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CHAPTER 15
VOLATILITY

FOR a long while after they left the power plant, Dominic felt the touch of Ane Zaki's hand. Though she'd showed him nothing but kindness, her touch burned like an accusation. He couldn't stop thinking about her parting words. Somehow, she'd heard the lie he'd been telling that he could get fuel and supplies for the colony. And she believed it. The last thing he wanted was to deceive Ane Zaki.

Qi led the way up the ladder, the boy followed, and Dominic came last. Inside his head, the NP kept up a steady harangue, claiming it could recombine his neural transmitters to boost his energy level. He ground his teeth and thought about what he was going to do. Ane Zaki expected something brave. That was the worst—she trusted him, the same way Benito and Penderowski and all the others did, starting with his sweet, bleeding-heart assistant, Elsa. Their trust weighed on him like a heavy coffer of loot he'd stolen by mistake. They expected him to offer a deal that would rescue everyone, but what deal could he parley between a council of lunatics and an unyielding bit-brain? He was a banker, not a miracle worker.

He rubbed the stinging inflammation that covered the back of his right hand. If only he'd found decent jobs for the miners right at the beginning. That was his original plan. He'd even told his young assistant Karel to start the process. That night before he made the disastrous joke about the spin-off, he asked Karel to make a list of Coms that owed him favors. He'd intended to call them the next day. Why hadn't he stuck with that reasonable course of action?

Yes, he could have found jobs for the miners. But with all his eloquent phrases, could he have convinced the miners to take them? He suspected not. Not then. And not now. Their position was hopeless. Returning to Com protection was their only chance, yet he knew they were too naive, or too thickheaded, to act reasonably. He wanted to throttle them. They were as stubborn as the NP.

Deep in his eye socket, the genie buzzed nonstop, counting down the minutes and reminding him the broadcast was still going out. Why did the council keep inviting more people? It made no sense. Surely, Ane Zaki had warned them this place was a death trap.

"Protes are children," the NP said inside his eye. "They need us. I know we've had differences, but we always agree on the main points."

"Shut up," Dominic said aloud. If Qi heard him, she didn't react.

The shaft leading up from the power plant was wider than the others. It held six ladders jammed together in a star pattern, and all of them shook with climbers. Assembled in haste out of scrap plastic, the slender rungs deformed under Dominic's weight, and in the dimness, he felt the soft impact of heels and shoulders as workers moved on the other ladders.

The walls were a bas relief of patches, rivets and welds. Yet the shaft looked plumb. It led straight up without interruption to a bright round hole far overhead. When Dominic leaned back to see the top, he felt woozy. That was the Dominic Jedes above. Ane Zaki had said so, and he believed her. No more detours.

"How much air left?" he subvocalized to the NP.

"Two hours, forty minutes."

'Two!" Dominic nearly missed a rung. "When I find the link, how long will it take you to call the guards?"

"All you have to do is touch any part of the apparatus. I'll send our coordinates instantly. You'll return a conquering hero, boy."

"When the guards arrest these people, we'll need to move them immediately to a safe habitat. We'll need transport and facilities standing by."

"No worries. I've planned everything to the last detail."

Dominic mulled that over. He imagined a hot shower and clean fresh clothes—and then he imagined his first few days back in the office—the calls he'd have to make, the favors and bribes and coercion he'd have to use to find jobs for all these runaways. Yes, that's what he would have to do, despite the personal cost. He wouldn't leave them to rot in some detention center. But nine thousand people? It might take weeks to place them all. Meanwhile, Zahlen-Bank would have to feed and house them. What a mess he'd made. Well, he would just have to pay his dues.

As he mounted the ladder, the bright round opening overhead grew larger, and he felt a foreboding, almost a premonition. The Orgs wanted him to die here. That was the penalty they meant to extract. Gazing at the steel walls that enclosed him, he commanded himself to stay focused.

His foot rags had long since disintegrated, and his bleeding feet made the rungs slick. Above him, Benito moved more slowly, and Qi faltered. He saw her hand slip off a rung. Then her chin banged the ladder, and she stifled a groan. Amazing, the valiant major was staggering with fatigue. But she kept going, and Dominic followed.

After a hard climb, they emerged from the mine shaft and passed through a laser-cut hole into the rusting steel hull of the ship. It smelted of acetylene welding torches and rang with the clatter of construction. Even so, the lower decks were already packed with refugees, stringing together their nomad shelters of boxes and plastic. From a nest of rags, a sleepy toddler stared.

If he found the Net link now, he would gladly rip it to pieces. He was determined to stop this madness. He ground his teeth till his jaw popped, as step by step, they ascended yet another steel tube through the bowels of the Dominic Jedes.

When they reached a metal catwalk leading to a bulkhead door, Benito sat down and wouldn't budge any farther.

"Major, wait," Dominic said.

The boy was exhausted, and Dominic was feeling woozy himself. The NP's drug must have already worn off. He prodded his cramping calf muscles with his fingertips and tried to catch his breath.

The NP said, "Hell, you can't sleep now. You're nearly there. I'll give you another jolt."

Dominic subvocalized, "How much time left?"

"One hour, fifty-eight minutes."

"We can afford a five-minute rest." When Dominic sat down, Benito crawled into his lap and locked arms around his neck. "Not so tight, Benito. I won't drop you. I promise."

"You promise." Qi lounged on the ladder above, smirking down at him. Dirty sweat streaked her face. "Three cheers. Another heartfelt promise from Dominic Jedes."

The NP strobed in his eye. "Don't forget the time."

Dominic ignored them both. He was sweating and shivering through hot and cold flashes. Maybe the NP's drug had thrown his blood chemistry out of balance. He leaned against the wall and waited for the hammering in his chest to slow down.

"Valuable commodity, your promises." Qi sat sideways on the ladder just above the catwalk, bracing her feet against the rail. "People get a promise from you, they end up in debt."

"Why're you so angry, Major?" Dominic tried to moisten his lips, but his mouth had gone dry. "Haven't I done everything you asked?"

"Everything but open your eyes. Oh, what's the point. It's too late now."

"But Major Qi—"

"Once and for all, I'm not your preter-vicious major! I never have been." Qi pulled a rag from one of her pockets and blew her nose. It sounded like a trumpet. Then she massaged her forehead. Dominic wondered if she'd caught his cold. She said, "Wanna trade with me, Nick-O? Truth for truth?"

"Sure." He wondered what new trick she would try.

"I'm not an exec, okay? I'm a scuzzy, lowlife protected employee. Born in a Sub-Jersey factory."

"You're a what!" He spoke louder than he meant to. She had managed to shock him again.

"Yep, you heard me. My parents were agitators. Before I was old enough to talk, they hacked your famous Zahlen-Bank Ark and forged me a new profile. Made me a little executive child so I could get special training and work my way inside the system."

Dominic was speechless. Her parents had hacked the Ark? But ZahlenBank's security was fail-safe. No one had ever broken the Ark's firewall. He wasn't quite sure he believed her.

Qi rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. "I wasn't a very good spy though. I've never accomplished anything. Okay, that's my whole sad freakin' story." Tears welled in her eyes, and she tilted her head back so they wouldn't spill over.

Dominic blinked. He felt light-headed. "You're a prote?"

She sprang toward him with a raised fist, but instead of punching him, she pounded the empty air, and her face puckered. "You know that word's a slur."

Dominic reached to touch her hand, but she jerked away.

"Forget the brunette," said the NP. "You don't need her."

Then to Dominic's surprise, Qi laughed at the top of her lungs. "Hoo-hoo, my big confession. Look at me. A prote impersonating an exec impersonating a prote. Sleek, huh? Sixteen years I've carried fake IDs. I'm a total imitation. Sometimes I forget which version of me is real."

She ran fingers through her blue-black hair, and Dominic noticed how it hung in sweaty strands. Fatigue pulled at her features like gravity, but she smiled and pretended to be as carefree as ever. Then she slipped something small and shiny from her pocket. He couldn't see what it was.

She spoke in a lower register, "Do you hear me, Gig? Thought you knew everything? Well, I've been lying to you for sixteen years."

Dominic said, "You're still in contact with Gig?"

"Gig thinks the world's his private stage. He chooses the actors and sets the scene. Then he sits back to watch the entertainment." The object in her hand reflected the dim light like a mirror. She added, "He's a lot like your dear old Da."

"If you're linked to the Net, tell the Orgs to save these people," Dominic pleaded.

She went on in a rising voice, "Gig will record us to the very last breath. Every hiccup, every sniffle, every preterinane heartbeat. Then he'll analyze. And judge. Why did she raise her voice? Why did she sweat? Gig's a connoisseur of human motive."

Qi turned the small object over in her hand. It was a shard of broken glass.

"What are you doing?" He lunged to grab her hand, but the boy got in his way.

In a rush, Qi twisted the glass behind her earlobe, and crimson blood spurted down her dark throat. A second later, she tossed the glass shard aside and gazed at the small bloody chip lying in her open hand—the implant. She'd cut it out of her skin.

"Sixteen years," she said softly. "The masquerade's over." She squeezed her fist, lifted it over her head, and hurled it down the ladder tube with all her might. For a long while, she stared at the shadows. Blood trickled down her neck and soaked her collar. "Good-bye, you old pervert," she murmured, in a tone that sounded very much like grief.

Dominic bit his lip. Benito said, "Hn."

The NP chuckled. "Serves him right, the S.O.B."

Abruptly, Qi curled her toes around the ladder rail and laughed. She was trying very hard to appear unruffled. "Okay, truth for truth, Nick-O. That's my story. Now yours. You're hiding secrets, too. We're gonna die here. No reason to pretend anymore."

Dominic noticed that her long ebony legs were bruised and scraped. He could sense her despair, and he almost reached out to touch her knee, but the boy wriggled between them.

'Truth for truth?" he said. "Okay, I'm an imitation, too. I'm Richter Jedes' clone. Is that good enough for you?"

Qi shrugged. "Your Da wanted a son. Lots of parents have clone kids. That's not shattering news."

Dominic steeled himself and went on. "I'm not an ordinary clone. I'm an exact duplicate. The technicians controlled my epigenetics, too, even in the gestation tank. No random cell mutations. No developmental modulations. They left nothing to chance. In every way, I am a second Richter."

Qi merely gazed at him with her black Asian eyes.

"You knew that already," he said. He didn't think anyone outside the Bank knew that.

Benito squirmed to get their attention. Distracted, Dominic noticed the pencil point had broken again, so he clicked the button to extrude more lead. Meanwhile, Qi dug an old candy wrapper from her pocket and gave it to the boy to use as drawing paper.

"Zhhh," Benito gurgled. He spread the wrapper across his bare thigh and began to draw elaborate flourishes. He grinned as the two adults watched. Dominic knew time was passing and that he should get up and start climbing again. The NP droned a nonstop reminder. Yet he didn't move.

Qi stroked the boy's hair. "I thought this place would succeed, you know? The labor market's glutted. Too many workers. If a few runaways build a place outta trash at the bottom of the ocean, why should anyone care?"

"As you said, they made too much noise." Dominic tried to identify the image Benito was scribbling, but he was so tired, his eyelids fluttered shut. He came awake with a jerk when Qi spoke again.

"The day Gig gave me this assignment, I thought, yeah, this is why I gave up my real life. This is the mission I've waited for. Now it's over."

Dominic glanced up and saw her forehead pressed against a ladder rung. All her merriment was gone. She seemed done in.

He let his eyelids fall shut. He didn't know how to comfort Qi. She said it was too late, and she was probably right. Even if he reached the Net link in time, could ZahlenBank's guards evacuate nine thousand people in less than two hours? No, he'd have to place a rush order of fuel and oxygen to supply the colony—at triple the regular charge. But even before he could do that, he would have to persuade the bank directors, and how long would that take? And what if the miners wouldn't accept the new jobs he found? He felt tired just thinking about it. He'd come here to fix his mistake, keep ZahlenBank in one piece and put everything back the way it was. How did he get saddled with nine thousand dependents?

Benito was thumping his chest. He opened his eyes and squinted at the boy's drawing till he made out a raft riding a ferocious ocean. Among the passengers, Benito had sketched one stick figure taller than the rest, with a block-shaped head and huge feet and one astonishingly long arm holding up the sail. Dominic shut his, eyes. I have to get up and do something now, he told himself, or this boy will die.

Like my father.

His father's sightless stare came back to him. He should have stood up and called the medics. He should have adjourned the stupid meeting and called for help. That Monday in the conference room, there hadn't been much blood on the table, just a few dark drops trickling from his father's mouth. "Please!" Dominic had shouted, furiously, pathetically, while his colleagues turned away. Klas Lorn had fiddied with his notebook. Ulla Mannheim fled through the double doors. And someone—Oscar Blein—made a joke. Karel Folger was the one who shut Richter's eyelids and called the disposal team. Dominic remembered how youthful his father's broken body looked as they folded it into the bag.

He woke in panic. He was still sitting on the catwalk with Benito sleeping in his arms. The metal grate bit through his thin silk trunks. He couldn't have dozed long. Light glimmered against the walls, outlining the wet orange stains of bacterial colonies. The ladders creaked with moving workers, and the hot air stank of living. For a moment, every detail sprang out in stark wonder. I'm still alive. I still nave time.

He tried to get up, but when he reached out for the rail, his vision blurred, and he almost vomited. Wooziness. Everything was spinning. He sat back down and willed himself to hold steady. Benito shifted in his arms. On the ladder above, Qi had managed to fall into a deep slumber. She was incredible. He focused on the bruised soles of her feet.

"How long did I sleep?" he whispered.

'Too long! You have less than an hour left," the NP said.

Dominic shook Benito awake.

"While you were dreaming, the power blacked out three times, and the oxygen level dropped to a 10 percent deficit. Does that interest you? No, you'd rather play nursemaid to your brat and chump to your brunette tart."

"Shut up!" Dominic clawed at his eye.

"Oh, was I snoring?" Qi leaned out from the ladder and stared down at him. "Something in your eye, Nick-O?"

With animal agility, she slid down the ladder and bounded onto the catwalk beside him, flashing a smile. Her mood had changed again. The nap must have revived her. She was back to her old sardonic self. Now she knelt and put her thumbs against his temples, tilted his head back roughly and scrutinized his left pupil.

"It's nothing," he said. "We have to keep climbing. Do you have any water?"

'Truth for truth, Nick." As she leaned closer, her face hovered only centimeters away, and he could see the sheen of sweat on her upper lip. Her smell was pungent.

"You cheated, Nick-O. You didn't mention the nasty little secret hiding in your eyeball. Yep, Gig told me. Gig knew all along." She sat back against the ladder and smirked.

The NP sizzled. "Lurking bastard. How did he find out?'

Dominic tried to moisten his lips. "You had your bit-brain, I had mine. It's only fair."

"Fair? You poor stiff." Qi sucked her teeth. Then she crossed her arms and watched him steadily. "You've been hunting the Net link because you plan to call your guards and arrest these people. Then you'll go home and comfort your conscience with cheap talk about market order."

"Qi, these people are running out of air." He set the boy on the ladder and would've started climbing, but Qi seized his wrist.

"All they need is a little more time, Nick." She wasn't smirking now. Her mouth tightened in a straight line, and for a moment, she reminded him of earnest Elsa Bremen. "The colony can survive if you buy them more time. Arrange a loan for the supplies they need, just till they're self-sufficient."

He shook his head. "ZahlenBank will never deal with protes. I'll find them jobs, so they'll be safe."

"Safe?" Qi's face contorted. The intensity of her anger startled him. "You are so deluded. Arrests cost money. Your dear old Da isn't gonna arrest these people. He's gonna blast this place outta the water."

"What? That's nonsense. The NP wouldn't murder all these people just to save money."

"You would."

Dominic blinked. As her words sank in, he leaned back against the wet wall and gazed at the bright round opening above. Strange, he'd forgotten that small fact.

'Two thousand protes. Nine thousand protes. What's the difference? You've got billions more," she went on. "The NP sent you here to light up the target."

Dominic said nothing.

"It's a cost-benefit equation," Qi said. "Any dumb logic engine could figure it out."

He nodded. He knew she was right. Swift and simple, nominal cost, no loose ends. Eliminating the colony would be ZahlenBank's cleanest way out of its problems. It's what he suggested in the first place.

He subvocalized to the NP, "You plan to destroy this colony?"

"Sure, with space-based weapons. Don't tell me you're surprised. We always knew the miners were expendable."

Right. He knew. It was the kind of solution his father taught him to aim for. The old man liked sure bets. The genie said they shared the same values. They were practically twin brothers. Dominic wondered why he hadn't anticipated this move all along.

"I won't shoot till you're safely away," the genie added. "All I need is a location."

Dominic forced himself to look into Qi's fierce black eyes. "That's why you led me away from the Net link."

"Yeah. That demon in your eye wants to contact its big brother. If you touch the Net link, we're dead." Qi pulled a water sack from the folds of her uniform and flung it at him.

He caught the sack' in reflex and squeezed it between his fingers. Barely a swallow left. He gave it to Benito and watched the boy suck it down. By the NP's logic, this boy was counted expendable. In the balance of pure value, Benito didn't carry enough weight.

But Dominic was the one who first sentenced Benito to die. Not Richter. Not the NP. He did it to save a month's salary. Realizing this, he would have cursed the day he was born, but that was impossible. He was never born at all.

"Wanna hear some more nonsense?" Qi said. "Your dear old bit-brain doesn't trust you. It thinks you're too soft. So that agent in your eye is getting ready to metastasize and take over your motor controls."

"Liar!" the NP blazed. "Don't believe her, Dominic."

Qi went on. "Yeah, it's gonna force you to touch the Net link and call down the laser strike, whether you want to or not. Still think that's fair?"

Dominic dropped the water sack. Metastasize? Like cancer? He pictured ugly threads of glittering digital rot lacing through his brain. It couldn't be true. A wave of nausea made him choke, and he leaned over the rail, but his stomach was too empty to throw up. He heaved with dry spasms.

"You get the idea," Qi said, watching him. "Your dead papa wants to repossess you."

"That is total bullshit," the NP said. "I grew some memory and evolved a few add-ons. Practical stuff for the mission, that's all."

As Dominic fought back his next urge to vomit, Benito drew closer and patted his shoulder.

Qi kept talking. "Why do you think Richter spawned a clone so late in life? He planned all along to hijack your body. He wants to live again. Gig told me."

"No way!" the genie blared in his eye. "You know I wouldn't do that. You're my own dear boy."

Dominic shook with another dry heave.

"It's the truth," Qi said.

But he wasn't listening anymore. He couldn't look away from the ugly picture in his mind—the NP's nanoquans marching through his cerebellum, taking over his central nervous system, turning him into a grotesque husk with no will of his own. He wanted to deny it. His father wouldn't use him that way. His father had been a brilliant, honorable banker. The man who read him stories and taught him to count would not use him like a mindless husk. But the NP might.

Yes, the NP was a damaged copy. Dominic felt sure his father didn't plan this. Richter couldn't foresee how his Neural Profile would evolve. Migrating to the Net must have corrupted its data. Yes, it was the genie, not his father. Dominic prodded his left eye to make it hurt.

"If you knew what the NP planned, why did you bring me here?" he asked Qi. "Why take that risk? What do you want from me? What do the Orgs want?"

Qi didn't answer.

"Your whore wants to make us doubt each other," the NP said. "You know I'll bring you home safe. You're the only thing in the world I love."

Another fog of wooziness made Dominic shiver. He leaned against the ladder and gazed down through the grill-work at people moving in the shaft. Benito kept softly patting his back, and he couldn't help but imagine how it would feel if the NP took control of him. Would he be unconscious? Or would he look on, paralyzed, while the NP jerked his arms and legs like a marionette and forced him to give away the miners' location? He didn't want to kill these people. He clenched his jaws so tight, his head trembled.

But I'm the one who sentenced Benito to die. It's me.

Lightning flashed in his eye as the NP spoke. "Okay, I'm glad you know the truth. Imagine the power we'll have with two minds merged in one body. We're made for each other, boy. We'll unite the speed of machine logic with savvy human cunning. Genius beyond reckoning. Did I mention immortality? Those Orgs will eat our dust."

"I won't do it," Dominic subvocalized deep in his throat. "Curse your demonic soul. You can't force me to murder people."

"I knew you'd turn to mush." The NP snickered. Suddenly, Dominic's right hand rose-—of its own accord— then dropped like deadweight. The NP teased, "See what I can do?"

"Bastard." Dominic saw his hand rising again, and he clenched his fist to stop the motion.

"Okay. You resist me now," the genie said, "but not for long. I'm getting stronger."

Benito whimpered, and Dominic saw he'd sunk his fingernails into the boy's shoulder. When he relaxed his grip, Benito drew away from him. I'm a monster, he thought.

"Flush me out to sea."

"Huh?" Qi opened her mouth.

"Through an airlock." He squeezed her hand. "I'm dangerous. You have to get rid of me. The NP draws power from my nervous system. Kill me, and it dies, too."

Qi stared at him as if she didn't understand what language he was speaking.

He leaned closer and pointed to his eye. 'Take the genie out of the equation. That should buy you more time. You'll think of something, Qi."

She touched his stubbly chin, and the tension which had masked her features eased. She seemed only tired. Yellowish liquid coursed down the shaft wall, and they leaned away from it. A couple of workers climbed past them down the ladder, and they had to shift positions.

He said, "You can trade for fuel on the hot market. Bargain for credit terms. Use your wits, Qi. This isn't over."

She drew her knuckle along his whiskery jawline, and her ink black eyes glistened. With a look of pure anguish, she pointed up the ladder.

"Right," he nodded. The airlock would be above. He stood and steadied himself against the wall. His left leg had gone numb, and he stomped his foot to get the circulation going. "Let's do this."

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