Glitch (4 page)

Wally stood up on Beasley’s shoulder and almost jumped in the air. “Yeah, psy-control!”

Joss raised a finger. “Maybe not. Maybe there’s some special property to ... her current condition that allows her to—”

“What?” Simone asked. “Do what, Joss?”

“Let’s see if you can hack through its intrusion securities.”

“Yeah,” Hutto said, “see if you can get it to jerk—”

“Shut it,” Beasley said. “Why not see if you can make it walk across the room, pick up a book, and pretend to read.”

Wally clapped. “Agreed.”

“Tell her, Wally, how secure they are,” Joss said. “Won’t be easy.”

It’s like a black box to me,” Wally said. “They know how to block melders. I’m out.”

Simone understood what she was hearing. How many times had her mother and brother had this conversation? How many times had the differences between her father and uncle come up? It was a recurring debate in the Wellborn family: the human versus the machine. Simone had never paid much attention. She was considered an irrational mystic, dangerous even, because she believed she channeled and summoned unexplainable powers. Her brother, mother, father, the Consortium, and everyone else explained the technological social Rupture through rational means; they were the good guys who turned up their noses at her supernatural explanations. The irony? All those rational cyber-geeks like her father were at fault, just as her Uncle Pic kept saying. It was when society started making machines smart that the new headaches began.

Simone believed they all had it wrong. Whatever source provided her power couldn’t be explained away through either smart software or alien interference. “Okay.”

“You’re going to go inside it?” Hutto asked. “All joking aside, isn’t what she’s about to do dangerous? I mean, there’s a reason they monitor this sort of thing. Unlawful system-possession of a machine is a big crime.” He looked at Wally. “What you do is one thing. You got a license. You got a regulated mech. It’s cool.” He looked at Simone. “But this ...” He stepped away, shaking his head. “I’m getting a drink of water.”

Beasley snorted. “Scaredy cat.”

Hutto halted as if he’d hit a wall. He surveyed the group, all of whom remembered how he’d run away like a frightened child the first time he’d seen Simone as a ghost. “I am not.” He stayed put.

“No matter, tough guy,” Joss said. He faced Simone, “Well?”

Simone edged closer to the cybernetic drone. It shifted its weight, as if uncomfortable with the fact. She ran a finger across its metallic brow, sending up wispy sparks.

“She’s got a magic touch,” Wally said.

“Can you feel it?” Kimberlee asked.

Simone said. “I can feel so much more than you can imagine.”

She rushed forward.

* * *

Tiny cobalt sparks emitted when she touched its exterior, her entire self instantly becoming a million points of energy. The eruption settled rapidly, though, and Simone Wellborn floated
inside
the machine. She hacked its visual system with a thought, seeing the room and her friends through a simple black-and-white screen. She heard them, as well, through the drone’s dynamic audio system. She stepped forward, imagining this must be what it was like when Wally melded with his mech. The rising leg felt powerful and agile, and after it set down she wanted to leap. The spinal structure gave her a sense she could lift a car.

“I own this thing,” she said through the drone’s voice-command system, sounding like a typical Consortium service bot. “What do you guys want it to do?”

“She’s inside,” Joss said.

They all backed up.

“We’re in trouble now,” Hutto said.

“Make it read,” Beasley said.

She made the drone walk over to a stack. It withdrew a simple book, went to the table, and sat.

“What beautiful sacrilege,” Joss said.

Simone scanned the text inside the analog book. The intelligence system in the drone resisted. It had no method for absorbing what she was doing. The book was a simple, twentieth-century nature text about hiking the Appalachian Trail. As she read, she thought how nice it would be out in the cool, autumn air among the trees with their changing leaves. She remembered a pleasant time walking in the woods once ... .

“Steady,” she said for no reason. A tremor rippled through its frame. “Steady, big boy.”

“You might want to stop now,” Joss said.

She stood, feeling its cognitive systems cloud.

“It can’t even handle reading,” Joss said. “We’re superior. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

She forced it to step away from the table. Equilibrium returned. With its voice she asked, “Satisfied?”

Joss shook his head. “Actually, no.”

“What now, Joss?” Kimberlee asked.

Joss walked up to the drone. “The Consortium isn’t afraid of ghosts because they can disrupt their machines by making them mimic—unsuccessfully, by the way—human behavior.” He smiled now, as if the drone were his pet. “They’re most afraid because of this.” He stepped back. “Come on out, Simone.”

She pushed out. The corporal machine-world disappeared. She returned to the light buoyancy of zero gravity and stood next to the drone.

“Now, tell it to do something else,” Joss said, “something easy that won’t agitate it. Tell it to stand on one leg.”

“Just tell it?” Simone asked.

Joss stepped back, as if what they were about to witness was real magic. He nodded.

“Stand on one leg,” she said.

The Ghost Hunter shifted its weight and stood on one leg.

“How the heck?” Hutto asked.

“Yeah,” Simone said. “How the heck?”

“Spooky, isn’t it?” Joss said. “You have to dig deep in Cyberspace for information about this. Not easy to find. A reality glitch, the smart people say. Kind of like you. You just slaved it.” He smiled again. “Under normal circumstances, you’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble. Right now you’re my hero. You just hacked and slaved a Consortium drone in record time.” No one else seemed to understand the magnitude. Joss said, “You guys, it’ll do what she tells it.”

“For how long?” Simone asked.

“Until they purge it, which means a complete reinstallation of its core kernels.” He smiled again. “It’ll cost them big bucks.”

“Thanks, Joss, now I’m in more trouble.”

“No you’re not. They’re letting you be here for a reason.”

“She’s in the Program,” Hutto said.

“Exactly.”

Principal Smalls walked in. “Has everyone finished their summaries?”

“Leg down,” Simone mumbled, and the drone righted itself.

Hutto pointed at the drone. “The thing kept bothering us. I think it likes Simone.”

“Hard to do our work with it looking over our shoulders,” Wally said.

For just a few uncomfortable seconds, Principal Smalls glared, maybe trying to find a solution. Then, he said, “Read your period-three history books,” before hurrying out.

“Nice,” Hutto said. “This whole day is ours.”

“Is that what you think?”

Simone’s mother, Agent Yancey Wellborn, walked into the library wrapped from head to toe in blood-red Rejuv bandages. This special fabric wrapped her from head to toe in layers of fast-acting nano-therapy but left her face bare. Add in her titanium AR Mirrorshades that covered her eyes, and she looked like a hip Hollywood mummy in red. She’d been in treatment since the attack by Rogue Nanovamp Wraiths that almost killed her, almost killed Simone. Simone hadn’t seen her in days.

“Mom!” Simone said and floated over.

“You guys are goofing off, as expected,” Yancey said. “Looks like Nable beat me here. ” She faced her daughter for the first time since getting out of the Rejuv facility. “Did you just do what I think you did?” She glanced at the drone, obviously scanning it. “All its systems are cycling through critical reboots ... and failing.”

“We ran a science experiment,” Joss Beckwith said.

Her mother walked past Joss to the dormant cydrone. “When Nable finds out, you better hope this thing reboots right. If you ruined their property ... .”

“What’ll they do to me?” Simone asked.

“To you, nothing, dear. You’ll get a pass. I’ll have a headache, though, dealing with headquarters.” She surveyed the Alters. “What is it you think you’re all doing here?”

“In the library?” Hutto asked.

She ignored him and regarded Kimberlee. “You, Ms. Newkirk.”

“Me?” Kimberlee asked, pointing to herself as if she were the last person in the world who’d have the answer.

“Why are you here?”

Kimberlee looked around for help. “Because we’re Alters and ... the Consortium wants to help us.”

“No. Anyone else?”

Hutto smirked. “We’re here because we’re special.”

“Close, but vague.” She looked at Beasley, who stared right back but said nothing. She looked at Wally.

“We’re here,” Wally said, “to help the Consortium ...”

“Good. Help them with what?”

“Create Transhuman warriors,” Joss said.

“Simone?” her mother asked.

“I thought he answered.”

“He gave a necessary but not a sufficient answer.” She waited, as if she might explain with a lecture on philosophical reasoning. “It’s good, but not good enough. Come on, dear. You know.”

“We’re here for a battle of supremacy between human beings and ...”

No one helped.

Her mother sighed. “We’re in a fight for our identities, kids. You, and others like you, may be our best hope. That’s why you’re here.” Consortium Agent Cliff Nable walked in wearing a new, dry set of clothes. “And my daughter will be a unique case, won’t she, Cliff?”

“I wonder what surprises she has in store for us,” Agent Nable said.

“I wonder the same thing,” Yancey said.

Both agents stared at Simone as if she were already in trouble.

Simone backed up. “We have homework to do.” She pretended to be interested in a world map on the wall.

She ignored them as her mother introduced Agent Nable. She didn’t need to hear who he was. Every kind word her mother spoke was a bitter pill her mother had to swallow. Cliff Nable had been a trusted friend of the family, someone her father had mentored and invited into their home, and he’d turned on them. Her mother had always had a soft spot for Cliff, which made his betrayal obviously difficult to stomach. Simone’s brother, Rigon, would blast him on the spot if he saw him.

In the middle of her mother saying, “And he’ll be monitoring her progress,” Simone couldn’t take it any longer. She rounded on him. “Do you want to shake my hand again, Cliff?”

Agent Nable’s eyes remained hidden behind his conservative, beige Mirrorshades with the Consortium logo on each band, but Simone sensed that every part of him wanted to lash out at her or try to embrace her.

Yes, he does.

“Ms. Wellborn,” he said, “you’re a valued recruit in our Cybercorps Program, even in your unfortunate condition. You have been given a special license—”

“—to exist.”

He nodded. “To continue in the Program.”

Her mother stepped between them. “Dear, half the school is afraid of you. You caused quite a stir with your ...
performance
this morning.” Her mother winked, obviously happy with what happened earlier.

Simone didn’t want to be worried that Agent Cliff Nable might activate his Ghost Hunter and have it do whatever it did to persons like her. She figured she’d just be honest. “I slaved your drone, Cliff.”

“You did not,” he said without a single fissure appearing in his composed veneer.

Everyone took a step back. Hutto suddenly seemed interested in the table in the middle of the room, as if he might scratch his name into it.

Joss kept eagerly watching, though. “Hacked and slaved in under a minute, sir. That’s probably a record.”

Agent Nable didn’t move, not even a twitch. “She did not.”

Simone turned toward the cydrone. “Come here, Fido.”

It walked around the group and stood behind her.

Agent Nable swiveled. “That’s against the law!” He hurried to the cydrone and looked it up and down, no doubt scanning it with his shades. “You can’t be in control ...”

“Fido,” Simone said, “go outside and run around campus until I call you back.”

The cydrone turned, crossed the room at a trot, slowed to open the door, and exited.

“Hey!” Agent Nable yelled, running after it. “Come back!”

Simone saw her mother smile again, even laughed a little. “That was entertaining.” She stared off toward the middle distance. “But guess what? He’s calling in the cavalry.” She moved to one of the chairs at the table and sat. “Everybody might as well relax. It could be a long day.”

TWO

NONE OF THEM LEFT THE LIBRARY for the rest of the morning. Lunch from the cafeteria was delivered on trays; after eating, they sat around and chatted, or pretended to work. Simone kept to herself in a corner cubicle, annoyed everyone had eaten without her.

“Simone, dear, won’t you come here?” she heard her mother say. “We have visitors.”

The four Consortium officials who arrived all wore nondescript suits. They weren’t augmented in any visible way, and they didn’t appear enhanced. They also didn’t look happy. Agent Nable was with them, also stern, and still flustered. Her mother stood but kept her distance, as if she didn’t want to be associated with her colleagues. She was an intelligence officer with her own bosses in the Cybercorps Security Agency. These were administrators, at best. Pencil-pushers, Simone guessed.