by Curtis Hox
“I’m here with you, Simone, but you need to see what it is you were born to do.” Yancey wiped the tears from her daughter’s face. Those ridiculous pigtails sticking out of her head at the sides would have to go. But she kept that to herself, although she thought her daughter did look like a squaw with an attitude, and she did like that. “Tonight, I’ll be by your side, and you’ll see what must happen for you to learn to summon.”
“I get to summon tonight? How do you know?”
“It’s time—”
“No, that something will happen tonight.”
Yancey released her and looked up the hall where a Rogue Maker sat waiting to release its ... information. She had seen almost one hundred of these in the last few years, each one bearing a sigil. The man with his head in his ass meant something very human and something very personal. They want us to think we’re stupid, she thought. They want to degrade us. This’ll be a domination contest as a prelude to something bigger.
She watched her daughter, who no longer shivered but who looked like she needed a good bedtime story to scare away her fear. No bedtime story for you tonight, dear. Sorry.
Yancey Wellborn had known from the first moment that her daughter showed signs she wasn’t just a Transhuman that she would do great things. An Altertranshuman psy-sorceress like her mother. And now it was time to grow up.
“There are a few things, dear, you need to know before they come. First, the Rogues are ugly, very ugly.”
* * *
The first time Yancey Stinchcomb Wellborn saw an RAI incursion, she’d been newly recruited to battle the RAIs by the U.S. government branch of the International Consortium Cybercorps Defense Force. She was a woman just out of graduate school with a special talent. However, the tough Special Services military personnel she’d been teamed up with didn’t give her a second look. These were ex-U.S. Deltas and British S.A.S. There was even a Russian Spetsnaz and two German Commandos. The flight in the fuselage of a Lockheed Hercules cargo plane from Bolling in Washington to a small town of Farmington, Ohio, passed without a single word from any of them.
She was just a green intelligence agent forced on them in these dangerous, unknown circumstances. When they stormed into a barn on a quarantined farm, she followed in the back of the line as fast as she could. They all wore top-of-the-line storm cy-gear and weaponry. They fanned out and formed a semicircle around a twisted brownish stone. This one, her first Rogue Maker, also had the same sigil she’d later come to see at her daughter’s new school.
The team lead called it in. “Standard Disturbance Black Box. Head-in-ass sigil. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Looks like a dud. Permission to destroy.”
She watched two men pull C4 cakes out of their backpacks. The others stood guard, but looked relieved, like men who’d just stormed a building expecting terrorists, but finding it empty.
But she wasn’t so sure the night’s activities were over.
Yancey had studied Posthuman History at graduate school and was an expert in the last thirty years of the Cyber Wars. She wrote a thesis arguing that Posthumanism was an aberrant type of anti-humanism. She argued it emerged after the major humanistic ideas, those that began with the Enlightenment and defined what it meant to be a human being, were now being superseded by something far less attractive. In contrast, Transhumanism, according to Yancey, was a sort of hyper-humanism that reinforced and expanded Enlightenment-based humanistic ideas like the valued individual, the importance of rationality, the integrity of the self, the separation of the real from the unreal, truth from untruth, etc. She ended her thesis with examples of Rogue behavior that reinforced her argument that the Posthuman was what happens when Transhumanism made us into something so radically different that we weren’t recognizable as human anymore. Her thesis resonated and helped get her a job in the intelligence field because the battles that humans fought for supremacy in the new ontological arenas called Cyberspace and Realspace were growing increasingly complicated.
Since the time of what the social historians were calling the Rupture, the world didn’t act or look right anymore, and no one knew why. The Cyber War’s first real bloodshed occurred in a huge battle on the Russian steppe between Consortium mechs and inhuman manifestations summoned by Rogueslave Technowizards. She had not been a recruit then. But her husband, Skippard Wellborn, had been there. He had been seminal in helping the Consortium defeat the Rogues during this first bloody phase of the Great Incursion.
Her immediate officers didn’t know what she could do, nor did most of their bosses at the Pentagon, but the new branch of Cybercorps wanted to see her in action. Her husband had promised that people like her were what they needed to combat the new threat. They’d sent her along to officially document the mission because the memory of her missing husband still had enough pull to test his controversial Alter program with real Consortium agents, even though he was gone. Ever since the Rogue defeat on the steppe, the enemy had switched tactics to small, localized incursions. These black boxes started appearing, and the environment warped a little in their proximity, and all manner of monstrosities appeared.
When the farm owner walked out from behind a bale of hay, the entire team leveled their weapons.
“Meet my wife,” he said, slobber pouring from a mouth that was mostly slack. “Isn’t she pretty?”
A large shape emerged from behind him. It was the first time Yancey faced a genuine Torsion Fiend. The soldiers opened up with everything they had. They had expected, at the worst, a family who’d played with a Rogue and lost, and those individuals usually took a few more bullets than normal to kill. But somehow a distorted, bloated, reeking thing rumbled forward which might have been a woman at one point but whose head now resided in a distended torso and who walked on four crab-like legs. Her arms ended in long, serrated slicing tools that might have been barnyard scythes. The thing that bothered Yancey the most, and stuck with her later, was the weathervane that grew from the headless neck and spun about with no wind.
The bullets that hit the elephant-sized creature popped little holes in it, but did nothing to stop its lumbering advance.
Yancey remembered thinking it just wanted to play with them, like a big dumb kid whose brains didn’t work right, had no idea how much strength it had, and who might toss you off a cliff to watch you fall. She had no idea she would be called on so quickly, but this was what her husband had trained her for before he’d disappeared.
She stepped into the middle of the trained professional soldiers and channeled her entities. At the time she was still calling them The Lords of Order; they filled the space with brightness in an instant, stopping the creature in its tracks.
She said the words as she danced through her psy-kata and punched a hole the size of a television through its chest. The blow-through splattered the inside of the barn with black ichor. The farmer looked at his wife with horror, as if only now seeing what she was.
He charged and the soldiers cut him down before he reached Yancey.
She remained rooted in place, arms and legs still after moving through the final steps of her psy-kata. A hint of her entities had lengthened her, and the soldiers noticed. She remained there for a few minutes as she visualized the steps she might have to begin again, waiting for another attack. In an hour she was out of the trance, all the soldiers now staring at her with confusion, admiration, and fear. That was her first trip with them, soon she would be training them how to handle these increasingly dangerous incursions. Soon she would learn firsthand what the Rogues wanted, and how to defeat them.
What they wanted was her husband, they wanted her, and they wanted her daughter.
* * *
Simone had been listening, thrilled to learn about her mother’s job.
“Rogue monsters?” Simone said, fascinated to hear the rumors were true. “Torsion Fiends?”
“They’re mean and dangerous and single-minded.” Simone waited for the moral of the story. Her mother said, “To make enough human slaves to a
llow their masters a way into Realspace. Your father told me I’d one day have to explain all this to you. I’ve been delaying. But the time is right for you to begin to know the truth.”
Simone considered acknowledging this fact by bringing up the importance of communing with the Lords of Light to battle these fiends from the empty gulfs of space. But her mother would chide her and say her lords were too weak. Instead she went straight for the heart. “How did you kill it? I mean, you blew a hole in its chest.” Simone knew that sounded a lot like what she’d done to Ellington Prep’s gymnasium.
Her mother stiffened. “You know the answer: Our minds have broken through a ceiling that limited humans for thousands of centuries. We can do things like summon entities.”
Simone turned away and stopped listening. It was her mother’s stock answer as to how their superiornatural—not supernatural, thank you—abilities worked. She couldn’t just say, the lords have the power to break natural law. No, that would lend weight to the mystics, kooks, and crackpots. “Right, broken ceilings and super intellects. Got it.”
“Enough,” her mother said. “Tonight, you’ll see what is out there.” She glanced away to read something in her invisible HUD. “Your brother should be back soon. He’s doing a quick check of the grounds to make sure no other fabricators are here.”
“Then what?”
“Then you dance and see what your lords really are.”
* * *
Simone did as she was told and followed her mother into one of the empty classrooms. She sat in the corner and began reciting her mantra of protection and calming. Yancey watched a daughter who believed in simple answers to complex problems but who would come to know the truth in the most abrupt of ways.
Yancey sensed her son coming down the hall. She stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her, while her daughter sat mumbling in a trance.
Rigon looked annoyed as hell. He was probably ready to argue.
“You’re really going to allow this?” he asked.
She met him in the middle of the corridor. It was late and only Rigon’s team still walked the halls. She’d sent the principal away, telling him nothing. “Are the rest of the recruits ready? I want them there to see.”
“Arthur is getting them now.”
“And the fabricator?”
“Chattering like a crack-whore in a crack store.”
“Good.”
Rigon and Yancey Wellborn glared at each other like the argumentative mother and son they had always been. Rigon thought she was being way too cavalier with his sister ... if something went wrong with this little experiment, he’d never forgive her. And Yancey knew he was thinking this very thing as he stood there like a symbol of perfection behind his black shades and his Metaverse of information. She kept her shades in her pocket, where they’d stay until she needed them. She wasn’t augmented to the extent he was, but she had her own gifts, ones he’d rejected. And her daughter had them, and it was time she understood what they were.
“She’s innocent,” Rigon said, “and pure—”
“—and needs to understand what it is we do. The sooner the better, before she falls somewhere alone with no one to pick her up. This is what your father wanted.”
“We all fall,” he said. “And Dad wanted many things.”
They shared a moment as both of them remembered their own dark nights of the soul in which they faced the truth, even if they couldn’t agree on what that was. Each of them had stared at the Great Enemies of Mankind enough to have strong opinions about them. But they still couldn’t agree. She stepped forward and hugged her son. “When are we going to stop fighting each other on this? I’m your mother. You should listen to me.”
He softened. “When you give up fighting his battles. This is all his fault.”
She had known he’d bring up his father at some point. With Simone involved now, there was no way they could avoid talking about him. “Never say that, Rigon. That’s your father you’re talking about.”
She saw a lance of pain shoot through her son and imagined that tears welled behind his shades. She reached up, grabbed them, expecting him to pull her hands away. The socket grafts behind his ears kept them in place. She’d never pull them off without his permission. But she so wanted to see if he could still cry. She hoped so.
She waited for him to remove her hands. He did not. She pulled.
She heard the hiss, removed the glasses, and stared at her remaining son’s fearless eyes. She saw the golden circles flash once and realized how similar, and different, they were to her own. They both had access to worlds the other would never know. She had access to a small pond, he an ocean.
There were no tears.
He gently retrieved his shades. “Does it have to be this way for her?”
“Do you agree she’s part of this struggle, whether she likes it or not?”
“I do.”
“Do you agree the dangers are worse for those who do not know how to play the game?”
“I do.”
“Then ...?”
He didn’t want to argue with her that what he’d seen his mother become in the last twenty years reminded him so much of what they’d fought. From the look of her she hadn’t aged a day. And Rigon knew she was older than she looked, as was he. Everyone with agency had so much mileage. The soul, though, could only take so much before it began to show wear. He knew she might say the same thing about him. If the Great Game was just about power, how would an ardent young idealist like Simone handle the truth of life in this dangerous twenty-second century?
“I’m afraid of what it’ll do to her,” he said.
“Better she understands sooner rather than later. We’re Wellborns. We’re competitors. It’s this way for us.”
He heard her voice crack, and he saw that she’d heard it, too. Yancey Wellborn was many scare things, but she was still a mother who loved her children. She looked over her shoulder at the classroom like she might fling open the door, pick up her child, and rush her as far away from the fabricator as possible. Then the concern disappeared, as if lost behind a steel curtain.
“Will you get her?” she asked Rigon.
He replaced his shades and felt the gentle voices of his Metaverse AI assistants return to him. “Whatever you say.”
* * *
Rigon led Simone by the hand back to the clinic. When they arrived, the foam had been cleaned and the waiting area returned to normal (except for the disturbing object dug into the floor and the uneven tiles, which would have to be removed and replaced). Hutto, Beasley, Wally, and Kimberlee huddled together as well. They all saw Simone and waved. She waved back but kept her eyes away from the disturbing structure on the floor. Joss was absent, sleeping again in a back room, where he’d be recuperating for some time.
Yancey followed and locked the clinic door.
She pointed at the students standing together. “You four, not a word. And don’t move.”
Even Hutto’s eyes widened at the command; he looked like he’d rather cut out his tongue than say anything. Beasley remained impassive, like the solid rock she was. Wally tried to climb behind her head and looked like he’d crawl inside her, if he could. Kimberlee, though, glared back with a hint of frantic attitude even though it appeared she might start crying.
Yancey walked up to Simone. “Now, are you ready?”
Simone nodded, unsure what to be ready for, but feeling centered.
Rigon gave her a thumbs-up and walked to the far side of the room. She saw him mumbling as little flickers of light erupted all over the Maker.
“Those little critters of his have been waiting to do their thing,” her mother said. “They just began an attack to aggravate the Maker.” She put her own shades on and stepped away. “When it comes, however it comes, channel your Lords of Light, dear, and ask for their help.”
“I will.”
Her mother smiled, nodded, and began to pace like a prizefighter in the ring, except she did it behind Simone
. Simone watched her for only a few more seconds, always impressed by her psy-martial display, and felt a boost of confidence. Her mom had her back. Her brother stood passive, now in cyber mode, but ready. He had reserves of power that could black out a city if he funneled them into this room.
She glanced one more time at the other students, all of them as far away as possible.
The vulgar symbol inside the sculpture shifted, no longer solid, but fluid, as if the man’s ass was about to eat himself whole. She felt energized at what was about to happen, feeling the power of her lords swell in her. She mumbled her mantras, began her dance, and readied herself. She would perform her most demanding kata so far, only half of the twelve her mother promised to teach her. She felt herself immune to the travails of the world. Let all the cracks in the universe show, she thought. They won’t matter.
Pop-pop-pop.
Apple-sized pods began popping out of the fabricator like heated popcorn out of a pan. Each one stuck to something solid like the walls, the ceiling, and chairs. Beasley moved with rapid speed to avoid a barrage of fruit, and one particularly large apple flew between her and Hutto and splattered on the wall behind them. The students all ducked behind a sofa.
Each of the pods transformed into black-irised eyes that looked about the room in random motions. All at once they locked onto Simone in the middle of the room dancing through her psy-kata. The invaders knew their target. Her mother continued her dance. Rigon remained impassive, although he was ready to blast the criminal minds who had shown themselves with enough psychic force to knock down the walls. She knew he’d probably kill everyone in the room, as well, so he’d have to be careful.
Simone was on her own, for now.
A voice spoke from the fabricator: “We are Dominion and Pain and Pleasure. We are Life and Love. Hate and Death. We are All. Young one of the Mind, kneel and worship us. And we will give you our brand.”
Simone, though, was enmeshed in the warm embrace of her mantras, the words of her lords on her lips. She heard the commands and the lies and felt herself swelling with power. Her lords would surely come now, she believed, since she was being commanded to worship another. They didn’t demand brands. They loved her unconditionally. They had to come.
