Glitch (25 page)

He spent the next hour backpedaling, talking about the problems with ghosting, and how it was a complex and dangerous epiphenomenon that no one but he understood. The creation of a Digi-Ghost was an unexpected after-effect of blending his work in general intelligence quantum computing with nanotech to save human personalities for rehusking.

“Promise me you won’t do it,” he demanded.

She’d promised, but now she was regretting all the years she’d kept it.

Yancey had gone to a Rejuv Facility a few weeks ago, before the problems at Sterling started and she’d been infected, and had done a full upload. They’d induced a coma, and she’d been under for the three days it took for the capture. She’d lain there while they scanned every bit of her genoscript, down to the messy quantum levels, where the real person lay. Her genoscript was now ready for her, if she were to die.
 

Sitting on the couch, staring at her sidearm, she considered the mind-boggling fact that if she sent an anonymous message saying she’d been killed, the Consortium would begin processing her script while they verified her death. The first twenty-four hours were critical. They’d wait for her body to be taken to a facility, where her brain would be assessed as perished but viable. They’d take her genoscript and encode it with a new body during a husking process of rapid cell development. This was all according to procedure and had worked numerous times for the rich and powerful. For them, death was not an issue. The ceiling for a single body’s viability was almost two hundred years, while a person’s essence could last forever to be rehusked again, and again, and again.

Make an anonymous call that Agent Yancey Wellborn has been killed ...

She’d actually still be alive, of course, and since her name was written in the prized Protocols, the Consortium would begin the process, no questions asked ... she could piddle around, maybe go use the bathroom, which took about ten minutes these days. All she would have to do is shoot herself through the roof of her mouth. No one would even hear. She had seen the gory results of several gun-shot suicides. She understood the procedure. Her body would die. Inexplicably, she would appear as a ghosted version of herself somewhere within ten yards of her body. However, she’d appear as a copy of her current, damaged self.

Something about the risky, almost gambling nature of it all made her wary. Of course, in case the ghosting didn’t work, she would also send a message (to Rigon) so that they could retrieve her body and get her to the clinic. The Rejuv technicians needed her cerebral cortex to make the husking work, if she were to be given a new body, and they needed it fast.

Skippard was silent on why this celerity was necessary. Somehow the double rendered in Cyberspace was linked to whatever existed in a person’s skull. Some people called it a soul, others the mind, some the self. The new word was essence, a term that had been popular thousands of years ago, but discarded. Philosophers now debated these age-old arguments as if they were as vital as oxygen. When Simone was being bitten by the Vamps, the RAIs were using their immense cyber-power to capture her essence. Simone was being uploaded at a rapid pace, and so Yancey had killed her daughter to save her.

That was the only way she’d known to do it.

Call the facility, shoot myself, and have my metaverse send a message to Rigon. If all goes well, he arrives and finds me as a ghost. The Consortium will shut down the husking process. I won’t be given a new body. I’ll be classified as an Unperson. They’ll know I’ve been ghosted and come after me, sure. But we Wellborns are adept at avoiding capture. Call the Consortium, send a message to Rigon to come here (he’s in a bungalow not far away), wait a few minutes for the process to begin, shoot myself in the head. That’s it
.
Shoot myself in the head ... that’s it.

She set the gun down and picked up her tablet. Once she made the call, she would have to follow through. The Consortium had strict rules. If they learned she had faked her death, she would lose the valuable privilege of being husked in the future.

She triggered the security on her tablet with a few quick keystrokes and opened her mouth to fast-dial the Consortium Rejuv Facility when she saw movement in the kitchen.

Skippard appeared.

He walked into the room. He saw the gun out of its holster. “What are you doing?”

“I’m tired of waiting, Skippard.” She raised her arms so that he could see the bandages. “I’m tired of this.”

He sat on the couch, not a single spark showed.

She nodded with admiration at his ability to imitate normal human movement. “Impressive.”

“Yance, not yet. Things are ... complicated with Simone being a ghost. I’m so close to putting a lid on all this. Besides, you promised.”

“I don’t care if I have an evil double. You’ve always outwitted yours. I can, as well.” He shook his head. She could see some concern there, but it was something else. “What is it?”

“We don’t have time for this ... not now.”

“Simone?” Yancey dropped her tablet.

“She’s all right. But I need you to call in the cavalry.”

Yancey stood. “What happened, Skippard? Goddammit, what did you get her into now?”

“Nothing ... well, we just followed them.”

“
What
?”

“We went to Gramgadon’s place.”

Yancey retrieved her pistol and holstered it. She carried it because she was supposed to. She’d never had to fire it once. Her preferable go-to techniques made small-arms gunfire look like pillow fighting. She finished strapping on her holster. “I can’t believe you took her there. That’s a hothouse of Rogue activity.”

She grabbed her shades to access her metaverse. She saw there was something else. “What?”

“Cliff betrayed us.” Skippard stood. “He’s slaved her to a drone.”

If she could she would beat on Skippard’s chest, as hard as possible. “You once told me, ‘Imagine being stuck in a clock on the wall for a century or longer. That could happen, Yance. It really could.’ That’s what you told me, Skippard. That’s what you told me.”

“I know. It’s my fault.”

“Where’s the drone?”

“At the house.”

“Oh, god,” she said. “What if they take it and hide it and we—”

“I destroyed the house. It’s buried. We have time.”

She put on her Mirrorshades and began firing off commands. “I’ll see you there.” She stopped. “If I were a ghost now, I could get there quicker with you. Right?”

“Yance, you’re in bandages. You’ll ghost as you are now, not as you were when you were captured. Did you forget that?”

“Does it matter? I’ll be digital. I can still summon, and I can still have the benefit of disembodiment.”

“Take the chopper. I’ll meet you there.”

She ran for the door.

* * *

Rigon sat in his chair in the middle of his bungalow. The lights were off, and the windows open. Enough moonlight glinted through the trees that he could see an endless display of shifting shadows, as if a thousand enemies were about to overrun him.

The mesh that covered his body itched like hell—something his mother pretended to understand but didn’t because her bandages weren’t anything compared to what he was dealing with. He could feel every little bit and piece of himself being rebuilt.

Right now, the pain in his right patella was so bad he whimpered like a child. It felt as if someone had driven a nail with barbs into his knee cap and had decided to pull it out in slow motion. The reconstruction doctors had told him it would hurt. That’s what they said. “Sir, it’ll hurt.”

He had at least three more months of this agony before he could lose the suit and the chair and walk around like a human being. Another three of physical therapy just to get him moving normally. Another three to get his full physical strength back. For most agents it was a year commitment.

Sometimes, he envied his family, all of whom could summon their entities at will, with little to no repercussions (as far as he could tell) other than the occasional shredded outfit and a need to eat a big meal afterward. He had to trigger a device that turned any physical matter within a radius of ten feet into energy. He had to die. As great as it was to be a cymech, it sucked getting over it.

He shifted his weight in his chair enough to lessen the pain in his knee. He was getting better at compartmentalizing the agony. He could ignore it when he concentrated, although there was usually too much going on in his body for him to focus on one area.

He was ready to trigger his sleep meds when he saw movement outside his door. It flew open, and his mother appeared in the doorway in her Rejuv bandages, armed, and looking like she did when he’d forgotten to mow the lawn.

“Uh, oh,” he said. “What now?”

“Your father.”

“What did he do?”

“He and ... Simone.”

“
Simone
?”

Rigon sat up, the old fire that he used to walk around with erupting in his belly. He struggled to hold himself up, but he did, enough to look around like someone might barrel in after his mother and try to rob them.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Sit back. I’m sorry to disturb you, but you need to call in your commandos. Anyone we can get on short notice.”

“Where?”

“Gramgadon’s safehouse.”

“Shit. That’s protected.”

“I know. Your father said they slaved Simone to a mech. He brought the house down. She’s safe, for a time. We have to get there before they find the drone.”

He didn’t need to hear more. “Got it.”

He triggered his personal AIs, who lit up the room in the familiar network of HUD fields that fed him data from his personal metaverse. A simple mental command opened a link to headquarters. He sent the request for support, and waited. His mother stood by, but he could see she wanted to leave right away.

The response came in quicker than he thought.

“A chopper is on the way to pick us up,” he said. He listened to the rest of it ...”But nothing else.”

“What?” She stepped forward like she might kick over his chair.

“That’s what they said. Support denied. They’ll take us, but they want us to assess the situation and report back. No mech or airdrop support.”

“It’s like I told you, Rigon. Even the Cybercorps is corrupted. Do you believe me now?”

He should deny it, as he always had to his persistent mother. There were always a few bad individuals in any human institution, but nothing systemic within the Corps. His day job was as a cycop, but he was in the Consortium’s Cybercorps Defense Force Reserves and close enough that he still thought he understood what went on with the brass. For them to openly support a Rogueslave ...

“Let’s go. They’ll ping us and find the closest open space.”

“We should get the others.”

Rigon stopped his chair. “The students?”

“At least Nisson and Hutto. They might be ... helpful.”

He smiled behind the mesh veil that covered his face. She couldn’t see it. But the thought of using Alters was expedient. “And the girl, Beasley?”

“She may not be ready for this.”

He started at a ping in his HUD. “They’ll send a Blackhawk. We can all fit.”

He saw his mother look into the middle distance, her lips mumbling. She had no integrated AI, so she had to speak words to activate her HUD. “Nisson’s still here. They’re at the club. Beasley didn’t answer. She’s probably under the covers, ignoring her calls.”

“We’re using children as soldiers now, is that it?” he asked.

“They’re part of the Cybercorps Program. They’re soldiers already.”

Tonight, it didn’t matter to him. His little sister was in trouble. He would use anyone and anything to help her. He tried to push himself up, achieved a better sitting position, and let himself fall back into his chair.

“Relax, Rigon,” his mother said. “She’ll be all right.”

“Dad’s going?”

“Of course. There’s more. It was Cliff.”

“That fucking traitor.”

“He claims to have ghosted Jonen and given him to the Rogues.”

Rigon lurched forward, the tracks tearing up the carpet. He bolted through the open doorway and into the darkness toward an old pasture nearby. His mother ran after him. Rigon shouldn’t be thinking of doing this, but he had cyber resources even though his body was in repair.

If Cliff Nable is still alive ... please let him be alive so I can run him over and over and over.

The idea they’d saved enough of his older brother all this time to ghost him, and they hadn’t told him or his mother, was too much. Rigon tried not to fume, but he gripped the chair’s armrests so hard the mesh ripped into his skin. He let his HUD bounce in front of him as he commanded his chair toward the LZ waypoint.

Like everyone in his family he’d assumed Jonen was gone for good. All the tragedy, loss, and sadness contained in two words:
Real Death
. He hadn’t seen his brother since he was a young boy. Simone had never known him. His mother had stopped talking about him years ago. His father ... had suffered alone. Jonen’s death was the impetus that had pushed Rigon’s father away. He had hated Jonen for a time after he’d died, but that hadn’t lasted, and the old love returned. Now, Rigon was ready, like his mother, for war.

* * *

The house had come down around Simone. She lay in rubble. She shut her eyes and drifted off to let her mind rest. Her father had told her to wait, but she couldn’t relax forever. She was able to look around, but whatever invisible binds kept her inside the machine, also kept her from communicating with it.

She saw movement in the rubble and the familiar glow.

“Dad?”

She couldn’t turn the drone’s head, but she could see Jonen’s glowing sandaled feet in her periphery. She feared he might be there to harm her. He moved closer and used his energy to push more rubble away. The sparks that flew blinded her. “You’re stuck.”

“Thanks,” she tried to say. Nothing came out.

“I’ve been where you are. Believe me. It’s not fun.” He bent down in front of her. “Dad messed them up with his attack.” He smiled. “I have a few minutes before the drones are back online to lasso me in.” He reached forward, as if he might adjust something on her drone. “Here, this’ll feel better.” She sensed his touch, the systems in her drone firing. It was as if all he did was flip a switch.
Power.
“I don’t have much time, so I can only give you control. It would take too much time for me to free you. You’ll have to wait for Dad to get you out. I suggest you run away until he comes back.”