"Bob, I need to go," I said without waiting to discuss, leaving behind a tiny splinter while I snapped my main subjective into Marie's body at Command.

Everyone in the room was frozen, all except Kesselring who had crossed the room and was standing in front of Jimmy now, holding his shoulders and shaking him. Jimmy didn't even look like he was there. I strode over and pulled Kesselring away.

"Jimmy!" I yelled, looking directly into his slack face. The window of opportunity was closing fast.

At that moment his face came back to life, his eyes flashing as he turned to look at me, but what he said next stunned the room even more.

"Power down all weapons systems immediately!" he ordered. "And shut down the propulsion systems!"

"Belay that!" I yelled back, pinning the system technicians in place with my phantoms.

Everyone else stood by hopelessly, watching the two of us. I reached into the Command network with my other phantoms and tried to gain control of the systems as he blocked them.

My mind raced. The Terra Novans had gotten to him somehow. We had ceded enormous power to Jimmy for this operation, and I now realized that perhaps we'd put all our eggs into one basket. Furiously, my mind splintered into hundreds of shards that shot straight at Jimmy's command and control structure in the multiverse worlds spreading out from Command.

I could feel Kesselring joining me, but he hadn't the power in these worlds that I had.

Desperately, I quickened my mind and began launching thousands and then millions of attacks and feints and counterattacks at his cyber defenses, projecting millisecond phutures as I tried to find any weaknesses to exploit. The milliseconds became seconds, the window to save Atopia was closing.

"Stop this!" I screamed at him.

"Stand down, Patricia, I'm warning you!" he yelled back.

Desperately we grappled with each other, and then everything went white in a blinding flash of pain.

As my mind rea.s.sembled itself and my senses and metasenses slowly reintegrated, one by one, the world slowly came back into focus. My ears were ringing, and I was sitting on the floor. Everyone in the room looked stunned. What the h.e.l.l was that?

Jimmy was looking at me calmly. The point of no return had pa.s.sed. Atopia was sitting motionless, a sitting duck, doomed.

"Do not touch anything," said Jimmy finally. "Everything is under control."

28.

Ident.i.ty: Bobby Baxter THE WORLD STOOD transfixed by the scene. Jimmy had begun broadcasting the scene direct from Command and into the mediaworlds at large. An audience of billions had already been tuned in to the drama of the destruction of Atopia, but not for the reason we thought.

Jimmy stood, his calm and resolute image hanging over the bewildered and powerless Patricia Killiam in the holoscreens and lens displays of the world as they watched.

"General McInnis," called out Jimmy, straightening up, "we've powered down all systems and we will sequence down our fusion core at your request. I have opened all command and control functions to you. Please acknowledge."

There was a moment of silence before General McInnis' voice responded, "G.o.dd.a.m.n boy, acknowledged. What the h.e.l.l..."

"Please General," interrupted Jimmy, "please stand down."

The General's image was now projected into Command. He just stood there, not sure what to say as he scratched his head.

"You kids sure have some explaining to do."

One by one, surprised and shocked expressions clicked through the other faces in Command, and I wondered what was happening until suddenly it happened to me too.

The storms were gone.

I spun out from Patricia's office to click into my splinters arrayed out around Atopia and it was all the same-blue skies, calm seas, the coast of America sitting serenely on the horizon.

The F35s were buzzing angrily around in the skies in tight orbits, watching us carefully as navy destroyers ringed us further out, with their weapons armed and pointing at us.

"We were just about to blow you out of existence, son," said the General after another moment.

It all became clear. As Jimmy released information, the mediaworlds began to buzz and then roar with stories. The citizens of Atopia had been infected with a group-synthesizing reality skin. While we had driven Atopia into the coast of America, in our minds trying to save ourselves from non-existent storms projected from an infected reality skin, the rest of the world had watched in puzzlement and amazement.

Atopia had at first inexplicably breached American territorial waters, and then had begun furiously shipping off nonnationals via its pa.s.senger cannon. Amid confusing and contradictory stories, Atopia had stowed and locked itself down, cut off all communications as it approached land, and then begun powering up its fearsome weapons systems. America had no choice but to prepare to defend itself.

If we'd powered up the slingshot and ma.s.s driver, America had its finger on the trigger to unleash a hailstorm of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy us, an attack that even we couldn't have repelled.

Patricia rematerialized in her office with me as I watched all this in my display s.p.a.ces. She looked grim. My anger had totally deflated.

"I guess you're right, Patricia," I said as she appeared. "What could be worse than letting billions of people die? Thank G.o.d Jimmy figured it out."

"Don't thank G.o.d," said Patricia quietly under her breath. "To be honest Bob, there may be something worse, and that's what I wanted to talk to you about, but I wasn't sure until now."

She looked at me with infinitely weary eyes.

"Bob, I need you to do something for me."

"What's that?"

"I need you to leave Atopia, as soon as they open up the surface, and take as many of your friends as you can. Take Sid, w.i.l.l.y, Brigitte, and please, take Nancy away from here."

"Why?" I asked, shocked.

I'd never even considered leaving Atopia before. It was all I'd ever known. Even the thought of leaving made my skin crawl.

"I can't explain right now, I just need you to trust me. Even I'm not sure right now. It's just a precaution."

"Give me one good reason!" I demanded. Even if I wasn't really angry anymore, my trust in her was almost completely gone.

"For one thing," she said slowly and with effort, "w.i.l.l.y's connection here through Terra Nova will almost certainly be revoked-he will be in effect exiled. Do you want him to go alone?"

I sat thinking on this for a moment. Jimmy had mentioned it, but I hadn't considered it as a real possibility.

"I have a feeling that w.i.l.l.y and Sid will be implicated in what has happened," she continued. "As soon as the surface opens I need you to get away from Atopia, and please take Nancy. I can't explain more than that for now."

Looking tired beyond comprehension, she added, "I need some time to myself. Oh, and one last thing, apologize to Vince for me-I couldn't get Kesselring to remove the system we have chasing him."

I nodded. She just looked at me sadly and then closed the connection to her office.

I snapped back into my body, down with Nancy and Sid in the dimly lit cafeteria. Robert had taken my body out of the water and we all sat together at one of the tables, everyone splintered out watching the media frenzy. Wet towels were draped around Nancy and I. They were all transfixed by the unfolding media storm.

Only Jimmy had been able to see it. The media stories began buzzing about links to Terra Nova as synthetic forensic intelligences tore backwards through the path of the virus, reverse hacking to where it had come from. Images of Jimmy, the savior, were featured on the covers of magazines and billboards, instantly appearing in millions of metaworlds. Information about the coming phuture apocalypses gained ground.

Stories began to emerge about the phuturecasts of world destruction Patricia had been hiding, how the Atopia pssi program was designed as the solution to save us, and how Terra Nova had attempted to stop this for their own profit. Stories were even circulating about the how Patricia had been hiding some of the addictive effects of pssi, but how there were ways to control it. In the middle of it all remained the image of Patricia, struggling to stop Jimmy from saving us all.

Jimmy had saved the world, and a grateful world was held spellbound.

"Patricia wants us all to leave," was all I said on my return to the gang.

Everyone turned towards me, shocked, as parts of their minds disengaged from the media frenzy to comprehend what I was saying. I left a splinter to explain what had happened while I flitted off to the surface for a walk on the beach.

I needed to clear my mind and put things in order.

29.

Ident.i.ty: Patricia Killiam "NO PUBLICITY IS bad publicity," said Kesselring, standing uncomfortably in my office, "but how on earth did you let this viral skin get past you?"

I just stared at him and took a drag from my cigarette.

"You are our chief scientist-you must understand how this looks," added Kesselring. "The blame for hiding any data regarding the trials has to come down on your shoulders."

I was the scapegoat.

Jimmy and Kesselring had pre-empted my plan to release the hidden data on the pssi program through Sintil8. By coming clean at this moment, and laying the blame on my doorstep at the same time as exposing the apocalyptic phuturecast data, they had neatly jiu-jitsued themselves into the position of saviors and simultaneously thrust the pssi program into the global mind.

"You can't buy advertising like that," I bitterly complained, "and it looks like you don't need me anymore."

I was tired beyond belief after the showdown with Jimmy. He had used some sort of pssi weapon to stun me into submission at the end, a part of the weapons program Kesselring had been hiding. I'd felt it once before, long ago when Jimmy had been exposed at Nancy's thirteenth birthday party, but he was infinitely more powerful now.

"There will always be a place for you here, Patricia."

Patronizing b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"So what's happening then?" I asked wearily.

"Jimmy had made some modifications for an override to the pssi network to stop something like this from ever happening again," said Kesselring. While I felt defeated, he looked elated. "The media attention has boosted demand for the launch with consumers by an order of magnitude. We've already begun private distribution of smarticles into business ecospheres for early adopters."

There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do anymore. I had created a monster, which I loved.

30.

Ident.i.ty: Jimmy Jones I'D STOLEN OFF to the surface to relax a little and escape the madness of the media. With all the tourists gone, n.o.body else had come above yet, and the scene at the edge of the beach was quiet.

The sun was setting through low hanging clouds on the horizon, illuminating a beautiful orange and pink sunset. I was sitting by myself under some low hanging palms. A pleasant breeze blew in off the ocean and pelicans swept in on calmly curling waves. What a beautiful way to end the day.

I sighed and felt my mind calm and focus itself. Susie really understood more about the nature of pain and suffering than anyone, and truly wanted to help. I knew she wanted to help me.

I stood, trying to decide whether to walk myself home or let Samson do it and get some work done, when Bob appeared. He was walking along the beach alone, looking slightly dazed.

"Hey Jimmy," he said as he walked up to greet me.

"Amazing. You saved my life. You saved all our lives." He shook his head. "It's crazy, but maybe you saved the whole world."

He reached out to shake my hand, smiling.

"Thanks Bob," I replied, watching his hand touch my mine.

"Wasn't Susie just up here with you?" asked Bob, looking around.

"She was," I admitted, "but she had to go somewhere."

Bob shrugged and smiled. He looked off into the sunset and surf to watch some pelicans as they used their ground effect aerodynamics to sweep in ahead of the waves, unseen forces propelling them effortlessly through s.p.a.ce.

"Hey Bob, I've got a slightly oddball question for you."

"Shoot."

"If you had to sacrifice your soul to save someone or something," I asked, "what would that be for you?"

Bob regarded me quizzically. "Well, for love, for Nancy, I guess."

I smiled. "That's nice Bob, I thought the two of you...well, anyway, that's nice to hear."

Bob smiled back.

"So, still haven't taken me up on that surfing lesson, big shot that you are now!"

"Maybe one day soon, Bob," I said, smiling at him, "maybe we'll do a lesson one day soon."

He smiled back.

"See you Bob."

I turned to walk away.