Шарон Ли - Agent of Change

"Val Con."

He looked up, holding the guitar across his lap by its fragile neck. The numbers were running faster, switching from one Loop to the other, almost too rapidly for him to scan.

Death and danger. Disgrace and death. Dishonor and destruction . . . .

His muscles were tightening, his breathing quickened—and still the numbers raced.

"Val Con." Rising concern was evident in her voice.

He shook his head, struggling for words. "It is most likely that they will kill me," he managed, fascinated, watching the numbers flash, reverse themselves, and flash again as they counted the reduced chances of his living out the month, the week . . . . "Though it is true that my Clan is a powerful one, which reduces somewhat—" It was hard to breathe; he seemed to hear himself out there somewhere, while back here, where the truth was, where he was, he felt heat and a need to hide. "—the chance that they would kill me outright." His mouth was too dry; the rushing in his ears amplified the sound of his heart pounding against nearly empty lungs.

He tightened his grip on the guitar and sought out Miri's eyes.

"They would not want trouble ... trouble with Korval. So it is—possible—that they would only..." He was sweating, but his hands were cold.

"Only?" Her question was barely a whisper.

"Only wipe me ... and let my body go home."

The air was too hot and too thin, but it wasn't happening to Miri; he needed to run from her to get out get out—look at the numbers!

CRR-RACK! The guitar's neck snapped in his grip and he jumped back, dropping it and gasping, looking for a way out. His shirt was choking him and the numbers were glaring behind his eyes: dead, dead, zero percent chance of survival. He grabbed a wall and held fast.

"No! No! Not here! Dammit, not here!" I won't die here! I'll get out . . . .

"Val Con!"

The scream penetrated his panic, piercing the terror for an instant. It seemed so sure a name—Val Con. In fact: Val Con yos'Phelium Scout, Artist of the Ephemeral, Slayer of the Eldest Dragon, Knife Clan of Middle River's Spring Spawn of Farmer Greentrees of the Spearmaker's Den—and from somewhere her voice added, "Tough Guy!"

He sobbed and held on, then found himself gasping against the strong stone wall. Several feet away, hand outstretched and terror in her eyes, was Miri. He brought his breathing down slowly and calmed himself, feeling the air cool him as his hands began to warm.

The numbers were clear: zero and zero. No chance of surviving the mission. The mission itself a failure. Accordingly, he was dead.

He took another breath, leaned back against the wall, and accepted the slow slide to the floor as natural, even comforting; the sound he made verged on laughter.

"Val Con? You there?"

He nodded. "Here," he said raggedly.

She approached cautiously and knelt by his side, gray eyes intent on his face.

"Miri?"

"Yo."

His breath was still slowing; his lungs ached from the hyperbreathing he'd done, but he was calm. He knew his name and with that he knew he was safe. "Miri, I think I died just then."

Her brows twitched upward and she reached out to lay cool fingers on the pulse at the base of his throat. Shaking her head, she removed them.

"Sergeant Robertson regrets to report a glitch in the system, sir."

He laughed, a jagged stone of sound, then lifted both hands and ran them through sweat-soaked hair.

"Dead," he said. "The Loop showed me dead at the moment I told you I would be wiped." His breath was nearly back, and he felt at ease, though drained in a way he'd never been drained before. "I think I believed it—panicked or—something. I believed them . . . ."

"The Loop," Miri asked, hoping. "It's gone? Or busted?"

"No . . . . Still there. Not, I think, broken. But it may have been programmed to lie to me—do you understand?" he asked her suddenly. "They took so much—so I would survive, they said. Surely it's important to survive? My music, my dreams—so much —and all to give life to a thing that lies . . . ." He rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't understand . . . ."

Miri laid a wary hand on his arm; his eyes were on her face instantly, noting uncertainty and strain.

"Yes."

She bit her lip. "What's—wiped—please?" Her voice was small and tentative, most un-Mirilike.

He shifted slightly, bumping a leg against the fallen guitar. Awkwardly, he retrieved it and cradled the splintered neck. "Ah, poor thing . . . ."

Looking up, he half-smiled. "Wiped is..." He shook his head, keeping a wary eye out for phantom equations. "A machine was made in answer to the thought that it would be—convenient—if, instead of impersonating someone, an agent could become that person. It was thought that this could be accomplished by—smoothing out the agent's own personality and overlaying a second." He saw nothing. The screen behind his eyes was blank. "When the mission was done, the second personality would be removed and the agent allowed to reemerge."

He paused for breath. Miri was watching his eyes closely, the line of a frown showing between her brows.

"It didn't work out very well. The only thing the machine did was eradicate, totally, the prime personality. No other personality could be grafted on to what remained. Nor could more conventional learning take place. The person was gone, irretrievably, though the body might live on to a very respectable old age."

A shudder shook her violently and she bent her head, swallowing hard and screwing her eyes shut against the sudden tide of sickness.

"Miri." Warm fingers brushed down her cheek, then slid under her chin, gently insisting that she raise her face. She gave in, eyes still shut, and after a moment felt him brushing away the tears.

"Miri, please look at me."

In a moment she opened her eyes, though she couldn't manage a smile.

His own smile was a better effort than the last; he shook his head. "It would be wisest not to mourn me until they bring the body before you."

"They bring me a zombie, I'll shoot it dead!"

"I would appreciate it," he told her gravely.

She dredged up a lopsided grin, looking closely into his tired eyes and grim face and hoping that this last little scene was the final drama his unnamed bosses had engineered. It had been ugly enough—and, potentially, deadly enough. What if he'd been in a shoot-out or one of the other tight spots he seemed prone to when that damned—panic—had hit?

Murder by extrapolation? She shook the thought away. "How are you now?" she ventured, aware that he had dropped his hand and twined his fingers lightly around hers.

He smiled. "Tired. It is not every day that one dies and lives to tell the tale."

She grinned and squeezed his hand. "Wanna get up? Or should I get you a blanket?"

"Up, I think." But that was easier said than done. Somehow, they both managed to rise; they stood close, leaning against each other.

Val Con moved, surprising them both as he hugged Miri to him and dropped his face to her hair, murmuring something that did not sound like Terran or Trade. Holding her away, he looked seriously into her cautious face.

"There are many things for us to talk about—but there are many things I must first say to myself, to hear what the answers may now be. I require time—perhaps a day, perhaps two—by myself. I will take food, find another room to be in . . . ."

She stiffened. "Ain't no reason to run away from me—"

He laid light fingers over her lips, cutting her off. "Not away from you. But think: Twice in two days I have frightened us both—badly. I must take time—while there is so much time—to find the man I am, now that there are two I am not." He unsealed her lips and touched her cheek. "It is something we both should know, I think."