The Complete Atopia Chronicles

27





Identity: Patricia Killiam



“WHAT THE HELL is he doing?”

Bob stopped his pacing and looked at me. He didn’t have access to Command and couldn’t see what I saw now. Jimmy was standing motionless as critical seconds slipped by. We all watched in disbelief while Kesselring roared at him again.

“Bob, I need to go,” I said without waiting to discuss, leaving behind a tiny splinter while I snapped my main subjective into Marie’s body at Command.

Everyone in the room was frozen, all except Kesselring who had crossed the room and was standing in front of Jimmy now, holding his shoulders and shaking him. Jimmy didn’t even look like he was there. I strode over and pulled Kesselring away.

“Jimmy!” I yelled, looking directly into his slack face. The window of opportunity was closing fast.

At that moment his face came back to life, his eyes flashing as he turned to look at me, but what he said next stunned the room even more.

“Power down all weapons systems immediately!” he ordered. “And shut down the propulsion systems!”

“Belay that!” I yelled back, pinning the system technicians in place with my phantoms.

Everyone else stood by hopelessly, watching the two of us. I reached into the Command network with my other phantoms and tried to gain control of the systems as he blocked them.

My mind raced. The Terra Novans had gotten to him somehow. We had ceded enormous power to Jimmy for this operation, and I now realized that perhaps we’d put all our eggs into one basket. Furiously, my mind splintered into hundreds of shards that shot straight at Jimmy’s command and control structure in the multiverse worlds spreading out from Command.

I could feel Kesselring joining me, but he hadn’t the power in these worlds that I had.

Desperately, I quickened my mind and began launching thousands and then millions of attacks and feints and counterattacks at his cyber defenses, projecting millisecond phutures as I tried to find any weaknesses to exploit. The milliseconds became seconds, the window to save Atopia was closing.

“Stop this!” I screamed at him.

“Stand down, Patricia, I’m warning you!” he yelled back.

Desperately we grappled with each other, and then everything went white in a blinding flash of pain.

As my mind reassembled itself and my senses and metasenses slowly reintegrated, one by one, the world slowly came back into focus. My ears were ringing, and I was sitting on the floor. Everyone in the room looked stunned. What the hell was that?

Jimmy was looking at me calmly. The point of no return had passed. Atopia was sitting motionless, a sitting duck, doomed.

“Do not touch anything,” said Jimmy finally. “Everything is under control.”