Jak Koke - Stranger souls

One more thing to do before logging off. Her run counter indicated on-line time was up to 245 seconds. That cyber-combat took too many fragging cycles. It was unlikely that her jamming program would still be holding the vanishing SAN open, and she had fifty-five seconds before the smart-frame issued the trigger sequence again.

She used the time to implant some data into the security banks. The retinal and print-scan data from her team members, complete with false identification. The next check against any sort of incremental backup protocol would wipe the new records, but until then, maybe Axler, Grind, and McFaren would have an easier time getting through security checkpoints.

She was just about to log off the host when she froze, unable to move. She felt pressure then, a feeling like

drowning. It was as though a huge bag of wet sand sat on her chest, growing heavier and heavier until she couldn't breathe.

The blood vessel walls faded away, replaced by a conservative office-style room that materialized around her. Mahogany paneling, track lighting, classical music. The smell of wood oil and fresh-baked pastries drifted in.

"Please sit down," came a deep voice.

A chair faded into existence next to her, and she noticed that her masking no longer worked; she was in her corporate bimbo attire, wearing slick red leather pants and jacket. She probed the room with her analyze utility, but it told her nothing. Solid code, slick as teflon, dense as rock. Like hardware.

"Relax," came the voice again. "You aren't going anywhere for a while."

Jane didn't respond, and continued her search for an exit. There must be at least one.

"My name is Thomas Roxborough. What is yours?"

Roxborough? Vm fragged. Everyone knew that Thomas Roxborough was a vat case and a legend in the Matrix. Jane struggled to breathe against the invisible weight on her chest.

"It pains me that you're so uncooperative," came Roxborough's voice. "Coercion really isn't my preferred modus operandi. But if you insist…"

The weight on her grew unbearable, and she crumpled to the floor. Gasping for breath. None of her code worked on this system, whatever it was. Even her emergency Disconnect sequence had no effect. She tried to bring herself back into the physical world enough to actually reach with her real, flesh-and-bone hand and jack out

No effect; her perception was firmly anchored here. She felt nothing but the constriction of breath in her chest. Pressing down on her, feeling like cold dirt on her grave as she was slowly, inexorably buried alive.

Suddenly the faint burning sensation returned. Like someone was watching her. It was a hot itch over her skin, stronger than ever. A raw-edged scrape in the back of her throat.

"What are you trying to do?" he asked, his tone harsh, the volume rattling her skull.

I'm doing nothing. It's not me.

The sensation grew, the tingling becoming burning. The burning increasing until it felt like napalm immolated her. Then it broke, like a fever, leaving only a coolness. And she noticed that a section of the floor had opened up. A swirling vortex of light and cloudy colors funneled down next to her.

Then she heard a whisper, like a ghost in her mind. "Come." It was not Roxborough's voice. Someone else was helping her.

What else could she do? It was suffocate or dive into the tunnel of light. She crawled, pushing herself with all her strength. Straining as she crept closer to the edge, the digital event horizon.

A persona appeared behind her as she reached the rim-a human in a business suit, curly brown hair. It was an exact replica of the host's sculpture. His hands reached down to grab her ankles. "Alice! I will not let you take her," he yelled at the vortex. His voice was the deep resonance of Thomas Roxborough. "Why do you care about this one? Who is she?"

But the whisper did not answer, and Jane pulled the code of her knees tight against her chest as she plunged over the tornado rim and plummeted into the vortex.

Latched to the old rusting ladder of the ancient amusement park tower, high in the baking night, he was a droplet of black ink against the darker palette of night sky. The burning smell of a summer fire drifted in the still heat as he brought the binoculars to his eyes. As he looked down upon the massive obsidian glass stone in the lake at the bottom of the hill. The black stone was veined with orichalcum, glowing brilliant gold as the powerful magic infused it with new life.

Screams reached his ears then. Insistent, frantic screams of a lamb in human flesh. A child? Then the pleading cries went silent with the slash of an obsidian knife. A quick cut by a white-skinned human with dark hair and a beard. His smile was cruel and mocking, his eyes gleeful and drunk with power. He was familiar.

The man held the child by the hair-a brown girl in the throes of puberty-pulling back her head so that the sanguine liquid of her life drained into a funnel. Her blood flowed down a narrow hose, a conduit from the child's neck, through the water to the obsidian stone at the bottom. Wispy, red clouds formed in the crystal-clear water at the end of the hose, billowing around the stone as the girl gave out, her gurgling cry dying in her throat.

Watching from high above, he felt the knife as if it had struck him instead of the child. A searing pain across his neck, a choking spurt of blood gushing to fill his throat. Before…

He woke, shooting up to a sitting position in his clinic bed. The cold, distant lights of the machinery along the wall to his right blinked at him in silent mockery of his nightmare. Breathe. Breathe. Sweat froze on his back.

Where do these dreams come from? He couldn't remember

anything like it. His memory was returning slowly, though. He knew his name. Thomas, he thought. My name is Thomas. Thomas Roxborough.

It was the one truth he clung to, a rock in the shifting tide of erratic memories.

The door clicked open then, and a technician entered. She was tall and broadly built, not one he recognized. Her wavy blonde hair hung around a smooth-skinned face that would have been pretty if her dark eyes had been softer, their expression less chillingly hard. Sharp-angled bulges under her lab coat sent warnings off in his mind as he watched her approach.

Something was wrong.

But what should he do about it? He didn't know.

She had reached the side of his bed before he could decide to do anything. "Ryan, it's me," she said. "Axler."

This woman knows me? And she called me Ryan. Why not Thomas?

He did not answer her, though she was obviously waiting for some sort of affirmation. Then he nodded slightly. Best to play along.

"We're here to help you escape."

We? Then he noticed that the door to his room had not closed itself completely. Something was keeping it open even though he couldn't see anything there.

"You must be drugged," she said. "Can you move?"

He nodded again.

"Good." She handed him a black cloth bundle. "Hurry and put this on before the alarms go off and wake the whole place."

He just stared at her, unsure of what to do. How could he just leave with a stranger?

"Come on!" she hissed, her voice pitched low and threatening. "We're in danger here, Ryan! You scan?"

Ryan again? Despite the hardness of her eyes, he could see that she was sincere. She cared about his safety. "I scan," he said, "but I can't go with you."

Axler's hard eyes narrowed on him. "I don't have time for this, Ryan," she said. Then she reached under her lab-coat, and there was something in her hand when she pulled

it out. Too fast to see, her hand a blur as she connected with his neck.

Leaving a patch. A dermal drug patch.

"Sorry, Ryan. I don't have time to argue just now."