Chapter 6

In her excitement to return to the EtherCloud, Aya had cleared her lungs as quickly as she could and jacked back in. So much could’ve happened in the few minutes she’d been coughing out all the phlegm!

Again donning a Sentinel Carapace, she returned to the surveillance partition of the Peacekeeper ServerSpace to scan for signs of Ishihara.

It’d been easy to follow the trail: the cameras lit up as dozens of users tracked the almost-naked Ishihara from his confrontation with Keiko, to his rampage through the medical unit.

To her surprise, he’d taken the Purebred, Kentaro, with him. After a few minutes, the way Ishihara touched Kentaro, it became clear why: he was attracted to the boy.

Which is why when she appeared to them through the holo-projectors, she chose the guise of a handsome young man. Ishihara had been deferential, almost obsequious, believing her to be Transcendent.

Within a virtual shell inside her Sentinel Carapace—a risky multi-tasking proposition given the limits of her perception—Ai’s search through old archives revealed that Transcendent was an old religious term for someone who’d reached a spiritual pinnacle, unbound by Life and Death.

Such superstition, yet one she’d planned to use to her advantage.

Now, though, it looked like Aya was about to lose all the trust she’d started to gain. She bowed, or rather, the Transcendent’s hologram bowed. “I can help you escape.”

“I’m not trying to escape.” Ishihara shook his head. “Not yet. I need my effects.”

Within the shell, Aya darted back to Ishihara’s file and opened it. A research team was in a high security third floor lab, examining all evidence from his fight with the Peacekeepers: a black robe, made from an extinct fiber known as hemp. A wooden staff, made from an extinct tree known as oak. And most curiously, several glowing marbles, made up of botanical compounds as well as bio-energetic radiation. Because of the latter, they’d invited a science team from the Elestrae delegation in Kyoto to come examine the spheres.

Another team was studying damage to the Peacekeepers’ light armor, as well as the remains of the Shocktrooper’s minigun. Meanwhile, correspondence between Governmental branches showed the Ministry of Defense was demanding the weapon’s return, as well as access to Ishihara.

To save Real Time, she took a snapshot of the lab and scanned past video. Aya returned to Ishihara and Ken, half-expecting to see the two locked in a passionate kiss. Of course, only a split-second had passed in real time away, and Ryu’s mouth was half open, while Kentaro frowned at her.

“—and why would you want to help me?”

Because she needed to know how cure her lung disease, the one thing which kept her from staying in the EtherCloud indefinitely. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that, since people from the Age of Greed didn’t have an altruistic cell in their bodies. “I want to tell your story. It will make us both rich.”

Ryusuke looked down to his pet, who half-shrugged, half-nodded, before turning back to her. “Just who are you? The truth, this time.”

The truth. That she was a genetic mistake. No, he wouldn’t take her seriously. “I’m a reporter with All News Network.”

“And you just appeared here?” Kentaro shook his head.

“I cover Peacekeeper affairs.”

“They wouldn’t let you use their projectors.” Kentaro waved a finger back and forth, pointing at the ceiling.

It was a time for a half-truth. “I’m a hacker, too.” One who, beyond these two’s sight, appeared as a Sentinel to the thousands of avatars and real Sentinels in the ServerSpace right now.

“Hacker?” Kentaro cocked his head, looking very much like a puppy.

“I remember those,” Ryu said. “They were able to take control of electronic devices.”

When did she start thinking of him as Ryu instead of Ishihara?

Kentaro shook his head. “There’s no such thing anymore.”

If Aya’s EtherCloud Avatar could laugh, she would. Despite her best efforts, her projection did. “Watch this.” With a few waves of her hand, she projected a new image of Ryu… no, Ishihara… and Kentaro into the hall.

Gasping, the man extended a finger, touched the image of himself, then jerked his hand back. “There’s nothing there.”

“I’ve hidden you from their cameras, and I am sending these holograms back the way you came. That will give you some time to get to the main level.”

“What about the force field?” Kentaro went to lean against the invisible barrier, just as Aya deactivated him, sending him stumbling.

Ryu— might as well think of him as Ryu— chuckled.

Face flushing hot, Kentaro pointed a finger at her projection. “How do we know you aren’t leading us into a more dangerous trap?”

Ryu nodded. “It’s hard to trust someone whose name I don’t know, and probably doesn’t look the way he appears. For all I know, you’re catfishing us.”

Whatever catfishing meant. And a name… she’d have to assign Ai to research a good name. Aya threw up the Transcendent’s hands. “You don’t have a choice, if you don’t want to be caught. You have about three minutes to reach the exit before the Ministry of Defense Shocktroopers have Kyoto Central surrounded. And you’ll still have to fight your way through anyone who can see you with their own eyes.”

“Fine.” Ryu took Ken’s hand, stirring Aya’s jealousy, and pulled him toward the maglift.

She activated the force field behind them, brought the maglift down to their level, and opened the doors. With a dubious eye, Ryu stepped in, and Kentaro followed.

“What should I call you?” Ryu asked, studying the Transcendent virile form waiting in the corridor.

“Ficus Religiosa,” she said, blurting out the first name that the AI suggested. Apparently, it was some kind of rare tree associated with enlightenment.

Ken exchanged perplexed expressions with Ryu before turning back. “What kind of name is that?”

“Bodhi,” she said a thousandth of a second after the Ai provided the common name of the tree. “You can call me Bodhi. Now, wait a second while I scout ahead.” She released her control of the projector, closed the doors, and sent the maglift up toward the main level.

For now, her lungs were holding up in the real world, and no one on in the ServerSpace suspected the Sentinel patrolling the surveillance and equipment partition was really an outsider. Commandeering the cameras, she scanned Kyoto Central’s vaulting entrance hall. Dozens of Peacekeepers in unenhanced uniforms bustled about, several watching footage of the holograms of Ryu that she’d projected into the medical wing. Six waited at the maglift, most likely on their way to reinforce their comrades. Their side arms remained holstered.

With that information, she looked back into maglift camera, where Kentaro and Ryu stood as close as lovers. One of the elder’s hands pushed on the kid’s ass, while the other pressed his belly.

If she didn’t know any better, a pit of jealousy was forming in her real body.

Maybe it was jealousy, because Ryu’s lithe, but sculpted form was nothing short of magnificent, like the Constructs she programmed beyind her Firewall.

“Better,” Ishihara said. “You need to tilt your hips forward to open up your Governing Meridian.”

Was this some kind of weird kink? Shaking the notion out of her head, Aya spoke through the maglift’s speaker. “All right. I have information for you.”

Both men startled.

Ryu’s head raked back and forth. “Where are you, Bodhi?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She transferred an image of the activity on the main level to another projector. “There are six unsuspecting Peacekeepers waiting outside the maglift doors. Another thirty-two are moving about the entrance hall.”

Ryu eyes roved over the scene, expression somewhere between amazed and calculating.

The doors slid open.

The six unarmored Peacekeepers stood there, their chatter coming to an abrupt end. They reached for their side arms, but before they could draw, Ryu was swimming among them, slapping their bellies in a mesmerizing whirlwind of palms. All six collapsed.

The Purebred boy peeked out of the maglift, but ducked back when the particle beams from several of the remaining Peacekeepers crisscrossed the hall.

None hit Ryu.

How was this even possible? With swipes of her EtherCloud hands inside her virtual Shell, Aya recreated the hall from the current camera feeds, sped up her perception to slow time to quarter speed, and set her Avatar in the simulation.

Ryu moved like torrent, never pausing as he spun through the shots as he closed the distance.

Still, all it took was one shot. Maybe she could help him.

“Ai,” Aya said, “Project me as a copy of Ryu on top of him, smooth my motions to imitate his.”

In one-trillionth of a second, Ai’s algorithms analyzed and compiled all of Ryu’s motions up to now, then hacked the hall emitters to project an image of him. It was just like how she copied Sentinels in the ServerSpace. Aya shifted her perception to his hologram and slowed to half-time.

Then, she stepped to the side.

Everyone froze, gawking at the two Ryus, the real Ryu included. Once the Peacekeepers gathered their wits, the shooting resumed. Ten of the twenty-six beams were aimed at her projection. With her perception sped up, Aya dodged with ease. The Ai smoothed the hologram’s movement so it resembled Ryu.

Though she couldn’t affect the material world directly, the distraction was all Ryu needed to neutralize the remaining Peacekeepers in a matter of moments. With all of them sprawling and groaning, the dirty little Purebred ventured out of the maglift and slunk over.

Panning out of the simulation, Aya shut down all of the hall’s cameras. Around her, in the Serverspace, Avatars scrambled to bring them back on line, but their perception was limited by humans in real time. They were probably wondering why the Sentinels weren’t trying to locate the source of the hack.

Ryu turned to the projection. “I thought only Masters of both Water and Fire Paths can create duplicates.”

“So can technology.” On a command, Aya changed her projection back to the Transcendent and grinned. “Now, you had better get out of here.”

“I need my robes and directions to Honnoji.”

Pulling her perception back, Aya scanned the ServerSpace. Accessing maps from this part of the system would be too obvious to a passing Avatar or Sentinel, and really, she was tempting fate running so many hacks for so long.

She said, “There are enough projectors between Kyoto Central and Honnoji for me to guide you there. We will need a plan to reacquire your clothes, though.”

“Come with me to Kujo.” Kentaro bent over to work a jacket off an unconscious Peacekeeper. “It’s very close, but there are fewer cameras there.”

Aya couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice. “Those are the slums.”

“I seem to remember that, even back in my time.” Ryu slipped into the jacket, which squeezed tight. Its sleeves only went down to his forearm, and left a gap between its hem and the line of his loincloth, and his legs and feet bare. It might go over well in a kink club in Gion, but not in the streets of downtown Kyoto.

Of course, it made sense that Ken, as a Purebred, would live in Kujo. And he did have a point: there were fewer cameras and patrols there.

Aya’s tether on her Avatar tugged. It was time to return to the real world to clear her lungs. “I’ve shut down all cameras between here and Kujo. I will start working on a plan to get your robes back, and find you in the slums.”

Just as she unjacked from the EtherCloud, colors flashed from Kyoto Central’s outdoor camera feed.

A team of six Peacekeepers had just let through a delegation of pointed-eared Elestrae, while blocking the advance of ten soldiers from Ministry of Defense.