Devil in the Device

by Lora Beth Johnson

  Andra stayed in the water until the sun had fully set, then trudged her way back to land. She’d almost been able to forget why she’d come. To find the LAC lab.

  Lake Superior was huge, and the lab hadn’t been in any records Andra could find. But the eco’grafted road had led her in this direction, so it must be close.

  Andra closed her eyes. She could feel nanos tickling her skin, sense them as they communicated with her own. Beyond the nanos, she felt the hover behind her and Mechy’s still form. If she stretched her senses, she felt more nanos. Not as many as there were in the Vaults, but enough that Andra could interface with and command them to sense for nearby tech.

  Andra reached out farther, into the Wastes, across the lake and down into it. Part of her felt blind. There was nothing under the waves for her nanos to connect with. Just water and fish and algae to bump against. It was a hollow, lonely feeling. She kept pushing, but panic was rising inside her. Her thoughts, her being, her consciousness was made up of nanos, and she was sending those nanos—those little pieces of herself—physically away from her. Now, as the smallest parts of her spread throughout the lake, she was stretched too thin. Her senses were gone. All she felt was despair and loneliness, and a belief she would never be whole again.

  Until

  Until

  There it was. Something at the edge of her consciousness. Something north? No, northwest. It was big. She didn’t know what it was, but it felt . . . monumental. It called to her. That was where she needed to go. That was where the answer was.

  Cold crept up her spine.

  Destroy.

  Andra recoiled and called her nanos back and they came, like a rubber band released, condensing her consciousness, returning herself to her body. She blinked open her eyes, expecting to see the lake in front of her, the world re-forming around her. But instead, she was engulfed in stygian blackness, a swirling mass of corrupted tech.

  She was surrounded, contained by a pocket.

  Fear coursed through her, her legs trembling.

  But it wasn’t destroying her.

  Why wasn’t it destroying her?

  Had she called it? Had she created it?

  It moved thickly around her, the corrupted nanos tickling her skin. Pain pierced her skull as she tried to corral the corrupted nanos into a dark mass in front of her. There was resistance, but not as much as she expected.

  Something swelled inside her, some innate programming, and she mentally reached out to the pocket. It responded, reached back. Answered her call. It was listening. It was eager.

  Her attempt was frantic and clumsy, more panic than skill. But Andra pushed it away, commanding it to disperse. It hesitated a moment but then retreated, projecting a feeling of obeisance. Andra didn’t take time to wonder at it. She pushed it farther and farther, spreading the individual nanos across the desert, as thin as her own nanos had been spread under water. Then she fell to her knees with a ragged gasp and coughed up another spell of dead nanos. They were a stark black against the white sand.

  She’d done it.

  She’d controlled a pocket.

  And it had taken everything in her.

  She crawled back into the hover beside Mechy and collapsed. When she was exhausted or weak, it was usually because her interaction with tech had damaged some of her nanos. Like when she worked on the ’dome. Or when she controlled a pocket. She needed to replenish them. Nanos were designed to long for a host, and Andra was willing to incorporate them into her matrices, to bring them into the fold of her own. There weren’t many free nanos in the air around her, but she called to the few there were, welcomed them into her being. It was a quick process, and one Andra was getting better at.

  The new nanos were quickly converted to Andra’s tech signature, made part of her consciousness. It was an automatic process. Like breathing. She didn’t have to think about it, but she could. She should probably do it more often, with as many dead nanos as she was coughing up.

  She lay back in the hover, took a deep breath, but there wasn’t time to rest.

  She needed to get to the lab at the bottom of the lake. She would find cryo’plating and other supplies, more of Griffin’s notes, her intentions. And then, with her new knowledge and skills, she would go back and save Eerensed and the colonists. And, hopefully, herself in the process.

  * * *

  Andra skimmed the hover over the surface of the lake, pushing it faster and faster, letting the cool night breeze ruffle her hair, filling her lungs with the smell of lake water. The engine was quiet enough she could hear the gentle lapping of the water. Every so often, she would send out a thin strand of nanos to bump up against the tech of the lab and adjust course. It was probably close to midnight when she reached the spot in the lake directly above it.

  She brought the hover to a stop and let it bob, the water slapping against the sides. The lab was about a mile down, so swimming wasn’t an option. But if Griffin had been coming here, there had to be a way in. Andra roved her eyes over the lake’s surface, the moonlight glinting off the gentle waves, but she saw nothing.

  She was just starting to get frustrated when she saw a weird glint of light holding still among the waves. She moved the hover closer, slowly, and as she approached, a holo’display burst from a metal rod peeking out of the water.

  A holo’scan floated in front of her, a cloud of light and pixels, and Andra stretched out to place her palm into the light.

  After a second, it turned green.

  “Welcome, Andromeda,” a robotic voice said.

  “Whoa,” Andra breathed.

  The water surged and a tube of metallic glass rose in front of her, a panel sliding open. She climbed awkwardly out of the hover into the chamber, leaving Mechy behind. If she woke him, he’d want to come with her, and this part, at least, Andra wanted to do herself. She collapsed onto the floor of the chamber, the glass cool beneath her hands. The panel shut, and the chamber lowered itself into the water. Andra had a single moment of panic as the waves swallowed her, and then the chamber was shooting through a tube toward the bottom of the lake. As the surface grew farther away, darkness closed in, and Andra had trouble telling which way was up or down. She didn’t even feel like she was moving.

  Soon she saw the spark of a glimmer beneath her feet, getting closer and brighter until she could make out the underwater lab. A series of buildings were encased in three bio’domes, lit by kinetic orbs. It was the size of a small business park or college campus. The ground inside was covered in rocks and wild grasses and pine trees. The buildings themselves were perfectly preserved, and in the center one, there was a light coming from a window on the top floor.

  The chamber slowed as it lowered into the ’dome farthest to the left. The ground came up to meet her, and as the chamber came to a stop, the panel opened, and Andra stepped out into a ’dome at the bottom of what was left of Lake Superior.

  The depths of the water surrounded her, held back only by thin metallic glass. The surface was a mere glint above her. Dark shapes swam past, bumping into the edge of the ’dome.

  The air smelled sweet and loamy. There was a faint chirp of crickets, and somewhere in the distance, she could have sworn she’d heard an owl hoot. Something about it brought tears to her eyes. This was a little bit of home. A little bit of the past she longed for.

  Andra headed straight for the center building, where she’d seen the light in the window. It was a short trek from one ’dome to the next, through a vac’tube like the one she’d placed on the mini’dome. The building was several stories high, its reflective glass mirroring the dark blue of the lake. The front doors slid open with a scan of her thumb. The lights flicked on as soon as she entered, and she was surrounded by a lobby much like the one in the LAC annex under Eerensed. Only nicer and with fewer skeletons. A hologram of the LAC logo swirled around the empty reception desk.

  The
elevators weren’t difficult to find, lining the far edge of the building. She entered one and rode it to the top floor. At the end of the hall, light spilled out of an open doorway, and Andra was vaguely aware of the outline of Lake Superior on each door as she rushed toward it.

  She entered the room and skidded to a halt. A frosty fog surrounded her. She swatted it out of her face, stepping through until it cleared and she saw what was beyond.

  Cryo’tanks.

  Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Unlike the colonists’ ’tanks, these weren’t laid down like coffins, but standing in perfect lines like soldiers. Frosted over, they filled the entire room, which stretched out into the fog.

  Andra stepped toward the first one, wiping away the frost.

  She stumbled back, letting out a cry.

  She was staring at the frozen body of Dr. Alberta Griffin.

  This was impossible. Griffin was dead. Zhade had seen her die. And it hadn’t been like Andra’s supposed death. There’d been no nanos forming a dagger, no secret escape. Maret had beheaded her, as he’d intended to do to Andra during her first execution. You didn’t come back from that.

  Griffin was most definitely dead. So what was her body doing here? And so intact?

  Unease filled Andra as she made her way to the next closest ’tank. She wiped away the frost and sucked in a breath.

  Another Griffin was before her, eyes closed, long blonde hair frozen in a fan around her.

  Andra went to another ’tank. And another.

  They were all Griffin. Exactly how she looked in photos from her midtwenties, before Andra was born. No modded eye, no crown. Hair a natural muddy blonde, flowing past her shoulders. All of them. All exactly alike.

  They were clones.

  Human clones.

  All the same age, all in stasis.

  It made no sense. You grew clones from birth. They were genetically the same as the source, but they lived their own separate lives, became their own person. It was . . . legal, sure, but frowned upon. Only a few human clones existed in her time, usually replacing a child who had died (which made Andra’s stomach turn) or as a way for a person to have offspring without another person. Clones’ rights were so restricted and their existence so controversial, that very few people even pursued the possibility of creating one.

  But there had to be hundreds in this room, and they seemed to either have been frozen at the same age, or they’d been grown unconscious to this point in development. Either way, no wonder Griffin had kept this place off the map.

  She had an army of clones of herself. For what purpose, Andra couldn’t fathom, but she came to a sudden realization.

  There was a cough behind her.

  Andra whipped around and looked into the face of the woman who had started it all.

  Dr. Griffin smiled. “Hello, Andromeda.”

  PART TWO

  ETERNAL DAMNATION

  Human memories are so tied to emotion that over time, they can be unintentionally and irrevocably altered. This has several implications, but the most important is that short of transferring a human consciousness to a new host, there is no way for people to be completely objective.

  Memory is fact. Emotion is fiction.

  —From the journal of Dr. Griffin, time stamp erased

  EIGHT

  00111000

  “Dr. Griffin,” Andra breathed.

  Alberta Griffin stood before her in a dark gray pantsuit, her hair pulled back into a fishtail braid. She wore immaculate makeup and her nails were recently manicured. Her modded eye was gone, but she didn’t wear an eyepatch like she had in the recording in Andra’s holocket. Instead she had both organic eyes.

  It appeared that under this lake, Griffin had been waiting.

  Except not the Dr. Griffin Andra had known. Not the Griffin Zhade had called mam.

  She smiled sadly, as though reading Andra’s thoughts.

  “You’re a clone?” Andra asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

  Griffin nodded.

  “Wha—but—how? Why?” Andra stammered.

  The clone hugged herself, running her hands up and down her arms. “It’s cold in here. Why don’t we go talk in my office?”

  She turned and left before Andra could respond.

  Andra’s mind reeled as she followed down the hall. The clone’s heels clacked against the tile, as she turned into a room at the other end of the corridor.

  Unlike the rest of the compound, the office was bathed in a low rose-gold light. Gauzy fabric was draped over kinetic orbs, and a few holo’windows depicted the desert. There was plush upholstered furniture but also an ergo’chair. Holo’displays were everywhere, and a half-eaten apple was propped on a nearby work’station.

  Dr. Griffin’s clone gestured for Andra to have a seat in one of the upholstered chairs. She sat automatically, shock coursing through her. Nanos tickled her skin, a ’swarm of them circling her, almost nuzzling her like a dog. In some ways it relaxed her, but maybe that’s what they were programmed to do: relax anxious guests.

  Andra had come looking for Griffin’s work but found Griffin herself. At least, a version of her. The clone wouldn’t have Griffin’s memories, but she would have her intelligence. Perhaps the real Griffin had left instructions, things she could pass on to Andra.

  Andra pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Why?” It was the only question she could think to ask. “Why did she . . . Why?”

  The clone offered Andra a mug of something hot. When Andra shook her head, the clone took it for herself. She smiled and sat on a couch across from Andra, tucking her legs under herself like they were two friends chatting over coffee.

  She sighed. “It’s a long story, but basically the original Griffin created us as . . . an insurance plan. She knew something would happen, and—” She shook her head, lifting a long-fingered hand to her temple. “I’m sorry. Should I start at the beginning?”

  “That would help,” Andra said flatly.

  The clone pinched the bridge of her nose. “The beginning,” she repeated, and then looked back up at Andra. “I guess it all started with the anomalies.”

  “The anomalies?”

  “The people here call them pockets.” Griffin set her mug aside. “Such an innocuous term for something so deadly. I suspect they wanted to make them seem less . . . dangerous, less frightening than they really are. Pockets are usually . . . things to be filled, untapped potential. Or, at the very least, emptiness. But the anomalies are not emptiness. And their potential is catastrophic. You can’t neutralize their threat by calling them something as innocuous as pockets.”

  Andra blinked and shook her head. “Isn’t that what you’re doing by calling them anomalies? Just something out of the ordinary? Something that deviates from the norm? Doesn’t sound so scary.”

  Griffin chuckled to herself, picking at a thread on the couch. “If you think that, you truly don’t understand the human race. Nothing scares them more than deviation.” She stared blankly for a moment, then came back to herself. “We don’t know how the anomalies started. They seem to be some kind of LAC decon’bot experiment that an intern must have accidentally set free.”

  Andra scoffed. “All of LAC’s resources, and you couldn’t figure out how they got loose? Why did LAC have such dangerous tech in the first place?”

  “Trust me. No one is angrier than I am.” The clone sighed, waving a hand. “Well, probably the original Griffin was angrier. But now, I carry that burden. We . . . they—the LAC—tried everything to fix it. They even had the anomalies contained for a while. But they adapted. And formed these masses of destructive tech they called entropics. And each time we found a substance to contain them, the entropics learned how to destroy that too. We knew one day, we would run out of options. At least, run out of options on Earth. So we started planning for the worst.”

  “The
colonist program,” Andra whispered. She had guessed right. The LAC—Griffin—had known that the earth would be destroyed, and planned to escape, leaving billions of people behind.

  “Yes,” Griffin’s clone agreed, her features sharp in the rosy glow of the room. “The plan was to fully colonize Holymyth. We’d been intending to do it anyway, but terraforming an entire planet takes time. Time I didn’t have.” She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose again. “She,” she corrected. “Time she didn’t have. It’s easy to forget I’m not her.”

  How could she forget? She was a clone, her own person, with her own experiences. Wasn’t she?

  The clone ran a hand over her braid. “They started asking for volunteers, calling the journey a colony program—not a rescue mission—in order to prevent panic. Or, at least, to delay it. Once the anomalies were widespread, the panic would set in, and there would be a mad rush to get off the planet. So they needed to take as many trips as possible before people knew that the planet was doomed.”

  Andra sat forward. “But you didn’t even get one trip in. We’re all still here.”

  Griffin nodded, eyes downcast. “We had the first colonists in stasis, ready to leave for Holymyth, but then everything went to hell. The anomalies grew faster than expected, forming more and more entropic centers, taking out entire cities in the blink of an eye. Not only did they multiply, but they grew . . . smarter. At first their only goal was to destroy everything in their path, but then . . . they started strategizing. It’s like they knew if humans left the planet, they wouldn’t be able to destroy them. So, they cut off our only escape.”

  “The Ark,” Andra whispered.

  Griffin nodded. “They destroyed all the shuttles to the Arcanum. It was a simultaneous attack. They were gone in less than a minute.”

  Andra shuddered. She knew the pockets were brutal, but she’d always assumed they were amoral, like any other technology. Just doing what they were created to do. But the pockets were learning, adapting.