Geosynchron Page 4
The boy had chuckled. "How?"
It was a good point. The Defense and Wellness Council controlled everything in their orbital prisons, from the air to the food supply to the gravity itself. The only transmissions allowed in or out were those that pinged Dr. Plugenpatch databases to pull down healing bio/logic software. The officers who did the unloading in the dock were well armed, and inoculated against the black code in the prisoners' dartguns to boot. Suppose a group of prisoners did manage to overpower those guards and take control of their ship, against all improbability. What then? How could they fly a ship without proper authorization codes? How would they deal with the battery of Council hoverbirds patrolling the area? And where would they escape to anyway?
Quell had soon realized that not only was escape impossible, but for the unconnectible prisoners even planning to escape was fiendishly difficult. They belonged to a society that deactivated neural OCHRE bots at birth. They depended on the accursed connectible collars to sense projections on the multi network, and the Council had taken their connectible collars away. Who could say that the Council didn't have spies in multi roaming the hallways and listening to their conversations? Who among the unconnectibles was capable of detecting them?
So they played this juvenile game the Council had set up. Studying schematics of the prison, conducting raids on the enemy, shoring up defenses, risking bio/logically enhanced torture to protect a square kilometer of empty metal. Breaking the thumbs of their connectible captives, because that was what the connectibles did to them. It really was quite similar to those shoot-'em-ups from Quell's childhood. You had two factions, limited resources, and violence waiting around every corner, with an unseen CPU mindlessly hurling obstacle after obstacle in your path until you died or time ended.
In one of his more philosophical moments, lying in his bunk and listening to Plithy prattle on about the Islander resistance, Quell had decided that the game they played here was not unique. Wasn't it, in fact, the same game the centralized government had been running Earthside for generations? Connectibles versus unconnectibles; rebels versus the establishment; the powerful versus the powerless. Artificial distinctions all. He had pictured the man responsible for this state of affairs. Not a mindless CPU, but a perilously old man, bald as stone and despised by about seventy-eight percent of the population, according to the last polls Quell had seen.
How could this grotesque game possibly benefit High Executive Len Borda?
Quell shook his head. He checked the action on his own dartrifle now as he waited for the airlock to open and disgorge the new batch of prisoners. It was pointless to speculate about the mind of Len Borda. Pointless to anthropomorphize human reason and logic when the situation clearly lacked both.
"I think the airlock's about to open," said Plithy in stage whisper from his crevice, snapping Quell back to the present.
Quell let out a scowl. "Quiet."
"Crazy crazy crazy," muttered Rick Willets.
A thought suddenly occurred to the Islander. Why had he never heard about this place before? Borda couldn't keep the goings-on in these orbital prisons shrouded in mystery forever. In a world where thousands of drudges clambered over each other to report on Jeannie Q. Christina's hairdo every day, there had to be at least a few people drudging up the truth on the Defense and Wellness Council prison system. Certainly one of them would have thought to interview a paroled prisoner from one of these places by now ... unless there were no paroled prisoners.
Quell looked with sadness on the boy Plithy. The commander whose eye he had bloodied must have had a lot of stripes on his uniform. Plithy must have seriously pissed someone off for the Council to relegate him to this state of limbo, without trial, without purpose, without end.
How the fuck was Quell going to get out of here?
He supposed that if he were a brilliant schemer like Natch, he would have already deduced an escape. Or if he were a charismatic statesman like his son Josiah, he would have managed to forge a truce with the connectibles by now. He would have shown them all the futility of playing silly war games and breaking thumbs to suit the whims of a madman.
But Quell was neither schemer nor statesman. He was a bio/logic engineer and a stubborn old fool, and he could think of nothing to do but lie in the rut the Defense and Wellness Council had thrown him in.
The door to the airlock opened and eight prisoners came stumbling out. All Islanders but one, by the rustic look of their wardrobe.
Quell felt the battle frenzy take hold of him. He vaulted over the crate and let out a cry of anger that reverberated throughout the dock. The prisoners froze in place, panicked; one of them collapsed quivering to the ground. And then Quell was pounding across the floor, a bellowing behemoth with rifle held aloft in both hands. Three black code darts went flying past Quell's right shoulder as three different connectible gunmen underestimated how fast a big man could run. In seven long strides he made it to the row of crates the enemy had staked out. He hoped that Plithy and the others were following the plan, but he was quite past the point of return by now.
The Islander made a flying leap over some big steel drum and began wildly spraying the gathered connectibles with dartfire in midair. There were twelve of them and only one of him, yet clearly Quell had put them on the defensive. Two of his darts even found targets before he felt half a dozen pinpricks line up along his torso. Icy paralysis grabbed hold of him.
Shit, thought Quell as he caught a glimpse of the hard concrete block that he would be crashing against any second now. Why do I always forget to watch out for the landing?
He crashed, hard.
But not before seeing the connectibles all collapse to the ground themselves, victim to the Islanders who had snuck up behind them. Even Plithy had managed to plug one of the bastards.
Quell smiled to himself in spite of the agony. Misdirection: it was the oldest and simplest of combat tactics, one that even a bio/logic engineer with no military training could figure out. Draw the enemy's attention and their fire with the largest, loudest distraction you could find, then launch the real assault where they least expected. Sometimes the simplest tactics were the most effective.
The Islander clawed his way back to consciousness ten minutes later. He felt as if someone had doused his chest with flaming tar, and he could scarcely move his arms or legs. But he knew from experience that these black code pain routines only lasted so long. Blistering agony for half an hour was better than weeks of grinding pain from broken thumbs.
"Fucking incredible," said a grinning Plithy as he and Rick Willets draped Quell's arms over their shoulders and helped him to his feet.
"Crazy," agreed Willets.
All of the connectibles had been corralled into the center of the dock and roped tightly together. Most of them would be left in the dock for the next connectible patrol that passed through. A few would be singled out for the thumb treatment, or worse.
Meanwhile, most of the new prisoners had already vanished down into the unconnectible level of the prison, where doubtless some young punk like Plithy was giving them an initiation into the ways of the Orbital Detention and Rehabilitation Facility, Twelfth Meridian. All except for one, the tall, gangly fellow who had slipped to the floor in shock when Quell had let out his war cry. Seemed like the man had managed to smack his forehead against the floor when he fell. He was sitting up, dazed but being tended to by two of the unconnectible team.
Quell took a closer look and strangled back a gasp. He knew this man. This man had been at the top of the Revelation Spire on that hot- rible day a few weeks ago, the day that Quell had scuffled with Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee. He was a man of thin limbs and sharp angles, with a bulging Adam's apple and eyelids so prominent they were practically reptilian. Today he was dressed in the standard streetwear of breeches and a brown shirt, but on that day he had been wearing the white robe and yellow star of the Defense and Wellness Council.
Papizon, that was his name. One of Magan's flunkies.
Plithy and Willets were dragging Quell away from the dock now and into the long, wide hallway that led to the unconnectible level of the prison. Soon they were back in friendly territory, and Quell was able to muster a half-walk, half-shamble with the support of his two comrades. But his mind remained on the dock and that odd flamingo of a Council officer. Quell had no idea how many of these orbital prisons Len Borda maintained, but Papizon's arrival at this one was certainly no coincidence.
He tried to sort through all the rumors he had heard about the Defense and Wellness Council from later arrivals at the prison. Magan Kai Lee was in open rebellion against Len Borda, they said; the Council had fragmented between the two groups; Magan's officers and Borda's officers were openly skirmishing in the streets. Were the prisons still under Borda's control? If so, did that mean that Papizon was here on some kind of clandestine mission? And what kind of mission could that be, except to take revenge on Quell?
The three of them arrived at Quell's cramped prison cell. Four walls, a nonfunctioning viewscreen, a metal chair, a few changes of clothes he had scrounged from the supply depots, a poor excuse for a bunk. Plithy dragged the older man to his bunk and deposited him there as gently as he could. Quell flopped onto his back and groaned.
"Quell," said Plithy. "Can I ask you something?"
The Islander gave a snort of assent.
"What was ... she like?"
"Who?"
A nervous pause. "Margaret Surina."
"Beautiful," said Quell, then rolled over to face the wall, signaling that the conversation was over.
4
Silence. Gloom. Darkness.
Don't think.
Jittering in his arms and legs and teeth. Patches of consciousness stitched together with long threads of void.
Natch keeps consulting his internal systems, looking for some kind of baseline, a pulse for the universe; but time has become unpredictable. There is no consistency to those numbers. The only constant is steadily mounting hunger, the kind of hunger that spurs the heartbeat to race, the kind that stabs rational thought in the back.
Don't think.
Too much. The hunger is too much. He has vowed to let the world do to him what it will. But does that include just sitting here in this dungeon and letting himself starve to death? That's not surrender to the lofty Fates, that's submission to the timetable of a more mundane authority, namely, the Patel Brothers. And even in his current state of inaction, that's a repugnant thought.
Natch pushes himself up weakly from the chair. The ropes puddle at his feet. He steps outside of them and makes for the doorway at the other end of the chamber, steadfast in his refusal to make any plans after he leaves this infernal place. Perhaps he'll find Petrucio. Perhaps there will be something to eat.
Six paces. Nine paces.
A high-pitched whistle, a drift of wind brushing across his cheek. Natch looks up and sees-
Silence. Gloom. Darkness.
It's not the darkness of the Patels' domed cavern, however, but the darkness of a five-year-old's room. It's still two hours before dawn, and in the hive all is quiet except for the light patter of spring rain and the soft creaks of slowly weathering wood. Children don't stir at this hour, and even the proctors have abandoned their restless wandering of the halls.
Natch is lying on the floor. Above him, he can see nothing but the dark wood of the bureau he has scooted himself under. It's a massive piece, hand-carved and probably donated from some moldering estate. The weight would be crushing enough were the bureau completely empty. But Natch has loaded its drawers with rocks specially gathered for this purpose until the burden is heavier than anything he has ever tried to lift; anything less would make the plan an obvious setup. And Natch can't afford to fail. There are older boys out there who have been thrashing him in the hallway and teaching his OCHREs new injuries. These bullies must be dealt with.
Natch takes a deep breath, counts to three, and kicks out the block of wood that's been propping the end of the bureau up, hard. The block goes skittering under his bed.
He feels unbearable pain as the full weight of the piece comes down on him. There's a screaming in his left forearm that he hasn't anticipated as something sharp on the bureau's surface bites into his skin. It's sharp enough to draw blood. OCHREs start to kick in and dull the ache, but Natch forces himself to relax, to take in the pain. He's not out on the street or in Serr Vigal's apartment now; he's in the care of the hive, and a huge burst of OCHRE activity will only summon suspicious proctors. It takes a tremendous amount of effort, but Natch soon manages to set aside the pain. He looks on the bureau's opposite side and sees a maker's mark carved into the wood: a flowery flourish of the letters S and N, the carving jagged and splintery from years of neglect. It must be the complement to this maker's mark that's digging into his pinioned left arm, but there's nothing he can do about it now.
When the proctors finally arrive and raise the alarm, when three of them heave the bureau off and drag him to the infirmary, when he is lying in bed quietly telling the head proctor a false story about how the bullies had thrown that bureau on top of him, Natch can feel the bloody imprint of the maker's mark in his left forearm. S and N. His OCHREs will eventually close up the gash and erase the scar, but for several nights Natch will sit in the darkness staring at the wound and wonder what S and N stand for. A carpenter long dead? A company long defunct? A city, a country?
S and N. S and N.
He is still watching the brand on his arm as he sits with Serr Vigal in one of the hive's wood-paneled dens twenty-four hours later. His guardian is complaining about the quality of the tea. Natch can see that there's something troubling the neural programmer, that Vigal can't quite slip the story of the bureau into that mental file of verified fact. He suspects something. Why should I care? Natch tells himself. I'm not a truthteller. I don't always have to tell the truth, do I?
Don't think.
He opens his eyes. Enough of this. Sitting here in this chair, staring at the pockmarks on the dome, waiting for Petrucio and Frederic to torture or dispose of him-enough of it. To die of his own volition? Maybe. To die on a twisted whim of the Patels? Something bilious rises up in his stomach at the thought.
Natch stands. He looks down and wonders why the ropes that were binding his legs are now gathered at his feet. Did one of the Patels do this? And if so, how?
But there will be time for questions later. Right now, Natch is starving. He takes a wobbly step forward, then another. Decides to head for the door at the far end of the dome. Natch takes six more steps. He hears the whistle of the wind from somewhere above, looks up, and sees-
Silence. Gloom. Darkness.
But this is a darkness of Natch's own making. He's purposefully dialed the lights down, preferring to see his office as it would appear were there no human eyes to see it. Of course, without a human pres ence, the entire room would be neatly compressed into a few cubic meters of collapsed wall with the furniture clamped down in place. A petty distinction, but an irritating impediment in Natch's mind.
Stop wasting time. Do what you came here to do.
He walks up to his workbench and waves his hand. Before he's even finished the gesture, the space above the workbench's surface is no longer empty. Now there's a transparent bubble, barely visible in the darkness, and inside that bubble hovers a holographic pyramid. The pyramid is colored a sickly green, the color of mucous, and looks like it's been pierced dozens of times with long needles that stick out of the sides.
The bio/logic program has no identifying label, but Natch's contact has told him exactly what it is. He has spent countless days swimming through dark and dangerous trenches in the Data Sea looking for this code, and now that he's found it he's spent countless nights hammering away at the spikes on his workbench. It must be the perfect, untraceable, anonymous communication machine. The ability to spray the whole world with convincing forgeries at stunning speed. Yes, his plan relies more on social engineering than on bio/logic e
ngineering, but a few slack connections could expose him to ruin and put number one on Primo's forever out of his reach.
Yes, number one on Primo's. That is what this code will accomplish for him. It's the token that will gain him admittance to a larger realm. It's the talisman that will place him above the Patel Brothers and Lucas Sentinel and Bolliwar Tuban and Pierre Loget and all the rest of the imbeciles he's been jousting with for a few years now.
He looks at the spiked green pyramid and hears Horvil's meek protestations from the previous day. What if we spark too much panic? I mean, we're all connected, and so we're all vulnerable. There could be another black code attack on the Vault any day now. Everyone knows that. The Council might really be gearing up for another assault. What if we cause too much panic? There might be a rush on the Vault. People might stop trading. The whole financial system could collapse.
Natch had laughed at the engineer in response, but he knows that it's a serious possibility. What are markets but contained panic and quantified disaster? What keeps the whole thing functioning but confidence?
He thinks of Captain Bolbund deluging him with his rancid poetry. Of Brone taunting him with defeat. Of the bullies in the hive pouncing on him and beating him close to unconsciousness. Of all the stings and jabs he's felt over the past few years during his ascent up the Primo's charts.
Too late.
Natch closes his eyes and launches the program.
He opens his eyes to find himself lying facedown on the floor of the Patels' dungeon. One arm and one leg are throbbing crazily, out of control. He's ready to be anywhere else but here. Something about this place unsteadies his nerve.
Natch takes a deep breath, pushes himself up to his knees, then clambers to his feet. He takes one step, then another, then another, then-
Don't think.
Silence. Gloom. Darkness.
Walking in circles around the chair, staring at the spindly table, now occupied by an empty plate and an empty glass.