Master wu, p.8
Master Wu, page 8
“Bump your VID to mine,” he said. “We must get together so we can thank you properly for helping us get out of there. I have some information you might be interested in. Omega information,” he added in a quiet tone.
Both Thurston and Jayne bumped his VID and their shuttle disappeared from the PUT stop.
“Well, that was a bust,” complained Jayne when they settled into the empty shuttle. “I never got to speak to anyone except those two before all hell broke loose. I heard of the T-Rex a few years ago, but I didn’t think they were still a threat.”
“A few years ago? You were dead for at least three years before I resurrected you in this perfect body. You have not even thanked me for all I have done for you. I, at the very least, deserve a thank-you. I am surprised that you have even heard of this cult. Paying attention to local news is not your forté.”
Jayne suddenly realized that she knew about T-Rex because Jayne was mistaken for one by a couple of city security men who had tried to capture her after the murders of two Sentinel operatives. They thought she was a member of this cult. She needed to be more careful when she let her knowledge creep into conversations. She made a mental note to cross-check with Winter’s memories before she spoke. The shuttle continued to the underground.
“I spent some time updating myself on those three missing years.” She turned to look out the window. “I wonder what information Michelson has regarding the Omega Group.”
“Probably nothing I don’t already know. He tends to think he is the first to know. I regret letting him use my transfer tech. It was not perfected when I gave it to him. I only allowed him to save one person, and I guess he chose to save his wife. I am surprised that it worked. I am sure he wants to get himself a new young body, and that is why he suggested he had some important information. He wants me to owe him a favor.”
“You mean OUR transfer tech,” interjected Jayne.
Thurston turned slowly and stared at her.
Jayne thought she had just made a wrong assumption and scrabbled through all Winter’s memories. It was obvious that Winter had been instrumental in the development of the process by which the mental transfers had been affected. At least Winter had thought she was, so Jayne stared back defiantly. “All the tech in the world would have been useless without my research.”
Thurston’s demeanor suddenly changed. He leaned forward in the cramped shuttle until he was just a few centimeters from Jayne’s face and hissed, “There are thousands of neuroscientists who could have provided me with the required research. Don’t think you are not replaceable.”
“That is bullshit, and you know it. You could never replace me.”
Thurston leaned closer. “I don’t know who you are anymore. Ever since you got this new body, you have been behaving differently. You have been treating me like one of your servants and not the lover I used to be.”
“Don’t be such a baby. We have not been lovers for decades,” responded Jayne harshly after a quick check-in with Winter’s memories.
“Only because our bodies were old and decrepit. I promised myself I would never be in an old broken-down body ever again. We were going to continue where we left off once we both were young again, just like we are now.”
“I never promised that. I never even suggested that. It was just one of your fantasies. I am never going to be with you again, so get over it,” said Jayne as if she were a psychiatrist talking to a patient overstepping his bounds.
“We will see about that,” yelled Thurston and he sat back, grabbed the hilt of his cane, and pulled out the concealed blade. He tucked it decisively under Jayne’s chin. A macabre grin filled his face. “Take… off… your… clothes,” he said, enunciating each word separately with a poke of the blade into the skin of her neck.
Jayne froze. Her mind raced. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said and reached up and pressed the back of her hand to the blade and tried to push it aside.
Thurston simply pressed it further into her skin.
“You’re hurting me.”
Thurston rotated the blade in his hand. “I saw your new body nearly naked before you were in it, but now I want to see you. I want to touch you,” he almost whispered. Suddenly he shouted at her, “Take off your fracking clothes. Now!” and punctuated his order with additional pressure on the blade.
Jayne winced.
She felt a warm trickle of blood run down her neck. She reached up and began to undo the fasteners on her steampunk costume. The faux corset opened up exposing the white blouse underneath. The blouse was already stained with blood where it ran down her neck.
“Take the corset off and give it to me.”
Jayne shrugged out of the leather corset. The action forced the blade away from her skin. She held out the corset. He took it from her and brought it to his face and breathed in its scent while the point of the blade moved between her breasts to the top button on her blouse. He flicked the point, and the top button flew off. He ran the edge of the blade down her breastbone with enough pressure to push the underlying blood aside, making a white mark that quickly turned red as the blood rushed back. “You used to like this kind of play.”
Jayne glanced at the passing landscape. Her mind flooded with sadistic images from the memories that did not belong to her. She was searching for a way out. She had to get out of the shuttle before it cued up for the tube. There would be no escape once they were traveling in the underground doing Mach-5.
She smirked. “As I recall, it was you that liked this kind of stuff,” she cooed as she smeared her index finger with the blood on her neck, stuck it into her mouth and sucked it. She saw the blade withdraw from her chest, waver over her naked stomach and point at her crotch.
“Take those off next,” he ordered.
Jayne reached out and undid the large leather belt that held her costume weapon and her VID and, at the same time, she felt the shuttle slowly come to a stop. It was late evening, and the sky was graying to black. The outside lighting was an eerie pink. The shuttle exit doors would only engage when it was at a complete stop. She held up the belt with one hand while the other slipped behind her back and touched the button that would release the door locks. Thurston sensed something, for he raised his blade and tapped the edge on the dangling belt just above the pouch that held her VID. Jayne saw her chance. She quickly yanked the belt up, catching the blade on the extruding latch of the pouch and jerking it up to point at the ceiling of the shuttle. At the same time, she pushed the exit button and rolled out of the shuttle. She scrabbled up on the nearby platform a meter above and stood staring at a startled Thurston, still sitting with his blade pointing upward.
“Frack you, William. You perverted, bastard,” spat Jayne, knowing it was Jayne speaking and not Winter but, at that moment, she did not care.
“Oh, for frack sake, Winter, get back in. I was just teasing.”
Jayne touched the cut on her neck. “I don’t call this teasing.”
“That was an accident. Now get back in. We are only a couple of cars away from entering the tube.”
Jayne turned and looked around. This was not the place to be unless you were inside a shuttle. Only emergency personnel were allowed out on the platform. “This really hurt,” she whined and pressed her hand down on the wound in her neck. “Help me get down.” Thurston shuffled over in the shuttle, still holding the blade.
“Put that thing away. I don’t want you sticking me again.”
“I told you it was an accident,” he responded as he slipped the blade back inside the cane and set it down. He reached up to take her hand.
“Help me down. I can’t take the pressure off this cut. Get out and help me down.”
Thurston stepped out of the shuttle, reached up to Jayne’s extended hand and helped her down and into the open shuttle door. Jayne winced with a pain she no longer felt. She was concentrating on what she would do next. She lay down on the seat, turned over on her back and drew her legs up to her chest. Just as Thurston’s head and chest entered the shuttle Jayne kicked her legs out straight. Her feet caught Thurston in the head and shoulders with a hard blow. He flew backward.
“Frack you, Thurston.” Jayne sat up and closed and locked the door, leaving him stranded outside the shuttle.
“Winter, you are making a big deal out of nothing. You did much worse to me. Now let me in,” he said and reached out for the door. Almost on cue, the shuttle started to move.
Jayne shrugged her shoulders and held up both her hands in mock supplication and shouted at the closed window, “Hey, Thurston, I am not the Winter Bancroft I used to be. I am a new and improved version.”
She heard him yell back, “This is not over. You owe me, you fracking bitch. I plan to collect.” The sound of his tirade faded as he disappeared from view.
The shuttle slipped into the tube, leaving one very angry Dr. William Thurston behind.
CHAPTER 10
New Plans
The Sentinels were part of the fixer class. If a historical comparison was to be made, all members of this class were akin to a powerful labor union of the late 20th century. There were differences. They did not fight for wages. All fixer wages were decided by a government committee consisting of a majority of the same class. They did fight for working conditions, especially the safety of all fixers, no matter where they were working. There was seldom any conflict with the government. fixers were crucial to the success of all the projects focused on the saving of the human race. Sentinels were covert and necessarily so. They worked parallel to the World Police system. Their job was to ensure that complex projects like the Biome Project and the Probe Project were never compromised. They fought against the forces that wished to use, disrupt, destroy or otherwise compromise these projects. That included some fanatical groups—both religious and not—illegal cartels like the Consortium, and those that wanted to compromise government projects to ensure the success of their private interests. In Sentinel circles, this last group was commonly referred to as the Forevers.
Jayne spent the next three days expecting to hear from Thurston, but he did not attempt to contact her. Her new office became her place of refuge. She overhauled the mansion’s security to ensure Thurston could not get near her without advance warning. Once that was accomplished, she explored the financial state she found herself in. It appeared Thurston had kept all of Winter’s estate in good order in anticipation of her return. He had even altered Winter’s death date to coincide with the creation of Winter’s long-lost great grandniece.
Legally, Winter Bancroft II was the owner of several financial holdings and properties, including this rather large house and grounds.
Thurston had made himself the sole beneficiary in the event of the great grandniece’s death. She would have to change that. As far as Jayne was concerned, she never wanted to see Thurston again unless she was putting him in jail where he belonged. All that was connected to Winter slowly drifted to the periphery of the room and her mind. Underhill was the only person apart from Thurston who knew of the mind transfer. Even she had stopped looking at her oddly when she did or wanted something that was not like Winter. Jayne was now in a perfect position to do real damage to the Consortium and the Forevers. There was still a lot of work to do. The first thing on her list was to protect her position and identity. That meant dealing with Thurston once and for all.
She got up from behind her desk and sat in a wingback chair in the corner. The room was dark, but Jayne knew it was midday. Darkness was better than the light of day. It gave her purpose a sense of reality. What she had to do was better done in the dark, away from prying eyes. In reality, it made no difference, but Jayne preferred the darkness. It subdued the sharp edges of some of the actions she knew she needed to take.
To capture Thurston, she would have to set a trap and that would require help. She needed to contact Rose and Spike. Communication without encryption was just too dangerous. The odds were high that it would be intercepted. She had no entangled chips. The only options she had were physically traveling to wherever or using her abilities. Her abilities might be detected by Thurston. She knew he would be angry and on alert after their last encounter in the shuttle.
A plan was forming in her mind. She realized that it did not matter if Thurston knew she was contacting someone. All he could detect was an energy surge unless she was looking in on him. He knew where she was. He was hiding from her. She could not detect him because she did not know how to send a worm to a mystery place, but she could contact Rose. The Greenway Group, as she now thought of all those people who worked for her, would be a great help. Maybe, sometime in the future, they might become the Wu Group, but for now, that name did not work for her. The Sentinels were also a possibility, but they tended to treat her like a child, at least that is how she remembered being treated.
Jayne sighed at her experiences with the Sentinels. Most were not pleasant. She also looked into her possible future. Her life needed a purpose beyond running away from bad people. No more running. No more hiding. The world had not given her a choice. She had tried to choose a quiet fixer life, working on the greatest project that humankind had ever conceived. It would have been enough for her. She felt she might have contributed a lot, for she was smart and lucky. What else could a person ask from this life? But it was not to be.
She must focus on her new purpose. She must work to take down the Consortium and their ‘anything for a credits’ philosophy. They were the lifeblood of the Forevers. Without them, the Forevers would have to expose themselves to obtain what they needed to further their plans. It was then that everything could be revealed. They must be exposed and identified. Only then could they be stopped. Secrecy was their most important strength. Without it, they would crumble to dust.
Once Thurston was dealt with, the Consortium would be her next target. With them gone, the flow of bodies and body parts would stop. She must work quickly. With the possibility that Biome 13 was storing human embryos and planning to raise children to an age where they could be taken over, the Consortium might soon become superfluous. The biome would be filled with ancient minds walking around inside fresh new biology. The whole business was Machiavellian.
So the decision was made. Track the Forevers but endeavor to destroy the Consortium and all that it stood for. Not an easy task, given that it existed like a virus that was constantly evolving. It could only be eradicated if every single cell was destroyed. Nothing could be left behind. How do you eradicate a virus? First, you understand the purpose of every molecule, develop a serum, and finally inoculate the host.
Thurston was first. He could detect the energy spikes her mind produced when she pushed out a bubble or a worm or used her mind to force distant entanglements. That was how she would catch him! She must entice him to come to her. Jayne snuggled down in the chair and thought of Rose. She breathed slowly and pushed. The bubble encased her, and she found Rose in the infinite matrix of space-time. Jayne found her mind’s eye looking at Rose as if she were seated opposite her at the breakfast table in a faraway cafeteria. Rose startled.
“Jayne?”
Jayne thought words and knew they were forming in Rose’s head.
“I’m safe, and I need to talk to you.”
“Oh, thank all the deities,” said Rose out loud. Too loud.
Several people sitting near her turned and stared. The attention they gave her was short-lived, for they recognized who she was and realized that this behavior was typical. Not normal, just typical.
Rose lowered her voice and continued, “Where the frack are you, and when will I see you?”
“Talk in your head, and I will understand. That is where I am. I am in your head, so you might as well keep this conversation private.” Jayne sent a ‘laughing hysterically’ image. She saw Rose smile and shovel some food into her mouth.
Rose started to think the words, but her mouth was not completely disconnected. Her lips moved as she spoke. “When? Where? Soon!” “Let’s meet at a GravBall game in SoCal,” Jayne thought.
“No,” said Rose out loud and then thought, “You remember what happened the last time? Spike was kidnapped, and you were conned into taking his place.”
“Not this time. This time, I will be ready. I am sure Thurston knows I am using my mind to talk to someone. I know he can detect the energy signature. I don’t think he can track the endpoint. That is, he knows I am talking to someone, but he cannot tell who or where.”
“Is that who took you? Give me his full name and I will find out his deepest, darkest secrets.”
“You will have to check out two people: Dr. William Thurston and a kid I knew a long time ago called Ranovich 91. Never knew his full name. Never wanted to know. You will need to focus on Thurston even if he no longer exists. His mind is inside Ranovich’s body.”
“Is he one of those mind incubuses? I thought they were just fictional monsters.”
“No, he is real. Find all you can about anything he owns. I want you and Spike to meet me at the next scheduled game.”
“That arena is a big place.”
“Meet me just inside entrance…” she paused, “entrance 13. My lucky number. I will use my new persona to get us a private suite. I will let it leak. I know Thurston is angry with me. I am hoping he will want to do something nasty to me for revenge on the way I treated him the last time we were together. If he shows up, we might be able to put him back in prison. It won’t be easy; I can guarantee that.”
“I will organize a security detail. Rafferty has been bugging me about you. It seems he has a bit of a thing for you after that crazy time you guys had in the bowels of Biome 7.”
“No. No detail and definitely no Rafferty. He looks too much like the security man he is. I want just you, me, and Spike. Thurston will suspect something is up if I am too well protected. He will try to get me alone. He will try to…,” she reflected for a moment and continued, “Never mind what he might try. Let it be said that it would not be pleasant. I want him to attempt to kidnap me. He has doubts about my identity. If I am not Winter Bancroft, then I must be none other than Jayne Wu. Going to a GravBall game is something Jayne would do. If we appear vulnerable, I am hoping he will be tempted to confirm his suspicions. The three of us will look like old friends getting together to enjoy a GravBall game. If he takes the bait, we will capture him and put him where he belongs.”
