Read Online Manifestations by David M. Henley - Free Book Online Page B

had happened, though Zach’s stream had been dismantled somehow and there was no record of his time on the Weave this evening.
     
    Mister Lizney acquired permission from Bronwyn Zucker and the two guardians before accessing her stream, as was proper with juniors. He watched as Zach led her through orientation and then took her to a dance visualisation in the fabula. It was there that something appeared and Zach ejected her.
     
    ‘Oh, my boy, what did you find?’ he asked gently. Zach pushed his head further into his chest.
     
    Something that could take a stream to pieces and stop a person from ejecting. What kind of hakka would do such a thing? And what else had the hakka done to turn the boy into such a mess?
     
    ‘May I access your stream?’ Lizney asked. Zach nodded, but Lizney had to prompt him again to make him give over permissions. There wasn’t much to see anyway. The stream was a backup from before the night’s dive and jumped straight to the town where Zach had been spat out. Those streets ... with their identical capsule housing. Lizney knew this place. He remembered its homogeneity well. Except for the image of his student punishing the body of his old avatar, the streets were empty.
     
    He sent a broadcast to Zach’s teachers letting them know what had happened and that they should let him know if they observed anything out of the ordinary, or if Zach let slip any information about what had happened to him.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    ‘Excuse me,’ the Colonel said, bumping the pilot’s arm as he clambered from the back to the front seat for a better view. The peninsula was just coming into visual range. With his enhanced eyesight, he could just make out the dark blemish that was being called the ‘beast of Busan’.
     
    Pinter looked at his pilot, Airman Quintan Crozier. The file said he was male, but he was slight and feminine, with hair coloured an unnatural bronze sitting in a high bouffant that tickled the ceiling of the squib. He was young, thirty-three — they were all going to seem young to him from now on, he reminded himself.
     
    ‘Are you a good pilot, Crozier?’ he asked.
     
    ‘Of course, sir.’
     
    ‘A good little Serviceman, or a man who can get the job done?’
     
    ‘Sir?’ The airman looked at him sideways and caught the Colonel in a half-smile.
     
    ‘Fly me in closer. I want to take a look at this thing.’
     
    ‘We are approaching the restricted area, sir.’
     
    ‘Yes. But we can get closer, can’t we?’
     
    ‘I can’t do that, sir.’
     
    ‘Don’t be modest, airman. I’ve read your file. You’re top class.’
     
    ‘Thank you, sir. Then you must also know that I have already been held back for insubordination.’
     
    ‘Twice, in fact. Yes, I read that. But it’s not insubordination if a superior tells you to do it,’ Pinter said with a grin.
     
    ‘Sir, we are scheduled to land in three minutes.’
     
    ‘Yes, but they can’t start the welcome ceremony without me, now, can they? I want to take a good look at this thing.’ He shook the pilot’s shoulder. ‘Relax. You’re following orders. I outrank everyone on the ground.’
     
    ‘Sir, yes, sir.’ Quintan smiled.
     
    ‘Call me Colonel.’
     
    Colonel, he said to himself. Until now it had been practically an honorary rank, which he hadn’t taken seriously. The last time he was an active Serviceman he had only been a Captain. How would history have been different if he had been a Colonel the last time he was thirty? Maybe the wars wouldn’t have drawn out for so long.
     
    The squib flew on towards Busan — where Busan used to be. There was now almost nothing left of the city. The hard lines of the larger structures could still be made out underneath the undulating black hills. A tendril the length of a street bulged up and swung out towards the sea; Crozier avoided it easily.
     
    ‘Can it see us?’ Pinter asked.
     
    ‘It doesn’t seem to.’
     
    ‘So, it’s blind?’
     
    ‘Hard to