Vortex

  A strange glow pervaded him. Heat receded into warmth. Lethargy seeped like syrup through his muscles.

  Tom couldn’t think of what had been so important about breaking that window. The words were like an afterthought in his vision center, searing into life and then fading: Warning: Critically low body temperature detected. 87.2º F. Transmitting emergency beacon. Frequency unavailable. Emergency beacon not sent. Automatic retry in twenty seconds.

  Something about the moment felt so right. He was back in the desert at night, at the side of the empty road, his dad snuggling an overlarge coat around him until his teeth stopped chattering. Then Neil hoisted him up for a piggyback ride, and they trudged farther and farther down that empty, dark road, waiting for the next set of lights to appear in the darkness. Tom wasn’t even shivering anymore.

  He didn’t feel the smothering arms sweep him, crush him up against a chest. He opened his eyes dully when he realized it was harder to breathe with his face muffled against a thick coat. He felt entombed in something heavy, and a sense of suffocation made him panic and he flailed as much as he could. A clang echoed through the air, and he squinted through burning eyes to see over a shoulder. The door. Someone had brought him to the other side of the door.

  Hands stripped off his soaked shirt, the strangling tie, a voice shouting about a “warming blanket.” Other words floated back, and, “We’re in the middle of Antarctica and there’s no warming blanket in the entire building? How about a bathtub? How far away are the staff quarters, then? No, too far. Give me another parka.” Some gruff swearing, and he was hauled back against something solid, a coat snuggled around him.

  His brain was a muffled, cloudy thing, and Tom didn’t begin to emerge from the mire until the first electric prickles began in his face, in his nose, then spread into his ears, his lips. They grew sharper and sharper. Painful. So painful. He tried to move away from them, but they kept following, searing him. He was squashed in place beneath a smothering coat, heavy arms.

  His eyes hurt, and when he squinted down he could see his hairy legs, quivering like live wires. He couldn’t feel them. His hands were gnarled, prickling claws, his fingers white like porcelain, and someone knelt in front of him kneading them. He squeezed his stinging eyes shut.

  “No, leave his hands, Ashwan,” a voice said from right next to his ear.

  “What about frostbite?”

  “He can survive losing fingers. He can’t survive cardiac arrest if you dilate peripheral blood vessels and shoot cold blood into his chest.”

  Tom stirred a bit. Losing fingers? But his brain couldn’t hold on to the thought.

  It took him a while to finally peel his eyes open again, and he made out the ashen face, the kid standing near his knee, gazing Tom’s way like he didn’t recognize him. It took Tom a moment to pull the name up. “V-V-Vi?” His voice came out slurred, his throat like sandpaper, his teeth chattering.

  “Hi, Tom,” Vik said faintly.

  “If you’re going to stay here, make yourself useful,” rumbled a voice from behind Tom. “Get a wet compress for his eyes.”

  Vik shuffled off.

  Tom’s head flopped back against the person holding the coat around him. He was hiked up a bit farther, the grip around him reaffirmed, warmth soaking into his back. The electrical prickle in his toes and ears and nose grew into a torment, and it was spreading everywhere. He tried to say something, but the words didn’t come out as words. He had a creeping sense there was something he was supposed to be doing. Wasn’t there? He had to do something. He wasn’t safe. Something bad had happened. He wasn’t sure what, but he started pulling at the heavy weight keeping him here, trying to break away.

  “Calm down, Raines.”

  But he kept struggling against the overpowering bands around him, because he was sure there was something wrong, so he needed to get up, he needed to do something. A mounting sense of urgency gripped him. Fear clutched his throat. He raised his head as far as he could, agitated. He needed . . . He needed . . .

  Fingers threaded through his hair and eased his head back, then a palm brushed against his forehead. “You’re okay, Tom. Just relax. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

  “Dad?”

  The hand on his forehead stilled an instant. “No,” said Blackburn.

  He drifted in and out for a while. He didn’t stir again until Blackburn reached down and lifted up his limp arm. Tom squinted, and saw Blackburn’s thumb brush over his fingers, where the skin appeared a strange, pale blue. Tom realized after a moment that he’d seen the touch, but he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel it at all.

  “W-what’s w-w-wrong w-with m-m-my . . .”

  Blackburn tucked his arm back under his coat. “Shh. Just close your eyes.”

  Tom didn’t want to, but he sagged back, shaking all over, his teeth chattering, and his thoughts became blurred, hazy things as the warmth and almost foreign sense of total safety lulled him into darkness.

  VOICES ROUSED TOM.

  “. . . the incorruptible James Blackburn.” Vengerov sounded amused. “I’m astonished you left the Pentagonal Spire, what with all the recent security breaches. Anything could happen to that system while you’re here, in my domain, completely cut off from your own server.”

  Tom forced his eyelids open, the bright lights of what seemed a small hospital knifing into his eyes. His blurry vision focused upon an IV pole, standing nearby . . . and the two men facing each other at the foot of his bed.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t throw around the threats too soon, Joseph.” Blackburn’s voice was harsh. “I took the risk of coming here for one simple reason: your employee intranet. I thought access to your internal company network might be worth the trip to the South Pole. I was right.”

  Vengerov’s voice was deadly soft. “You penetrated our systems? That’s illegal.”

  “Speaking of illegal”—enjoyment throbbed in Blackburn’s voice—“you should really take a look at something I found while the trainees were on their tour.”

  Their hands gripped the rails on either side, though Blackburn’s were ferocious claws like he was ready to rip the bed frame apart, and Vengerov’s were casually skimming the metal. The faint smile on Vengerov’s lips reflected none of the tense hostility on Blackburn’s face, even as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a computer, and began examining the file Blackburn sent him.

  Blackburn said, “I had this hunch that it wasn’t a coincidence our combat technology always seems to keep perfect pace with that of the Russo-Chinese . . .”

  “A mere conspiracy theory. I thought better of you, James.”

  “It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s an actual, proven conspiracy. Thanks to this perfect opportunity to plunder your systems, I found proof. It’s all there. Bank account numbers, emails, electronic footprints—all the interesting material I need to convince any investigative body that there’s not collusion between Obsidian Corp. and LM Lymer Fleet, you’re outright double-dipping—getting paid to supply war machines to both sides. You might as well be the CEO of LM Lymer Fleet, not just Obsidian Corp.”

  Vengerov said nothing. The slight smile had disappeared from his lips as he continued to examine the information Blackburn sent him.

  Blackburn folded his arms and leaned back to gloat. “If that gets out, well, you can get away with a lot of it. I know our congressmen are so pathetically corrupt, a few bribes will send them eagerly looking the other way. . . . But there’s a funny thing about the Russians and the Chinese: they’ve both got that pesky national pride thing you can’t seem to drive out of them, and they don’t like being scammed. Let’s say I stick this info on the internet for the eyes of the eager public. That’s gonna lead to an outcry, and those princelings in China might have to make the best of a bad situation and nationalize LM Lymer Fleet’s assets. They’ll take them and hand them out to their kids. . . . What do you think?”

  Vengerov closed the tablet computer, calmly tucked it in his pocket, and said in a deadly so
ft voice, “I think it was foolish of you to assume I’d simply let you walk out of here with this. Surely you’re not that careless.”

  “You know me, after all. I’m touched. Of course I didn’t think you’d let me walk out with my plunder, no. That’s why I made sure the information already walked out of here. It left hours ago with the trainees. I distributed it between their processors as I stole it, and as soon as those kids were outside this building, they transmitted the data to one thousand different data storage sites.”

  Vengerov seized the rail. “I will cull every last file location out of you!”

  Blackburn rocked back on his heels, a ferocious grin on his face. “They’re set to a dead man’s switch. I have to send a password in . . . five hours and six minutes, or they’ll automatically open and reveal your double-dipping to the entire world. Oh, and here’s the best part: the password I wrote for them? It automatically deletes itself from my processor if I’m incapacitated, if any unauthorized code from, say, a census device finds its way into my brain, or if anything—and I mean anything—hinders my liberty of movement. You’re going to let me walk out of here, and you’re going to agree to my terms.”

  A heavy silence sat on the air between them. Then Vengerov straightened. “I see you’ve been very thorough. So you’ll sit on this data, and in return . . . what? I assume you wish me to withdraw Obsidian Corp.’s bid for the Pentagonal Spire?”

  “The breaches end today,” Blackburn said flatly.

  “One is conditional upon the other, yes.”

  Tom saw Blackburn’s face shift as he got the confirmation it had been Vengerov behind the breaches, behind the hijacked drones—and blurry as his head was, Tom felt vindicated. He’d been right. It hadn’t been Medusa.

  “Now, Lieutenant,” Vengerov said, “I suggest you tend to your eavesdropping trainee.”

  Blackburn jumped, and threw a startled glance toward Tom.

  With a sigh, Tom abandoned the pretense of sleep and heaved himself up as far as he could in the bed. His entire body was exhausted, his mouth bone-dry. “Where are we?” His voice came out cracked.

  “We’re still in Obsidian Corp.,” Blackburn said, moving closer to him. “The medical bay. We’re waiting for some of our own people to retrieve you. Do you remember what happened?”

  Tom gave a shaky nod.

  “Try to rest,” Blackburn ordered him, but his voice was oddly soft. “You need your strength.”

  But Tom couldn’t rest, he couldn’t, not with Vengerov there at the foot of the bed. It was like closing his eyes with some venomous snake looming over him, poised to strike.

  Vengerov had an unblinking gaze like a reptile’s. “I must apologize for your incident earlier, Mr. Raines. I never thought to assign any personnel to attend to the external surveillance cameras. No one breaks into a building filled with killing machines in the middle of Antarctica, after all. Your medical expenses are, of course, complimentary.”

  Who was Vengerov even pretending for? Tom knew he was the one behind what happened. Blackburn had to have guessed.

  “Yeah, I bet you’re real sorry,” Tom said, his voice raspy. He assessed himself, saw the swollen toes of his right foot where he’d kicked at the door. Bandages confining his hands. Restlessly, he shoved one under his opposite arm to work the bandage off, hoping to see how badly hurt his hands were. “Funny how that door swung open and closed a bunch of times.”

  “No hardware is perfect. Certainly not our automated doors.” Vengerov’s gaze dropped to the bandage Tom was working off, a certain amusement gleaming in his eyes. “But it does trouble me to think while I was luxuriating indoors, a frightened child was trapped out in the cold, begging to be let in.”

  Rage boiled up in Tom. His furious gaze flashed up to Vengerov’s. “I never begged.”

  Vengerov had to know what he was really saying—Tom hadn’t broken. Even if it almost killed him. He wished Vengerov would reward him by seeming distressed or disappointed, but the Russian oligarch smiled, something like anticipation on his face.

  Blackburn seemed to realize what Tom was doing. “Don’t take those off here . . .” he began, but Tom had shucked off the bandage.

  Now he saw what it had been hiding. Shock triggered in his gut as he saw the blackened fingers he couldn’t feel. He latched on to the other bandage with his teeth and tore it from that hand, and saw that those were blackened, too. His gut twisted. No. No, no, no . . . Wait. This couldn’t be right. He tried to curl them, tried to flex them. He shook his hands out, he pressed the fingers together. No sensation. Nothing.

  A massive tourniquet seemed to be compressing him, the blood rushing in his ears. No. He needed these. He needed them for everything. Gaming. He couldn’t game without fingers. What if he didn’t become a Combatant? What if he needed to get by somehow?

  Blackburn snared his wrists and set about replacing the bandages. “You’re going to get cybernetic fingers. They’ll work with the neural processor, and they’ll be almost as good as the real thing. Think of the exosuits. It’s like having one full-time.”

  But exosuits hadn’t replaced something that was supposed to be there. They’d been something fun, something awesome to make him stronger, faster. They’d been something he could take off and decide not to use. Tom stared at his blackened fingers, denial blanking out his brain. This couldn’t be real.

  Joseph Vengerov must have been satisfied that Tom understood the consequences of refusing him, because he at last turned around and strode away, disappearing off into the empty hallways of his mechanized fortress, as pitiless as any of his machines.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “AT LEAST YOUR nose didn’t fall off,” Wyatt told him a couple days later.

  Tom was sitting on the edge of his bed in the Pentagonal Spire’s infirmary, watching Vik inspect the new, cybernetic fingers. It was strange. They didn’t have any true touch receptors, not like real fingers, but whenever they came in contact with something—whether screwed into the stumps on his hand or not—Tom felt this prickling sensation. He hadn’t yet learned to sort out different electronic signals, even though Dr. Gonzales had assured him his brain would learn to identify them, associate them with heat, cold, soft, sharp, and so on.

  Vik turned the finger over and Tom felt the nagging prickle in his hand. He felt like his head was going to burst.

  “I looked up pictures of people with frostbite online,” Wyatt went on, from where she was sitting on the edge of his mattress, her dark hair drawn up in a high ponytail today, “and a lot of people’s noses fell off. So it’s really great that yours didn’t.”

  Vik laughed. “Enslow, come on.”

  “What?” she said. “It’s a good thing. I’m cheering Tom up.”

  “He is not looking cheerful,” Yuri said, from where he was leaning against the doorframe.

  “I’m fine,” Tom muttered.

  Now Vik’s chair scraped closer to his bedside. “So what’s the deal? I heard the official story: you went looking for a bathroom and accidentally walked outside, but I don’t buy it. How’d you really get stuck out there?”

  “Yes, what were you doing?” Wyatt demanded. “I was so sure you and Vik had some stupid bet over who could last outside longer, and it would be so like you to almost die trying to win, but Vik is denying it.”

  “Yes, I’m denying it,” Vik erupted. “Because betting over that would be stupid and Tom and I are not that stupid. Well, I’m not.” When Tom didn’t laugh, Vik nudged him. “Joke.”

  It took Tom a moment to reply. “I know.”

  “Ah, I do not believe we should question him regarding this right now,” Yuri cut in.

  For some reason, his voice set Tom on edge. His stomach ached. He didn’t want his friends here. He wanted them to leave.

  “Tom, stop flipping Yuri off,” Vik said, holding Tom’s middle finger up at Yuri.

  Tom’s gaze riveted to the finger Vik was holding, the prickling sensation registering in his mind like the finger w
as actually attached to him. He couldn’t breathe. They were all staring at the detached finger, and it gave him a sense like his skin was crawling.

  “Give it back,” Tom said to Vik.

  He felt like something was sparking inside him, fizzling, ready to explode. It wasn’t the detachable-finger thing bothering him, it was something else. Something he couldn’t pinpoint. Everything felt wrong here. He really, really wanted them to leave.

  “So these are exactly like the old ones?” Wyatt asked him.

  “No,” Tom said. “These are cybernetic, Wyatt. That’s fake skin. They detach and they’re okay. The old ones, well, they froze into blackened stumps, and when they detached, they didn’t work anymore. If you really wanna compare side by side, ask Dr. Gonzales for my real fingers.” He started laughing, then laughing harder and harder. It was hard to choke out the words, “I bet he’s got ’em in medical waste somewhere.”

  He heard Vik mumble something about being loopy on pain medication programs. That confused Tom. Was he acting weird? Tom wasn’t sure. He figured the anesthesia program had worn off. He didn’t feel doped up anymore.

  “Doctor,” Vik said, shaking the finger at him, “I see many, many glorious pranks in our near future. Think of all the ways we could pretend your fingers have come off, and—”

  “Okay. Yeah.” Tom tried to muster a grin, but couldn’t. “Now seriously, give it back.”

  “You sound puzzled.” Vik scratched Tom’s head with the detached finger.

  Tom practically screamed it at him: “Give it back!”

  There was silence for a moment, and Vik handed it over. Tom shoved the finger into the attachment point at his knuckle, feeling stupid.

  Vik nodded at the other two, and Wyatt and Yuri withdrew from the room.

  Then Vik drew closer. “Tom, I know you’re—”

  “Yeah, I’m being a pansy. I know. It’s the med programs. They’re messing with my head.” It wasn’t the meds or exhaustion making him feel like this, like some giant, exposed nerve, but Tom couldn’t seem to control what he was feeling and it was embarrassing.