Hammerjack (39 page)

“Crikey,” Funky whispered.

The feed crashed his monitor. He rebooted the system, but when it came back up it only spouted lines of gibberish. Funky had to cut the link between his computer and Cray’s interface, then clear out all the buffers. After that it performed slowly, like it was suffering from a major hangover.

“What happened?” Lea asked.

“Don’t know,” Funky said, checking for hardware faults. “Diagnostics are coming back clean. Could be some bad data the monitor couldn’t handle.”

She checked over the inputs herself. The terminating points had suffered physical damage, as if they had been subjected to a power spike.

“He’s operating on a new paradigm,” Lea mused. “Your system doesn’t know how to interpret the shift.”

“No shit.” Funky jerked a thumb back at Cray, who was tunneling into the restricted zones buried in the deepest recesses of the domain. “Is there even a name for what he did back there?”

“Call it a new trick.”

“Call it breaking the law. You can’t do that kind of jack within the constraints of Axis architecture, Lea. It’s conceptually impossible.”

“Do you really believe that?”

The readings said otherwise. Vortex had crossed the line, supplanting hard science with his own brand of voodoo. His coda was sheer mesmerism: a punch-out from GenTec that landed him on the dark side of the Works, the ultimate target of his mischief. Once there, he set up a line of communication between the two domains, utilizing a clandestine port that resided in the same pseudophase that hosted his self-projection. Cray waited for a few moments until the line stabilized, then dissolved himself out of the construct.

Back in the world, he came up as if nothing had happened.

“Don’t worry about a backtrace,” he announced, circling around the semitransparent image to join the others. “I’ve spread the link across random carrier bands, modulating at irregular intervals. You can use it to monitor mission progress for as long as it takes.”

“Whatever you say,” Funky said, folding his arms. “Now tell me what the hell you just did.”

“A little bait and switch,” Cray told him. His tone was reassuring, an obvious ploy to ease their concerns about him. “What’s the story on transportation?”

“Pulser inbound,” Lea said. “Jacked from some executive fleet. Should be here in a few minutes.”

“Nice,” Cray said. “Might as well go in style.”

“If you have to go at all. Remind me again why you’re doing this.”

“Because I’m running out of time,” Cray told both of them. “It won’t be long before the flash in my system runs its course, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“And how is Lyssa supposed to change any of that?” Lea asked. “You saw what happened when the two of you were together. What makes you think this time will be any different?”

“Because
I’m
different.” He paused for a moment, allowing the truth of it to distill between them. “This Ascension is real. I can feel it growing inside of me—reaching out, connecting me to these vast networks of information. All I have to do is open my mind and it’s all
there
.” The manic energy behind his eyes told the story far better than words. The flash was displacing him, turning his cells and tissues into a biological interface, joining him to the Axis—and perhaps more.

“It’s almost like a drug,” he continued. “This thing that consumes you, but can never fill your need. It’s only a matter of time before I won’t be able to control it.”

Lea nodded, because she finally understood.

“You’re going to interface with Lyssa,” she said. “And hope that it neutralizes the flash.”

Funky shook his head. “Now I
know
you’ve gone off the deep end,” he protested. “You said it yourself, Vortex—Lyssa would swallow your mind whole and wash it down with a pint of ale.”

“If I was unprotected,” Cray explained. “She already craves data. The sheer volume of all that flash should act as a firewall between my mind and hers—giving me enough time to disconnect before she can go after my own neural pathways.”

Lea pointed out the potential flaw in his plan.

“What if it destroys the flash instead?”

“Then it will be over,” Cray answered. “And it will be quick.”

“I can think of easier ways to kill yourself,” Funky lamented. “Don’t get me wrong, Vortex. I admire anybody with the
cojones
to put together a run like this. But taking a joyride into the Works?” He spat out a miserable laugh. “Stick your head in there, mate, and they’ll lop it off first chance they get.”

“You saw it yourself, Cray,” Lea added. “Special Services has at least a hundred bodies there, and most of them know your face. That’s a lot of heat—especially when they have orders to shoot you on sight.”

“They scare you,” Cray said. “Don’t they?”

“Fucking A,” Funky answered.

“Good,” Cray said, floating the idea as he returned to the interface controls. “They
should
scare you. They’re professional killers—and they won’t hesitate to eliminate you or me, or anybody else who gets in their way. They are not, however, invulnerable.” With a wave of his hand, he conjured a three-dimensional schematic of the Works building—a macroview at first, zooming in to a cross section of the floors on the research level. “There is a weakness.”

“What are you talking about?” Lea asked.

“The focus of their mission,” Cray explained. “Which also happens to be the one thing they’re not allowed to kill.”

Lea drew a short breath and held it as Cray highlighted the floor plans for the Tank.

“Lyssa,” she whispered.

“You can’t destroy something you’re supposed to protect,” Cray said. He superimposed another graphic, this one an animated sequence that traced a convoluted series of links between the Tank and the automation complex several floors above. “These are the lines Lyssa used when she jacked fire control and locked down the building. You can see how they now terminate short of a complete interface. The Works engineers shut down remote access and unplugged all the systems to prevent it from happening again. But suppose,” he said, extending the links back into the automation computers, “just
suppose
they get an indicator that these systems came back online. We plant the idea that Lyssa is back in control. What’s the first thing CSS will do?”

“The same thing I’d do,” Funky said. “Get the hell out of there.”

“Precisely.”

“Wait a second,” Lea interjected. “You want to force an evacuation with a false alarm? How can you do that if those systems have been disconnected at the source?”

“By tripping an alarm at a remote location,” Cray said, illustrating his plan with a fresh construct. The Works broke apart like a jigsaw puzzle, then reorganized itself into the virtual conduit he had created just moments earlier. As Lea had pointed out, the Works side was completely dead; GenTec, however, was alive and pinging—a package waiting to be delivered, wherever Cray directed. “We then feed
those
indicators through this pipeline, creating the illusion of an emergency. Every threat sensor in the place will light up like a Christmas tree. CSS will think an anvil just came down on them.”

“What if they don’t buy it?”

“They won’t take that chance,” Cray said, with the utmost confidence. “I know these people. They’ll follow procedure until they’re sure there’s no danger.”

“Live by the rules, die by the rules,” Funky finished. “How long until GenTec figures it out and calls off the party?”

Cray thought about it.

“Ten minutes,” he guessed. “Maybe fifteen.”

“That’s pretty slim timing, mate.”

“I know,” Cray admitted. “That’s why this has to go by the numbers. Otherwise, it’s
adios muchacho
.” He locked the interface down, then walked over to where Funky stood. “You’ll have full access to all CSS communications through this node. All I need is for you to bait the trap. After that, just keep an eye on them for as long as you can. Try to give me a couple minutes’ warning before they come.”

“Sounds easy,” Funky said. “You sure you’ve thought this through?”

“As much as I’m going to.”

Funky held his hands out. “Then count me in.”

They shook hands, then embraced. It was as much fear as bravado, the reassurance of men about to embark on something suicidal. That was how Lea understood it, because she felt the same emotions herself. But she also felt responsible, as if she were the principal architect of this madness—or, at the very least, its catalyst.

“Where does that leave me?”

Lea asked a pointed question, backed up with that raw determination she had used to survive in the Zone. She still thought the exercise was dangerous—perhaps even fatal. But if there was no stopping it, she was determined to have a part.

“That depends,” he said. “Think I could use a hand?”

“You’ll need a lot more than that, hoss.”

He smiled.

“I’ll take what I can get.”

Lea acknowledged his affection, her eyes locking with his for the few moments she would allow it. Then she was back to business, leaving him and going over to a nearby storage locker. She keyed a combination to open the door, then rolled out a small rack of weapons. Most of it was mercenary merchandise—street heat, like gangbangers used in closet combat. Lea handled all the toys expertly.

“Think fast,” she said, tossing Cray a wave pistol. She stuffed two more into a holster that she looped around her shoulders, supplementing her firepower with a quicksilver blade. It glinted against the dark blue fabric of her secondskin, emitting radiation that slid down its diamond-sharp edge. She slipped it into a thigh sheath for easy access. “The lot of good it’ll do us if we get busted.”

“I’ll try not to let that happen.”

“Just in case it does,” Lea started, retrieving the last of the weapons and bringing it over to Cray. His face flushed with recognition as he saw his old MFI. “The components were fried, so Funky stripped it down and packed in a high explosive. I figured it might come in handy in a pinch.”

“Thanks,” Cray said. “Sorry I didn’t get you anything.”

“That’s okay,” Lea told him. “Just remember me next time.”

“I built in a proximity fuse and a timer,” Funky explained. “There’s also a hot button you can use to set it off manually—though I wouldn’t recommend it. The charge has enough power to shear the top off that building and then some.”

“Thanks for the safety tip,” Cray said.

Funky smiled, a cheerful and sad expression.

“Stay alive, Vortex,” he said.

Cray nodded. “Best of luck, Funky.”

Funky then turned to Lea, wrapping his arms around her with a delicacy belied by his size. When he was finished, Lea reached up to kiss his forehead.

“You could give a bloke a heart attack, you know that?”

“Just promise me you’ll get out of here if it starts to fall apart,” Lea said. “You won’t do us any good if they catch you here.”

“You talking about the
Inru,
or CSS?”

“Does it really matter?”

Funky shrugged.

“If it comes to that,” he said, “I’ll have a few surprises for them.”

The automated approach panel beeped, catching his attention. Funky took a seat at the interface, assuming his position as their link to the outside world. One with the machine, he now had the luxury of pretending his friends did not exist. In terms of the near future, they were only scattered bits of numeric data.

“Limo’s here,” he reported. “You better get yourself up there.”

By the time he turned around, they were gone.

Three hovercraft flew in tight formation, down on the deck at ten meters. The highest waves on the ocean licked against the belly hulls of the tiny ships, but that only urged them on faster. Invisible to ground-based tracking systems, the heat blooms from their turbine engines still made them vulnerable to satellite detection—unless they closed the distance to their objective during a blackout window. Such a hole had opened up in the skies above the Eastern Seaboard, but it would not last long. The latest calculations indicated less than six minutes, four of which had already burned off the clock.

Avalon paid close attention to the time, ticking off the seconds in her head and watching the window close on her cockpit tactical display. She plotted the course directly ahead, her sensuit augmenting her reflexes and allowing her to fly at the edge of the envelope. The others had no choice but to follow, as dangerous as the path was.

“Vector Two,” she signaled. “Tighten up. You’re starting to drift.”

The hovercraft on her port side did as ordered, closing to within two meters of her wing. Avalon maintained the lead, pushing down on the throttles even harder to compensate for a nasty head wind. They could make it in time, but it was going to be close.

“Distance to target,” she said.

Seated next to her was a Zone agent—another
Inru
recruit from within those ranks, like the troops aboard the other hovercraft. There were a couple more in back already high on the action, the cabin hot with their breath and thick with synthetic steroids.