Chrysalis

5

Logan stepped into the suite he’d been assigned in the hotel embedded within the tower. His luggage was there waiting for him, looking pristine and inviolate despite having been pawed through by security just a few hours earlier.

The room had the feel of a typical upscale hotel suite, with a separate bedroom and a wall of windows, currently hidden by neutral curtains. Logan walked over, lifted a curtain aside with the back of his hand. Beyond, in the dark, he could make out — several floors below — the nearest skyway leading from the central spire out to the gently curving flank of the Advanced Research Torus, lights gleaming from windows on various levels. It was as if a vast, ring-shaped spacecraft had settled into this bowl of a mountain valley and taken up residence.

He reflected on the odd conversation he’d just had in the executive suite. Asperton had said a major development strategy of long gestation was under way, and phase two was on the brink of being rolled out. The company was clearly at a crossroads. Christie had used the word “tragedy” — which Logan presumed involved this second phase in some way. Christie had also told Logan he was their “Hail Mary” — but in the same breath, the man had also called him their “just in case.” It was odd, almost a paradox.

One thing was clear: somehow, probably an old-boy network of billionaires, Christie had heard of Logan’s mission at Lux, the reclusive think tank. That helped explain why he, of all people, had been summoned. Something strange had happened here — precisely what, he’d learn tomorrow.

With a sigh, he pulled the Venture module out of the front pocket of his jacket and attached the device. For a few seconds nothing happened, but this was normal: one of Omega’s many stylish features was that it did not interrupt your life with updates and reboots — it came to life only when fully linked.

There it was: through the lens, he could see characteristic blue-green glows emanating from various objects in his suite. He glanced at the faint flicker around the refrigerator. Instantly, the glow sharpened into a distinct outline. A nod of his head brought up an interior view, showing its contents. Along one side of his vision was a menu for increasing or decreasing temperature, setting a timer, ordering online food delivery, and several other options, all of which would be triggered by blinks or certain movements of his head.

He looked away, and his virtual interface with the refrigerator decoupled. At the lower edge of the lens, another menu was available. He hadn’t seen this before; it was probably some enhancement available only to Complex visitors. There were two items in the menu: the first was apparently an email from Asperton, and the second was something called “Flight.”

Focusing his gaze on the email brought up directions to tomorrow morning’s meeting, other attendees unnamed.

Next he turned to “Flight.” It was some kind of interactive demonstration of the Omega technology — more eye candy for impressing important visitors.

In his job as an enigmalogist, Logan had dealt with things explainable by science, as well as things that most emphatically were not. As a result, his tool set was exotic and necessarily broad: deep reading in ancient and medieval history; studies of chemistry, astronomy, astrology, and biology — as well as everything from EMF meters to gris-gris. But one of his most useful tools was his innate intuition. He was a “sensitive” — instinctually empathetic to his surroundings. It was a gift to be used sparingly, but with it he could sense not only people’s hidden emotions, but also — rarely — the proximity of evil, either present or past.

He felt fatigued, but not sleepy. Too much had happened today for sleep to come just yet. Venture still in place, he removed his jacket, lay down on the bed, focused again on the “Flight” menu item, and blinked carefully to activate it.

There was a slow fade to black. Then, astoundingly, he felt himself rise off the bed and float, suspended and motionless, in his hotel suite. Distantly, he could still feel the reassuring presence of the bed beneath him, but the sense of realism projected was extraordinary, unlike anything he’d ever felt. After several moments, as if allowing him time to adjust to this novel sensation, he saw… no, he felt… himself begin to rise again, through the ceiling and up through various levels of the tower, past dormitories and machine rooms and swimming pools and offices, until he was outside, above the structure, the Torus glimmering far below and the forested mountain flanks swaying in the faint breeze.

Still he kept rising, above the tops of the mountains, until the remote landscape was spread out below him like a carpet of dark green in the night. The wonder of it, the sensation of floating above the earth with little artificiality at all, was intoxicating. He began to rise again….

And then, suddenly, the spell was broken and he was tumbling headlong toward the earth. Distantly, he was aware that the breeze had grown chill and angry. The lights of the Torus, the menacing point of the spire, drew closer and closer, as he prepared for the excruciating pain of impact —

Suddenly, the imagery vanished and he was back in his suite, sitting up, breathing hard. His Venture device was in a corner of the room, near the door, where he must have thrown it. He had no recollection of tearing it from his head, yet he must have taken it off and, in so doing, stopped the nightmare.

The nightmare. Surely this was not the innocent demo that guests were supposed to experience? Logan wondered if his abilities as a sensitive had somehow interacted, or interfered… with unpleasant results.

He rose from the bed, retrieved his Venture, and slipped it back into the pocket of his jacket. And as he did so, he became aware of a presence, rising as if to envelop the entire valley in its grasp: something dark and full of pitiless greed, like a rotten core at the heart of this technological marvel.