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24: THE BIG I

"Keep on raging—to stop the aging."

—THE DELLTONES

"We have to go back!"

My shout detonated through Kat's shuttle. I seized Kat's helmet and twisted it off with such force that the gasket tore. We jostled together in the cabin's zero gravity

"What the hell do you think you're doing? We just saved your skinny ass." Kat wiped sweaty red hair from her eyes and pushed me away.

My heart thundered against my rib cage, and my muscles twitched with excess energy. My attention remained as centered as a collimated laser beam: Seek reinforcements and return for Sheeba.

When Kat voiced a command to ignite her rockets, I dragged her bodily out of the pilot's seat. "Do NOT move this shuttle."

"Nasir, calm down." Verinne interceded with her gravelly voice of reason. "We're running low on fuel. We'll come back later."

"There's no time." Every iota of my emotional energy centered on Sheeba's welfare—but there was also a darker motive driving me—an alien desire. The NEMs wanted to stay inside the Net blockade. They didn't want to take any more doctors' orders.

"Avoid the Net," I said aloud, not stopping to analyze my reasons.

"What did those fucking agitators do to you?" Grunze caught my shoulders and hugged me to his chest.

"Nasty Nass, did they pluck out your fingernails?" Winston giggled. "I bet fifty thousand you'd come back with exotic scars."

"Whatever they did, you're going to pay for my neck gasket." Kat picked at her damaged helmet. "We've been killing ourselves for days, hiring mercs, dealing with lawyers, paying off that slimy Captain Trencher . . . ."

Grunze released me from the hug, but continued to grip both my shoulders. "You won't believe how famous we are, sweet-pee. We're back in first place again. By the way, Chad had to sell some of your furniture."

"Yeah, your gunship captain has a cosmic appetite for gratuities," said Kat

"Sheeba's in terrible danger. I need your help—"

When Kat drifted toward the pilot's seat again, the NEMs electrified my rage. I could not let her move us in range of the Net, where the doctors would rein in my glass man—not while Shee was still in danger. I knocked Grunze aside to get at Kat—using more force than I realized. Grunze thumped against the control housing with a vicious pulpy smack, and my sharp ears recognized exactly which of his ribs had fractured.

"Huh?" My old friend gaped at me.

"He's nuts." Kat threw her helmet at my chest.

"He's having a psychotic episode. Grab him," Verinne said coolly.

As they grappled my four limbs, we bucked and wrestled in weightlessness, butting heads, shoulders and knees against the confining oval of the cabin. But even my glassy strength could not hold out against four superannuated codgers pumped up on human growth factor. Verinne sprayed my nostrils full of Sleep-Eze. Then Kat strapped me into Winston's bunk and tied my hands with millicord.

Dreams have sounds, did you know that? Snippets of audio, recorded who knows how many decades past, they lodge in your brain like tidbits of rotting debris. In time, their meanings break apart, recompose and gather new context. I awoke hearing Prashka's voice. "We're falling," she said. "Hold me."

I opened my eyes to rosy light glimmering against a silk-upholstered ceiling. I lay nude in a sunken pool of pillows. Gentle sizz music chimed from hidden speakers, and a smell of cherries wafted through the air. It took me another groggy minute to understand what had happened. The Agonists had brought me back to my luxury hotel suite at Mira. They thought I needed rest, so they left me in the care of my Net-linked doctors while they went back for Sheeba. Sheeba, my beloved. I bolted out of bed.

And got tangled in the blankets. And fell on my chin. My limbs wobbled like Jell-O. What the heck?

When I tapped my IBiS, holographic icons gushed out of my thumb. The glass man was virtually begging me to notice what the doctors were doing. Dozens of physicians were barraging me with warnings that my NEMs had gone rogue, and they were launching programs to blunt my brainpower, dull my senses and constrain my muscles back to the flaccid condition they called "normal." And for these services, they were metering unspeakable fees.

"Screw this." I bit my thumb and got on the phone to Chad.

"Boss, you're alive! I've been trying to get through for hours. Your Fortia bonds are maturing, and it's time to roll over—"

I cut him off. "Find the Agonists. Where are they? Get me coordinates, and order a damned taxi. I need to get back there."

"I'm on it," Chad said.

I rubbed my eyes. Wasn't there something else? My memory was still way too disconnected. Something I was supposed to do . . .With a jolt, I remembered the failing hull.

"Chad. Tell Provendia to call off the gunship. No more stupido noisemakers. And put that euth' order on pause."

"But boss—"

"This is corning straight from my lips to your cyber-ears. Do it now."

"It isn't that easy. You know Provendia won't break the chain of command."

Gilty gods, Chad was right. Those geezer bureaucrats couldn't make a move without first crossing every T. The stodgy CEO would want to convene a board meeting and get everyone's input. Then someone's assistant would have to generate a memo. Every Com followed the same sluggish rigmarole. Top-heavy command, that was the problem. Too many senior execs.

I sighed and rubbed sleep from my eyes. "Okay, let the CEO chase down enough rubber stamps to cover his ass in ink. Just make sure he calls off the gunship."

"Got it, boss."

"And get me two new space suits. Make one pearly pink."

I stumbled into the bathroom, looking for my clothes, and for the first time in days, I saw myself in the mirror. Ye gold-plated statues. My body rippled with youth! Glossy black ringlets, tight manly buns—the only thing real was the haggard droop of my eyes. I deactivated the mirror and got dressed.

Then I surfed through the hotel's online gift shop and bought some things for Sheeba. A new pink-and-white smartskin, moisturizing body wash, chocolate truffles, a handheld movie viewer, a diamond tiara.

Climbing into the taxi, my spirits lifted like the fake-happy bounce of Peps. And I could guess the reason. My NEMs were blissed to be heading back toward the Net blockade, away from the meddlesome doctors. My energy centered on a different goal though. I was going to liberate Sheeba. But so many details remained fuzzy.

"Listen, crystal guy, we need an understanding," I said aloud in the speeding taxi. "The extra muscle power comes in handy, and better vision is good. The beefed-up IQ is also cool. But you can't screw with my memories. That could be dangerous to both of us."

The cybercabbie bobbed his plastic head, but the glass man didn't respond.

A shiver rifled up my spine. What was I doing, talking to myself like a lunatic? The glass man wasn't a real person. He was a whimsical fantasy I'd dreamed up. A metaphor. The NEMs were millions of separate healing machines, at least a thousand different kinds, and each one had a narrow, specialized function. Sure, they assembled into an interlocked lattice to relay health data, but mat didn't mean they could think as a unit. They were medical devices, not a life-form.

"Are we clear?" I said to the empty taxi. "Hell, I'm coming unzipped."

But then, as if a floodgate had opened, my memories surged back. I recalled everything. Prashka. Lahore. The lychee nuts. Sheeba's scornful voice. "Murderer!" A dozen times, I watched her bury her face in Liam's shirt. How in hell would I convince her to come away with me?

My vertebrae compressed like a stack of millstones. It was worse than the Reel. All the way to the rendezvous, my neck ached. How could I redeem myself in Sheeba's eyes if she didn't trust me? I sorted through the paltry items from Mira's gift shop—silly junk. These trinkets would never induce her to leave Heaven. I needed a better gift— but what?

"Amends," she had said.

The two freighted syllables resonated like a hundred children's voices singing through steel. Memories were a curse.

I phoned the Agonists en route. Grunze answered, but he refused to talk. His ribs were still mending from where I'd smacked him, and he was doing psychotropics to ease his hurt feelings. He passed the phone to Kat.

"Are you over your fit of nerves?" Kat's teeth clicked against the phone mike. "We're going in for Sheeba."

Verinne joined the conference call. "Nasir, we're trying a soft dock on Heaven's port. Why won't the cargo doors open?"

"No, that won't work. I cleared the airlock, but the cargo doors are weighted down with product." Then I told them about the lethal gas in the airlocks.

"Well, we can't go in through the hull rip," Kat said. "That whole area's mined with tactical nukes."

"What lame bimbus would have done that?' I said.

Winston giggled. "Ask your gunship captain."

"There's something else," Verinne said. "Captain Trencher mentioned a health quarantine."

'Trencher? Robert Trencher? Fucking Robert A. Trencher is the gunship captain?" Only a few weeks ago, I'd personally demoted that asshole. How had he turned up here? Someone had been pulling strings behind my back.

"He's the one," Verinne said. "He's taking bribes to keep quiet, but he doesn't know who we are."

I paused to contemplate the vicious justice of the universe. My onetime protege Robert Trencher—liar, coward, incompetent numbnuts—he was the captain to whom I'd nearly surrendered? Gods, wouldn't he love to turn the tables and get me in his power.

"Life is strange," I reflected. "Just keep looking for an entrance. I'm on my way."

The taxi rendezvoused with Kat's shuttle directly over the South Pole. The big Dolphin 88 was there, too, overloaded with fans and tourists. Hovering nearby were a chartered wide-body Hedgehog and a sleek Astral yacht with Greenland.Com markings. Our live audience of fans had sextupled, and Chad informed me that millions more watched from home. A few hundred kilometers away, Heaven spun on its chain, followed by the ever-vigilant gunship. Apparently, Trencher hadn't received a recall order yet. My Provendia colleagues were still crossing their t's.

"We can't find a way in," Verinne said.

"Keep trying." I tugged my hair. We were this close, with all the right gear, plenty of money, virtually unlimited surfer resources, and we couldn't find a way into Heaven? It was almost laughable.

While Verinne and Kat pored over A13's schematics, Grunze sat in the pilot's seat, maintaining a stern silence. He was pouting. I took the navigator seat beside him and squeezed his knee. "Okay, Grunzie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bust your ribs."

"You ambushed me," he said, peeved. He wasn't used to losing fights. "Are you on some kind of pills?"

"Grunzie, I was overwrought. That zone was pure hell."

Win sat Velcroed in his bunk, grinning like a mental patient. "Show us your scars, Nasty Nass."

Verinne queried for new data. "We'll settle bets later. Right now we need a tactical plan to rescue Shee."

"Shee may not want to come away with us," I admitted, shamefaced.

"Why the fuck not?" said Grunze.

Verinne stopped scrolling through her search results. "Nasir, what have you done?"

Why did everybody assume it was my fault? Hell, were was no easy way to explain without humiliating myself. "There's this guy," I began. Then I told them how a crafty young agitator had put Sheeba under a spell. He was a devil. He'd mesmerized Shee with his wicked lies. Of course, I didn't mention the malady. No point scaring my friends. As I reeled off Liam's crimes, they grew incensed. That dangerous agitator was brainwashing our darling. My friends agreed we had to get her away fast, whether she wanted to come or not. Shee was such a child, she couldn't see her own best interest.

"We'll need weapons," Grunze said.

"No prob. I packed a picnic." Kat's eyes gleamed. She sailed across the narrow cabin and flipped open a bin containing a rack of stun guns, sticky-string pumps, sleep gas and riot gear. All nonlethal of course. It wasn't considered sporting for surfers to carry deadly weapons. Kat said, "You like my yummy gadgets?"

"We still need a way in. Guess we'll have to punch another hole in the hull." Grunze laced his fingers behind his bald head and leaned back in his seat "Where's the best place, sweet-pee?"

"Grunzie, you forgive me?" I asked.

He smiled and cuffed me across the jaw, just hard enough to bounce my skull against the headrest It was his way of showing tenderness. "One mil says I get to Sheeba before you do. So where do we rip a new door?"

I studied the cutaway drawing, and my mind flip-flopped between the glass man's driving instincts and my own guilty memories. Deck One? Sheeba might still be there in the cargo bay, along with Liam, Geraldine and Kaioko. No, we couldn't risk a rupture on One. Deck Two? That held the solar plant and the circulating pumps. Besides, half of Two had already been blown away. Another hull breach there might shiver Heaven to pieces. Deck Three housed the thermionic generator, where Juani would be working on his CAES. Deck Four was sick-ward, and the juves needed that medical equipment.

Verinne tapped Heaven's tapering apex with her stylus. "How about Deck Five? It's the largest."

"No, that's where the toads are hiding," I said.

'Toads?" My friends gazed at me as if my teeth were in crooked. Grunze said, "What the fuck are toads?"

An image flitted across my mental screen, a dozen little kids gazing up at me as if I held the keys to secret knowledge. "I mean—Sheeba might be there. No, we certainly can't punch a hole in Five."

After that, we drifted apart and brooded, scratching our heads and glumly tugging our earlobes. Winston took a nap. Verinne continued to study A13's schematic, but no one in our crew could generate a fresh idea.

Worse, even if we found an entrance, I still had nothing to offer that would lure Sheeba away. The idea of dragging her against her will revolted me. She would never forgive that violation. But try as I might, I could think of no enticement powerful enough to win her over.

Why didn't the freaking NEMs boost my brainpower? I slapped the sides of my skull. Just when I needed him most, the crystal man went slack. :

Suddenly, I remembered we hadn't crossed through the blockade yet. We were still hovering outside its perimeter, within easy reach of the Net-linked doctors. Had my glass man succumbed to their orders? I checked my IBiS, and icons bubbled out of my thumb. Right, those quacks were still trying to wrestle my wayward NEMs into submission. A war of crossed signals raged through the Net, as deadly as any hail of laser fire. My glass man's fight for independence was absorbing all his attention. And those sadistic doctors kept ratcheting up their fees.

'Take us through the blockade!" I shouted.

"If you think that will help." Grunze powered up the shuttle and eased us forward.

"Boss, I'm losing you. What about the Fortia bonds? Should I sell . . ." Chad's voice faded from my earphone.

As soon as we crossed the blockade and lost Net access, I felt a deep liberating shift in my joints. My neck muscles relaxed, and my stomach calmed down (I hadn't noticed the stomach cramps). Soon my flesh started to tingle, not just in my thumb but everywhere. That's when a single word trumpeted through my brain like harmonic epiphany. The word was a name. And the name was Vlad.

Of course. Vlad would know a way into Heaven. And Vlad would be the perfect apology gift to offer Sheeba. If I brought back the young medic, she would soften her opinion and forgive me. Then maybe she would come away from that death trap.

I spun and faced Verinne. "You took one of the agitators. Where is he?"

Verinne's wrinkly old eyes narrowed. "That prote wouldn't tell us anything."

"It doesn't matter. We need him," I said.

"What for?"

My brain clicked through possible lies. It was too embarrassing to admit that I needed to bribe Sheeba to trust me. I said, "He may know a back door into Heaven."

Kat plowed between us. "Heaven has a secret entrance? Plasmic."

Don't ask me how this notion burst into my head, but the more I thought about it, the more plausible the backdoor idea sounded. Of course. Liam would surely have built a private entrance, and Vlad would know its location. "That agitator can show us the way in," I said.

Verinne chewed her wizened lip. "We turned him over to Trencher a couple of hours ago."

"Two hours ago!" Trencher would have slated the medic for euthanasia by now. But if they interrogated him first, he might still be alive.

Kat twisted her hair. "It'll take a megaton of deutsch to buy him back. You wouldn't believe how Trencher nickels-and-dimes us."

Then Verinne's gray eyes canted slyly. "We could steal him back."

"From a Com gunship?" Kat recoiled so violently, she bumped-into Grunze and sent him spinning off at a tangent. "They'll terminate us."

Grunzie bounced against the cabin wall. "Kat's right. Do you want to get us laid off? I'd rather die than lose my job."

"Weenies, Verinne knows they won't fire us. We own too many shares." I blew Verinne a kiss. "Let's do it."

Grunze stuck out his chin. "Maybe you own mega-shares, Nass, but I've been running through my holdings pretty damn quick these last few years."

"Me, too," said Kat, "and we know Winny's broke. At this stage in my life, the last thing I want is to risk getting kicked downstairs. I can't live as a prote."

Verinne settled against the window and crossed her arms. "Whine all you like. I don't care what the fuckers do to me. I'm an Agonist."

The others gawked at her. Verinne was usually the conservative one. And she never used the F word. Her attitude stunned them. I was the only one who knew how little Verinne had to lose. "Cara. You and I will go together."

Smile wrinkles rayed across her cheeks. The widow's peak in her pale forehead seemed to point straight through me, and grainy creases circled her desiccated throat like necklaces of sand. As I studied her dying face, I realized Verinne had no intention of coming back from this surf. This would be her grand exit. But I had to come back. I had to save Sheeba.

And to do that, I needed the others. Things could get dicey on that gunship. Verinne and I could not handle the surf alone. But how could I convince Kat and Grunze to risk losing their executive status?

Then something clicked. An idea. "Grunzie, Katherine, here's a proposition. How would you like to live forever?"

"Yeah right." Kat rolled her eyes, and Grunze merely scowled and waved me off.

I crooked my little finger at Grunze. "Immortality. We're talking the big I. It's time you knew the truth about this war zone. There's something I've been hiding."

"You think we didn't know that?" Grunze shook his head.

"Help me get the agitator, and I'll show you how to achieve perfect, enduring health forever."

Winston pulled the blanket off his head and sat up in his bunk with a yawn. "Define perfect." His question took me aback.

As Verinne drew closer, a nervous tic jerked one of her eyelids. "Nasir, this is nothing to joke about."

"It's not a joke. I'll tell you everything if you agree to help me. All of you. I want your word on it. Surfer's honor. I can't do this without you."

Kat poked my chest with her finger. "Why should we believe you?"

"Because I have evidence." I held up my left hand and, with the theatricality of a striptease artist, drew off my glove. "Check my IBiS, friends."

Kat grabbed my thumb to read the bubbling icons, and Grunze leaned over her shoulder. For long seconds, no one spoke. They browsed my health status with fierce, widening eyes.

Winston tried to free himself from his Velcro restraints. "Would perfect apply to brain cells?" His handsome old reprobate face opened with hope.

"Yes, Winny. Take a risk," I coaxed. "Where's your surfer spirit?"

To demonstrate my new powers, I rattled off a chain of prime numbers, crushed a stainless steel cocktail shaker in my fist, then lifted Grunzie one-handed and bounced him against the shuttle's low ceiling—which, of course, meant nothing given the zero gravity.

"Let me go, you pipsqueak." Grunze felt my biceps and deltoids with his meaty fingers. "You've been training."

I smiled. "Eternal youth, burly boy. Help me get this agitator, and I'll let you in on the secret."

Their artificial eyes fairly popped out of their sockets when I described all the injuries my NEMs had healed. Two small items I omitted—how my NEMs "cured" that poison gas booby trap and how they "healed" my punctured suit For the sake of credibility, I left those parts out.

"Is it true? Immortality?" For the first time in months, a moist gleam brightened Verinne's eyes.

"Yes, cara." I waved my arms and inadvertently propelled myself up to the ceiling. "Youth everlasting. It's true."

Grunze puffed out his chest. "I'll take the bet."

Winston let out a deep, ragged breath. "I'm in."

Peer pressure triumphed, and Kat caved. "You'd better be right."

"Swear you'll go with me to the gunship," I said, "on your honor as war surfers."

Grunze gestured. "Fuck you sideways. We swear."

So we huddled together, and I cupped my hand around my mouth as if spies were listening. Then I told them the secret: Avoid doctors' orders. My NEMs evolved because they were cut off from the Net.

Verinne arched one eyebrow. "Why didn't we know this before?"

"Because the doctors were protecting their despotic patents," I said.

"No, that's not right." Winny's speech came out slurred as usual. He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. "You've always been prejudiced against doctors."

I'd forgotten Win was an MD himself. "Present company excepted, Winny boy."

"Let me get this straight." Grunze rubbed his boulder-shaped head. "If we stay here inside Provendia's blockade for a couple of weeks, we'll change into superhumans?"

"You don't have to stay here. Go anywhere you like. Just surround yourself in a Net blockade. Liberate your NEMs from doctors' control, and you'll live forever." I gave Winston a friendly wink.

"No Net access?" Kat chewed her hair. "That's harsh."

"Immortality has its price," I said. "Maybe you can find some doctor-blocker wetware."

"It's the damn doctors that keep you alive." Win's outburst startled all of us. His face went red from his effort to steady his palsied muscles. He leaned forward, straining the Velcro straps in his bunk. "It was doctors that invented bioNEMs. Doctors like me." He poked his chest with his thumb. "Yeah, me. Bimbus ol' Winny. I was on that project team."

"Winston, I . . ." His words disoriented me. If Sheeba had been here, she would have hugged poor Win to soothe his feelings, but I was too flabbergasted to move. Apparently, so were the others.

"You think I like being the butt of everybody's joke? Boozing it up to cover my dementia? Pretending I don't know what's happening? I used to be a physician."

"Win." Kat sailed over and enfolded the trembling man in her arms.

Verinne hovered and stroked his elegant head, but his clear blue eyes lingered on me. I felt his reproach like a brand.

"Winston, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you."

"Trust me, the medical community doesn't know about this," he continued. He was having one of his rare lucid moments. His slur almost disappeared, and his eyes showed active intelligence. "We programmed the NEMs with failsafes. Do you think we would unleash immortality? Imagine what that might lead to. We couldn't begin to predict—"

"But Win, I'm living proof." To convince them, I pulled Sheeba's ankh from my breast pocket and sliced a gash in my wrist. The wound self-sealed in under a minute.

"That shouldn't happen." Winston examined my unblemished skin, for all the world like a skeptical high-church doctor. "If what you say is true, you must have encountered some catalyst. An aberrant virus, a biocontaminant, something. This is a freak mutation."

Kat grabbed Winston's collar. "Are you saying our NEMs won't evolve like Nasir's did?"

"Not on your life. He's been exposed to some triggering agent. It's—it's—" Winny squinted from one face to another, and his elegant head quivered. "What were we saying?"

Grunze frowned, and Verinne coughed. Kat tightened her arms around Win's shoulders. "So much for your secret of youth, Nass."

"Hell, I'll giveyou my NEMs," I blurted.

Mouths dropped open. Kat blanched. Verinne said, "It's a capital crime."

"Screw the docs," I said. "If we stay off the Net, they'll never know we violated their miserly copyrights. You'll have perfect health forever, I promise."

Winston leaned forward. "Is that a good thing, Nass?"

Again, his question threw me off balance. "Immortality." I lifted my hands. "You choose."

He wrinkled his handsome nose. "Okay. But—why are we going to the gunship?"

Win's lucid moment had fizzled. It grieved me to see his blue eyes cloud over. "Because you gave your word," I said softly.

Kat sighed and kissed him. "Nass means a gambling debt."

"Oh, I get that." Win kicked his blanket to the floor. "We're doing a war surf."

I glanced from Grunze to Verinne, then to Kat and Winston. As if on cue, we grinned at each other. Then we raised our fists and howled—

"WAR SURF!"

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