The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

No erotic intensity pushing his logic and willpower aside. Just Emily Price’s voice, steady and even.
    “Hello, Travis.”
    “Hello,” he said.
    “All appearances to the contrary, I really have no tendency toward screwing around. Let’s get right to it, shall we?”
    “Let’s,” Travis said.
    “There’s something very important coming out of the Breach, just over three minutes from now. Entity 0697. It’s critical that you be there to receive it. You alone.”
    “What is Entity 0697?”
    “You’ll see. It’s time to make your way down now, Travis. While you do that, I’ll tell you as much as I’m sanctioned to tell you.”
    Travis looked at the stairwell door, through which Paige and the others would arrive in the next minute or so. Then he went past it, to the elevator shaft, and stepped onto the inset ladder inside. Only the elevator shaft went all the way to B51.
    He descended, unhindered by the Whisper in his hand; he freed two fingers from around it to grip the rungs. The blue light settled into the rhythm of his pulse, flaring over and over on the dull walls of the shaft.
    “I’ll tell you the story of your life,” the Whisper said, “the way it would’ve gone if I hadn’t come along and started changing things. Fifteen years in prison. You get out. You do not move to Alaska. You join your brother’s software business in Minneapolis. He shows you the ropes. You learn very quickly. Programming, it turns out, is only another species of detective work, at which you’re a natural. It’s all about cause-and-effect logic, if/then reasoning, shot through a prism of creativity. Your insight greatly enhances the development of your brother’s fledgling artificial intelligence system, Whitebird. Over the years it progresses through iterative leaps, the major upgrades corresponding to the belt-color rankings of martial arts, in reference to the old eight-bit Karate games it was once tested on. First iteration, Whitebird. Second iteration, Yellowbird. Third, Greenbird. By April of 2014 your brother has put the project entirely under your control. You create Bluebird, which Sony purchases for two hundred forty million dollars. It becomes a standard bearer for video-game intelligence. Tangent takes notice of you. In October of that same year they recruit you to live at Border Town and design specialized software and hardware for them, based on the Bluebird architecture. You rise to prominence within Tangent in short order. At some point after that—here I’m limited in what exactly I can tell you—things begin to go badly.”
    “Badly how?”
    He passed B48, the numbers stenciled on the inside of the shaft doors.
    “It’s better if I don’t say any more about it,” the Whisper said, “until you see Entity 0697 for yourself.”
    The Whisper fell silent. Travis didn’t bother to question it further.
    The shaft brightened as he descended. He looked down and saw light streaming in at the bottom, illuminating the pancaked wreck of the elevator cab. The impact had blown out the shaft doors on B51. The light was shining in from the concrete corridor on that level. The elevator had compressed so much that it only blocked the bottom half of the opening. There would be room to slide through easily.
    Travis reached the rung above the elevator. The roof was bent and canted to the side but looked sturdy enough. He stepped onto it, and a moment later he was in the corridor, staring toward the dark shell that enclosed the Breach. Around his feet, blood soaked the concrete, pooling in every imperfection in its surface.
    “Travis?” It was Paige’s voice, coming down to him from high above. “Travis, where are you?” Her tone, confused and unnerved, made him want to answer. Made him want to call up the shaft, tell her it was all okay, he’d be right with her.
    “You need to receive it alone,” the Whisper said.
    It wasn’t forcing his mind. Only telling him. He nodded, and set off down the corridor, Paige’s voice calling again behind him, over and over.
    To the end of the corridor. To the giant black dome. To the igloo entrance, and through its glass door.
    The Breach waited in its little soundproof cage. Purple and blue, its depth receding to a vanishing point.
    He could already see the entity coming. A shape against the dazzle of the tunnel’s colored light. Something white, and nearly weightless, wafting along the passageway like a feather through an air duct. But it wasn’t a feather.