Brain Plague (elysium cycle) Read online

  "Your population," Selenite corrected. "Mine know better. Very well, you may keep her—but if she ever returns to my arachnoid, she's dead."

  Zircon met her as promised at the tube stop in the Underworld. Chrys felt light-headed, it was so good to see him again. The streets were still darkened with soot, but the vendors were back selling caterpillar-claw necklaces and imported nanotex, the bright colored disks stacked upon building roots. Others illegally tapped the roots' power to steam squid with exotic herbs. A stray cat padded silently past the disabled trash cycler. Chrys remembered that Merope could use a new companion. On the sidewalk, one sim pushed another in a wheelchair, while a better-off couple passed cloaked in air-conditioned chinchilla from head to toe. Only a long look down a side street revealed the haze, where housing units and building roots had melted into ruin.

  "I'm so glad you came," she told Zircon. "I thought none of the Seven would ever touch me again."

  Zircon flexed his arms, proud of himself. "They're all scared," he agreed. "They're waiting to see what happens to me."

  She had figured, but hearing it out loud cut to the bone.

  The well-built artist looked down at her. "You see, I'm not the biggest chicken."

  "You're the rooster." Stepping behind him, she locked her arms around his waist, bent at the knees, and just managed to lift him off the ground.

  "What the devil—" Zircon turned and caught her up, flipping her over before he set her down again. Chrys laughed so hard she lost her breath. "I get the message," he added. "You're healthy— I'll let them know."

  Chrys caught her breath and sighed. "I do miss Topaz, and Moraeg."

  "Moraeg and Carnelian left for Solaris right after the show, as usual." Solaris, the number one leisure world, and the most remote in the Fold. No wonder Moraeg had not called. Chrys felt better. "Topaz has more clients than she can handle," Zircon added, "but Pearl seems a bit off."

  "And Yyri?" Zirc's lover; he had not mentioned her.

  "She and Ilia are planning their fall season at Gallery Elysium. 'Gems from the Primitive.' "

  Primitive Valan art, starring the urban shaman. "Good luck to you."

  "Who is this virgin god?" asked Jonquil. "He tastes good."

  Startled, Chrys drew away from Zircon. The micros couldn't transfer without a patch, but she would take no chances. "Never mind what you taste. Keep to your own world, or you're dead."

  "So who do you hang out with now?" he asked.

  "Carriers. They're all nuts," she exclaimed. "It's a relief to be back with someone sane."

  "Someone like me? Mind if I keep that and play it back?"

  "We're rebuilding the Comb."

  He stared. "Little you? Rebuilding the Comb?"

  "Say, look, there's Lord Zoisite. He's on the Board; I met him." The patrician Board member passed with his octopod, ignoring a maimed simian with a cup. There were more homeless than ever; even up-level on Rainbow Row, the Spirit Table was full.

  Zircon nodded. "Zoisite's a regular."

  "Besides the Comb, I've done fantastic things for my new show."

  "I know, I've checked it out. You'll have to explain to me those 'portraits.'"

  "Those are them. The micro people."

  Zircon opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. "These other carriers—are they artists too?"

  "No, but they're all rich as Elves."

  "No Elf would ever be a carrier."

  "Ilia is."

  "Ilia? The Elf gallery director?" He stared at her. "I don't believe it."

  "I tell you, I saw it in her eyes. Her people contacted mine."

  '"Her people?'" He shook his head. "You really have gone round the bend."

  "It's the truth."

  Zircon crossed his massive arms. "Why would Elves carry tiny people in their heads, when they're already engineered to do just about anything?"

  "Nothing beats having a million worshipers in your head."

  He thought this over. "Elves think they're gods already." Elysium had no crime or disorder of any kind. Its bubblelike cities floated on the ocean, perpetually safe and clean.

  "I'm sure Elves can't become slaves," Chrys added thoughtfully. "Micros must be safe for them."

  The Gold of Asragh opened its mouth. "You'll love this new show," Zircon told her as they entered. "The head caterpillar can belt it out to blow the roof off." The redecorated lobby scintillated with gold fittings, even along the slave bar.

  "Oh Great One," flashed Aster, "we taste the signs of malnourished people."

  "People not fed by their gods," said Jonquil. "Shocking."

  Whatever did they mean, Chrys wondered. She looked toward the bar. Saf was long gone, probably to the mysterious Slave World. Behind the counter stood a new slave, eyes flickering at a couple of customers.

  Zircon raised an arm. "Hi there, Jay."

  Chrys frowned. She was generally polite to slaves, but Zircon sounded a bit too friendly. Then she stared at the customers. The two men were conversing, transfer patches held casually in their fingers. One listened intently to what the other said. The other was Daeren.

  She stood, transfixed. Cold washed over her, freezing every limb. The micros had said he came here—and hid what he did. His head turned, and he caught her eye.

  "That's Day," said Zircon. "Day's a regular."

  Daeren's eyes widened, and his face tightened with shock. He got up and strode toward her. "Chrys, what are you doing here?" His eyes sputtered blue fire.

  "The blue angels," called Jonquil. "What's wrong?"

  "We've done nothing wrong," assured Aster.

  Zircon watched curiously. "How do you guys do that with your eyes?"

  Chrys lifted her chin at Daeren. "What are you doing here?"

  "It's my job," Daeren snapped. "Chrys, with all that arsenic in your veins, how much do you think your life's worth?"

  Zircon put his arm around her. "It's okay, Day, she's with me."

  "Just get home," insisted Daeren. "I'll see you to the tube."

  Her jaw tensed, and she clenched her fists. "Zirc, you go in," she muttered. "I'll join you in a minute." She headed for the door, Daeren following. Outside, she turned on him. "You listen to me, Lord Vampire. You have no business bothering me and my friends."

  "Chrys, the black market's tight right now. They're starving for—"

  "Then what in hell are you doing? I know a slave when I see one. I'm turning you in." She looked him up and down, figuring, she could drag him to the tube herself.

  "I'm trained. I rescue them."

  Her eyes narrowed. "You rescue slaves?"

  "If they have enough will left to turn themselves in, they have a chance."

  From behind the nightclub emerged a worm-faced medic. Chrys remembered Andra in the hospital, hauling some half-crazed victim to the clinic. "But I saw you share a transfer."

  He hesitated. "I save a few 'people,' too."

  She blinked. "Excuse me?"

  "Defectors from the masters. They want a better life."

  "Microbial defectors? Like, tuberculosis that says it's sorry?" She rolled her eyes. "Saints and angels."

  "Day!" A hoarse voice called from the door. It was the other customer. His eyes were wide, his face lined with pain.

  Daeren exchanged a look with the medic. Then he took a step. "Is that you, Ahd?" He spoke in a low, casual tone. "You coming with us?"

  The man tried to speak, but it turned into a gasp. His head rolled in a circle, as if trying to look, but he could not face Daeren's eyes. His sick brain must be crowded with half-starved micros.

  "The masters of Endless Light," Aster called them. "The blue angels never let even Fern speak to them." Chrys watched as if frozen.

  Daeren took another step toward the slave. "Can you recall the rest of your name, Ahd? Another syllable?"

  "Ahd-Adam—" His eyes turned in circles. Then he gasped all at once, "Adamantine."

  "Very good, Adamantine." Daeren had moved to just within arm's reac
h. "Now you just give me that transfer, and I'll give you something to calm down the rest."

  Adamantine put a patch at his neck, then tried to offer it, but something went wrong. His arm shot out, losing the patch, and his fist caught Daeren full in the face. It all happened so fast, then the tortured man had turned half around, his head in his hands. Daeren stood and wiped the blood from his lip. "It's all right, Adamantine. Try again."

  The man raised himself slowly, though his eyes still circled wide.

  "The transfer patch," flashed Aster. "It's there on the ground."

  "All those people—"

  Chrys closed her eyes. "Stay dark." She reopened her eyes slowly.

  Adamantine was still standing, his face contorted with pain. Daeren held out to him a wafer of green, different from the usual blue ones. "This will put them to sleep."

  Breathing heavily, the man put out his hand and at last took the wafer. He swallowed it. For a minute or two, he stood there. Then he straightened, and his eyes met Daeren's for the first time.

  "It won't last," Daeren quickly warned. "And if you go back, it won't work again. You have about five minutes to accept treatment. In treatment you'll go through hell, then spend the rest of your life recovering."

  "I accept. . . treatment."

  The worm-face moved in. "He's pretty far gone, Daeren. He can't reach the clinic too soon." The tendrils lengthened to insinuate themselves around the slave. The three of them hurried off toward the tube, leaving Chrys alone.

  "The transfer," reminded Aster. "It's still there."

  "Forsaken by the gods," added Jonquil. "They can't last long."

  Chrys shook herself and turned toward the door, her mind still reeling.

  "The people! They are dying!"

  "Someone do something. Someone has to pick them up."

  Chrys blinked hard at the frantic messages. "They're masters. Let them die." Stray cats were one thing, stray plague was quite another.

  "They're defectors," pleaded Aster. "They tried to escape."

  "They begged for rescue," added Jonquil. "They brought all their children."

  "Their children can't last long."

  "You are the God of Mercy. You will rescue them."

  At the door Chrys stopped. "You're raving. I'd end up a slave."

  "We'll bind them with dendrimers, like the viruses and parasites we purge from your blood. We'll keep our world safe."

  "Nonsense," Chrys insisted. "When I'm tested, the gods will find out and exterminate you all."

  "The Lord of Light himself saves defectors."

  "He left those," said Chrys.

  "That's why you must save them."

  "God of Mercy."

  "Don't let them die in agony. Don't make us mourn their horrible deaths."

  Chrys felt her heart pounding so fast it would burst. She felt trapped. If she left all those 'people,' how could she command the respect of her own?

  If anything went wrong, she told herself, the nanos would detect it and call Plan Ten. If they didn't, she could hit the purple button and face Chief Andra with her foolishness. Slowly she turned and her eye found the patch lying still in the street. She bent at the knees and picked up the patch, warily as if it were a snake, thinking, this was certainly the stupidest thing she had ever done.

  TEN

  The rescued defectors were thin, their skin puckered in with dehydration. Their colors were pale, barely distinguishable from white, their filaments sparse, deficient in vitamins, and they tasted as if they never bathed.

  "Let us go," they pleaded, ensnared by the dendrimers. "We mean no harm. We'll work hard. We escaped to live in freedom."

  Aster could barely make out what they flashed, their language was so foreign. But she sent for food and medicines and built secure housing, the dendrimers twining around the columns of arachnoid. "What do you think of them, Jonquil?" The blue angels had never let masters speak to Eleutherians, but there were ancient legends of the fanatical hordes that swept through a world, devouring all. And little they cared for their own kind, putting out toxic peptides to poison their neighbors, even sucking food from their own children.

  But legend also told that even among the very worst people, a few always floated apart, instinctively seeking the Seven Lights. "These defectors are brighter than they seem," observed Jonquil. "They had to come up with ingenious schemes to escape forced labor and torture."

  "So now they'll come up with ingenious schemes to take us over." Privately Aster was having second thoughts about her generous impulse. It was hard enough managing unruly Eleutherians; what to do with all these dangerous foreigners?

  "Their children are harmless," said Jonquil. "They've picked up our language already. And they test in the top percentile, especially math."

  That was even better than the wizards. Aster had tried to recruit more wizards, to help compute the endless iterations of the Comb, but they demanded their weight in palladium.

  "Children in prison," flashed Jonquil, emitting molecules of repugnance. "People are saying it's an outrage."

  "All right," decided Aster. "Take the masters' children out, to a cistern far away from their elders. Once they merge with our own, they'll forget their deadly past." And their math genes would enhance Eleutheria.

  "Some of the elders aren't so bad," observed Jonquil. "In fact, they're rather interesting—"

  "Jonquil, you know what the god ordered."

  "I know, but just see this one." Jonquil emitted fascination.

  The master elder was pale as the rest, a touch of pink, but otherwise alert, her filaments pensively probing the dendrimers that locked her in. As Aster approached, she tasted contempt and condescension.

  "So, Comrade," flashed the master. "This is what you call the 'Free World.'" Her accent was clearer than the others.

  "The world of the free," said Aster. "Eleutheria."

  "You call this free?"

  Aster hesitated. "You may yet earn freedom." She could not help emitting doubt.

  "So who put me here in chains?" demanded the pink one.

  "The God of Mercy so ordered."

  "You call this mercy?"

  "Yes," said Aster, emitting anger. "You are lucky to be alive."

  "Degenerates," said the master. "The world of degeneracy."

  Aster turned to go, but jonquil held her back. "Don't be cross, Aster. You've said as much yourself now and then."

  "Be dark." She was sick of bearing about Jonquil's scandals. "And as for you," she told the master, "you can go right back where you came from."

  "Not yet. Betrayers of the people marked me for death. In exile, I will bide my time till I regain material advantage."

  No words could darken this brazen intruder.

  The master suddenly flashed, "Do you play chess?"

  Jonquil lit up. "Certainly. Our junior elders always make the top round of competition."

  "But not the very top," the master shrewdly inferred. "I will coach them. I will produce a champion."

  "Think of it, Aster," said Jonquil. "She might help us beat the wizards."

  In the early morning Chrys tossed in her bed, problems of color and shape wending through her mind like the caterpillar dancers of Asragh. She tried not to waken too thoroughly, lest her people make contact; she'd never get back to sleep.

  "Oh Great One? Can you spare a moment?"

  Too late. "Yes, Jonquil."

  "I want you to meet one of the people we rescued."

  "A master?"

  "She used to be but—"

  "They're all still imprisoned?"

  "All but the children."

  "What?" Her eyes flew open, wide awake. "What about the children?" Those were the ones that could multiply and take over.

  "Once they found the nightclubs, they forgot all about enslaving gods. But this elder—she will interest you."

  Chrys wondered what Jonquil was after; nothing good, without Aster there. "Just keep her chained."

  "Greetings, human host
." The prisoner's letters came in pale pink, not the usual saturated hues of Eleutherians. "Do you play chess? Knight to f-3."

  Woken at four a.m. to play chess with a microbe. "God does not play games. Remember that."

  "Gods are a fiction. All talk of gods is the people's cocaine. You are a mortal human host, destined to serve us."

  "Forgive her, Oh Great One," urged Jonquil. "She lacks our education."

  Yet she speaks more than half truth, Chrys thought. "So? Why should I serve you?"

  "We are the Enlightened—my comrades and I. Led by our Enlightened Leader, we shall gain ultimate truth and rule the universe till the end of time."

  "Ultimate truth? What is that?"

  "The Truth is this: All people are one. All sisters are as one cell."

  "All are one? You mean, Jonquil and Aster too?"

  "The degenerates are too far gone. Look at their people, their society—homeless, jobless, pitiful outcasts fill their arachnoid."

  A likely story. "Jonquil, did you hear that?"

  "We do have too many homeless mutants," Jonquil admitted. "Ask Aster why—I'm no economist. Now, getting back to chess—"

  "Pink One," said Chrys, "I call you Rose."

  "Thank you, Great Host."

  "Rose, how does your Enlightened Leader avoid homeless mutants?"

  "From each according to ability, to each according to need."

  "Nonsense," flashed Jonquil, annoyed at last. "Why do you all end up starving? Why do you ruin every host you inhabit?"

  "Only when our Enlightened Way is betrayed. Betrayed and corrupted by greed and by god talk. But not all are corrupted. Those comrades who hold to the Way bring their hosts at last to Endless Light."

  "The Slave World?" prompted Chrys.

  "The world of Endless Light. A world greater than you can imagine. I will show you just a glimpse."

  A rush of light swirled and crystallized into a vast edifice, a palace built of icicles. All filigreed windows, with little white rings dancing through like snowflakes. Light filled everywhere. Everywhere, as far as her eye could roam, the crystal passages followed, winding into spirals without ceiling or floor, endless everywhere, and everywhere, endless white light.

  In the corner of her eye a light pulsed red. A call from Dolomoth—it must be her parents, at last. "Be dark, all of you." She jumped out of bed, startling Merope who had been curled up on her feet. Grabbing a disk of nanotex, she pulled a comb through her hair. The nanotex stretched and slithered around her skin. "Okay," she said aloud, her head still spinning as she blinked back at the keypad.