Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“Turn it off!” Aaron bellowed. His cheeks were flushed as he sucked down air. Jaw muscles worked hard, clamping his teeth together.

Inigo rose to his feet, standing in front of Corrie-Lyn. He expanded the force field to protect her from direct energy shots, knowing it would ultimately be futile against Aaron. “The force field stays on. Now, in the Lady’s name, what’s happened?”

“Not the fucking force field!” Aaron juddered, taking a step back. Weird unpleasant sensations surged out of his gaiamotes, making Inigo flinch. It was a torrent of recall from the strange cathedral with the crystal arches, terrified faces flashing past, weapons fire impossibly loud. Each memory burst triggered a devastating bout of emotion. Even Inigo felt tears trickling down his cheeks as he swung between fright and revulsion, defiance and guilt.

“The mindfuck,” Aaron yelled. “Turn it off or I swear I’ll kill her in front of you.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Inigo yelled back. “What’s happening? What is this?”

Aaron sagged against the side of the ruined door. “Get them out of my head!”

“Deactivate your gaiamotes; that’ll kill the attack.”

“They are off!”

Inigo’s skin turned numb with shock-his own emotion rather than the chaotic barrage coming from Aaron. “They can’t be. I can feel your mind.”

Aaron’s hand punched out, knuckles finishing centimeters from Inigo’s face. Enhancements rippled below his skin, and squat black nozzles slid out of the flesh. “Turn it off.”

“I’m not doing anything!” Inigo yelled back. Ridiculously, he felt exhilarated: This was living , the antithesis of the last few decades. He cursed himself for hiding away rather than facing up to everything the universe could throw at him. Which was stupid …

Four ruby-red laser targeting beams fanned out of Aaron’s enrichments, playing across Inigo’s face. “Switch. It. Off ,” the crazed agent growled. Somewhere close by dark wings flapped in pursuit. The edge of the cabin began to shimmer away as if the darkness were claiming it molecule by molecule. Her presence was chilling, seeping through Inigo’s force field to frost his skin.

Aaron flung his head back. “Get away from me, you monster.”

“It’s not me,” Inigo whispered, fearful of whatever stalked them through the gloom that was now busily eating away at the edge of his own vision. He could see her smile now, predatory teeth bared. If she did break through to whatever Aaron believed to be reality, there was no telling what would happen.

The laser beams started to curve through the air, sliding smoothly around Inigo to cage him in red threads. Their tips studded Corrie-Lyn’s naked body.

“I can be as bad as her,” Aaron purred with smooth menace. “After all, she taught me. I can make this last for hours. You will hear Corrie-Lyn plead with you to switch it off. She will beg you to kill her as the only way to stop the pain.”

“Please,” Inigo said. “Listen to me. I’m not doing this to you.”

The arching lasers grew brighter. Corrie-Lyn’s skin sizzled and blackened where the tiny points touched her. She gritted her teeth against the pricks of pain. “Wait,” she gasped. “Where are we?”

Aaron was shuddering as if someone were shoving an electric current through his body. “Location?”

The darkness surrounding the cabin pulsed with a heart’s rhythm, stirring up a gust of air that pushed against them.

“Yes!” Corrie-Lyn demanded. “Our location. Are we near the Spike?”

“It’s two hundred and seventy light-years away.”

“Is that close enough for the dream? Is that what we’re feeling?”

Aaron cocked his head to one side, though his hand remained steady just centimeters in front of Inigo’s face. A drop of saliva dribbled out of his mouth. “Dream? You think this to be a dream? She’s here. She’s walking through the ship. She’s here for me. She never forgets. Never forgives. For that is weakness and we are strength.”

“Not your dream, you fucking moron,” Corrie-Lyn said. “Ozzie’s dream. The galactic dream he left the Commonwealth to build.”

“Ozzie’s dream?” The curving lasers dimmed slightly. Corrie-Lyn wriggled away from their enclosure.

“That’s right,” Inigo cried. “This effect is like an emotion amplifier. I knew the sex was good, but …”

Corrie-Lyn stopped rubbing her burns. “Hey!”

“Don’t you see?” Inigo urged. “He’s heightened our emotional responses through the gaiafield. But with your screwed-up psyche that’s simply helped with the destabilization. Whatever controls your masters installed are starting to crack under the pressure.”

The blackness pulsed again. Inigo swore he could feel the pressure increase on his inner ears.

“My gaiamotes are closed,” Inigo hissed.

“They can’t be! I’m witnessing your dreams.”

“He’s right,” Corrie-Lyn said. “My gaiamotes are shut, too, but this fucking nightmare is terrorizing us all. It’s not the gaiamotes.”

Aaron’s targeting beams snapped off. “What, then?” he demanded. His knees nearly buckled. “I cannot risk my mission failing in this fashion. It leaves you open to capture. We will have to die.” His hand moved to clamp his fingers over Inigo’s face. Inigo’s exovision was suddenly swamped by warning symbols as his force field began to glow a weak violet. “Your memorycell, too,” Aaron said. “Nothing of you must survive to fall into the hands of the enemy, especially her.”

“He’s circumvented it,” Inigo said, trying to keep calm. Violence wasn’t the solution to this; he had to break through Aaron’s neuroses. “This is Ozzie’s dream; it doesn’t need the gaiafield anymore. He’s propagated the feelings through spacetime itself.”

“This is an attack,” Aaron vowed.

“It’s not. I promise. He’s a genius, an authentic off-the-scale live genius. The gaiafield was just a warm-up for him. Don’t you see? He’s created real telepathy. Ozzie has made something that can make mind speak directly to mind just like he always wanted. It’s internal. Do you understand? Your instability is coming from within.”

“No.” Aaron fell to his knees, gasping for breath, pulling Inigo down with him.

“You are the cause of the mission failure. The damage is coming from your own subconscious.”

“No.”

“It is.”

“Make it stop. She can’t get me. I can’t allow that. Not again.”

“There is nobody there. She is just a memory, a screwed-up memory you don’t know how to contain, there’s so much fear embedded with the experience.”

Aaron suddenly let go of Inigo, stumbling around to face the broken door in a martial arts pose. “She’s here.”

“Aaron, listen to me. Ozzie’s dream is corroding your rationality because it was never designed to deal with circumstances like these. You have to let them go; you have to let the real you out of those constraints your boss imposed. You must come forward. This artificial personality can’t cope.”

“Not good enough?”

“The real you is more than adequate. Come out. Come on, it’s the only way you can beat this.”

“Damage control …” Aaron slowly sank to his knees, and then his back curled as he dropped his head between his legs. His breathing started to calm. The eerie semihallucinations around the periphery of the cabin began to melt away.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn gave each other an anxious look. “Do you think?” she asked.

“The Lady alone knows,” he murmured back.

They stood up. Corrie-Lyn hurriedly pulled her woolen robe back on, then they both approached the crouched figure cautiously. Inigo reached out tentatively but didn’t quite have the courage to touch Aaron. He wondered if that was the dream field-or whatever-amplifying the worry. But it seemed sensible enough. Surely an emotional enhancer would boost his sympathy correspondingly. Maybe that was the way it worked, everything raised equally so that everything stayed in the same balance as before-no alteration to personality, just a greater perception or empathy.