Chrysalis

57

Logan grabbed onto the box for dear life as he felt himself lifted off the ground, making a bizarre ascendance while first the cable closet, then the metal box, and finally the access port itself grew larger and larger. Instinctively he compensated, ducking this way and that, to find that within thirty seconds he was standing on the floor of what, moments before, had been a plastic housing no larger than his thumbnail.

He realized Wrigley was shouting in his ear again. “Logan?”

“Yes?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in a place where the words ‘Made in Japan’ are taller than I am.”

There was a faint echo of laughter, a rush of excited conversation. A moment passed before Wrigley spoke again.

“Jesus Christ, it worked! Talk about thinking outside the box — I should get a Nobel for this.”

“It was Roz who thought outside the box. And I’m the one who survived this Kafkaesque shriveling. I might have been lying on the floor now, squashed like a roach.”

But Wrigley was still so excited that he didn’t rise to the bait. “If I’d tried to explain, it would have taken ten minutes — and you’d probably have fallen. Now: turn to your right. See the exit cable?”

“Yes.”

“What can you make out? Is it dark?”

“No — it’s illuminated by a light. Faint, pulsing occasionally.”

“What you’re seeing are optical signals — well, virtual recreations of signals. Okay, listen closely.” A pause for more rapid-fire discussion. “I’m told there are three steps to this — four, if you count what you’ve just done. We have to get you — or your simulacrum — to the physical juncture where the fiber optics supporting Infinium terminate at the OEO.”

“What?”

“The optical-electrical-optical… just think of it as the no-man’s-land between the optics running through our systems and the optics running through the rest of the Helix.”

“Understood.”

“The pathway that leads there is far too complex for you to navigate. So we’re going to send an optical pulse through the prototype Omega III you’re wearing: one that will require interfacing with the unsequestered part of the Helix. At least, that’s the theory. Now, hold on and prepare yourself.”

“For what?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. We’re off the map right now. Just hang on while Mossby figures this out.”

Just hang on. Logan hadn’t known, of course, what was involved in leveraging Omega’s VR technology to access the Helix, but…

Suddenly — without warning — he was propelled forward at terrifying speed, like a bullet from a gun. He shot down a dozen, then two dozen, then countless cylindrical passageways, threading abrupt curves, the walls around him narrowing, lights changing intensity with unbelievable rapidity. He dropped; blew down a particularly long, narrow tube; dropped again, farther this time. Worse than this unexpected breakneck journey was the utter strangeness: there was no sound, no feeling of motion, no rush of wind in his ears or G forces pressing against his chest.

…And then as suddenly as it began, it stopped, and Logan found himself facing a wall. But it was like no wall he’d ever seen: it throbbed as if alive with energy, and its color changed subtly from black to purple before returning to black. He put out his hand to touch it, but some instinct prompted him to pull it back again.

“Logan?” Wrigley was calling.

“Yes?”

“What just happened?”

“I don’t know. I don’t ever want it to happen again. I must be ten miles from where I was.”

“I think it worked!” This was said, not to Logan, but to the others in the lab, because once again he could hear an excited confusion of voices. “So what’s in front of you? A portal of some kind?”

“Looks more like a door, but… well, given the ‘photonic’ computing, that’s probably right. Because this thing seems to be almost shimmering — like an oasis.”

“That’s the portal. Now, you’ll need to cross the terminator and enter the primary ring of the Helix. Then it’s just a question of locating the right data block, and…”

Wrigley went silent. There was some kind of commotion, it seemed, going on in the background of the lab. Logan could hear raised voices.

“Wrigley?”

“I’m here.”

“You were saying: locate the right data block, and —?”

“And that’s where Snow and Mossby come in. In fact, Snow’s going to pick it up from here. I’ve taken you as far as I can.”

“So what do I do? Open the door?”

“I’d, um, suggest jumping.” Wrigley seemed distracted. More noise in the background, apparently shouting, but Logan could still make out Wrigley: “I heard you, I heard you! Are we ready on this end?” A distant affirmation.

In a moment, he was back on. “Okay, Logan? Jump!”

Logan jumped.

There was a brief moment of pain in his head — a pain like he’d never experienced, as if his cerebral cortex was a balloon and some force was inflating it, pressure building by the microsecond — and then he felt his virtual self, which seemed to have been falling, land on a dark, smooth surface. He stood up. The intense pain had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“Logan?” A different voice was speaking to him now — Snow. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

Snow whistled with awe. “You passed through the barrier?”

“I think so. And it hurt like hell.”

A pause. “That might have been some manifestation of the signal conversion. Or perhaps the ‘sinkholing’ necessary to direct you into the right traffic flow. But congratulations — you just crossed the moat.”

“Congratulations is one word for it. Tell me I don’t have to come out the same way I went in.”

“You don’t. Where are you, exactly?”

Logan looked around. “At the end of a single large cylinder. It’s dark, but ahead I can make out some illumination.”

“All right, that’s… yes, I suppose that’s how it would appear. You’re in Helix Prime now, and I’m going to guide you to the exact node storing the data of Cardiff uploading his rogue code. Dr. Purchase gave us all the specifics before he left. Hopefully Mossby can take you the rest of the way.”

“Okay, I—” Logan paused. “Purchase left? Why?”

“He’ll be back. He just… well, we’ve just learned two clients have died.”

“Clients?”

“Of the Voyager rollout.”

Virtual or not, Logan felt his shoulders slump. He’d entered the rabbit hole at noon precisely… and been so distracted by the task at hand that he’d almost forgotten the full impact of the hour — or why this desperate attempt was so urgent.

A thousand could die. It seemed that threat was becoming reality.