Supersymmetry (26 page)

The varcolac was living in Ryan's mind. He felt energized, a vitality of thought and will that he could only attribute to the alien presence. Mostly, he felt a sense of triumph and vindication. It was all true! The stories he had dreamed as a child, the idea that he was destined for something more, something greater. That his intelligence was not of the same kind as the people around him. He had always suspected, but now he knew it for certain. He was a creature of mind, not of flesh and blood, now reunited with his own kind. He was a varcolac.

It knew him completely. Not only that, but he, Ryan, knew the varcolac. He saw—if not fully grasped—its understanding of the universe, from the tiniest ambiguities of particle and wave to the vast sweeps of gravity that formed the contours of space-time. He sensed its confusion with the individual, the distinct, the time- and space-bound creatures that were human beings.

It could not have melded with just any human mind. Ryan was certain it was his mind, and his alone, that was precise and analytical enough to be an adequate host. Even so, Ryan could sense the varcolac's distaste with him, almost a moral judgment. A holy vessel defiled. He was a too-complex equation, a million variables where one would do. The varcolac's goal was not so much to destroy, as to unify. To simplify the equation, driving away inefficiency and inelegance.

Yes! He could see it all so clearly now. Ryan could have crowed with the beauty of the varcolac's vision. Human interaction was slow and imprecise, prone to error and misunderstanding. As an interface, it was terrible. Data was passed through conversation and body language and—worse—social cues and norms. Words carried ambiguous meanings and were rife with redundancy. Multiple languages, not easily translated, evolved from place to place and generation to generation.

And there were so many people! What was the point of it all? Ryan had heard so much nonsense about what human beings could do when they worked together, but really, they worked together so
poorly
. The varcolac had it right. And it wasn't until it had merged with Ryan's mind that the varcolac realized just how many people there really were. It was only beginning to comprehend how packets of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen could think or interact at all. There didn't seem to be enough data passed to achieve the complexity of anything like intelligence. It had previously recognized as human only those individuals who had interacted with Higgs particles in productive ways—Brian Vanderhall, Jean Massey, Jacob Kelley, Alex, Sandra, and Ryan himself. Now it knew better. There were billions. And the varcolac was appalled.

And in that moment, Ryan knew what the varcolac was. It was the last of its kind, but at the same time, it was all of its kind. Its people had consolidated their minds for the greater good, first in pairs, then in communities, then ultimately in a single creature of incredible intellect and power. Those early individuals had been barely sentient, but merged, they were aware, omnipotent, indestructible. In the varcolac's mind, consolidation was the greatest moral good. The elimination of waste. The alliance of disorganized and unproductive parts into one glorious, unified equation. There was only one varcolac,
could
be only one varcolac. It was, by definition, one.

Humanity was conflicted, disorganized, fractured, a staggering waste of resources. Now that it knew just how bad things were, the varcolac could see the enormity of the task it had before it. To combine, to merge. To make for itself a companion intellect, equal in perception and understanding. The varcolac would make humanity what it should be. And it wanted Ryan to be the first. All other minds would be shaped around his. They would be consolidated into his own. And he, Ryan Oronzi—a greater Ryan than he was now—would soar through the dimensions of space and time, bodiless and eternal.

Ryan laughed. If he told anyone this, they would mock him or refer him to a psychiatrist. But he knew it was possible. The varcolac itself was proof of that.

That didn't stop him from a moment of sheer terror when the woman in the orange jumpsuit suddenly teleported into his lab.

“You bastard,” she said. “I should kill you where you sit.”

He wheeled his chair backward, away from her, but there was nowhere to go. “Who are you?” he said. “How did you get here?”

She gave him a withering stare. “Don't give me that,” she said. “Don't you dare pretend you don't know me.”

He stared at her. It wasn't fair. He had forgotten her long ago, had promised himself never to think of her. She couldn't be here. She was gone forever. “I don't know you,” he insisted. Even to himself, it sounded feeble.

“You pathetic little child,” she said. “What's my name? Say it!”

It came out of his mouth against his will. “Jean . . . Massey.”

And it all came flooding back, filling his mouth with acid and making his stomach hurt. He had to get away from her. But how could he? He could teleport, but she would just follow him. It was, after all, her technology.

She lifted her hand, and he felt the eyejack contacts tear out of his eyes and go flying across the room. “I gave you everything you needed,” she said. “All the research I did, enough to build your own Higgs projectors. I even gave you the software. Everything I had fifteen years ago and more.”

Ryan took a deep breath and calmed his panic. He was a varcolac. She couldn't hurt him. “And it worked,” he said, trying to smile but knowing it wasn't working. “You did a fantastic job. You should feel proud.”

She advanced on him. “Proud? You think? I didn't share it with you so I could
feel proud
. I shared it with you so you could get me out of prison. Like you
promised
. That was the deal. I did my part, and you didn't do yours.”

“I would have. Eventually. I was scared.” He was almost whispering now, and he felt like a weakling. “I'm not an action sort of person. I had to work up the nerve.”

She shook her head in disgust. “And here we are again. I do the work, and the world thinks you're the genius. I can't believe that for the second time in my life, I gave my best work to a man who would betray me.”

“I
am
a genius,” he said, a little strength coming back into his voice. She didn't know about the varcolac's vision, after all. She didn't know who he really was now. He was the One. He could face up to Jean Massey. “You laid the groundwork, sure,” he said. “But you didn't do it.
I
created the baby universe. Me. You think just having the idea is all it takes?”

Jean smiled like a predator. “I killed the first genius who crossed me. And I'll kill you, too.”

“No, you won't,” Ryan said. His voice came out like a squeak.

“No? You think you're better at this than I am? You think you can block me if I decide to teleport your coffee mug into your soft little chest?”

Ryan swallowed. “If you were going to do it, you would have done it already. So what do you want?” He tried to sound brave, but he wasn't at all sure it came out that way. If she did try to kill him, would the varcolac protect him? Could he get the varcolac to kill her?

“Well, you're right. I do need something. I need all of your Higgs projectors,” she said.

“All of them?” Ryan blinked. “But you already have one.” He wondered which of the twins she had killed to get it, but it didn't seem important to ask.

“I want every last projector you've created. And you're working for the military, so I know there are a lot of them.”

He was genuinely confused. “What are you going to do with them?”

Jean cocked her head. “I hardly see why you need to know. But I would have thought it would be obvious. I'm not wanted here in the United States. Any of our government's allies would turn me over to them in a heartbeat. So I'm going where my skills might still be appreciated.”

“Turkey? You're going to give all the Higgs projectors to the Turkish government?”

“I think they may be willing to pay handsomely for them. And I suspect they will be glad to put me to work for the cause. A cause I'm passionate about, by the way. Crushing the country that screwed me.”

“I'll give you what I have,” Ryan said. “But most of them aren't here. They took them to the front already. To use in the fighting.”

“There isn't any fighting.”

“There will be. In fact, from the questions they were asking me, I'm pretty sure they're planning some kind of preemptive—”

A monitor behind him shattered in a fountain of glass. “Enough chatter,” Jean said. “I can find them without you. If you want to live, then make it worth my while to keep you alive.”

“I'm doing it, I'm doing it.” Ryan crossed to a safe and entered a long series of numbers on a keypad. The safe popped open. Inside were a stack of cards kept together with a rubber band. They were the Higgs projectors he had held back for his own further research, although he had told the government people that he had surrendered all of them. In fact, this stack wasn't all he had left, either. Ryan knew the value of redundancy.

“Happy?” he said. “Now take them and leave.”

It didn't matter. She was welcome to them. All he needed was one. In fact, he wasn't even sure he needed that anymore.

Jean snatched up the stack of projectors. “What are you grinning at?” she said.

“You can't hurt me,” Ryan said. “I'll be alive long after you and your kind are gone.”

“My kind?” She stared at him as if he was insane, but then her face cleared. She chuckled softly. “Oh, I see. It's been talking to you.”

Ryan was so astonished he didn't try to hide it.

“Been promising you things?” Jean went on. “Let me guess—it plans to consolidate all of humanity into your mind and make you eternal, bodiless, beyond pain and death. Do I have it right?” Her mocking smile collapsed into a scowl. “I've been listening to it for longer than you have.” She leaned forward, invading his space. “A lot longer.”

Kill her
, Ryan thought at the varcolac.
She's a threat. Kill her.

“It's been talking to me for years, in the prison, subtly speaking inside my head.” She leaned away again, and the mocking smile returned. “When you think about it, I have a lot more to offer than you do. I have the projectors, for one thing.” She held them up for him to see. “I'm smarter than you, more relentless, more ruthless. Less weak. Not so afraid of the world I can hardly step outside my door. You think
your
mind is a blueprint for the ultimate human? Please. I'm surprised you can tie your shoes.”

Ryan leaped up in a rage and attacked. He didn't have his eyejack interface, but he had always known this confrontation was possible. He had prepared a panic button, a literal button on his personal Higgs projector that would blow everything near him into constituent atoms and teleport him to a safe, predetermined location. He reached into his pocket and pressed the button five times in quick succession and then held it down.

Nothing happened.

Jean shook her head and gave him a patronizing smile. “I'm sorry. I took the liberty of toasting your projector the moment I stepped into the room.”

Then the worst thing of all happened. The varcolac left him.

“Goodbye, Ryan. Next time you make a deal, keep your end of the bargain.”

Ryan started to panic. It was slipping away. It was leaving with
her
, choosing her instead of him. He couldn't feel the energy and clarity of its mind anymore. He felt clumsy and slow, barely able to hold a coherent thought. It was as if his neurons were firing through molasses. At first he thought he was dying, but then he realized: this is what it's like to be human. It was his normal state. He had always thought of himself as brilliant, but now, having tasted what it was like to be a varcolac . . . it was like the crash after an amphetamine. All he could think about was how to get it back.

“Don't . . . go,” he managed.

Jean laughed and shook her head. “Oh, Ryan,” she said. “It was never about you at all.” She saluted him with his projectors and then disappeared.

Alex teleported into the High Energy Lab to see Ryan staring off into space with a grief-stricken expression on his face.

“I need two more Higgs projectors,” she said.

Ryan's eyes wandered slowly over to her. Then he started to giggle.

“What's so funny?”

Ryan waved his hands helplessly, his giggle turning into a manic laugh, though his lips were turned down, making it look more like he was crying.

Alex grabbed his arm and shook him. “Hey! Stop it. What's wrong with you?”

He got himself under control, wiping tears from his eyes. “You want Higgs projectors,” he said bitterly. “Everyone wants Higgs projectors.”

Alex studied his face. “Who else was here?” she asked.

“Well, let me see,” Ryan said. He ticked off on chubby fingers. “First off was Babington and some military guy. A colonel, I think they said. Lots of colors right here.” He patted his chest. “They wanted all my projectors. All of them! Saw the demo and said they were needed for the war effort in Europe; no time to waste.”