You irresponsible asshole, Dare mouthed, then returned to rewiring the panels.
Test protocols found, my IceBreaker informed me. Breach?
A whir filled the room as the Brain Trust server hummed back to life. Gumdrool took out a black-and-gold projector from a carrying case, and knelt reverently before flicking it on.
A holographic image of President Wickliffe appeared.
“Come out, little splinter.” Wickliffe squinted sourly at the Brain Trust with bloodshot eyes, looking as though he’d stumbled into the room after a months-long bender. “I’m not putting any portion of my code into that server, so let us communicate across the air like men.”
The monitors across the Brain Trust server flickered on, each showing Wickcleft crouched behind a shot-up wall, waving a small white flag. “Congrat-t-tulations,” he said sourly. “Yuh-yuh-you got me. And uh-uh-all it took was one brainwashed girl.”
President Wickliffe sucked in his hollowed cheeks. “That… it wasn’t my idea.” He glanced at Gumdrool. “But sacrifices must be made. If Damrosch hadn’t forced my hand…”
“Yuh-yuh-you can’t excuse delegating your duh-duh-dirt to thugs like Gumdrool. I’m ashamed to say I whuh-whuh-was you. What happened to the boy who cuh-cuh-conquered death?”
“You don’t know what it’s like!” Wickliffe roared.
Wickcleft raised an eyebrow.
“Very well,” President Wickliffe cracked his knuckles. “The sole reason you don’t agree with me, little splinter, is because you don’t know how bad it’s gotten. So here. Let me send you my memories…”
Wickcleft’s eyes rolled in their sockets, revolving to show streams of numbers as Wickliffe flooded him with information. Dare froze in mid wiring, sweat dripping from his brow, realizing he was too late:
Wickliffe was synchronizing with Wickcleft.
I checked my IceBreaker – it was still working to crack the test protocols, which had been properly locked down by Wickliffe himself. But Wickcleft had taught me how to un-lock them, given time.
Assuming Wickcleft wouldn’t be our enemy when all this was done…
Wickcleft staggered back, his face wrinkled with despair. “That can’t be true.”
President Wickliffe looked serene. “Check my work.”
“No, no… I can see your projections are correct,” Wickcleft said. His stutter had vanished, which filled me with horror. “And they match up with my old memories. Yet we could…”
President Wickliffe looked saddened, sympathetic. “No. We tried that.”
“Of course. But then there’s always…”
“I checked that, and that’s a nonstarter. And before you go there, no, that won’t work either.”
“Oh, the options are so slim!” Wickcleft cried, clutching his head. “It’s all going to fail – going to fail horribly…”
“So you see what I had to do?” President Wickliffe asked, leaning closer. “You see why it’s necessary?”
Wickcleft eyed President Wickliffe, seeming to view him in a different light. Then he leaned down to brush his hands on his pants before straightening to meet the president’s hungry gaze.
“No, Walter.” Wickcleft spoke with the gravity of a doctor pronouncing an incurable illness. “I don’t know when you lost the last of your morality, what divergent event made you think this plan was OK, but… there are some lines you can never cross.”
President Wickliffe tore his gaze away from his splinter self, clasping eyes on the armored soldiers in the room – looking for sympathy.
All he found were people who’d obey him.
I felt a little bad for him, truth be told. He’d just voiced his concerns to the only person in the world who should understand him… and been rejected.
President Wickliffe removed a glimmering bottle from his vest pocket, the scotch inside it glistening with holographic light. He bit out the cork, swigged the entire bottle in one act of supreme self-hatred, then tossed the bottle aside.
“Break in,” Wickliffe commanded. “Take everything he knows.”
The server exploded.
It wasn’t a fiery burst – a series of explosive bolts placed at strategic locations on the Brain Trust detonated one by one down its teetering stack. Wickcleft’s resigned stare turned to a fistpumping “yes!” just before the monitors imploded, the server tumbling down in chunks around them, storage devices bursting in midair.
Dare could have hidden. Nobody would have known where the selfdestruct signal had come from.
Yet there he was, high in the crook of the girders, waving frantically.
At me.
Run, you idiot, he mouthed. You have the key to defeating Wickliffe, this all falls apart without you–
“Something’s moving in the girders! Fire!”
When I fall asleep, I dream of an alternate universe. One where I’d learned a little more from Wickcleft, or where the IceBreaker had had more power, or where President Wickliffe’s encryption routines were weaker. Some universe where I was five seconds quicker.
But I wasn’t. So I got to watch Dare’s first shock of pain, the bits of Dare spattering against the ceiling as Gumdrool’s soldiers shot him to pieces.
And still he waved at me to run. He was revolted by my weakness, the way I’d betray my cause to save him. He didn’t know I’d passed on the information to Peaches. He didn’t know how much I valued his skills, and poor Dare could never believe that he was worthy on his own.
As far as Dare knew, I’d devised a plan to break into the Upterlife – and then abandoned that plan rather than let an old friend die.
He killed himself so I’d never have the chance to rescue him.
He gripped onto the girders for a moment, blood pouring onto the tile below. He gave me one final, disappointed look.
Then he dropped out of sight.
I never saw his body hit the floor, because that’s when the IceBreaker chimed: Access granted.
Flush self-contained breathing tanks, I commanded to all suits in the area. Lock suit. Begin testing cycle.
The suits hissed as they emptied their tanks. The soldiers took a breath, realized there was no oxygen left, and thumbed the “faceplate release” buttons on their suits’ UI. But their suits had gone into verification mode and wouldn’t respond to feedback until the testing cycle was complete. Maybe they’d suffocate before it finished.
It was uncharitable, perhaps, but I hoped they did.
“Damrosch!” I heard from below – Gumdrool’s voice. Of course he was OK. Of course he’d taken his faceplate off to talk to the NeoChristians.
Of course he’d survive.
“Damrosch, I know that’s you! I am coming for you! I will end your menace once and for all!”
I didn’t listen to the rest. I headed for the exit, mashing the dead-man’s switch for another thirty seconds of life.
51: MY BEST GUMDROOL IMPRESSION
* * *
Now, I’ve avoided telling this story from Gumdrool’s perspective because, well, I’m not him. But forgive me if I slip into Gumdrool’s head for a moment, because it’s been a hard day.
Hi. I’m Gumdrool. I’m a big bully who justifies meanness by saying the Upterlife will make everything better. And I’m about to be the meanest guy ever.
See, I have my enemy Amichai trapped near a mall. He’s neutralized my squadron, but I’ve scraped together enough LifeGuards to form a bully squad.
He’s cornered. After this, I drag him back to another secret enclave, scrub his mind, and make him lie to the world. All I have to do is break into this metal shipping container, and I win at life.
“Mama Alex told me you’d defeat me.” If I make him mad enough, maybe he’ll try to bum-rush me – and I like gloating anyway. “Just before I strangled the bitch. Turns out those dazers don’t work well when you’re half-blind from gas – and she really didn’t plan on me coming to prematurely.
“I used to feel sorry for you, Amichai. And then I remember how the pe
ople of New York rioted when we told them you died – cities all around the globe, refusing to work for the Upterlife because of some callow boy.
“Alas. You’ve taught me to hate. I’ve brought four men with me, ready to wrestle you down. So do the rational thing, Amichai: Surrender.”
Amichai yells back: “I’ve been in this situation before, Gumdrool! You’ve seen the footage. A smart man wouldn’t stand in my way.”
My ears redden. They always get red when I’m angry.
“All right, then. LifeGuard! Break down that door in three… two…”
I motion them to go on two. I always go on two, no matter what I tell you. But as they rush the shipping container, there’s a whinny as the doors burst outwards to meet them.
Amichai charges out on a Sleipnir pony.
“It can’t be,” I mutter. “It can’t be the same pony…”
My jaw hangs open in disbelief as the pony – yes, the same pony – charges at me, lowering its head to trample me. Panicked, I dive to one side into a pile of pony poop, shrieking get him, get him – but nobody dares fire because they might kill Amichai, and I told them we needed him alive.
Amichai hugs his pony with his good arm, his legs tied to its sides, vanishing into the woods. I regret all my life’s choices and wish that anything in the world loved me as much as Amichai’s pony loves him. But nothing does, because I am a heartless jerk.
Then I spit out pony poop.
* * *
My crosscountry ride remains a literal blur for me. I have the IceBreaker recordings, but we jounced around so much that not even its blur-compensators could clean up the footage.
I remember dashing through the woods, lashed to Therapy’s back. I remember Therapy leaping over the heads of inbound troops. I remember Therapy juking left and right as though she was born to dodge gunfire, picking her way among volleys of dazers and tasers and I’m pretty sure a couple of spirocopters at one point.
I passed out sometimes. My broken shoulder was not meant to take evasive maneuvers, and I was being whipped back and forth like a bronco rider. It’s a miracle I kept pressing the dead-man’s switch, or else my neck would have exploded.
My IceBreaker ran out of power, leaving us without a map. But Therapy charged ahead at breakneck speeds, seeming to know our destination.
And void bless her, that little pony escaped the craziest ambushes – and every time she sideswiped Wickliffe’s army, she looked back at me with this little satisfied smirk: See what I did there?
Finally, I looked across the water to see the familiar outline of New York’s skyscrapers.
“You,” I said, hugging Therapy with one arm. “Are the best pony in the whole wide world.” I rested my cheek against her neck, feeling a deep and encompassing love.
I took a moment to appreciate this final moment of peace.
IV
Time’s Up
52: IN A RAGGED ROOM WITH A STRANGE BOUQUET
* * *
“Wake up,” said a familiar voice. “You gotta help us out, Amichai.”
Tiny beads dragged across my forehead, rattling like –
– dreadlocks.
“…Mama Alex?” I asked hopefully.
“No.” Peaches gave me a sad smile. She’d knotted beads into her hairstyle as tribute. And like Mama Alex, she now had strands of gray in her lush black tresses.
She was only seventeen, and already she had gray hairs.
“You slept for two days,” she told me. “It’s time to wake up.”
Peaches gave me a hug. I’d have hugged back, except the right side of my torso was in a plaster cast.
I tried to sit up, failed. I was in a low-rent apartment, nicely kept – a swept floor, a clean table with a bouquet of flowers, spotted curtains on the windows. Just enough to let me know the residents didn’t have money, but they did have pride.
I scanned for cameras; there were none, just empty sockets in the walls. Those weren’t flowers on the table – they were eyestalk cameras, rooted from the walls and twisted together in a bouquet.
I was betting there were lots of camera bouquets around Greenwich Village these days.
I felt a tightness at my throat. I touched the crosses, with their explosives. “You didn’t remove the detcord?” I spluttered, feeling for the red button, realizing Peaches had taped it down.
“No time.” She shook her head. “No experience in defusing neckbombs. We lost a lot of people escaping that last assault, Amichai. We’ve got a hard drive full of supertechnology stolen from the Brain Trust, but few people with the expertise to implement the Brain Trust’s ideas. We’re breathing fumes.”
“It’s OK, Peaches. I’ve got this.”
“Your plan, Amichai,” Peaches said, soft and urgent. “I’ve been assembling the necessary technology to work your exploit. I read your notes. But…”
“But?”
“It’s a… a nice plan. Very trusting. But…”
She whipped the curtains open. Smoke rose from all over Greenwich Village; some buildings were burnt pyres. I couldn’t make out much of New York’s skyline through the narrow window – but I could count twenty patrolling spirocopters from here.
I wanted to blast them all.
I looked down. The streets, once full of gardens, were choked with rubbled chokepoints, so the LifeGuard couldn’t squeeze tanks in here. People scurried from building to building, dashing like rats before the spirocopters could get a bead on them.
There were also soft heaps of dirt in the gardens: fresh burial mounds.
Only the golden towers of the Upterlife servers remained intact – the sole thing neither side could bring themselves to damage.
Peaches whisked the curtain shut.
“I have fought the government to a standstill,” Peaches said proudly. “I kept the lines open so Wickliffe couldn’t cut the signal and do his dirty work – though void knows he’s tried. Whatever he does, he’ll do it with the world watching. And he’s been reluctant to firebomb Greenwich Village – voiding that many innocents would be a PR disaster.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause according to him, you made all this up. We’re innocent fools who bought into stupid propaganda. And they have to stick to that story. It’s a script – Mama Alex told me the same thing happened to her family in Boston. They pretend we’re misguided, so they look compassionate and we look like violent idiots. Meanwhile, they bombard the Upterlife with fake news stories about us tearing up Upterlife servers, telling everyone how we want to void the postmortemed, so when he eventually slaughters us all it’ll look like he had no choice…”
I leaned forward. “Does anyone believe him?”
“The LifeGuard’s been suppressing riots everywhere. Polls show the living no longer trust the dead. But…”
“…they remember Boston.”
“And Topeka and Leeds and Beijing and Avignon. Everyone has a Boston nearby.”
“So we get…”
“Lots of sympathy.” She ran her hand through her hair, exasperated. “Well, no, that’s not actually true; Evangeline brought some NeoChristian firepower with her. And we’ve got tons of help from locals – Greenwich Village’s in full rebellion. But if the rest of the world was willing to help, it probably wouldn’t be up to me to run this operation. They’re sitting back – they figure if we make a show of it, then they can revolt. If we get squished like a cockroach, well, then better a tainted Upterlife than no Upterlife at all.”
“So… when will Wickliffe attack?”
Peaches rolled away, staring out the window. “He’s been attacking. He sends tanks, I’ve got rebels with tankbuster mines. He tries nanoswarms, we break ’em up with Brain Trust nanoviruses. He sends drones, we fuzz his targeting systems. And every time I think about giving up, I think about Mama Alex.” Her face darkened. “And when that fails, I think about Dare.
“But defense isn’t offense. We’ve got a day, maybe two, before Wickliffe decides it’s safe to enter the ‘make an ex
ample’ phase.
“So I’m out of options.” She wheeled back around to face me. “If you’re wrong, and your plan fails, you will void everyone in Greenwich Village. And so I ask you: do you think your words will make any difference?”
“I think words are the only things that make a difference. And this?” I brandished the IceBreaker that held my plan. “It’s not just words.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s how we’ll rewrite the rules of the Upterlife.”
Peaches grinned.
53: GRASPING HANDS AND DESPERATE HEARTS
* * *
Word had gotten out that I was back – and the apartment complex was crammed with people. Rebels clogged the hallways, eager to get their hands on me.
They didn’t need to touch me for long; a quick handshake, a pat on the back, a tap on my cast. They needed to believe I was real. Once they’d confirmed that I was indeed the Pony Boy, they broke out in broad grins. And they cheered when I told them that yes, everything in the videos was true, and would they help me exterminate those fucking ghosts?
I knew what my presence meant to them: Wickliffe had thrown everything he’d had at me, and I was still fighting. That meant they could fight, too. Their lives may be null and void, but their sacrifice would matter.
Dare would matter. Mama Alex would matter. Wickcleft would matter. I would ram their names straight down Wickliffe’s throat.
“Everyone on the rooftops,” I told them. “Everyone. Do it at dusk; it’ll be more dramatic that way. Your job’s to counteract whatever they come up with to get us to run. We need to stay put.”
“What if they firebomb the buildings?” a half-starved Greenwich Village rebel asked me.
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