System Seven (46 page)

Help
.
Someone help, please
. The
plea echoed in his head, as weak as his body. To keep his lungs pumping air was
all he could do. A pulsing pressure in his ears grew into a baritone thump that
grew louder. He recognized it finally, the chop of a Bell Huey. As fast as it
came, it faded.

Help.

The city swung into
view as the craft angled and lashed around to a new bearing. Abruptly the
current stopped flowing and he slid off the craft into free fall. He glimpsed
the AG ship, no longer black but a grayish-silver, also dropping from the sky.
Not far off, a fiery ball that had been a helicopter lit the night. Memory of
the stunning current ran through his bones. Wind whipped his weakened arms and
legs. Darkness and water loomed below.

Come on...
rathad was fuzzy and indistinct. He struggled to focus. A sense of
bràthair returned in fragments of thought. He recognized urgency and intention.

Come on!
He forced meta outward until it flowed once more into the grid. Warm
and fluid, it filled every sense, returning control. He pressed intention and
slowed to a stop. The bràthair wanted him to flee, which was perfectly fine but
he didn’t know which way to go. In the darkness, miles from the coast with only
starlight to guide him, the only place that seemed safe was down, to the water,
away from the flying ships.

No.
Johan resonated clearly in his mind.

“Where did you go?” he
shouted. “What happened?”

An intrusion. You need to get to the downed
craft.

“No way. It’s headed
for the bottom of the ocean.”

No. Move quickly.
A strong notion of direction rose.
This way, move!

“God damn it.” Again,
following not leading. He took off in that direction. “What happened to it?”

Gunner in the Huey fired a beam weapon to
scramble the magnetics of the drive. It will reset itself in just a minute. You
need to get to it before they do.

“I’m not going
underwater. And there’s at least two more ships.”

People died to save you and get a chance at
this. You won’t need to go underwater. Slow down. Head to the right
. With nudges and words, Johan guided him to
the ocean’s surface. Just visible under the water was the grayish-silver disc.

You need to raise it up and pop the door.

Before he could ask
how, Johan interrupted.
Raise it up, now!

Hovering just over the
water, he reached out and felt the grid, felt the ship’s weight. It wasn’t
nearly as heavy as he’d imagined–

Its drive restarted. Hurry!

–it was the water that
was heavy, not the ship. Intense focus further drained him but the craft rose,
water streaming away from the hull. The drive had restarted and the ship was
hovering in neutral. He landed on it.

“Where’s the door?”

Feel for it.

“Nobody has ever been
in one?”

Not Korda. It has a pilot, they know that much.
Hurry!

He crawled over the
ship and found a seam near the edges. Tugging hard did nothing except give him
time to wonder if the pilot might still be alive. He imagined cracking open a
hatch and being shot in the face. He stopped pulling and scanned for life
instead.

Nothing at first, then
a tiny bump of something. The faintest sense of meta, subtle to the point of feeling
alien. Passive, he waited, hoping to feel something he could latch onto and
explore.

What are you doing?

“Seeing if the pilot
is alive.”

He isn’t.

“Well something in
there is.”

No time! Force it open. If he’s still alive,
deal with him.

“Quiet.”

Carefully, he extended
to the soft meta. It remained elusive, ghost-like. The further he extended, the
less he felt of it – and the more he felt he was being scanned in return.

Hurry, Austin!

He placed his face
close to the hull. Something knew he was there. He formed and released a
resonance message that suggested he was peaceful and wanted to come in.

Nothing came back. He
sent it again.

No return.

The pilot has to be dead. Come on, damn you!

A moment later, a hiss
sounded and a portion of the ship slid away. A dim light and an awful stench
escaped. He peered in.

A man strapped to one
of two command chairs sat with his head to one side. Laying around the cramped
interior were food containers, bags, and other belongings flung about when the
gravity field failed. The stench was that of death, something he had never
smelled before.

In, go in. Get the body out. Move!

He climbed in and set
about freeing the body from its harness. A small remote was clipped to the
man’s belt, which he pocketed. With an effort, he lifted the body free and sent
it flying out the hatch into the ocean.

“Gah!” He searched a bag and found a shirt to wipe
the chair where the man had died. It, too, went out the hatch.

For fuck’s sake, Austin, check the controls or
get out.

“Will you relax? It
smells like shit in here.”

Four choppers down and two craft heading this
way. It’s your ass.

He slid into the
command chair. The dim meta remained. Resonance had worked before so he tried
again.

In response, the hatch
slid shut.

Did you do that?

“Sort of.”

Who are you in contact with?

“I have no idea.”

Look around, is there room for someone?

“Not unless they’re
flat under the floor or stuffed in some side panel. There’s a bunk bed,
otherwise it’s tight.”

Three displays above
the chair lay flat up against the ceiling. The tip of a control grip was
recessed in the chair in between his legs. The best he could do was resonate a
request to go into ‘active flight mode’.

It was enough. The
screens swung down and the control stick rose up. A dial also rose from the
chair’s arm. With the response came a brush of meta, an unintentional bulbous
protrusion related to identity. Not a name but an essence, one that flowed like
liquid green glass.

He didn’t think about
it – he simply reached for the essence and attempted to merge with it. The next
instant found him in regret.

Flattened and thinned
to an intolerably minute thread, he held onto the last of his own identity like
a breathing straw. Information appeared, shifted, merged, and slipped away, its
ebb and flow in synch with the world outside. Whatever it was, it had only a
small amount of meta flowing through its core but it carried an immense volume
of data. Its rathad was highly defined and focused on what felt like a million
things at once. Everything was state and properties, down to the molecular
level. He barely remembered to breathe.

A complex weave of
variables appeared; felt, sensed, but not all understood. Its connections were
made of energy, akin to thoughts, the variables themselves suggesting values
too alien to comprehend. It was scanning him so deep it felt it might scrub him
into nothing.

In the next moment,
the screens filled with graphics depicting status and sensors. Two craft had
just arrived. A resonance message struck him with a force so powerful he jolted
in the chair.

What happened?!

Memories that couldn’t
have been suddenly were. He rose and went to a panel and removed its thumbscrews.
Inside, rows of plastic-covered modules filled a chassis. He scanned the labels
until he found one in particular and pulled it free. On another module he
pushed and held a small button.

What the hell Austin?

“Remote access
disabled.” He returned to the command chair. One of the screens showed a menu
indicating new user set up. He initiated the voice recognition option and spoke
a sentence aloud.

A male voice replied,
“
Pattern identification
recorded. Voice recognition active for new user.
”

He thumbed a switch on
the control grip. The background of the displays became the front window of the
ship, shown in infrared and augmented with an artificial horizon and grid
lines.

What did you just do?

“Made a friend, I
think.”

He turned the dial
until the two craft were out of his path, then slid it forward and racked the
stick to the side. The horizon spun and the two craft fell far behind.

It felt as if he’d
been flying the ship for years.

• • •

AGT-3 rose from the
ocean and shot south, spinning on its axis like a corkscrew before leveling
out. Radio calls were ignored.

Director Tomov ordered
the other two AGTs to pursue. Both remote control and self-destruct commands
failed to reach the rogue ship. Flight telemetry still flowed, allowing CoreOps
to track its movement. A new user was at the controls, a fact that made him
sick to his stomach. The skill with which the craft was being flown suggested an
inside job. It also meant the ship’s offensive elements could be used against
them.

The craft shot past
the island of Okinawa headed for Taiwan.

“Sir, AGTs six and
seven are set for intercept. They are requesting permission to take out three.”

“Only on my mark. We
won’t have a damned Roswell in Hong Kong.”

On screen, two
additional units scrambled from northeastern China and India. The ships’ speeds
and maneuvering ruled out use of satellite beam weapons. It would have to be a
dogfight.

The director blinked
at the screen. The designator for AGT-3 had disappeared.

“What just happened?
Did we get him?”

“No sir. Telemetry
just failed. Last track was 100 klicks south of Taiwan. No visuals from two or
five. It’s gone.”

The gold dots on his
panel felt like tiny nukes about to blast him to oblivion.

We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true
selves, to one another,

and to the spiritual and material world -- mad, even, from an
ideal standpoint

we can glimpse but not adopt.
- R.D. Laing, 1927-1989, British Psychiatrist

In the half-light of
the woods, gnarled trunks rose alongside young trees from a bed of greenery.
Cries of wild birds carried on the winds through the woods. Johan walked with
the boy along a dirt path smoothed by time. A sky wrapped in the gray of winter
peeked between gaps in the canopy overhead.

Johan answered Ryota’s
unasked question. “Almost there now. Really close.”

The korjé had found
the approach to the train and had pressed it. A burst of collaboration with
Cathbad’s thugs had allowed him to escape with the boy. Saoghal was starting to
feel far smaller than he ever thought possible.

The path turned to
skirt a tremendous redwood and ascended into heavier shade. The wind lessened
but the air grew colder and damp. He took Ryota’s hand and led him from the
path to the base of a knotty and ancient-looking tree. Pressing the center of a
knot split the trunk open to reveal a rough doorway. It swung open to expose a
set of stairs that wound down and away. Candles tied with a looped string hung
just inside.

“Take one, Ryota.”

The boy stepped
through the doorway and lifted a candle free. Its wick glowed orange before
raising a soft flame.

He squatted in front
of the opening and held the boy’s hand. “Follow the stairs. Light the other
candles you find and be careful. You must not come back up the stairs, no
matter what. I will come for you when it’s safe, okay?”

“Do you work with my
grandpa?”

“Sort of, yes.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s okay, yes, but
he left on a journey, a lot like ours. He misses you and loves you very much.”

Ryota looked down the
stairwell and then back. “Do I have to hide for a long time?”

He squeezed his hand
gently. “I’m not sure but probably not long. Don’t worry, you will be okay.
Hurry, now. I’ve much to do in a short time.”

Fear passed from the
boy just before he began down the stairs. He was a brave little soul being
pushed near his limits.

Johan closed the
hidden door and turned to listen. A gust of unexpected cold air blew in as a
chilling reminder of the effects outside forces were having on his protected
world. Given reason to research, experiment, and push their limits, the korjé
hunted now with greater intelligence, combining their experience. Their raid on
the train had nearly succeeded, a sign of their progress. Triggers set up all
around this dream space should keep him apprised of threats as long as they
weren’t detected first.

The forest faded and
was replaced by the inky wash of Saoghal. He went to Cathbad and found the
druid desperate for his attention. Cathbad drew him into a simple living room
at night, lamp-lit with shades drawn in privacy. Subtle emotional detail woven
into the fabric of the dream induced feelings of familiarity and of trust. A
neat trick.

Only the druid leader
wasn’t pleased.

“This
won’t
do. Either be more open to me or–”

Johan threw up his
hands. “They’re getting close, playing smarter. I’m trying to keep you from
danger. You know about the ship?”

“Yes, but do you know
what you’re doing? Really know?”

“I’m learning as I go
and you know it. But yes, I know what I learned.”

“And if they learned
it, too?”

Johan sighed. “I
didn’t have much of a choice. Whether or not you planned for this, I still have
to survive. Raising the stakes, exploring what’s possible... I’d say that’s
just part of the damn game at this point.”

“This
isn’t
a game. What you’re doing is
dangerous.”

“Saoghal was already
dangerous, just like Raon. I’m not going to play by anyone’s rules, especially
if it means limiting my defenses. You, them, and God are going to just have to
deal with it. Now, about the ship? And whatever Austin’s in contact with? It
has to be the Mu, right?”

Cathbad nodded. “The
ship, yes. It’s possible the Mu have acted on our behalf but I find it hard to
believe. In any case, we need time to study it and Austin’s contact. Tell him we’ll
soon have a place for him to bring the ship. It may be a game changer but right
now there are other challenges.”

“Like what?”

“We leaked more to the
Americans, enough to give them reason to want to investigate the tower at
Ichigaya. Unfortunately the Comannda are not taking chances.” Burning remnants
of another downed military helicopter stole the moment, a recent memory.

The vision challenged
Johan. “The nuke is
built into
the
tower? That’s simply fantastic. How can they
not
set it off now? If it’s found it would reveal conspiracy.”

Understanding came,
delivered by Cathbad in a rising flow.

The blast would
destroy a large portion of central Tokyo. To the world it would appear a
terrorist act. The few who knew better would support the lie out of necessity,
helping the cover up to protect against future retaliation. Those that didn’t
would be silenced by their own ranks. Such was the Comannda’s effect, as it had
been for centuries. Contingencies within contingencies for every possible
situation – and always potent leverage to force outcomes.

Johan suppressed a
shudder and stared into the darkness beyond the living room. Millions of lives
at risk. Every possible action he could imagine threatened either himself or
the Runa Korda. He looked back at Cathbad, into eyes that understood
helplessness despite possessing unusual power.

“What
can
I do?”

“Nothing yet. We need
time to locate other bombs. The Confrere are helping with that. Soldado is
using Booty to study Commanda network protocols and learning how to move
around. He may be our best hope.”

“And what about Anki?
Prophecy says she’ll help us.”

Cathbad took up a
chair, fatigued even in the dream. “Yes. Yes there is that.” He weighed the
moment and came to a decision. “To understand the prophecy, you must know
more.”

He related Clare’s
story, of her gifts, and of her passing in the San Francisco quake.

“When Clare died in
1906, we had begun to better understand the droichid. In one of the first ever
successful attempts, Clare was embedded within a volunteer, Macy. A rough
experience for both at first. They learned to cope, though, and spent the next
forty years joined.”

“Forty years? Why so
long?” Johan asked.

“Research was slow.
The Comannda hunted us. Scatterings interrupted progress.”

“Scatterings?”

“Druid hunts. It
requires changing one’s psychic imprint to break the family’s links in case
someone is captured. Homes abandoned, identities changed. Regathering occurs
over time, though some never rejoin. In the early 1900’s, we experienced no
less than five family scatterings. By the time Macy grew old, we’d made
progress with droichid. A suicidal woman was found, about to kill her newborn
and herself. We intervened.”

“The seed in Pons’
dream, 1942. You bumped the child for its body?”

“I know, playing God.
In this case it was for prophecy. Without Clare, it cannot be fulfilled. She
was raised in an orphanage outside the Runa Korda for her safety. A perfect
child, as you may imagine. Loved her new body and family and made everyone
around her happy.”

“Of course. A second
chance at life, knowing what she knew before.”

“All the while
monitored closely. In her twenties, Clare grew close to one of her monitors,
Steffan, the one who had transplanted her into her new body.”

“So Steffan fathered Anki?”

“Yes. No one knew he’d
been targeted for investigation by the Comannda. A high ranked G1 agent had
enough to bring Steffan offline for interrogation. Instead she kept the
findings to herself.”

Johan sat on the arm
of a couch. “She? Why?”

“In favor of
developing a relationship with him. She’d become emotionally and physically
obsessed, both bad marks for one of her standing. Steffan was aware of her
obsession but not of her affiliation; he thought her a harmless Natural and a
sensual one at that.”

“He failed to scan her
then. He didn’t go deep enough.”

“A mistake he keenly
regrets. In his defense, it was his first encounter with a G1 level agent. He’d
kept a proper psychic distance due any Natural, but she was more than that.
Once the G1 learned of Clare and their new baby, her response was to try to
knock Clare to Gwynvyd and take over her body. A devious and not uncommon act
for lesser Comannda. Steffan caught the attempt and a struggle ensued.

“The G1 knocked Clare
free and took over her body. Steffan managed to tether Clare’s core while he
fought off the intruder’s attack. He tried not to harm the body and sent a call
for help. Unfortunately, his wounds were severe. When he thought he might not
make it, he force-bonded Clare’s core to Anki, a move the G1 didn’t recognize.

“Good lord. So Anki’s
mother is still within her?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know this?”

“Until recently she
did not.”

“Hell. What a head
trip. You asked her not to tell me?”

“I did. She is our
most important link to a future we need.”

“So where did the
agent go? And what happened to Steffan?”

“The G1 escaped in
Clare’s body and took Anki with her. Steffan was near death. He’d been ravaged
and bled out from knife wounds. We were able to preserve him, you might say.”
He described the technology used in the tanks at Cullstone. “The G1 was in dire
straits. She had already broken enough rules to earn death if discovered so her
next step was puzzling. She discarded Clare’s body and struck a deal with a
prisoner, a woman. She gave her a new life with the baby.”

“Why not just destroy
both? I mean, they were the evidence.”

“I don’t believe she
had intended to kill Steffan. We shielded him upon finding him, so perhaps she
thought he’d died. Protecting his daughter was the only gesture left. Or maybe
she realized he’d been saved and wanted to use her as leverage. Knowing her
motivations for hiding Anki is important.”

“Because she might
have a soft spot.”

Cathbad nodded. “And
not a small one.”

Johan paced the room.
“What happened later to Margaret, the surrogate mother? Why was she killed?”

“I don’t know. It’s
possible she had second thoughts about their deal. Or maybe it was the agent’s
way of setting Anki completely free. After Margaret’s death, Steffan managed to
re-establish linkage with Clare and Anki. She had been left to the system as an
orphan, all ties to the Comannda severed.”

“If you love
something, set it free?”

“Perhaps. We’ve been
guarding them over the years, right up to the morning you knocked on her door. We
agreed early on for Clare to remain hidden from Anki until the Words proved
true. That time is now. Soon Steffan will help her emerge.”

“What will that mean
for Anki?”

“She’ll work alongside
her mother, at least for a time. We’ll work on separation when it becomes
appropriate.”

“And her kidnapper?
Where is she now?”

“Names used then mean
nothing now. She was a G1 agent, of the inner sanctum, and still exists
corporeally. All indications are that she was promoted into the Council. I’m
betting she was, anyway.”

• • •

A kilometer under the
sands of the Saudi Arabian desert, a bullet train arrived at Ring One via the
Jeddah line. It emerged from one of four tunnels and slowed to a crawl as
robotics scanned and sprayed the exterior of the train. Troops boarded at the
head and tail of the train and swept towards the center.

Bastion sat, hands
folded in his lap, and waited with his guards as the gate troops processed them
with their scanners. The twenty minute ride from the western port city of
Jeddah had allowed him time to rebalance his energies and feed on a dish of
local Kabsa. The loss of the ATG was more unsettling than anything he’d
experienced. The effort to achieve equipoise proved considerable but infinitely
necessary. The Council was due to meet to decide on the events unfolding. For
that he needed to be as in control as possible.

The troops finished
their sweep and disembarked. The iris doors for the next segment opened and the
train accelerated towards the Core.

He keyed his comm.
“Update.”

“AGT craft have been
unable to locate unit three. A fifth American helicopter with scanning gear had
to be removed as it neared Ichigaya’s tower. Command chain analysis is
underway. We expect control and recall of all aerial scanners shortly.”

He took the news of
Ichigaya carefully, resisting the instinct to rage. Someone on the inside was
aiding the Korda – it was time to find out who.