The Deep Link (The Ascendancy Trilogy Book 1) (20 page)

Jade lifts my head up and says something. He fumbles with
my sleeve. The sentinel crouches down to look at me. Random people rubberneck.
Someone cusses.

"She sick?" the sentinel asks.

"Hope not," Jade says. "Don't wanna get
infected or something."

The sentinel straightens back up. "We had a
contamination incident last week. A lab blew. Has she been there?"

"Don't know."

"Better be safe. Step aside, people. Move
along."

Jade stares into my eyes, mouthing my name. He touches my
neck. A tiny hiss and a prick, just under my ear. He pulls me back up.

The sentinel gives me a disgusted look, picks his scanner
up off the ground and knocks it against his palm. "Ah, fuck. Hey
Warren," he yells at a colleague. "Thing's fried again. You take
over."

His colleague aims his scanner at my head, frowns at the
display for a couple of seconds, then takes his hand back down.

"Welcome to D2, Miss... Irina Bucova."

I feel sick.

Jade starts to walk me through the gates, holding me up
around my waist. "I'll take it from here, sir."

"Whatever, Mister... Scott Mackenzie." The
second sentinel pushes Jade along. "Next."

We pass through the gate and find ourselves standing on
the sidewalk of a busy six-lane boulevard. I stumble along, dizzy and faint.

"Jade, I'm gonna throw up..."

"It's okay, just hold on to me." He rushes us
through the crowd toward a side-alley.

I buckle, fall to my knees, and retch. Jade kneels down
beside me, patting my back lightly as I convulse.

"You'll be fine, Taryn." His voice quivers.
"We made it in. Just gotta find Preston and the others. Can you
walk?"

I nod and stagger back up. We trudge through the streets,
me leaning heavily against him, step after nauseating step.

Our new HQ is small and damp, with cheap carpeting and
Spartan appliances. I collapsed on the first bed I found, and woke up hours
later with a massive headache. I can't even remember if I thanked Jade for
bringing me here safely.

I wipe the sticky hair out of my face, and sigh into the
darkness. Here I am, in Preston's rental den, in a Tick-infested colony. Light
years away from
him
. Yet I feel him closer than ever—his awareness
entangled with my own.

Has it really happened? Have we re-linked, just like that?

The memory of our encounter still burns brightly in me.
How ironic, to feel such intoxicating pleasure beneath such unavoidable enmity.

But I need to focus on the here and now, on my current
situation. I could definitely use a new synet, but that's likely impossible.
The temporary one Preston sent me almost killed me at the district gate.
Amharr's particles won't allow any technology interfering with my nervous
system.

That's why I was probably able to wreck the sentinel's
scanner. But I have no idea how I actually did it. How I fried the lock on
Costa's office door, and the military synet replacement Jade tried to implant
me with. Or how I broke through the restraining field in the med-bay back on
Spiron.

It was involuntary, each time. The common denominator
was... were... strong emotions. Fear, despair, anger...

Great
. Something I can't control drives something
else I can't control. Nice pattern. Maybe it's a gradually worsening side
effect of the link that'll eventually put me out of misery. Now that would
definitely aggravate Amharr.

I smirk at the cracked ceiling hanging over me. I wonder
what he's doing right now... How is he dealing with what's happened? Is he
affected by it like I am?

He is. I know. I feel it, like a lingering agitation in
the pit of my stomach.

In the silence weighing down on me, the distant crack of
chitin plates bursting open into flames starts haunting me again. If I could go
back in time and tell Old Me that I'll one day be responsible for the
destruction of the Master Hive and the deaths of thousands of Dorylinae, Old Me
would spit in my face. And if I told her that one day I'd be bound to an alien
warlord who gets to decide if humanity grows or withers in the shadow of a
galactic mega-culture, and all I'm doing about it is lying around dreaming of
being mindfucked, she'd kick me in the teeth. Or worse.

Through the poorly insulated door, I can hear people
chatter in the hallway, their voices increasingly agitated. I recognize
Preston's penetrating timbre. Maybe he's not so wrong to want the resistance to
re-emerge. The TMC is the biggest disease humanity's ever had. Maybe he's right
to want to fight them with any means available, even if those means are as
blunt and unstable as a union of the Confederacy's most ignoble radicals. Maybe
I should listen to Jade, and Bray, and everyone else here, and join their
fight. At least there'd be some fighting for a change.

But violence won't convince Amharr we're stable or evolved
enough to be allowed continued freedom. If we end up slaughtering each other in
the streets the survivors will be slaughtered in turn by the Ascendancy's
Containment Order.

But I can't just wait for things to escalate on their own,
which they most definitely will. This
link
is turning my nervous system
into a weapon, and I'm right in the heart of the Confederacy's most militarized
colony. I'd be stupid not to use this to my advantage.

I kick off the blanket and slip off the bed. Then dig a
jumpsuit out of a cubbyhole and don it quickly, trying to make out the
conversation going on outside.

"Well
somebody
's got to do it," Preston
yells at Bray as I come out of my room. "You want respect? Take some
responsibility. There's only one way to set up that encrypted com channel and
you're wasting everyone's time trying to talk yourself out of it."

"I can't just break into the Spoke!" Bray
shouts, dumbstruck. "There's surveillance bots everywhere. And I don't
know how to hack the grid anyway."

"Then get Vik or Franky to help you. Show some
initiative."

The door behind me shuts with a loud bang. Both men jump.
Preston's hightech glasses give him a bright, manic glare. Bray looks hunted
and distraught, his hair a mess and his eyes wide and bloodshot.

"Miss Harber." Preston nods at me. "Well
timed. You could help Bray with his assignment—you've worked with TMC com tech
before, haven't you?"

"Yes. But I'm out."

Preston looks as if I've just spoken in tongues. "You
have something better to do? Or have those alien particles eaten your brain
already?"

"Why did you
really
bring us here to San
Gabriel?" I ask. "You're here to form a resistance cell, right? To
gather manpower, weaponry... And start a revolution." When he doesn't deny
it, I continue. "San Gabriel's the second most militarized colony world in
the Confederacy, after Alpha Centauri. The people here have already lived
through a revolution half a century back. That one ended real bad, remember?
The Ticks have only multiplied since then. Another revolution's going to start
a civil war. A massacre that'll give them reason to increase funding and
upsurge their troops. You're playing right into their hands."

"Oh please." Preston waves away my concerns.
"I was studying TMC strategies when you were still crawling in bug
shit."

His attitude is starting to get on my nerves, but I manage
to stay calm. "If you start a civil war here—one you
can't
win, and
you know it—they'll use it as justification to widen their activities across all
colonies in the Confederacy. That's the last thing any of us want. And I won't
help you do it."

Preston opens his mouth, but I cut him off. "If,
however, we figure out a way to disrupt the TMC's funding process, poison their
roots with the Trust and the taxpaying colonists feeding them, we stand an
actual chance to weed them out. Over time."

Bray nods thoughtfully.

Preston curls his lip. "Feckless drivel."

"What?"

"You really think you're the first to come up with
that idea? There are hundreds of you in every generation, all as stupid as the
rest. A lot of them were better organized than we are, and certainly better
funded. Hell, a lot of them were insiders. They all failed. Didn't even leave a
mark. 'Weed them out.'" He laughs. "No, Miss Harber. We can't linger
in the darkness anymore, hoping to poison a beast that can feed on virtually
anything. We need to start a chain reaction so violent it will rip that beast
apart before it gets a chance to fight back. We need to cleave its gut open in
broad daylight." He takes a step toward me, eyes alight. "It will be
a massacre, yes. But it has to start
somewhere
. Better with us, right
here on San Gabriel. Right now."

My hands tingle, heat washing over my body. I look to
Bray, hoping for a sign that he agrees this is madness. But he's tight-lipped
and stiff. I'll find no help there.

"You're insane," I mutter. Preston raises an
eyebrow. "The aliens," I remind him. "You know what they're here
for? To evaluate us." The words tumble reluctantly past my lips. I don't want
to trust Preston with this, but he's left me no choice.

"What are you talking about?" Bray asks, the
first sound he's made in what feels like forever.

"They evaluate species on behalf of a galactic
Über-society, the size and power of which you can't even begin to
imagine."

"Really?" Preston scoffs. "And you know
this how?"

"They revealed more than they meant to," I say,
rushing back to my point. "They're studying us right now, as you suspected.
Your revolution will have us fail their test."

Bray straightens up. "What test?"

"We have two options," I continue, not wanting
to lose the tiny window of genuine attention. "If we pass, we get the
chance to become part of something greater, a galactic society that will propel
our evolution by millennia. We'll struggle to preserve our culture, yes, but
we'll survive. If we fail? We become an enemy."

"They'll attack us?" Bray asks.

"They'll send us right back to the fucking Middle
Ages."

Preston hesitates, considering. Then shakes his head.
"Nonsense."

"But you heard her," Bray growls. "The
aliens are hostile. I
told
you!"

"I don't buy it. It's cheap doomsday bilge. You're
just trying to talk yourself into inaction, like everyone I've had the
misfortune to work with." He scowls at Bray, who avoids his gaze.

"I'm telling you the truth!" I yell. "That's
what will happen."

Preston smiles. "And what exactly makes you so
certain? Got a straight line to the alien leaders?"

"No." My throat goes dry.

"No? Well if you somehow miraculously find one,"
he pauses, letting it sink in that he suspects—if not
knows
— "tell
them to stay out of our way. This is
our
fight, and if decades of
mistreatment and deficiency haven't stopped us, neither will they. Evaluation
or no."

"But—"

"If they're so superior, they ought to see reason and
help us before passing judgment. They ought to be down here fighting on our
side. Tell them
that
, if you will."

My palms itch fiercely. Bray is pale.

"Now stop wasting my time and put that alien
infection
and the rest of your skills to some use," Preston says. "They're the
only reason I've not dispensed with you yet."

It's all I can do to keep from ripping the smirk off his
face with my bare hands.

"You're still immune to energy fields?" He cocks
an eyebrow at me. "Help Bray break into the Spoke and hack the TMC com
grid." I make to answer but he cuts me off. "And in the morning
you'll go scouting surveillance towers with Miss Ferrer. From now on you
earn
your keep like everyone else. Is that clear?"

I grit my teeth. Wild images run through my mind—the
striker descending on this room, burning Preston to a crisp; Amharr's tendrils
scorching his brain; Gary's talons slicing him throat to gut; Edrissa's
mandibles crushing his skull like an egg.

"Good," he says, mistaking my silence for
surrender. He tosses Bray a final, dismissive look, and heads back to his room.

Breakfast is hot tea and crackers, which Jade fetched for
the both of us. I thank him and sit down at the small wall-table to eat, trying
to pull my thoughts together.

"How did Bray take being turned down?" Jade
asks, munching on a cracker.

"I
won't
help them hack the grid," I say,
louder than intended. Then tone back down. "I don't take orders from
Preston."

"But you'll still go scouting with Denise."

I shrug. "Just keeping him off my back." Not to
mention, knowing how many surveillance towers the Ticks have, and how well
equipped they are, can only come in handy. If I have to play along with
Preston, I might as well gather as much intel on things as I can. And find a
way to turn things around.

"I'm supposed to help Vik set up com stations for
some reactivated Syndicate sleepers." He takes a long gulp of tea,
watching me over his mug. "Don't know how Bray's gonna hack into the grid
all on his own. I can already imagine the crawlers creeping through his
nervewires to hijack his synet." He shudders demonstratively. "It'd
go much better if he had professional help. From someone who knows what the
hell they're doing..." He stares pointedly at me.

"Let's hope he's careful, then," I say dryly.
Jade sighs. "I don't like Preston's idea of a strike against the Ticks.
He's gambling with our lives, and the lives of thousands more. And you're all
just going along with this crap like a bunch of drones."

"Hey, just because we don't have other options—"

"There are always options, Jade."

"Yeah? Name one. You can take off anytime you like.
Not that easy for the rest of us."

"You think I've got it
easy
?" I snap.
"Infected with some fucking alien nerve cells that are eating my brain?
Seizures, blackouts, nightmares I can't even begin to describe? And no synet.
Real
easy
being me, Jade."

"You think you're worse off? How about being chased
through half of human space because you witnessed something you weren't
supposed to? How about being branded a terrorist because you sabotaged a
mind-reframing facility and saved a couple hundred kids from being brainwashed?
Or being hunted for a murder you didn't commit? Or mutilated 'cause your body
had something the Ticks wanted?" He shakes his head. "We're not
'drones.' We've just got nothing left to lose."

I'm suddenly very heavy in my own skin. I drop my cracker
on the plate, together with my appetite. "We all have it hard, then.
Doesn't mean Preston's our last option either."

"Ahh, fuck it," he grumbles. "Do what you
want, Taryn. Just spare me the gripe."

I push the cutlery away from me. "You know what?
Fine. I'll help you if you help me. Care to point me to someone who can
re-implant me? Anybody? I thought not."

He rolls his eyes. Then pauses. "Actually, Bray said
he met a guy who's a hacker or something. Maybe he'd do something for
you."

"Oh really? I'm sure he would," I say cynically.
"Who's this guy?"

"Crispin... something-or-other. I have his
address." He stares at
something in his virtual vision, then narrows his eyes at me. "
Calle
Squero
, twenty-seven. Other side of the river."

"Thanks," I retort. But make a mental note to
check that guy out anyway. No option, however unlikely, is worth ignoring.

Jade stands up, and grabs his backpack. I stand too.
"Hey, Jade? Why's the TMC after you?"

"Does it matter?"

"Doesn't it?"

He grabs the door handle. "Tell you another time.
Maybe. When you're actually interested in the story, and not just looking for a
flaw in my motivation." He leaves the door open just a crack as he goes. I
can see Vik wrap his arm around Jade's shoulder before he takes him out of my
line of sight.

I pushed him harder than I meant to. I hope he'll forgive
me. He's the closest thing I've had to a friend in years. Ironic, since he's
the one who made my childhood miserable. Seems I have a knack for sympathizing
with my tormentors. I smirk, thoughts slipping to Amharr and his feverish touch
once again. I shake the vision away.

The new technician's overall I'm supposed to wear on the
run with Denise is surprisingly comfortable. Bleached linen with brand new orange
stripes on arms and legs, and a beautiful machine-stitched logo on the chest,
that says '
Environmental Control Service, Unit 25
'. Too bad my inactive
nacom looks like a dead piece of plastic welded to my wrist. I'd make a very
convincing technician otherwise.

In the hallway I almost bump into Bray. His eyes fix on
mine. My pulse quickens, my fingers itch, and a thousand things cross my mind,
none of them wise.

He steps closer until his face is inches away from mine.
Something in his look has changed, but I'm not sure what. He almost seems...

I open my mouth to say something, but close it again.

He bites his lower lip, then slides past my shoulder and
walks away.

-

Denise is patiently waiting for me out on the street. Her
hair is cut at shoulder-length, bright orange with pink and crimson highlights.
She greets me with a wide smile, thankfully refraining from hugging me.

"Hey Taryn, so good to see you again. Hope you got a
good rest?"

"Yeah."

Her almost fluorescent green contact lenses remind me of
Gary, except they're star shaped and blatantly artificial. What's the deal with
these enhancements? Amelia's even worse than her. From what I've seen, there's
barely any piece of her that grew naturally.

"So where do we start?" I ask. "How many
surveillance towers do we have to check out?"

"We'll do the nanotech lab sector today. Only twelve
towers there."

"Twelve? Shit."

"Don't worry, we have plenty of time. Days are long
here." She smiles again, and I notice a little gem embedded in her upper
left incisor.

"Alright, let's go." I head right down the
sidewalk.

"Taryn, it's that way." She points in the
opposite direction. I turn around, sighing angrily.

"Relax, I've got it all under control. Here."
She holds out her wrist. "I can show you a map with all the towers on my
nacom. It's not very detailed, the screen's too small. But I've got a lot of
info stored up here." She taps her temple. "You don't have to worry
about a thing. This is gonna be exciting."

"Sure," I mumble.

-

Erano looks even more confusing from street level than from
a Maglev highrail. The buildings are tall and densely packed, and the streets
run full with vehicles and people. We stick to alleys and narrow passages
between storage facilities and labs, cluttered with dumpsters and waste
disposal tubes running down the walls.

To make me feel better about not having a synet, Denise
spends some credits to print out a basic map. I study it as she leads me deeper
into the district, trying to memorize as much as possible. The good part of
coming out here with her is that she's completely oblivious of my problems, and
manages to distract me.

As we walk East we leave the Spoke and the Rebreather
behind us, spewing out moisture in cascading veils.

"The first surveillance tower is right over
there," Denise says. "One block behind the
Torre di Ricerca
."

"The what?"

"The Research Tower. It's where D2's datasphere nodes
are; where all the com related tech is hosted and managed." I look up at
the blade-shaped building. Enormous antennae sprout from its edges farther up,
seemingly piercing the dome overhead. "Impressive, isn't it? One of the
few things the Trust has done right." I glare at Denise. She just giggles.
"If Preston would hear me now, he'd sure have a word or two about it.
Truth is, colony life has its pros as well as its cons. It's not all bad."
She gazes over the crowded sidewalk. "I'd like to live a normal life. Like
them. Vik says that's what we're trying to accomplish. I doubt we'll live to
see the results, though."

"Not necessarily."

She shrugs. "Soon as the fighting starts nothing's
certain anymore, only death."

I didn't expect this sort of outlook from a bubbly girl
like Denise. "Why don't you leave?" I ask.

She smiles as serenely as ever. "It's the best shot
I'll ever have."

"At what? Why'd you join Preston in the first
place?"

"He saved my life." She flashes her tooth-gem at
me.

I try to imagine what kind of life-threatening situation
this girl could have gotten into to need rescuing by a hunted man. All I come
up with are shuttle accidents or malfunctioning skinsuits. Stupid scenarios.

"I have a genetic abnormality," Denise says.
"I don't sleep."

"What, like—never?"

She giggles again. "Not quite. I average about four
hours a week."

"Wow."

"The TMC picked me up from my foster parents back on
Cannisa, Procyon system, when I was five. They kept me aboard an R&D vessel
for investigation. Removed a whole portion of my brain—replaced it with
nanotech to study my mutation. I went blind as a side effect and had
difficulty speaking. But who needs to speak if there's no one to listen,
right?" She smiles to herself. "Anyway. Twelve years later, Preston
forged papers for a transfer to another research station and freed me."

I swallow dryly. I can't even imagine what she's been
through. The year I spent aboard the warship that took me from Maza after the Raids
seems like nothing more than a bad vacation compared to Denise's ordeal.

She notices my discomfort, and nudges my shoulder with
hers. "Hey, I recovered. Took me a good three years to get used to these,
though." She points at her brilliantly green, star-shaped irises.

"Your contacts?"

"No." She laughs. "They're not organic.
Inserts routed directly to my parietal lobe. Most of my visual cortex is
gone."

"How— How do you see? I mean, what—"

"I can hardly remember what it's like to see through
normal eyes. I'm fine with how things are now. In fact I got an upgrade soon as
we settled down here," she says, cheerful as always. "Preston
contacted an underground technician and paid a
shitload
of credits for
it. Now I can scan things in infra-red. Pretty cool, eh?"

"Yeah, great," I reply hesitantly.

"And I didn't joke when I said I've got it all in
here." She taps her temple again. "Integrated memory upgrade. The
hardware the TMC left in my brain is pretty useful, you know. I can run complex
computations in half the speed of an average synet, and connect to two
dataspheres in parallel."

This time my mouth pops open.

Denise laughs a bright, crystalline laugh. "Not all
bad, see?"

I nod at her, still shocked, watching my boots advance on
the boulevard's pavement of their own accord.

"So, to answer ‘why I'm not leaving,'" Denise
says, "this is the closest we've ever come to landing a blow against the
Ticks. I'm not gonna let the opportunity slip away. Besides, Vik needs
me."

"You're not worried it'll all end in bloodshed, and
accomplish nothing?" She shakes her head decidedly, as if the thought
never even crossed her mind. "But you're stirring up a hornet's nest down
here. It's suicide."

"You don't have enough faith, Taryn. Preston knows
what he's doing."

"Yeah... that's what scares me."

We cross the boulevard and enter an alley somewhere behind
the Research Tower. I can see the surveillance tower, perched up on a high,
thick pillar, looking like a globe with unsightly protrusions all around it:
its many surveillance bots, currently recharging, some antennas, and additional
sensors toward the top. The tower must be active; I can see the LED band around
the top of the pillar glow green, and all the bots blink orange lights.

I look around to check if anyone's watching us, but we're
alone in the alley.

"I'll tap into their system and check their weapon
status, staff shifts, and maintenance schedule," Denise says. She pulls
out a small device from her pocket and carefully approaches the tower from the
side, walking along the wall. "You count the bots. Check the nearby alleys
too. Distract them if you have to, so I can do my part. Won't take long, I
promise."

I sigh, and stare up at the tower.

Two, four, six...

Preston's got a method to what he's doing. Everyone he's
picked for his core team so far is a fugitive, with nowhere else to go and no
other purpose in life than taking revenge on the TMC. He's got them doing his
bidding and they're
thankful
for it. Calculating old bastard.

Ten, twelve, fourteen...

And what's the deal with Bray? Why is Bray so obedient
even though he obviously hates Preston? I wonder what
his
story is.

"Seventeen," I tell Denise.

"Just a second."

She's connected her nacom to the device and the device to
a panel on the building next to the tower. Now she's tapping on the small
screen with surprising proficiency, her eyes unfocused as she stares at her
implants' virtual display, computing god-knows-what.

"Done," she says after a minute and unplugs the
devices. "What did you say?"

"There are seventeen bots on the tower."

"Shit. Inventory says twenty."

"I think I already know where one is."

A blinking ball of metal comes buzzing toward us, several
tools jutting out of its front. I back away, preparing to take off in the opposite
direction.

"No, wait! You'll raise an alarm."

"What am I supposed to do, wait for it to scan
me?"

Denise shrugs, pressing her back against the wall.

I'm standing alone in the middle of the alley. The bot
predictably takes an interest in me first. It stops two meters in front of me,
scanning my head.

"Identify yourself."

I wince at the inhuman monotone. The voice triggers a
vivid recollection of all TMC droids and robots I've ever dealt with. And of
something else, too, something equally hated: the Onrysses, following Amharr
everywhere like soulless bloodhounds.