incredulously.
“Mother, this is not just about the pssi program, not the program by itself,” replied Tyrel, wiping away his tears. “By itself, we would have been happy to evolve together in a symbiotic coexistence under your dominance, but you have unwittingly unleashed a terrible evil into the world that will consume it. We need to destroy Atopia to stop it.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, bewildered. Then a light winked on. “So you admit that you have created these storms to destroy us?”
My mind raced. Had Sintil8 double-crossed me, had I made a fatal mistake in bringing him so close to me? Was he the monster I had unleashed? How had Terra Nova managed to jump so far ahead technologically to be able to control weather like this? How could they possibly think they could get away with destroying us for their own gain?
“Yes, we created these storms, as you say,” Tyrel admitted quietly, “but we cannot explain why. As secure as the steps you took to come here, there is still a connection back through you, and we still don’t have the full picture. We think the key is contained in William McIntyre’s body.”
“Willy?” I asked, remembering the report on Bob’s friend now. I became even more bewildered. “Did you have something to do with Willy’s body disappearing? Why?”
“It was through Wallace that we first understood the potential magnitude of the danger,” admitted Tyrel, “but it was Sintil8 who helped Wallace to disappear from Atopia, using the access keys you granted. Wallace was acting to protect William.”
Things had begun to spin into nonsense. So, Sintil8 had been involved in the disappearances.
“We have no time for this,” I objected furiously, sensing time running out. “We need to make a deal now. You’ve seen the same phutures I have, there is no other solution. We will escape this trap you’ve set, and I want you to be on my side when we do, to help with what I need to get done, to help save yourselves!”
“We have seen the phutures,” agreed Tyrel, “but you didn’t take into account one scenario.”
“And what is that?” I asked impatiently. We’d played out billions of phutures.
“The destruction of Atopia.”
That stopped me in my tracks. It was true-all of our phutures had included Atopia as a component of the solution set. With a sudden lurch, I could feel my own pride and sense of destiny having perhaps blinded me.
“Look,” I said after a moment of reflection, “that may be true, but we’re escaping your trap. I need to make a deal with you now.”
More silence.
“This is a trap of your own making,” replied Tyrel slowly, “and yes, you may escape these storms.”
I nodded, waiting for him to finish.
“But, by my word, before the sun rises tomorrow morning, Atopia will be wiped from the face of this world.”
22
Identity: Bobby Baxter
Smiling at Nancy, I stuffed some more pasta into my face.
“Think of it like we’re about to run a marathon,” I explained. “We need to do some carb loading and build up our smarticle reservoirs. Keep eating!”
We’d both been storing far more than the usual load of smarticles that we naturally absorbed from the Atopian environment, far beyond even our own high tolerances.
Nancy nodded and continued to eat methodically, looking down into her plate. It had been a long time since I’d been this physically close to her, and a lot of memories were flooding back. With an effort I kept my mind from splintering and scuttling off into the past.
“I just don’t like that we’re hiding this from Pat,” she said looking down into her pasta. “Do you really think she’s hiding something?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but we need to keep all our options open. You understand?”
She nodded. “But why tell Jimmy then?”
“Just a hunch I have,” I replied, not able to explain much more than that. “Knowing he knows what we’re doing enables us to watch him watching us, if that makes any sense.”
“Plus, we won’t set off his alarms when we’re scanning the Atopian infrastructure,” added Sid.
Nancy shrugged.
“Makes sense I guess.”
Willy, Sid, Vicious, Robert, Vince and Hotstuff were all sitting at the table together with us in a dingy little cafeteria in a deep, dark forgotten corner of the Atopian service infrastructure below Purgatory.
We were as close as we could get to the routing core of the pssi network, and for what I wanted to do, reducing distance latency to the core would help minimize transactional delays and give us an edge over any self- correcting algorithmic blind spots that may be installed within it. We were going to plug in as directly as we could and watch for anomalies.
“Go over the plan again with me?” asked Nancy as she carefully considered the noodles before her. She took another mouthful.
“Your mind is still the best neuroplatically formatted of anyone on Atopia to handle wide area splintering,” I started to explain.
“Yeah,” added Vicious, “it’s like you can be everywhere at once.”
Nancy sighed. “Yes, everywhere but the place I should have been.”
She looked directly into my eyes and my heart jumped up through my throat.
“Nancy, we need your head in on this or not at all,” I replied softly, my heart beating quickly. “Are you up for this?”
I needed to know. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Yes, I’m in Bob, you’ve just surprised me is all.” She looked up at me and held my gaze steadily.
“I do like to be full of surprises,” I said as I smiled at her warmly. “Good. So Sid is making some changes to my water sense so that it settles around information eddies regarding Atopia.”
“Right,” she said, “so you can feel out ideas in the multiverse about Atopia.”
“Exactly. So here’s what we’re going to try. You and I are going to composite, and then recombine via your Infinixx tethers to push my water-sense into thousands of composite splinters that we then push into every nook and cranny of the multiverse.”
I looked at Nancy and she nodded her understanding.
“Sid will amplify this and cross-connect our network into the billions of private Phuture News feeds that Vince will open up to us. I’ll be waiting to feel for waves of information that flow out, and then ride the interesting ones in.”
“You sure you’re ready to open up all these personal phuturecasts to us?” I asked Vince, giving him another opportunity to back out. “The lawsuits could be the end of you.”
He just laughed, “The end of me doesn’t scare me much anymore. Look, it can’t get any worse than it is. I want to find some answers.”
“Okay then,” I replied, “just making sure.”
Vince looked ready for action. “Heck, opening up all these private phutures could even kill the whole Phuture News organization… I think I could be ready for a fresh start.”
During the last half hour he’d already had to flit out three times to save his life, but he looked the most awake and alive of all of us. It was true what they said-if you needed something done, ask someone with nothing to do and it takes forever, but ask a busy person and it gets done right away. Vince was the busiest person I knew, and he got things done in a flash.
Nancy looked up at me. “What you’re proposing could kill you, you know.”
“Don’t be silly,” I smiled. “Anyway, it’s less dangerous than surfing.”
“When you surf you don’t purposely cook your brain,” she replied. “Are you’re sure you want to do this?”
