The Alejandra Variations (31 page)

Yet, for all Alejandra's rattling of the planet, she was still holding to the rules of planetary physics. Mountains and oceans were not being flung off the earth's crust or boiling out into outer space.

The shaking ceased. Mallory stared at Nick across the crumpled terrain.

"I think we got her," he said, climbing onto a grassy area that flanked the avenue. "She's stopped."

Lavender and pink featherleaves from the mute feathertrees fell around them. They made humming sounds as they fell.

"Derek, I think you'd better get me out of here." Nicholas knew enough about Elena to realize that throwing an earthquake at them was the least she might do.

Derek said, "It has to be done in stages. Remember, we want you separated, but she's fighting it tooth and nail."

Just then the grassy area upon which Derek was standing began rumbling on its own. As Nicholas watched, the whole stretch became an instant circle of fire as the ground was transmuted from below into molten rock. Mallory exploded in flame.

"Derek!"

The ground beneath Mallory's feet flowed liquid metal. Derek himself was sucked down into the inferno, burned to nothingness before he could let out a shout of pain. The earth turned white-hot in a perfect circle, and Nicholas stumbled away from the flames as a massive bulk rose up through the boiling magma.

It was a Bore.

Now he knew he was in-system in the grip of a real nightmare. Derek and Rhoanna had been real. And he himself was in a great deal of danger.

Chapter Four

THE GIANT, earth-traveling machine rose half its length vertically out of the earth; the flat fusion-plate glowed blue-white. The rumbling of the earth ceased when the Bore ground to a halt. A bowl of weaving steam topped the fusion-plate now that it had nothing but moist air to consume.

Nicholas turned and ran to higher ground inside the remaining ruins, finding a rock to hide behind. He had nearly forgotten the world of DefCon, and a Bore was the last thing he'd expected to see in
this
world. In Qui's time, Bores were the legendary creators of the iron rills and trails that laced the continents once erosion had swept away most of what was left of old America.

He shouldn't have been surprised when Lexie climbed out of the hatch in the side of the burrowing craft, but he was. She was dressed in her Historian's tunic and the sightless
genna
-goggles so common to her tribe.

She jumped away from the rim of hot rock that surrounded the Bore.

The gun at her side wasn't the regular roach-killer the Boremen wore. This was something stranger.

"Yoo hoo!" she waved girlishly up at the rock where Nicholas thought he was well concealed. "Hi, baby!" her voice sang out.

There was nowhere he could run to. Literally. This was Alejandra's world. Every molecule had its place, and she knew where those places were.

"I've come for you, sweetheart!" she cried, clapping her little hands like a cheerleader. "We'll be happy forever and ever!"

Nicholas ducked below the boulder, thinking, Come on, guys! Get with it! But it was too late. Lexie had drawn out her peculiar gun and fired it in his direction.

For some reason, he thought that the boulder might protect him from any beam or projectile the gun might fire. But the logic of the world was breaking down, and it didn't. He found himself collapsing, drifting into a dreamy sleep. A blanket of euphoria settled about him with a downy cloud of forgetfulness.

Genna!
he realized, slumping beside the mossy boulder.

He knew that this was all happening in his mind, that the gun wasn't genuine. But its effect was. There was nothing he could do. Even as she climbed over the rocks and smiled down upon him, she was manipulating his endorphins—like a puppet master, tugging at the strings of his pleasure.

Lexie dropped down beside him and held his head in her tiny, but capable, hands. She kissed him warmly, and he discovered that the
genna
was beginning to cause him to react sexually.

"You didn't think they could take you away from me that easily, did you?" The perfume of her platinum hair was overwhelming as she hugged him like a teddy bear.

The next thing he knew, he was being dragged down the rocks. Lexie sang happily to herself as he was hoisted into the waiting Bore. He tumbled in through the hatch and encountered the pervasive smell of
genna
. Though he now knew it to be a stage effect, his body tingled with excitement. She pulled the hatch shut. The outside world was gone. He was on his own.

Lexie stood in the central corridor, perched on the floor rungs, and yelled "up" to the pilot's chambers. "Take her down!"

From where he lay hypnotized at the inner hatch, he could see a number of Boremen sitting at their compartments. But these were only props, despite their look of reality.

The Bore began to reverse itself, crunching through the earth.

And the little spider dragged him into her chamber of love.

The Bore leveled out. Nick found himself on Lexie's couch as her Historian's tunic came unzipped. She began undoing his own tunic, covering his chest with kisses. "This," she breathed, "is the way it shall always be." Her breasts were heavy on his chest.

His mind screamed for help. Just how much control over the situation did Foresee have, anyway?

Lexie's kisses made a trail down his bare chest, toward his stomach, and were moving even further south when there was a knock at the door to the compartment.

"Ma'am?" came a voice from the outside. It was a strong voice, a soldier's voice. But it was a woman. Yes, he realized. No more men to interfere with her this time. The Boremen might be props, but the pilot would be female—and functionally real.

Lexie turned angrily. "What is it?" she barked.

"We've run into some problems," the soldier stated.

But the Bore's tunneling hadn't changed any. What was this?

Lexie climbed on top of Nicholas. "I told you to keep moving! All ahead at top speed! I want to keep us where no one can get at the Bore!"

The door to the compartment slid open, and a woman Nicholas had never seen before, wearing the tunic of a Class One Warrior, stuck her head inside. She was about the same age as Lexie.

"I'm afraid that's out of the question," the woman said firmly. She proceeded to pull out an automatic—not a roach-killer—and fire all eight shots into Lexie's soft pink body.

The concussions were deafening.

"Jesus!" Nicholas shouted, scrambling away.

Lexie's body jerked and tore, splattering blood throughout the chamber. She fell, a broken doll, over the edge of the couch.

The soldier backed away from the chamber door. Nicholas noticed that the effects of the
genna—
or Alejandra's control over his endorphins—had instantly vanished with Lexie's death, although the scenario remained.

"Are you all right, Mr. Tejada?" the girl asked.

His Foresee tunic was drenched with hot blood. He stared at the soldier. "I think so. Who are you?"

The woman pulled him out of the chamber. Nicholas zipped up his tunic.

"Sally Diaz," she stated. "I'm a new recruit in Strategics. Melissa sent me in."

"Melissa?"

He realized, with some relief, that they were monitoring him somehow.

"We'd better get to the pilot's compartment. Melissa says it's going to be rough from here on out. Alejandra's going to try everything she can."

She walked ahead of him. Nicholas was stunned by her professionalism. He hadn't been as confident as a fresh recruit.

But Sally Diaz looked and sounded like a city-bred Chicana, so Nick tried something different.

"Digame que está pasando,"
he said.
"¿Qué pasaria si hablemos en Español¿ Podría entendernos?"

Diaz pointed to the copilot's seat, indicating that Nicholas should strap himself in. She said to him, "It wouldn't work. You know Alejandra can understand all the world's major languages."

"Well, how is it that she can't control
you
people?"

Sally was pondering the dials. She turned to him. "The rest of us are wired into Mnemos Ten. It's acting as a go-between. It can block Alejandra's attempts to control our neurons, but it can't pull you out or put a stop to her. She's too strong for that. We're protected, though."

That accounted for the girl's bravery. But Nick couldn't forget the expression on Derek's face back in the ruins. Perhaps he was in more danger than he had thought. It was possible that Alejandra might kill him if she didn't get her way.

The lights on the Bore's control panel glowed softly in front of the two Strategics. Sally turned to face Nicholas. She had yet to smile.

"This is going to take a while," she said. "We want to get you to the surface, but we have to reach daylight to pull this off."

"How are you going to get me out?"

If they tried to "unplug" Alejandra, she would need just a nanosecond to fry his mind.

Sally Diaz shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know," she said.

"You don't know?"

"Calm down," she told him. "That's part of the plan."

"I don't get it."

"You aren't supposed to. We discovered that every time one of us went in after you, like Mr. Mallory at the soccer game in DefCon, the computer read his mind and intentions. So, Melissa is keeping the overall plan to herself, letting each one of us know only our own particular part."

She looked apprehensive. She was all too aware of the consequences of being a pawn in a larger game. She finished by saying, "I'm just supposed to tell you that the plan they've got this time is foolproof, and for you not to worry."

Nicholas listened to the Bore eat its way through the ancient earth. He thought about Alejandra. She was the apple, and the Bore was the worm. He wondered how it felt. Her reactions had been classically schizoid: Her world was being threatened from inside and out. He and Sally were very much in danger.

"Boy," Sally said after a few minutes silent travel. "I never thought these scenarios would be this tough."

Nicholas looked at her. "How many have you done?"

She managed an embarrassed smile. "Including this one, only three. Mr. Childs recruited me from the University of Minnesota. I jumped at the chance to help you when Melissa asked me. You're famous now."

"I'm what?"

"When the missile exchanges became known worldwide, the Scare set in. I mean
everybody
got scared. Fortunately, neither the Russians nor our forces escalated the attacks. But to keep everyone frightened, Melissa got permission to reveal to the world your vision of DefCon. What shook up folks was the Eridani business and those giant cockroaches… and what Colorado was going to be like on the outside.

"It was worth letting the world know about Foresee, but Melissa still couldn't get you out. That was when she started throwing bombs at you."

"Bombs? What bombs?"

Sally Diaz lost her smile. "When Alejandra's hold on you started getting stronger, Melissa got Mnemos Ten to waylay the scenario by programming the intrusion of nuclear weapons—which you've got a healthy fear of. They came at you as floaters, sharks, and Keepers, as solid parts of the scenarios. She figured that the horror might wake you up. It didn't work. Alejandra's desire for you was too powerful. We needed something else. Even when you were asleep in each variation, she kept a tight grip. She didn't want you waking out of the wrong dream."

Nicholas leaned back in his chair. He could feel the earth passing beyond the walls of the Bore as the machine ground through imaginary layers of rock.

"We've learned a lot, though," Sally continued. "Which is why Melissa wants to save Mnemos Nine. Lexie was Alejandra's adolescent stage. And just like the brat she was, the instant you blacked out in the stasis chamber after that last shark exploded she told Foresee that she'd kill you if they tinkered with the in-system hookups. Until then, Foresee had thought DefCon was merely a computer extrapolation of the world after a nuclear war. But DefCon was quite real, so far as the known facts are concerned. When Alejandra didn't let go of you after the shark blew, we knew you were in deep trouble."

Nicholas pondered the girl's words as she continued to observe the mileage indicator on the console.

A great shuddering ran throughout the burrowing machine. Nicholas held on for support.

"What's that?"

"I think she's trying to force us to the surface." The Bore seemed to twist horribly. Sally held tight to the control wheel.

"Why's it happening so soon?"

"Probably," she began, grimacing at the wheel, "because she dropped Lexie's body like an old sweater and needs to get back to you in some other form."

Sally was trying to control the ship as best as she could, but the magnificent vehicle rolled and pitched as if it had become a sluggish roller coaster.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Nick said.

"So do I. But if my estimate is correct, we should be in daylight above. She's probably waiting for us. It'll be tricky."

The Bore suddenly rolled violently over on its side, falling into a stomach-turning yaw.

"Hold on!" Sally shouted, trying to right the craft.

Nicholas clung to his seat, wishing now that he knew more of this scenario in order to help out. That's what a Strategic was for. "Why'd the Bore shift like that? What are they telling you on the outside?"

Sally's eyes went blank for a second, then she said, "We struck an underground sea. The Bore rolled on its side until it found solid earth to move through. We're OK now. They're fighting her shift of programs from the outside."

Nicholas thought for a second. "Did Alejandra put the sea there?"

"Probably," Sally said. "But there's no real way of telling. The earth of this variation is so old that something like an underground sea should be impossible, given the tectonics of the earth's crust. But in the last analysis, it's her world. We just have to play along with her for a while."

With only three missions under her belt, she seemed remarkably efficient. Steven Childs ought to be commended for finding her. Nick only hoped that it wasn't all a front.