Up Against It - M. J. Locke [116]
Obyx cocked hir head at Geoff, and then offered hir hand. Geoff brushed palms. To his chagrin, his hand trembled, and afterward he had a powerful urge to rub his palm on his pant leg.
“How can I help you?” Obyx asked.
“I think I’m in trouble. I guess I didn’t program the stoprun sequence properly, and bone dancers are starting to show up all over in the sewers.”
Obyx tapped hir fingers together. “I guess you didn’t.”
Ze pinged Geoff’s waveface, and brought up a shared display, expanding it between four hands into a large cube. It was a translucent schematic of Zekeston with little flares of color scattered here and there, ranging from crimson, through various shades of red, to a dark brown. Occasionally a bright new red point flashed into existence.
“The spots of color are sightings of your bone dancers,” Obyx explained. “The brighter the color, the more recent the occurrence. The size of the flash indicates how many skeletons appeared for how long and how big they are.
“We’ve counted twenty-eight incidents so far, and they are increasing in frequency of occurrence, and in intensity, as they spread inward and upward”—Obyx gestured—“toward the assemblyworks plant in the Hub. If it reaches there, it would destroy entire batches of assembler bugs. Alas, this is all too common for bad stoprun code. Unchecked, it would eventually overwhelm assembler production. The Resource Commission people learned of this last night. You are fortunate that they have their hands full today.”
“My God.” Geoff paced in a small circle, tugging at his hair, trying not to panic. “So … can you help?”
“Of course,” Obyx said. “We couldn’t afford to wait for you to get around to noticing. We’ve already dealt with it. Our juicejockeys have injected a retroviral stoprun sequence into the assembler system. It targets your bone dancers. It will infect them and turn them off. The incidents will gradually die out over the next twelve to eighteen hours,” ze said.
Relief made Geoff’s knees weaken. He found a boulder, and sat down on it. Obyx leaned back. Ze gazed at Geoff, green eyes gleaming, jewel-like. “A trivial fix, for an experienced juicejock. Which, as you are perhaps now aware, you are not.”
“Yeah. I screwed up. I get it.” Geoff slumped, embarrassed, and angry at the criticism. But the Viridian had a point.
“What do you want in return?” he asked.
Obyx nodded: an acknowledgment of the debt. “Nothing, for now. I understand you have been involved in two different attempts—successful ones—to save Zekeston. Those acts have benefited us also. Though our offer of training remains open, if you decide to continue with your dabblings in juice-hacking. And I am obliged to warn you that if you choose not to take us up on our offer, and if by some chance you are idiotic enough to cause something like this again, we will out you as the culprit without hesitation.”
Geoff shrugged. “Vivian made that clear.”
“But,” said Obyx, “given that we have just saved you from a prison sentence, you still owe us.”
Geoff looked suspiciously at hir. “Like what?”
“Hmmm. I’m not sure yet. Something. Not too big, not too small. A goldilocks favor, shall we say? In exchange for our actions today, let us stipulate that Viridians may need a mediumish favor from you sometime. When the time comes, you will provide it without hesitation. Agreed?”
Geoff looked at Obyx a long time without speaking. He could still end up in jail if they chose to out him. But he was not willing to sign a blank check. Better to take the hit now than ransom his future to an uncertain fate. “I guess that depends on what the favor is.”
Thondu threw his head back and laughed. Obyx glanced at Thondu, and finally broke into a real smile. “Your momma gave you three stones, I give you that. Very well, we’ll agree that some sort of favor is owed, but we’ll negotiate further when the time comes.” Obyx languidly waved an oversized hand or two. “Now, if you don’t mind. Thondu?”
“Of course, Learned.