Paradigm (33 page)

“Have you ever noticed how many little bands of would-be rebels are lurking around the countryside, Sam?

“I don’t know what you—”

“Every one with its own conspiracy theories, it’s own ideas about how they’ll get everyone to rise up and fight…Hermes, me, whatever. No? Well, I have, and I make it my business to know theirs. No matter how united they think they are, there’s always someone who’s unhappy, resentful, bitter. Someone willing to do whatever it takes so that
they
can be in charge. Is this starting to ring any bells?”

“Maybe.”

“I heard that you’d spent a bit of time with one. An annoying little group in San Francisco City led by one of Matheson’s clones.”

“What if I did? I wasn’t there for long enough to—”

There was a sharp rap on the door and Setzen walked in. He was holding someone’s hand. It was a very small hand. Sam’s heart sank.

“Sam!”

She ran to him, jumped into his lap, and flung her arms around his neck.

“I missed you! They said you were here. They said I’d see you and that I could have my own room.”

Sam hugged her tight.

“I missed you, too, Bethany.”

Chapter 35

“S
ee, Sam?” crowed Nathan
. “I told you her back-up plans had back-up plans.”

“Do we understand each other?” asked Bast, softly.

Sam nodded.

She lifted Bethany from his lap and handed her to Setzen.

“Sam will come up to see you later, dear,” she said. “But we have a little bit of business to take care of first.”

“Okay. Can I have some more cake?”

“Of course you can. Take care of it, Setzen.”

“What am I, a nursemaid?”

Bast shot him a glare and he stomped out.

“Gently!” she shouted. “You’ll frighten the child!”

The door clicked shut.

“What are you going to do with her?” asked Sam.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said Bast. “If you do as you’re told, she might live. If you refuse, she will most definitely die. And believe me when I tell you, she will die slowly, painfully, alone and very, very afraid.”

Sam stared at her. It was over and they both knew it.

“You see, Sam,” she said, her voice almost gentle. “You should never allow yourself to get attached. Once you start caring about people, you expose yourself to defeat. Keep your heart hard and your counsel close. That is the key to success.”

“But not life.”

“What?”

“Because it’s true, isn’t it?” Sam suddenly felt calm. It was okay. It was all okay. “’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s from a poem I read. I remembered it because it didn’t make any sense. But it does now.”

“Open the box.”

Sam glanced at the Paradigm Device and it immediately clicked open. He wanted her to know how easy it was. That it was nothing.

The thing that had been Nathan practically squeaked with glee and hurried over with a small table that he placed at Sam’s elbow.

“It’s very quick,” he said. “And it shouldn’t hurt. It’s what you were made for.”

Bast placed the box on the table, opened the lid and removed a long cable.

She needn’t have bothered. The effect was immediate and began as soon as the interior of the box was exposed. Sam’s head shot forward and then violently back against the chair as if he was in a car that had suddenly stopped. He gasped and watched as the room slowly faded from view.

“It doesn’t need the cable!” said Nathan, exultantly, his voice sounding very far away.

“Is it working?” Bast was peering into his face.

Sam struggled to hold on. And then suddenly he understood. The box wasn’t the Paradigm Device, it wasn’t even an interface, it was just a switch. It was him.
He
was the Paradigm Device. The locule was both a safe haven for the plex and a window. A tiny opening to the place where Mutha lived—to hyperspace. That was how it got in, and why the unprepared shells couldn’t hold.

He closed his eyes. The sensation of being in two places at once was too confusing and this wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d expected it to be quick, like turning off a light. One moment he would be him; and the next he would be gone. Like a house with a new owner. But it wasn’t like that.

It was like a virus. Like the toxin from the fish. Only this time it wasn’t coursing through his body, but insinuating itself into his head—an actual organic
thing
. And he couldn’t just surrender. Not now that it came to it. He couldn’t give up. Because the part of him that was human, the part of him that was his mom and his dad and all the long line of men and women who had preceded them, would not let this
thing
just win.

It was there and it was trying to spread. Threads, tentacles, feeling their way through his neurons, wrapping themselves around everything that made him Sam. Not Samuel. Not some acronym. A name. A real name. Sam. A guy. A person. That Sam.

Then, just as he realized how it was coiling itself into him, there was a sensation of falling, of slipping away. This was it.

This was the moment.

He could just go.

Cease to exist.

Leave the earth and everyone on it to their own devices. That’s what Drake was going to do when his time came. That’s what lots of people did—give up on the future.

He’d always hated that. It had seemed so selfish, so spineless. So easy.

Had he really become that? He thought of Alma. She’d had more reason than most to just give up, crawl away and wait for the end. But she fought. She always fought. Sam remembered the way she’d looked the first time he’d seen her, taking on three men unarmed, because it “made it more interesting.”

Maybe there was no way of defeating this thing, but now, thinking of Alma, he knew he wanted to fight. He had to fight. She might be gone, but he could still try to be worthy of her. Somewhere there was blue sky and stars and he wanted to see them. He was going to see them. He was not going to give up.

He gritted his teeth and pushed back. And that was when he realized—it was in him, but he was also in it. The hyperspatial opening was right there. He could do to Mutha, to the great plex, what it was doing to him. Alma had been right. He was more than human. Not less. Not just a receptacle, a machine, a jar for something else to live in.

He looked at it. Right at it. This malevolent tangle of shit, and he tore the entwining knots of Mutha’s matrices away. First just one at a time, then more and more. It was like clearing an invasive vine, ripping away every last strand, every root, every branch, every tiny element that might harbor the power of re-growth.

And then the room started to come back. But he wasn’t in the chair. He was on the balcony, on his knees, throwing up. He stood up and steadied himself against the balustrade. He was drenched in sweat. There were voices behind him. Urgent voices. Below was the GTO, gleaming in the late afternoon light. There was Bakersfield City, a blackened ruin. Soldiers, trucks, jeeps, frightened people. A truck pulled up behind the goat. Two people got out.

“Did it work?”

That was Bast. He wondered what to do. Nathan, the thing in Nathan, would know that it hadn’t. He turned around slowly. Nathan was trying to speak, but the shell was breaking down too fast now. His tongue was swollen in his mouth, blood frothing at the corners, and the eyes had become cloudy and dead.

Sam smiled. Bast knew the personality of Mutha. She’d        experimented with enough of her men. Now Sam had to be that. Be what Nathan had been.

“Did it work?” she repeated.

“Of course it did,” said Sam, walking back into the room.

Nathan staggered towards him, one arm extended, then tottered and fell forward. Instinctively, Sam caught him and gently lowered him to the floor. The clouded eyes could no longer see, but the battered face seemed different now. Sam tried to maintain his new persona and keep the tears from his eyes as Nathan’s swollen mouth struggled to form a word.

“Lake,” he said, his voice almost inaudible. “Please…”

Sam felt the life shudder out of the broken body. He wanted to kill her. To tear her apart. How could anyone…
anyone
do this to a fellow creature? But he knew he wouldn’t make it two steps across the room, so he just fastened on his best sociopathic smile again and looked up.

“Perfect timing.”

He stood up, glancing around the room to see if there were any muthascreens or ports, and was relieved to see that there was nothing. Bast walked over to him and examined his face closely. He pushed the hair out of his eyes and stared back, exuding what he hoped was just the right amount of confidence and insolence.

“Why did you catch him?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t I? It was a good shell.”

She stared hard, then turned on her heel and flung open the door.

“Haggar! Dryden! Let’s get the partygoers back in here.” She turned and looked at Sam. “Why don’t we play a game?”

Sam shrugged and slouched over to the desk.

“Is there anything to drink?”

“Cupboard on the right. Under the desk.”

Sam helped himself to a bottle of whiskey and a single glass and tried to think. If she was going to ask him to torture the mayor, there was a problem. He needed something that would be totally out of character for the Sam she knew, but still within the bounds of how far he was prepared to go.

He looked at the bottle and guessed this was probably some of that special sipping whiskey Bast made such a big deal of, so he poured himself a big glass, sat on the desk and gulped some down. She glared at him, and got herself a glass. He raised the bottle to pour but she snatched it from his hand.

“No thanks,” she said. “I’ve had enough of your bartending skills.”

She sipped slowly as the terrified great and good of Bakersfield City were herded back into the room. Haggar dumped the mayor into the chair.

“Sorry, Commander,” he said. “I think he’s dead.”

Bast put down her glass and examined the mayor.

“Must’ve been a heart attack,” she muttered. “There’s no telling with some people. They can look as strong as an ox, but fold at the first hurdle. Alright, boys, you can go.”

“It wasn’t really the first, though, was it?” said Sam, trying to conceal his relief.

“No, and I did get the information I wanted about five hours ago, so I shouldn’t really complain. It’s just so hard to stop when you’re having fun.”

Sam wanted to be sick, but he smiled, picked up his glass and took another swig, then stood up and wandered over to the cluster of people, strolling between them, looking each up and down.

“What are we going to do with these?”

“I’m not sure yet. I need to find out if I can work with any of them.”

Sam coiled his arms around the necks of two of the women, kissing one and sniffing at the other in what he really hoped was a truly obnoxious manner. Both women were trembling with fear, one was actually whimpering and the other tried to respond to him, apparently in some desperate belief that it might save her life. Sam had never felt worse.

“I say we kill the men and have some fun.”

“Typical,” snarled Bast. “And where’s the fun for me?”

“Is it typical?” asked Sam, feigning surprise. “It’s new, you see. A healthy body. With everything in full working order. I really want to take it for a test drive. Please? You can play with the ones I don’t like. Or that get…you know…used up.”

One of the elderly women shrieked and fainted. Sam glanced at her and grimaced.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I don’t think I would’ve wanted that one.”

Carolyn Bast walked across the room to him and smiled, caressing his face.

“You are absolutely appalling,” she cooed. “But let me show you what real fun looks like.”

Sam tensed. The woman he’d been kissing looked up at him, her eyes wide as she realized he was faking. He kissed her again. He couldn’t let her speak.

Bast turned away.

“Setzen! Would you come in here, please?”

Setzen stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Yes, Commander?”

“Did you give the girl her cake?”

“Yes…Commander.” His tone was low and resentful.

“Setzen, I’d like you to meet Mutha.”

“What? It worked?”

“Yes. As you can see, the great plex is a little…overexcited at the moment.”

Sam looked up and grinned at the old fighter.

“Congratulations, Commander, that’s really—”

“Yes, well, that’s not why I called you in. Sam…I think I’ll still have to call you Sam, unless you’d prefer something else?”

“Sam is fine.”

“Sam wants to have some fun. As you can see, the mayor has expired, so that rather limits his options at the moment. I wanted to show him what real fun is like.”

Setzen didn’t say anything, but Sam noticed that he glanced at the door, just for a second. Bast didn’t seem to have noticed, but Sam was sure she had.

“Setzen’s been with me for years, Sam. He knows all my little peccadilloes, don’t you, dear?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“I arranged for most of his upgrades. The eye, the hand, the…other things. I did that because I believe in rewarding loyalty. It’s very important to me.”

She had been walking toward Setzen as she spoke and was now standing right behind him. Sam had a very bad feeling.

“I won’t tolerate mistakes, will I, Setzen?”

“No, Commander.” His voice had changed. Where there had been resentment there was now resignation.

“And I certainly won’t brook betrayal. It was a shame about Dustin. You pointed me in that direction. You should have known better. And did you really think this little tin-pot tyrant of a mayor wouldn’t talk?”

Setzen opened his mouth to speak, but Bast had already moved. Her hand was like quicksilver, smooth and fast. Sam didn’t even see the knife, just the spreading ribbon of red as she slit her right-hand man’s throat from ear to ear. She stepped back as the gash spewed red and he fell forward, the blood pumping out of his body as he sputtered and seized on the floor and then was suddenly still.

She had managed the whole thing without getting a single drop of blood on herself.

This time it was one of the men who fainted.

“Oh, god,” muttered Sam.

The woman he had kissed pushed her cheek against his.

“Hold on,” she whispered.

Sam looked at her, then turned his face to Carolyn Bast, trying the same leer he’d seen on Setzen’s face when he’d put his arm around Alma. He let go of the women, then strode across the room, stepping over Setzen’s corpse as if it was a wrinkle in the carpet, and gently took the knife from her hand. He looked first at the still-dripping blade, then at the frightened people on the other side of the room.