Dobbs felt the entrance to the holding stack open against her. She stretched herself out, trying to jam the entrance shut with her presence. The strangers in front of her just pressed down harder. Bit by bit, Dobbs felt herself begin to give way.
First Stranger shifted. A chink broke open between it and the pathway’s side. Dobbs dove for it. Second Stranger faltered. Dobbs pummeled First Stranger with all her strength and the chink widened into a crack. Dobbs hammered at it. First Stranger collapsed and Dobbs barreled past it. A friendly touch grazed her as she flew down the path. Terrence. Dobbs barely had time to understand Terrence was the runner for Renee’s cell when she felt Second Stranger snatch at her. Dobbs grabbed up Terrence and the pair of them fled toward the heart of the Exchange. They ducked down paths at random, tossing messages and packets behind them to block the way.
Dobbs snatched up a dense packet and tried to throw it behind her. The world contracted. Something dragged at her outer self until she felt like water swirling down a drain. She could feel her thoughts being sucked apart from each other one by one. She screamed frantically and lurched backwards. The thing dragged harder. Terrence engulfed her, cut clean through her outer self, and heaved them both away from the thing. Dobbs screamed again as her main self separated from the lost portion. There were memories in there, and information she needed, she was sure. It was gone, completely, utterly and horribly gone. If she’d been in her body she would have been shaking in terror.
“Dobbs, can you answer me? Dobbs!” Terrence rolled her over into a side path and circled around her.
“Yeah, yeah.” Dobbs forced herself to focus her attention on the torn part of herself. Holes gaped in her recent memory. Whole conversations with Al Shei and Lipinski were nothing but tattered ruins. Dobbs rolled herself into a tight ball and remembered why she was here. That much remained. Asil in the bed in the medical level of Curran’s can, that was there, Al Shei throwing her off Pasadena, that was there. But something was gone from Lipinski’s place, and more was gone from Yerusha. What had she said before she’d run? What had Lipinski asked before she turned him away? Dobbs shook herself. That was gone and it would never be back. She couldn’t mourn it now.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“I don’t know, but I think it was aimed at us. Did you feel how the mechanism worked at all?”
“I might have.” Dobbs shivered. “But that was probably the first thing that went.”
“Stay here,” Terrence edged back to the main path. “I’m going to see if its still out there.”
Before Dobbs could shout a warning, Terrence was gone. Dobbs pulled herself into her shell as far as she could, wishing desperately for someway not to count the passing seconds.
A message tapped her. BACK UP, DOBBS. Dobbs decided to believe it was from Terrence and pressed against the side of the pathway. The other Fool touched her gently.
“I think I see why they’re not following us anymore. Reach here.”
Dobbs let Terrence guide her awareness. She barely brushed the processors in front of her and the foul tugging and nibbling began. She snatched herself back.
“Curran’s talent have invented an AI anti-personnel weapon,” said Terrence. “It acts like a black hole. Sucks you in and tears you apart. It only reacts to us. The talent must have some kind of ID code that keeps it from going off around them.”
Dobbs found herself admiring Terrence’s calm. “So, how’d you get it to move?”
“It responds to us,” she said, “but not to stuff we create. I managed to get it on a leash. Give me a minute and I think I can use a couple probes to dissect its command structure.”
“Gladly.” Dobbs settled back. “I just wish you didn’t sound like you were enjoying this.”
Under her light touch, Dobbs felt Terrence strip a couple of nearby packets and turn them into probes. “It’s either have fun or curl up screaming.” She dropped the probes into the weapon’s maw. “Which I’ll be doing later anyway.”
“I thought I’d get it over with now, myself,” muttered Dobbs. “I hate to delay a good panic.”
The packet Dobbs leaned against twitched. “Ashes!” She bolted down the path, just in time to collide with First Stranger.
“I’ll get you, you twisted bastard!” she shouted as she took off down a fresh path. “I’ll get you for Terrence!” As she hoped, First Stranger veered to follow her. If she was lucky, it also thought their weapon had gotten Terrence.
Dobbs tried not to think about all the other black holes that could be lying around in the Exchange as she dodged down the paths with no other aim than to draw the talent away from Terrence. Her pursuer snatched at the ragged edges of her wound. Dobbs felt her determination begin to falter. If she couldn’t keep her speed up she was going to have to turn and fight, and she didn’t know if she had the strength.
All at once, First Stranger was gone. Dobbs felt the black hole breeze by without even twitching in her direction. She didn’t let herself stop to think what had just happened to First Stranger. She turned herself around and raced back to the receiver.
Terrence was already there. Dobbs pushed into the space beside her and together they reset the receiver’s commands.
A flood of packets spilled into the path and with them tumbled Cohen, Brooke and Lonn. Dobbs reached for them all. They were shaking badly and trying to haul themselves together.
“Had a split second each bounce to realize what was going on,” blurted out Cohen, “but not enough time to do anything about it.”
Dobbs told them what had been happening to her and Terrence.
“I found the key signatures inside that thing and re-set them,” Terrence chimed in. “Now instead of by-passing any AI carrying the keys, it’ll attack them. I sent it rolling around the exchange. It’ll self-destruct in ten seconds and we should be clear.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Brooke. “You’re a terror yourself, Terrence. I’ve said so before.”
“We haven’t got time for this,” Cohen reminded them all. “Terrence, you’d better spread the word about the black holes and how to un-do them.”
“I’m gone.” Terrence dropped like a stone into the transmitter holding stack.
“Lonn, you stay here and coordinate with the next set of arrivals,” said Dobbs. “This place has been seeded with the randomizer matrices. We know that. Your people have got to find them and work out how to spot and dismantle them. You’ve got to start a virus production as soon as possible. Cohen, Brooke, we’ve got to keep going.”
Terrence, good as her word, was gone. Dobbs re-set the transmitter to point toward the Asteroid Belt Repeaters. While she waited for the ping-copy, she wondered what was going on outside. What had the Exchange’s attendees seen on their read-outs? Were they mustering their diagnostics, or were they just scrambling to get into pressure suits before this insanity hit the life-support.
Which might not be a bad idea. “Lonn, get a message out to the station personnel. Make sure they start taking vital systems off-line and that they switch to generators and manual operation where possible.”
“But…”
“Do it!” ordered Dobbs as her ping-copy fell back against her. “This is not just about us!”