Jak Koke - Stranger souls

His heart rose to his throat as he watched. His breath caught, his chest pinned. I'm drowning.

He turned to look at Meyer. Concentrated on his lungs, and managed to take a shallow breath. "Part of me is still in there?" he asked.

"Yes," the elf said. "This tank, and the one next to it. The scientists don't want to restrict any of your growth."

Then through the viscera, a large solid mass floated close to the window. Wires and tubes permeated it, and some of the shape was recognizable. The brain, mostly intact, but larger than normal and most of the skull and face dissolved away. Thick tendrils of brain matter floated like wet dreadlocks

behind it. The thing turned then, rotating until he could see an eye, large and vein-riddled, peering back out the window at him.

Bile rose in his throat. His stomach lurched, and he could no longer stand. He fell to his knees and heaved. Vomiting until there was nothing but a dry acidic taste in the back of his throat, purging until his abdominal muscles were sore from the exertion.

Meyer knelt next to him. "We should get you back, sir," he said. "You're still recovering."

He tried to stand. The elf and the human supported his arms as he rose to his feet. The technician had polarized the tank's plexan surface, but the image still floated in his mind. The injustice of such a disease. How could I have survived like that for so long?

He didn't remember much yet, and now he didn't want to. "I want the procedure completed as soon as possible," he said. "I want to be out of that tank."

The elf smiled, broad and genuine. "We're moving as fast as we can, sir. The progress has been quite good for the first three days, and we just passed a major hurdle. It should only be another week or so."

Lucero dreamed.

She was the dark spot in the blinding light. The tiny shell of silence amid a sea of song. Beautiful music on a cracked plane of rock.

She thought perhaps that it was the voice of Quetzalcoatl singing, trying to cleanse her innate evil. But she doubted that even his power could rid her of the taint, the curse of her blood desire. Her yearning for its power.

Her addiction.

That dark stain on her soul refused to be washed away. Uncleansable like blood on Lady Macbeth's hands.

For several moments of exquisite beauty and terrible pain, she basked in the flow of light and the wash of music. Then, abruptly, her dream gave way to a nightmare. The glorious rush of light plowed over her, shredding her skin like a hard shower of needles. Too much to stand. Overwhelming her in its painful beauty, its agonizing perfection.

It was gone and she rolled over, consciousness hitting her like a sledge. The cold granite of the altar pressed against her back and neck as she rolled into a fetal position. The air baked around her even though it was well past sundown, and sweat slicked her scarred body.

Lucero's head was shaved and smooth, the only skin that was free of the runic scars that marked up the remainder of her petite body. She tucked her face into her arms and tried to hold back the tears. The exquisite beauty of that place, she thought. Gone.

"Excellent," came a deep male voice.

She felt a soft cloth fall over her, and magical warmth filled her. "You have the gift, Lucero," the man said. "You

are the paradox that can love both the darkness and the light. Now get some rest. You will not be sacrificed."

Lucero looked up at the face of Serlor Oscuro. He grinned down at her and clasped his hands together in chilling glee, a maniacal glint in his black eyes.

She had passed the test, a trial that so many before her had failed. She would not be sacrificed.

Hands supported her, urging her to stand. Servants in drab robes helped her down and led her from the sanctuary chamber at the center of the San Marcos teocalli, out toward the priests' residences. How long had it been since she had last seen the interior of a sanctuary?

Since the last Blood Mage Gestalt ritual, when her magic was still strong. At least several months ago. Now the power was all but drained out of her, swallowed up suddenly when she extended herself too far. When the backlash of the Gestalt's ritual had crashed down on them, and she was too weak to withstand it.

She had collapsed from the loss of blood and the ritual's drain. She had felt her magic slip away then. Not all of it, just a little. But that little was too much. It weakened her so that she could no longer cast the high-force spells, could no longer provide enough power to the Blood Mage Gestalt. There were many initiates awaiting their own chance.

She had expected to be sacrificed like the other burned-out Blood Mages before her. Now it didn't look like that was going to happen. She was not going to be allowed to die for her sins. For her taint. What was going to happen to her? What did Senor Oscuro have planned for her? She didn't know.

The servants left her alone in one of the antechambers adjacent to the sanctuary. She had a view of the altar and of Quetzalcoatl's statue arching over it, gold and blue feathered wings spread wide. And on the other wall were sliding glass doors that led to a balcony. Outside, Lucero could see the excavation under the glowing spring water. She could sense something there, something pure and powerful. Something like the song and the light.

Perhaps she could be happy here for a while. Perhaps she

would get to visit that place in her dreams again. The place where the stain on her soul was almost washed away by the beautiful singing. Almost.

13 August 2057

Jane-in-the-box surveyed the virtual space of her command center. A square-shaped room with riveted stainless steel walls surrounded her. Six sides of computer-generated reality, each face representing one of her datajacks. Each representing a connection, a channel to another world to which she could switch. A die-shaped virtual gateway created by the network of cyberdecks and hosts in Dunkelzahn's Lake Louise lair. Working for an ultra-rich great dragon had its bennies, especially when the dragon was a technology freak.

Jane's meat body rested comfortably at her console, six fiber-optic lines connecting the datajacks on the back of her skull to the command ports in her terminal. But her body was just bones and sluggish flesh, and right now it felt nothing, it saw nothing. The cyberdeck cut off her normal senses in favor of those provided by her MCPC-Master Control Processor Chip.

Time to move the chess pieces, she thought. Time to extract Quicksilver.

On the surface of five of the steel faces shone images, four of them headcam shots from her team. The fifth face, below her, showed a shining gold door, the gateway from her private virtual space to the Matrix-the electronic universe of the world-spanning computer network.

Her team was deep in Aztlan, on site at the delta clinic in the Panamanian jungle and waiting on her word. She checked the vitals of each of them. Kaylinn Axler was the on-site team leader and highly competent from years of experience. Jane registered statistics like heart rate and respiration that accompanied the visual and audio. Axler even had a cybernetic olfactory receptor so Jane got scent from

her as well. Right now, the clinic room smelled like a combination of aerosol lubricant and antiseptic.

Axler, Grind, and McFaren stood in the small white-walled room with two other people-clinic techs who were performing a preliminary scan on Axler and Grind to see what 'ware they already had. Jane had fabricated identities for them, and she had bribed a series of people to get this interview. Ostensibly to schedule cybermantic surgery.

Axler was large for a human, though nicely proportioned-long legs, narrow waist, and square shoulders. Very attractive with wavy blonde hair, doe-brown eyes, and a nice smile. Very deceptive. She liked to lull her opposition into a sense of over-confidence by using her demure physical appearance. All of Axler's chrome was discreet and extremely well-hidden. Just like any emotions she might once have had. Despite her appearance, Axler was hard and remote-an ice queen, cold and frosty at all times. Her vitals indicated she was cool and collected, not nervous at all that the clinic technician was examining her.