The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [197]
Success! The VR visor tilted sideways, giving her a partial view of the low, round corridor, some of the consoles, and the couch in front. As if this were a signal a circular emblem began to blink in the lower right of her field of vision and sound came through. She found that if she stared at the emblem for more than three seconds an opaque menu of options appeared. As she experimented, she listened in to the commotion going on along the corridor. She could hear Corazon Talavera shrieking at some unfortunate underlings, ordering them to ‘hunt down and obliterate the intruders’, which had to be Reski Emantes’s decoys.
Anything that upsets that prize bitch has to be a good thing, she thought.
Mastering the implant’s op-system was straightforward and she quickly came up with a list of the high-level connections that were open to her, or rather to the AI she had supplanted.
Power Usage Aggregate Monitor
Communications Net
Security Overwatch
Biophysical Aggregate Monitor
Chemo-Cortico Aggregate Monitor
Target and Guidance
Arm and Launch
The last two also offered additional options – Codeline Interface or Immersion Interface. For the last on the list she chose option 2.
Julia’s vision swam for a moment and the word ‘recalibrating’ pulsed below her POV centre a few times before the colours and shapes of a gloomy landscape appeared all around her. A memory came to her from those frantic moments before she gave up her body to escape Talavera, and she realised that this was Irenya’s personal metacosm. Dark bruised clouds loomed low overhead. Julia stood next to a dried-out stone fountain in a parched garden, several yards from a large and imposing mansion. A massive stairway flanked by stone wolves led up to a pair of iron-studded doors burdened with chains and padlocks. She considered the exterior, noting the narrow windows covered by outer shutters, the pale patches of lichen, the spreading webs of leafless, desiccated ivy. And a slender circular tower at one corner. It seemed atypical, out of keeping with the mansion’s stern, square-built aesthetic. When she reached it she discovered an open door and inside a spiral staircase which she began to climb. From outside came a rumble of thunder.
By the time Julia reached a landing halfway up a steady rain was falling – from an open, glassless window she could see water pooling in the fountain’s bowl and spreading in puddles across the ground. Ascending further, she came to the joisted underside of a floor – the staircase curved up to a door which opened easily and quietly. Inside, the tower room was bare, just floorboards and blank walls, and an open window, its double shutters swung outwards. The rain was heavier now, gusts sending sprays of it in to speckle the dusty floor around the slight figure that sat hunched there. It was Irenya.
Julia crouched beside her, one tentative hand on her shoulder, whispering her name. After a moment Irenya opened her eyes and sighed.
‘Did everything, you know? Did it all, just as they asked.’
Irenya was thin, her face gaunt, her blonde hair lank and tangled. Anguished eyes came round.
‘Yulia? Is that you?’
‘Yes – mostly.’
‘I can feel … I felt it when Thorold gave up. I could feel him slipping away.’ Grief made the lines deepen in her face. ‘Letting go … ’
Julia felt a sharp shadow of loss touch her, yet it seemed more of a dismal stoicism than genuine sorrow.
‘Irenya,’ she said. ‘I need to ask you about the arming and launch sequences … ’
‘ … just letting it go and slipping away … letting it go and … ’
‘Please Irenya, you have to help me … ’
Irenya shook her head dolefully then looked at her hands. ‘Took me off it, Yulia. Said I was losing my focus. That’s why I’m here in the tower, to keep me away from … ’ She pointed out of the window.
Julia got to her feet and went over to the casement, ignoring