Free Overclocked by K. S. Augustin Page B

di­vide but with con­straints. If they can’t find food in an ad­ja­cent cell, they starve and die. If they’re sur­roun­ded by sim­ilar cells, they also starve and die.”
    “Yeah,” she said, “some­thing like that.”
    He could feel the im­pa­tience rip­pling off her and hid his smile. “So, when I first cut the tether, I thought I had been watch­ing months of in­cred­ible growth and I made the in­cor­rect as­sump­tion that it would con­tinue at the same pace.”
    “But it slowed down in­stead?”
    “Right. The bot­net had to move in or­der to ex­pand and, as you’ve no­ticed, there isn’t much of an in­form­a­tion high­way
between
levels in this uni­verse.”
    “Just flat lay­ers, one on top of the other.”
    “Flat lay­ers,” he re­peated, nod­ding his head. “Not only did the Rhine-Temple have to ex­pand and
not
can­ni­bal­ise it­self, but it also had to cre­ate its own ver­tical ‘streets’ to go from one layer of the Blue to an­other.”
    “And that took time.”
    “Lots of time. Lots more than I had ex­pec­ted.”
    Enough time for him to come up with a plan. It wasn’t per­fect, but it was the best one he had.
    Sud­denly, his hands ached with the need to hold her. It had been so long since they’d em­braced and she had con­sumed al­most every wak­ing thought of his that hadn’t been fo­cused on how to des­troy the Rhine-Temple.
    Know­ing he was tak­ing a chance, but un­able to stop him­self, Carl moved to her chair. He saw the sur­prise and war­i­ness in her warm eyes and the flush that heated her cheekbones un­der her lus­cious tanned skin, but he con­tin­ued to draw closer.
    Ex­pect­ing a re­jec­tion, he was sur­prised when she shuffled over, giv­ing him some space on the cush­ion.
    Now what was he sup­posed to say?
    Sorry I was such a bas­tard to you, but a dec­ade and a half of al­most sol­it­ary con­fine­ment has a way of sharpen­ing a man’s thoughts?
    I knew you had to be someone very spe­cial for me to ob­sess over you as much as I did?
    Gah!
He had heard bet­ter lines on com­edy shows.
    “Do you know what I re­mem­ber about the mo­ment I first met you?” he asked.
    She shook her head, mouth­ing a word at the same time. “No.”
    “I re­mem­ber be­ing scared.”
    She hadn’t ex­pec­ted that. He could tell from the way her eyes widened, let­ting him in. How had he ever thought she was an ori­ginal ice maiden? Right now, he thought he might hap­pily bask in her warmth for all etern­ity.
    “You knew so much more than I did. I read up on you when I was told we could be work­ing to­gether, and what I learnt scared the shit out of me. I could only go by the look and feel of a situ­ation. You knew, in­side out, why some­thing be­haved the way it did. Without even know­ing every de­tail, you could find a way to cir­cum­vent every prob­lem Base­ment Five threw at us.”
    He hes­it­ated. “If it wasn’t for that trick I pulled on you that morn­ing, I’m pos­it­ive you would have been chosen to be the first cy­ber­naut.”
    Carl saw re­mem­brance spark in her eyes and braced him­self. It might have been stu­pid re­mind­ing her of how selfishly he’d be­haved, but he needed to have the situ­ation out in the open, es­pe­cially if he wanted to make peace with him­self.
    “I wanted to apo­lo­gise,” he said. “I be­haved like a com­plete bas­tard.”
    “Why did you do it, Carl?” Her voice was soft with hurt and that made him feel even worse. He thought he could deal with rage, bounce off it and per­haps rouse some right­eous­ness of his own, but her quiet vul­ner­ab­il­ity un­did him com­pletely.
    “Be­cause,” he stopped.
    No, he had to do this. He had to be hon­est with her. She de­served no less.
    “Be­cause I knew I would’ve lost if I hadn’t.”
    She frowned. “And be­ing the first was so im­port­ant to you?”
    He looked straight