The Starry Rift Part 33

He grinned.

"Like this," he said.

And he looked at me. It was more of a stare, really-a corny, horror-movie stare. I wanted to say something cutting, but I couldn't speak, because a sudden, shooting pain had ripped up my left leg and into my pelvis. I felt myself gagging.

The M-eq has been compromised where the power transfer stations in Broca were damaged. They are sending out the wrong signals.

Details of the cities we have captured on Losamo appear in flashes. They are vaporizing under our own guns. A nursery school presided over by a young teacher; her face as she looks up and sees the missiles coming in...

The M-fold calculations have been corrupted.

Why was he doing this? What was it all about?

Jack was supposed to be on our side. . . .

I flashed a memory of Diego eyeing me over the ice-cream sundae. Saying, "Your visual cortex is well shielded."

Medusa. Greek mythology. A snake-haired woman who turns you to stone if you meet her gaze.

Losamo. Children, crushed like bugs. Green planet, clawed white with death.

I couldn't look, but I couldn't look away. My eyes were frozen open inside the M-ask.

Jack was still gazing at me. His dreadlocks seemed to move.

Snake hair.

"Jarel!" I screamed. "Don't look at him! It's in his eyes. He'll infect you!"

"Too late," Jack told me smugly. "I've already turned Jarel to stone-metaphorically speaking. I've fixed him in this times.p.a.ce. He will never M-fold again. But you, Maja-your M-ask is a little more sophisticated. It's a generation better than the one that brought me into the fold. And I can use it."

"See, that's where you'd be wrong," I said shakily. "The M-ask is designed for me. You can't use it. No one else can. Only me."

"You haven't understood me. I'm not just Jack anymore. I'm Medusa. And I'll be in you, too, just as soon as Medusa can convert you."

"I don't think so."

"Don't worry. It isn't painful. Not nearly as painful as what's happening to the people of Losamo, for example. And you'll see: M-s.p.a.ce is best left to the Medusa. Humans don't belong there in any proprietary way. We're not designed for it. And like I told you: you're murdering people over commercial mining rights."

"No," I replied. "You're murdering them."

He smiled. "I was hoping we could do this the easy way, but if you want to do it the hard way, I can go there."

And now Cute Blond Guy was coming at me with snakes in his hair. As Dave would say, Oh, c.r.a.pskj!

"The Project doesn't understand, Maja. I tried to warn them. It was a waste of time. And then, when I saw Medusa for myself, I knew it didn't matter what the Project did. You'll see."

He was in my range. I kicked him across the thigh: one, two, three successive shots. Then, inexplicably, my left leg caved in and I staggered as though I'd been the one to take the blows.

Damage to Akaya Moon. Radiation shields in Broca 67 compro-mised.

I'd hit my own targets. Medusa was using me against myself.

Jack kept coming. Everything I did to hurt him only hurt my own side-until it was me rolling on the ground in a haze of pain. He moved in until he was sitting astride my chest with his hands around my throat.

I thrashed wildly, knowing I had a very short time before I lost consciousness. And if he applied pressure to my carotid artery, I'd be- He let up the pressure just a little.

"No!" I coughed. "I don't want it! I won't!"

I heard his voice, close in my ear, loud above the sound of myself choking and gagging.

"Let Medusa in, Maja. Let it in, or I'll have to kill you. If you die with the M-ask on, all the systems under your care will suffer. Do you really want that?"

I saw my own ships, turning to fire on vital government targets, that is, my brain. I was running out of air.

I shook my head in the throttle of his grip.

"Look in my eyes. Let Medusa enter your M-ask."

Jack's eyes were hazel, which really meant they were pixillated with green, brown, yellow, and blue. Inside them, I could see the Scatter, all at once: all scales, all dimensions, all locations. It was like being conscious of every chemical reaction in my entire body at the same time. Knowing each axon as it fired. I felt skewered on this self-awareness as on a spear. My mind was pinned; it couldn't move.

Am I turning to stone?

I couldn't see Medusa. Its whole nature was inferential. I could only see its effects-but these were visible on almost every system, across power transfer stations and deep in the M-eq. Jack was right: in our efforts at mastering the times.p.a.ce of the Scatter, we had tapped into something very, very strange.

Was it an alien? Was it a transcendent mathematical pattern? Was it something underlying the very basis of us-?

For that matter, was it G.o.d?

No way to know.

But I hoped it wasn't G.o.d, because I didn't like it much.

"Look deeper," Jack urged. "You're not letting it in. Let yourself become Medusa, and then you'll understand. . . ."

I was looking into Jack's eyes, but I was hearing Medusa's message: You can have more. You can be more.

You can be more than you.

Surrender, and transcend...

It sounded nice. But I hadn't been trained to surrender. Even if it meant the demise of whole worlds.

I thrashed, bridged my body up, and attempted a reversal. My injuries had weakened me. The crippled power transfer station; the rubble of Losamo; the ruined computing trees . . . all of these told against me.

Jack laughed in my face.

"Stupid. You'll destroy yourself and all your kind. Such is human nature. Such is war."

I looked away from the violence of his eyes. Behind him, I saw Jarel move into range. I was fading from lack of oxygen, but the look on Jarel's face held my attention. It was not a nice look.

Then Jarel kicked Jack in the head from behind, and Jack toppled over like a sack of . . . sugar.

"You'll have to beat us both," Jarel said, and pounced on Jack.

He hurt Jack badly. Thanks to his inferior M-ask-and his superior pain tolerance-Jarel seemed to be able to punish Jack without suffering so much damage himself. Eventually, Jack must have taken one blow too many, because the Medusa M-folded him and his poisonous blond dreads into a different times.p.a.ce.

Panting, Jarel and I regarded each other. And Diego was back in my ears.

Maja, are you okay? We've been having big problems.

I ignored him. I swallowed painfully.

"Thanks, Jarel," I croaked.

But he wasn't even looking at me.

"I'm frozen," he whispered. "I can't access Away Mode, and I can't M-fold. My M-ask is ruined. . . ."

Quit talking to him, Maja, Diego said. The Battle is still on. Finish him off and we can all get out of here.

I swatted at my ears, wishing I could shut Diego up.

"This times.p.a.ce isn't so bad," I said to Jarel. "When you get used to it, you'll be okay. Like, try telling people you're Armenian."

He was inconsolable. "You don't get it. The Leader will punish me. This was our last chance to capture the M-eq. My people have been marginalized for too long. We can't recover from this. Now your government will monopolize the Scatter. I have failed."

Diego had parked his car in front of CVS and was walking up Yawpo toward us. I checked with my onboard and saw that the Battle was still in effect.

"Hey, I might be able to help you out there," I said. "You saved me from Medusa. The least I can do for you is-"

And I turned and broke away. I was only half a mile from the Battleground's boundary near Route 208. I started running across people's lawns.

Maja, no! Don't forfeit! We'll lose M-eq control! Maja!!

Diego ran back to his car and started it. He roared up Yawpo. He was going to cut me off if he could.

I had that bad leg, where what happened on Losamo would always be with me. I wasn't sure I could make it. I reached the edge of the woods. Route 208 wasn't far now.

It was dark, and my leg was killing me, but I wanted this. Not for the Project, not for the Scatter-for me. Because Jarel had saved me and-dumb as it might sound-there was still such a thing as honor. I had to believe that; I had to make it true.

I burst out of the woods just as Diego spun his car to a halt on the highway and came barreling toward me on an intercept course. I kept running, and when he charged me, I slammed my knee into his head.

It was too easy. He was out cold in the fallen leaves.

Lungs searing, I reached the highway and staggered across the invisible line. My M-ask went wild.

I switched to Away Mode. My forfeiture had been registered. The M-eq was already signing itself over to the insurgents.

Just like that, it was over.

There was no sign now of the Medusa. But then, that was the nature of the beast. It couldn't be seen. Jack wasn't defeated, and he'd be back. Or someone like him. Or something harder to name, or even perceive. If the Medusa lived in M-s.p.a.ce, I had to be kidding myself to think I could M anymore. Every time I M-folded, I would be at risk.

I walked back along the shoulder to the edge of the woods and the place where Diego was just coming to. He was on his hands and knees, fingering his face like it was a porcelain sculpture. He didn't look too good.

For the first time I realized this was something I could do nothing about. By "this," I mean the situation. No matter what I did, here, today, the outcome would be the same. Diego, or someone like Diego, would carry on with the M-eq, the Scatter, and everything that the exploitation of M-times.p.a.ce implied. Even if that meant the Project risked losing its agents to the Medusa. The M-ask technology was a one-way street.

I couldn't do anything to stop that. All I could do was make a decision for myself, about the way I wanted to live.

I loved fighting. I would not be rewarded for it, in this times.p.a.ce. In fact, I would probably be reviled. And my unique M-ask abilities would not be understood, much less valued.

I might as well move to the Stone Age.

Diego was looking at me. He held his sleeve against his bleeding nose.

"Okay," he said thickly. "Party's over. You made your point. But it's only one Battle in the war. Time to go home."

I nodded.

"Okay."

Then I took off the M-ask and handed it to him.

Diego stared at me.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you have any idea what your training cost? I ought to leave you here, teach you a lesson."

"Whatever," I said, trying to sound like I belonged in 1994. Diego looked at me for a beat, as if to give me a chance to change my mind. Then he M-folded, sneering.

I started to walk north along the side of the highway, against the traffic. Jarel was limping toward me. He offered his hand.

We shook.

"I guess we're both staying," he said.

"Until they come for us," I answered.

"You want to uh . . . hang out . . . sometime?"

I almost laughed at the idea, but checked myself. I said, "Does your face hurt?"

"Yeah, but it should be okay, once the M-ask agents disperse."

I winced. He still looked green, and there were irrigation ca.n.a.ls dug in the flesh of his cheeks by migrating agents. He was no poster boy.