Kevin Anderson - Resurrection, Inc.

Before, Danal had always been too jaded to see the fervor in the eyes of someone who actually believed in the cult. But now Stromgaard’s face showed a beatific, glazed look of anticipation that defied all rational thought. Danal found that frightening.

“The Net has no resistance, no inhibitions, no moral or religious qualms that can dim Satan’s fires!” Stromgaard continued. “Once Satan has possessed The Net, He can control the entire world in a second. All machines, and all men, will have to bow to Him.” He closed his eyes and took a deep, exalted breath.

“Meticulous reasoning, Vincent, carefully thought out. You should appreciate that. We sacrificed you in the traditional manner the first time. Then we stole your soul back from Satan, and now I’m going to offer Him a different type of sacrifice.” The imposter attached the last of the electrodes to Danal’s smooth scalp and straightened the wires leading to the terminal. “I’ll deactivate the microprocessor that keeps you alive, and send the pulse into The Net. If Satan wants your soul back, He’s going to have to follow… and discover the incredible world awaiting Him!”

Danal smirked, playing him along. “And I suppose you’re doing it here, alone, to get all the glory for yourself? If it works, you’ll be the most powerful man in the world, because you alone helped Satan to return?” He needed to manipulate the conversation around to where he could strike back.

“Why shouldn’t I? Nathans stole Resurrection, Inc. from me. You stole neo-Satanism from me, even when we were just developing it. Neo-Satanism was supposed to have been mine , Vincent. For me! Now I’m getting something for myself at last. I’m the only one who truly believes in what the three of us created. You and Nathans think neo-Satanism is just a game, a bunch of parlor tricks. But I know better. When Satan returns, He’ll know me and what I’ve done, and He’ll be grateful.”

Danal laughed in delight. “I don’t think so!” It was almost over. Van Ryman had not Commanded him to silence. He heard the invisible sound of the trap as it sprung.

“What do you mean?” Stromgaard’s eyes narrowed.

He shrugged, almost coy. “Don’t forget, when I regained my memory, I remembered all my Net access codes, too. And now I’ve got the last laugh!”

“What have you done!”

Danal allowed his lips to curl up in a smile, and remained silent for as long as he dared, letting his father’s insecurity and uneasiness build. “I’m a Servant—I don’t have any future in my old life. So I deleted my entire identity from The Net this afternoon. Vincent Van Ryman no longer exists. If Satan does possess The Net, he’s not going to have a single burned-out chip that remembers you!” He laughed again, a full, self-satisfied sound, then turned bitter. “You did the same thing to Julia.”

“No!”

Danal put a smug expression on his face. “Check it for yourself if you don’t believe me. I’m in no hurry.”

Van Ryman’s face writhed in his utter fury and disbelief. He lunged at the white squares on the Net keypad, snarling at the screen. Danal yanked the electrodes from his head, and let them drop to the floor. “Stay where you are!” Stromgaard snapped.

Danal slipped into his stepped-up perception of time, watched Van Ryman’s fingers go through the logon procedure, then hit the thirteen-digit password. The imposter stared at the pixels on the screen until they authorized his link with The Net… activating the trap.

On acceptance of the logon, the incredible power of the entire Intruder Defense Systems poured explosively into the single terminal—following one line of the circuitry rerouted by the repair-rats. The plastic coverplate shattered. A power surge leaped back through the keypad into the imposter’s body. Silver arcs of electricity skittered over Van Ryman’s fingers and hands like the talons of a demon, blasting him. His dark hair lifted with the static discharge, like the puff of a dead dandelion.

Danal dropped back to normal time. Stromgaard Van Ryman toppled backward with the smell of smoking flesh. Wisps of steam rose up from his black robes.

Danal didn’t allow himself a moment’s sadness for his father—Stromgaard had chosen his path long ago. “I would never delete my own identity,” Danal spoke softly to the dead man on the floor. “Not when I expected to win.”

He sat down on one of the stone benches as events caught up with him. Danal felt numb, and his mind whirled. He had just killed Stromgaard, and that would be only the beginning. The momentum behind the wheels he had set in motion would come crashing through them all before the night was over.

When he had buried all the memories in a safe mental place, the Servant went back up the dank stairs into the house, his house, and shut down all of the Intruder Defense Systems. He hoped it would be for the last time.

Then he sent out the signal of his victory that would bring all the Wakers to him.

Jones’s dark armor melted into the shadows of the wet street. He and his Elite Guard companion waited. Off in the distance he could hear faint bustling noises as the Metroplex wound down into a coma for the night, but here, in a senior citizen’s area, all was quiet already. As Jones had requested, the two nearby streetlights flickered and went dead, leaving the area in deeper blackness. At the far end of each street, white-clad Enforcers turned back the occasional pedestrians.

With the streetlights out of the way, Jones moved forward and crouched on one knee, afraid to come too close to the KEEP OFF THE GRASS patch. The other Elite guard stayed back, pretending to be aloof and annoyed, but noticeably tense. Jones edged closer still.

He expected to hear the “deadly field” humming, but he noted only the muffled silence of the damp evening. It would be curfew in another couple of hours, but already this felt like the dead of night.

Jones could clearly make out the bright green grass blades, luscious and alive, all of them perfect, shimmering. Was it just an illusion? A hologram? Everything he had been told, layer upon layer of rumor said that these patches were deadly disintegrators to peel a man down to the bone in a flash of infinite pain.

Jones had seen one, only one contradictory statement on The Net, and he had never been able to find it again. Nathans was sure someone else was tampering with the computer network, covering up the real explanation of the grass patches. But couldn’t it be just as likely that someone—someone who could indeed tamper with The Net—had planted a fake explanation for Jones to see, to lure him into—

“Give me something to throw,” he said over his shoulder, slamming the door on his fear.

The other Elite Guard looked around and cursed under his breath. “I can’t see a damn thing with this helmet.” Oddly, he took off his gloves instead, and Jones could see that the other Guard was black as well. The Guard crunched his heel on the street until one of the decorative cobblestones loosened. He pried it out with the blade of his heater-knife and tossed the cobblestone to Jones.

“Quiet, now,” Jones whispered.

“It’s your show. Does it make you feel important or something?”

Jones hesitated at the comment—why would the other Guard mock him?—but decided to ignore it.

The other Guard had not seemed impressed either by the mystery or by Jones’s enthusiasm about the KEEP OFF THE GRASS patches. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not going to tell you, that’s for sure. I’m not in a trusting mood tonight.”

“I’m Jones,” he said, puzzled and dismayed at the other Guard’s attitude. Jones did not ask about it, though; as long as the man helped out when he was needed, the Guard’s problems were his own. Since, he was an Elite Guard, it couldn’t be all bad for him.