aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #6

[Gary W. Olson]

                         CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
                        THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
                 (a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
                              Episode 6
                            "Symon Said"
                                 by
                            Gary W. Olson

                                 +++

     "Lights," Symonachadra Mataphouri ordered.  Soft light flooded
the room, washing over the dark colors of the weavings on the walls,
over the expensive rugs that covered the floor.  There was techware in
every free corner that Chalandra looked, along with corroded wiring,
gleaming silotech chips, and interface decks.
     "It's a different place," Chalandra said, as she looked around.
"But I remember a lot of it."
     "Many are the talents I've acquired over fifteen centuries,"
Symon said, his sharp fangs glinting as he smiled, "but orderliness
has never been one of them."  Chalandra smiled, as she considered him.
If anything, he seemed younger than when she had left him, half a
century before, even though he appeared as he always did, a male
native of India, in his late teens.
     He saw her look, and his smile grew wider.   "I, too, found it
difficult in those last days," he said.  "My pupils, however, have
done wonders for me."  Akane gave Symon a kiss on the cheek before
heading over to one of the Shodani Group workstations.
     "Pupils?" Chalandra asked.  "You told me you never had more than
one pupil at any time."
     "These are changing times," Symon said.  "Alexei!  Come in and
greet our guest!"
     A tall, rugged-looking male, who had a shock of blond hair and
looked only a little older than Symon, entered from a darkened alcove
that Chalandra presumed led to the rest of the complex.  Alexei and
Symon embraced.  Chalandra waited, politely.
     "Teacher," Alexei said, as he parted from Symon.  "It is good to
see you.  The streets have been ablaze with searchers."
     "Allow me to introduce my pupil," Symon said to Chalandra.
"Chalandra, this is Alexei Rasputin.  Alexei, this is Chalandra
Harkness."
     "He has told us much about you," Alexei said.  "I am honored by
your beauty."
     "And I, yours," Chalandra replied.  Alexei smiled at the
compliment.
     "If you will excuse me," Symon said, bowing to Chalandra.  "I
have some business to attend to.  It shall only require a few moments
of my time."  He slipped into the darkened alcove.
     Chalandra looked around for a place to sit.  There were several
black silk pillows arranged in a circle on the floor.  Chalandra took
one of those, and sighed inwardly, as she took the weight off her
legs.  She had done a considerable amount of running that evening,
enough to tax even her stamina.  Plus, the trek to this place from
where she and Akane had found Symon had been arduous, not only due to
distance, but due to the convoluted means used to get to where they
were.
     "Where are we now, anyway?" Chalandra asked, as Alexei stretched
out on the pillow next to her.  She admired his trim, muscular
contours, his careful grace.
     "Directly under the Shodani Towers," Akane said, as she powered
down her workstation and glided over to join them.  "We moved here
five years ago.  Red Sky could not get close enough to touch us, even
if they knew where we were."
     "The irony, of course," Alexei said, as Akane began massaging
Chalandra's shoulders, "is that the Red Fortress passes directly over
the Shodani Towers whenever Vedrik Temekhan has it at this latitude.
The Shodani executives have protested, of course, but to no avail.
Even they fear the Fortress."
     "I saw the Fortress on the flight here," Chalandra said, relaxing
visibly as Akane's fingers dug into her shoulder blades.  "It was the
first time I'd seen it.  It looks like a small mountain."
     "A lot of us would like to know what goes on behind its walls,"
Akane said.
     "How far have you two progressed in his teachings?" Chalandra
asked.
     "The Tantrics are slow," Alexei said.  "I have been able to
generate some feeling, with his help, but... not as much as I would
like.  I do feel an increased awareness of my inner body, however, and
sometimes...sometimes I can feel the blood move."
     "I have found that the dance brings me closer to the edge of
bliss," Akane said.  "When you saw me, early this evening, I felt a
wave crashing through my mind.  It was not physical, though... it felt
like my brain was on forced overload."
     "Ecstasy is mental," Chalandra responded.  "The overloading of
the brain's pleasure receptors.  The idea that it is a physiological
phenomenon is a breather misconception."
     "We know," Alexei said.  "Symon has told us of this, many times.
It is very difficult to grasp, however."
     "You'll have plenty of time," Chalandra said.  Symon appeared out
of the dark alcove, and stood above them.  "I believe you are
neglecting your studies," he said, quietly.
     "Please," Akane said, rising and embracing Symon.  "Can we not
share her company tonight?  You have told us so much about her..."
     "Another night, my pupil," Symon responded.  "I wish tonight to
be private, between myself and her."  Symon took Chalandra's hand as
she stood.
     She followed him willingly into the darkness, as she had almost a
century before.

                                 +++

     "Mmmmm," Chalandra hummed.  "It has been a long time since I've
had such an intense feeling."  She looked over her shoulder at Symon,
who was massaging her back.
     "I'm glad you did not forsake your disciplines," Symon told her.
His long black hair draped over her lower back, mixing with the
afterglow.  "Even as you forsook me."
     "Symon, you know why I left," Chalandra said.  "Just as you know
why I'm back."
     "Did I really terrify you so much?" Symon asked, as he stopped
his massage.
     "You took everything I ever knew about being a vampire and turned
it upside down," Chalandra said.  "The things you taught me...the
perception... the seeing... it built up until I had to escape."
     "And how do you feel now...?"
     "You *did* hear me scream earlier, right?"
     "That is not what I mean."
     "I'd rather discuss something else," Chalandra said, turning over
and looking up at Symon.  "Namely, your involvement with Vedrik
Temekhan in the making of the Bloodchip."
     Symon took a deep breath, and lay down beside her, propping his
head up with his forearm, as his other hand's fingers played with a
lock of Chalandra's long, dirtwater-blonde hair.
     "I have known Vedrik Temekhan for about two hundred years, I
suppose," he said.  "We were never really friends, I think, but we did
have the same vision."
     "Which was?" Chalandra prompted.
     "To expand consciousness," Symon said.  "To reach the next stage
of our evolutionary being.  In my view, we are reaching the point
where we, if we so choose, can guide our development, write our
evolutionary program ourselves.  In previous centuries, hallucinogenic
agents were thought to be the key.  They opened the doorway, but few
knew what to do with the complex program they discovered within.  They
dreamed angels, and tread the delicate fibers of their own nerve
systems, but could not grasp what they had found.
     "What the chemical magic of the previous centuries failed at
became the success of the cybertech revolution.  Vedrik and I cracked
the code of that most marvelous of computers, our minds, and brought
DarkNET into existence, uniting the scattered information nets of the
world into a complex, interdependent fabric.  We were able to develop
interfaces that would allow direct net-to-mind data communication.  A
group in Egypt developed perception control instruments, allowing for
the custom shaping of the illusion within cyberspace.
     "Anything is possible, in cyberspace.  There are no boundaries.
Cause and effect is suspended, an archaic law from an archaic time.
All is mind, and in cyberspace, mind is all you need."
     "Where does the Bloodchip come in?" Chalandra asked.
     "My experiences within the net convinced me that the time was
ripe to apply our technology to ourselves," Symon answered.  "The net,
for all it's wonders, is only a facade, an environment we construct as
we see fit.  True evolution means changing oneself, not one's
environment.
     "Vedrik said he had been thinking along similar lines.  By this
time, however, our differences had become more pronounced, and I was
on the verge of leaving.  His vision clashed with mine, but we agreed
to go ahead and begin development."
     "When was this?" Chalandra inquired.
     "Nearly a century ago," Symon said.  "I met you very soon
thereafter."
     "And over the fifty years that I was with you," Chalandra
continued.  "You worked with him on the chip.  And you never told me."
     "There are more aspects to my life than you can possibly
imagine," Symon told her, looking directly into her eyes.  "You were a
pupil.  You did not need to know my other activities."
     "I suppose not," Chalandra said.  "Please, continue."
     "Our work was long, and arduous," he said.  "We were charting
unknown territory, and proceeding very cautiously.  The chip had to be
programmed with a very precise sequence of genecoding instructions.  A
subject had to be prepared, to receive the wet trigger and load it's
program into a previously implanted Bloodchip Matrix, which would
manage the program, using the subject's brain itself as a program
storage and processing machine.  Finally, a few weeks ago, the program
was nearly complete.  Vedrik had completed his work on it, and all
that remained was for me to finalize my code instructions, and it
would be ready to test.
     "By that time, however, my associations with Vedrik had become
seriously strained, and I had little doubt that he intended to kill
me, once my work was completed.  That is why I refused to ascend with
him to the Fortress, as he told you he wished.  Instead, the final
transfer took place in the Red Sky tower's labs."
     "Where you got help from Fekesh and his Dying Sun to steal the
chip," Chalandra filled in.
     "I had begun my association with Fekesh decades before, soon
after he split the Dying Sun off of the Yakuza.  I needed allies
against the might of Red Sky, and with the Yakuza siding with Red Sky,
they were all that was available to me.  Similarly, they saw me as a
way to enlist the patronage of the Shodani Group, and become a true
force in Japan.
     "That day, as soon as I sent the signal that my work on the
Bloodchip was complete, they stormed the labs, killing everyone
present save myself.  Fekesh led the raid, and took the Bloodchip.  I
argued vigorously with him, that I would be the better custodian for
the chip, but he refused to hear my arguments.  And the kyuuketsuki
ninjas he had with him made more forceful protests on my part
unrealistic.
     "In truth, I had expected him to have given the chip to the
Shodani Group by now.  Yet, he has not.  I do not know why."
     "This Fekesh would seem a very difficult man to fathom,"
Chalandra replied.
     "Indeed," Symon said.  "In my fifteen centuries, I have never met
a being, turned or not, whose inner workings have so eluded me, whose
face I could not read."
     "I would like to meet this 'Fekesh'," Chalandra told him.
     "You shall," Symon replied.  "That was my business earlier this
evening, which took me away from you for a few moments.  I convinced
Fekesh to allow you to meet with him, in person."
     "Will you accompany?" Chalandra asked.
     "Yes," Symon answered.  "He insisted.  Akane and Alexei will
accompany us as well."
     "When will this meeting occur?" Chalandra inquired.
     "Tomorrow night, on the roof of the Shodani Group towers," Symon
told her.  "Fekesh will arrange for the security personnel to be
mysteriously absent."
     "Do you trust him?" Chalandra asked.
     "No," Symon said.  "But he has little to gain from holding us
prisoner, I think."  He paused, and shivered a bit.  "The sun is
beginning to rise, far above us.  It is time to sleep."
     "Hold me," Chalandra whispered.  Symon drew her into his arms,
and kissed her lips, as she drifted into sleep.  In her dream, the
machinery swallowed her up again, as blood poured from the gaping
stars in the wounded sky, and the electric blue rose dazzled her eyes.

(to be continued...)
--
Copyright (c) 1993-2010 by Gary W. Olson.  All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
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