Blaze of Memory

CHAPTER 26

Having read the report his aide had prepared for him on the situation in Sri Lanka, Kaleb walked outside—to the very edge of the patio that stuck out over a jagged gorge—and opened the psychic pathways of his mind. But instead of entering the Net as Kaleb Krychek, Councilor and cardinal Tk, he wrapped himself in a mobile firewall that shifted endlessly, hiding his identity.

Nikita Duncan would’ve been very surprised to hear who he’d learned that little trick from. He’d monitored Sascha Duncan for some time before she defected—the NetMind had shown a decided preference for the Councilor’s daughter and he’d wanted to know why. But he hadn’t been able to get through her shields—Sascha Duncan, he thought impartially, might be the best shield technician he’d ever seen. What he’d learned from the glimpses he’d caught of her before she lost herself in the pathways of the Net had been more useful than all the things he’d learned to that point.

Now, using those shields that made him effectively invisible, he shot out through the midnight skies of the Net and toward the spreading stain he’d shown Nikita. Instead of taking the usual route, he found one of the slipstreams that fed into the pool and let it sweep him to the exact spot, much like riding a river into the sea.

He had no fear of contamination—he recognized the dead area for what it was. It held echoes of the DarkMind—the mute, hidden twin of the NetMind, created from all the rage and pain the Psy refused to feel. Part of that echo existed within Kaleb, too. It wasn’t that he was a cardinal Tk, it was that he was a very special cardinal Tk, one who’d been molded by time and circumstance into the perfect conduit. So he rode the dark rapids with impunity, even as he “spoke” to the NetMind.

The neosentience could tell him nothing about the uprising in Colombo, but sent him a cascade of images from which Kaleb filtered out a single dark thread that snaked almost directly to the anchor in that region. He hadn’t lied to Nikita—he didn’t think the recent surge in violence by Psy was responsible for this lifeless patch of the Net, but it was a factor. . . and it was starting to undermine the very foundations of the Net. That disintegration wasn’t yet an avalanche, and the increase in voluntary rehabilitations might slow it further, but sooner or later something would have to give.

When it did, this stain would spread. And wherever it went, death would follow.