To Hold Infinity (28 page)

She/he stood at the darkened ballroom's entrance, feeling the headdress's weight, the gown's soft folds. Deep in command interface with the projector array, she/he caused twin lines of lambent blue flames to lick across the shadowed marble floor, awaiting her/his entrance.

Accompanied by sweet young Luculentae girls, she/he made her/his appearance, slowly walking between the flames. All around, a spellbound audience in the darkness, tiny blue sparks of distant light—

He froze.

Damn it! Those tiny blue lights were not part of Xanthia's illusion.

He was a fool.

He had been so enraptured by Xanthia, so drawn to her, that he had failed to realize those sapphire sparks were the house system's scan signs, not stars created by Xanthia's wonderful imagination.

Immediately, he shifted into Skein—

No.

He withdrew, knowing it was too late. If the evidence had been already spotted by proctor techs, then they were lying in wait for outside interference. If not, then he still dared not try access via Skein, where LuxPrime techs could possibly, if they and their AIs dug deeply and cleverly enough, find audit trails of his accessing the house system remotely.

Perhaps if he went back to the Maximilian estate, so he could use short-range fast-comm access to the house video logs, not involving Skein—But the surveillance now might be so tight that even he might fall to erase all his traces.

Think.

Let's see. If he had been recorded in the video logs, how would he appear? Frozen? Joyful? Perhaps he could fake a medical history: some quasi-epileptic condition that might fit. Something normally controllable, but not cured by LuxPrime mindware.

A dangerous ploy: a deep medical scan would reveal his links to a plexcore nexus two orders of magnitude greater than normal. The alternative was to play a passive game, to wait and see if the proctors would come to him.

A frisson of fear ran light fingers up his back.

Delicious.

The game was becoming interesting.

 

It was now twenty-four hours since Yoshiko had woken up and performed her early morning training on the lawn, eager and fearful of the evening ahead.

The lynxette, Dawn, was tucked up on Yoshiko's bed in the loaf-of-bread position, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Yoshiko let out a long, slow breath. Her eyes were gritty with lack of sleep—but she could not face the inevitable dreams to come.

Old, old, old.

Outside, it was not yet fully light. The still-unfamiliar length of the day, something over twenty-seven hours, wasn't going to help her readjust.

She waved open a cupboard space, to reveal her naginata and holoprocessor, both in their carry-cases, and the gym bag containing her other training gear. Tiredly, she rubbed her eyes.

In her youth, thirty, forty years ago, if she had pulled an all-nighter, she would still work out the following day as energetically as if she had had a full night's sleep. Not this time. That was all too long ago.

At Yoshiko's age, daily training was a habit—beating back the twin dragons of laziness and despair, fighting them a day at a time—or else you didn't work out at all. But you had to be sensible about it.

Despite the inhibitors which were killing all pain in her left arm and the cast which was supporting it, her arm was not OK: it was still healing up inside. She should rest. That would be the sensible thing.

Sensible.

What, truly, in this strange and wonderful universe, constitutes appropriate behaviour?

Slowly, she slid off the loose black suit and the scarlet blouse—rumpled now, and quite inelegant—and tossed them across the chair which Maggie had been sitting on.

She took the gym bag from the cupboard, pulled out a leotard, and put it on.

Then she began to stretch slowly, painfully, her mind too tired to think at all.

Turning back to the gym bag, she examined the magbracelets for power training, put them back in, and instead took out a folded black-hooded jumpsuit. She shook it out, then pulled it on.

The suit formed integral boots and gloves, and she pulled the hood up so that it covered all her face except around the eyes. Then she picked up the naginata in her injured hand and the heavy holoprocessor in the other, and went outside.

Emergency workers stared at this strange figure as she walked out through the atrium, but she ignored them.

She went far out across the lawns—faintly silver beneath the burgeoning dawn—out where they melted into the black shadows, by a long stand of tall trees. She placed the projector down on the long grass, and powered it up. For now, she left the naginata in its case.

Kneeling, sitting back on her heels, she waited.

He came murderously fast.

Her shadow opponent launched a lethal open-hand strike to her neck but she caught the wrist—her suit's inducting fibres perfectly simulating physical contact—and rose to one knee, blending with the attack, entering the centre of the motion, becoming the pivot of his movement, and then her attacker was flat on the ground and she was striking the back of his neck.

Ippon.
Killing blow.

Again and again he attacked. One blow after another, which Yoshiko avoided and redirected and finished with deadly force, until her breath was painful fire and her limbs turned into heavy lead.

Tired. So tired now.

Pink and gold and beautiful green, and the sweet fresh smell of morning.

Concentrate.

An onlooker would have thought her proficient, but only Yoshiko knew how off-centre and unfocussed she was in her practice. Concentrate. An old sensei's voice in her head:
Become the very centre of the attack, the heart of the storm, and you will find true peace.

Then the attacker grabbed her left wrist, tugging her off-balance, but agony shot through her broken arm, breaking the pain inhibitors' effect.

Yoshiko screamed.

She screamed as she whipped her knee into his thigh, seeing Rafael's face in her shadow opponent as she struck his throat and he fell and lay still.

Breathing heavily, she stepped back and waved the simulation into oblivion.

Rafael.

Other than pushing people aside last night, she had never used her skills outside
dojo
or
shiai
area, outside training hall or competition mat. Never had she fought in deadly earnest; never attacked a human being without control.

“Rafael.”

Her voice was pitiless, hard and clear in the dawn's soft air.

It takes courage, my son, to move forwards into the eye of the storm.

Tetsuo stood on the research station's balcony, breathing peacefully, and watched the sun's rays strike the opposite rim of the canyon, painting the sandstone peach and gold. Even through his resp-mask, the morning air was crisp and cold.

He felt good.

The warrior, when attacked, steps forwards.

His mother's words, brought clearly back to him by a trick of memory. Perhaps he was getting old.

Would she despise him, for doing this now, not decades ago? It was not unusual for people approaching middle age to reconsider their health. Back home on Okinawa, half his contemporaries were probably downloading personal-trainer AIs from EveryWare.

Or would Mother congratulate him?

Sweat was drying into him as his jumpsuit's fabric attempted to compensate for his exertions. It had been a nice easy jog along the canyon from the cabin, but he had finished with something like a sprint up the steep trail to the dome. That had been hard, and for a
while he had thought he was going to die, but now the endorphin high was on him and everything was fine.

Why did those particular words of Mother's come back to him now? He was working out—by his standards, anyway—but there was no danger. Everything was quite peaceful here.

Less stressful than his previous way of life, for sure. It did not need courage to abandon his old career: it took only common sense.

Perhaps some good had come of this, after all.

He leaned on the balcony wall, enjoying the rough feel of it even through the thin layer of smartgel which covered his hands, enjoying the sheer physical sensations of being alive.

All those years when he had turned away from Mother's path and mocked the futility of
bushido
training. Now—Perhaps, soon, he could send her an h-mail. Apologize, arrange another trip. For all of them: Mother, Akira, and his wife, Kumiko.

Movement.

Among the rocks. Shadows, in a narrow defile.

Raiding party?

Heart pounding, his overworked thighs trembling, Tetsuo sank down out of sight behind the balcony wall. People—he had not seen how many—were coming down the opposite side of the canyon. Agrazzi. Somehow, he was sure of it.

The warrior, when attacked, steps forwards.

Ha!
Thanks, Mother, but I'm not a warrior. I'm the one who hid away when the school bullies were around. Who resigned and fled to another world when the pressure of work grew too great.

Not a warrior.

Dhana and Brevan were back in the cabin. He had no way of communicating with them—No. That was not true. The lab system was linked to the cabin. But if he went back inside, he was trapped in a building with only one way in or out.

Move.

On hand and knees—crawling, very brave—he reached the door, rolled through the membrane.

Get to the lab.

He rushed inside, tugged off his resp-mask, and thumbed the tiny terminal into life. An out-reaching gesture, with his gel-covered hands: a comms request.

“
Not authorized to function.
”

Damn.

He did not have time to hack this bloody closed system. Why hadn't he done it earlier, when he had the chance?

Why didn't his damned mindware make itself useful?

Nothing.

A scraping sound, from outside.

Desperately, fingers flickering, he broke through into system management, found a shared notepad-function.

Outside, a voice barked an order, the words indistinct.

“Agrazzi raiders.” Tetsuo's voice was an urgent whisper. “Get out. Now.”

He stabbed with his forefinger. If one of the cabin's terminals was active, his message would pop up as voice and text.

A brush of fabric against a wall, instantly stopped.

He had to get out of here.

Backing away, he found himself among low rows of vats. A soft susurration, like distant breathing, filled the room. Fumes stung his nose, and he slapped his respmask back on.

A shadow slipped past the doorway.

Crouching down, Tetsuo duck-walked between the benches. At the rear of the lab, a ramp led downwards.

Dead end.

Moving quickly, he descended the ramp. In the closed cavern, the rock pool lay, brown and stagnant. Beneath the surface, dark shadows swam among fronds of underwater vegetation.

He glanced back. From the lab, the slapping sound of running footsteps.

Tetsuo crouched down, took a deep breath, and rolled softly over, into the pool without a splash. Murky water swallowed him up.

 

A heavy funereal silence lay like a shroud upon the great ruined house.

Yoshiko, walking along the hushed, damaged corridors, counted six sealed medical drones, scattered among various rooms. Each drone held someone who was critically injured, but not so badly that it was better to risk a flight to a med-centre. While the drones worked furiously within their blank carapaces, families and attendant medics waited. Relatives looked up with dead eyes as Yoshiko walked past.

A small inspection team of engineers passed by, talking quietly among themselves. Most of their colleagues had left some time ago.

There were hardly any proctors to be seen. No doubt drones had been left, surveilling the house and grounds. Perhaps the SatScan system, which people kept mentioning, would be used to keep a watchful eye from orbit.

In the central atrium, one young proctor stood. He looked about eighteen years old.

Rafael. Did you really cause all this?

Yoshiko looked around in a drawing room, searching cracked tables and an overturned sideboard, until she found a palm terminal. She fetched it out to the young proctor left on duty, so he could order food or drink.

He nodded his thanks.

“Were you here last night?” Stupid question: his face was drawn and pale, etched with fatigue.

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “It was awful.”

“Have you had any sleep?”

He smiled wanly. “I was ordered to take a few hours out, in some quarters we commandeered down that corridor. But—”

“I know. Me neither.” Up close, Yoshiko could see how reddened his eyes were. “Was anyone you know among the, ah, injured?”

“Yeah, Malerdy. He was my classmate at the academy.” He swallowed again. “Got hit by a chunk of falling wall.”

My God.
Young men, with their lives ahead of them, experiencing this.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“I'm not sure.” His voice was bleak.

“It was a terrible thing.” Yoshiko let out a shaky breath. “You're right there, my friend.”

His face grew grim. “Damn things are supposed to have safeties.”

“The holoprojectors? Yes, I know.” In her mind's eye, Yoshiko could see Lori carving that magnificent statue of Diana the Huntress. “I guess it flipped into an abnormal mode of operation.”

He was silent for a moment, then he shook his head.

“I studied holoprocessor tech at the academy.” He bit his lip. “It's supposed to cut out in a medical emergency. And I never saw anyone have a fit like that before, either. Didn't think
Luculenti
—” The emphasis was bitter. “—suffered from that kind of thing.”

“No.” Yoshiko was thoughtful. “You would think neurological disorders were cured by their implant tech, wouldn't you?”

The young proctor shrugged.

“Some kind of feedback from the array when it blew. Hardware failure. Would you believe it? That's what they're saying.”

“Oh,” said Yoshiko. “I see.”

“Million-to-one chance. No one's fault.”

She knew that look in his eye: the stunned certainty of mortality. She had seen the look in her own reflection, but this boy was far too young to have to deal with that reality.

All youngsters—bursting with vitality, like Vin—think unconsciously that they will live forever, and that's a true and honest part of life's cycle. They should not be confronted with its inescapable demise. Not while their dreams are still forming.

This young man's dreams would be nightmares, for a long time to come.

“Take care,” she said.

He nodded, thoughts turned already inwards.

Earlier, an older proctor had informed Yoshiko that the forensic sweep was finished, and she had ordered the domestic drones to begin the clean-up.

Now, she no longer had to pick her way among piles of rubble to reach the ballroom's main entrance, though the great bronze doors remained bent and battered.

The ballroom's floor was gleaming marble once more. The rubble gone, smashed flagstones replaced or repaired with femtotech construction. Clouds were reflected in the shining surface, criss-crossed with black shadows: monomer filaments still held up the walls.

More of the domed roof was gone. Unsafe segments had been cut away.

The house drones might be able to throw a smartfilm across the gaping hole. Perhaps she should log on, at least check whether rain was due. There should be some sort of cover, she thought, before night fell.

Night. Another night—

Glancing ruefully at her tu-rings—they still glowed dull orange, unable to interface with Skein—she activated her wrist terminal.

The sun shone brightly from Hermes's copper helmet, and his ankle wings fluttered gaily.

Curling her finger, Yoshiko saw the message was from Maggie, and she touched the icon and watched it unfurl.

“Hi, Yoshiko.” A starburst grew into being beside the image of Maggie's head. “The item's on InfoBurst Five, if you want to see. It hit the NewsNets as soon as I sent it.”

The starburst was a link to the news item.

Yoshiko stared at it, then looked up at the torn roof, screwing up her courage. Could she bear to see last night's tragedy again?

When attacked, a warrior steps forwards.
Sensei's words.

Her fingertip pierced the icon.

 

Black, and freezing. Vision was a cold blurring of light.

Smartgel covered his eyes: protection, but no visibility, not in these opaque waters.

Don't breathe.

A tiny flood of silver bubbles escaped his resp-mask, and streamed to the surface.

It's not designed for this. Not enough dissolved 0
₂
.

A shadow rippled over the pool. A man's arm?

Distant murmuring. Voices? The water's lapping obscured all sound.

Broken shadows. People, looking into the pool.

Holding tightly to cold, slippery rock.
Keep still.

His head began to pound.

A tiny beep sounded, inside his mask. He pressed the mask to negate the request, hoping his movement could not be seen.

Can't risk it.

The mask wanted to flip into short-term emergency mode, electrolysing the water. The rush of expelled hydrogen would be a giveaway.

Headache.

Getting harder to breathe.

A wheeze overlaying every intake of breath.

Temples pounding.

Vision growing dark.

Something touched his cheek.

Don't—

Tendrils, exploring.

—move. For God's sake.

Something soft crawled across his hand.

Just don't bloody move.

Blackness falling.

 

 

In perfect synchrony, a hundred revellers danced their intricate steps.

A FourSpeak secondary tesseract described the cultural history of the Sun-Wheel Dance, performed annually for a hundred years at the moment of the sun's greatest distance from Fulgor. In other volumes, text and phase-space diagrams provided an engineering analysis of the building's collapse—Yoshiko glanced around her, at the real ruined ballroom—while the central, metre-wide display, showed the dancers, and Xanthia's collapse.

Blog-cubes of well-known personalities. Mayor Neliptha Machella, black and elegant. Network diagrams estimated the political impact of her death.

White light burst through the central display, and the roof collapsed. Yoshiko's tiny figure failed to rescue Vin.

There was no quasi-sentient AI with Maggie's face to answer questions—not up to science-documentary standard—but the audio voice-overs were in her familiar tones.