Mack 'n' Me, page 19
“That little trick was my idea. I paid him to make it happen.”
I had no comment for him, then. None. Nada. Nix. Nothing, but he didn’t seem to care, just trotted away ahead of me, with the expectation that I would follow. Which, of course, I did. Of course, I did. What else was there for me to do?
Oh, that’s right. There was plenty for me to do. I followed after Bendigo, but my mind was elsewhere, literally. I had just enough awareness to navigate the corridor and match the direction of his shadow, but that was it. If he was counting on me to guard his back, then he was shit out of luck.
I used my link to explore the security network, hooking us into the camera feeds from within the sanctum, making us a more integral part of the doggy sub-net, and locking the doors to every space around us. There was no way I wanted to be caught unawares by yet another pack I hadn’t known about. Once had been enough. Twice had been overkill.
The Ghoul had understood that, right?
“Right.”
Bendigo’s voice brought me back to earth... or, rather, made me aware of the fact we’d reached the end of the corridor, and were standing outside what Bendigo’s map had designated the server room of the inner sanctum.
“Get us in.”
“Check out what’s on the other side of the door,” I told him; there was no way I wanted to be facing another set of teeth like the last lot... or another set of Ghouls.
“There’s a problem with that,” Bendigo said, and I saw what he meant.
While we had access to every camera, or almost every camera, now that I looked, the server room was dark to us. So was the room beside it, and, in fact, each of the three rooms adjoining it. The corridor we were standing in ran around them in a loop.
“You’d better hope it doesn’t need his DNA, or something equally ridiculous,” I said.
“Why? We can send it the records from the security pack that took our sample.”
“And if it wants a retinal scan or handprint?”
“Oh, please. I doubt the Ghoul was anywhere near that old school.”
“No?”
“You can count on it.”
And so I could. It appeared the Ghoul was even older school than DNA, handprints, or retinal scans. No, the Ghoul was so old-school, he’d chosen a password—one that changed randomly at thirty-second intervals.
“This could take a while.”
“We don’t have a while,” and Bendigo grabbed me by the back of the pack, and hoisted me out of the way.
“If you’re sure...” I said, facing away from him so I could keep an eye on the corridor stretching off to either side of us.
To be honest, I was curious. What did he think he was going to do that would get us through the door faster than me? This was why he’d brought me along, right? From behind me came the sound of the Blazer being used as a plasma cutter. Oh. Right.
And because I didn’t know what sort of security reaction that was going to set off, I pulled the gas mask up over my face, and sent my head into the system to monitor its reaction. Behind me, the door handle rattled to the floor. In my head, I watched as red lightning streamed away from the door, heading for four separate nodes. Those I could deal with.
I sent two hound-dog programs out after the furthest two strands of lightning, and went after the closest one. I was just going to have to deal with this one fast enough to deal with the next closest, because I hadn’t had that many hound-doggies prepared. Why? Because I rarely used them, let alone two in one mission. Four would have been quadruple what I’d thought I’d need in a worst-case scenario.
Next time, I’d take eight.
It’s hard to describe a code battle. You’re kind of there, and not there, and your implant tends to send you visuals that symbolize what you’re doing in pictures, so you might find yourself fighting a serpent with a human torso, and four arms, or a knight clad in heavy armor, depending on what sort of coding your up against.
This time, I was facing Bastien the Ghoul, but he was naked—which was off-putting enough—and armed with an extra set of arms, holding one shield, a Castor 91 laser pistol, a very long, serrated-edged dagger, and a wand.
A wand? That grabbed my attention. What sort of program was symbolized by a wand?
“Want to see?” Nude Bastien asked, and gave the wand the tiniest flourish.
Around him, electricity rose in a wave, and rolled toward me.
Oh, crap.
I conjured an umbrella, a rubber umbrella, and tucked myself in behind it. To be honest, I hadn’t faced a system that went directly to a straight power surge to blast out intruders, and I didn’t know if I’d be there when the wave passed. I also didn’t know if I’d drop to the deck with smoke wisping out of my ears, because my brain was fried. I snugged in tight behind that umbrella and I prayed... I also tried to work out a way to get that damn wand out of Bastien’s grip.
The wave passed, and I looked down at the whip coiled in my hand.
Cool. Furling the umbrella, at the same time as I flicked the whip past it to wrap around the hand Bastien was using to hold his wand, I tried to remove the code that would let him try another surge. From the corner of my eye, I saw the third line of red, getting closer to the node, and a fourth wink out as the hound-doggie grabbed it like a snake, and shook the life out of it.
Of course, that was the end of the hound’s life, as well. That program was a kind of one-shot wonder, and I was going to have to work out how to make it regenerate. And, speaking of which... I jerked the whip toward me, capturing the wand, and pulling Bastien closer, as well.
This was not entirely what I had intended, but it would do. I conjured a sword and cut off the arm holding the shield, stepped aside to avoid the shot from the pistol, and then sliced off the arm that had held it. That just left the dagger...
...and the tentacles now sprouting from Nude Bastien’s stomach. Tentacles that looked like...
I swallowed down bile.
A hydra? Logical program. Good attack. Good defense. Good evasion. But what on earth had possessed him to give it that image, and why would the hooded toothy tentacles be pulling the innards out of the Bastien-construct? I watched him unravel, stumbling back a couple of steps as the defensive program I was running made some hasty adjustments.
So, not good.
Worse was the way the tentacles were dividing to become separate entities, not one attached to the other. So, not a hydra, after all. So, what...
I could only watch as one shot past me, making for the node I was trying to stop it reaching. A second one went for my throat, and a third latched onto my sword arm. But it was the fourth one that scared me shitless. That one went straight for my feet, wound its way around an ankle, chewed a hole in the trouser leg above it, and started to work its way up the inside of it.
I glitched. I dropped the sword, dropped the umbrella, and reached down to try and grab hold of the thing inside my trousers. It had made it to my construct’s knee, and I didn’t want to think what its end destination might be. The thing on my arm bit deep, and then vanished, having delivered a payload of destructive code right into my defensive veins. The other one missed my throat, flying past as I ducked.
I closed my fist around the one in my trousers, and tried to get the fingers on my empty sword-hand to work. They didn’t. Instead, they gave a single painful throb, and then fell right off. Well, damn, that was going to be painful when I got back to my body. I had no choice but to grow more, except the poison was moving, running up my arm toward my head—which symbolized the heart of my attack program.
I ditched the arm. Only way to stop it. I shed the arm, and took several quick steps away from it so it couldn’t latch onto my foot in a last-ditch attempt to find a target. If Ghoul was using anything close to what I knew, it had a limited reach and would dissipate without a host. I didn’t check to see if I was right; I had no time. The next thing I had to do was get rid of the intrusion program currently trying to break free of my hand.
Where it was intending to intrude didn’t bear thinking about, and I had no intention of letting it. This battle might only be happening in the existentiality of my mind, but I’d be feeling echoes of the simulation in the physical, just as soon as I came out of it. The first thing I had to do was get rid of my pants... without letting go of the tentacle inside them. That, at least, wouldn’t translate into the physical world.
It was trickier than it sounded, but not impossible. I managed it with one arm lying on the ground. Five feet away. Now, I just had to disarm it. It bared its fangs at me, flaring its hood, and giving me a good look at the inside of its mouth. I felt my insides turn over, again, and knew this thing would be featuring right alongside the airlocks of my very worst dreams, for months to come. That was trying to get inside me? Oh, hell to the hells, no!
I reached for something, anything, that would let me crush it without opening my fist. At the same time, I lifted the little monster away from my leg and held it away from me. My gaze flitted across the computer landscape and saw the flare of light that occurred when the second hound unraveled its target. This one, however, did not go quietly.
Maybe it had a wand like the one Nude Bastien had been holding, or maybe it was just designed to explode and take out everything around it. Either way, that flare of light was expanding and rolling right toward me. I needed my umbrella, and I needed it now.
I got my feet around the handle and pivoted so I could point it toward the oncoming wall of light, and then I scrunched my knees up close to my chest, wiggled my rump over the edge of the umbrella so it didn’t stick out, and then I hurled the intrusion program just as far away from me as I could get it, and wrapped my remaining arm around my knees, so I could tuck my chin against them.
It almost worked.
The energy wave smashed into the top of the umbrella and rolled around me, in exactly the same way as the power surge had, and then it dissipated. It was almost like it had been looking for a target, and had found it in the umbrella. I got to my feet as soon as it went out, and looked for the last strand of red.
Just in time to see it enter the node it had been trying to reach.
23—The Many Forms of Ghoul
“Heads up.” It was all I could send to warn Bendigo. I figured he’d have his hands full with whatever was going on outside my head, and didn’t need any more.
Once I’d done that, I dived for the node. If I could isolate it, I could block whatever response it was supposed to trigger.
Even as I thought it, I saw the node’s shell brighten, and then it began to pulse, and tiny wriggles of lightning raced away from it in all directions. Well, scratch that idea. I watched as the node pulsed brighter, and then more brightly still, and I suddenly realized I didn’t want to be inside my head when that thing went off... unless I could get close enough to stop it doing whatever it was about to do.
As fast as thought, a wall grew out of the ground, bricks patchworking together to hide the node’s shell, and not a door, or gate in sight. I wondered if the wall would have to come down for the node to do whatever it was building up for, and if I had any chance of taking it apart in time. A half-dozen fire worms, all with Bastien’s face, pulled themselves out of the bricks, and I decided ‘no’.
I got out of there, retreating to the relative shelter of my implant, and sealing it as tight as I could. I even took a poke at Bendigo’s intrusion point, and found myself wearing a bracelet of thorns, and a matching necklace, for my trouble.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t.” Bendigo’s voice, menacingly soft, inside my head.
“Because I’m trying to save your life,” I whispered, my words coming out on a whimper of pain.
He must have believed me, because the thorns disappeared, even though the thornless vines stayed, laced around my wrists and throat. I opened my eyes, and found myself lying on the floor, the corridor lights strobing yellow and red, in a way that made me feel sick.
“That must have been some battle,” Bendigo said, offering me his hand.
“You triggered a warning system,” I said, and he rolled his eyes.
“Now, tell me something I don’t know.”
“Maybe the dogs won’t be as friendly next time they see us?” It was a guess, but then, so was the next thing I said, “And I think we’re going to have some real bad company, real soon.”
Bendigo’s lips thinned, and, instead of waiting for me to take his hand, he reached down and dragged me to my feet by my shirt collar. He didn’t let go, either, but kept dragging, pulling me through the hole he’d made where the door had been, making me wonder just how many security protocols he’d triggered.
He didn’t wait for me to look, but half pushed, half hurled me toward the bank of computers standing in the center of the room.
“Whoa! There is no way—”
I heard the sound of the Blazer coming on-line, and felt a tightness coil through my throat. How the hell he was doing that through my implant, I didn’t know... but I wanted to. I really did—because then I could stop it, reverse it, and see how the sonuvabitch liked it when it happened to him.
“Find a way,” Bendigo ordered, “or you won’t be breathing much longer.”
As if to prove a point, the constriction in my throat eased. I wondered what the bracelets did, and pain lanced across my wrists, spiking up into my hand, and down along my arm. It was gone as quickly as it had come, and I wasn’t curious any more. I was in enough pain from where the tentacle had ‘bitten’ me in the code battle, and my shoulder ached at the same points I’d detached my simulacrum’s arm to stop the poison from reaching my head. I didn’t need any more hurt, today... or ever, now I thought about it.
I went back into my head, and took a peek into the computer-scape beyond the implant. What I saw made me both relieved and had my heart sinking to my toes. The good news was that I was no longer attached to the system I’d been in before, which meant that the security protocols weren’t going to reach me in here. I sure as shit wished Bendigo had dragged me in here sooner. That way I’d never have needed to touch his stuff in my head.
“Maybe I like it this way.”
Well, that was just downright nasty.
And Bendigo laughed, even though not a skerrick of sound touched my ears.
“Get on with it.”
So, I did.
The bad news was that there was nothing beyond my implant. Oh, there was Bendigo’s implant, but no way was I going there. No need, which put paid to the sense of self-satisfaction I’d felt from his head. Suck on that, you big banana.
“We’ll see who’s doing the sucking at the end of the day,” he replied, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like what he meant.
I crossed my fingers that Mack would find me before the mission was over, that he hadn’t believed a word of Bendigo’s bullshit, and was already on his way.
“Keep praying,” was followed by a sharp slap upside the head. “Better yet. Focus on what you need to be doing, before I decide you’re not able to help me anymore.”
I focused, pulling my jack from the pocket I’d stuffed it into, earlier, and plugging it into my head. What I needed, now, was a port, cos the only way I was getting into this system was if I hard-lined it. I opened my eyes, realizing I’d closed them to go looking at the computer landscape. This time, I had a really good look at what was in the room in front of me.
A bank of computers, tall computers, or, rather, tall banks of computers, because, if I wasn’t mistaken, each of the clear-fronted drawers stacked in this interconnected framework of towers contained a computer in its own right. I looked up and down the row. The question was: how did I access them? And, if I accessed one, would I be able to get into all the rest, or was one, or all of them separated from the rest?
It sure was dark in here.
“What happened to the lights?” I asked.
“You’re assuming there were lights to start with.”
Ah, well that explained it. Silly me. I used the glow from the computer banks to find something that I might be able to plug into, a port, a keyboard, anything, and found the towers ran around the edge of the room and had a hollow in the center. There was a gap wide enough to walk through, and a computer terminal tucked in behind the tower wall.
Very cool. Now, all I had to do was get into the system, download what we came for, and—
Movement caught at the corner of my eye, and I stepped back into the gap.
“What are you doing here?”
I knew that voice.
“Bastien?”
“Bastien?” Bendigo, in my head. “Here?”
“Bastien,” the Ghoul confirmed, “in the flesh. Why don’t you come in and say hello?”
I remembered Bastien. I’d watched him reduce an Odyssey agent to a shivering mess of snot and tears. There was no way in Hades I wanted to go and say hello to him, no way I wanted to get anywhere close to him. If I hadn’t known Bendigo was on the other side of the towers, that Bendigo wasn’t going to let me leave until I had the data, that Bendigo was coming...
Bendigo was coming.
And I was blocking his path to the Ghoul.
And there was no point in me trying to back out of the space I was in, because Bendigo was almost at the entrance, and he needed me in here.
Dammit!
“Sure,” I said, and moved forward, then, “Why don’t you turn on the lights?”
“Lights? But I like it in the dark,” Ghoul said, moving to where I could see him. He looked exactly like the Ghoul-clones we’d encountered in the corridor, except sane. Beyond that, though...
The man had let his fangs show, and his eyes gleamed an oddly luminescent shade of yellow. The latter explained the lack of light in the server room. The former... I watched as Bastien ran his tongue over the tips of his fangs, before retracting them from view. He caught the look on my face, and smiled.
It was not comforting, and I flinched as he reached out and laid a hand on my arm.
“It’s been a while since I saw you,” he said, faux-longing and real possession lacing his words. “Where did you go?”
