His brain had been forged into a motherfucking monster of a learning machine. He’d spent a lot of time pondering whether it was a curse or a tool. In the end, he’d given up trying to decide. It just was. Shut up and deal with it.
The analog was out of control. Ice pounded his face, made the stones slippery and his fingers stiff. His naked body convulsed on the floor, shuddering in reaction.
The analog was hijacked. He couldn’t alter it. He could only stop the dive and admit defeat—but if he did that, the analog was burned for good. Which sucked.
He tried to wrestle the imagery back to his chosen template. A few more feet, and he’d scramble to the summit and see the white-topped mountain range. The satisfaction he’d feel was the point of the exercise. The endorphin rush, that bright zing of positive reinforcement, was the reward for his concentration. Every muscle quivered with effort as he stretched . . . almost reached it . . . yes!
Crack. A jutting rock broke off. Then the overhang. He fell, with a shower of shale and dirt, sliding, and barely caught himself on a lip of stone. He hung there, shock reverberating through fingers and arms, shoulders stretched past the point of pain. Wind shrieked. The handholds were gone. The face of the rock had changed.
No way up. No way down. Bolts of lighting stabbed the mountain. Missing him. Not by much.
A climbing rope thudded against his shoulder. He peered up, squinting through the darkness and the rain to see who held it. A tall man. Narrowed eyes stared quizzically down at him. A flat mouth. Dark beard scruff.
Asa?
He jolted back to the bedroom, with a jolt of adrenaline that goosed his AVP to combat level. Asa, imbedded in his deepest, oldest analog? What the fuck?
He got to his feet, knees rubbery. The combat program data scrolled madly inside of his eyes as he pulled on jeans and a shirt. He left Caro sleeping, padding silently out of the bedroom on his bare feet.
Sisko looked up as he came down the stairs. He’d arranged the security monitors in a half-circle on the big coffee table, and was sprawled on the couch, feet on the table, tapping away at a laptop poised on his knees.
“Hey,” Sisko said. “What, you don’t trust me to stand guard anymore?”
“Can’t rest,” Noah muttered. “Tried to dive. Got ass-kicked by an imbed.”
“Should have known better than to dive right after combat, dude,” Sisko said absently. “You taught me that yourself. Did you fry your analog?”
Noah waved that away. “Never mind. What are you up to?”
“Researching your brother, among other things,” Sisko said. “Interesting guy. Got a lot going on.”
“Yeah? Illegal?”
“Some of it must be. He specializes in deepnet data mining, like I told you the other day. Auctions off targeted data. Makes flaming crap-tons of money. And plenty of enemies.”
Noah went still. “What kind of money?”
Sisko kept staring into the screen. “Half a billion, at least. I’ve been poking around in his stuff . He’s got some sweet algorithms. I was checking out a few just now, when you came down. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was a modified.”
“Huh,” Noah muttered. “Weird, for a kid who would never do his math homework or pick up his dirty socks. What kind of enemies?”
“The kind you wouldn’t want to have,” Sisko said. “There’s a price on his head. He stays on the move. It’s hard to pin down his location.”
Noah padded into the kitchen to get a beer, and then went to stretch out on a couch. He was a couple yards away from Sisko, but he could still read all the data on the screen without appearing to look.
“Data auctions, huh?” he said. “With that kind of money socked away, he must do it just to keep score.”
Sisko shot him a thoughtful glance. “You’ve got that much money,” he observed. “More, even. Are you just keeping score?”
Noah opened his beer and took a swallow. Light from the unshielded computer screen was making his eyes water, which made the combat program sputter and scroll in his inner vision, in jarring fits and starts. He rubbed his eyes, squinting. Didn’t want to put on the lenses, or the shield specs. He was so sick of them.
“That’s different,” he muttered. “I’m creating stuff that improves the quality of people’s lives. He’s just exploiting greed and vice for profit.”
Sisko’s narrow gaze met his. “Wow. Pissed at him much?”
Noah took a swallow of beer. “Why would I be? Haven’t seen him in years.”
“You’re not usually so quick to judge. Cut him some slack.”
“Doesn’t matter if I do or don’t,” Noah said. “He doesn’t give a shit.”
“Ah.” Sisko’s tone was thoughtful. “So it’s like that. After all this time.”
“What of it? Don’t preach. It’s been a long day, and I’m not in the mood.”
“I don’t make adjustments for your moods,” Sisko informed him. “I just spent hours replaying that footage of Mark’s attack on Luke. About a thousand times.”
“Insights?”