Vortex

“Who would bug the weight room?” Vik wondered.

  “Joseph Vengerov could have bugged the weight room to spy on Tom.”

  “Then he’d be an idiot. Does Tom look like he spends a lot of time in the weight room?”

  “Hey!” Tom objected. Yeah, he wasn’t going to win any power-lifting contests, but he’d filled out a lot since coming to the Spire.

  “What about the surveillance cameras?” Wyatt tried.

  “I checked,” Vik said. “No one was actively monitoring that feed and no one’s accessed it. Evil Wench, this was the Android’s doing.”

  “But it’s Yuri,” Wyatt protested.

  “I know,” Tom burst out. “I don’t like this either. It’s not like I want it to be true.” He scraped his hands through his hair. “I’ve had this feeling, okay? And I couldn’t figure out what it was until I realized. . . . I’ll tell you something, too. Yuri knows Vengerov. Yuri’s dad works for Vengerov. Yuri was considered a security threat, and we never thought to wonder if there was a reason. Maybe we screwed up, Wyatt. What if Vengerov used him somehow to breach the system? Maybe we messed up when we unscrambled him.”

  “Which is exactly what I’ve been saying since you two did it, I’d like to point out,” Vik said.

  Wyatt shook her head over and over again. “You’re wrong!”

  “We should at least put the question to him,” Vik said. “You can write some sort of program to make him feel like being truthful, Evil Wench. Maybe there’s something going on we don’t know about.” Then he seemed to get a great idea, and a crazy-eyed grin came over his face. “Hey, maybe the Android’s been reprogrammed and doesn’t know what he’s doing. Or maybe he’s being blackmailed.”

  Tom felt a surge of hope. “Yeah. Yeah, like, Vengerov could be threatening to off his family or something.”

  “Have you heard him talk about his mother? I haven’t,” Vik said optimistically. “Perhaps because she’s tied up in a basement somewhere, and Vengerov is planning to shoot her if Yuri doesn’t inform on Tom.”

  Tom was very heartened by that possibility. Wyatt still didn’t believe it. “If someone was threatening his family, he would spend all his time figuring out a way to rescue them. Then he’d do it. And he’d succeed.”

  Tom and Vik exchanged an unhappy look. That was something Yuri would probably do.

  “I’m positive Yuri wouldn’t do this,” Wyatt insisted again.

  And then a voice drifted over to them.

  “Do what?”

  They all three jumped when Yuri stepped into the room from the corridor.

  “I was searching in all places for you. What are you three up to?” His blue eyes roved over them, so kind and guileless beneath his wavy brown hair. Tom froze where he was standing, feeling like he’d been caught doing something awful.

  A wave of doubt crashed over him. What if they were wrong?

  Vik didn’t share his hesitation. “Yuri, no offense, man, but someone sold Tom out, and all signs point to you.”

  Yuri’s eyes grew round as saucers. “I beg your pardon, Vikram?”

  “You knew Tom was in contact with Medusa,” Vik said, and threw Tom a look. “Which, I maintain, is incredibly stupid considering you’ve already been charged with treason once, Gormless Cretin, but let’s focus on the matter at hand, which is you, Yuri. Yes, you. The question here is, did you share what Tom knew about Medusa with Joseph Vengerov? If so, are you spying for Joseph Vengerov? If so, you’re a dirty, rotten traitor and that really sucks, man.”

  As Tom watched Yuri’s face, something happened at the mention of the name “Vengerov.” His eyes flickered, and his features all sharpened, soft edges turning to taut, tense lines; even his pupils constricted. Such a subtle, tiny shift, it could’ve been blamed on the lighting, or on any number of other factors, if Tom didn’t have perfect photographic recollection of that day in the weight room when Yuri’s face showed the same reaction at the mention of the name “Vengerov.”

  “Just be honest,” Vik urged, but Tom barely heard him, he was so disturbed. A dizzying wave of anxiety crashed over him, because he was so sure he couldn’t trust Yuri, he would’ve bet ten thousand dollars on it.

  Yuri shook his head as Vik spoke, and gently replied, “Why, Vik, I would never do such a thing.”

  Even his voice sounded different, somehow. Tom would swear it! His accent wasn’t as strong.

  “. . . as a matter of fact, I am deeply hurt by the accusation.”

  Tom found his feet, his heart banging against his rib cage. “Yuri,” he said, his voice sounding strange. “We’re good friends, right?”

  “Of course, Tom.”

  “Then I need to ask you a big favor, man. A huge one.” Desperation frayed his voice. “I can’t explain, but you have to trust me here. You can save my life.”

  “What favor?”

  Tom held his palms out. “Just let us rescramble you. Only for a little while.”

  The mildness on Yuri’s face slipped. “Why would you wish to do that? I am your friend. I didn’t tell anyone what you told me. I promise. This is totally unnecessary.”

  “You are my friend,” Tom agreed. “That’s why you’ll get it when I tell you we are all in serious danger right now if we can’t temporarily scramble you again. I can’t give you details. You have to believe me. You have to trust me. Come on, man, help us out.”

  There wasn’t any immediate danger, but Tom knew this was an appeal Yuri would never, ever refuse. If there was the slightest hint of a threat, even if Tom couldn’t explain, even if it was a suggestion of danger to them, Yuri would bend over backward to help, any way he could.

  But today, he said, “You presume too much upon our friendship.”

  “Oh no, Yuri,” Wyatt cried. “They’re right, aren’t they? Something’s wrong with you.”

  Yuri’s gaze riveted to her, his eyes as distant and empty as some lizard’s. Then his gaze roved to Vik’s implacable face and to Tom’s.

  After a moment, Yuri smiled. “This is unfortunate.”

  And then he raised his forearm keyboard. Words flared across Tom’s vision center: Datastream received: program Incapacitation initiated. And Tom heard Vik yell out as he did, because his head felt like it was cracking in half, and his legs collapsed beneath him. He plunged to his hands and knees, his brain on the wrong end of some terrible, electric drill, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t get his balance, couldn’t move.

  “What are you doing to them? Stop it!” Wyatt shouted at Yuri.

  Tom peered up through blurring vision to see Wyatt dash across the room and grab at Yuri’s arm. He seized her easily, swept her around, and trapped her back against the computer console controlling the census device. Tom tried to heave himself up, but he dropped again, unable to manage it.

  Yuri pinned her wrists to her sides, his body crushed against her, head tilted to the side as he contemplated her almost clinically. “That program didn’t take down your firewall, I see. We shall have to rectify that.”

  “Let me go!” She twisted and tried to escape him. He tore her forearm keyboard from her arm, flung it aside with a clatter, then grabbed her again. Her arms bunched up against his chest as she tried to press back out of his grip. “What are you doing? I don’t understand.”

  “Drop your firewall,” Yuri urged her, drawing his face down to stare right into hers. When she gazed stubbornly up at him, he seized her neck so swiftly, she gasped. “Do it right now!”

  Wyatt drove her heel down into the instep of his foot, and his grip slackened enough for her to smash her fist into his face. But Yuri was like a wall, absorbing the blow easily, snaring her in his massive arms again and twisting her around to face Tom and Vik.

  From where Tom crouched, struggling on the floor to keep his mind working, he could make out the panic and confusion blaring on Wyatt’s face, her dark eyes taking in their state.

  “I will put you one by one in the census device,” Yuri said, “and we will search for every reference to your sus
picions about this asset. Then I’ll excise those recollections and you will all be released unharmed. If you don’t cooperate, I will continue to hurt your friends until you do. Tell me the password to drop your firewall and this will be painless.”

  “Wyatt,” Tom gasped, “don’t do it!”

  Yuri drew forward a step, and his massive boot careened down, knocking Tom back. His head smacked against the wall, and he stayed there, crumpled, trying to heave in air. He was vaguely aware of Vik straining to work his sleeve up his arm, to get to his forearm keyboard. Hope reared inside him.

  “What . . . are you . . . doing?” Tom managed to whisper to him.

  “Getting . . . help.”

  Tom tore his gaze away from Vik, not wanting Yuri’s attention to go there.

  “Why are you doing this?” Wyatt asked, tears choking her voice. “I don’t understand.”

  “Do as I instructed you.”

  “So you can do to me what you did to Tom and Vik? No! I won’t!”

  And then she shrieked out in pain when Yuri’s large hand twisted her wrist. Tom felt a surge of rage and tried to launch himself up, but agony twisted him back to the floor, his head beginning to spin violently.

  Vik finished typing on his forearm keyboard, and then curled up in pain, impotent fury on his face, as he watched Wyatt struggle with Yuri.

  “Do as I instructed you,” Yuri repeated.

  “NO!” Wyatt shouted.

  Yuri hurled Wyatt, hard, toward the chair beneath the census device. She tried to bolt, but he caught her. “This culling begins with you, then.” He snared the restraints around her arms, and reared up to seize the census device, pull the metal claw down right over her head—

  And then the door slid open, and Blackburn barreled in and wrenched Yuri away from Wyatt. She cringed as Yuri slammed his fist across Blackburn’s face, crashing him to the floor. Blackburn found his feet in a flash, his hand jabbing at his forearm keyboard.

  Yuri started toward him and then seemed to think the better of it. He backed up one step, another.

  “Who’s counterhacking me, Sysevich?” Blackburn snarled at him, when whatever program he was trying to deploy failed.

  Yuri said nothing. There was an unsettling blankness to his face as he edged back as far as he physically could.

  Blackburn lowered his forearm keyboard, giving up on taking Yuri down with a program. Instead, keeping his careful eyes on Yuri, Blackburn reached down and yanked Wyatt free, then shoved her toward Vik and Tom.

  “Help those two,” he said.

  Tom sat up painfully as Wyatt retrieved her forearm keyboard, then hooked a neural wire into Tom’s access port, and set about removing the program gripping his muscles, sending pain riveting through his body.

  Neither Blackburn nor Yuri was moving. Blackburn seemed at a temporary loss, and Yuri had taken shelter from him on the other side of the computer consoles controlling the census device.

  “So Ashwan’s net-send was right,” Blackburn said, breathing heavily. “Someone dismantled the filtering program.”

  Wyatt’s head shot up, terrible comprehension on her face.

  “It’s gone,” Vik confirmed, sprawled limply across the floor, his head tilted back. “It’s been gone for a while. Since before Capitol Summit.”

  Tom’s every muscle tightened. It was treason. He felt himself beginning to shake as he dragged his gaze up to the census device. He’d spent two days under that trying to keep this from Blackburn.

  For Wyatt.

  For Yuri.

  For nothing.

  Wyatt still stared at Yuri, horrified.

  “Well, that limits my options,” Blackburn remarked, half to himself. “There’s a very able programmer in Obsidian Corp. right now, making sure I can’t knock Sysevich out.”

  Wyatt neutralized the virus keeping Tom and Vik down, her hands trembling. Tom heaved himself upright, his legs shaking. They discovered that Yuri was still holding his distance, across the room from them, an alien look on his face. There was nothing of Yuri there. Just this cold, sharp blankness.

  “What’s happened to him?” Wyatt’s voice was a quavering whisper. “Why is he acting like that?”

  Blackburn kept his eyes on the large boy. He seemed to be thinking carefully, trying to figure out what to do. “Because that’s not Yuri Sysevich, Enslow. My guess is, you triggered a semiautonomous security daemon. The process runs in the background of his system until it perceives a threat. Then it launches and assumes neural sovereignty—full control of his mind—and attempts to neutralize that threat. In this case, the three of you.”

  “Wait, so it’s like an artificial intelligence, then?” Vik said, his voice hoarse. “There’s some AI in control of Yuri?”

  “There’s no self-awareness.” Blackburn walked to the side, to survey Yuri head to toe. “It’s a preprogrammed response system, though since someone was counterhacking my attempts to get into his processor and knock him unconscious, I’d guess there’s a remote administrator paying attention to this situation now. . . . What were you three doing when it triggered?”

  “We asked him if he’s been spying for Vengerov,” Vik admitted, “and if he’d let us rescramble him.”

  “Rescramble,” Blackburn repeated, acid in his voice. “And here it is, then. The source of the breaches. Sysevich. And you three. Did you think I put that program in his processor for fun?”

  “I only wanted to help him,” Wyatt mumbled.

  “I trusted you with my encryptions, Enslow,” Blackburn snapped. “You are the only person I shared those with. Do you know why I never suspected Sysevich? Do you? It’s because you’re the only person in the world who could have done this without me noticing.”

  Wyatt grew impossibly more pale. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s too late for that now.”

  Wyatt was visibly shaking, the adrenaline wearing off. They all hung back as Yuri, or whoever . . . or whatever it was, regarded them steadily from the other side of the darkened Census Chamber.

  “Why isn’t the security daemon doing anything now?” Vik whispered.

  “Because,” Blackburn said, a strange note in his voice, “it’s been programmed to adopt a new set of behavioral algorithms if it perceives itself at a disadvantage. It’s determined its former approach to physically overpower you won’t contain the situation anymore, and I’m sure it has more encoded instructions ready to trigger, depending on what we do next. Perhaps it’s even awaiting instructions from its remote administrator.”

  “So let’s wipe it out,” Wyatt whispered. “We have to get that program out of him.”

  Blackburn shook his head. “Can’t be done.”

  “If it’s some sort of virus, we can take care of it! I can do it!”

  “This isn’t rogue software. I have told you many times, Enslow, how many backdoors I found in this system when I took over the installation. I patched those security vulnerabilities, one by one—except this one. This one, I couldn’t fix.”

  He paced back in the other direction, still moving very slowly, and Yuri’s searing gaze followed his every move. Blackburn said, almost casually, like they were in Programming, “Tell me, Mr. Ashwan, given how vast the solar system is, why are we able to communicate instantaneously with satellites, say, thirteen light-hours away?”

  Vik’s brow furrowed. He seemed as thrown by the question as Tom was. “Quantum entanglement, sir.”

  “Quantum entanglement,” Blackburn agreed, raising his forearm keyboard and giving another shot to hacking Yuri’s processor. “Every single satellite is essentially one half of a greater computer, communicating through one set of an entangled pair of photons up there in space, the other half down here on Earth. This link is instantaneous, it can’t be jammed, and it can’t be hacked. Now imagine a certain Russian trillionaire has a quantum transmitter inside a supercomputer in Antarctica and an entangled counterpart transmitter inside a person’s brain.”

  Wyatt drew a sharp breath.
r />   “Same principles apply. You’ve got a connection that can’t be jammed, disrupted, or blocked. I figure Joseph Vengerov chose Mr. Sysevich very carefully for his transmitter. He found a likable, charismatic child of one of his employees—someone he had easy access to. He targeted a bright, driven, and optimistic young boy who was likely to go places in life. Next thing he did was shell out big bucks so this kid could go to the best schools, get in top physical shape, and really develop into something exceptional. That gave him a chance to place this kid—and the eyes and ears of this kid—most anywhere he wanted him.”

  Wyatt’s hand flew to her mouth.

  “Then he decided to stick his walking Trojan horse in the Pentagonal Spire, the better to keep his window into the installation after I took it over. As an added bonus, since the kid now had a neural processor funded by the US taxpayer, old Joe could do more than spy—he could remotely program that kid’s behavior, too . . . dictate his actions, use him to disrupt operations in space, maybe even conduct surveillance on persons of interest, wouldn’t you say, Raines?”

  Tom felt strange, numb. So many things, so many vague suspicions, so many feelings he ignored began to resolve themselves into a now terribly clear picture. Yuri hadn’t told Vengerov about him. Vengerov had directly seen and heard him through Yuri.

  “I found the transmitter in his head my first week here. We found pretense after pretense to run new scans of Sysevich’s brain, hoping to find some point of vulnerability so I could cripple that transmitter. But there isn’t any way to disable it. It was installed in his head when he was so young, his neurons developed around it. It’s as much a part of his brain now as his brain stem, as his cerebellum. It’s a separate device from his neural processor, yet it can be used to control his processor. Taking either of those devices out would kill him. And I’ve got to hand it to old Joe: it was a spectacularly ruthless way of making sure no one would ever remove it. After all, only a monster would kill a kid to neutralize a security threat.”

  He began rubbing his palm over his mouth. A note of dark anger stole into his voice.

  “Now that you know the situation, Mr. Raines, Ms. Enslow, let’s make very certain you understand what you’ve done to your friend.” He pointed at Yuri. “He is a walking, talking backdoor into our system, one that I can’t close. I wasn’t able to force him out of the program, because he had a very powerful patron who wanted to make sure he stayed here. If we booted Sysevich out, General Marsh would’ve had a deluge of senators calling for him to be replaced. The kid wouldn’t even consider leaving himself, because a write-protected sector of his neural processor contained some preinstalled, operant-conditioning algorithms to compel him to stay here, no matter what.”