The Presence Read online

  “I better get going,” he said, and hurried into the bathroom on the other side of the loft.

  Deja sat in the middle of the bed as the morning sun exploded over the top of the city and flooded the loft with hot yellow light. She gathered the blanket around her and began to rock. Moments before, she had been delighting in her newfound ardor, but now, all had changed. Meatball hopped from the headboard and nestled into the crux of her legs. He looked up and purred. Deja gathered the cat into her arms and nuzzled his face into her neck. The cat licked the tip of her chin.

  “Oh, Meat,” she said. The cat blinked sleepily. “You’re so lucky.”

  Deja took in the loft, and her attention stopped on a small lip of shelf cantilevered from a wall. It held about a dozen holophotos and hung there, glowing, as a collection of moments that was Sonny Chaco’s life: the day he graduated from the Academy, his mother and father’s 40th anniversary, the birthday party when he turned 30, and he and Deja on their trip to France. She stared at the holoprint from Paris for several minutes, lost in memory.

  Chaco emerged from the bathroom and hurriedly walked across the loft to the dining table. He yanked his coat from the back of a chair and slipped it on in a move that always reminded Deja of a dance step she had learned in high school. He removed his Netpad and pointed it towards the desk by the front door. A drawer slid open.

  Deja hated what was inside.

  Chaco walked to the desk and pulled his Light-Force from the drawer. After inspecting its safety, he slipped the weapon into its holster under his coat. He straightened and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, walked to the front door, reached for its handle, and paused.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said so quietly Deja could barely hear him. He finally turned. “Feed Meatball, will you?”

  Still holding the cat to her chest, Deja nodded.

  Chaco forced a smile, then carefully turned the handle and stepped from the loft. The echo of the door clicking shut rebounded off the hard surfaces.

  5. EMPTY THE SOUL

  Marl is haunted by shadows that move through the landscapes of his dreams. Crowds in nameless streets, chanting and screaming, their colorful features twisted into shapes that resemble masks from the largest city on the planet.

  Waking, he finds that he is drenched in a sweat that could only come from fear of failure. He opens his eyes to a black void and listens. The hum is still there.

  A need to scream rises deep from his being, but he refuses to succumb. He wipes the sweat from his face and stares at his hands. In the blackness they seem detached, foreign. He turns them over and strains to find their form.

  Then it strikes.

  The overwhelming sense of a million souls – screaming to him over a threshold that he has come to understand as his gift. Something has happened on the planet, or might have happened. He never quite knows, but its presence is dense and catastrophic.

  The accompanying pain slams into his essence with all the force of the universe. He fights the urge to wretch and slowly climbs out of the bed. The tile floor coldly welcomes his feet.

  Moving through the darkness, he cautiously inches his way to the bathroom. Its light greets him with the brilliance of a sun, and he collapses onto the lip of the sink. Water automatically flows, and he cups his hands and splashes his face, hoping he can wash away the visions. They begin to recede.

  Upon leaving the bathroom, the light fades and plunges him back into the shadows. As he climbs onto the bed, he knows that when he closes his eyes he will see the faces again. They will greet him on the plane of his dreams and ask him why. He does not have the answer. It is not his reason – his purpose – to exist. He has been trained only to stop the madness. He fights for the strength that seems to elude him. He is scared, like a child in a war bigger than he can fathom; he does not see or understand the complexities that shape his future.

  Then, with a sudden and desperate realization, he accepts that he must return to his dreams and face the many who are gone. Only then will he know what to do.

  He closes his eyes and empties his soul.

  6. YOU DID ALL RIGHT

  Yoichi Tsukahara was the latest in a series of “Exchange Agents” the NSA had paraded through Echelon unit over the last year. He was young and talented but still uncomfortable with New American culture. He jumped to his feet and bowed as Chaco entered the room.

  “Cool it, Tsuka, you’re in the big New ‘A’ now. We don’t show respect here – for anybody.” Chaco threw his coat against an available chair and settled against the counter of Tsukahara’s Netport station. He accepted a cup of coffee from Cooper.

  “Morning,” Davis said, engrossed with something on his Netport screen.

  “Hey, boss.” Steiner busily consumed the last of a crusty apple Danish. The other techs didn’t even look up.

  Chaco studied each one of his console-jocks and tried to get a read on their emotional states. “So, what do we got?”

  Davis turned and stretched. “One hell of a headache,” he said yawning.

  Chaco kicked his legs out from under him, and Davis almost toppled backwards. “We have a Mag fucking Ten in system, and you’re bitching about a hangover?”

  “We do?” Steiner said, spitting Danish past Chaco’s legs.

  All the techs turned to their Netports and began clutching at their VirtGear. Davis struggled to his knees and tried jacking into the system.

  “Wait, wait, wait a second!” Chaco said, pissed. “I came down here on my day off because of a Mag Ten alert!” He turned toward Tsukahara, who was slowly recoiling from a deep, apologetic bow.

  “I am so sorry, Agent Chaco. I misread the alert.”

  “Well, what the hell is it? Are we under an alert or not?”

  “Yeah, boss,” Steiner said, wiping his mouth. “Technically, we are.”

  “But it is not a Magnitude 10,” Tsukahara said. “It is a magnitude one point zero.”

  Everyone in the cramped lab restrained their laughter.

  “Give me your Netpad,” Chaco said.

  Tsukahara sheepishly offered his Netpad and flinched when Chaco grabbed it.

  “Jesus, Tsuka, the organics in this pad are almost dead. Get over to the Cage and requisition a new one.” He threw the Netpad, and Tsukahara clumsily tried to clutch it before it clattered to the floor.

  “Hands like a fish.” Chaco relaxed against the counter and rubbed his face. “Any more surprises this morning?”

  “Negative on that,” Davis said, righting his chair.

  Chaco sighed, knowing that what could have been an excellent day with Deja was now going to be another “issue.” It wasn’t like he didn’t want to be with Deja. It’s just that working for the NSA meant you basically were 24-7. It was a small price to pay for national security. Or was it? He sniffed at his cup. “Who made the coffee this morning?”

  Everyone looked at Tsukahara.

  Chaco shot a look at his intern. “Not your day, is it?”

  Tsukahara nervously grinned. “Ah, no, Chaco-san. Not Tsukahara’s day.”

  “Agent Chaco?”

  “Yes, sir?” Chaco asked as the image of his superior appeared on the console’s screen.

  “Please stop by my office when you get a moment.”

  “Yes, sir,” Chaco replied, knowing that, with Slowinski, “when you get a moment” meant right now.

  “Trouble, boss?” Steiner asked.

  Chaco shrugged. “Not that I can think of.” He began to leave but got only as far as the door. “Hey, what was the Mag 1 about, anyway?”

  Davis searched through some online files at his Netport. “Looks like a biopharm lab outside of Paris had a loss of pressure in their resonance chamber.”

  “Can you isolate it?”

  Davis slipped on his VirtGear, and its optic couplings wrapped around his head like the tentacles of some deep ocean crustacean. They hissed as they searched for their contact points. For a moment he looked about, riding the wave of data back t
o its source. “Got it!” he declared. “Looks like some biotech firm. Let’s see, my French is a little rusty, but I thinks it’s pronounced La Société...commerciale des...MarionNettes de Viande?”

  “Okay,” Chaco said. “I think I caught some of that.”

  “La Société commerciale des MarionNettes de Viande,” Tsukahara said in perfect French. “Literally translated: The Meat Puppet Corporation.”

  “What was it? Can you tell?”

  Davis paused. “Yeah, kind of. It’s all in French and ... Latin? That’s weird. Anyway, it was a small accident, and yeah, just as I thought, right in the resonance chamber. Hmmm, that’s interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “This data doesn’t look like your typical corporate tech.”

  “Cloning?”

  “Possibly.”

  “That’s not a Mag 1. Alert ops. Do they have it contained?”

  “Yeah. Seven injured, no deaths. It’ll probably hit the French news in a half hour. Be on the majors later today. Nothing special as far as I can tell.”

  Davis jumped to his feet and began grabbing wildly at his VirtGear. He knocked his chair across the room. “Jesus H. Christ!” he screamed and stumbled into his console. “Get this goddamned thing out of my head! SHIT!” Davis clenched his teeth in a seizure-like lockdown, and his body froze in a contorted spasm.

  Some of the techs started to approach.

  “Don’t touch him!” Chaco yelled, and the techs stood their ground.

  “Man, what the hell hit him?” Steiner asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Chaco stepped closer and inspected Davis. “It looks like something backwashed into his VirtGear’s Network, but the security walls should have stopped that.”

  “Predator stream,” Tsukahara said, referencing his console.

  Chaco looked at Tsukahara and frowned. “If you got a clue, I want to hear it.”

  Tsukahara glanced again at his console. “Russian made, very dirty.” He looked up and wiped sweat from his upper lip. “We study this extensively at University. If he not released within two minutes, the stream will begin restructure his nucleotide polymorphisms, and any other deoxyribonucleic acid sequence variants.”

  “In English.”

  “It will make him a vegetable.”

  “Okay.” Chaco turned to the group. “Anybody got any ideas?”

  Tsukahara stepped over to the emergency shut-off button on the far wall and lifted its plastic cover.

  “Wait a second!” Steiner said. “He’s totally Virt-In. You can’t auto-down on him. That’s for fires and shit. It’ll kill all the power to this grid, and probably him with it.” He looked at Chaco. “Won’t it?”

  Davis was beginning to take on the appearance of a freakish modern sculpture. He was slowly vibrating like an electrical surge oscillated in him, and foam was building at the corners of his mouth.

  “Hell if I know,” Chaco said. “This isn’t in any of my background. Tsuka, do you know what you’re doing?”

  Tsukahara studied the room. “Russian Predator Stream is very black-ops. It can’t be stopped. It operates like a virus, just keeps adapting.”

  “Shit,” Chaco said under his breath.

  Tsukahara hit the button; the room went black.

  Being a “clean” room – which had always struck Chaco as such an odd holdover since rooms didn’t really need to be sterile anymore – buried 10 levels below the Maryland landscape meant that when the power was cut, it got, as his grandfather used to say, as black as the Ace of Spades.

  “Everyone all right?” Chaco asked into the darkness.

  There were grumbles in various degrees of “yes.”

  Steiner clicked on a miniature flashlight and directed the beam to where Davis had collapsed. As the light passed over Davis’ VirtGear, it caught the edges of some disconnected fiber optics, and rainbow arcs danced across the room. Steiner moved it over the rest of Davis’s body, which had fallen forward in a sick-looking heap. One of his arms was contorted to one side, while the other had been caught awkwardly under his chest. A small puddle of drool and blood was slowly spreading from his partially opened mouth.

  Steiner lifted the light, reflecting it off the ceiling like a spot so the others could see. They rolled Davis over, and Chaco pulled out his Netpad and passed it the length of the body. The glow from its tiny screen cast Davis in a steely blue tint.

  “What’s it read?” Steiner asked.

  “He’s alive, but his breathing is shallow. His pulse is a little slow, and his blood pressure is off, but not too bad. Except for some broken teeth, I’d say he’s pretty lucky.” He clicked off the Netpad and placed it on the counter. “Nice job, Tsuka,” he said into the blackness. Steiner swung the light to the wall where the shut-off button was, and all heads followed. Its narrow beam cut a path through the dark, like a spotlight in one of the old prison vids Chaco had enjoyed watching with his father.

  Steiner swung the beam around. “Hey, where’s Yoichi?”

  “Hey, Tsuka?” Chaco called out, but there was no response.

  Chaco’s Netpad hummed. “Yeah?!” he yelled.

  “This is Security Station 4. Your unit is off-line. Fire crews are headed your way.”

  “Cancel that, security! No fire, repeat, no fire. We have a medical emergency, Category 5.”

  “Affirmative. Do you want power restored?”

  “No! Do not restore power. We have a man who’s still Virt-In.”

  “Affirmative. Holding power restoration until we hear further. ETA for med team is three minutes.”

  There came a pounding at the entrance door that made everyone jump. It sounded to Chaco more like a SWAT battering ram, the kind they used on a TVid show he’d seen once – what was it called, Cop for a Day?

  Steiner swung the light toward the noise, and Chaco stepped toward the door, but something caught his foot and sent him stumbling. Steiner left the door and shined the light on what had tripped Chaco. There was more pounding.

  “What the hell?” Chaco watched Steiner’s light crawl up the unconscious mass of Yoichi Tsukahara. He was sprawled on the floor with the back of his head against the wall. In the dim light, he looked nearly peaceful.

  “Agent Chaco?” Slowinski beckoned from the Netpad.

  “Jesus.” Chaco stepped back over Tsukahara and followed Steiner’s beam back to the counter.

  “Your ‘situation’ has come to my attention.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Slowinski. You see, we had this Russian Predator thing–”

  “Sonny?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  There was a slight pause that Chaco took as his boss preparing to unleash his own special brand of disciplinary action. “See me when your situation is under control.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chaco wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve and leaned against the counter. He looked down at Cooper, who, along with another tech, was trying to extract Davis’s VirtGear. “Be careful of the optic couplings,” he said. “They usually carry a little residual juice.”

  The pounding at the lab door stopped.

  Steiner handed the flashlight to another tech and began helping the others delicately uncouple the dozen tentacles that entwined Davis’ head. This would have been a simple task in any other situation, but because Davis was still connected to the Net, they had to uncouple the connectors in the correct order, or his nervous system could go into shock.

  Harrison read aloud from his Netpad how to release the connectors. When Steiner removed the last one, its living properties sensed freedom and recoiled into the main housing at the front of the headgear.

  “There,” he said with an air of accomplishment. “That’s the last one.” Steiner lifted the VirtGear from Davis’s head with the reverence of a surgeon. Davis’s head rolled out of the housing, his cheek stopping just shy of the pool of blood and drool. He eyes were half open and partially rolled back. His jaw had unclenched, but his nose looked broken. Chaco’s Netpad hummed again.

&
nbsp; “This is the med team. We’re standing by outside. Is your victim still Virt-In?”

  “Negative,” Chaco said. “Bring us back online.”

  The overheads, along with the lab’s equipment, emitted a collective drone, and Chaco and the others shaded their eyes from the harsh light. The door to the lab hissed, and the med team rushed in and quickly surrounded Davis.

  “We have another one, over there.” Chaco pointed to Tsukahara, who had come to and was trying to sit up.

  “Hey, Yoichi,” Steiner said. “You okay there?”

  Tsukahara glanced toward Davis, who was being raised on a med platform to be hovered out. “Will he die?” he asked..

  “He’s going to be okay, Tsuka.... Isn’t he?” Chaco asked of the lead med tech, whose name patch labeled him as Morrison.

  “His vitals are stable, and he’ll probably eat with a straw for the next two weeks. We’ll know more after we get him into Scanning. What did you say that stream was called?” He signaled his team to begin moving Davis out.

  “Russian Predator,” Chaco said.

  Morrison frowned. “I haven’t seen anything like that in a long time. Wonder why the Walls didn’t stop it?”

  “Hell if I know. I thought they could stop anything.”

  “They’re supposed to. You better run a diagnostic on your Virt Hubs before I have to come back down here and haul out another one of your fried asses.”

  Morrison scanned the room. His attention landed on Steiner’s collection of antique cell phones. “You Net agents are an odd bunch.”

  Chaco shrugged.

  “What do you boys do down here, anyway?”

  “Just keepin’ the peace.”

  “Peace, my ass.” Morrison followed his team out. “I’ll let you know about your agent here, as soon as I know something,” he said over his shoulder. The door shut behind him with a clunk.

  The room filled with a tense energy as Chaco, Tsukahara, and the techs all stood silently collecting themselves. Chaco edged the tip of his boot into the puddle of drool and blood. “Somebody want to clean this up?”