Still. Progress.
It might have been an enjoyable trip if not for Dr Hsiang, who’d begun coughing up a tarry foulness. She raved, begging a stonefaced Peaches for forgiveness, asking over and over again why we wouldn’t let her Shrive.
“I followed orders!” she wailed. “I was loyal! I’m not the lowliest of criminals, I’m not…”
She was loyal. But Wickliffe was only loyal to his own needs.
We broke for dinner, then slept in the chill tunnel. The mothers nursed their babies while Dare helped Peaches pee.
When it came time to eat, Evangeline took a strip of pemmican before retreating, nervous as a squirrel. Peaches waved her over to eat with us; Evangeline shook her head.
“Is she OK?” I whispered.
Ximena shrugged. “Who can tell, with heretics?”
“What do you mean, ‘heretic’?”
Ximena nibbled her jerky. “She didn’t…? Well, she might not discuss her faith with an unbeliever. I don’t suppose it much matters to you.”
“What matters?”
“Theology.” She stiffened. “Ah, but I do not pass on gossip.” And of course, I could not get another word out of her.
In the morning, we trudged on again. By early afternoon, we saw the literal light at the end of the tunnel.
This light, however, had several men with guns guarding it.
“Stand down!” they cried – but Ximena’s family already had their rifles out.
“You stand down.” Ximena sounded quite reasonable for someone ready to pull the trigger. “You invited us.”
The two factions faced off, one cloaked in shadow from the light spilling in through the entrance.
Then a familiar voice:
“All right, you knuckleheads – she’s right. We asked ’em here.” And a lanky black woman with beaded dreadlocks walked out to greet us, her robed body festooned with gaudy necklaces:
Mama Alex.
The leader of the Boston rebels.
Of course the leader of the Boston rebels.
“Mama!” I cried – but she pushed me aside. “Void below, girl,” she muttered, scrutinizing Peaches’ wounds. “That wheelchair permanent or temporary?”
“Permanent.”
Mama Alex clenched and unclenched her fists in rage, then bent down to kiss Peaches’ forehead. “You’ll be all right,” she whispered, mostly to assure herself. “Your strength’s never been in your legs.”
Peaches lit up, radiant, a smile to please Mama Alex. Mama Alex smacked her lips. “…Yeah, you’ll be fine.”
She glanced around the gathering. “Amichai, you make the right enemies – but hoo boy, do you make ’em big. Dare, I’m still surprised these two dragged your timid ass into this mess, but good for them; you’re the most useful.”
Dare beamed.
Mama whistled low, hands on hips, looking at the seventeen tattooed soldiers. “I didn’t expect y’all to bring a NeoChristian strike team. But if anyone could bridge gaps, it’s Amichai and Peaches. I mean, we’ve never exactly called you folks allies.”
“I wouldn’t start now,” Ximena said… with a grin that made everyone ease up.
“That’s all y’all, except for the dying woman.” She bent over Dr Hsiang, who’d taken to swatting imaginary spiders. “She the one carrying Wickliffe’s secrets?”
“And also the one who shot me,” Peaches replied.
The hatred in Mama Alex’s smile terrified me. “Well, then,” she said. “We’ll suck her brains out through a straw.”
31: THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
* * *
The tunnel led out to an overgrown forest – or at least it looked like more woods. When you squinted, you could just make out the remnants of what had once been a busy downtown; vines snaked around rusted lampposts, crumbled coral buildings slumping against trees, buckled sidewalk-chunks poking out of clay soil. Dapples of sunlight reflected off the solar-panel canopies strung overhead.
Workers in dirty outfits climbed trees to adjust the panels, taking voltage readings and comparing them. They sounded thrilled to work.
And why not? They’d escaped Wickliffe.
I smelled a rich stew, a thick meaty scent that made my stomach growl. They cooked here, not like the gray gruel back at the Orphanage. Ximena and the other NeoChristians sniffed hungrily.
Mama Alex grabbed a worker. “Get these NeoChristians a nice meal. Y’all bringing more friends with you?”
“If we feel safe,” Ximena allowed.
Mama Alex brayed laughter. “This is the farthest place from safe! Eat up. We’ll be back.” Then, to Dare and me: “You two, pick up Doctor Dyin’ there. Red-haired girl! Push Peaches, some of the road’s all buckled.”
Evangeline separated from the other NeoChristians, looking profoundly grateful – even as she kept a stiff-armed distance as she pushed Peaches over the cracked streets. “How did you know I was Amichai’s friend?” she asked.
“I didn’t. You looked too miserable to be left behind.”
Mama Alex marched us towards a sprawling metropolis of shining silver and glass. This chrome-plated temple was engulfed by the forest, but stood unbowed by the weight of nature.
“That’s a mall,” Dare said reverently.
“Wow,” I said. “They did build them impressive.”
Dare blinked. “You know what a mall is? Most got torn down in the ‘Live Local, Die Global’ initiatives before we were born…”
“Of course I know what a mall is. You told me.”
Dare looked confused. “I thought you were just humoring me when I yammered on about architectural history…”
“Nope.”
Dare waited for me to follow that up with something stupid.
For once I kept my mouth shut.
Mama Alex led us up a long flight of shallow stairs, then through a row of green-glass doors, then across a wide plaza of gold-speckled tiles. Dare took it in breathlessly as we strode through a huge open space, with looping staircases to connect the levels, the walkways circling around one great courtyard, everything lit by sunlight falling through broad glass panes overhead.
In that courtyard stood a towering server, three stories high.
The rebels’ server was a ramshackle stack of CPUs and hard drives, like luggage piled too high, with weldscars on its case and wires sticking out and air conditioners bolted on. The tin Shrive helmet attached to its base rattled and hummed.
Dare and I both let out low whistles.
Dare doubtlessly appreciated the chamber that held the branch server – but to me, that server was a glorious finger in Wickliffe’s eye. The Boston rebels had assembled it from scavenged parts, knitting it together with modified software: proof the living could accomplish great things.
“It’s a small one,” Mama Alex allowed, slapping it proudly. “Room for maybe two hundred brains. We call it the Brain Trust. Ever since Boston died, we’ve been uploading New York’s cleverest minds to help us with our revolution. It’s theoretically a big advantage against Wickliffe.”
“…theoretically?” Evangeline asked.
Mama Alex seemed to notice Evangeline again. She squinted. “Go run an errand. This won’t be pretty.”
“But I don’t…”
“I see scared in your eyes, and this is gonna friction your principles something fierce. I’m not mad, but I will be if you stay and fuck this up. Skedaddle. Come back when we call you.”
Evangeline looked to me for confirmation; I shrugged, unsure what would happen next.
“Nice girl,” Mama Alex allowed after Evangeline had left. “Needs a shepherd. I got my own flock to tend.”
She rummaged around in a sack until she found a needle filled with a clear fluid. She gestured for Dare to pull Dr Hsiang underneath the Shrive helmet – then plunged the needle into Hsiang’s throat. Pus squirted from Hsiang’s infected wounds. Dare shrieked, and so did Hsiang.
Mama Alex knelt down.
“Now. We’re gonna
take everything you know,” Mama Alex said. “This isn’t closed-source technology, with Wickliffe’s safeguards; this is jailbroken. Our people will sift through your every memory. We’ll watch your every orgasm, your every shit – and when we’re done, we’ll all know what a pathetic sack of wetness you were.”
Dr Hsiang shivered. “Will I live?”
Mama Alex sucked her teeth. “You’re pretty far gone. You might wind up as mangled as those brainburned NeoChristians.”
“I… I can’t die. I’ll do… I’ll do anything. Just – don’t let it all end…”
Mama Alex turned to me. “We’re going deep with this one, Amichai. Most brainscans retain the foggy memories, the opinions slurred by pride. But our goal today isn’t fidelity – it’s extracting information.”
Dr Hsiang clutched the hem of Mama’s dress. “Please… save me…”
Mama looked at me sourly as if to ask, You see the shit we have to put up with? Then she slammed the Shrive helmet down over Hsiang’s head. Hsiang convulsed as the server ripped her memories away – not a pleasant Shrive, but a brutal neural interrogation.
Hsiang shrieked garbled conversations. She relived old experiences so intensely that she tried to walk, ripping her stitches. Then Hsiang fell catatonic under the Shrive hood.
Mama Alex fished out a knife and sliced Hsiang’s throat.
I’d seen more emotion from butchers slaughtering pigs.
I looked at the green nodes lighting up around the Shrive hood. “Did we get her?”
“Most of her.” Mama Alex knelt to mop up the blood with a rag.
“What would have happened if she’d refused?”
Mama Alex gave me a look that hovered somewhere between pity and respect.
“Oh, Amichai. I’m glad you didn’t ask that before.” She blotted Hsiang’s neck, flung the rag in a corner crusted with old bloodstains.
I looked at Dr Hsiang’s body. I should have been shocked, outraged, stunned. But I was getting too used to bodies.
“Bring me to Wickcleft,” I said. “It’s time to plan our next move.”
32: DONNING THE CAPE
* * *
“You call him Wickcleft, huh?” Mama Alex hooked up a monitor to the rattling branch server after Dare had hauled Dr Hsiang’s body away. “That’s a clever name. We call him Good Walter. You figure out his secret on your own?”
“He’s a copy.”
Mama Alex bit back a grin. “Situational analysis! From Amichai Damrosch! Wonders never cease.”
“But what was Wickcleft splintered off to accomplish? What was his goal?”
“Void if he knows.” Mama Alex balanced the monitor on a wooden crate, then aimed an old gooseneck camera at us. “Wickliffe’s hunted Good Walter through all the servers in the world. Good Walter – Wickcleft – only survived by storing memories anywhere he could, and now he can’t remember where he left them all.”
“So he’s fragmented.”
“No,” Mama Alex said. “He kept his heart intact.”
She flicked Wickcleft on.
Wickcleft shimmered onscreen, still in top hat and monocle, pleased to see us. The real Wickliffe had been dry, hollow, resentful – but Wickcleft looked avuncular, the uncle who’d slip you a beer at Thanksgiving.
“The b-b-brave warriors return!” he cried, flinging his artificial arms wide open. “P-p-peaches, Dare, and Amichai. I ffffeared you were duh-duh-dead. But nevvvvver write off true heroes!”
I blushed. Having the president shower praise upon you was intoxicating.
“I need all the information we have,” I said.
“Ah-ah-I’ll give you what I can. Alas, Duh-Doctor Hsiang will tuh-take a whuh-whuh-while to reassemble. What do you nnneed to know?”
I looked up at the Brain Trust. “Shouldn’t the council be talking to us as well?”
“Thuh-these old geezers?” He made a fluttering gesture with his hands. “Thuh-they’re the buh-best theorists in the wwwworld, but thuh-they don’t get out mmmuch. The ruh-real world is fuh-ful of uglinesses, bad data, uncertainties. The human mind cuh-cuh-craves certainty, so they cuh-come to prefer the fantasy…”
“And you get out because…?”
“My sympathies lie with the llllllliving.”
“So you’ll help us stop Wickliffe?”
“I-i-I will. But I think he muh-means well…”
Dare scrubbed Hsiang’s blood off his hands. “After all that bastard’s done to us, you still think Wickliffe has good intentions?”
“I admit the evidence is suh-slim. iiiiiiiI don’t know whuh-why I’m doing this.” His screen fuzzed with distress. “I remember whuh-working on the Buh-Bubbler, but I can’t keep my memories together… Why have I turned so evil?”
Watching him mourn his parallel self was like watching my own mourning for Wickliffe – the sadness of seeing someone who’d once done good, but now had degenerated into incomprehensible wickedness.
“I trust you.” I pressed my palm against the screen.
“He’s gotten better at thinking ahead,” Mama Alex observed to Peaches, “But the boy’s still a slave to his instincts.”
“The last time this boy went against his instincts, he lied to his best friend and teamed up with Gumdrool.”
“And also g-g-generated this huh-handy little political fiasco.” Wickcleft stepped backwards to fling a newscast towards the screen. Two dead newscasters, their sculpted faces poreless, flashed porcelain smiles as they discussed the day’s events.
“If President Wickliffe can’t stop a pony, can he govern?” asked the lady newscaster. “That’s what living voters are asking right now.”
Footage of my hospital pony-race flashed on the screen as the guy newscaster took over.
“Amichai Damrosch, a Mortal-Shriving teen, has gone viral with his madcap pony escape – in a video that’s garnered over four billion hits thanks to a boost from Sins of the Flesh. But his latest video, which alleges President Wickliffe is researching forbidden brainwashing techniques, is forcing our leader to answer some hard questions.”
Dare’s footage of Evangeline’s parents being reprogrammed in the branch server played while I spoke. “To the ghosts,” I roared, sounding far more confident than I’d felt when we’d fled from the LifeGuard. “You are nothing more than a resource to be mined. Your free will is an obstruction. They want to mold you into more obedient servants. Until you’re dead, they do not think you are human.”
“It got out!” Peaches squeed.
“But Gumdrool told me he’d shut that signal down.” If the state channel had aired my video, then it had gotten so popular that Wickliffe had given up trying to suppress it. “Did you get the word out, Wickcleft?”
“I helped,” Wickcleft said sadly. “But whuh- whuh- wait for it.”
The newslady looked saddened as the screen cut to a huge demonstration in New York. The living gathered in Central Farm, doing the pony dance from the Blackout Party. Some even rode ponies, exchanging high-fives. They bellowed demands to see “The Pony Boy! The Pony Boy!” before spirocopters flew over to disperse them.
“The video has caused living riots in several cities, holding up rollouts of the much-desired Upterlife scent upgrades.”
“They’re upset because their simulated world doesn’t smell better?” Dare asked.
“The duh-duh-dead are always sc-sc-scavenging your world to im-im-improve their own.”
“President Wickliffe says it’s clear the living are unwilling to be rational, since the video makers have acknowledged it’s a fake,” the newscaster continued.
“What?” Peaches yelled, almost leaping out of her chair.
The screen showed Dare and me standing penitently before the 82nd Street Orphanage, the autumn wind whipping through our hair.
“After my pony video got record ratings on the dead’s most popular TV show–” A popup ad for Sins of the Flesh appeared next to my tear-stained cheeks “–I wanted to see if I could generate a sequel that garnered even
bigger market share.”
“Amichai talked me into designing a fake branch server,” Dare said. “Then we faked a movie.”
“We thought no one would believe young teens like us…”
“That’s not even how I talk!” I spluttered, as my parents appeared on screen to explain what a troublesome child I’d always been. “‘Teens like us’? ‘Market share’? That thing talks like Wickliffe!”
“It’s the s-s-same technology that generates our onscreen images,” Wickcleft apologized. “Wickliffe cuh-cuh-could fake perfect confessions if he could get at your s-s-saved Shrives, but even he can’t do that. Only people who nuh-nuh-know you well could tell the difference.”
“The Blackout Parties.” Peaches looked frantic. “They know. They’re telling people, right? Nobody’s believing this bullshit, right?”
“Most of the duh-duh-dead believe it,” Wickcleft said mournfully. “They’re the ones with the power.”
“And the living?”
“They’re buh-buh-bitching, muh-mostly. They’re angry, but they duh-don’t know how tuh-tuh-to bring Wickliffe down.”
“We’ll help them,” Dare said. “We’ll make a plan. We’ll show them how to fight.”
“You’re too small to lead a revolution.” Peaches’ assured voice shut down all debate. “All of us are too small. Wickliffe can void an ordinary person at will. If he can void anyone, then why should anyone else risk their eternal life?
“…No.” Peaches savored the thought as it came to her, a wicked grin lifting the corners of her mouth. “What we need is a Robin Hood, a Batman, someone who flouts the system. You need someone flashy, good on camera, audacious. You need someone who Wickliffe can throw everything at and still fail.”
“…That’s kinda what I did,” I said.
“That’s why your video’s resonated, Amichai. The living don’t need a kid; they need a mad, pony-riding, spirocopter-hijacking supervillain. Can you do that?”
I tried on that idea for size.
“…do I get to wear a cape?”
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