Read Online Geosynchron by David Louis Edelman - Free Book Online

disciples of Brone-there is nothing.
    Gone.
    Something has been happening to his memory ever since he arrived
in this place. It's not only the chronology of the present that's blurred
and confused, it's the past as well. Long-settled events in Natch's
mind, bedrock memories, are disappearing. He feels like he is sliding
down a tightly coiling spiral into nothingness. His accomplishments,
such as they were, have all been stripped away. His willpower has been
effectively nullified within this nine-pace radius. And now, even his
memories are slipping down into the void as well.
    A slice of light appears on the far wall, with Natch's bound silhouette framed in the middle. The door behind him is opening.
    Frederic Patel doesn't so much walk in front of Natch as he slinks,
with hunched shoulders and a furtive expression of hatred on his face.
He's clutching one or more objects to his chest, but Natch can't see
what because they're hidden in shadow. He comes closer and cocks an
ear to the domed ceiling as if listening for a pursuer. Natch can see one
of the objects Frederic's holding: it's a sword.
    A sword? Natch's mind reels. Yes, an actual Japanese katana,
smooth and sheathed and yet still deadly.

    "Awake?" says the boorish younger Patel brother in a hoarse
whisper.
    Natch says nothing, but he knows that Frederic can see his
unblinking eyes just fine.
    "Good." Frederic nods, kneeling in front of Natch and dropping
the sword onto the tile from a distance of a dozen centimeters at most.
The katana hits the tile with a soft, reverberant clang. "Would hate for
you to die in your sleep."
    And then, before Natch has time to even contemplate a response,
Frederic makes a stabbing motion with his left hand. The entrepreneur
feels a slight sting on his left forearm and catches a glimpse of a
syringe, its plunger now deployed.
    Natch glances over at the pinprick in his arm with its infinitesimal
drop of already-scabbed-over blood. He should be inured to the idea of
invasive black code flowing into his bio/logic systems by now-he is,
after all, still playing host to Thasselian black code from his attack in
Shenandoah, not to mention the mysterious program from Petrucio's
dartrifle in the Tul Jabbor Complex and Margaret Surina's MultiReal
back door. But he feels that frisson of impurity, that shiver of uncleanliness anyway. Foreign code. Unknown.
    Frederic stands, then leans down to grab the sword. He unsheathes
it and grins the grin that only sadists know.
    Natch stares at the katana, wondering where Frederic could possibly have gotten hold of such a thing. Neither Patel brother is a collector of Japanese relics, as far as he knows. The jade green pattern running around the pommel of the sword looks much too ornate for a
weapon of everyday use; not like there are samurai running around
using edged weapons anyway. But this katana is clearly a museum
piece, an expensive gift from some gracious capitalman.
    He looks at the blade and thinks, He's really going to kill me.
    It's a wholly unique sensation. For months, he's felt the undertow
of the Null Current dragging at him at every turn: a relentless force that flows beneath everything human, like groundwater, a subterranean tide that tugs and pulls at all thought and emotion, that seeps
through all the petty barricades of society without pause or consideration. It was there when Brone's minions shot him full of black code in
that alleyway in Shenandoah. It was pulling at him when he escaped
ten thousand deaths by Council dartgun at the Tul Jabbor Complex.

    But now Natch knows that his death is here, standing right in
front of him. It's an absurd death, one he could never have foreseenslain by a sword, in an anonymous dungeon, by Frederic Patel, of all
people? He knows that Frederic despises him (and the feeling is
mutual), but why the engineer should choose to decapitate him he
doesn't know. And he will likely never know the reason. There will be
no