3: VISIONS AND CODES

She was not afraid of falling until now.

'Merde!' Phoenix patched himself through to the dojo and said urgently, 'Aerial, can you hear me?'

'What is it?' asked Tiresias, a worried tone to his voice. He crossed the room to the setup. Phoenix cursed again in French and hammered some more keys.

'Aerial was doing one of her floating things again, and then she just dropped. I have no idea what happened to her.' The operator leaned backwards and glanced at the girl's monitor, 'She's passed out by the look of it. Mon dieu! Regardez!'

Phoenix's slip into French told Tiresias something was definitely wrong. Sphere skidded across the deck from where she was soldering two wall plates back together and swore in turn as she saw Aerial's monitor. Her readings were going crazy. Sphere made for the chairs. 'Get me in there, Tiresias.'

Tiresias followed Sphere to her chair, plugging her in. Phoenix made an entry to the dojo and threw Sphere's mind in.

The medic opened her eyes and glanced around. Nothing was amiss in the program, except...

'Oh no...'

She sprinted over to Aerial's limp form and turned her onto her back gently. She was relieved to find a pulse at her neck, and brushed some of her long hair from her face, 'Aerial... Aerial!'

Suddenly she was awake; sitting bolt upright and panting. Sphere placed a cool hand on her forehead, making her lay back again, 'Relax, little one.'

Aerial fought to stop herself from breathing so heavily. Sphere grabbed her hand, and Aerial gripped it until she had herself back under control. 'Wow...'

Sphere stood and helped her up, her arm falling about the girl's shoulders protectively. 'What happened?'

'I don't know. I just had this sharp pain in my back, and then... and then I passed out. It was weird.'

'Are you okay?'

'I think so...' Aerial broke away from Sphere's arms and stretched, bending over from the waist to touch the floor. 'Yep, I'm all right.'

'Good. What say we get out of here?' Aerial nodded gratefully. Sphere tilted her head up and called, 'Phoenix! We want to come home now!'

The dojo split vertically into eight equal segments: four shot forwards, four backwards, and the blank whiteness of the Construct dissolved into the colourful darkness behind closed eyelids. Aerial flicked her eyes open and Tiresias removed the jacks from her and Sphere. Sphere got up immediately; probably to go in search of Mimic and inform her of what had happened. Tiresias ran the fingers of his left hand along Aerial's arm until he found her hand and squeezed it gently, 'Are you all right?'

'Yes, thanks. I'm shaken, but I'm okay.' She smiled faintly.

Tiresias frowned, his dark eyes narrowing. 'What happened?' He held on to her as she stood up, keeping his hand on her upper arm. When she made no response he said, 'Something's changed about you. At the risk of sounding like a Jedi, I can sense it. Will you tell me what happened?'

Aerial glanced around. 'Can we talk in the canteen?' she asked quietly. She trusted Tiresias with what she hadn't told Sphere. Although he was three years older than her, she trusted him with her life. For his part, Tiresias felt closer to Aerial simply because when she spoke to him he could hear no trace of pity in her tone, and when she helped him out, it was friend to friend, not advantaged to disadvantaged.

Seated in the quiet dining room, on opposite sides of the bench, Aerial began to explain. She felt the ship lurch and begin moving again. Tiresias' head was facing down towards the table, but she knew he was listening. He rarely did anything else.

'I did a wall run, and pushed off into the air. I was floating, seeing how long I could defy gravity, when something pierced my back. It hurt, like when you stab yourself with a needle right under your nail.

'And... then I had this vision. It was as though I was a bird, but instead of flying I was falling, falling as fast as a shooting star, and the pain was still there in my spine and my neck, like a burn. Long grass came rushing up towards me, and then I must have passed out, 'cos I don't remember anything else until Sphere brought me round.'

'That is weird,' commented the assistant operator. He raised his head and rubbed his face with his hands, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them. He paused as he thought, his analytical mind running through all the possibilities. Eventually he shrugged and smiled wryly, 'Maybe you can ask the Oracle when we go.'

'What?' Aerial was surprised. 'Who's going to the Oracle?'

'Me and you. Mimic doesn't want to tell anyone else, mainly because Genius will flip his lid. He's convinced it's him; I don't know if you noticed.' Aerial shook her head. Tiresias' perception of the world around him was frightening sometimes. In response to this thought, Tiresias smiled more warmly, 'I overheard him bragging to Vriha,' he explained. Aerial grinned.

Unexpectedly, Genius stuck his head around the door, 'Aerial, Mimic wants to talk to you.' He disappeared again. Aerial stood up to leave, a rush of foreboding installing itself in her stomach.

'Do you want me to come with you?' her best friend asked softly, getting to his feet.

'Yeah... that'd be nice.'

Falcon had lain still on what resembled an operating table for little short of three hours. He had been ordered to spread his wings, and, lying on his back, he was becoming very bored. He'd already counted the holes in the ceiling panels and picked out the sounds of every individual person in the restaurant a couple of... doors away. The four tubes attached to each wing would be still for long periods, and then all of a sudden, one would flash brightly as a code was extracted.

Finally he was told to get up. A white clothed Doctor program removed the tubes connected to his wings: a painless process because there were no nerves in the navy coloured feathers.

The Doctor who had been monitoring the extraction process came towards him, holding an ordinary syringe. The barrel glowed fluorescent green. Falcon peeled back his sleeve and revealed his arm, excited about the abilities he was to receive. Splitting himself in two would be interesting, and the best thing about going invisible would be that his body would then heal itself. He really would be unbeatable.

The program plunged the needle into the vein at Falcon's elbow, and he choked down a scream. Through the scarlet pain, he was certain that the Doctor had been this brutal on purpose. Purple spots flared around the edges of his vision. He seemed to be taking forever to inject the bloody stuff as well.

It might have been some comfort to Falcon to know that the ghosts on the other side of the wall were going through a similar experience, in duplicate. However, he wasn't aware of this.

The Twins went even paler than usual as they received the bird program's super-sight and hearing via hypodermic needle. 'This had better be worth it,' gritted Two, permitting himself to flinch behind his sunglasses.

'It better had be,' agreed One, glaring at the Doctor administering the codes. She smiled dryly at him and withdrew the needle. A bead of blood appeared on the program's stark white skin, and the Doctor program returned and swabbed the wound roughly with a pad of cotton wool. She darted backwards and nearly knocked over a trolley of surgical implements as the ghost went insubstantial, healing itself, and then reappearing. Two had done the same thing, only without shocking the older Doctor so much.

Falcon exited his treatment room at the same time as the Twins appeared in the corridor, clamping a cotton pad to his elbow. The ghosts smirked. 'Pity it doesn't heal itself,' commented one of them. Falcon, stung by the insult, concentrated.

He felt something sweep through him, and suddenly he had ceased to be composed of normal atoms. He looked down at himself and laughed soundlessly. The tiny puncture wound at his elbow had vanished, knitted together by the absence-of-molecules that was his body. He let the feeling go, and his form reverted to "normality" again. The ghosts had obviously been quick to forget that there was another side to the bargain that gave them Falcon's abilities. He returned his gaze to the Twins to see them scowling, and he knew he had made rivals for life. Without another word to him, they spun on their heels in perfect unison and stalked down the corridor back to the restaurant.

'Stuck up bastards,' muttered Falcon, turning and striding the other way.

'We heard that,' came the response. Falcon had been just as quick to forget that the code merging had been an exchange, rather than an act of favour. He noted the proud streak in both himself and the Twins with interest.

'Ah, mon faucon! 'Ow did it go?' The Merovingian appeared around the corner, spreading his arms.

' "Ow" is about the right word,' said Falcon icily.

His employer shrugged. 'But you 'ave ze skills, right?'

'Yep. I'm all set.'

'Bien, bien. Come wiz me to my office, and I will tell you about your first littal errand for me.'

'My God! Look!'