C18 The virus

With a grunt and a screech of metal, Director Nathers managed to slide open the door on his own. The room beyond was an absolute wreck. Piles of cables, crystals, and portable generators were stacked up to chin height. Portable computers were linked and bypassed and sewn together in a Frankensteinian mess. Everything was covered by what appeared to be a freshly fallen layer of junk food wrappers. The only light came from a trio of floating windows in the corner.

Nathers covered his mouth to stifle the smell. “Are you dead in here?” he called out.

“Not yet, director,” Engineer Valans croaked, his amphibian-like skin pulsating as he breathed through it. “Though not for lack of trying.”

“You’d better have a good explanation for all this,” Nathers said, weaving his way between the stacks. “I can’t link to Central and the whole blasted school is in the dark.”

The Chief Engineer thoughtfully chewed on the stick in his mouth. Dozens of cables sprouted out from the crystronic plugs in his head into the surrounding piles of hardware. “The explanation is that everything is down. All of it.”

“Yes, I can see that, you stupid fly-eater. All the teachers are trapped in their classrooms; we can’t even get the doors open. Even the backups have failed.”

The windows before them flashed and sped and scrolled with terrifying speed, their light reflecting off of Valan’s large wet eyes. Slowly, the engineer opened his mouth and pulled on the stick, revealing a large pink candy drop at the end of it. “We’ve been hit by a virus, nastier than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“You’re kidding.”

Valans shook his head and licked the candy with his long tongue. “It’s been spreading for the last few days. It chewed its way through three layers of military-grade attack barriers in under an hour. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been breaking off sections to use as decoys, but the frakkin’ thing just leaped across them. I even cut the hard-lines at one point, and the thing caused a crystal hub to vibrate across from a microphone that had been left on at a terminal. It actually jumped across the broken hard-line by transmitting itself that way. I couldn’t believe it. Whoever coded this thing must have been a savant or something. I hit it with fifteen different kinds of countermeasures and it permutated itself through each cleansing. One system after another cascaded. Finally, I had no choice but to wipe the entire network before it could get outside the Academy.”

“Wipe, you mean...”

Valans nodded. “I killed the virus, but we lost everything, every system, every record. I’m working to restore from the backups, but some of them were infected and I have to check each one individually as I go. Heck, as far as I know the virus could have hard-written itself into some of the crystals, so it may manifest again as we come back on line. We may have to rebuild everything with fresh components.”

“This is a disaster,” Director Nathers groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do we know who hit us?”

“No way to tell right now. Everything is a total crapstorm.”

“Can you get me an outside line? I’ll need to call in city security to bust the kids out of their classrooms.”

Valans croaked. “That’ll take time. I need to start with the core-systems first. Right now we have no control over the Academy’s reactor or ventilation systems.”

“I see your point,” Nathers said tapping his fingers against his chest. “I’ll grab whoever I can and we’ll start breaking doors down. I want regular updates from you in the meantime.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Nathers turned to leave, but then noticed rows upon rows of white cloth tubes nailed to the walls. “Are those... socks?” he asked.

Valens nodded. “I collect them.”

Taking in another whiff of his pungent surroundings, Nathers covered his mouth and nose. “Are they... used?”

Valens turned around. “Of course, they’d lose their value if I wash them.”

The following morning, the great hall looked very different then it normally did. The halo lights above hung dark. The little cleaning robots were strewn about the floor, motionless. The only light came in from the open windows. With the scrubbers down, the air had particulates in it for the first time in the school’s history. Not enough to be gross, although the spoiling food from the kitchens was becoming noticeable, but enough that the sunlight became columns of light glowing in the dust, slanting across the hall like great spears.

The students were behaving differently as well. Unable to link with Central for the first time in years, they faced the horror of boredom. Some walked around aimlessly, tugging at their hair. Others lay down and napped on the benches, attempting to wait out the time in unconsciousness.

Tomar seemed to handle the situation better than most. Sitting on a bench beneath a purple tree, he voraciously tore into a book about art history, a subject he had always been passionate about but had been unable to study until now.

Cleylselle sat near him with an easel and canvas, trying his hand at painting for the first time ever with some supplies he had managed to find.

In fact, nearly all the boys were gathered on one side of the hall, a group of them huddled around Gerald, asking him questions and learning about the teachings of Soeck.

Up on the balcony, Trahzi stood by herself, watching Gerald with a strange look on her face.

The rest of the girls were gathered on the other side of the hall, most of them scowling at the boys for ignoring them. None of the girls scowled as hard as Cha’Rolette, who sat with her minions, grinding her teeth as she watched the boys listening to the monk.

“Hey, did you hear about that Drazerian actress?” Kamanie inquired as she applied her lipstick.

“Oh yeah, the one that links without a barrier?” Tulda said, checking her eye shadow. “She’s crazy.”

“I know, for a fee you can log on to her home site and take complete control of her body, make her do or say anything.”

“Does she need the money that much?”

“I don’t think so. I think she likes being controlled by strangers.”

“That’s a kink I could never get into. Like... ever.”

Cha’Rolette ignored them. The only sound she made was the faint grinding of her teeth.

“You know, something is different today,” Tulda observed as she twirled her hair and looked around vapidly.

“Of course it is different,” Kamanie rebutted. “Everything is broken. I can’t even watch my net shows.”

“No, it’s not that,” Tulda droned on. “It’s something else.”

“You’ve probably just got gas from the ration packets they gave us.” She shivered. “Sooo nasty. I didn’t come all the way out here to Central just to eat like a homeless person.”

“No, it’s not gas...” she trailed off. “...at least I don’t think so.” Tulda banged her fist against her sternum a couple of times, trying to see if she could tease out a burp.

“You’re so gross. No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend.”

Kamanie sat up straight as if she had just been goosed. “I know what it is,” she blurted out. “The Duchess hasn’t gotten a single courtship gift today.”

Tulda looked around. “You know, you’re right. That’s really weird. Where did all her boys go?”

“They’re all over there listening to the human,” Cha’Rolette’s voice rang out venomously as she looked on. “That Dyson kid has to be stopped.”

Kamanie looked up at Cha’Rolette with a concerned expression. “Are you gonna have him killed?”

Cha’Rolette turned to her with a hurt expression. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

“Sorry, I just... uh...”

“Do you know how expensive it is to have someone killed? You have to pay off the police, you have to pay off the judges, and you have to pay off the district attorneys. It costs a fortune.”

“Oh.”

Cha’Rolette shook her head, causing her ringlets to flop about. “I’m a businesswoman, and murder is bad for business. Much too expensive.”

“That’s the reason you are against it?” Tulda grumbled to herself.

“So what are you going to do, Madam Ssykes?”

Cha’Rolette’s eyes sparkled. “He’s publicly preaching his religious pap, so he needs to be publicly humiliated. After that, the other boys will reject what he has been teaching them.”

“How are you going to humiliate him?

Cha’Rolette smiled wickedly. “I’ll get him to fall for me. Then, once the other guys see his hypocrisy, I’ll crush him in front of everyone.”

“You sure you can do that?”

Cha’Rolette flicked her hair back in her special sultry way. “Please. There isn’t a man alive who can resist my charms.”

“That’s what I mean. Look at the way he acts. I’m not even sure he is a man.”

“Oh, he’s a man all right, and they’re all the same. Show the slightest bit of interest and I’ll have him panting for me like a tog in heat,” replied Cha’Rolette.

Cha’Rolette raised her hand. “Thuquan, Jonarl,” she ordered.

The air beside her warped as if it were made of bent glass, and then there were two heavy-set bodyguards standing alongside her.

“Yes, Duchess,” Thuquan said, his dark eyes diligently searching around for any threat.

“I want you to have some of the boys look into this Dyson guy. Find some dirt we can use.”

“And if there is no dirt?”

She gave a superior sniff. “Everyone has dirt.”

As the bodyguards phased back into invisibility, Cha’Rolette leaned forward, her glowing hair writhing about like snakes. “That boy is going to find out why no one dares to cross the Ssykes family.”