Machinehood

by S. B. Divya

  Olafson spent an hour at each check-in verbally giving Welga and Connor what information he could. A small council of monks governed the station. Four hundred twenty-two people lived there, with 39 percent being men, 44 percent women, and 17 percent nonbinary. About half were joint citizens of India or China. The station had accepted a lot of early residents from all over the world who had deep pockets. They weren’t entirely self-sustaining. The kitchens needed resupply every month. Launches usually arrived with replacement parts, raw material, and fresh foods. They left with finished goods and waste products.

  She spent time with Connor, too, learning more about Buddhism. He’d listened to many lectures by prominent Neo-Buddhist monks, including a man named Kanata, who had led the Eko-Yi Station Council for many years. Kanata had walked out of an air lock, but no one on Earth knew why. The name rang a bell, and Welga found it in Josephine Lee’s journal entries. He’d mentored and married Lee and Donald Park. Why had he killed himself? Did it have anything to do with the Machinehood?

  She cooked one last, glorious dinner. Their kitchen lacked the ingredients for half the things she wanted, but she didn’t mind the creative challenge of making good food with restrictions. All of it was probably a hundred times better tasting than whatever she’d get aboard the station. For those few hours, she shut out all thoughts but the heft of a knife handle, the sizzle of onions, and the smoky aroma of roasted peppers.

  On the morning of the twenty-fourth, Welga took a cold shower, made gentle love to Connor, and said good-bye to her kitchen. She shouldered her bags, one with personal items, the other with her space suit, and turned to see Connor leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom.

  “I wish I could watch the launch,” he said, slightly breathless.

  “Get your fine ass back in bed and get well.” She walked over and kissed him, committing his scent to memory. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  * * *

  Welga drove the truck to the coast and then rode a boat with fifty others to the launchpad. Twenty of them would ride to Eko-Yi. Of the remaining thirty, half were rocket club and the other half spectators. Welga handed a piece of paper with the authorization code to a woman named Petra, who led the club.

  “Where’s your partner?” Petra asked. “He’s supposed to be on this launch.”

  “He got sick.”

  Petra frowned. “He’ll have to forfeit his spot. We have people standing by on a waiting list.”

  “I understand.”

  Petra watched for a few heartbeats to see if Welga would say more, then shrugged and waved her on.

  The launchpad floated twenty kilometers out on the Pacific Ocean. The viewing platform, about half a kilometer away, rose and fell with a gentle swell. Clouds covered the sky in flat gray-white. A steady breeze kept them cool in spite of the morning’s humidity and carried the occasional spray of seawater as it splashed against the platform walls. Towers, hives, and hills studded the distant coastline.

  The rocket stood at the center of a massive cement square. Steel gantries held its sides. Welga waited at the back of the line of passengers, who climbed one at a time up a ladder to an open hatch. A droning sound caught her attention. She hadn’t seen anyone launch microcams for the occasion… besides which, these people shouldn’t be able to access the emergency constellations except for launch communications. Other heads turned as the noise gained in volume. Two dark spots in the sky moved toward them from the coastline.

  “Helicopters?” asked someone in the line.

  “News reporters, maybe,” said another voice.

  “Jets,” Welga whispered.

  Seconds later, her suspicion proved right as the massive fighters tore overhead with a roar. A couple of passengers cried out and ducked.

  They aren’t here to protect us.

  Petra ran over to Welga. “What the hell is going on? I thought you said we could launch!”

  Welga drew the woman away from the crowd. “Did you give them the code?”

  “Yes. They said it’s not valid anymore. The authorization has been—”

  The jets flew by again, drowning out her final word.

  “If we don’t launch in the next thirty minutes,” Petra yelled, “we’ll miss the window.”

  Welga motioned her over to a skiff. “I’m going to move away from the noise and see if I can reach my friends in DC. Okay?”

  When Petra nodded, Welga jumped into the small boat and dropped her bags beside her. Petra loosed the moorings and tossed them in. Welga motored away, far enough to escape the worst of the roar, and then pulled the radio from her bag.

  “Olafson, what the fuck is going on? Why are we getting buzzed?”

  “Ramírez, thank God! I was hoping you’d call. Abort the launch! The commander in chief refuses to authorize it. The White House has been back and forth with the director all day, but she can’t convince them. They think that if they let your rocket go, they’ll lose the leverage to force other countries to comply with the embargo, especially China and India, who are the main suppliers. They want China and India to share their intel about the Machinehood before allowing any launches to Eko-Yi from US soil.”

  “They don’t have any intel. They keep killing the operatives! Christ! You can’t do this to me again. You said things had changed. You swore!”

  “I know. We tried everything. I’m sorry, Ramírez, I really am.”

  She could barely hear his words as more motor noises approached. The red and white of the coast guard popped against the blue-gray water. Distorted speech from their megaphones reached her ears: “Cease all launch preparations or you will be fired upon.”

  “The orders for you and Troit are to go home and await further instructions.”

  “Understood,” she said bitterly, and turned the switch off.

  Rage filled her until she wanted to scream. Why couldn’t her government have the nerve to do what was necessary? They lost their only chance to stop the caliph in ’88, and now they were making the same mistake with the Machinehood.

  She maneuvered the skiff back to the launchpad. Petra’s baffled, distraught expression made her more angry. It wasn’t the club leader’s fault, of course, but right now Welga had no patience for anybody.

  “We’re done here,” Welga snapped. “Go home.”

  She clamped her mouth shut before she spewed insults about shitty politicians and their weak-minded ways. Nobody tried to talk to her as they filed onto the big boat. The coast guard escorted them to shore, sirens blaring the entire way.

  NITHYA

  [Video of K. V. Ramya, prime minister of India, speaking at a podium] We are investigating the destruction of constellations, including those belonging to India. The United States does not have exclusive ownership of this catastrophe, nor does it have unilateral privilege in assigning blame. Indian intelligence has reason to believe that the origin of the Machinehood is terrestrial. Unless the United States can present clear and incontrovertible proof of wrongdoing by the government or residents of Eko-Yi, India will not participate in the embargo against its former colony. Further, any unilateral act of aggression by the United States against Eko-Yi will be considered by India as an act of war.

  —Doordarshan News, English Feed (March 24, 2095) Current accuracy rating: [off-line]

  The Indian government displayed its usual chest-beating at the news from abroad. Like other major countries, they had launched emergency communications drones, which meant that Nithya could get some information the old-fashioned way, via screen access. Both China and India, the originators of Eko-Yi Station, were on the US blacklist because of their ties to the off-world colony. As if they hadn’t suffered from the Machinehood’s actions as much as everyone else.

  Carma had weathered the outages better than Nithya expected—and, if she were honest, better than she herself had. Bhairavi Chitthi, too, but she had the benefit of having lived through it before, during the uprisings in the seventies. They all had a high degree of cabin fever, so to
speak, but they had food and fuel and the power had come back on.

  She tried to reach Luis and Welga, but personal calls were blocked between the two countries. From what she could glean, India was doing better than the US. They walked their children to each other’s homes to play. Surprise visitors—such a common occurrence in her great-grandparents’ days—became acceptable again. The men in their hive took shifts to guard the entry using whatever crude, weapon-like objects they could find.

  Other than that, it felt like a holiday: no work, no school. Nithya spent half her day cooking, cleaning, and laundering static clothes. People had lived like this all the time. Some still did, in the poorest or most rural areas. How did they stand the tedium?

  Carma helped her the first few times and then got bored. Nithya’s aunt was a godsend, knowing tricks to getting food stains out of fabric and which spices to add to what dishes. Still, nothing tasted quite right except for the rice.

  A shout came through the open balcony door. Everyone had left their doors and windows open since the climate control didn’t function, and nobody was using swarms. Nithya stepped onto the balcony and peered down four stories.

  One of their “guards” looked up at her.

  “Someone has come for you,” he called.

  A dark-skinned young woman with a cut on the side of her face stepped out from the entrance overhang and into view. A baby sat on her hip and gazed at Nithya with wide eyes.

  Nithya’s heart skipped a beat. “Zeli?”

  The girl raised a hand. “We’re here!”

  In all the chaos of the stellas falling, she’d assumed that Zeli wouldn’t be able to get on a flight. Nithya whirled and ran out, bare feet slapping against the cement stairs. She stopped short in front of Zeli, an older woman, a slightly younger woman, and the baby. She guessed those must be Zeli’s younger sister and niece.

  “Come, come,” she said with half a breath. “You must be exhausted.”

  A faded blue nylon bag, about half a meter long, lay at their feet. Nothing else. Nithya picked it up and led them to the flat.

  She stopped outside the door and indicated the low shelf. “If you would please leave your shoes here.”

  They did. Zeli removed a pair of worn booties from the baby and placed them with the others.

  Nithya ventured a smile. “I’m so sorry I didn’t meet you at the airport or outside. With the blackout, I had no idea if you would get here.”

  “We had to wait at the airport in Dakar,” Zeli said as they entered, “but they let us on a flight yesterday. The asylum status helped. Thank you for that.”

  Carma stood from the kitchen table and took Nithya’s hand. She stared at the newcomers. Zeli’s mother and sister wore plain black hijabs, which they pulled down. With Luis gone, they could uncover their heads.

  “Who are these people?” Bhairavi Chitthi asked in Tamil. Her tone dripped with disapproval.

  Nithya spoke in English. “Aunty, Carma, this is Salimata and her family. She’s worked with me on several projects for Synaxel. They are… they’ve come at my invitation to escape the al-Muwahhidun front in Senegal. Zeli, this is my daughter, Carma, and this is my aunt, Bhairavi.”

  Zeli gave them a tired smile. “My mother, my sister, and her daughter, Mouna. Thank you for having us.”

  “Hello,” Aunty said politely in English. Then, switching to Tamil, she muttered, “You’re letting these kind of people into the house at a time like this?”

  Nithya’s frayed patience broke apart. She replied in Tamil, careful of Carma’s understanding and using a respectful address. “If you don’t like it, then you can go. I asked them here. I will not send them away.”

  Bigotry had yet to die in India. Some people still equated dark with unclean. Bhairavi Chitthi’s casual racism was nothing new, but Nithya wouldn’t stand for it today, not in her own house. She strove to break the tension by waving to the table.

  “Please, sit. Are you hungry? We don’t have much water, but there is enough if you want to wash up. Carma, see if we have any old static toys for the baby in the cupboard.”

  Zeli glanced at Aunty, then back to Nithya. She straightened her shoulders. “Thank you. I’m sorry, my mother doesn’t speak English. Only Wolof.”

  Without a network and WAIs to translate, it was impossible to communicate directly.

  “That’s all right. What can I get you to eat?” Nithya fell back on custom to cover the awkwardness of the situation. “Some rice and lentils?”

  Zeli nodded. She perched at the edge of her chair and bounced the baby. Her sister leaned against their mother, eyes closed. The bags under Zeli’s mother’s eyes could hold coins. Bhairavi Chitthi sat on a chair near the balcony and gazed at the sky.

  Nithya repressed the urge to ask about Zeli’s travels. As for her aunt, Nithya wasn’t happy about her treatment of Zeli’s family, but it would be frightening for the older woman to get home alone, by foot, in this situation. She couldn’t send her away in good conscience, so she’d have to find a way to keep the peace.

  Nithya scooped some rice onto three plates and a bowl—for the baby—and then mixed in the cooked dal and salt. Everything was room temperature, but that was warm enough. She remembered to get some spoons, too, in case they weren’t used to eating with their hands.

  The women roused themselves to take their plates.

  “Shall I hold the baby while you eat?” Nithya reached out her arms. “How old is she?”

  “Ten months.” Zeli’s voice trembled. She exchanged the child for the plate of food. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything. This—I’ll repay you one day.”

  Nithya touched a hand gently to her colleague’s shoulder. Zeli was barely into womanhood, closer to Carma’s age than her own. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You can stay here.”

  Nithya sat cross-legged on the floor, the baby in her lap. Carma joined them with an old plushie-bot that had frozen into the shape of an elephant when its electronics stopped functioning. The baby ignored the toy in favor of the bowl of rice, which she happily crammed into her mouth with a chubby fist.

  The warm weight of the infant settled Nithya’s jangling nerves. As long as they remained in the flat, only her husband’s status remained unknown. Such a strange feeling, this not-knowing. Parts of her mind skittered like untrained bots, unsure of what they should be doing at any given moment. Her lips wanted to shape words to Sita—call Luis—to see her husband’s face, hear his voice. Their last conversation had been so terrible. Have you forgiven me?

  * * *

  Aunty spoke in a low, insistent voice, in Tamil. “At least make a wall to separate them for sleeping.”

  Nithya turned the most expressive glare she could muster on her aunt. With power being so precious, she wouldn’t waste a milliwatt on her aunt’s nonsense. Please, God, restore the network so I can send her safely home. Now that Zeli was here, perhaps she could walk Bhairavi Chitthi home the next morning. But what was the condition of Aunty’s flat? Anticipated guilt quashed the idea. She couldn’t leave her mother’s younger sister to the mercy of data blackout.

  Carma had happily snuggled up with Zeli’s niece, the two of them fast asleep on Carma’s mattress. They’d given Nithya’s bed to Zeli’s mother. Aunty had the remaining mattress, hers since this started, but she had the nerve to complain while Nithya, Zeli, and her sister would be lying on the bare floor with static cloth under their heads.

  “If you don’t like it, you can sleep somewhere else tonight,” Nithya said softly.

  Aunty pursed her lips in distaste and then lay down with her back to the others.

  Nithya sat at the table with a mug of tea and the printouts of the report.

  Zeli slipped into the other chair. “Looks like data. What is it?”

  “Someone anonymously sent me all this after seeing my blocked queries. It has some of the information I wanted, and some evidence of unethical test practices, including a fairly damning letter from a bioethics lawyer.”

>   Zeli raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of paper.”

  Nithya flipped to a marked page and pointed at a table, then turned two pages to another. “According to these, it might be possible to design a pill to reverse Welga’s symptoms, but we would need funding to customize her treatment. If we can stimulate the progenitor cells, we can regrow the muscle tissue and innervate it. She’ll need therapy to retrain her body, but if she stopped using zips, she could be fine. It’s possible that Welga’s case is extreme—she uses these pills for every job. Others might never experience her problems. If this lawyer, Josephine Lee, is telling the truth, designers had indications of this flaw years ago. I wish we could find her. She’d know who’s responsible for this.”

  “I can hack your emergency network.” Zeli spoke the words so softly that Nithya wasn’t sure she’d heard them.

  “Come again?”

  “It will take some time to get all that data through, but I could send an encrypted message to your sister-in-law. Tell her everything you said and let her find this lawyer. I’m sure Welga Ramírez knows how to make someone talk.”

  Nithya digested Zeli’s implied threat. “How do you know this hack?”

  Zeli tilted her head. “In the villages, people need to have many skills. Sometimes the emergency network is the only way for us along the front. The al-Muwahhidun love to keep us in the dark.”

  Zeli uncurled her hand. Two yellow pills lay in her palm.

  “Are those…?”

  “Yes, the flow will help me do what I need. You write down the message. I’ll send it.”

  Nithya place her hand over the girl’s and squeezed gently. “You don’t need to sacrifice these for a woman you’ve never met.”

  “But that woman is working to save us from the Machinehood, yes?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Then it’s not a sacrifice.”

  Zeli’s eyes glistened with determination. Nithya tapped her message onto a screen, then switched it off. No sense using up the battery until Zeli needed to read the note.