Eclipse Phase- After the Fall

by Jaym Gates

  “Firewall. They know about the vault. And this heist.” He closes his eyes, running his fingers through his stubble-short hair, and sighing. “There is something wrong. That second panel adds an additional level of security that wasn’t in my original plans. I don’t know why the family added it without telling me. Maybe there is something in there. Something we can’t let Saadaq take.

  “Helping Firewall again, is it.” He walks past her, his fingertips ghosting over the interface pad. “I’ve lived through this virus bollocks once; I’m not letting it happen again. But we do it my way. You stay back. And keep your bloody hands off that crib, I saw your feed the day you installed it.”

  Charumati nods, keeping out of his range. It puts her in a good position to see what he’s doing. James is concentrating, trying to access the codes, she assumes, watching as he mouths the numbers. She turns her head a little to take a short vid, cropping it down to just his fingers before squirting it to her notes folder. As she’s doing it, she realises that his muscle movements don’t match the code he’s mouthing. He’s better than she expected.

  After a while, the interface acknowledges that the tagging nanoswarm and room sensors are disengaged. Charumati makes a note of that too, trying not to frown. Firewall hadn’t mentioned those security measures. What else had they missed, or were wrong about?

  James is still working, this time using his security keys. Charumati notes that they’re not the same keys that Penni stole. He’s much better than she thought. Careful, methodical, and superior to anything that she’d have done even with her muse.

  There’s a soft noise behind her, and her ayah instincts kick in. She twists around, scanning the crib. Baby Kiyoko is unmoving, sound asleep. Her enhanced olfactory capabilities check the room. The usual habitat smells, a faint whiff from Saadaq earlier, herself and James. Nothing else. Perhaps it was a bamboo stem shifting.

  “Oh—” James begins, before there’s a nanosecond of alarm blatting through the house, cut off as quickly as it starts. “It’s okay, I got it, I got it.” He says, wiping a hand across his brow.

  “Are we okay?” Charumati asks, stepping closer.

  “I think so. Another non-standard security feature. But we’re through now.” For a second nothing happens, then another passes with no effect. Charumati just starts to think that they’ve made a mistake when a narrow door to the side of the recessed artwork pops open.

  “Right,” James motions for her to stay back. “I’m checking it out first.”

  Charumati sneaks closer to peer over his shoulder. A pre-Fall datastore. She has no idea what might be in there, but she’s desperate to find out. Towering computer stacks, small personal devices—what might the Wakahisa family have saved?

  James steps through the narrow doorway, arms tight to his sides, head brushing the ceiling. Charumati stays close on his heels. It’s a short corridor, two steps before the room opens out. James pauses as he enters, and she has to wiggle to get past without touching him.

  The room is square with no adornments and lit only by floor lighting. In the centre of the room is a large, raised section. Every wall is lined with shelves from floor to ceiling.

  Each surface is covered with paper. Piled high on the central dais, rolled into scrolls and stacked on the shelves. Card-bound books fill one wall, another has papers stapled together. Some of the paper has shiny, colourful covers; others are plain and curling at the edges.

  “What is this?” Charumati asks.

  James doesn’t answer her. He holsters his gun and moves to the central dais, dropping to his knees. He thumbs the papers, picking up a book and riffling through the pages. A new scent fills the air, one Charumati isn’t used to. It’s like a mix of vanilla and almonds. Chemicals flash on her HUD—vanillin, benzaldehyde, 2-ethyl-hexanol, more—and she cross references the information. Old book. A highly prized scent, pre-Fall.

  James is still lost in manuscripts, so Charumati checks the shelves for tech. Paper. It’s all paper. Unless there’s another secret panel, or another room, there’s—

  “Nothing,” James says. He’s still got a book in his hands, but he’s looking at her now, a strange expression on his face. “You were right, but also so very wrong.”

  “Where’s the tech?” She asks as she picks up a scroll from a shelf. Dark ink smears show through the natural material. The paper feels delicate, and she worries that trying to open the scroll may destroy it. Placing it back, she moves to a freestanding podium to the right of the door. It has one clay tablet about the size of her hand. It is carved with tiny symbols of plants and tridents. She picks it up. It’s much heavier than it looks.

  “That’s my point. There is data wealth, but it’s like a pre-tech museum. Pages without indices, or tables of contents. Lost journals, one-off scientific papers. Valuable stuff, but nothing to worry Firewall.”

  At James’s comment, Sapphire disconnects from her feed and she assumes that the mission is complete. A message icon pops up on her feed. “So it’s not a threat.” It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders. She’s about to explain that she’s as happy as he is, when there’s a fluttering of wings behind her.

  “Oh, now this is a pretty picture,” Saadaq has followed them through the corridor and perches on the edge of a teetering pile of books. “I always wondered what they had back here.” His head bobs, his gold eyes scanning the room. “Priceless. Though I’m going to have a good go at selling it all.”

  James stands, his hand dropping to his hip, but the raven flaps a wing at him. “Don’t bother. I have friends incoming. You saved us some time.” The raven paces closer to the security pod, his sharp beak held high, his wings open.

  Charumati ignores their squaring off, opening the message from Sapphire. Perhaps if she replies quickly enough, she can get her backup.

  [Mission is considered closed. As there is no exsurgent virus threat, erasure squad has been told to stand down. Make your own exit.] The message is timestamped 20 seconds ago.

  Make your own exit? Charumati drops the clay tablet in her pocket and assesses the room. James is backed against the wall by Saadaq. His razor sharp beak and strong wings are vicious weapons.

  But he’s facing the wrong way. He might be uplifted, but he’s still a bird, with a fragile skeleton. Penni has already highlighed his weak points. Charumati sidesteps until she’s behind the raven. Saadaq hasn’t noticed her move, his monocular vision is fixed on James.

  Charumati places a hand on the back of his neck and the other on his head. She ignores the sensations her fingers send of dusty feathers and delicate bones. Saadaq reacts, one strong wing clipping her elbow. She squeezes, hard. The resulting crunch is loud. She doesn’t look as she drops the unmoving body to one side.

  “We have to get baby Kiyoko.” Charumati doesn’t wait for a reply, wiping her fingers on her trousers as she heads back down the corridor. Her left arm throbs where the wing clipped it.

  “We’re on our own,” James says from behind her. “I did trigger that alarm, but I informed Direct Action it was an accident. I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe me, but it’s going to take them too long to get here.”

  Charumati strides across the recessed floor to the shallow steps up to the crib. Something shoots past the window, a battered looking ship, no visible identification, no colours, passes over the image of the earth.

  “Saadaq’s pirate friends,” James says.

  She caresses the contact-feed, holding in her gasp as she accesses her muse backup. The timestamp flashes on her HUD as Penni fills her mesh.

  [Five months!] Penni—her backup muse—says. [I’m uploading a backup training course for later.]

  “Saadaq’s on the landing pad. We’ve only got the emergency exit.” James is behind her, his breath tickling her neck.

  She pulls the covers back. Kiyoko isn’t a huge baby, about 21 pounds, so Charumati grabs
the sleeping child and tucks her under her right arm. James leans over to remove the tangled bedding.

  The habitat shudders, heralding the pirate ship landing on the surface above the bamboo room. A loud scraping noise of tortured metal fills the air. It’s too big, or it’s landed badly on the clean structure, because alarms start to blat, and the lights go out. It’s only a split second between that and the emergency lights kicking in, but Charumati’s sensors detect a pressure change. Kiyoko kicks against her chest, but stays quiet.

  [Environmental failure,] Penni says. [Which is a bummer because the only way off this rock is the emergency pod on the far side of the bamboo room. Right under where the pirates just landed.]

  “Pirates are near the emergency pod, and we’re about to run out of atmo,” Charumati says, holding Kiyoko tight to her chest. “My HUD says 15% oxygen.”

  James nods, his eyes scanning the shadowed bamboo forest. “Gimme a sec, then you skirt around the back to the pod. You’ll need a code for it.”

  A message blips up on her HUD. From James, a code and security access for the emergency escape pod. She stares at it, then at the security man next to her. He doesn’t look at her, his eyes still focused on the shadowed stems. He edges away, hiding behind the recessed steps. She glances down at the baby. Two large, innocent eyes stare back, a thumb stuck firmly between her lips as the baby pacifies herself. She’s ashamed that she used to think James’s loyalty quaint and old-fashioned.

  [You need to go. It’s not far off being really cold, and really hard to breathe. 11%,] Penni says. [You’ll be okay with your oxygen reserves and temperature tolerance, but Kiyoko will be feeling it any time now.]

  Charumati smells them before she sees them. Hot engines, oil, sweat. Shadows move between the bamboo, slender shapes with guns held loosely at their hips. She hears five of them, gathered at the edge of the indoor forest.

  “You’re not getting into the family vault!” Without warning, James runs across the room, covering his movements with a spray of gunfire. He dives into the narrow corridor, and starts firing from inside the doorway.

  Kiyoko sucks her thumb harder, little wet smooching sounds quiet enough to be drowned out by the gunfight across the habitat. Charumati keeps both hands tightly around the baby, and watches the pirates converge on the corridor. They appear oblivious to her as they move into position facing the vault. James’s distraction worked.

  Keeping her eyes on them, Charumati backs away towards the wall of the habitat until her rear bumps cool metal. James shouts again, and the pirates spray more bullets. She uses the noise to scurry, bent forward at the waist, into the darkness between the bamboo.

  She can see the air breach now. Tiny hairline cracks in the ceiling leaking the breathable gases into space. Not an explosive depressurisation, but a large enough leak that the life-support can’t pump more oxygen than is being lost to space. Bright red numbers and equations fly up her feed—200 metres per second divided by room temperature. P = Po exp[-(A/V)t*(200m/s)].

  [That means you’re going to pass out soon as your reserves are depleted,] Penni says.

  “I know,” she snaps. The temperature drop is noticeable, her skin covered in goose bumps from head to toe. Her body’s natural fight-or-flight response kick in, flooding her system with adrenaline.

  Penni scans the room. [There’s no one between here and the emergency pod.]

  With one last glance down at Kiyoko, Charumati dodges through the slender yellow bamboo stems. The compressed bark soil is soft, muffling her noise, and the whispering of the leaves is more than hidden by the gunshots. James is barking out taunts, while the pirates are still trying to get a bead on him. It’s only a matter of time.

  “Where’s the damned pod?” The seemingly never-ending bamboo stretches around her, no exit to be seen. It’s not where it should be. How can an exit disappear? Part of their emergency routine to hide it? She circles the curved outer wall again.

  [6%,] Penni says at the same time Charumati’s sensors tell her Kiyoko has slipped into unconsciousness.

  Think like the Wakahisa. Charumati scans the edges of the room. Beautiful plants interspersed with ancient statues, soft paintings, and tall vases. Nostalgia for somewhere they’ve never known, an ancient planet that no longer exists. Then she spots it, a large watercolor map of Japan, covered in tiny creases as though it had been rolled, and unrolled, many times.

  Approaching the map, Penni highlights a tiny, recessed button half-hidden in shadows. Charumati presses it. The map rolls out of sight, leaving a hatch and a blinking red light. She taps in the codes from James. The blinking red turns to a solid green, and the hatch spirals open. Air rushes past her and she draws in a deep breath.

  Pain shoots through her back and neck. A punch. Then another, knocking her head against the hatch doorway. She shakes her head. The air is a musky tang of oil, sweat, and blood.

  She snaps out of shock and moves so that a third punch whistles past her ear. A large pale hand, claws extended, hits the wall. A grunt. The pirate tries to free their hand. Charumati ducks and turns, extending her own cyberclaws to rake at their stomach. Heavy armor. Better than her own light bioweave. She shifts her stance, spinning to get behind him. He’s trying to reposition himself, but his weapon is stuck.

  Charumati is fast. One hand clutches the unmoving baby, the other arcs at the wrist. Her razor-sharp claws glow blue with eelware as they sink into the soft flesh behind his ear. The bio-conducted electric shock stuns him, then as the blades dig deeper into his skull, the pirate stops moving. His head sags forward. Blood runs down her cyberclaws.

  Kicking the body free of the doorway, Charumati steps inside. The pod is small, room for five adults. She spots a launch button lit to the side of the door. Without taking time to strap in, she hits it. The door spins closed, followed by the soft whump of docking clamps being released. There’s a feeling of motion as engines kick in. It’s an emergency vehicle, no controls, no monitors.

  Data streams through her feed as Penni hacks the pod. Her muse digs into the shell program and starts running her own processes.

  [We lost oxygen when the doors opened, but it’s recovering quickly,] Penni says. [I stabilised to a tolerable pressure. I’ve got navigation, too.]

  Charumati lays Kiyoko down on one of the padded seats. The baby’s eyes are closed, but her chest is still moving. Her heartbeat is faint and unsteady, flickering like the wings of a moth beating against a window.

  [James heard the pod launch. He’s locked the vault doors. It has its own atmo. He should be fine until Direct Action gets there.]

  Charumati uses her ayah programs to check circulation. The oxygen decrease had caused the baby to shift blood flow away from less vital organs to the brain. For now, Kiyoko is still alive, but she is likely to experience organ failure or brain damage any time. Even death by cardiac arrest if the body stress continues.

  “I need to get more oxygen to her,” Charumati says.

  Images flash before her eyes, vids of people being artificially resuscitated. [She’s not stopped breathing, but you’ll give her more oxygen.]

  Manual insufflation by blowing into the patient’s lungs. Charumati draws in a deep breath, then places her mouth over the baby’s mouth and nose to form a seal. Blowing slowly, and gently, she feels the tiny chest rise underneath her hand. She detects no noticeable change, so she repeats the process again, and again.

  There’s a cough against her lips, and Charumati leans back. Kiyoko is staring up at her, her nose wrinkled.

  “Mama.”

  Charumati looks at the smiling child and huffs, a small sound. Then she tips her head back and laughs, the tension easing from her shoulders with each peal.

  Charumati moves Kiyoko to a safety seat and straps her in. She sees the pirate’s blood on her hand, and wipes it against her hip. As she does so, she feels something. There. Checking her pocket, she finds th
e clay tablet she’d shoved out of the way when she’d attacked Saadaq.

  [Whoo. What is that?] Faint lines criss-cross the tablet as it’s scanned. Penni whistles. [This is from the Indus civilisation. That makes it over six thousand years old? Those markings. It’s … No. Wait.]

  Her muse goes quiet, and Charumati flips the tablet to study both sides.

  [Break it.]

  “What.”

  [Break. It.]

  Charumati looks at the tablet. Six thousand years old and Penni wants to destroy it? This is everything that the family hold sacred. But what does an old piece of clay matter anyway. Charumati doesn’t yearn for the past the way the Wakahisa do.

  She swings the tablet against the seating, catching it on a metal support. She doesn’t even use much force, yet the clay shatters, tiny chips flying in all directions. Something slender and chrome drops out of the remains.

  Charumati catches it before it hits the deck. It’s cool, metallic and obviously much less than six thousand years old.

  [I’m just too good!] Penni crows. [That tablet was fake. Firewall was right, and I’m the best damned muse in this pod.]

  “Maybe because you’re the only muse in this pod,” Charumati holds the item at arms length. Compared to the curved navigation screen, the item looks squared-off and boxy. Definitely pre-Fall. As damaged and damaging as the blotchy planet it’s held in front of.

  [What do you think is on it? The virus? A rogue AI?]

  “I don’t know, but I know who will. Can you get coordinates from Sapphire?” Charumati says.

  Moments later the pod sways, room tilting as Penni plots a new course and the boosters kick in.

  Charumati watches the star field outside the window. “We made our own exit, all right. Plus we completed the mission they’d given up as lost.”

  [Firewall can be real idiots, sometimes,] Penni says.

  Charumati snaps a picture of the object. “I may have to be more diplomatic than that when I rub this in her face.”