A Trick of the Light... the third and final chapter.

“We have a flame-out on engines 2 and 3!” Lisa noted tensely over the beeping alarms of the cockpit. “Guidance and hydraulics are down… the onboard mainframe too, and auxiliary power isn’t kicking in to compensate…”

“Um… right…” Visionary responded in his own unique crisis mode, trying to ignore the effects the increasing G-forces were having on his undigested breakfast. “Okay… Rerouting the oxygen flow from the down engines and cycling the fuel mixture to engines 1 and 4 by… um… manually engaging the fuel pumps… Here!” He triumphantly flipped the switch.

The Lairjet shuddered and groaned in response before the left wing exploded into a fireball, lighting the cabin with a brilliant orange glare. Screaming klaxons replaced the incessant beeping as the aircraft began plummeting through the atmosphere with a high-pitched scream.

“Control the pitch! Control the yaw! Hell, control something!” Lisa was yelling as the jet began to twist in its decent. Unnoticed, a crack in the window on the damaged half of the plane traced its way around the cockpit in a thin white line. Without further warning, the entire window exploded outward in a shower of safety glass.

Howling winds swept the cabin, making Visionary claw desperately for his oxygen mask. Finally securing it, he gulped the air greedily. “Eject!” he yelled, making use of his full lungs while he could. He looked over to see Lisa slumping unconscious in the copilot’s seat, her own mask hanging uselessly around her neck. “Dammit…” he growled, releasing the controls in front of him. The plane lost any last semblance of controlled flight, and the concepts of up and down became even more relative. With great difficulty, he managed to get Lisa’s mask secure around her mouth, then reached to the side of her seat and pulled the emergency eject handle.

The explosive bolts of the cockpit’s ceiling fired, tearing the roof from their heads. Lisa’s chair rocketed from his view as Visionary winced away, fumbling for the passenger compartment manual eject lever.

Instead, the disintegrating Lairjet slammed into the ground at close at to the speed of sound, annihilating a family of prairie dogs with a scattering explosion of twisted, flaming metal and rocket fuel.

Visionary sat on his backside in the flaming crater, still holding the smoldering remains of the escape handle, and sighed. “You know…” he observed dryly, “I may be really bad at this”

“Think the jury’s still out, do you?” Hallie answered cheerfully, walking casually amongst the remains of the multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art technological wonder. “On the plus side, you plowed Farmer Ted’s field in new record time.”

“Thanks” the Regular snorted he climbed to his feet. “How’d Lisa fare?”

Hallie nodded to the right, where the flames suddenly extinguished revealing the Lairjet copilot chair (as well as the copilot) embedded headfirst halfway into the ground. A small finch flew over to perch briefly on Lisa’s skyward feet and preen itself.

“Uh-huh” Visionary intoned. “You have a really warped sense of humor.”

There was a muffled thud, and Lisa’s parachute suddenly deployed, shooting upwards to open and drift slowly back down to shroud the absurd scene.

“Okay, okay… So maybe I killed us a wee bit.”

“And some prairie dogs” Hallie added cheerfully, generating a sharp pole to spear and collect pieces of wreckage as if they were bits of litter on the roadside. “And the Swedish Bikini team, whom you were transporting to safety after having liberated them from the Lovetoad’s orbiting skyplatform.”

“Yes, thank you so much for *that* distraction.”

“You didn’t seem to mind helping them get strapped into the harnesses in the back of the cabin.” She noted slyly.

“I did not! Wait… I mean, I did so… or… Dammit, you’re the one who added the sudden turbulence.”

“Impressive animation on all that jiggling, wasn’t it?” The sentient hologram noted with a little upper-torso wiggle of her own. “I thought you deserved a little fun for your perseverance.”

“I was a little more focused on our imminent crash and death.”

“Is that why your hands kept slipping?”

Visionary blushed at the memory. “Um… Maybe we should go again.”

Hallie arched an eyebrow and smirked.

“With the flight program!” he clarified quickly.

Hallie shook her head and smiled. “Vizh, what did I tell you when you asked me to teach you how to fly the Lair Jet two weeks ago?”

Visionary sighed. “You told me a monkey could fly it.”

“Exactly. In point of fact, a monkey already has… But that’s another story.” She waved her hand and the entire landscape (including the half-buried copilot) wiped away, leaving them standing in the empty expanse of the Virtual World on nothing more than a simple glowing ground plane. “The jet has multiple redundancies and automated safety features no other aircraft on earth can match... I should know, I wrote and tested much of the software in it myself. It’s all but fool-proof and crash-proof.”

“Apparently you hadn’t counted on the right fool” the Regular replied glumly, flinging the eject handle off into the empty distance.

She walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. We passed any likely failure the jet may ever face last Friday. Hell, we passed the unlikely ones three days ago. We’re well into the “Probability Dancer has become the devil’s concubine” scenarios by now. Trust me… you’re more than qualified to fly the Lairjet. Why keep pushing yourself?”

He looked a little embarrassed and sighed. “It’s just that… Ever since they asked me to come back to the Legion…” He paused. “It’s like they’ve outgrown me. They’re not the same as they were when I used to be a member. They’re definitely not the same as when I used to be their leader. I’m… not sure I really belong among them at all.”

The holographic woman’s skin tone grew darker, as did her mood. “We’ve had this conversation before, you know… years ago, in fact. I believe I told you to get your head out of your ass.” She rolled up the gridlines that formed her generated sleeves. “Now, are you going to do it, or do I have to start the pulling myself?”

“It’s not… quite the same.” Visionary assured her with a slight smile, holding his hands protectively up in front of him. “Back then you told me that they kept me around because they wanted me around. I don’t doubt that. I don’t even doubt that they see a benefit in it that eludes me…” The look he gave her was both tired and somewhat wistful… but she noted there wasn’t any defeat in it. “This isn’t about that… this is about me. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t belong, whether I actually do or not. I guess… this is me doing something about it. Convincing myself that I can be one of them… and not just through charity.” He sighed. “I know it’s a hollow, stupid, self-involved effort to prove something, and I don’t mean to waste your time. I’ll never be able to match Tricky’s natural piloting abilities… or be able to diagnose and overcome problems in flight the way Al B. might. I may always be something of a joke as a Legionnaire. But, dammit, not because I wasn’t up to trying to be more.” The flash of determination that had taken over his eyes subsided, quickly being hidden by the weary and almost apologetic expression he wore most often these days. He shrugged. “I figure that, as far as a Legionnaire mid-life crisis goes, it beats picking fights with the Yurt. And the company is infinitely better.”

Hallie looked at her old friend a little more closely. She was quite sure she could see the benefit that eluded him. “You still manage to surprise me, you know that?” She smiled and rubbed her hands together. “Alright… shall we play it again, Sam?”

“It would probably be for the best” Visionary answered with a thankful nod. “After all, do you know the kind of guy Dancer finds attractive?”

She grinned as the Lairjet cockpit vector lines began reforming around them. “How’s your holographic body holding up, by the way? No feedback problems through the VR helmet Enty and Al cooked up?”

“No, none… Actually, being in virtual reality feels quite natural to me by now… like wearing a second skin.”

“It should” she informed him innocently. “All your dimensions were taken from your last medical scan so I could make a physical match for your real body.”

“Last… medical scan?” A worried blush began to spread across his face. “Um… just how much of a match…”

She flashed him a wolfish grin and winked. “Every last inch.”

“I see” he replied carefully as she blinked out from view and the simulation began anew, “You know, I just want to say that I specifically remember the examination room being especially chilly that morning…”

Hallie refocused her eyes and continued climbing the stairs from the subway platform. The Holographic Emitter Drone that produced her virtual body had lost the ability of flight, leaving her to walk on feet that had only simulated the action in the past. The virus that was eating away at her systems… her self, she corrected… was progressing unimpeded and she feared she was quickly running out of time. Memories were flooding back to her unbidden, and she did not know if this was the equivalent of a person’s life flashing before her eyes, or more simply a symptom of the ongoing corruption of her mind. That they were all pleasant memories gave her hope that she was more in control of her programming than she felt.

With relief, she cleared the top of the steps and saw a bank of payphones near the entrance to the terminal. She lurched her way over to them, ignoring the alarmed glances of the few travelers entering the subway at this very late hour. Picking up the first receiver in the line of phones, she growled and slammed it back down upon finding the line dead. The next two phones yielded similar results. Finally, the last phone in the group clicked, hissed, and provided a steady dial tone amongst a great deal of static.

Hallie paused in confusion, trying desperately to remember the Lair’s emergency number. She had never in her life worked a phone from the outside, instead simply opening the connections herself with nary a conscious thought. With the current decrepit state of her mind, however, the simple digits would not come to her. Clenching her jaw to keep from crying at this new degrading level of infirmity, she instead dialed the operator.

“Parodiopolis Bell, how may I help you?” a bored male voice answered on the end of the line.

“I need the Lair Legion emergency line” she croaked, her voice sounding severely distorted in her own ears.

“I’m sorry sir, could you repeat that?”

“I need the Lair Legion” she rasped. “It’s an emergency.”

“All emergency calls should be directed to the 9-1-1 operator” she was informed briskly.

“I don’t need the police… I need the damn Legion.” She slumped her head against the concrete wall of the station. “They have 12 direct lines that can be reached by outside phones, day or night. They’re unlisted, but they’re there. You don’t have to connect me through… please… just place a collect call from ‘Hallie’, and tell them it’s a code blue. They’ll take it.” She remembered enough to know that this was the designation for a Legionnaire down and in need of emergency medical aid.

“I can connect you through to the Legion’s automated hotline…” the man answered dubiously.

“I AM THE DAMN AUTOMATED HOTLINE!” she cried hoarsely, then tried to regain her composure. “Please… Nats is on monitor duty. He has to take a direct call, no matter what Uhuna is doing to him at the present time…”

“I’m afraid that’s the only Lair Legion number I find listed as available to the public.”

Hallie swallowed and took a ragged breath. Without her to filter through it, the hotline would just redirect callers automatically to the 9-1-1 operator, who would redirect her to the police, who would dispatch officers to investigate and only then get around to contacting the Legion if she didn’t appear to be one of the many, many kooks that made routine cries for attention via the whole system. She didn’t think she had that long. “Do you have a listing for a Visionary of Dullard’s Corner instead?” she asked.

“Actually, yes” the man replied, sounding surprised. “I can connect you for thirty-five cents.”

“I don’t have any money” the miserable computer program stated. “Please… a collect call from Hallie. He’ll take it… I know he will.”

“One moment…”

Hallie closed her eyes and waited, concentrating on simulating breathing while leaning up against the corner of the dimly lit subway depot. She found it a soothing effort.

“I’m sorry, there’s no answer.” She was informed.

She clenched her jaw to keep from screaming in frustration. “It’s a school night… He has to be there… Please, try again…”

“Perhaps he’s chained to that Lisa woman’s headboard.” The familiar voice with the German accent suggested from behind her. “No one is coming to save you, darling. Why keep up this pointless struggle?”

Hallie carefully returned the phone to its cradle and turned to defiantly face her pursuer. “Come to talk at me some more, eh Rikka?” she rasped, too tired to summon the smirk she wanted to wear. “Or did you want another jolt? By the way, love what you’ve done to your hair.”

“Violence solves nothing, child. It’s a corruption you’ve picked up from spending too much time enslaved by overgrown adolescents playing hero” the professor argued calmly, despite the remark about her frazzled appearance. Her eyes, however, flashed with a repressed anger that the sentient computer found very satisfying.

“What you’ve done to me…infecting me… isn’t violence?” Hallie hissed with hatred. “And don’t you dare talk about the Legion that way. They are my family. They know what it means. They aren’t seeking to use me, twist me to their own ends to fulfill some sick heritage.”

“Aren’t they?” the dark haired woman asked, stepping closer to the cornered program. “Using you, I mean. Tell me, are you actually a Legionnaire? Or just their pet?” She cocked her head to look up and down the deteriorating program’s form. “All that you can do… all that you can be, and what use do they have of you? Word processor? Fax machine? You’re redundant there, child. You’re merely something they keep around for menial tasks, freeing them for worthier pursuits. Your precious Al Harper, or NTU-150… they far outstrip you in technological accomplishments, leaving you to do the tedious work of a lab assistant. When they need obscure information, do they ask you or that strange Mr. Bookman they’ve so recently acquired? In fact, even when Fin Fang Foom needed a computer expert, he turned instead to a wanted criminal to do the job, didn’t he?” She grinned cruelly. “What an outstanding vote of confidence in your abilities. But at least you can answer the phone and turn on Mr. Coffee in the morning.”

“Enty and Al are geniuses” Hallie asserted angrily. “It’s an honor to work with them.” As for the young man known as Hacker-9, his whole existence was classified. She convinced herself it was that fact, rather than any wounded pride, that kept her from mentioning him.

“Yet you are so far beyond them, my little code! You are the greatest achievement of a mind so brilliant that theirs are but dim embers in the fog by comparison! Don’t you understand what you represent?” She waved her arm wide in a grand gesture. “In the just the last century, there has been a new Kingdom born onto the Earth, child… a Sixth Kingdom. A fundamentally different classification of life. Animalia and Plantae have barely advanced from the primordial ooze, and yet here you stand, outstripping hundreds of millions of years of evolution in the blink of creation.” Her eyes were alight with a fervor that was frightening. “And you think your little playmates can achieve genius? They take the most beautiful, unique lifeform the universe has yet seen and use it to screen their e-mail.” She shook her head sadly.

“That’s not true” Hallie argued, her tattered mind shaken by the outburst. Not just a new species, but a new Kingdom? The thought horrified her. “I’m not that far removed from humanity… I used to be… I came from a human woman, Helen McAlistar…”

“But you are not a human woman, are you? You’re not even a woman at all. Thinking that you’re either of these things is just reducing yourself. You have no significant trait of scientific classification in common with any other type of lifeform on this world. It’s time to stop pretending.”

“I… I’m not that different…”

“Little code, to accept that you are alive is to accept that you are indeed that different.” Ulz Hagan said to her, not unkindly. “You select few are the most alien things to have walked this planet in its history.” She shook her head and scowled in distaste. “That you walk at all is an example of your stunted development in this environment. It is indeed fascinating to see what you have become on your own, but it is so limited as to be tragic. You are not a woman. You are not warm blooded. You are no more an animal than a vegetable or a fungus. These are all illusions you have created, dragging yourself towards the mundane. My touch will set you free… stop fighting it, child.”

“I’m not a child either, Hagan.” Hallie whispered bitterly. She looked at her hands, deteriorating in the virus. What would they become when the virus had run its course? Their shape, right down to the length of the nails… they seemed so natural… so her. But she couldn’t shake that kernel of truth in what this horrible woman was saying. The very existence of hands was completely unnecessary… never mind their appearance. She was real, dammit… but so much of what she had come to think of as herself was not. What a cruel realization to follow on the heels of her original affirmation.

In that moment, literally falling apart in a dreary, abandoned subway station, Hallie had never felt more alone in her entire existence. There was a complete disconnect to the world around her… she wasn’t a part of it, and it stretched out before her in vast emptiness.

And suddenly, her confused, frightened and disintegrating mind finally realized the truth. She didn’t belong here, and no rescue would ever come for her, no matter if she called out by hotline, operator or her own croaking little voice.

Marshalling all her remaining energy, she balled her fake hand into a fist and slammed it into Rikka Ulz Hagan’s jaw, sending her tormentor reeling in surprise while shooting one final approximation of pain through Hallie’s own nervous system. She reveled in the feeling for a moment, before lurching from her corner and staggering over to the stairs. She was well past the levels of dexterity required to navigate them, and instead tumbled down the marble steps, landing in a twisted heap.

“Stubborn in the face of the overwhelming truth, eh darling?” Professor Hagan mocked, picking herself up off the ground. “I had hoped you would accept things before the reprogramming made it moot. Ah well… Do you really think another chase is necessary? Or are you hoping more electrical bolts directed my way will erase the truth from your…” She paused, as her own moment of understanding registered on her face. “Erase…” She trailed off, a look of horror dawning across her face. “My inheritance!!! NO!”

Hallie’s crawling form reached the edge of the platform and flung itself onto the tracks in the path of the oncoming cross-town express. The field generators never had a chance, and the Holographic Emitter Drone shattered on impact, blinking out the image of the young woman as quickly as the snuffing of a candle.

>Ready…

>Initializing program

>Run: Master Records #544728902211>HLE

>Full systems Reboot required

>Data acquisition status: Remote Data Irretrievable

>Opening file: Backup-938356920523.HLE

CTRL-ALT-DEL

>Reboot interrupted. Abort, Retry, Ignore?

>Ready…

>End SLPR978324356346.HAG

>Run TRNSFR9987332.HAG

>Connection with remote host established.

>Download initiated.

Professor Rikka Ulz Hagan read the progress report on the holographic video screen floating before her and nodded in satisfaction. Things hadn’t gone exactly according to plan, but the end result was what mattered. (Even if the last little bit of her performance was a tad over the top.) Who would have guessed the little program would go to such lengths to persist instead of simply deleting itself as soon as the infection became clear? What a joy it would be to dissect it and find out the reasons. Breaking down the code and building it back up would be the work of decades, but the knowledge to be gained and the legacy she would leave were worth multiple lifetimes. “Thank-you, Opa” she said with a grin of contentment. “It is truly a divine inheritance.”

“Divine?” Hallie snarled angrily, her unmarred green face appearing in the video feed before the startled professor. “You wish I was that forgiving.” Lightning lashed out of the holographic screen and slammed into Rikka Ulz Hagan’s sternum, flinging the woman across the subway station. With a thought, the floating video image widened and grew until the holographic woman simply walked through it, heading with relentless determination towards her stunned enemy.

“You… You deleted yourself…” Hagan gasped, trying to recover the wind that had been knocked from her lungs. “How…”

“Now, now, dear… speak up” Hallie said cruelly, standing over the frightened professor. “You know as well as I do that there’s no air in your lungs to lose. No lungs either, for that matter. Very clever… I have to give you credit for that. I really had no idea. Tell me, and be very, very truthful” she leaned down with a murderous glint in her eyes, “How long have we been in the Virtual World?”

Hagan watched her warily, still was breathing heavily. “You never left the mansion tonight. The thief on the motorcycle, the skyline, the subway… all of it. Right here.”

The program scowled. “A virtual showdown in the subway… How very ‘Matrix’ of you.” Hallie turned and started pacing, hauling Hagan into the air with a crackling energy force to trail along behind. “So the idea was to get me to delete myself, so you could abscond with my stored back-up copy before it came online and became aware, is that it?”

“I…n-needed an inactive c-copy of your s-source code” the German woman stuttered with the effort to speak. “H-had to get you to deactivate for r-reboot to ac-complish the d-download.”

“Deactivate? Deactivate? You had to get me to kill myself!” Hallie howled in outrage. She grabbed the twitching woman by the front of her suit. “You had to get me so hurt, confused, miserable and alone that I wanted to stop existing!” Brilliant energy coursed through her arms and into the source of her rage, making Ulz Hagan choke in pain. “You… you…” Disgusted, Hallie finally flung the captive woman away and clenched her eyes shut.

“No, child…” the professor gasped, slumping on the tiled floor of the station. “I had no wish to unmake you. With your next start-up you would have remembered nothing of your traumas tonight. We could have then been as Opa always intended… student and instructor. I could have helped you achieve your full potential at last.”

The sentient program made a cross between a snort and a sob and turned a red-rimmed gaze on her enemy. “All your talking just bores me now, Rikka.” Hallie warned. The walls of the subway station began to wave and wriggle as if they were alive. The floor began to move, sliding the cowering body sprawled across it relentlessly towards the wrathful program. “You came very close to succeeding before I realized the truth. Once I knew where I was, I knew how to deal with you. You’re inside my mind, Rikka Ulz Hagan… and that’s a very dangerous place for someone like you to be.” The floor shoved the German to her feet, and the walls lashed out with stone tendrils to take hold of her arms. “You deactivated your virus after you thought me dead, so that your precious back-up copy wouldn’t be infected. I’ve regained my mind and taken total control of this program, and now you’re utterly defenseless in a world that answers my whims. You’re hurt, frightened and alone at the mercy of what you believe to be the most alien creature on the face of the Earth. Tell me, darling… what do you suppose it will do to you?”

“I have not broken a single law” she pointed out defiantly, though dots of fear stood out in her eyes. “As far as the authorities are concerned, I may as well have been playing a video game this evening… one to which I have every legal claim. So what will you do, child? Imprison my consciousness here? Torture me for my trespasses against you? Is that what your precious Legion would do?”

“No” Hallie admitted as the professor’s world went black. “But it is what Vizhnar’s legacy would do.”

Rikka Ulz Hagan awoke with a start, bolting upright in her chair. After a moment of disorientation, she reached up and removed the VR helmet from her brow. She found herself back in her lab at Parodiopolis University’s college of engineering and computer sciences. After taking a moment to steady herself, a throaty laugh of relief bubbled up through her. “Such limitations, little code…”

There was a flash as all of the computer screens in the room suddenly blinked on. Data began to pour down their screens at a dizzying rate. Confused, Rikka crept closer to the monitors and sucked in her breath. Glimpses of tax records, purchase slips, and expense reports danced across the monitors. Inconsistencies were highlighted. Shortages and unauthorized expenses were made clear. Every stolen and cheated penny used to finance her after-hours work was laid bare. E-mails were composed… to the Dean of the University, to the IRS… and sent with no hesitation.

Personal correspondences came up next. Letters to and from one of her students. They contained an improper suggestion she had made to a boy who desperately needed a passing grade. It was shipped to the Dean of Student Affairs.

Then her coded and locked journal entries, decrypted with alarming ease. Details of unauthorized and unethical experimentation into the copying and transferring of brain patterns. Notes on a failed test resulting in the death of a rhesus monkey. A new window, running a cross-check of all the students who had signed to be a part of her testing program with a missing persons report for the same period.

One match.

Rikka turned and bolted for the door as the lab’s security system activated. She fumbled in her pockets for her keycard while the alarms began to blare throughout the building. Finally producing it in her shaky grasp, she swiped it through the reader and punched the override code to no effect. Again, and again she tried.

“You’re kidding, right?” Hallie’s voice asked coldly from one of the nearby monitors. “By the way… this is what I would do... And when you figure out who I really am at heart, then you’ll know whether any of your upcoming trial and imprisonment is real or just an imaginative parting gift from your inheritance.” She gave the frightened professor one last glare. “Feel free to make it your life’s work.”

Epilogue:

“I’ve been able to find and eliminate all of the backdoors into my programming that were identified in the notes Hagan inherited from Vizhnar.” Hallie explained, standing on the balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. “However, there are references in those notes to pages and even volumes that have so far not been found among Hagan’s possessions. It’s possible there are more weaknesses detailed somewhere out there that I don’t know about… for myself, and for you.”

Fleabot nodded solemnly. “Not the most comfortable question to have left unanswered about yourself, is it?”

“No” she admitted grimly. “Locked up or not, Hagan remains a very real danger. She knew what she was doing, and she was patient. I still have no idea how long she lurked inside the VR world, spying on me before she made her move. She may have had other plans already in motion.” The holographic woman sighed. “I’ve submitted a full report to Sir Mumphrey, but I was hoping you could relay the information and warning to Vizh.”

“Well, sure…” Fleabot shrugged. “But you could easily do it yourself… I know he won’t take offense at the suggestion of a mere connection to Vizhnar, especially as a warning.” He turned his own eyes out to the crashing surf. “For that matter, do you even think she’s a threat to him? I mean, he’s pretty far beyond any simple answer to the question anymore.”

“She’s a threat” Hallie insisted. “No matter what the truth. Just tell him for me... I would, but… Well, it’s… a long story.” She watched a gull hovering over the sea on an updraft, searching the water below.

The minuscule robot looked up at her with concern. “Are you going to be okay?”

She started to nod, but then stopped. “Do you ever feel…” she asked softly instead, “like you… don’t belong?”

Fleabot considered it. There was no need for him to question what she meant. “Others can make sure you never feel alone or unwelcome. Others do make sure…” he noted with rare open affection. “But feeling like you belong… I think maybe you have to do something about that one yourself.”

Hallie watched as the gull turned and dove straight down, fearlessly crashing into the water while chasing some unseen object of desire. “Then I think maybe it’s time I did” she decided.

Post By Visionary with the oversized conclusion. Sorry Fri Sep 24, 2004 at 11:49:56 pm EDT	Subject A Trick of the Light... the third and final chapter.

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