Neon Grave

Chapter 15 Ride the Lightning 2/2

A spiral library of coffins and suites rose above the grand hall of the Marquis hotel. Its circuitous walkways spun all the way to the top, lined with panels and interlinked by corridors. Golden light filtered and caressed the luxury, Feng Shui setting at the bottom. Even the myriad of high-tech terminals, offering lounge internet and landline conveniences, came with touchpads of polished chrome. Drake, Shannon, Valerie, and Sun entered through the sliding scanner to meet Jessica and Dexter at the front desk, trying not to make eye contact with the female clerk's obligatory smile.

Turns out, Amon had already booked their rooms. One key card for Jessica, another for Raptor, one for Shannon, and another for the ghost haunting the hotel. The rest of the team had taken up residence in a suite and were probably waiting. Dexter turned around, shadowing the girls with his wet blanket expression. He almost hid it. "Well..."

Jessica quickly hugged him and held tight. She nearly suffocated him, as a matter of fact. And when they parted, her expression was both tired and sweet. "Keep your head tomorrow, Dex. I can't carry you all the time."

"Pfft, it's gonna be fine," he said. "Watch. We have the Witch of the West on our side."

Watching him disappear into the elevator, she couldn't shake a feeling of uncertainty. Nervousness never belonged, she thought, but it was here to stay. She only had a few hours to memorize the plan. Yet the plan was there, engraved in memory but hamstrung by doubt. In truth, there was little more she could do aside from test the KoKei. Packed in its very own coffin, the SIRE deck waited underneath a plastic veil. It was sleek, the surface sheened with a synthesis of cotton and ultrasilk, and could just as well have passed for an execution chair.

Now was the time to test it, to jack in and ride the lightning to cyberspace. She spent the next hour tethering the components, such as the the crate-sized adapter. She customized the interface, to fit her preferred hotkeys, and calibrated the neural feedback. A color shift then illuminated through the length of the sophisticated instrument. On the headrest, the deck's branded grim reaper illuminated in three dimensions. Once it was fully operational, she integrated Babel.

"Time for a test run," she muttered.

"Pre-fight jitters prompt an inspection?" he joked.

"I'm not taking any chances."

"Between you and me, there's hardly such a thing."

Jessica shifted on the deck until her body was snug and aligned, but she was also vulnerable. She took her time strapping the dermadrives around her arms and legs until her skin felt like a leotard. Power on. Processors reverberated throughout the coffin, a subtle hymn of circuits. The room was a spaceship now; she was the astronaut.

"Almost there. Ready, Babel?"

"Indeed."

The simulation band gently fastened around her scalp, and the headset enveloped her eye sockets. "Beam me up."

Cool blackness. Fade in. Warped into an ethereal puzzle surrounded by light's viscosity. Color shift. The ebb and flow of information coalesced into immaterial bridges, spiraling in and every which way. Dr. Seuss in cyberspace, method disguised as madness. A sea of movement, light cast into oblong galaxies of eternal processing. Pixel beaches, coast-to-coast knowledge.

Pretty soon, she was jumping through hoops of camera footage from the Marquis, then the backend of a Boston marketing nexus, transmuting Woke Cola ads into cat videos. In a flash of transluscence, she was back in New Sumer's neon grid; She was there yet thousands of miles away. She slammed into a wall at the defunct Spearhead node.