"Dr. Happy," Finn said firmly. "Try and land somewhere near my reality, and talk to me. Have you programmed Anne's computer implants as I instructed you?"
Dr. Happy spun to a halt in front of Finn, gurgled a few times, and studied him for a long moment, as though trying to remember where he'd seen him before. He clutched his broken hands together over his sunken chest, and nodded so rapidly that Finn was genuinely worried the man's head would fall off.
"All done! All done! Oh yes. I programmed her brain. Her new computer brain, sunk deep into the medulla oblongata, and the old reptile brain stem itself. Our instructions now have the force of instinct. So she will do the right thing, whether she wants to or not. Or at least, I think I did that. My time sense is so advanced now, I can remember things before I do them. So many worlds to see, so little time! Yes! I'm wearing out, you know. Running down. Won't be long now. Ah, death—the final high…"
"Will Anne do what I need her to do?" Finn said patiently. You couldn't bully or threaten someone who was actually looking forward to dying.
"Oh, yes. I did it. If her nerve should fail, the tech will see her through. I was very careful. She doesn't even remember my programming her."
"Good. Douglas will be here soon. I know it. Try and keep out of the way once he gets here, Doctor. I want this to be between Anne and Douglas."
"Won't you be here?" said Dr. Happy, absently poking a finger into a hole in his chest, to see how deep it went.
"No. I don't want anything to detract from their reunion. I shall observe from a safe distance. I want to see what this King of Thieves has become, before I face him in person. First rule of war, Doctor: Know thy enemy."
"Know your code word," Dr. Happy said strictly, trying on coherence again for a while, just to see what it felt like. "If all else fails, your word of command will activate the failsafes I put in her head. Have you finished with me now? It's so hard, being rational for any length of time. Reason! Overrated if you ask me. Know thyself, Finn. That's far more important. We are all deep, and contain miracles. Fish."
Finn decided he'd probably got the best out of Dr. Happy, and was getting up to leave when the doctor suddenly froze in his tracks, his bony head cocked on one side as though listening, his sunken eyes elsewhere.
"Someone's coming," he said. "Coming like a thunderstorm, with blood and rage in his heart."
Finn smiled. "Good," he said. And left.
The man who had once been a Paragon, and then King of the Golden Age, and most recently the King of Thieves, but was now and for this mission just a man named Douglas Campbell, ran steadily through the ancient stone tunnels under the Imperial Palace. There was a whole maze of subsystems and maintenance ways under the palace itself that most people never knew about; some so old they no longer appeared on any official plans. Deserted and abandoned, originally built to serve buildings that no longer existed, over whose remains the palace had been built. The royal family knew about them, and kept them secret, because every ruler knew that the day might come when they'd have to leave in a hurry. And so Douglas made his way past and under and around all the defenses Finn had set up to protect himself, and finally emerged through a very secret hidden panel into what had once been his private quarters. He looked unhurriedly about him, taking in the recent damage and the older worn-in mess that disfigured what had once been his rooms. He wrinkled his nose. The place smelled as bad as it looked. Finn had changed. He never used to live like a pig. Douglas had to wonder what the state of these rooms implied about Finn's current state of mind. Perhaps it meant Finn was no longer in control. Douglas hoped so. And yet… there was something unhealthy about this room, beyond the mess and the clutter, signs of a man who didn't need to bother about the everyday human things anymore.
Douglas scowled. He didn't want Finn to be mad. That would take all the fun out of killing him.
He found Finn's computer terminal and, using a device that was common in the Rookery but strictly illegal everywhere else, Douglas forced his way into Finn's files. It didn't take him long to discover where Finn was keeping Anne; but why hold a political prisoner in a steel vault in a private laboratory? Sudden horrid thoughts about torture made Douglas impatient, and he hurried out of the room. He padded cautiously through the dark shadowed corridors of what had once been his palace. His home. He took in the hanging corpses, the heads impaled on spikes, and his heart hardened. He'd find no innocents in a place like this.
And so he killed all the guards he came across, silently and efficiently. They were all cold-eyed fanatics, well trained and motivated, but none of them were good enough to stop Douglas. He let the bodies lie where they fell. Let someone find them and sound the alarm. Let Finn know that death was stalking the corridors of his usurped palace. Douglas hurried on through what had once been familiar locations, now turned into a slaughterhouse by Finn. Some of the blood was still wet. Douglas smiled a slow cold smile. Just one more reason to kill his old friend.
He found the laboratory easily enough, and frowned as he realized there were no guards posted at the door. Douglas approached it warily, ready for booby traps or surprise attacks, but there was nothing. He pressed gently against the door with his fingertips, and it swung smoothly open, falling back easily at his touch. So. A trap, daring him to walk inside. Douglas laughed, and it was a harsh ugly sound. He pushed back the cowl of his cape to reveal his face, so that everyone would know who had come, and then kicked the door all the way open and barged into the lab, sword and gun in hand. He looked quickly about him, but the whole place was deserted. A few machines still hummed and chattered to themselves, working on unknown problems, but most of the tech had been shut down. There were animal cages stacked against one wall, but they were empty. Half the lights had been turned off, leaving half the lab hidden in shadows. Douglas moved slowly forward, breathing through his mouth so he could listen for any sound, and then he froze as he made out a single silhouette standing at the back of the lab. For a moment they stood there, studying each other, and then Anne Barclay stepped forward into the light.
Douglas almost cried out, at the sight of what had been done to her. She was hunched over by the bulking tech that protruded from her back, and more showed here and there through her flushed rose red skin. Her musculature had been twisted and distorted by the strains of implanted servomechanisms, and there were fresh scars on the sides of her shaven head. Her face was still hers, but her eyes glowed golden in the dim light. Old ridged scar tissues made ugly patterns on her bare body. She lurched forward another step, the power in her remade body giving her strength but no grace. Anne saw the horror in Douglas's face, and produced something like her old smile.
"Hello, Douglas. If you came to save me, you left it a bit late."
"What have they done to you, Anne?" Douglas said softly.
"Oh, they've done a hell of a lot to me, Douglas, and all because of you. You did this to me, during your dramatic escape from the court. Of course, you were so busy getting away that you didn't look back, to see what the falling masonry had done to me. But that wasn't the worse thing you did. You escaped, and you didn't take me with you. So really, everything that's going to happen now is all your fault."
She raised a hand, and a disrupter barrel emerged from a slit under her wrist. Douglas threw himself to one side, and the energy beam just clipped his ribs, burning the skin and setting fire to his cloak. He threw it from him, and dodged behind a piece of heavy machinery.
"Anne, don't do this! I came to get you out of here!"
"Too late, Douglas. Too little and too late."
She swept the heavy machinery away with one swift heave, and advanced on him, a sword in each hand. Douglas reluctantly aimed his disrupter at her, but at the last moment he shot at her leg, aiming only to wound her. Anne avoided the beam easily. And then she was upon him, her two blades moving faster than any human eye could follow, and Douglas was forced to fall back, step by step, using all his skill and strength just to defend himself. He was ten times th
e swordsman she was, but she was ten times stronger, and faster.
They dueled back and forth across the lab, smashing delicate tech along the way, Douglas using every trick and technique he knew just to stay alive. Anne had been remade with tech and drugs and the Boost, and she was inhumanly competent now. Douglas fought his way out of a corner that would have trapped him, but already his breathing was coming hard and harsh, and his sword arm ached from parrying viciously hard blows. He knew now that the only way to stop Anne would be to kill her, and he wasn't sure he could do that.
So he did the only thing he could. He dropped his sword and gun on the floor, and stood before her empty-handed. Anne stood very still, checking out the possibilities of a trap or a stratagem.
"Anne," said Douglas. "This is me. Remember. Remember how it used to be. We were friends. And of all the friends I had, it seems I've hurt you the most. I never meant for this to happen. I won't kill you, Anne. You… you do what you have to."
Anne slowly lowered the blades in her hands. "Damn you, Douglas. This isn't fair. I need to kill you."
"Then kill me."
"You won't kill me? You won't even do me that one final kindness? You think I want to live like this?"
"Come with me, Anne. To the Rookery. They have all kind of tech there, some alien. There has to be someone who can help you. Who can undo what these bastards did to you. Don't just give up! The Anne I remember never believed in giving up. It's never too late…"
"It is for me. I should have died. This is my punishment. I deserve everything that's happened to me, because of all the awful things I did. You don't know…"
"Anne, I—"
"You don't know! I killed Emma Steel! The best person I ever knew. She was worth ten of me, and I struck her down from behind."
"Then come with me, and fight for the rebellion. Find atonement on the battlefield."
"You'd still take me in? After everything I've done? To you, and Jesamine, and Lewis?"
"That's what friends are for," said Douglas.
"You always were too soft, Douglas."
"Well, this is all very touching," Finn said suddenly, speaking through the tech in Anne's throat. Like an ELF speaking through his thrall. "But I did foresee this outbreak of maudlin sentimentality, and so I took a few precautions. Not very nice precautions, but then, that's life for you. So sorry I can't be here in person, Douglas, but be assured that thanks to the programming I had placed in Anne's computer implants, when she kills you it will be her hand on the sword, but my instructions in her hand. So really I'll be there in spirit, anyway."
He spoke a command word, and Anne's face went blank as her body shifted abruptly into a killing stance. Douglas glanced at his weapons lying on the floor, but there was no way he could reach them in time. And so he stood, tall and proud and unflinching. When there's nothing left but to die, die well.
And then Anne screamed. An ugly, tortured sound. She dropped both her swords. Douglas started forward, only to freeze again as Anne covered him with the disrupter built into her wrist. She smiled briefly at Douglas.
"Good-bye, old friend. I betrayed you so many times, but this would have been one betrayal too far. I guess they built me better than they knew. So—one last blast of the gun. One last chance for redemption."
She lifted her hand, fighting her computers all the way, and shot herself in the head. At such close range, the energy beam blew her head apart, in a flurry of blood and brains. The headless body rocked back and forth on its feet for a moment, and then stood still.
Finn sent his people running in from all directions, but by the time they got to the laboratory Douglas was already gone. He left a trail of dead bodies behind him as he made his way back through the palace, and finally disappeared down into the subsystems again. And all the way he was planning the first steps of the rebellion. The time to rise up had come. Because if Finn could do such terrible things to the only woman who'd ever cared a damn for him, then he was capable of anything. Anything at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
*
WORKING WITH THE ILLUMINATI
The stars and the planets whirled by so fast they made a continuous shimmering rainbow path as Owen Deathstalker strode steadily back into the past, the galaxy turning under his feet like a giant cog wheel. He was too tired now for dancing, his spirit too weary, and yet he felt more powerful than ever, and his speed continued to increase. He was still following Hazel d'Ark's trail, forever closing in but somehow never quite catching up. He felt like he'd always been pursuing Hazel, and always would, trapped in the rainbow run like a hamster in its wheel, only thinking it was getting somewhere.
Home seemed very far away now, and so did his humanity. He'd done so much, both before and since his death, and he felt like he could do so much more. He'd come a long way, in more ways than one. He wondered if the old Owen, the young scholar in his comfortable ivory tower, would even recognize the man he'd become. He liked to think he'd done good things, honorable things, in his short but remarkable life… but he had to wonder if it would ever be possible, or even advisable, for something as powerful as he now was to ever return to human society. Power tended to corrupt, he knew that from his studies of history, and he had made himself so very powerful. Would he ever see his home again, with or without Hazel?
That thought led naturally but uneasily to another.
What was he going to do, what could he hope to do, when he finally did catch up with Hazel? Was she destined to become the Terror, somewhere back in the unimaginable past, or could he somehow prevent it? And if the iron laws of cause and effect meant she had to become the Terror, and do all the awful things she did, could he win her back to sanity and humanity? Could she ever be just Hazel d'Ark again? Could he ever be just Owen Deathstalker again? Or had they both drunk too deeply from the poisoned chalice that was the Madness Maze?
Could they ever have a life together after this, or had he come all this way just to kill a monster, and die with her rather than become a monster himself? So many questions, and no answers at all. The only thing he was sure of was that he had to go on. Hazel was his love, and his responsibility, even if she'd never admitted it. He couldn't leave her, mad and sorrowing, in the dark.
He was getting close to… something. He could feel it.
He broke out of the rainbow run, and dropped back into the slow steady course of time. Stars and planets reappeared around him, calm and stationary against the endless night. Owen wasn't sure how far back he'd gone into the past, but once again he was hanging in orbit over the same familiar planet. Remembering how he'd been treated before, he surrounded himself with a powerful force shield and stealth screen, so that he could take a cautious look around before becoming involved, without having to worry about being observed or attacked.
He swore briefly as he discovered he'd just missed Hazel again. She had been here recently, perhaps as little as a few weeks previously, but she was gone again, diving even further back into prehistory. But why had she stopped here, however briefly, in this particular moment of time and space? Owen reached out with his enlarged senses, and immediately detected something strange and yet somehow familiar, down on the surface of the planet below. It sort of reminded him of Hazel. Had she left something of herself behind? It was a strong presence, powerful but elusive, with fluctuating attributes that reminded him of his time inside the Madness Maze. It definitely wasn't Hazel, but… Could some other Maze survivor have come back through time, pursuing him as he pursued Hazel?
Owen pushed the mounting questions aside, so he could consider his own position. He listened in to the thousands of communication channels emanating from the planet below that was Logres, Golgotha, Heartworld, and now apparently simply the Hearth of Humanity. He sorted through the various frequencies, searching out the information he needed about exactly what lay below him. It seemed he had emerged in the far past, in the very first days of Empire, when Humanity had only just discovered the stardrive, and was setting out to explore the st
ars, to see what was there.
Owen stopped listening, and looked around him. Great clumsy satellites whirled ponderously past, accompanied by all kinds of abandoned junk and tech; almost enough to make a planetary ring. Owen drifted slowly down towards Hearth, just enough to put himself safely underneath their various orbits and out of their way. Also in orbit were huge, ungainly starships, being slowly put together in orbiting docks by people in what looked like primitive hard suits. The unfinished ships bristled with all kinds of probably untested tech. This was the first wave of expansion, Humanity's first great leap out into the unknown. These brave prototype ships looked nothing like the sleek and sophisticated craft of Owen's time, and he had to admire the courage of the visionary men and women who were ready to trust their lives to new ships and a barely understood drive, in the service of Humanity's oldest dream. To go to the stars…
Owen went swiftly through the communication channels again, trying to get some feel for what kind of political setup he'd be facing this time. Apparently the Empire at this time consisted of the nine planets in the solar system, all of them terraformed or colonized to some degree, ruled more or less democratically by a Council of the Nine, based on Hearth. There was no throne, no Emperor. From what Owen could gather, Humanity was pretty much at peace with itself, and full of hope and good intentions.
The road to Hell has always been paved with good intentions.
Owen considered the planet turning so very slowly beneath him. He had to go down. He needed to know what it was, that felt to him like Hazel and the Maze and something more. And he was tired. He could use a rest. The pursuit could wait, for a while. After all, he had all the time in the world… And then his head snapped round, and he glared suspiciously into the dark. Something was coming his way, he could feel it, and it was heading straight for him. Even though nothing in this primitive age should have been able to detect his presence. He glared in the direction he knew it was coming from, even though he couldn't see anything yet, and eventually a bright shining light came swooping towards him.