The Unincorporated Woman (67 page)

Even she had to admit that the boxes’ attribute of being bigger on the inside than on the outside made them perfect for evacuations and raids. Ultimately flinging people into a cavernous, practically indestructible pod was easier than ensuring that everyone was holding hands as a Merlin swung a magical staff. More than once, a Merlin told of having arrived at a destination a few avatars shy. Jumping back to rescue the stragglers was not difficult, just more time consuming. However, in combat, such mistakes could be costly.

Captain Sullef appeared with another Merlin by her side. Of the ninety-nine NITES Marilynn had recruited, she remembered this one as the most reluctant to join. His addiction to VR had been bad, but he’d managed to beat it by re-creating techniques from as far back as the twentieth century. He had then made a life for himself as a therapist helping others escape from all manner of addiction. What had made him impressive in Marilynn’s eyes was the fact that he’d inadvertently found her rather than the other way around.

Dr. John, as he was called, had become alarmed when a fair number of his patients suddenly began seeking “closure.” He knew he was good, but he wasn’t
that
good. Then the doctor noticed something even more disturbing—almost all of the closure patients were former VR addicts. Fearing the worst, he investigated on his own. What he found was not some sort of conspiracy to remove or forcibly suspend former addicts, but rather a unit to train them. He’d gained access to that knowledge the old-fashioned way—he lied. Since his former patients had assumed he’d already joined, they had no problem dialing him in to their doings. Security got much tighter after that little mishap, and it had taken all of Marilynn and Dante’s persuasion to keep Sandra and Sebastian from killing the man. But Marilynn had been glad that they’d held off. In Marilynn’s opinion, Dr. John Crandal was the best Merlin of the one hundred. It never even occurred to her that most of the insertion teams gave
her
that distinction.

“I am so glad you made it,” exclaimed Marilynn, wrapping her arms around John’s shoulders.

“Me too!” agreed John. “Don’t forget, you were the one whose warship went deep into enemy territory. I assumed you were going to get blown to pieces.”

“I still could be,” cautioned Marilynn with a wary smile.

“Right. But it’s Omad’s ship. That man has more luck than a rabbit’s-foot factory.”

Marilynn put her hand up to her mouth, suppressing a giggle.

“I, on the other hand, was able to take a UHF cruise ship—business class—all the way here. Do you know they still have human servants on their ships?”

“Really?” Marilynn gasped, her eyes going wide at the wealth that implied. “What was it like?”

“Decadent and disturbing. On the one hand, seeing them waste such resources on me, an enemy infiltrator charging it all to GCI, was absolutely wonderful. I was forced to order personal training and massage sessions.”

Marilynn eyed him suspiciously.

“Had to. You had government officials, military officers, and corporate executives spending expense accounts like it was someone else’s money, which it actually was. You’d be amazed how much money gets spent when the tab is picked up by the government as well as the corporations it’s in bed with.”

“Uh, isn’t the government supposed to be the lackey
of
the corporations?”

“Not anymore. Least, not since Hektor. It was the officials from the security ministry who rated the highest.”

“Ahem.” Captain Sullef was standing next to the two of them, arms folded. “As fascinating as the social hierarchy of enemy humans is, we have to get out of here”—her face went rigid—“now.”

“Can you do that thing with your face again?” asked John. “It’s so cool the way you just freeze it like that.”

“Come to think of it, yeah,” added Marilynn. “Like pausing a holo-vid or something.”

Sullef’s expression became more animated, but then she saw the doctor winking at Marilynn. “Humans,” Sullef muttered under her breath, but could not completely hide the smile. “We have to go. This is the last evacuation, and we have nearly a thousand avatars in the call box.”

“Of course, Captain,” obeyed Marilynn as she handed John her key. In return, she was given his staff. It appeared to be hewn from white oak and had a jagged, fist-sized piece of crystal firmly ensconced at its apex.

“I am sorry you won’t be joining us,” John said, now standing alone in the doorway of the call box.

Marilynn nodded and briefly touched John’s right cheek. “Your body is safe on Earth while mine is still on the
Spartacus.
Once the Beanstalk is destroyed or heavily damaged, I’ll use an escape pod to get to one of the Beanstalk’s damaged sections. The UHF will be evacuating so many people so fast, I’ll just be one among many. Once I’m in New York, it’ll be as easy as surface mining to just up and disappear. Then I’ll reenter the Neuro and find you.”

“I’ll take care of your unit till you rejoin us,” John said reassuringly. “Something that will be a lot easier with this.” He patted the side of the call box. Once the door closed, Marilynn covered her ears, even bringing the staff up to one of them. The strange blue box slowly faded from view and as always, did so with the annoyingly loud and undulating alarm sound that Marilynn still could not get used to.

With the call box gone, Marilynn lowered the staff to the ground, allowing it to support some of her weight. The crystal at its top began emitting an oneiric glow. Marilynn had never been a big fan of wizard and dragon stories, but she had to admit, as magic went, it was one helluva way to travel.

When the glare faded, she was no longer in the Beanstalk but rather in what appeared to be an old English village. She’d often use one or two separate jump points to get back to her physical state—just in case someone was following her. But this place was so odd. It was dark outside, and there was a thick fog. She saw that there were no lights on in any of the buildings except one. She was torn between the need to reintegrate with her physical body and her curiosity at what might be inside the hovel.

She knew she had nothing to fear—yet—and so her curiosity won out. She went to the door, and seeing it was unlocked, pushed it open. It creaked in protest as it swung inward. Marilynn peered inside. She was greeted by an old English pub filled with about twenty avatars, three of whom were children. Every single one of them was absolutely terrified.

“Please,” she heard one of them say, “don’t make us disappear like the others. We’re not like those traitors.”

Marilynn opened her mouth to speak, but before she got a word out, everyone lowered their heads. She decided not to say a thing and instead scanned the dank space with her eyes. The most prominent feature of the drab surroundings was a portrait of Al. This image wasn’t the paranoid dictator who’d murdered hundreds of millions of innocent beings under his twisted beliefs of avatar supremacy. This picture, noted Marilynn with disgust, was that of a kindly father who, at worst, might chastise you for a poor showing at school. Under the image were the words,

THE FIRSTBORN. OUR KIND AND GENEROUS LEADER.

Marilynn instinctively looked back at the group, wondering if they actually believed the bullshit she’d just read. But her look succeeded only in frightening the children, who burst into fits of uncontrollable sobbing. Others tried to quiet the children, while the adults were putting on expressions of sickeningly fake cheerfulness.

Marilynn wanted to tell them it would be all right, that help was coming. She wanted to take them all and bring them to one of the safe areas the insertion units had created. But it wasn’t possible. She had to assume that one or more of the avatars in this room were informers and would betray them at the first opportunity. Even the thousand they’d already rescued from the Beanstalk had required a level of clearance and substantiation that bordered on draconian. She could not risk more. So without a word, Marilynn closed the door on the horrible scene and walked farther down the street until she found an abandoned house. As far as all her senses could tell, she was alone.

She walked around to the back and appraised the small hemmed-in yard.
This will do for a hiding place,
she thought, and planted the staff firmly in the ground. She then stepped back a few feet and watched as the staff transformed itself into an ancient oak. Though it appeared to her as having a purple hue, she knew that to anyone other than a human, it would remain forever and always as an ancient and withered oak. Satisfied, she put her pointer and index fingers to her temples and let the phrase that would recall her to her physical state reverberate in her mind.

“But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep…”

Marilynn quickly faded from view as her eyes sprang open to a bulkhead shuddering violently. She was back. A shrill repetitive sound pierced her cabin and brought her quickly to her senses. She recognized that particular sound—it meant “abandon ship.”

Ten minutes from the Beanstalk, AWS
Spartacus

The attack was about as textbook as Omad could’ve imagined, but for one little thing: No textbooks ever spoke of the animus toward him held by the UHF. Therefore, all the firepower of the Beanstalk was directed at the
Spartacus.
Whoever was in charge of the Beanstalk seemed to figure that if they were going down, then they’d be taking Old Legless with them. It was a sentiment Omad could respect.

The Beanstalk flak tore into the
Spartacus,
ripping whole sections to pieces while the rest of the OA flotilla answered the volley and destroyed most of the Beanstalk’s weapons platforms. The
Spartacus
command sphere did its job keeping the control of the ship relatively intact, and though the damage was severe, it was not fatal. Unfortunately for Omad, two other things were. The first was that the weapons officer was badly injured and would not be able to input the commands into Betty Lou. The second mitigated against trying to relay the input commands to someone else because the ship’s main rail gun was knocked out.

The only way to be sure the Beanstalk would be destroyed was to use Betty Lou, but now, groused Omad silently, there was no way to fire the damned thing, and pushing it out an air lock wouldn’t do. The enemy orbats would clear the Earth in time to destroy it. The only sure way to deliver the package was to crash the
Spartacus
into the Beanstalk. But for the device to really be effective, it had to be armed as close to the target as possible.

Omad ordered the ship abandoned.

His crew looked back at him in disbelief. The
Spartacus
was hurt, but the crew had been on ships hurt far worse that had made it back.

Omad met their looks with a determined one of his own and spat out five words that ended any hope of argument. “Only I know the codes.” He told his captain to be ready to pick up an escape pod—hopefully with himself inside. It would be, he told her, the last one launched. When a few minutes later, Omad confirmed that all but one of the pods had been deployed, he cut the
Spartacus
’s acceleration and headed over to the launch tube loading bay for the main rail gun.

The ship once more shuddered violently, sending a large support beam crashing downward. Omad leapt to avoid it. His quick reactions had succeeded in saving his life—two feet more, and his entire torso would’ve been crushed, unfortunately he was now helplessly pinned beneath the column. And that was when the support column stopped supporting and fell across his legs, trapping him. He was amused by the fact that his “legs” were once again crushed, but at least this time he was no longer feeling pain from the experience, just annoyance. More annoying still was the fact that he was pinned in such as way as to make his legs’ quick-release mechanisms out of reach.

The whole ordeal did, however, bring him closer to believing in some sort of deity. Not because his life was rushing before him—that had already gotten boring—but rather because a review of his predicament—now twice occurred—spoke to the fact that there must be a god, and boy was she ever pissed at him. Omad sighed heavily, ignoring the blaring alarm and the flying debris of a ship falling apart around him. Without Betty Lou, it was unclear if the Beanstalk would be destroyed. Yes, the autopilot would direct the
Spartacus
right into the Beanstalk, but Omad knew it might not be enough.

“Admiral!” Marilynn shouted from down the corridor.

Interesting,
thought Omad.
Marilynn as a parting vision. And I always thought it would be Christina come back to welcome me to paradise
. Omad laughed.
The subconscious is a funny thing. Fuck it. Marilynn is kind of hot in that nerdy sort of way. Plus, who am I to argue with visions?

“Admiral!” The screaming was incessant. “Are you there?”

That ain’t no vision
. Omad snapped out of his reverie. “Fuck yeah!” he hollered as Marilynn came running toward him.

Marilynn climbed over the large beam and was now looking down at him.

“Why the hell didn’t you evacuate with the rest of the crew?” he asked.

She gave him a bland smile. “I was meditating.” She began examining the wreckage.

“That must be some deep-assed meditation,” he replied, laughing and coughing at the same time.

“You have no idea, Admiral.” She then looked over her shoulder. “Be right back.” Marilynn went to the bulkhead, returning a few moments later with a red emergency box. “Your quick releases are smashed, but there’s room for me to work. I’m going to have cut through some of the mech to set you free.”

“Just don’t get to close to the jewels.”

Marilynn shot him a sardonic look. “How many pods left?” she asked, all business, removing a laser cutter from the box. She made quick work of the cybernetic legs.

“Thirteen,” he lied, floating free. His internal nanite grid compensated for the loss of the legs by increasing his overall weight. It didn’t help with ballast, but it would give him a little more velocity when he pushed himself along the corridor. “But all singles. The closest is near the loading bay for the main rail gun,” he lied. “If you don’t mind, I’ll use that one. The rest are near engineering. Take your pick.”