Authors: Christopher McKitterick
So now Jonathan sits in the webbed Stratofighter seat, alone with Nooa amid the small electrical sounds, and she isn’t really real. His stomach threatens to purge again. He swallows it down before it has a chance to get out.
“
That artifact sounds like a ’quin-hell place to me. Doesn’t it to you, Nooa?” he asks.
“
Its potential uses are incredible, Jonathan. It was built by alien intelligences! Think about that. But we need more information before we can test it or trace it back to its builders.”
“
Fuck that, Nooa. I feel sick, and I’m as tired as the only male rat in an all-ratfuck city, and this seat is the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever been tied down to in my life. Let’s go back to Earth.” He squirms against the odd sensation of being held in zero-
g
. It seems he’s falling against the seat and the belts at the same time, but barely
. . .
it doesn’t make sense to his balance. He’s also just a little bit concerned about getting back down without a pilot. The base of his skull throbs where Lucas slid in the amp.
“
First we will need to refuel this vehicle and take on more life-support supplies,” Nooa says.
“
Fuck,” Jonathan says. But, despite his discomfort and the letdown of having lost the Captain, Jonathan feels relieved. He doesn’t really want to go back to Earth just yet. Nothing down there is any more appealing than this cramped tin bubble in the middle of hungry vacuum. In fact, that sounds very much like how Jonathan feels on Earth.
He turns his head and stares out at the welding-arc bright stars. A dense area of stars which he remembers vaguely as being called the Milky Way particularly holds his attention—so many of them, more than he’d imagined existed in the whole universe. Jonathan had never looked up at night. If he had, the only celestial object he would have seen in Minneapolis would have been the Moon, anyway. But even that nearby world holds something more for him now, since he had watched the Captain fight there—and then met the Captain intheflesh.
Jonathan realizes this is the first time he’s been physically out of the sprawling city. A thrill works through the numbed nerves of his body, slowly up his spine and then lightningly along his limbs until his experiences of the past hour feel less dreamlike.
Fuck
, he thinks,
I’ve always wanted to be out here. Fuck. Isn’t it just the way of life that I can’t even really enjoy this?
Mechanical sounds pound and scream to life beneath—behind?—him, tearing his attention away from the solemnity of space. The rockets ignite with an odd, distant sort of rumble. Jonathan regains a little weight as the Earth tilts wildly up at him and the Milky Way pivots across the sky. The sickness that surges again through his meat makes him think Earth isn’t such a bad place, after all.
“
Jonathan, I just recognized the ID signal of Janus Librarse. She’s in Montgomery, Alabama.”
Only after the sickness fades does he recognize the irony. He coughs out a laugh. “Too bad the Captain just left, huh.”
The cacophony of sounds that accompany the rocket roar remind Jonathan of his revmetal BW, so he flicks it on audio-only. The pound and howl of the machine music and singers work to settle his stomach somewhat. By the time the Stratofighter reaches an unmanned fueling station—bloated and massive and white with snaking arms that reach out to his craft, the Brain’s arms, he thinks—Jonathan is truly beginning to enjoy the ride.
Janus allowed the autopilot to fly Rachel’s aircar out of the top-floor garage into the dark clouds a half-kilometer above Montgomery. The vehicle was an old model, was old when Rachel and Miguel bought it twelve years ago. Still, it worked, and though the seats were torn and worn, it was comfortable. The shockplas canopy didn’t quite seal completely, but Janus wouldn’t be taking it into space. She smiled at the thought.
Where’s Jack gone?
She knew the answer even as she wondered, from having lived his life with Miru and Pang.
Jack had gone to Oberlicht Towers. A woman named Megan Boisson lived there, in room 115089. That was the only place she could think he’d go. Certainly not back to his wife. Though if he wasn’t at Oberlicht Towers, Janus had no idea where to look next.
She input the travelplan and set the aircar to run at top speed.
“
Do you mind if we stay at cruise velocity, instead?” an older woman’s disembodied face asked. Janus was shocked for a moment before she realized this was only the car’s 3VRD.
“
Sure, maximum cruise,” Janus said.
The car’s rotor rose in pitch, its well-used bearings grating only occasionally during acceleration. Janus was pushed back against the cracked but plush seat. Occasionally, she glimpsed lights below her through breaks in the cloudcover.
Again, she tried to locate Jack’s ID in the net, but he was nowhere to be found. That made her a little nervous, because Rachel had been able to track her ID.
He has to be here
, she reassured herself.
He isn’t on Triton
. The aircar hummed on.
A few minutes later, a voice so quiet that it seemed to whisper said, “Janus Librarse?”
Janus flicked open her commline. “Yes. Who’s this?”
A young girl’s 3VRD appeared in the front seat beside Janus. “My name is Nooa. Are you seeking Pehr Jackson?”
Janus’ heart accelerated. “Yes. What do you know about him? Is he in Minneapolis?”
The girl was silent for a while, her face going through varying stages of confusion and serious thought.
Odd that her 3VRD’s so blatant about the girl’s emotions
, Janus thought.
“
I don’t know,” the girl finally said. Her face grew intense. “Tell me about the alien artifact on Triton.”
Janus’ breathing ceased. She blinked. “How do you know about that?”
“
Captain Jackson spoke briefly of it. Please give me more information. I find it exceptionally interesting.”
“
I don’t know. . .” Janus frowned and thought it best to speak with Jack about it before speaking to strangers. “Maybe we can talk later.”
“
There is someone in Minneapolis, a boy named Jonathan Sombrio, who can help you find Captain Jackson,” the girl offered. “Jonathan is a friend of the Captain’s. Jonathan is also my
. . .
friend.”
“
Oh, thank you, thank you,” Janus said.
He’s here!
Then her eyes focused again on the girl. So sweet to see young love, she thought, imagining this girl and some faceless Jonathan arm in arm. She even gave the boy a face: But seeing young Lonny again in her mind made her somber.
“
Can I speak to Jonathan now?” she asked. “It’s very important I find Jack, er, Captain Jackson.”
Confusion again. “I think it best you two speak intheflesh. That seems to be the only way Jonathan feels. . . .
Well, anyway, Jonathan is quite busy just now. Maybe after you two speak, you will tell me about the artifact?”
This frustrated Janus, but at least she had more information now, and had been affirmed that she was headed in the right way.
“
Well, thank you, Nooa,” she said. “It’s nice of you to comm and let me know. I’ll tell you more later.”
The girl smiled, bade farewell, and vanished. Janus ran an ID, but couldn’t identify anyone named Nooa, nor could she pick up any hints of the girl’s trace in the nets.
Kids
, she thought. Very resourceful these days. She sighed deeply. Still, yet another weight had been lifted off her mind.
Janus realized she was deadly tired from the lifetimes spent in the artifact. Living Eyes’ life had particularly drained her. Knowing she had done all she could for the moment combined with these things to make her sleepy and quite aware of her fatigue. And she felt safe here, high above the hands of men, enclosed in a miniature world of her own, thinking with a mind uncluttered. She tapped in to the car’s server, ordered up an options menu—and was instantly barraged with direct-feed ads:
“
You haven’t lived until—” Green skies, red rocks, naked people cavorting on flowerbeds, fractional-second flashes of fivesen pleasure. . . .
“
Why drink liquimeal when you can—” Woman standing in a stainless steel living room grimacing, her face transforming from within to a pleasure-feed smile as the sentence finished.
“
Jesus, Rache,” she mumbled, “buy an adfilter. Ads are for retros.”
Janus quickly picked out a relaxation subscription amid the chaos. Over the next five minutes, she fell asleep to the sights, scents, and sounds of the ocean washing the Hawaiian coastline. The moment before she lost consciousness, she flashed to a similar memory, except the same ocean was crashing against the sides of a massive floating city where she had never visited, but where she had lived. . . .
Deep underground at EarthCo’s worldwide network, in the metal heart of Feedcontrol Central, an electric city whose skyscrapers were old antennae and metalwork towers wearing a million ears and whose pavement was a shimmering plain of phased-array transceivers, Director Luke Herrschaft pressed a button. It was a special button he had just recently installed—“recently” only in terms of his long life; the system was completed by robots four years prior. The button uplinked to a small network of phased-array antennae all across EarthCo’s landmasses, isolated from every other net, even from the Brain itself. He had ordered the robots to self-destruct after completing their work.
Herrschaft didn’t want to use this, since doing so would set off alarms all across the world, alerting his enemies to the secret weapon
. . .
but what good is a weapon unused? Still, it had made him feel more secure to possess a secret weapon.
He felt momentarily giddy as 40% of his virtual self shot and wove and dodged through the 3VRD representation of his ECoNet. He raced through neon tunnels, silver terminals and crossings, golden ganglia, and finally he reached a white shaft, broad and wide, that rose to a satellite relay. The mini-Brain then shot him along a cramped tunnel of data—little more than a homing signal—to a missing spacecraft in orbit around the Earth.
Herrschaft’s 3VRD presence materialized aboard one of his Commodore’s Stratofighters.
Very well!
he thought, and transferred all but 10% of himself up to the craft, then sealed it from intrusion.
The boy blinked and stared. He was physically present, though another—a girl—was here only in mind.
“
Boy, girl,” Herrschaft said as introduction, “how are you two behind the conspiracy to destroy me? No lies.”
The boy’s jaw loosened. His eyes widened in recognition of EarthCo’s Feedcontrol Director. “I
. . .
I. . .”
“
Shut up,” Herrschaft said. He couldn’t work up any real fury: After all, these were just kids, and he could well understand a child’s desire to destroy an adult in power. Wouldn’t he have felt the same at that age? Indeed, he had acted on such feelings, long ago. Besides, they couldn’t really harm him. That didn’t mean he would allow them to continue working for whomever it was that had bombed the conference this morning. Certainly this child couldn’t have piloted this craft!
“
Tell me everything you two know about the bombing.”
The boy’s eyes grew wider: Fear from being exposed or fear of being wrongly accused? Herrschaft wondered.
“
What bombing?” the girl asked.
“
Don’t act stupid with me, girl!” Herrschaft raged. “Do you think I’m going to believe you’re both innocent of wrongdoing as you sit aboard a stolen military vessel? And just how are you two shielded against identification? In case you don’t know who I am, my name is Luke Herrschaft, Feedcontrol Director, and you two are nothing to me but in the way!” The cabin rang in tune with his voice.
“
Really, sir,” the boy stammered, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We didn’t steal this rocketship. We’re going to send it back. Nooa just
. . .
borrowed it, I guess. I—”
“
Don’t say anything more, Jonathan,” the girl interrupted.
“
Answer me, boy!” Herrschaft shouted. “Whose orders are you taking?”
“
I
. . .
nobody’s.”
“
Damn you! If you dare defy me, you’ll regret it for the last minute of your life, which begins now.”
“
I’m not taking anybody’s orders, you retrofuck! Nobody’s, not yours, not EarthCo’s, not anybody’s.”