Catalyst

  “As well as the two thousand who died in China, the three thousand in India, and the ten thousand in Africa. They were all providing a valuable service, testing my processors. Their lives weren’t sacrificed in vain. Look to yourself, to your own processor—which has been used dozens of times in test subjects before you, but functions perfectly, does it not?”

  “You’re a monster,” Tom breathed.

  “It wasn’t my machinery at fault. I knew all along it was possible to successfully implant a neural processor because my father implanted the very first one in me.”

  Tom was caught off guard that Vengerov was admitting that.

  “I was proof it worked. I simply needed time to understand that only a young brain could accept one.” He cocked his head. “But you don’t appear surprised to hear I have one. . . . It’s as if you knew about my processor already.”

  “What processor?” Tom remembered to play ignorant. “You have a neural processor?”

  “Don’t insult me. I’ve been meaning to get you alone for a while now. Face-to-face, with no one to shield you from my questions.”

  Tom stared at him, caught off guard. He was suddenly acutely aware of the way he was alone here with the oligarch who’d locked him outside in Antarctica to freeze to death just to make a point.

  “I suggest you tear your mind away from your mother,” Vengerov said. “The one you should be concerned about today—”

  “Is myself?” Tom snarled. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Is your father.”

  Tom froze, the world going very still around him.

  Vengerov arched his eyebrows. “Haven’t you wondered about him? About his disappearance?”

  Tom opened and closed his mouth, shock reeling through him.

  “I have him in my custody,” Vengerov said simply. “My contractors procured him for me in the aftermath of Cruithne, when his disappearance was unlikely to be questioned.”

  “You—you—why?”

  Vengerov turned negligently to Dalton. “You may reclaim your paramour now. Then leave.”

  Tom didn’t even try to stop Dalton from snaking an arm around Delilah’s waist and leading her back into the building with him. He was too far in shock.

  Vengerov had Neil. His dad was alive, but Vengerov had him.

  Vengerov let him suffer in silence until they were alone again. “I’ve been waiting for the opportune moment to speak with you. I wanted to do so on the right terms, of course. Having your father in my possession rather clarifies our respective positions here, does it not? I have questions, and you have great incentive to answer them.”

  “W-what questions?”

  “I’ve been plagued of late by attacks from an anonymous hacker of sorts. I believe you’re familiar with him. The ghost in the machine.”

  Tom’s mouth felt very dry, cold flutters moving through his chest. “Why would I know anything about that?”

  Vengerov smiled. “Because you do. I learned of this ghost while listening through Yuri Petrovich’s ears, overhearing the discussion between James Blackburn and you. I’d had my suspicions about the existence of some phenomenon long before that, naturally. I noticed anomalies with regard to the behavior of certain machines, though I had no idea there could be a person behind it, a single person who for some reason is able to access machines beyond the limitations inherent to my software. I had a theory about who that ghost might be, and you helped me test it.”

  Tom knew that was Medusa.

  “But I was incorrect. The destruction of the skyboards proved that to me. I was at a loss. You and James Blackburn were my only leads, so I offered to sponsor you, hoping to gain more access to you—and more opportunity to glean more knowledge of the ghost from you. And then you staged the attack upon Milton Manor.”

  Tom’s blood froze. “What do you mean, ‘me’?”

  “I saw your remote access node, Mr. Raines. Very audacious.”

  “That’s not . . . that doesn’t . . .”

  “Prove anything? No, it doesn’t. Nor, I suppose, does the curious activity originating from the Pentagonal Spire’s servers around the time of Cruithne. You must admit, though, that I have a mass of circumstantial evidence all centered around the same suspect. You. That rather inclines me to think you are very much involved with this. If I’m right, and you are the ghost, bravo for saving the world.”

  “I didn’t do that!”

  Vengerov’s eyes shone with triumph. “No, it was all just a strange coincidence. It was also strange the ghost leaked information only you and James Blackburn knew. I’m very certain from the conversation I overheard that James Blackburn isn’t the ghost in the machine. Recent events have eroded my patience. I intend to find out immediately who this ghost is. What do you know, Mr. Raines?”

  “I don’t know anything!”

  “That’s unfortunate, then,” Vengerov said quietly. “If you truly know nothing, and you’re not the ghost yourself, then you are useless to me. And if you are useless to me, then so is your father.”

  Tom went cold. “You can’t. You—” His voice strangled in his throat.

  Vengerov calmly withdrew a tablet computer, and tossed it to Tom. Tom was so flustered, he almost missed it when it sailed his way. His palms felt like ice, and his heart caught in his throat at the image on the screen of Neil, looking thin and worse for wear, glaring at someone who was training a video feed on him.

  No, no, no, Tom thought.

  “I ask you again,” Vengerov said, watching him closely, letting him see Neil as he spoke, “Do you know anything about the ghost in the machine?”

  Tom didn’t know what to do. His legs felt weak. He’d never expected to be put in this position, his father used against him. He couldn’t think.

  “My patience has limits. Five seconds,” Vengerov said.

  “But this could be fake,” Tom cried. “You might not have him.”

  “Four, three . . .”

  “This might not be him! It could be a fake image! Come on, this could be a fake!”

  Vengerov glanced at Neil. “I suppose that’s a fair demand. What is something your father alone would know?”

  Tom was dizzy. He didn’t reply.

  Vengerov’s pale eyes bore into his. “Mr. Raines, we will ask him a question, and he will answer it for you, and then you can be satisfied I’m not fabricating this story. Do you have a question for your father?”

  Tom’s vision blurred. He was shaking all over, trying to think of something, something for this image on the screen to answer wrong so he could please, please know that Vengerov was lying about having Neil in custody, and this wasn’t true.

  “Um . . .” Tom choked in air. “Um . . . uh . . .” Images rushed through his mind. Neil carrying him down the side of the road, and showing him how to toss a can to check whether a fence was electrified. His dad tucking a coat around him when he was cold and hiking three miles to bring him back warm soda that time he got sick. All the ways his dad had looked out for him over the years. His sweaty hands raked through his hair. “My birthday. He gave me something back when I turned fifteen.”

  It was a gold watch, one Neil had won off Hank Bloombury of Matchett-Reddy. Neil would remember—they’d been attacked by a lecher’s hired cop and had it stolen from them.

  Vengerov nodded, and then pressed on his ear and repeated the question.

  Tom stared in horror as someone off the screen repeated it. This really was a live feed, then. And his father looked up at the camera, his jaw set. “Something I gave my son when he turned fifteen? . . . No idea.”

  And even though he hadn’t given the answer, it was worse. Worse. So much worse, because there was no faking that stubborn set to Neil’s jaw, that dangerous flash in his eyes. Neil had obviously figured out why he was being held. He knew the purpose was to extort his son.

  He would never cooperate and help someone blackmail Tom. Even if they were fighting, even if they hadn’t spoken in months, even if Tom had lied to him and
been awful to him, Neil would still do exactly this—glare up at that camera and lie in hopes Tom wouldn’t get coerced by someone, because that’s who his dad was. He always had Tom’s back if he could help it, and Tom knew in that moment that Vengerov did, indeed, have Neil, and he wasn’t threatening idly.

  “Give me a guarantee you’ll let him go,” Tom said, his voice shaking. “I have no reason to cooperate with you if you are going to kill him anyway. Give me a guarantee!”

  “I could simply kill your father and cull the ghost’s identity out of you.”

  “No, you won’t!”

  And Tom scrambled back and heaved himself up onto the ledge of the roof. Vengerov stood below him, watching him with his head cocked like he was observing a curious animal in a zoo.

  Tom was painfully aware of the drop behind him, the cars choking the streets, the pavement that would kill him on impact. “You guarantee my dad’s safety if I answer you, or I’ll jump off this roof. By the time you try to force me down with a program, I’ll be dead and you’ll get nothing. You won’t be able to cull me and I guarantee you won’t get your ghost.”

  Vengerov drew cautiously closer, never taking his intent gaze from Tom’s. “I’ve taken the initiative of having your father implanted with an Austere-grade neural processor. It makes him far easier to control. If you cooperate, I’ll order my technicians to block any memory pertaining to this situation and set him at liberty. I have no use for him. Only you.”

  Tom’s heart pounded furiously. Neil would hate it. He would hate that—but maybe he’d never know. And it was better than being dead.

  “Do you accept my terms?” Vengerov said.

  “Yes,” Tom whispered.

  “Now tell me.” There was a frightening hunger in Vengerov’s eyes, his voice. It seemed to animate his entire face. “Who is the ghost in the machine?”

  Tom had no choice here. He didn’t. He felt dizzy, sick, fearful. He choked on the words he didn’t want to say, but he had to. He had to. He couldn’t stop this.

  “You’re right. It’s me.”

  The words were so soft, he was sure Vengerov hadn’t heard them.

  “It’s me. I’m the ghost in the machine,” Tom said louder. “I did all of it.”

  “All by yourself?”

  Tom knew the cyberterrorist who’d carefully destroyed key members of the Coalition must not seem like some sixteen-year-old kid, but Vengerov had to believe him. He had to. “Blackburn covered for me, but that’s all he did. I don’t know what else you want. I’m telling you the truth. You know what my dad thinks of you guys. I’m the same way. I wanted to destroy the Coalition. I wanted to turn them all against you because—because of what you did to Yuri. Because you made me lose my fingers.”

  “You personally killed those executives?”

  “Hey, I was at the party. I figured that would be a great alibi, and, uh, I was able to use that remote access node and do it right then and there. I swear I can do that. I can show you.” Inspiration hit. He looked at the nearest ships, thinking with longing of how he could seize control over them, maybe even figure out a way to turn the tables. “Tell your guys in the lobby to bring me that remote access node I dropped and I’ll show you what I can do—”

  “Oh no, in the event you are telling me the truth, that would be very foolish, wouldn’t it?” Vengerov reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a small glint of metal. “You will fasten this onto your neural access port instead.”

  Vengerov threw it at him. His aim was machine perfect. Tom caught it with machine perfect reflexes. It was a flat, rounded piece of metal with a hook for a brain stem access port.

  “It’s a restraining node,” Vengerov said.

  Goose bumps prickled over Tom’s body. Vengerov had come prepared.

  “If you are, indeed, the ghost, you should be able to interface with it directly and disable the mechanism. If you’re not, you will find yourself unable to remove it while it seizes control over your muscles.”

  Tom looked at the device with a sick feeling welling in his stomach.

  “Now or never, Mr. Raines.”

  Tom slapped the device into his neural access port. “There. Okay? It’s in.” He twisted carefully around to show Vengerov.

  “Raise your arms,” Vengerov said.

  An electric current seemed to jolt through Tom’s muscles. His arms shot up without him planning to raise them.

  “It’s working, I see. Now try to remove the restraining node,” Vengerov said.

  Tom tried, but his fingers wouldn’t close around it. He supposed that was the point: a device like this was obviously designed to keep someone with a neural processor prisoner. The points dug into the skin on the back of his neck.

  Vengerov settled back, watching him from under half-closed eyelids. “And now, try to remove it the way only the ghost in the machine can.”

  Tom’s heart was an urgent drumbeat. He saw Neil’s face in the back of his mind and knew he was screwed. He had this great, terrible presentiment of doom but he couldn’t pass up the slightest chance, even the slightest, that he might save his dad. He couldn’t.

  And so his consciousness shot into the machine attached to his neural access port, and with a spark fueled by despair and fear, he overloaded it, sent the node fizzling, dying away. And with a numb hand, Tom removed the restraining node again, and showed it to Vengerov. Then he dropped it to the roof.

  Vengerov stepped forward and plucked it up, wonder in his eyes as he examined the shorted-out device. “Remarkable. It is you. That was you who interfaced with my processor at Obsidian Corp.” His eyes riveted up to Tom’s. “I felt your mind inside of mine. . . . To think, all these months, we’ve been chasing a mere boy, not even a very bright one, at that.”

  “Let my dad go,” Tom said. “You do your end, then I’ll do mine, or I’ll throw myself off this building and you won’t get anything from my brain, I swear.”

  “I see no reason to violate our agreement.” Vengerov pressed his finger to his earpiece. “Release his father where you found him, but before you do, order a coder to block a specific string of memories.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “The memories of his son. I want them all gone. He doesn’t need them anymore.”

  Tom felt a surge of despair, knowing he was about to get erased from Neil’s mind. But Vengerov had done his part.

  Now it was Tom’s turn. If he tried anything now, Vengerov might change his mind.

  Feeling sick with dread, he hopped down to the roof. The last thing he saw was Vengerov’s triumphant smile, and then the stun gun he pulled from his pocket.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  TOM’S MIND WAS a giant haze when the words, Consciousness initiated. The time is XXXX, flashed across his vision center. Something about that made no sense to him, but he couldn’t focus.

  “We’ll stimulate one area of the brain a time.” Vengerov’s voice floated into his ear. “Keep your eyes on the EKG. I don’t want him having a seizure.”

  And then confusion followed, because Tom couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t quite understand where he was, but he felt goose bumps prick down his spine. Then he felt a sensation like he’d been dunked in icy water. Then a feeling of heat sweeping all over him. He saw stars, he saw swirls. He saw red light fill the blackness. He felt tears prick his eyes, and then laughter bubbled over his lips. One stimulation or another manipulated his brain.

  In that manner, bit by bit, his brain was explored—until something was hit that made the buzzing of his neural processor fill his ears, fill his brain, and he grew acutely aware of the machine hooked into his neural access port. For a moment, Tom registered the electronic signals of the EKG, and then the sensation stopped.

  “There,” Vengerov said.

  A moment later, th
e buzzing swept over him again and Tom felt like he was being jolted outside of himself, into the interface of the machine. It stopped.

  Vengerov’s voice rang of triumph. “That’s it. Right there. The orbitofrontal cortex.”

  “Would you still like us to extract the processor?” came another voice.

  “There would be no point,” Vengerov said flatly. “It’s this sector of his brain. Curious. Right where he received his neural graft, almost as though it’s primed for interfacing with machines.”

  There was a rustling, and then Vengerov’s voice, right in his ear.

  “You’re very fortunate, Mr. Raines. It seems I can’t use your ability without you.”

  HIS EYES CREPT open, and Tom found himself staring up at a ceiling, trying to sort out what hotel room he was in, confused to find himself on this plush mattress rather than the hard ones with the rough sheets he remembered from his bunk in the Pentagonal Spire.

  And then it all came back to him.

  Tom snapped upright, alarm jolting through him. His vision blackened.

  “Do be careful. You’ve been lying about for several days now.”

  Vengerov’s polished voice sent a crawling sensation down Tom’s spine. He sat up more slowly, eyeing the man warily where he sat across the bedchamber from him, a drink in hand.

  There was something in his neural access port. Tom reached back to pull it out—but couldn’t touch it. A restraining node, then. Just like the one on the rooftop. He concentrated on trying to short it out, thirsting for a chance to run over and punch Vengerov in the face now that he didn’t have Neil as his prisoner . . . that wasn’t killing him, after all.

  But nothing happened.

  “You’ll find yourself unable to interface with that one,” Vengerov said, pale eyes on his, guessing his intentions. “I had it custom designed for you. From now on, you’ll only be able to use your ability to manipulate machines when I decide it’s time to use it. I do wish you could see the node. It’s quite elegant.”

  “What do you want from me?” Tom demanded, trying to sort out the confusing memories of the last few days.