When he reached his Animus room, he found the computers mostly darkened. A tech knelt over an open panel in the floor at the base of the ring, rooting around in its innards.
“Where’s Victoria?” Sean asked.
The tech looked up. “Oh, they want you in the corporate conference room.”
“Where is that?”
“In the main building,” the tech said. “Want me to wheel you there?”
“No need,” Sean said. “I know the way.”
He reversed out of the room and pushed himself in the direction of the main building, the first one they’d entered when Abstergo had brought them to the Aerie. It was a quick ride through the corridors to the glass walkway, and then just a roll through the trees, the air in the tunnel warmed by the sun, the tree shadows strobing him until he reached the far side. From there, he entered the main building, with its shiny floor and its central atrium rising several stories above.
He wheeled across the open floor, activity bustling all around him, toward the big, main conference room. Victoria and Isaiah were in there, talking, and it looked like a fairly heated conversation. Sean wondered what it was about. Victoria’s voice was raised, Sean could hear it muffled through the glass, and Isaiah looked down at her with an implacable expression. Neither of them seemed to have noticed Sean, so he eased the door open.
“… isn’t fair to him!” Victoria said. “I don’t like the way you’re using him—”
“Using him?” Isaiah said. “Aren’t we using them all?”
“But you’re getting his hopes up with this prosthetic research. And he’s becoming too dependent on the Animus. I don’t like it.”
“Are you talking about me?” Sean asked, though he knew the answer.
They both spun toward him. Victoria looked embarrassed, casting her gaze at the table, the wall, anywhere but Sean. Isaiah looked directly at him.
“Yes, we were,” the director said. “Why don’t you join the conversation.”
“Are you serious?” Victoria asked Isaiah. “After everything I just told you—”
“He’s certainly both smart enough and mature enough.” Isaiah motioned for Sean to come closer. “Victoria thinks I’m placing too heavy a burden on you.”
“I can take it,” Sean said.
“I know he thinks that,” Victoria said. “But he’s a—”
“I’m right here,” Sean said. “You don’t have to talk about me in the third person.”
Victoria pursed her lips. “Sean, at your age, you probably don’t think you’re at any kind of risk using the Animus. That life is limitless—”
“I’m sorry.” Sean held up his hand. “I’m going to stop you right there.” He pointed at his wheelchair. “I’ve spent the last few years learning exactly what my limitations are. I’m still trying to figure out what kind of life I can have—”
“Oh, but Sean.” Victoria walked toward him and crouched down. “Regardless of your wheelchair, or your legs, you are a whole, capable person. You can have whatever life you choose.”
“I’ve heard this before,” Sean said. “Grace tried to tell me something similar the other day. I get it, I do. And I appreciate it. But if Abstergo is making a prosthetic that will give me back my legs, then I want in. And if the Animus will help with that research, while also giving me a chance to walk in someone else’s memories, I’ll take that, too. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Victoria covered her mouth a moment, and then she got to her feet and turned away.
“Well said.” Isaiah gave Sean an approving nod. “And just what I would have expected from you.”
Sean appreciated the director’s confidence in him. “The tech said you wanted to see me?”
“Yes,” Isaiah said. “I thought you might want to be here for this.”
“For what?”
“We’re about to have a meeting with one of the lead researchers from our bioengineering department.”
“Is he working on the prosthetic?”
“He is,” Isaiah said. “He should be here momentarily with some others from his team. I wanted them to meet you, to have a face to put with the data.”
Isaiah took a seat at the head of the table, and Victoria sat down near him, but Sean could sense an icy barrier growing between them. A few minutes later, five people entered the room, two men and three women, all wearing the cliché white lab coats Sean would have expected. One of the men, with reddish hair and a thick beard to match, nodded toward Isaiah.
“Director, Dr. Bibeau,” he said. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too, Thomas.” Isaiah smiled. “Welcome to you and your team.”
Thomas turned to Sean. “And is this the young man whose brain I know so well?”
“It is,” Isaiah said. “Sean, this is Dr. Thomas Marshall.”
Thomas walked over and shook Sean’s hand. “Pleasure.”
“Same,” Sean said.
“I can’t tell you how exciting this is,” Thomas said. “The results so far are—”
“Why don’t you show us,” Isaiah said.
Thomas nodded and went to the head of the table, where he inserted some kind of data stick into a console. The lights in the room dimmed, and the glass walls of the room frosted over, some of them becoming a giant screen.
A three-dimensional image of a brain appeared, with thousands, perhaps millions, of little electrical impulses traveling through its network of cells and brain wiring.
“This is you,” Thomas said. “Every time you enter the Animus, our map of your brain gains detail. Accuracy. The millions of varied motions your legs can make will all be coded, and then programmed into a customized robotic brace for your legs.”
“What is the time frame until we have a working prototype?” Sean questioned.
“Faster than I first estimated,” Thomas said. “With the Parietal Suppressors, we’re getting data of greater purity than I expected. We might be able to have something to test in six months to a year.”
“Really?” Sean asked.
Thomas nodded. “Yes, really. If the data keep rolling in, we’ll be on track.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Sean said. “Let’s get me into the Animus.”
A chuckle rolled around the table.
“Have you ever had such a willing research participant, Thomas?” Isaiah asked.
“Not that I can recall,” Thomas said. “But don’t you worry, Sean. Give us time, and we’ll help you.”
Sean looked down at his wheelchair, his scrawny legs, the ones that used to drive him down the football field, people cheering from the sidelines. He doubted the prosthetic would be good enough to bring all of that back, but he would take anything they could give him.
“Excellent,” Isaiah said. “From here, we’ll dive into some budgetary and technical concerns. I think you’d probably be happier in a simulation, Sean.”
“I’m ready to go,” Sean said.
Isaiah turned to Victoria. “Could you see to that?”
Victoria, who Sean realized hadn’t said a word for some time, simply nodded and rose from her chair.
Sean looked at Thomas. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Thomas said. “Truly. This is what I love to do.”
Sean nodded, thanked Isaiah, and then rolled through the door Victoria held open for him, back into the main atrium. Victoria walked up alongside him, clutching her tablet to her chest. She said nothing, but looked as if she had more thoughts than she knew what to do with. He did appreciate her concern, even if he didn’t think it was necessary.
“I really will be okay,” he said, trying to reassure her.
“Define okay,” she said.
“Oh-kay,” he said. “You know, fine. No problems.”
“No problems?” she said. “We all have problems, Sean. That’s normal.”
“Fine, then normal problems. Just not … whatever problems you’re worried about.”
She sighed and shook her hea
d. “I hope you’re right.”
They traveled the rest of the way, through the glass tunnel, to the Animus corridor in silence. When they reached it, Victoria switched everything on and waited for Sean to lift himself into the ring. Once he’d climbed into the harness, she went about hooking him up, her forehead creased down the middle. He didn’t know what more he could say to relieve her of her concern.
“We’re going to go back a little farther,” she said. “Mitochondrial DNA puts some of your ancestors in tenth century Scandinavia.”
“Scandinavia? You mean, like Vikings?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, yeah,” Sean said. “Let’s definitely do Vikings.”
“Very well.” She returned to her computer. “It will take a few minutes to load the simulation from that segment of your genetic memory.”
“I can wait,” he said.
Some of those minutes went by, and then Victoria spun around in her chair. “Thomas was wrong. He can’t fix you, because you’re not broken.”
“Tell that to the X-ray of my back.”
“But you aren’t your back or your bones.”
“Maybe not, but I was a football player, and now that’s gone. With a lot of stuff.”
Victoria’s head drooped a bit. “What happened to you wasn’t fair.”
“Nope. It was just a guy using his free will to get hammered and run me over.” Even though it had been a couple of years, he could still hear the anger in his voice over it.
Victoria laid a hand on his shoulder the way his mom did. “I hope you know I truly do want what is best for you.”
“I know you do,” Sean said.
She nodded, and then spun back to her computer. “The simulation is loaded.”
“I’ve heard Vikings didn’t really wear those horned helmets.”
Victoria laughed. “No, I don’t think they did. Are you ready?”
“Ready. Let’s go meet Thor.”
The pale void of the Memory Corridor didn’t seem to clear, at first, but then Sean realized he was surrounded by actual fog. He now stood at the bow of a longship, a drakkar, a ship of war. The snarling serpent carved into the wooden prow slithered ahead of them over the ocean, spraying salty mist into the air. Behind them, thirty benches of oarsmen heaved them over the water.
The thump of the waves beneath his feet flexed the ship’s sinews and spine. His men rowed to the beat of the drum, and the wind stretched the wide sail as tautly as it could. Gulls and cormorants and ospreys flew overhead, heard but not seen. Sean felt more alive, more free, and more powerful than he had in any simulation thus far, including that of the towering Tommy Grayling.
“How far?” his sister asked as she stepped up beside him. She’d wrapped herself in a gray-and-silver fur, her blond hair pulled back with a leather cord, her blue eyes still a bit sunken.
“You should be out of the wind, Gyrid,” he said. “Until you have your strength back.”
“I want to see it,” she said.
Within the simulation, Sean knew what she meant, because the current of his ancestor’s mind carried him to that knowledge. She wanted to see the harbor gates of Jomsborg, the fortress of the Jomsvikings. She wanted to catch the first glimpse of their destiny.
“Is it far, Bjorn?” she asked.
“Call me Styrbjörn,” he said, his voice low.
“Why do you insist on that? It was meant to be an insult.”
“That is exactly why I claim it. So it has no power.”
She shook her head, some of her hair falling loose in the wind, her skin pale. If he had known she was sick, he might not have taken her with him, for her own sake. But he also knew she would have fought him on that, and probably come with him anyway. She had no more love for Eric than he did, and possibly more hate, even though the crown upon their uncle’s head rightfully belonged to Styrbjörn.
“It isn’t far.” He put his arm around her to keep her warm. “Keep your eyes open.”
“I see more than you,” she said, and gently elbowed him in the side.
The fog rolled, and the waves marched, and the ship dug in, until at last something moved in the gray. Gyrid stepped forward, letting the fur slip a bit. Styrbjörn held up his hand, and his skipari called the oarsmen to halt. The ship slowed, and Styrbjörn studied the shadows taking shape.
At last the gates emerged from the emptiness, as though from the dark realm of Niflheim itself. The timber of the gates, cut from the largest trees and banded with rust-red iron, guarded the entrance to the harbor. The stone arch from which the gates were hung boasted proudly of its tower and its catapults.
Styrbjörn stepped up to the prow of his ship.
“I am the son of Olof!” he bellowed, his voice echoing off the rocks. “Once called Bjorn, rightful king of Sweden! I seek an audience with the chieftain Palnatoke!”
No reply came from the tower, as Styrbjörn’s ship careened toward the gates under wind power.
Gyrid looked at him, unafraid, and impatient.
“I ask that you open the gates of your harbor!” Styrbjörn shouted. “Or risk my wrath if you dishonor me!”
Another moment passed, and then the distant squeal of metal and chain could be heard, and after that, the gates groaned open, wide enough for a ship to enter. Styrbjörn ordered the sail lowered, and the men resumed rowing. They glided through the gate and entered the Jomsborg harbor, a natural anchorage large enough for a dozen longships. The city itself, fortified with a wall of stone and wooden palisade, stood at the end of the inlet. Styrbjörn’s skipari ordered the helmsman toward it, and the oarsmen to row.
“How will you explain me?” Gyrid asked.
“I won’t have to.”
“But the Jomsvikings allow no women in their stronghold.”
“Until now,” Styrbjörn said. If successful in his purpose for coming here, there would be many things about this order of warriors that he would change.
When his drakkar reached the pier, Styrbjörn found a delegation of men waiting for him, all of them giants, though smaller than him, and all of them well forged in battle, as was required of any Jomsviking. Seeing them, Sean was reminded of the famed Broadway Squad of the New York police department, to which Tommy Grayling had belonged.
“Why have you come?” one of the men asked from the dock.
Styrbjörn climbed out of his ship as his men tied it securely to the moorings. “I seek an audience with Palnatoke.”
“So you said. Why?”
“That is between me and him.”
“Why have you brought a woman into Jomsborg?” asked another of the giants, staring toward Gyrid at the prow of the ship.
“She is my sister,” Styrbjörn said. “The daughter of a king.”
The giants looked at one another, and then the first of them said, “Palnatoke will decide her fate.”
Styrbjörn nodded, and he returned to help Gyrid climb out of the boat. Together, arm in arm, they followed the delegation from the pier, through the city defenses, and then through the city itself, which was not a town so much as a permanent barracks. Blacksmiths worked, warriors trained, carpenters sawed and sanded. Everything about this place spoke of war, and raiding, and strength, and glory.
At last the delegation reached the great hall, and the doors opened to admit Styrbjörn and his sister. They entered into a long, dim room, the hearth a channel of red coals down the middle, benches to either side among the carved wooden columns, and banners hanging from the rafters. At the far end stood a man of Styrbjörn’s size, with dark hair and a dark complexion, draped in the skin of a black bear.
“Come forward!” the man called.
Styrbjörn and Gyrid marched toward him.
“What brings you to my hall, Bjorn?”
“Palnatoke,” Styrbjörn said, arriving to stand before the chieftain. “I expect you’ve heard about my uncle’s treachery.”
“I heard he poisoned your father and denied you the crown.”
“That is tru
e,” Gyrid said.
Palnatoke ignored her, and had so far refused to even look at her. “I ask you again. Why have you come, Bjorn?”
Styrbjörn stared hard at the chieftain. “I’ve come to take your army,” he said.
Zhi waited until the Mongol warrior had truly fled before she allowed herself to collapse. Without that last bolt, saved for the right moment, she had no doubt she would be dead. She only wished that she had killed him, but with the pain in her knee robbing her of balance and clear thought, her blade had missed anything vital. Perhaps he would make it back to his camp, perhaps not. Zhi now had to make it back to hers.
The arrow had entered her knee through the side, at an angle, so that her kneecap had been shoved aside by the shaft. But after the Mongol had kicked the arrowhead, her bones had broken further. She couldn’t think about the damage yet. She had to climb.
Every movement brought tears to her eyes. She clamped her jaw shut, grinding her teeth so hard she feared they would shatter, and kept silent. Within her thoughts, Owen could hear her screaming, her mind overwhelmed with agony.
She tried hopping toward the cave, pulling the leg behind her, until she couldn’t do that anymore, and she dropped to the ground. But crawling was impossible. Her only option was to drag herself, whimpering every time the arrow shaft snagged on a rock or a root, stirring her bones like a bloody stew.
Eventually, blinking sweat and tears from her eyes, she reached the cave entrance. She did her best to look behind her, searching the trees for any signs of scouts or spies, and when she was as satisfied as she could be, she wiggled inside.
The cool water from the stream felt good in her hands, and she splashed it on her face and drank. She felt safe here, and if she held still, the pain settled to the dull strike of a hammer. It occurred to her that she could hide there, as a wounded animal seeks a burrow in which to die. She could close her eyes, lie down, and let herself drift away.
But her father wouldn’t allow it. She could feel his spirit, as if it resided in the gauntlet on her wrist, and it praised her and urged her forward.
She resumed her climb, up through the cave, listening to the haunting echoes of her own moans as the hammer strike of pain became the heart of the blacksmith’s furnace, burning everything else away. The broken shaft of the arrow scraped the stone, and the abrasion rattled every bone of her spine.