Authors: James Luceno
Beyond the gates lay the spherical construct that housed the aquarium itself. Notices reading
SINGLE-FILE ONLY
were posted at the base of a wide ramp that coiled around the virtual tank, but Tech's navigators paid the notices no mind. Taking the DB5 headlong through the gates, they whipped Tech up onto the ramp, creating their own passing lane as they corkscrewed him toward the top.
Tech was making great progress until they lost control of him halfway to the summit. Sent crashing into the ramp's curved retaining wall, the DB5 rebounded directly into the spherical fish tank, erasing a virtual stretch of coral reef in his passing. Two sting rays, a hammerhead shark, and an entire school of angelfish unlucky enough to be in his path also vanished from sight.
With thousands of tiny effervescent bubbles marking his trail through the sea-green water, Tech burst from the top of the tank like a submarine-launched missile, dispersing a crowd of frequent flyers who were clustered at the entrance to an interactive news magazine. Spinning out of control, Tech made a sudden grab for the joystick, but he was a second too late. The DB5 skidded through a wall of the
People
magazine construct and immediately collided with the best-dressed actress of the year, ridding her of her head. Then it went on to rip a gaping hole in the construct's download pro
gram, scrambling the magazine's audio-video feeds to countless subscribers.
Careening back onto the grid, Tech found himself so close to Peerless Engineering that its western ramparts, towers, and bartizans overwhelmed the visor.
In the Network's false evening, searchlights at the base of the castle played across the simulated darkness as if on the lookout for attacks by squadrons of enemy bombers. Tech was struck by how formidable Peerless’ construct suddenly appeared—more unassailable fortress than fairy-tale castle.
Vising his hands on the joystick, he dove the DB5 for the buttressed base of the construct. The delivery entrances came into view, perforating the walls of the ramparts like the mouths of caves.
Inbound messages and transfers destined for different areas of the dungeon were jammed at every entrance. The snarl of messages was insignificant compared to what he and Harwood had encountered days earlier, but Tech wasn't about to wait his turn in line.
“I can try flagging you
‘Urgent,’ ”
Marz said, even before Tech could ask for help. “That'll get you to the gate ahead of the rest, but not necessarily past the security scanners inside.”
“Do it,” Tech said. “Just be sure to have Harwood's map running by the time I enter the routing corridors.”
“It's loading now,” Isis assured him.
Tech's priority status allowed him to move through the messages in front of him as if they had
lost all presence. But traffic supervisors started scanning the DB5 almost immediately, and finding no listing for it, they began to lower the gate. Fusillades of minimizing code streaked upward from anti-cybercraft-security emplacements at the base of the mount.
Anticipating fire, Tech enabled the Aston Martin's concealed forward guns and answered the fusillades with broad beams of dazzler code. Demanding increased power from his cybercraft, he stunned the gate with a logic bomb and shot under it before it could secure the entrance. Panicked that a virus had infiltrated the firewalled perimeter, Peerless instantly deployed a flight of antiviral and chase programs, some of which resembled fletched arrows bearing trefoil tips. At the same time, gargoyle-tracker programs materialized to all sides, determined to get a fix on Tech's identity before he could penetrate any deeper into the construct.
Obstacles began to appear in his path. Barricades rose from the floor, blast doors dropped from the ceiling, and tufts of inward-facing spikes sprouted from the walls. Tunnels narrowed and intersections sealed themselves in an effort to steer him into a cache bin. But as fast as the defenses could be activated, Tech neutralized them with bursts of forward fire. His closest pursuers he threw off track with rear sprays of slick go-to code.
By then he had already entered the labyrinth of routing tunnels that undermined the Peerless mountain. Now all he had to do was negotiate the maze in one piece and undetected.
“Tech, Peerless is issuing a construct-wide intrusion alert,” Marz said suddenly. “You need a new identity, and fast.”
“Delete my priority status and flag me as a standard request,” Tech said. “That should keep some of the trackers from sniffing me out.”
“I'll handle that,” Isis said.
Tech managed to worm the DB5 around two more gates, but he was forced to corrupt two others by triggering hyphens of code from Harwood's Armor program—a surefire method of calling attention to himself.
“Security checkpoint coming up on your right,” Isis updated. “Virus-detection and identity scanners.”
Tech shot past the checkpoint without slowing down. Security nodes began to take shape, clogging the tunnels like plaque in an artery. Intent on discovering a route around them, Tech zigzagged through a series of hairpin turns only to end up losing his bearings.
“I've lost sight of Harwood's markers,” he said in a rush.
“Left at the next intersection, then straight through two more,” Marz responded a second later. “Up one level, and an immediate right-hand turn into routing colonnade 475.”
Tech tried to blank his mind to everything but the sound of Marz's voice, to make himself a machine answering only to his brother's prompts. He stopped thinking about the danger Felix was in or about just what he was going to do when he reached him.
He lost all sense of himself in a blur of intersections, mail drops, relays, and routing switches that flashed on his visor. He went into game mode, letting his instincts guide him as he hurtled deeper and deeper into the maze, still following Harwood's music-note markers. He was dimly aware that he had to be nearing the castle's central tower when Isis affirmed it.
“Tech, you're under the castle keep. On your right is a transfer chute that links to the database. The chute is reserved for incoming requests from researchers petitioning for access to the library, so we're renaming you.”
“Is Skeleton Key still running?” Tech asked.
“Slowly,” Marz replied. “If you want, I can boost it by shutting down Blueprint.”
“Do it.”
Tech slipped the DB5 into a line of requests being shunted to the library. Scanners were scrutinizing every petition. With his description altered, however, none of the scanners recognized him as the counterfeit incoming message security was chasing.
“We're giving you the access code Felix was given,” Isis reported. “That should trick the librarian into thinking that you are Felix. Tell the librarian that you want to return to the same journal entry Felix chose.”
“Sounds good,” Tech said.
What he did next would depend on what awaited him inside the journal. If good fortune was with him, he would be able to piggyback Felix to safety without engaging Scaum in a showdown.
But he knew that he needed to be prepared for the worst.
Without warning, the DB5 screeched to a dead stop.
“I'm stalled. What happened?”
“The database is shut down! Access denied.” Tech muttered a curse. “There has to be another way in.”
“Don't hang there,” Isis relayed. “Go to the main lobby. You'll be harder to single out in the public areas.”
Tech saw the wisdom of it, though there was no way the DB5 would be able to blend in with the sports-utility vehicles weekend drivers liked to pilot; so instead he headed for the reception hall. A domed atrium, the spacious room was bustling with visitors scarfing up video and sound bytes for who knew what reason. Some of them might have been kids doing school projects or novice hackers looking for ways to infiltrate Peerless.
“What's taking you guys so long?” Tech asked while he tried to lose himself in the crowd.
“Hang on,” Marz said.
“Can you find your way to the visitors’ waiting area near the main-entry gate?” Isis interrupted.
“That's the opposite direction of where I want to be.”
“Just off the waiting area is a gallery of photographs and video images.”
“How's that going to get me any closer to the database?”
“Some of the photographs are interactive,” Isis explained. “If we can hack into the code level, we
might be able to discover a link to the database that bypasses the librarian.”
Tech was already in motion, whirling the Aston around and peeling for the gallery. The walls of the gallery were lined with images of Skander Bulkroad posing with politicians and celebrities. There was live video transmitted from the company's headquarters in the real world, as well as from Peerless's orbital platform.
“The photo of Bulkroad holding an early-model data visor,” Isis said.
“I'm looking at it now,” Tech said.
“In the background is a house with a bunch of curved-top windows. You want the third window from the left.”
“It links to some of the journal entries,” Marz chimed in. “Hand off control to us so we can route you through.”
Tech took his hands from the joystick and eased up on the pedals. “Righteous.”
The word had scarcely left his mouth when he found himself scurrying through code scrolls. Dizzying arrays of numbers and characters paraded before his eyes. Then, just as suddenly, the DB5 was inside what little remained of a room with red walls. Shot through with black-rimmed holes, the room resembled a negative that had been burned by a projector bulb. The ceiling was arched and black, and pressed against its highest point was Felix's tiny beetle craft.
It was only when the black moved, dripping down the red walls like tar, that Tech recognized Scaum.
Instantly, he launched himself at the ceiling. The shadow program was too fixed on engulfing Felix's craft to pay Tech much mind. It took a burst of Armor's disabling code to get Scaum's attention, but even then all the program did was swat the craft aside like an irksome flitter.
Which is just what Tech became—unloading full barrels from the machine guns until Scaum had no choice but to respond. Abandoning Felix momentarily, Scaum gathered itself into a compressed bundle of darkness, then struck at the DB5 like a pit viper.
“That's it,” Tech said, dropping his various masks and showing his true colors. “I'm the one you want. I'm the one who escaped you twice.”
Howling, Scaum splattered itself against the floor, where it mutated from serpent to deep-sea beast. Black ink oozed from its pores and barbed tentacles stabbed the virtual air. Tech narrowly avoided being speared as he dragged Felix from the sticky web Scaum had fashioned. Piggybacking Felix's craft to the DB5, Tech shot for the pucker in the degraded red wall that had been his entry port into the room.
But Scaum wasn't about to let him escape a third time. Throwing itself about the room, it blocked Tech's movements time and again, rearing up like a demon one moment, snapping at him like a dragon the next.
Tech refused to acknowledge the macabre mutations. Scaum was only a program, he tried to tell himself, written to terrify.
Tightening his finger on the joystick trigger, he
fired another storm of disabling code. Scaum had sense enough to shrink back, and when it did Tech raced for the entry port. But just short of the port, he lost his grip on Felix.
“I dropped him!”
“Felix is right behind you!” Marz reported.
Tech spun the DB5 through a screeching one eighty and headed back for Felix's beetle. Scaum saw the Aston Martin coming and oozed to one side. Overshooting his target, Tech cut his eyes to the rearview window. One moment the beetle craft was centered in the window of the visor, the next it was gone.
And so was Scaum.
“Where'd they go?” Tech yelled.
“They've vanished!” Marz said. “It's like they left the grid.”
Tech fell silent for a moment, then cursed. “There's only one place they could have gone. I'm heading back to the photo gallery. You've got to find a way to get me back to the labyrinth below the castle.”
An instant later, Tech emerged in the photo gallery only to find that the waiting area had been sealed off.
Tech spun the DB5 in circles that would have melted tires in the real world. “Marz, Isis, get me out of here!”
Isis was quick to respond. “Go into the video of Peerless’ corporate headquarters—the Colorado Castle! It doesn't matter where—the video is a network of links.”
Tech disappeared into it.
Flashes of blinding-white light permeated the visor. Then, with tiny suns exploding before his eyes, Tech realized that he was back in the routing labyrinth beneath the castle.
“I'm going into the domain Harwood and I found,” Tech told his navigators.
“Tech, you can't go back in there! You barely made it out last time!”
“That's where Felix is. That's where Scaum took him.”
“Tech!” Marz and Isis yelled.
But Tech wasn't listening. He blazed through half-a-dozen rapid turns, following Harwood's markers back to the circular hatch that hadn't been there ten years earlier. By the time the DB5 entered the chute beyond, Tech could sense Scaum just ahead of him, as if within arm's reach.
In tandem they rocketed through the conduit, gushing into the eerie, cavernous realm Peerless had created, with its carpet of electronic haze, its muted rainbow sky crazed by branching bolts of lightning, and its multitude of medieval constructs receding into the immeasurable distance like a chain of jagged volcanic peaks, as ancient as time itself.
Scaum halted and whirled, billowing out in front of Tech like an expanding thunderhead. Lancing a tentacle through Felix's beetle, Scaum dangled it in front of Tech like a lure.
Tech suddenly realized that he had been wrong about Scaum. Scaum could do more than terrify. It
could
think.
Was Scaum actually an AI on the order of Cyrus or something even more powerful—a creature that had escaped from Area X and made its home in the Virtual Network?
Tech changed vector, heading straight for Felix. Scaum leaped to intercept him.
Slow to react, Tech was seized. Leathery wings enfolded him. He felt hot breath on his face and talons ripping into his flesh, tearing him limb from limb.