03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (40 page)

Her mind burned, and she was powerless to do anything. The commands and the spell could not be resisted.

You are a girl, it said, and girls are animals, like horses and chickens and pigs. You do not speak, but you hear and obey. Your sole purpose in life is to make men happy. There is nothing else. You are . . .

The power was suddenly broken, and she fought for what she could retain. Champion suddenly straightened up and looked very confused. "What the hell . . .'?" he muttered, and his hand went to his holster as he turned.

Facing him were two figures, a large, muscular, bearded man in a New Eden soldier's uniform and a strikingly beautiful but extremely tall woman in the black uniform and boots of a stringer. The pistol came out and pointed itself at the strange pair. "Who the hell are you and what do you mean by this?"

The bearded man looked at the woman, who with her boots was almost the same height as he was. "He wants to know who we are."

She smiled. "We are the spirits of Flux and Anchor," she told him.

"You have five seconds to turn around and march back out!" the general barked, forgetting all about Sondra who slumped unconscious to the floor of the tunnel. "I mean it! I'll shoot!"

"I'm sure you will, General," the woman responded. "But this is my domain."

"I warned you, bitch!" Champion snarled, and fired three shots point blank into her. She smiled back at him and put out her hand in front of her. The boiling Flux suddenly reached out a finger of living fire and wrapped itself around his mid-section. Champion screamed and struggled, and the more he struggled the deeper it burned into him.

"Why not just change him into one of the Fluxgirls? Poetic justice," Jeff suggested.

Spirit shook her head. "No, there's been too much of that. Besides, he's already had it the other way." She looked down at Champion, who had dropped to his knees, face contorted in pain. "No one can free you from that, General," she told him. "It'll bite into you, burning away bit by bit, until finally it meets in your mid-section somewhere. You won't be alive by then, General, but it works very slowly if you don't struggle."

They stepped by him and Jeff gave him a kick away from the machine. He screamed. Spirit examined the ma¬chine and the cable connection in detail while Jeff looked over the still form of the woman just beyond. "Hey! Damned if it isn't Sondra!" he cried.

Spirit continued her examination of the removed panel and its connections. "Is she still alive?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if there's anything left inside her head but mush."

"That's all right. We'll take her with us. If she's still alive we can tap into records and get her back. Ugh!" She pulled at something.

"Can you disable it?"

"Oh, sure, but all he has to do is slap on a new connector. It's no good, anyway. He's damned clever. They know a lot more than anybody was ever supposed to. But it was real confused at the time they did this, and I guess they had enough warning to smuggle out copies of all the corporate files and as much engineering as they could manage. He's got a constant current running through directly to the Gate lock, removing and replacing one of the boards. Interrupt that current and the whole cluster goes up in a rush. They want to make very sure that anybody who got this far couldn't afford to meddle, or even switch the defensive screen back on." She got back up and joined him. "I've done a few little dirty tricks in there that'll give them fits and maybe fry one of the Seven if we're lucky, but it won't stop them. You pick her up and step back beyond the machine for a few moments. Right now this timing is all second-hand, and the clock is running."

She walked almost up to the swirling Flux itself, taking it in, becoming almost one with it. Jeff, a little worried, could only hold Sondra's limp form and watch.

"Farewell, Soul Rider.''

Oh, no, Spirit. Not ever. You and I are one.

She took a deep breath. Activate. Merge shell with station commander "L" for Luck. Operational request.

There was nothing visible but the dark form of his mother against the hypnotic swirl of the pure Flux, but he sensed an immediate and incredibly powerful burst of Flux energy reaching to the point just before the great machine. So powerful was it that it felt burning hot, like pure fire.

Small jets of a different, more familiar form of Flux came from both walls, the floor, and the ceiling of the tunnel and seemed to intersect her body. Jeff could only stare and frown as he thought he heard strange voices stating things in eerie, machine-like tones.

"ANCHOR LUCK VERIFIED. COMMANDER ON STATION."

And then it was gone. No, not quite, for although she turned and faced him he saw that all of that concentrated power seemed concentrated within her. He stood there, frozen in mixed awe and fear, wondering what strange creature his mother had now become.

And then she winked at him.

He blinked, and she laughed. "Come on!" she called. "Let's go on through to good old Anchor Logh—Anchor Luck, ironically enough—and get to work!"

He started breathing again. "There's going to be a nasty welcoming committee at the other end, you know."

"Not where we're going," she responded, and stepped through. In another moment, he mentally traced the same pattern she'd just shown him and stepped through himself. All that he'd been taught told him that he'd come out in the basement of the temple at Anchor Logh.

But he didn't. There were other patterns, and other destinations, that only Soul Riders knew.

It was dark before Suzl could fully tell them her story, and they were confined now to the living room.

Adam Tilghman had come home early a few days be¬fore and talked to them in a more somber mood than he'd ever taken on in the house before. He'd told Cassie and Suzl that very bad men were about to take control, and if he didn't stop them, both he and they would be killed. Suzl told Matson and the twins how they had discussed what to do, and he had insisted that the two women take the younger children and go north. He had good excuses all worked out. and a few men loyal to him would accompany them and see that they were safe.

They'd argued against it. since they didn't want to leave him, but they had finally realized that the children were in danger. Cassie was adamant about not leaving herself; she insisted that her place was with Adam no matter what. Suzl, with the help of the loyalists, would be able to handle the children. She had gone along with it that way only because she realized that she, Suzl, had the difficult job, and the most important one.

They had boarded the train, with a special escort and special crew, and gone north. Shortly after, the telegraph wires were to be cut in two places to prevent any fast inquiries, and they were to be met by other loyalists at the end of the line and taken to a place of safety.

New Eden's women were generally weak and fearful, but in the matter of protecting their children they were fierce and willing to give their own lives for the children's safety.

Tilghman, in his haste, had forgotten about the two-way nature of the Hellgate. Officers, when finding the lines out, had simply used it to personally go to the temple at Anchor Logh and raise the alarm from that direction. When they reached the end of the line all looked fine and even the proper code words were given, but once away from the camp her loyal escorts were disarmed and made prisoners and she found she could do nothing. The rest of the story was much like their own. She didn't know what happened to the loyalist soldiers, but she'd been brought here with the children and imprisoned. When it was clear that the kids could not be adequately cared for under these conditions, though, they were given over to some local Fluxwives. Suzl had been allowed to see them for a short period once a day, both for her sake and to calm the kids, but otherwise it was just dreary waiting.

"Do you know what they plan on doing with us?" the twins asked her.

"Right now we're all bein' kept as holds over Adam if they find him," she told them. "Later, if they win, they're gonna give all the girls what don't already have it the stuff that burns out your brain. Turn us all into pet animals or som'thin'." She shivered.

"I wouldn't worry about that," Matson consoled her. "They may have more than they bargain for if they win."

Suzl looked at him, obviously confused and frightened. "Do ya think—" she began, then stopped.

"Before we can do anything more we need the opera¬tions officer."

Suzl looked around. "Did you just hear somebody talkin'?"

Matson looked at the twins, and they shrugged and shook their heads.

"We're going to have to read in—oh, my god! It's Suzl!"

"There it was again!" Suzl exclaimed, and saw in the others' faces that they still heard nothing at all.

"Who's Suzl?" a man's voice asked.

"They never told you about her? I—I thought she was long dead. Well, let's get to it."

"Two people, a guy and a girl, are talkin' about me in my head!"

RESTORATION PROGRAM SUBJECT SUZLETTE ANN LAMARTAINE AO544M36287L14K1478.

The twins jumped. "What was that?" Even Matson heard it. He didn't know what it was, but he felt a rising excitement in him anyway.

"Something's going to happen," he told them.

Suzl suddenly stood up, eyes wide, her expression vacant. She stayed that way for perhaps a minute, then her mouth dropped open, she swayed, and fell to the floor. Matson caught her and gently laid her down on the mattresses.

Suddenly her eyes opened, and she sat up with a quick motion, staring not at them but off into space somewhere. "Ho-ly shit!" she said at last, in a tone of voice only one other in the room had ever heard her use before.

She jumped up to a standing position. "Matson! Kids! Get over there and get hidden! Something's coming that's gonna bring them in here fast!"

From the depths far beneath the old temple it came, riding the electrical lines. As it passed, going much slower than the electricity, the lights and other electrically pow¬ered devices slowed, skewed, or dimmed.

Now it was free of the temple and riding the under¬ground lines beneath Temple Square. It emerged at the new substations, dimming almost all the lights in a full city quadrant, then came along the overhead poles and over to the old house itself. Power to the house had been cut at the pole, but the wire was still there, and through that wire it ran into the house. The outlets in the living room sputtered, and suddenly the entire room was bathed in an eerie, unnatural glow.

Matson watched from the hallway, fascinated. The twins were concerned, but he held them back.

Now all of the glow seemed to coalesce around Suzl, and she seemed to absorb it into her. The glow faded, and while they heard some yelling outside Suzl stood for a moment, motionless, almost a living statute from Mervyn's lost Pericles.

OPERATIONAL SHELL VERIFIED INSTALLED.

From the hushed stillness, Suzl was suddenly a blur of motion. The twins watched in awe, having grown up with this woman as one of their mothers and never before seeing her like this.

She reached up, grabbed the collar, and there were sparks where she touched it. She pulled it off and threw it against the wall. "Quickly! Let me get those damned things off you!"

Matson looked worriedly at the door, but bent down. The removal stung for a moment, but the sense of freedom it brought him more than compensated for that. She had barely gotten the twins' collars off when the bolt slid back. "Matson!" Suzl called. "Back me up. I'll handle this!"

A black-clad trooper entered. Suzl leaped and kicked with her left foot, hitting the man in the crotch. He screamed in pain, and fell back from the force of the small woman's blow. A second man rushed in, and she scrambled under him and tripped him. He went sprawling towards Matson, but quickly regained his feet. Matson damned near broke his knuckles with the force of three quick punches, then as the man doubled over he brought linked arms down on the back of the trooper's neck. The other one continued to writhe in pain near the door, and it was clear that Suzl had broken something far more terrible in the man than bones.

She didn't have much arm strength, but did she have a kick!

Suzl was up and giggling. "God! That was fun!"

"If you've got an idea for us going anywhere, we'd better move it!" Matson said sharply.

"In a minute." She fumbled through the unconscious trooper's pockets, then came up with a pack of cigars. "Now we go!"

"Which way?"

"To the temple," she told them. "Fast as we can."

"But they're gonna be swarming all over the place! We'll never make it across the square!"

"Oh, yes we will. This was just to get it out of my system. I don't worry about anyone in Anchor. It's my element."

The twins seemed undecided between horror and excite¬ment at Suzl's performance, but they were clearly shocked in any case, and Matson had to pull them out of the house.

As soon as Suzl reached the porch, all the power went out in Temple Square and the immediate vicinity. None of the others could see much, but Suzl seemed to have the same vision as if it were bright daylight. She actually stopped on the porch and handed Matson a cigar, putting another in her own mouth.

"Are you still our Momma?" the twins asked in a hushed whisper.

"You bet I am! There's just more of me, that's all. Can't have enough of a good thing," she responded lightly. "Look, don't worry about this part. This is the easy part. Tomorrow it gets hairy."

Matson was more used to strange changes and transfor¬mations than the twins. Like most people of Flux, he simply accepted them when they came and adjusted his situation accordingly. "It doesn't sound like anybody's out there," he noted. "I'd have expected a near riot by now."

"They're all knocked cold," she replied. "And they'll stay juiced until I decide otherwise. Come on—let's get over to the temple."

"You forgot his matches!" Matson grumbled.

She laughed, and pointed a finger at the end of his cigar. A spark leaped and it was lit. "Cute trick," she said admiringly to herself, and lit her own. She coughed once. "Damn. I'm out of practice!" And they were off across the street and by the small rail yard, its floodlights now out, towards the looming hulk of the temple.