The razor was an opportunity, not a threat. As the horizon-wide blades descended he raced his biots to the end, to the plastic framing, and leapt aboard.
The razor swept down and down but then rose dizzyingly through the air before touching down again. This touchdown left Vincent able to jump free higher up Bug Man’s face, up above the water storm.
From there he was equidistant between eye and ear. There would be enemy forces in the eye, but his opponent couldn’t twitch as long as he was showering. This, too, Vincent knew. He had played this game before and he had won.
He had beaten a guy named …What was his name? The first one? He had beaten . . .
And then, up against Sailor099. No, wait, that was a different game. Not this game, that one had swords.
But he had won. And then …another.
He shook off the mental confusion. Play the game. Focus.
Vincent’s instincts told him that if he could get past Bug Man’s outer perimeter of nanobots he would have a free walk most of the way down the optic nerve. Unlike biots, nanobots were not always alert. They were machines, and when they were not being controlled or running on some program, they were as inert as toasters.
He could picture them clearly. Nanobots. No problem. Nanobots could not kill him; he was invincible.
Vincent found three nanobots waiting but off-line at the back of Bug Man’s eye. He crippled them without any effort.
A faraway voice said, “I’m going down the shower drain!” but it meant nothing to Vincent.
Neither did a male voice yelling “Sadie! Grab onto something, anything!”
Vincent knew these sounds meant something important and in some vague, distant way he even understood the words. But he did not care. That was another world. He was back in the game, down where he belonged, down where he was alive. He was a wolf, alert, nose sniffing, ears twitching, looking for prey, craving prey.
“The water stopped,” the distant voice said. “I’m—one of mine is in the drain. Aaaaarrrrggh! Damnit! I don’t know how far down I am. My other two are still okay, but one is way down south. Long walk back.”
“Get out of the drain, just make it out of there,” the male voice soothed. “This is over for you. Let Vincent handle it.”
Vincent recognized that word, that name: Vincent. He nodded, yes, let Vincent do it.
“I can do it,” Plath said.
In the macro Vincent frowned. But his attention was on the vital intersection ahead, the optic chiasm where the optic nerve connections crossed over to their opposite hemispheres. That’s where an enemy would lie in wait, the crossroads. Yeah, how often had he battled here? Hah!
Left eye, right eye, it didn’t matter, if you were headed for the deep brain you came this way. And whoever you were, whatever you were, however good you thought you were, Vincent was better.
Bring it.
And there they were, just where they should be, clinging upside down hoping to drop unexpected from above. Yes, of course, because a novice twitcher would be thinking in terms of up and down and imagining that the surface beneath his biot’s legs was the “floor” and might not see them “up” there like bats on a cave ceiling.
Vincent heard a laugh and thought it might have come from him.
The nanobots were inert, off-line. Twelve of them, each with Bug Man’s exploding head logo. Vincent felt disappointed: he wanted the game, not a cold-blooded job of destruction.
If he just kept moving he could pass by leaving no trace and be deep into wiring possibly without ever being seen. He hesitated. What was the object of the game? To destroy nanobots or to take over control of the brain?
The question confused him. That he didn’t know the answer meant something was wrong with him. He remembered game, he remembered the desire, he remembered tactics and even strategies, but things were missing, too.
There was a sound, fist pounding. Frustration. Why didn’t he remember the object of the game? He had played the game many times and always won, so he must have known the object of the game.
It was as if he could reach toward something with his hands but when his hands were close enough to touch it disappeared. It was present only as an absence. It was like something that always moved out of sight no matter how you turned your head to see it.
His biots froze in place.
He blinked his eyes and focused on a tense, drawn face in front of him. It was not a biot face; it was in that other place, one of those slow, gloomy creatures.
“I think he’s seeing me,” the face said.
“What did you do to me?” Vincent asked Plath.
“Pay attention to Bug Man,” Wilkes said, very agitated, “Dammit, don’t let him get you.”
Vincent held his breath. He had heard her and understood and all at once he was completely up in that shadow world, disoriented.
“Tell him,” Keats said.
“He may —” Wilkes said, but stopped herself. “Nah. Blue eyes is right. Tell him.”
“Vincent, we cauterized a part of your brain,” Plath said. “I feel it. I feel something missing.”
“Daisy …Daisy . . .” Wilkes sang in a low voice and laughed her heh-heh-heh laugh.
“You were damaged,” Plath said. “We …We did our best to fix you. We need you.”
“You burned a hole in my brain.”
“Yes,” Anya Violet said. He recognized her, knew her, suddenly knew the taste of her lips and the smell of her hair. “Because they’re the good guys and they needed to win.”