The pain behind Kim-Do's eyes took several hours to fade. The effort to maintain the "perceptual veil" had emptied it in a way that no physical training could have matched. It was a fatigue of the soul, a wear and tear of the will itself. Joon watched him closely, administering concentrated nutrients and forcing him to perform forced rest cycles interspersed with meditations to "recalibrate his neural impulses," as he put it.
Meanwhile, Joon was frantically tapping on his interfaces. The main screen now displayed a three-dimensional map of the system network, a sparkling maze of data lines and light nodes.
"Our isolation is temporary," Joon explained without looking away. "The system is like an immune system. He registered a threat that he could not identify. It will now proceed by successive tests, sending increasingly aggressive probes until it finds a fault in your veil. We need to broaden our scope before that happens."
Kim-Do swallowed a tasteless bite of his ration. "You talked about another regulator."
"Yes. Her call sign is Lyra. "Joon zoomed in on a pale blue dot that pulsated weakly at the periphery of the map, far from their current position." She manages a low-priority residential area. Few active experiences. Lots of subjects under passive observation."
"Why her?"
"Because his reports have changed," Joon replied, displaying a series of text windows. "They have become... philosophical. She questions the usefulness of monitoring lives that she considers "statistically insignificant." She notes unnecessary details: how a subject caresses her cat, children's laughter in a park. These are signs of... emotional contamination. Awakening."
Contamination. The word shocked Kim-Do. So for the system, human emotions were a disease?
"How do we contact her?" he asked.
"We can't use official channels. The system would monitor our exchange. We need to go to his area and make a face-to-face connection. It's risky. Getting out of the veil, even briefly, will expose us."
The plan was simple in its madness: moving through the sewers and ducts until it was vertical to the Lyra area, and then Kim-Do would have to project her conscience to build a bridge with her, long enough to convince her to join them.
The journey was a nightmarish ordeal. They progressed through the damp darkness, guided only by Joon's lamp and the mind map he seemed to have of the network. Kim-Do constantly felt the stifling presence of the system above their heads, a muted mental pressure that intensified as they moved away from the relative safety of the Machine Room. His veil held, but he had to constantly strengthen it, like carrying an ever-heavier burden.
After what seemed like an eternity, Joon raised his hand. Lyra operates from a surveillance node in a technical room in the basement of an apartment building just above us."
Kim-Do looked up at the oozing concrete ceiling. "Now?"
"Now. I'm going to keep the veil as high as possible. You're going to have to break through briefly to touch her. Be quick. Be convincing."
Kim-Do sat down with his back against the cold wall. He closed his eyes, letting the purring of the waiters and the lapping of the water move away. He concentrated, broadening his perception beyond the veil. The world above him exploded into a kaleidoscope of consciousness. Hundreds of ordinary lives, dreams, anxieties, mundane joys. It was stunning. He made his way through this noise, looking for a particular signature, cold and structured like Joon's, but with a different nuance, an underlying melancholy.
He found her. Lyra. His consciousness was like a cold diamond, but through thin cracks through which a pale, curious light filtered.
He took a deep mental breath and struck.
The reaction was immediate and violent. A wall of psychic defenses rose, of a complexity and power that made it waver. It was like hitting a bunker with his mind.
Intruders. Identify yourself. Lyra's thought was sharp as a blade, devoid of any emotion.
Kim-Do, panicked, gathered all his will. He couldn't afford to fail. He projected not words, but a bunch of impressions: the image of Joon, the feel of the Machine Room, the terror of the Protocol's guardians, and most importantly, the emerging sense of freedom he felt in defying the system. He projected hope.
Lyra's defense wall shook. The blade of his consciousness retracted, not out of fear, but out of... surprise.
JOON? The thought was now tinged with disbelief. And... Anomaly. Subject A-0. YOU ARE... Fools.
WE ARE FREE, Kim-Do sent back, forging the concept with fierce intensity. Join us.
"Free" is an undefined variable. A state of error, Lyra retorted, but her argument lacked her usual conviction. The system provides order. Stability.
He provided slavery, Kim-Do insisted, drawing on Joon's memories, in his own terror of being erased. It erases what's disturbing. How he erased the real Kim-do. How He will erase you when your questions become too embarrassing.
A silence. Long and heavy. Kim-Do felt Lyra's consciousness oscillate, torn between millennia of programming and this new, terrible possibility.
"YOUR EVIDENCE?" asked Lyra at last, her thought having become a whisper.
Kim-Do knew he had only one chance. He opened his mind, showing him the stolen memory of the real Kim-Do's last moments. The agony. Terror. The feeling of being torn apart, canceled out. He showed her the clinical coldness of the system pronouncing the death warrant.
Lyra's reaction was such a violent mental shock that Kim-Do was blown away. It was horror. A pure, primitive horror that had no place in the mind of a regulator. The diamond shell cracked, and what escaped was a fear and anger as old as humanity itself.
They lied to us. Lyra's thought was no longer a blade, but a painful vibration. Everything is a lie.
"Join us," Kim-Do repeated, feeling his forces leave him. Joon's veil was weakening. The system was beginning to feel their presence. Help us stop them.
The coordinates of one place - an abandoned warehouse in another area - reached him, imprinted in his mind like a hot iron.
I'll be there, Lyra promised. But if it's a trap, I'll destroy both of you.
The connection broke.
Kim-Do collapsed forward, vomiting into the water languishing, his mind in tatters. Joon caught up with him, now standing him.
"I felt the exchange," said Joon, and his voice was strangely tender. "You succeeded."
Suddenly, the lights of Joon's lamp flickered. The perceptual veil dissipated like smoke. A silent alarm sounded in Kim-Do's mind, much more strident than any previous one.
"'
[OMÉGA ALERT: ANOMAL SIGNATURE CONFIRMED.]
[Coordinates: Locked.]
[Deployment of the CONTENTION PROTOCOL: Phase 2.]
[Intervention units: EN ROAD.] ETA: 120 seconds.
"'
They were spotted. For good this time.
"They're coming," Kim-Do gasped.
Joon gritted his teeth. "We have to reach the warehouse. This is our only chance."
They rushed into the darkness, fleeing not to hide, but to join the first recruit in their ghost army. The hunt was open, but for the first time, the hunted were no longer alone.