To Hold Infinity (43 page)

He could no longer see Dhana.

Outside, a curtain of silver rain washed across the mob.

 

They came for him.

Skimmers arrowed above the dispersing crowds, heading for Tetsuo. On one of them, a tall man in TacCorps uniform was unhelmeted. For a moment, lightning flashed, and that ascetic face burned briefly white, and those mismatched eyes were pale and frightening.

Federico Gisanthro.

Was he the only reason for all this? Striking back, because the Shadow People were exposing his corruption? Or was he using this chaos somehow to strengthen his political power?

Run.

Dhana was somewhere inside. Crowds would be fleeing through the complex, through the heart of the conference centre. How many would escape to the grounds outside, to the tubeways and flyers which might take them into Lucis City proper?

“I'm sorry!” He spat rainwater from his drenched face as he moved into the open, and Shadow People stared at him with agony in their eyes as the smartatom shield reactivated.

Run. Now.

Briefly, he was running with a hundred other people, heading upslope with his lungs and heavy thighs burning, feet slipping on the muddy ground. Then he was on his own. Torrential rain lashed him, blocked his nose and blurred his vision.

Can't breathe.

Run.

Lightning flash.

For a moment, the trees ahead were lit up, stark against the dark forest beyond.

Safety. Just run.

The light was gloomy but Tetsuo thought a shadow moved across the ground. He pushed harder, lungs whining with a high-pitched wheeze, as something hard and massive smashed him between the shoulder blades, and wet grass slapped him in the face and blackness fell.

The air was on fire. Golden clouds of burning light filled the auditorium. Black lightning spat. A thousand unseen demons howled. A great winged shape swooped upon them, talons raking, screaming as it missed.

Yoshiko and Eric ducked, clutching each other.

“What the hell—?” Eric, bewildered, still tightly grasped the sheathed tanto dagger.

Glassy blue all around.

Looking down, Yoshiko could no longer see her body, but felt a desperate hand grasping her arm.

“Eric?”

They were embedded in a glacier of icy light.

“What is this?” Eric's gruff voice wavered.

“
What is this?
” An echo. “
What is this?
” Moving. “
What is this what is this what is this?
” A mocking chorus.

Yoshiko took Eric's invisible hand and gripped it tightly.

They were in a pit of total blackness. Tiny stars began to twinkle, light years beneath their feet. Yoshiko locked on to the unseen spirit she hoped was Eric, and, swaying, they kept their balance.

“What are you doing with this man?”

The voice was Ken's, and Yoshiko let go of the invisible Eric's arm, and was lost.

Falling, through the dark.

Help me.

“Oh, no, my dear.” A cold voice scraped the flesh from her bones. “No help for you.”

She was lying on her back, and a whirlpool of grey mists endlessly spun.

From the rows of gravestones all around, decaying hands were thrusting upwards, clawing into wan cold light.

Help me.

A kind hand helped her stand.

“Oh, no—”

Ken's round face smiled at her.

Dear God. Give me strength—

“Oh, Yoshiko. How I've missed you.” The voice which had been part of her, for most of her life.

—to do what I must.

The other half of her. The part which had been missing, torn relentlessly away.

“Ken,” she breathed, and as he smiled she whipped the edge of her hand against his throat, smashing into the carotid sinus, and a very real and physical being dropped to the ground.

All around, illusory mists faded.

The auditorium grew visible once more. This time, all the lights came dimly on, and Yoshiko could see the massed ranks of comfortable seats—not gravestones—and the small collection of floating lev-platforms.

The redwood walls gleamed. Above, near the high ceilings with their dim skylights—dim because the formal wing-shaped hovering roof was suspended above the building—hung the laser array which had produced the illusions.

At her feet, the fallen Rafael, who had copied Ken's likeness from EveryWare—

It was Eric who lay on the ground, comatose, the useless dagger lying fallen beside him.

“Oops.” The tall figure of Rafael, caped and hooded, was leaning against a wall at the back of the auditorium. “I think you made a wrong assumption, Yoshiko.” His arms were crossed, and a beatific smile wreathed his lean and impossibly handsome face. “You don't mind if I call you Yoshiko, do you, Luculenta Sunadomari?”

“If you've—” Yoshiko stopped, centring herself. “Illusions won't help you now.”

She opened a pocket in her jumpsuit, dropped in the blue crystal which Felice had given her, and sealed it. Then, slowly in case of blinding holo imagery, she knelt straight-backed and picked up the fallen dagger.

She glanced back. Felice and the TacCorps agents lay where they had dropped.

“Tetsuo's outside, did you know?” Rafael's words chilled her. “There's a bit of a riot going on out there, so I thought I'd find someplace nice and quiet. Rather serendipitous, don't you think?”

Yoshiko ignored him. This was no time for distracting words.

The short blade slid silently from its sheath.

“How quaint.” Rafael's smile was gentle, almost loving. “Well, I've no time for tedious explication. Soon you'll see wonders such as you've never dreamed of, subsumed in the greater—”

Yoshiko advanced.

“That's interesting.” His voice was silky, almost caressing. “You betray a distinct lack of surprise.”

She jerked in reflex, though there was no pain.

 

<<>>

 

“No!” Yoshiko yelled.

 

{{{HeaderBegin: Module = Node728A.3219 Type = Quaternary-HyperCode: Axes = 256

Priority = absolute

Status = resident always

Concurrent_Execute

     ThreadOne:.linkfile = LockChannelZero

     ThreadTwo:.linkfile = LockChannelOne

     ThreadThree:.linkfile = LockChannelTwo

     ThreadFour:.linkfile = LockChannelThree

End_Concurrent_Execute}}}

 

Lines of code burned like golden fire in her brain, and she knew straight away that she had failed. The code was executing, locked on to nothing at all.

“Oh, dear.” Rafael laughed gently. “I appear to have tripped some sort of code in your mind. What was it designed to do?”

“Lock you in place,” said Yoshiko grimly. “Keep your comms in stasis until someone could get you.”

“Tsk, tsk. That seems scarcely polite.”

She raised her blade. “Just let me into your mind, Rafael. You'll wish you'd never started this.”

“Yoshiko, Yoshiko. Well, since you ask so nicely—”

Cold paralysis stopped her dead.

Rafael's deep eyes seemed to have grown impossibly huge. Every detail of his face was perfect.

“Time,” he said, and his beautiful words rolled over her, “to be reborn.”

Cold fire burned in her veins.

Sounds whispered just beyond the edge of her awareness, calling to her. A wondrous light beckoned, from peripheral darkness where she could not see.

Yoshiko.

Oh, yes.

Come to me.

The words stroked her, burned her skin, inflamed her every nerve.

“
No
,” a frail voice whispered weakly.

“Yoshiko—” Rafael became sternly commanding.

Chaos struck.

 

{{Swirling inchoate light, blinding in its brilliance.}}

 

{{Gut-wrenching ultrasonic screams.}}

 

     <>

     <Run, now!
>>

 

Felice.

With a glance back at the wounded Felice, who was raising herself up on one elbow, Yoshiko turned and ran.

Dodging seats, she sprinted past the collection of hanging lev-platforms. Then a low moan dragged her to a halt.

Felice, twisted body clutched in agony. Rafael, eyes glowing with dark malignance.

Yoshiko started to return, hefting her dagger, but a flicker of his eyes told her that Rafael was aware of her still.

Get out of here.

The lev-platforms.

She looked up. High above, dim skylights dotted the sloping ceiling.

OK, Luculenta. Let's see what you've got.

{{{HeaderBegin: Module = Node089C.1060: Type = BinaryHyper-Code: Axes = 16

Execute

        do until ok_received

               .linkfile = IRprotocol.

                    Common.genFn(lev,0;sts) repeat

End_Execute}}}

 

A dozen lev-platforms leaped upwards, hurtled towards the ceiling, and smashed into it. Two of them crashed through skylights, and a torrent of falling glass and debris poured down with the suddenly lifeless platforms. Yoshiko crouched behind a row of seats as chunks of ceiling fell.

There was one functional platform left, bobbing lightly in the magnetic disturbance.

Yoshiko leaped aboard as her mind formed the instructions. There was time for one last glance at the dreadful tableau: Rafael's gaze locked on the dying Felice. Then the platform was flying upwards.

Ceiling.

Yoshiko dodged a jutting triangle of glass as momentum carried her up through the broken skylight. Whimpering, she threw herself off the platform a microsecond before it tipped and plunged back down inside.

The hard roof knocked the breath from her body, and she lay there stunned, bright green pulses flashing in her eyes.

 

Bulging eyes, rippled features: Tetsuo-
kami
, vengeful ghosts. It was his own inverted face, twisted in death. Mirror-visors, reflecting his fear.

Helmeted TacCorps agents surrounded him. Light shimmered gently across their weapons' transmission faces.

“No!”

Federico leaped down lightly from a skimmer, and the other agents drew back.

Tetsuo lurched to his knees, stood up in the mud, and wiped rain and dirt from his face. His momentary gratitude faded. Death was certain. His love for Dhana, forever unfulfilled.

Down below, the fleeing crowds were too busy to notice Tetsuo's fate.

Federico ran through the falling rain, inhumanly swift. Arms and legs pumped as he sprinted across the soaked grass, arrowing towards Tetsuo.

A planted weapon, sworn testimony that he had been about to bring it to bear. That was all it would take. Tetsuo would go unmourned to a killer's grave.

Time slowed.

Federico leaped high, leg cocked to deliver the neck-snapping kick—

A flash of white.

—boot-edge thrusting—

Talons raked.

—and Federico fell, screaming.

Ripping teeth, scarlet blood.

“No!”

Tetsuo staggered forward, placing his body in harm's way as the agents recovered and brought their graser rifles to bear.

The rain ceased.

On Federico's twitching form, the white lynxette looked up at Tetsuo, amber eyes whirling with nameless emotions, as the air grew miraculously still.

The eye of the storm.

“You're both dead,” said a visored agent, cold fury in her voice.

The last words Tetsuo would hear. He squeezed his eyes shut.

A soft whimper escaped him, beyond his control.

Death.

The ground shook, and the air exploded.

Huge bronze and silver darts in the sky: three vast mu-space ships,
crashing into real-space. From tiny openings in the hulls, a thousand bubbles streamed downwards.

As each drop-bug hit the ground, an armed proctor leaped out and took up position. Here and there, among the masses of blue uniforms, black-jumpsuited figures moved.

Pilots.

The lynxette growled softly.

“
—name is Major Reilly.
”

Above the fallen Federico's wrist, a tiny holo image: a grey-haired square-jawed woman.

“
—down your weapons now, or face criminal charges. Luculentus Federico Gisanthro is relieved of command by executive order—
”

The agents standing around Tetsuo stiffened. He guessed they were seeing the same image, displayed inside their helmets.

Down below, proctors had contained the outnumbered TacCorps forces, who were already laying down their arms. Shadow People moved in a daze, aimlessly.

The agent facing Tetsuo pulled off her helmet, and dropped it to the ground. She stared coldly at Tetsuo.

One of the other agents tuned his visor to transparency, revealing a scarred and bearded face. He brought up a graser pistol, and targeted Tetsuo's heart. “Let's do—”

Graser fire spat, and the man fell.

“He was my best team leader.” The unhelmeted agent laid her graser rifle on the ground. “Remember I did that.”

“Looks—” Tetsuo's voice caught. “Looks like your people have all surrendered.”

The TacCorps agents flinched as the lynxette padded up beside Tetsuo, but it sat on its haunches, and stared up at Tetsuo with unfathomable eyes.

“Pity,” Tetsuo added. “I would have liked to see the Pilots in action.”

 

 

Defeat swirled like ashes in Yoshiko's mind.

The way of the warrior is death.
The first words of the Hagakure, the samurai code.