Free Memories End by James Luceno

closed, hands placed together like he was praying. “Or perhaps Cyrus dispatched the gremlin as his messenger from wherever he is in hiding.”
    Tech and Marz traded excited glances and leaned forward, eager to hear more.
    Strange picked up one of his cats and held it close to his face, where he could look it squarely in the eye. “Do you think these two boys can be trusted with such information, Reaper?” he asked the creature. When the cat let out a long
meow
of either affection or protest, Strange placed it gently on the floor and regarded Tech with a serious expression. “You're in luck. Reaper believes that you can be trusted, and I have implicit faith in Reaper's judgment.”
    Tech rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I'm just curious how you knew Cyrus.”
    “Ah, you see. You and Reaper have something in common.”
    “Curiosity,” Marz said, clearly caught up in the spirit of Strange's mind games.
    “Precisely,” Strange said. He paused, then added, “Cyrus first contacted me about twelve years ago. My user name at the time was m-s-t-r-n-t-s—as you've guessed, a kind of vanity tag for Mystery Notes.”
    “Cool, man.” Marz nodded his head.
    “Marz is all over your DVD,” Tech said, reining in an amused smile.
    Strange tilted his head to one side to regard him. “Not your style, eh? You prefer synthesizers to guitars, just as you probably prefer computer-generated characters to live actors.”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “No matter,” Strange said, waving his long-fingered hand. “You came to me to learn about Cyrus not about music.”
    “When you say Cyrus contacted you, you mean he made e-contact?” Marz asked.
    “Yes—exclusively so.”
    “Then you two never met in person,” Tech surmised.
    Strange shook his head and took a sip of soda. “I was working in North Carolina, and Cyrus was living in wealthy isolation with his father in Silicon Valley. For good reason—the constant threat of kidnappings and such—Skander Bulkroad was obviously determined to keep his son out of the lime-light. I never read or saw anything about Cyrus in the media, or about Skander's wife, for that matter. Of course, Cyrus and I talked about getting together, but we never made it happen.”
    “How old was he,” Marz asked, “when you were e-mailing back and forth?”
    Strange smiled lightly. “Well, he claimed to be about your age, but I always suspected he was younger. Maybe eleven or twelve, but brilliant beyond his years. A genius, like his father.”
    Tech detected a note of disdain in Strange's voicewhen he mentioned the elder Bulkroad, but before he could even ask about it, Strange offered his own explanation.
    “Despite the age difference, Cyrus and I developed a true friendship over the course of the two years we communicated. From the start he revealed a vast knowledge of the Virtual Network, and his beliefs in a free Network and free information were much in keeping with my own and not at all like those of his father, who has succeeded in turning the Network into yet another mindless playground for tourists and thrill-seekers.”
    Tech frowned, but kept his thoughts to himself.
    “Little by little, however, I began to realize that Cyrus was deeply troubled about something going on at Peerless Engineering.” Strange's forehead creased in dark recollection. “He never admitted this to me outright, but I could tell from the information he was beginning to send me that he wanted me to investigate Peerless on my own. He even furnished me with entry codes that would allow me to sneak past the company's highly sophisticated security programs.
    “Then, without warning, Cyrus stopped contacting me. I was puzzled and deeply worried. Rumors began to spread that Skander was denying Cyrus access to any cybersystems. Other rumors emerged that Cyrus had died of a rare blood disease. I could never corroborate any of them. There were no obituaries in the media, no hints that Skander Bulkroad was in mourning. It was as if Cyrus