m just buying some time, and seeing how well that worked.”

As the barrier fell, a stream of steady pulses blasted from Toriko’s avatar down the tunnel walls. With each pulse explosion a new barrier erected. Mencari’s stomach knotted as the chasing mass appeared to catch fire and accelerate towards her with great speed. This time the barriers didn’t stop it.

“The barrier’s aren’t working anymore!” Mencari yelled.

Small glowing orbs began shooting towards the chasing mass. With each hit, the mass shuttered, and recoiled. The flaming appearance even diminished.

“One. . .  more. . .  trick,” Toriko said, strained.

The walls of the tunnel began to fill with cracks of light. Streams of zeros and ones wept from them.

“What are you doing?” Palo asked concerned.

“This!” she said as the tunnel shattered and began to collapse behind her.

“Are you crazy?” Palo yelled. “If you’re consciousness isn’t back, that could kill you!”

“If they catch me, it will kill me.”

The projection began to break up, static lacing the display. Her avatar accelerated faster down the tunnel, trying to stay ahead of the collapsing section.

“Nearly there!” she said thankfully.

A vortex of light began to form just behind her avatar.

“Something’s on your tail!” Palo yelled as black tentacles reached through towards her.

“What?” she said, moments before the display disappeared and her body gave a tremendous shuddered.

Then the room was quiet. Toriko’s body slumped forward, then was motionless.

* * * * *

Spark moaned sorrowfully.

“Toriko?” Palo said putting his hand on her shoulder.

No one was sure what they could do to help. They all waited for a response—any response. Even the fox ears on her headband seemed to droop sadly downward. Mencari’s burning lungs reminded him he was holding his breath.

“Oh, Eudora,” Daleron said, over and over. It sounded like he was praying.

“Toriko!” Palo said with a rising tone.

Spark gently nuzzled her leg, but there was no reaction.

What just happened, Mencari wondered? She had said that if she was caught, it would kill her. He didn’t think she meant it literally. Could that really have been the case?

Mencari stared paralyzed. He knew they should check her vitals, but he somehow doubted it was worth the time. The Nukari were here, and they just claimed another life before his eyes. This group was far more insidious than the armada that attacked his station. These Nukari appeared far more cunning, infecting and controlling a world from the inside-out. He almost preferred a nice simple armada, an attacking force that could be engaged.

“TORIKO!” Palo screamed, now on his knees hugging her lifeless form.

Death of any kind was never easy to see. She seemed like a nice girl, maybe a bit crazy, but nice.

“Now what?” Mencari asked respectfully.

Small holographic cubes began to float above the table, each glowing with blue, yellow, or orange light.

Spark bellowed happily as a tiny gasp escaped Toriko.

“We . . . go and . . . get them,” she whispered in a raspy voice.

“Toriko!” Palo said, nearly in tears.

“You’re . . .  crushing. . .  me,” she gasped, as Palo released his vice-grip on her body.

“Right. Sorry.”

The very air in the room felt easier to breath. Mencari hadn’t noticed just how tense he had become until he relaxed his tight, aching muscles.

“What happened?” Daleron asked.

“Nasty sentinel. Nearly had me too,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Whoever made that was good--very good.”

“But you were better,” Palo said.

Reaching out with unsteady hands, she grabbed the yellow box as if it was a physical object. With a gesture it opened, revealing several smaller moving shapes inside. Mencari could tell the girl had not fully recovered yet. He didn’t like the strange panting and labored breathing from her. The experience clearly had left her weakened.

As she touched the smaller objects, holograms of text appeared, displaying the encrypted information and system codes.

“Can you read that?” Palo said.

Nodding, she gestured, translating the information.

“This talks about the Professor FX. They do have him, and he has already been taken off-world,” she said, with an cold, unusual vengeance in her voice. “It doesn’t say where they’re taking him, from what I’ve translated so far, anyway.”

She gestured to close the box, then grabbed the blue one. Repeating the process, she pulled images and maps out.

“This is the Bansa techno lab where my sister is.”

Zooming out the map, Palo gasped. “MDv8?” he said.

She nodded. “Not that far away.”

“What does that mean?” Mencari said.

“Sorry, the Mauri dome, Eighth Version,” Toriko explained. “You’ve actually already been through it.”

Calling up a more detailed map, she continued. “There’s little security, just a bunch of digital eyes—which I can take care of. Who’d dare go poking around that level anyway, right?” she said with a grin.

“You’re suggesting we should go and get her?” Daleron said.

“If we can get her, we can expose the Nukari for what and where they are,” she said confidently. “Terconians won’t stand for this.”

“I agree,” Palo added.

Mencari was increasingly impressed. Toriko wasn’t only an exotic tech wiz, but she was brave and determined.

“It’s late, but my sister likes to work at night when no one else is around. We should go now.”

“Now?” Palo said surprised. “The three of us?”

“Four—count me in,” Mencari said.

“Five if you count Spark,” she said with a grin. “A small group can get through the air ducts quickly, and I can provide plenty of false data to the digital eyes.”

“I’ll call in a few distractions by the others,” Daleron added. “Keep the Nukari busy.”

* * * * *

“Here,” Toriko said pointing to the final vent. Having gone on countless geocaching runs in the lower versions of the Mauri Dome, she knew her way around. Connecting with the Nukari facility’s ventilation was also a snap, just like bugging digital eyes with fake data.

“How do we prevent your sister from triggering an alarm when we come through the vent?” Palo asked.

“I’m sending her a message now,” Toriko explained.

Sure, things were a little strained between them, but Maro had always been reasonable for the most part.

Toriko quickly constructed an encoded message and sent it.

“Let’s just give her a few minutes to. . . ” she stopped abruptly already receiving a response.

“What is it?” Daleron asked.