Through the Grey, page 5
She held his gaze. “Maybe my safety doesn't concern me that much.”
“You’ve always trusted me more than you should. Don't let me hurt you. I'd… I couldn't live with myself if I hurt you.”
Liss smiled a little. “Then you won't.”
He snorted but didn't say anything more.
She got up and started to go, then turned back.
“Greg, where did you go?”
He had no doubt what she meant. “I went outside.”
“I know that. Where outside?”
“Nowhere. I just ran in a straight line until it was quiet, until I started walking, then I walked back. I can't outrun them for long, but, once in a while, they let me get ahead.”
She nodded. “I'll come back when I have something to help you.”
He nodded and let one side of his mouth rise slightly into a near-smile. He watched her go. He seemed to see her through a heavy pall of broken memories. He ground his teeth against the disjointed rubble of them, tumbled as pebbles in a stream, and felt recognition just slipping away. Something had risen to separate him from her and he couldn't seem to grab hold of it, much less stop or reverse it. Loss fluttered on the edge of his mind like a moth around a candle. He batted it away.
She combed through archives and databases, and applied to be allowed access to the limited historical archives, when they became available. She hoped there would be something worth the wait, as the connection to the ancient mainframe that served them was difficult to maintain and even more difficult to make in the first place. The old computer was only online to this station once per fortnight.
She had never understood the system's oddities. Why some databases and archives were occasionally unavailable, others available only on a schedule. There didn't seem to be any rhythm to it except sheer perversity.
So far, she had found nothing like these nanites and comparisons of this type were extremely time consuming. She was gambling that the design went back to the war or earlier.
The information she was perusing vanished.
“Source terminated,” her terminal muttered.
“What? Wonderful…” She sent a query and got a null reply. She tried to reroute to the database at Sigma station but got put in a holding queue. A query popped up on her screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to recover some information from Sigma's historical database. Who is this?”
“Laker. I'll be right down. Wait for me.”
Ice shot down her sternum. Her boss—the great and powerful Dr. Laker—had caught her snooping into things she was sure he wouldn’t approve of. She put her hands in her lap and breathed slowly, consciously. Her heart danced uncomfortable tangos as she wondered what Laker would do. She studied her hands and thought they looked like small, dead birds.
The doorway chimed and she looked up.
“Hello, Dr. Laker. What's going on at Sigma station?”
Laker scraped her with his pale blue eyes. His mouth tightened, disrupting his usual public calm. His cultivated silver-white hair was unruffled, his confident face smooth and pink, but the mouth and the lines around the eyes did not belong. They were sour and dissatisfied with what they knew.
“We may have lost Sigma station,” he replied, the rich, round tones of his voice jarring against the horror of the possibilities.
“Lost?”
“Yes. The population density, the strain, must have been exceeded. I was talking to their station head when it happened. Most unpleasant.”
Liss stared at him. She didn't know anyone at Sigma, personally, but it still jolted. “What happened?”
“To him? I'd rather not describe it. Apparently, it's been building for some time and he was hoping I could help him get them back under control, but his people have gone mad. I warned him, long ago, but he wasn't ready to listen. They're rioting, killing each other. Utter savagery. Once the initial destruction is over, cooler heads may prevail, but we won't know until it happens. This is quite unpleasant. And, of course, it has taken Sigma's data offline. I can only hope…”
Liss frowned down into her lap. “This is terrible, Dr. Laker. Those poor people…”
“Yes. But it is a factor in the Rat Syndrome of which he should have been aware. He simply chose not to face it. Now, it's much too late. All we can do is sit back and wait until the rats stop gnawing on each other. If they don't destroy the facility as happened at Delta station, they may be back. What was it you were after, there? I see you've been spending a lot of time in the historical and technical databases.”
“I've been trying to track down some information for Greg Forrester. He doesn't have clearance for these and I don't want to encourage his hacking them.”
“That's wise of you. Greg and his unusually strong channels and receptors is certainly a bigger challenge and possibly a greater fascination than I had anticipated. You have been spending a great deal of time with him and working on his files. I'm worried, Liss.”
“Worried? It's my job to spend time with Greg. He… he's not doing well at the moment.”
“Yes…” Laker sat down in one of her chairs. “Liss, let me be frank. I believe you are losing your objectivity where Greg is concerned. The dreamers are a sort of relief valve, somehow listening in on our fears. Greg is especially… sensitive, I suppose is the best word, and he does require special handling. But please bear in mind that you are not Greg's friend. You are his keeper, to be blunt about it. The intimacy of your relationship may have been appropriate in the past, but it is not anymore.”
Liss jerked back in her seat as if he had struck her. “Dr. Laker, Greg and I—”
He waved her down. “I know that you haven't done anything inappropriate in that fashion, but you seem to have forgotten how to separate your job from your personal feelings where Greg is concerned. Your reports and your actions demonstrate that you have allowed your necessary contacts to become far too personal. This is completely unacceptable. You may be his friend, or you may be his handler, but you may not be both.”
“That's impossible, Doctor,” she objected. “I can't do my job without Greg's trust, and he will only give his trust to the rare person who can meet his criteria for friendship. Greg is more intense than the rest, as you say. All his baselines seem to be set even higher. As a result, he's very perceptive and extremely wary. If your theories are correct, then he has to be approached in exactly the right way, managed with exactly the right touch, or we'll lose him, too. It's absolutely required that I be his friend—”
“It is required that you appear to be his friend. Not that you believe it, yourself.”
“You can't lie to Greg. I can't, certainly. And I am his friend. It's the only way I can do this job. It's the right way and the right thing. I can't shut that off like a switch!”
“Then you have two choices: end your friendship with Greg, or cease to work in this capacity. Obviously, there is no middle ground.”
“Dr. Laker!” She jerked forward in her chair, barely stopping from jumping up.
“Liss, when you came here, I had high hopes and you've done very well, but, especially in light of what is happening at Sigma, I simply cannot allow this sort of risk to evolve here.”
“But it is exactly the sort of thing—”
“It is not! Management of a single case will not make or break Epsilon! Greg Forrester is not the linchpin that holds this place together. Do you understand why Epsilon is so successful while other stations are falling into chaos? It is because of proper management of the potential stresses of the population due to hyper-density. The dreamers are part of it, but only a part. My theories. My management techniques. This is what has enabled Epsilon to survive and thrive in spite of the pressures placed upon her by the very population we attempt to protect.
“When a population grows too dense with no outlets, it becomes aggressive and self-destructive. It begins to attack itself, like rats in a cage. There must be outlets, there must be routines, there must be strong structures. If it is not properly managed, the population goes insane, becomes murderous and cannibalistic. That has not happened here. It will not happen here.”
“Because of proper management of cases like Greg's!” she shot back.
“Cases like Greg's, yes, but not specifically Greg Forrester!” He caught himself and leaned back into his seat, breathing carefully. “Liss, please. This is most upsetting. It is inappropriate for you to argue my own theories back to me for a selfish purpose. I am sorry that this may hurt you, but your overfamiliarity with Greg is ultimately of more risk to him and to the proper management of this station than any potential harm which may be done by changing the fashion in which he, specifically, is managed, no matter how exceptional he may be. Now, trust that I know what must be done. Cut off your friendship with Greg or leave this position.”
She stared at him.
“I am sorry, Liss. This has been a trying day and I fear I have been harsher than I wished to be. However, I can't change my position on this. Please let me know your decision before the end of cycle. Otherwise, I shall have to make that decision for you.”
“The end of cycle? Can't you give me a day? I… this is… What about the others?”
“That will be my problem. Your problem is to determine what is most important to you. I… am sorry. Take your day, but let me know by the end of tomorrow's cycle. I cannot give you more than that.”
He pushed out of his chair and walked out of the cubicle.
Liss sat at her desk, gaping, unable to breathe, growing lightheaded until she gulped a single deep breath and shivered back into the world. There seemed to be no floor beneath her. She felt that if she moved, she would plunge into some dark abyss.
She rose and stepped away from her terminal.
“I don't know what to do,” she said. “Obviously, Dr. Laker is monitoring my terminal access, though I don't understand why. He's always left me alone to manage these cases my way. I can't just stop being Greg's friend. That's not how friendship works. But if Laker sees I'm still working on what I admitted was research to help Greg, he'll know I'm not going to quit. I mean I am going to quit, but I have to do what I can while I still have time. I am not going to stop being Greg's friend. I have to find a way…”
“You need a terminal Laker can't monitor, I suppose,” the doctor said. “We have to find that nanite. I have a lead, but it's thin and I don't have the kind of access necessary to pry into the databases this sort of thing would be in.”
“What have you got?”
“It's military. Old stuff. The markings on the nanite proved to be a manufacturing code. It was referenced in the drug database, of all things, though it is, itself, not a therapeutic.”
“I have access to the military archives, but I didn't get a match,” Liss objected.
“Not our side. The other side. It would be in the sealed databases or in the original database, if it's still accessible.”
Liss looked down at her hands. “I have codes for those. But I can't use them now with Laker watching, and if I give them to you, it'll be even worse.”
“You need a terminal that is off the station's network. There must be a secure stand-alone somewhere…” He looked thoughtful.
Liss laughed harshly. “Probably in Laker's office.”
He shook his head. “Damn it! Doesn't Laker understand the threat this nanite poses?”
Liss bit her lip. “I didn't tell him.”
“Why not?”
“I didn't report it because I wanted to give Greg a chance. If Laker knew that Greg was infected with a wild nanite, I think he would put him outside, regardless of any benefit he offers the community.”
The doctor shook his head, brow knit. “Liss, you've exposed us all to a horrible risk.”
She pinned his gaze with hers. “The risk was already here, as soon as he got it. Inside, there's a chance we can stop it. Outside, there is only misery and slow death. The nanite action seems to increase with radioactive exposure. Greg will die out there even faster than he'll die in here. What good is that? What if it doesn't stop at Greg? Even if he voluntarily went out, there's no guarantee that this thing won't appear again.”
“You're rationalizing.”
“Isn’t it too late for that to matter?”
The doctor sighed. “I suppose… Look, I can try and get a little closer to this thing through the drug database. I might find a better schematic, or a better reference number, if there's any post-war record of treatment for something caused by this nanite. Assuming that the reference I have is correct and it really is something from the war. I may have some other resources… Let me look. I'll meet you for dinner and tell you if I've found anything. My God, this is all so cloak and dagger.”
“If Laker finds out, we'll both be in serious trouble.”
“All right. I'll see you at dinner.”
She nodded and left his office.
Liss walked along the corridor, past supply corridors and classrooms. Voices droned out of the open rooms, floating lightly on the air, like summer-lazy bees, remembered only vaguely in ancient video.
“…beyond the end of the war. The man who does not remember history is destined to repeat it…”
She smiled bitterly. Merely the memory of history would not be sufficient, though it would go a long way toward helping her, if she could only reach into those machine-memories, somehow. She paused a moment, listening to the lulling cadence of the reader's voice.
“…Starfall device, which unleashed pulses of deadly radiation. In the end, victory by total destruction was preferred over a more difficult political solution. The veritable obliteration of the machines of war put the advantage back into the hands of those who had gone to ground. Previously disadvantaged by a lack of supplies, but blessed with a surfeit of numbers, our forefathers—our grandparents and great grandparents—left us this legacy of poisoned ground in exchange for quick victory, snatched from their enemies after the horrors of the massacre at Crossfield.
“Which has led us to the development of the warren-stations, envisioned and brought to life by men like Eric Laker…”
Liss glared at the floor and moved away from the voice. Her emotions coiled in her stomach and squeezed her chest like snakes.
A cloud of disturbance swirled in front of his face. He moved to wave it away, unthinking, and felt the crushing resistance of the medium against his arm. He thought curses which would not rise into his throat. He pushed the movement reset on the back of the suit gauntlet. The dense, liquid medium in the tank lent him a slow, strong grace in every movement.
He repositioned the model and guided the following arm into contact, sending the code for the part to the device. Deliberately, he maneuvered the part into place in the model with a slight lift and a twist that made all the difference, then repeated the action again and a third time. The unbalanced pressure of the medium against the hyper-oxygenated fluorocarbon in his lungs made his chest ache; his suit felt as if it was collapsing over his arms and chest.
Vision darkened from the tank's normal ruddy-orange view to streaming red. The usual mild tinnitus was overcome by a keening and howling in his ears. He let go of the part and drifted back from the model. His arms stretched to the side groping for balance he was not losing.
A dark face glared at him through the face plate. He jerked his head against the uncompressible liquid in the helmet, the muscles of his neck twinging against the immovable.
They crushed in on him, a dozen or more, crying and screaming, clawing at him. They clawed through the suit, ripping at his arms and shoulders, crushing him with the weight of their terror. They thrust fingers into his mouth and eyes, prying at him, screaming for help, for succor, for quietus, choking him with their demands.
He tried to scream, tried to push them away. They flooded into him, holding him still, wrenching him against invisible, immovable barriers that ripped into his flesh like the fence of Crossfield.
His mind lashed at them and flailed against their panicked strength. He cried out to them with the voice of his will. “Go away! I can't help you!”
They pushed on, filling him, softening and flowing into him, slowing to a trickle of pain and fright. Then they were past.
Emptiness roared where they had gone.
Greg went limp into the embrace of the tank medium.
The buzzing of pressure on his ears cleared the haze from his mind and his vision. Green phrases floated on the heads-up. He forced his focus to them.
O2: 10 min.
Movement replication recorded.
Next.
Next.
Next.
OK?
Greg? You OK?
He dragged one burning hand to the control pad on the other arm. His skin felt scratched, flayed with flaming knives. Clumsily, he pressed the Acknowledge key, then the Exit Programming sequence and the request for extraction.
They dragged him out of the tank and yanked him out of the suit. Akima caught up to him in the hypo tank prep room.
“You cut it a bit too fine, Greg. I thought we were going to have to call Medical.”
Dripping from the shower, Greg glowered at him. “Who cares? The fix works, doesn't it?”
The senior engineer stared at him. His eyes lingered over the disturbing display of muscle and bone under the glassy skin of Greg's arm and shoulder. A pink sheen of diluted blood glowed on Greg's upper arm, lending it a sham of normalcy. The younger man pressed the appendage against his side and folded his stiff, pale hand over his abdomen. His normal skin was ridged by the sharp-pared muscles underneath. Narrow stripes of shadow from the room lights played restlessly over his body as he breathed and moved with nervous flickers.
“Yes, but ten minutes is not a safe margin for extraction. I don't care if the thing works if it fucking well kills you to fix it. You have to stop…”
“No,” Greg snapped. “It has to work! Don't lecture me when you get what you want. Don't feed me that bullshit. My job is to fix the son of a bitch. It's freakin' fixed! My God-damned job!” He broke off and spat pink fluorocarbon with a racking cough. His eyes didn't quite focus on Akima. “My fucking life…” he muttered. “They all want something. Just leave me alone to fix what I can fix. I break enough things. Just let me finish fixing these few, before you close the doors on me.”
