Level 7
A breach warning blared from Level 10. Thirty-two minutes later and Goncalves hadn’t heard from Junior on 10 or Iglesias on 9. He reviewed the portals between his level and Level 8. Everything was secure, but the breach in Level 10 concerned him.
His communicator chimed.
“Level 7, Level 8 reporting a breach in portal 1-2-8,” Henry said. “Intruder has cleared and disabled Levels 10 and 9. Recommend you—.” The communication ended.
BANG
Goncalves jumped at the sound. Something hit portal 2-4-3 between Level 7 and, Level 8. He poked at his communicator, fumbling and hitting Level 9. A screech echoed through the halls before he keyed in the correct code.
“Level 8, report! What is the status of the intruder?”
No reply. Goncalves turned away from the mic. He would have to enable the defense protocols on Level 7 and warn Fredricks on 6.
BANG
The portal shook against the attack.
Goncalves began opening the communication line for Level 6. Before he could finish, the communicator crackled and spat:
“Goncalves,” Henry said. His voice was broken and weak from the intruder’s corruption. “Recommend… seal portals to Level 6. Warn them.”
He didn’t waste time replying, and instead began the work of sealing himself in. Nothing would exit Level 7.
The noise continued as Goncalves worked. The intruder dug its way in, focused on portal 2-4-3.
Sealing this one portal would buy him some time, but leave the rest of the portals vulnerable.
It will have to do. The intruder had been on 2-4-3 the entire time. It must be single threaded. That made sense. Devoting all of its energy to one location allowed a smaller package to infiltrate a thicker defense.
He initialized the level 7-side seal on the portal, just as the doorway began to split. Green light poured through the crack. A flash of blue and red sent him flying backwards as the intruder encountered the rising Level 7-side shield.
This one is strong. The shock had disoriented him.
BANG
He jumped up and headed for the Level 6 portals. They must be sealed and the others warned.
“Level 6, this is Level 7 reporting,” Goncalves said.
“Go ahead Level 7,” Fredricks replied.
“Intruder has breached Levels 10 through 8. Breach of Level 7 is imminent. I have initiated Level 7 defense protocols and will begin hard sealing portals 3-0-0 through 3-5-4. Recommend you seal your end and prepare for possible breach.”
“Understood, Level 7. Level 6 is beginning lockdown procedures. Good luck.”
The noise from the Level 8 barrier grew as the intruder’s attack intensified. Goncalves made it halfway, sealing portal 3-2-6 before a bone-jarring explosion ripped through Level 7. The shock knocked him across the corridor, slamming him into the opposite wall.
A monstrous cry echoed through the halls of Level 7 as the intruder broke through the barrier. The thudding of the monster’s footsteps brought Goncalves to his senses. He shook his head and blinked to clear his vision.
There wasn’t enough time to seal the remaining portals. He would have to hold the corridor here, trusting Fredricks to seal the portals from Level 6. He powered up his wrist interface and entered his password. The emergency J-Arc Defense System began its loading procedure.
Level 7 darkened as power was diverted. Goncalves looked in wonder at his left hand: it faded away, exposing a cannon-like hole at the end of his wrist. Blue bolts of energy jumped from the walls, feeding into the interface on his left arm. Data flowed through him as the J-Arc instructions were loaded into his memory. He looked down the way he had come. The hall glowed green as the intruder turned into the Level 6 barrier corridor.
He stood up and ran toward the beast: a massive fury of tangled green and white electricity. He reached his left arm up, sighted down his forearm and relaxed his mind.
The intruder roared when Goncalves charged down the corridor. A green tentacle blasted toward him, accompanying the beast’s cry. Before the green light could reach him, Goncalves stopped. A wave of blue light erupted from his arm, meeting the intruder’s attack like a shield. The shock of the impact numbed his left arm, forcing him to support it with his right.
The last lights blinked out as more and more energy shifted into Goncalves, increasing his available power. He felt the intruder’s attack give. Groaning against the strain, he stepped forward. The light in the corridor — now supplied only by the crackling, spiked green-and-blue energy of the battle — flashed with a blinding strobe effect. Electricity arced away from the joined beams, exploding tiles from the walls and ceiling.
Feeling returned to Goncalves’s left arm, freeing his right to use his wrist interface. He began powering down the shield walls between levels 7 and 6. Each lowered shield increased the flow of energy into his arm, pushing him closer to the intruder. He advanced on the green-and-white monster, himself now ablaze with blue electricity flowing from the walls. He knew his own systems had well exceeded their voltage parameters. He smiled as he met the intruder.
“You have encountered a fatal error,” he said.
A flash of light filled Level 7, then darkness.
*****
Level 6 reporting, platform secure. Intruder has been neutralized at Level 7. Please replace security modules 7 through 10.
Joan smiled at the text on her screen.
Lucky number seven.
Those damn Eastern European virus coders were good. The Green-Worm had been wrecking systems for months, but she had found a way to stop it.
The J-Arc System was a sacrificial module. It isolated and neutralized any threat beyond the capabilities of the standard systems, burning itself out in the process. It was a fail-safe against unknown and powerful new bugs. Joan had designed it herself.
She liked to imagine that this was all a big game they played: the hackers versus the security developers; the space marines versus the aliens. The constant back and forth kept them all happily employed.
Joan looked down at the time on her screen: 8:32pm. She ran her hands through her hair and groaned. Anticipating the evening’s success, she had planned to stay late — but not this late.
Looks like it’s Chinese for dinner again.
She locked her terminal, stood, and stretched.
I was watching Ms Hologram’s left eyebrow. If that cut hadn’t been there, she would have looked flawless. I wondered if this was another strategy developed by the Ministry to make holograms even more human. If they were now including flaws in their design, were we to have uglier, older or crippled holograms soon?
I couldn’t see who was talking; my vision was blocked by a bulky headset. When I lifted the headset, I found myself in a completely different room. I looked around to remind myself of where I was; I was at the Simulation Lab. My consciousness had been switched with that of a defendant, so that I could see myself as the prosecutor. This was my second time taking the same test in the same simulator, but being in Doctor Ronin’s skin was a totally different experience. His vision helped me understand why I’d previously failed the test.
Department of the Exterior
There is no response to the distress beacon yet, and I am reasonably certain of isolated death. Humanity is unable or unwilling to contact me, and God is as silent as ever. I will begin to significantly decompose only weeks after my death, due to the low temperature and sealed environment. I anticipate continued indifference from the Lord. It is presumably too much to ask for a dust cloud to abruptly mince the station and myself.
Harold refuses to shut off the Q.E. transceiver, and the radio requires almost no power whatsoever, but all other communications equipment has been disarmed and even removed. Power is allocated to preserve essential lab function indefinitely, while maintaining my survival for as long as possible. This is my only option. It will be necessary for the continuance of the research for me to cope with my impending demise rationally. I will die in all likelihood between two and three weeks from now, and my corpse will remain here for some number of months, depending on the reason for my isolation. It is my goal to leave the research in a state in which Harold can continue to collect data after my death, and there is reason to believe that the exposure tests can be mostly completed, even without me. The small influence that the end of my life has on these samples may indeed represent a contribution to the ongoing improvement of humanity’s understanding of our physical reality. If I can reach through the vast emptiness of space far enough to brush the fingers of my fellow beings, then the remainder of my life can join my spirit closer to spirits of all life, and death can be my route to awe. All devotions made by a man, of anything he has, are most holy. Have we not expanded for all our breasts? Weighed down our backs? So verily, with every difficulty there is relief. Therefore, now I am free, I will labour hard, and to my task turn my attention. Mount me on your streamers and let me blow to nothingness with the rest.
The fire hardly glimmered. It cast only the faintest illumination now. The evening was late, very late, but Roland and Jethro would stay up into the deepest hours. Neither would be able to sleep if they both lay down, and neither would be able to stay awake if they took it in turns to watch, and so they both remained up: glazy eyed, half conscious, but ready. Around their small clearing, the impermeable forest held its shadows. Roland stretched out an arm, his gauntlet and mail tinkling slightly, and grabbed a handful of twigs. He cast them onto the fire, and it dimly flared in acknowledgement of the offering. Its warmth did not seem to reach him. He felt cold, colder than he had ever felt. This was the darkest place he had been in all his searching. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was the end of him, just as it had been the end of the Edgar.
His eyes stung painfully, but he was so used to the sensation he blinked it away. His aching limbs lay at odd angles as he was slouched by the fire, almost like the splayed contortion of a dead man. But his head was awake. It had to be. To dream was to allow it to come.
The door closed stealthily behind them, sealing out what little light there had been so that they were cast in an absolute blackness. Roland felt his leg trembling beneath him as he placed a first, tentative foot on the stair. He let out a long exhalation. For a moment, he could not summon the courage to ascend. He remained with one foot on the stair, daunted, staring up into impossible shadow above, like a starless sky only amplified.
But the sun was shining. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt like its warmth was actually touching his skin. He pulled off his pauldrons and greaves and helmet, and flung them onto the rubble of the tower along with his sword. He turned. Blank walls of forestry lay all around.
By society’s standards, the couple sitting across from me is perfect. Gracefully crossing her long legs, Mrs. Garner is a picture of generous curves and blond hair, her exactly symmetrical brow implants accentuating her sparkling purple eyes. Mr. Garner’s just as impressive, all muscle and jaw, subdermals accentuating his broad shoulders, his pants bulging where they should. The file on my desk says they’re richer than sin, he a big shot in sales and she a fashion consultant. In short, they’re everything most people want to be. They’re perfect.
“Supplementing genomes with donor DNA has been around for decades.” I pull a brightly colored diagram out of the file and point to a portion of Mrs. Garner’s DNA map. “This portion of your genome is from a donor of Scandinavian decent, probably to supplement your height.”
The pair who met us at the river crossing — one each, a brawny bronze-haired swordsman and his pale wisp of a wizard companion — seemed to expect a reputation of heroes from legend. When Gretya hid behind my skirts and Wimar began crying, the swordsman even looked a little hurt.
We went without a fire that evening, sitting close with blankets on our shoulders for warmth. Caris knelt beside me, Esma and Wimar falling asleep in our laps. She spoke quietly so as not to disturb them.
The wizard, Anweth, stood before me in a blaze of silver light. His voice echoed around the clearing. “Trimeya Kaduran, you must go. The Crimson Standard is following your path. We’re trying to hold them back, as long as possible—” His voice fell into a groan, pain and fear thick in the sound. His image folded over and vanished.
The Crimson Standard had a fire, larger than a cottage hearth, with their bloodstained banners wafting in the heated air above it. On a frame nearby, two prisoners were bound. Rathin’s wrists looked raw from struggling. Anweth hung still beside him, eyes covered by a woven leather band wrapped cruelly tight. The weaving chilled me to look at—a wizard’s blind, keeping his powers in check.
“If it’s noble to hate, I am noble,” I said. “Will you give me the wizard?”