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nothing

a light on no sight

a void with the echo of a laugh, like the 2.726K background

a moment of amused illumination

nothing

everything

O

I

So it was you, all the time.

He smiled and opened his eyes, and saw Janis. She sat leaning forward on the chair by the desk, her green eyes hooded, brows drawn together, her hands on her knees. Her look held puzzlement and concern, and behind these emotions a detached, observing interest. He could smell her sweat under her scent, see where it made her blouse stick to her skin. He could see the blood behind the artificial pallor on her face.

She was absolutely beautiful. She was unbelievable. The light from the window shone in her eyes and sparkled on the tiny hairs on the backs of her hands. He could have drawn every line of her limbs under her too-formal clothes; he wanted to free her cinched waist and hold it in his own hands. Her shape, her real shape, her voice and scent – there was a place for all of them, a place in his mind pre-adapted for her. It was difficult to believe she had looked like this earlier, in the morning; but the images were there, sharp, and he hadn’t noticed.

He saw her expression change, startled, a second after his eyes opened – her lips part as if about to speak, and the unconscious shake of the head, the swift glance away and back; and her face recompose itself, the blink and check again that said, ‘No, I couldn’t possibly have seen that.’ She smiled with relief and straightened, shaking back her hair.

‘You’re down,’ she said.

Kohn nodded. He found he had come out of his foetal huddle and was sitting on the side of the bed. The comms helmet lay at his feet.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I really am back now. I thought I was, earlier, but I was still away. The juice helped. Thanks.’ He could see the reassurance, the normality, return to her expression. The hope that it was just an accidental exposure, nothing permanent…

‘How do you feel now?’ She said it with a voice that just edged over into the wrong side of casualness.

‘I’m OK,’ he said, ‘except that it wasn’t just a trip. It’s changed me. Something has changed in my mind. In my brain.’

He stood up and stalked to the window. A strip of green grass, a wall, another strip of green grass, another accommodation block. It was obvious from the shadows of the buildings that the time was about 14.30.

He turned back to her.

‘I remember everything,’ he said, watching for her reaction. There it was: the little start, the drawing back, the oh shit look. Got you, lady. You know what this is about. ‘Memory drugs, right?’

‘That might be what they’ve turned out to be,’ she said. She spread her hands. ‘I didn’t even suspect they’d affect you. Honest.’

‘So why did you come here?’

She told him. He sat down again, with his head in his hands. After a minute he looked up.

‘Fucking great,’ he said. ‘You’ve put something in my head whose military applications alone are to die for.’ He grimaced. ‘So to speak. We are both in deep shit, lady. Deep-technology shit.’

‘You don’t need to tell me that! So let’s get out of here, get to Norlonto. We’ll be safe there—’

‘Safe from Stasis, sure.’ Kohn licked his dry lips, shivered. ‘Listen to me. Something I do need to tell you. It gets worse.’

‘How?’ She sounded like she was daring him.

‘You thought I was tripping. Hah. That’s what it felt like. Then I started mainframing as well.’

‘Why?’

‘It wanted—’ he stopped. ‘I wanted – oh, shit. First there was these, you know, patterns. They came in my head, then they came on this screen. And the gun. I’d left it in intrusion mode, looking for traces of your project.’

He smiled at the annoyance on her lips.

‘SOP, I’m afraid. You’re dealin’ with a ruthless mercenary here! Anyway. Then there was a trip. Weird stuff, but what d’you expect? A virtual environment. An electric animal. A sinister old woman, who turned me into a sinister young woman, for a while. Meeting the Old Man. In my case the figure of ancient wisdom happens to be Trotsky. A life-and-death struggle with a figure