Paradox (8 page)

It glowed electric blue.

“Where's Kreevil?” Tom's voice was a shaky whisper. “I can't see him.”

Half-shadows drifted in the sapphire liquid.

“There.” Zhao-ji leaned forwards, and the warmth of his breath caused faint orange ripples to spread across the membrane, attenuating to nothingness.

“I can't—Fate! Is that him?”

There was a dark, fibrous core at the chamber's centre: a shadowed mass of deeper blue. Around it, the slowly changing parabolic curves of tendrils, and the suspended figures of the boys. Perhaps twenty of them: engaged in tasks—Tom could not make out details—like so many attendant fish.

From behind them, the bulky overseer spoke. “You've seen him now, lads.” There was an odd, strained note in the man's voice. “Let that be enough.”

Zhao-ji did not turn away from the membranous wall.

“We have the right to talk to him.” Orange pulses accompanied his words. “Your boss said so.”

Tom shrugged, about to apologize for Zhao-ji's rudeness, but the overseer's expression stopped him. It was hard to tell in the eerie blue light, but the man's eyes looked damp with tears.

He waved Tom and Zhao-ji aside, formed a control gesture with one stubby-fingered hand, and the membrane pulsed visibly as orange waves accompanied his words: “Kreevil Dilwinney. Egress now.”

The man turned back to Tom. “Go easy on him.”

Tom swallowed.

Swimming with painfully slow strokes, one of the shadowy figures moved through the viscous phosphorescent medium and drew close to the membrane, hanging there, corpselike in the blue light. Kreevil's bare hands and feet paddled gently. Behind him, a tendril—some sort of safety line, perhaps—stretched back into the fluid.

A brusque gesture from the overseer, and Kreevil slowly jack-knifed forwards, thrust one hand through the membrane—“Don't touch him, lads,” the overseer warned—then wriggled and pushed forwards until he was through, and he knelt down, coughing up blue liquid onto the bare flagstones.

“Fate, Kree—Ah!” Zhao-ji jerked back his hand as though stung.

“Bleedin' Chaos!” There was a small pouch sticky-tagged to the overseer's broad belt, and he tugged it off. “I told ya not to touch him.”

Sparkling silver motes sprinkled from the pouch, covering Zhao-ji's finger—but not before Tom saw that the flesh itself had blackened.

“Cold,” whispered Zhao-ji.

“You'll be all right, lad.”

From the floor, Kreevil looked up, mouth working like a fish out of water. Then he coughed up more liquid and said: “Tom. Why? Made me…get out?”

Confused, Tom glanced at the overseer, who shook his head.

“Let me in.” Kreevil turned back towards the fluid-filled chamber. “Back in…”

There was a hiss from Zhao-ji, and at first Tom thought it was from pain; but then he saw it, too.

From beneath Kreevil's torn, dripping tunic, the thick tendril was
growing
from Kreevil's back, part of his flesh, stretching back into the sapphire fluid and connecting him to Fate-knew-what. And below Kreevil's ribs, a series of suction holes pulsed open and shut, as though gasping.

“Go back inside, Dilwinney,” said the overseer.

Tom and Zhao-ji could only watch as, trembling, Kreevil crawled back along the floor and rolled through the membrane, back into the supercooled fluid's embrace.

Joy flared briefly in his eyes. Then, pushing with his hands like flippers, he swam slowly backwards, until he was lost among the half-seen shadows, suspended in the blue.

It was a Shyed'mday, their first free day since the arrival of Zhao-ji's family. The first day they had been allowed to visit Kreevil.

“He was lucky,” said Zhao-ji.

Tom halted. Around them, the narrow tunnel's fluorofungus, somehow overstimulated, glowed intensely.

“How can you say that?”

“They could have executed him. That's the maximum penalty for theft.”

“Oh.” Tom began to walk on. “I hadn't thought of that.”

And it's my fault
.

“Still…” Zhao-ji held his injured finger against his chest. The silver motes sparkled as they moved, repairing the flesh. “Four SY.”

My fault
, Tom wanted to say.
I mentioned Kreevil's name to Petyo
.

“By the time he gets out,” Zhao-ji added, “he'll be nearly twenty.”

Coward
.

“I—” Tom swallowed. “Did you see that overseer? The look in his eyes?”

“Ex-prisoner.” Zhao-ji coughed. “Leaving that blue stuff must be worse than being put inside.”

They walked on in silence. Only their footsteps in the winding corridor made any sound: damp echoes bouncing listlessly back from the fault-cracked walls.

“Maybe we can come back next Shyed'mday,” said Tom, dreading the thought.

Zhao-ji stopped.

“Not possible.” Still cradling his injured hand, he looked away from Tom, along the empty tunnel. “I won't be here then.”

“What do you mean?”

Zhao-ji, not speaking, started walking again.

“It's your family—” Tom should have realized before, but it just had not occurred to him: most of the boys' families were dead, or forever missing. “You're leaving with them.”

Mother. Where are you now?

“I—” Zhao-ji stopped again, and held up his wrist. He was wearing his permit bracelet. “You don't have to come visit, afterwards.”

Master Pin's invitation. Tom's own bracelet was tucked inside his belt.

“But the Master, the Sigung—he invited me.”

“Half a dozen strata up, in Gerberov Santuario. In fifteen days. That's where we'll be.”

Six strata?

“But—”

“The bracelet permit will let you ascend.” A strange, impenetrable look in his dark eyes. “You don't have to do it, Tom.”

Six strata up
.

The image took him aback.

TWO BOYS HAVE BEEN CAUGHT, SUSPECTED OF STEALING
. The images might almost have been of Tom and Zhao-ji, sitting outside the Obermagister's study after some misdemeanour.
THEY WILL BE INTERVIEWED IN TURN
.

A blank-faced figure, beckoning one boy inside for interview
.

IF BOTH BOYS REMAIN SILENT, THEY WILL RECEIVE JUST EXTRA ASSIGNMENTS. IF ONE “DEFECTS” BY ADMITTING THE OFFENCE, HE WILL BE LET OFF, WHILE HIS PARTNER WILL BE BEATEN
.

“I know this one,” said Tom. “Too easy.”

But he was impressed: the ‘ware must be tailoring the problem to his own experience.

IF BOTH BOYS REMAIN SILENT, THEY WILL RECEIVE THE LESSER PUNISHMENT. BUT NEITHER BOY KNOWS WHETHER HIS PARTNER WILL CONFESS
.

With his fingertips, Tom sketched a grid, entered the possible outcomes, and highlighted the equilibrium point: where both boys confess, so they both get punished, but relatively lightly.

“Not defecting is dangerous: if one boy stays silent, he risks betrayal by the other.” Tom added his verbal comment, knowing that the downloaded code wanted more than the mathematically correct answer: it wanted an explanation.

“Defection,” he continued, “is the only way to avoid expulsion for sure, even though they both get punished.”

Tom sat back. This was one of the classic two-person scenarios from ancient game philosophy, but he had not thought through the implications before. The equilibrium point, where you assumed the other person would act in the worst possible way, and you acted accordingly…was bad for everyone.

NEXT TENDAY, THE TWO BOYS ARE CAUGHT AGAIN
.

“Oh, really.”

That changed the scenario, Tom realized. If one of the boys had ratted on his partner last time, it would be remembered now—

“Come quick, Tom!”

“Damn it.” Tom quickly killed the display. “What's going on, Durfredo?”

“It's a rakkie!”

Sighing, Tom sticky-tagged the infotablet to his belt. For some reason, young Durfredo had latched on to him and Zhao-ji over the last few days.

“What are you talking about, Durfredo?”

“In Laridonia Cavern. A bloody big rakkie!” Durfredo was almost breathless with excitement. “It's come for Zhao-ji!”

Shiny grey-brown and dappled with black: a huge bulbous body, suspended some ten metres above the cavern floor. Pale underbelly. Thorax segueing to dark purple where its tendrils extruded.

“What is it?” Tom stared up at the thing, shivering.

Cablelike, the tendrils stretched from the rounded body to the cavern's walls, ceiling and floors. Flattened pads, adhering to solid stone, formed each tendril's end.

“It's an arachnargos.” The Captain looked grim. “You rarely see them this far down.”

At least fifty boys trailed behind them, maybe more, and a couple of the other magisters. No-one was going to keep the boys concentrating on work with a spectacle like this in progress.

There was no sign of the Red Dragon Emporium: the black tent and all its inhabitants had departed upstratum a tenday before. Instead, there was just this strange…thing…hanging at the cavern's geometric centre, while the Ragged School's wide-eyed pupils looked up in awe.

“Where's Zhao-ji?” Tom looked around, searching the boys' faces.

“Here I am.” Face unexpectedly solemn beneath his brush-cut black hair. Satchel slung over one shoulder. “Goodbye, Tom.”

“Goodbye.” There was nothing more that Tom could say.

The Captain shook Zhao-ji's hand. “Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Then Zhao-ji was walking, a diminishing figure, across the cavern's shadowed floor, while the boys' applause, starting softly, rose to a crescendo—“Way to go, Zhao-ji!”—and sustained it as the arachnargos's lower belly puckered open, swiftly dropping a cord-thin tendril at Zhao-ji's approach. It looped itself, figure-of-eight-wise, around
his body—“Fly, Zhao-ji!” “Good luck, mate!”—and drew him swiftly upwards.

Tom raised a hand in farewell.

Be nice to people—

Spinning as he rose, Zhao-ji's small figure might have looked in Tom's direction once before being pulled inside. Then the bulbous body rippled shut, became smooth-bellied once more.

—
unless they're not nice to you.
Petyo's white hair was visible among the crowd of boys.
Then you take revenge. That's the strategy
.

The arachnargos moved.

Thwap!

One tendril unfastened itself, whipped back into the body, then spat out again at a forward angle and adhered farther along the cavern roof. Then another tendril unhooked, retracted, whipped forwards. Another…

“There he goes.”

The tendrils moved ever faster, and the central body's motion was a smooth trajectory high above the broken floor as the tendrils became a blur and the arachnargos accelerated, arced down towards a wide tunnel's entranceway, turned sharply and sped away.

And was gone.

Steam rose from the cup, rising in the shaft of sunlight which poured through the tall, crystalline window. The assistant registrar—“Call me Anne-Marie”—sat behind her hexagonal desk and sipped her tea.

“You won't get much sympathy from the VL Institute, Karyn.” Another sip. “But to the UTech students, you'll be some kind of hero.”

The steam rose close to her randomly shifting eyes.

“Wonderful.” Karyn looked out across the campus. “That's all I need.”

“I don't think,” said Anne-Marie, “that the intention is for you to be comfortable here.”

“I know. If this doesn't make me change my mind, then nothing will.”

“Exactly.” Anne-Marie's blind eyes continued to shift as she placed her cup down.

It would be tough. For three months, Karyn would be expected to continue her training—including her physical awareness drills—all by herself. No lecturers, no instructors. No sensei.

That was part of the ordeal. They knew she could take discipline: they were testing her
self
-discipline.

“Are there any other Pilot Candidates on campus?”

Anne-Marie smiled. “One left, from the previous intake.”

“I see.” Karyn did not want to ask how many there had been initially. The drop-out rate, here at the final hurdle, was very high.

“His name's Dart. He'll be going through with it.”

“And what about me?” Karyn could not help asking. “Do you think I'll see it through?”

“Bad choice of words,” said Anne-Marie, then smiled ironically at Karyn's discomfort. “I don't know. But I'm rather hoping you don't, because I think I like you.”

Great. Part of the act? Or genuine concern?

“So”—Karyn let out a long breath—“what do you think of us, Anne-Marie? Crazy, or plain stupid?”

“Oh, no.”

Anne-Marie was silent for a moment, then added seriously: “Most of the time, I think you're all as brave as hell.”

And the rest of the time?

“What?” Tom looked up from his infotablet. He was sitting cross-legged by the school's main entrance.

“Feelin' lonely, now your little friend's gone?”

Tom minimized the display. “What do you want, Algrin?”

It had been eleven days since Zhao-ji's departure.

“Hear you might be payin' him a visit.” Algrin's foot nudged Tom's knee. “Got a permit.”

Closing his eyes, Tom said: “All right, Algrin. The permit will work for a group. Up to six additional people, and we have to go tomorrow.” He heard Algrin suck in a breath, surprised. “After that, it expires.”

The Captain had explained how it worked, when Tom had asked permission to go upstratum on his rest day.

“Hey, not bad, girly.”

Behind Algrin, more boys came up. At their head was Petyo, even
paler-faced than usual. His tunic was open to the waist, and
something moved across his stomach.
Fear gripped Tom as it shifted: a red dragon outline, wings beating, travelling across Petyo's skin.

“And that's for your little friend.” Algrin grinned as Petyo fastened his tunic up.

“What—?”

“You explain.” Algrin reached into the group of boys and dragged out young Durfredo, pulling him by one ear. “We got better things to do. Come on, lads.”

Tom waited until Algrin and the others had disappeared behind a milling crowd of lightball players. Then he asked Durfredo: “You all right?”

“Bastards!” Moist-eyed, Durfredo rubbed at his ear. “Yeah, I'm all right.”

“What was all that about?” Red dragon across Petyo's flat stomach. “The motile tattoo, I mean.”

“Supposed to be yours.” Durfredo sniffed. “An old Zhongguo Ren woman. She came to the gate, asking for you. Petyo said his name was Tom Corcorigan, and she injected the thing into him.”

“Chaos!”

He was half glad that Petyo had done it. Who would want femtautomata crawling inside their skin?

“It's a message or something, for Zhao-ji.” Durfredo sniffed again. “That's all I know.”

Zhao-ji had not seemed enthusiastic about Tom's visit: maybe because he knew there was a price involved.

“Listen, Durfredo. Just stay out of Algrin's sight for a few days, OK?”

“Don't need to tell me that.”

Tom watched as Durfredo slipped away.
Be nice.
Strategy, or cowardice?
Be nice, until you're pushed too far.

Music wound through the corridor, past Medical Physics. A pus-yellow holo sign proclaimed the bar's name:
THE FIZZY CYST
. Karyn shook her head, but went inside.

“Genki
, pretty lady?” An ivory-skinned young man, hair falling across his eyes. “You FourSpeak?”

“Uh—” Karyn looked where he was pointing.

Silver holotext strung in text-planes over a black glass table. There were half a dozen students in the booth, all young-looking.

“My name's Chojun.”

“Karyn.”

As they slid into the booth, the others made room for them.

“Your turn, Akazawa.” One of them handed a set of finger cursors to Chojun.

“Right.” He winked at Karyn. “Time to see the master in action.”

Ignoring derisive catcalls from the other players, he reached into the display.

Karyn examined the sheets of text. References to Ragnarok made some sort of sense, but the overlaid puns, the geometric planes formed between node words, were indecipherable. Watching Chojun—only a few years younger than Karyn—rearranging words and dictating text, she felt suddenly old, out of step.

Chojun's gestures became almost manic in their intensity, and he muttered voice instructions while his friends cheered or made sarcastic comments, as he built up a disembodied text structure. A story—Twilight of the Gods as comedy—was part of it. But it was also a game, and something more.

Beyond me
.

Murmuring, “Excuse me,” she slipped quietly from the booth. Neither Chojun—his sweat-damp face lined with concentration—nor the others paid any attention.

The bar. Despite the little ten-legged robot on the zinc top, there was a real barman behind it, and rows of bottles.

“I think,” muttered Karyn, hiking herself up onto a tall stool, “that I know how this works, at least.”

A tall, black-jumpsuited man was sitting on the next stool.

“Tesseractions,” he said.

“Beg your pardon?” The little robot clanked along the bar, and Karyn tapped its sensor plate. “Cocktail. Anything. The strongest you've got.”

The big man beside her let out a low whistle.

“Serious drinker.”

“I don't drink.”

The barman, who looked young enough to be a student, was carefully monitoring the robot's progress. Probably his engineering project.

“Tesseractions.” The big man nodded in the direction of the booth she had left. “Pointless game.”

“I don't know.” The drink which arrived was a shade of burnt orange, and the glass was warm. There was a small eye-dropper beside it. She looked up at the big man. “Maybe it's just beyond us.”

His face was ugly, as though carved from wood: not good-looking, but a solid presence. A black lightning-flash decal decorated his left cheekbone. “Maybe. That's no reason to—”

Karyn took her glass from the robot's back, and tossed back a slug. It clawed at her throat like acid, and she half choked, almost dropping the glass.

“—burn your brains.”

“Jesus.” Through tear-blurred eyes, she could see the room sway from side to side. “Shoulda warned me.”

“I tried.” His grin was broad. Very…physical. Intense. “You're supposed to use the dropper on your tongue. A drop at a time. The effect's instantaneous.”

She sniggered. “Nah.”

Another swig. This time she coughed only a little.

“You…” She reached out to touch the lightning-flash decal, but his face was suddenly swaying, as though on a pendulum. “Know you. You're—thingy. Him.”

A chuckle. “That's me, all right.”

“Dar'.”

“Give or take a consonant. Pleased to meet you.”

“Tryin'”—Karyn squinted at him—“to be funny?”

“I was hoping for hilarity.”

“Huh.” More liquid fire. “Preacher's son. Thank God for agnos—nossicism. Iss what I say.”

“You're wondering, how can you navigate in a fractal continuum if you can't even play a kids' game. Right?”

“Uh…”

“But you're making a—never mind.”

Bright lights swirled around her. Holos twisted apart and flowed.

“Mu-space,”
she said, or thought she said, as she toppled from the stool.