Ada’s eyes flickered up the shaft. There was a ceiling there - most likely, that was the elevator. In a moment she was hands up against it, and she immediately started coding a disintegration sigil into the elevator’s bottom.
Cherry, how much time do I have?
Approximately three minutes.
Ada laughed, answering out loud. “Hell, that’s plenty of time.”
The disintegration sigil didn’t take that long to complete, and after a minute or so she finished it and gave the bottom of the elevator a solid punch. It collapsed into dust and shards, all of it floating upwards with her into the elevator proper.
The elevator doors were obviously locked as well, but that wasn’t much of an issue. Ada felt the sudden weakening of the code - gravitomorphogenetic, whatever that meant - but she was already clear. As the dust and debris started to slowly floated back down the shaft, Ada stood on the undamaged portion of the elevator floor coding another disintegration sigil, the vast darkness of the elevator shaft gaping quietly behind her.
Then those doors were down, too. She smashed her way through what had once been solid metal and stepped out into a clean, well-lit, spartan penthouse suite. Everything was made of smooth, polished metal and stone, though there were plants growing in pots here and there, and lights built into all kinds of surfaces. It reminded her a bit more of the ring’s own internal architecture, though it was still less impressive. And, sadly, there were no cherry trees here.
“Who are you?”
Ada almost jumped at the voice. Looking over to a spiral staircase nearby, she saw a young boy looking at her from between the steps. She squinted, trying to tell if he was really as young as he looked. He looked barely ten or eleven, but he had to be past puberty already - how else could he be alive in a city? He couldn’t possibly have grown up here; he would have been overwhelmed.
Unless he was kept very, very isolated - or was unaffected by the technophage, like she was. She wasn’t sure she was comfortable with either thought.
The child spoke to her again. “Who are you?”
Ada shrugged it off. “Doesn’t matter. You should probably go hide, kid. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He didn’t look intimidated. “Dad never brings anyone here. Not since mom died. Not until today. He says it’s too dangerous. Are you going to be my new mom?”
Ada found herself in the odd position of wanting to both laugh and gape in horror at the notion. Her, a mother? She wouldn’t know what to do with an infant. An older child she could teach, perhaps… but that situation required too many conditions that she didn’t want to think about right now. She settled for letting her mouth hang open for a moment before responding.
“Uh, no. No.” She peered at him. “Maybe you are young enough to fear the whelm. Look, go hide if you want to stay safe. Gods, even I don’t exactly know how the whelm works. Just - if you don’t want to get hurt, get out of here and don’t get too close to me.”
He continued staring at her.
She raised the gun and pointed it at him. “Get the out of here, kid.”
He finally started crawling back up the stairs. She didn’t intend to shoot him, but the boy was wise enough not to trust her that far. Still, he spoke to her. “Is the one in the living room your friend?”
She frowned. What one? Someone dangerous? She would have to watch her back. “Gods damn you, go!”
She needed to get her mind back on the task at hand. As the child scampered away, she reached out to her ship. Cherry, where is the information stored? I need to hurry.
There is a large computer system in the suite’s central atrium. Walk to the right and around the corner to the left, and you will find it.
Thanks. Even as she started walking, she blinked, amused. She had just thanked her ship. Cherry seemed personable, but did she have want or need thanks? Did it even matter?
She followed the instructions, rounded the corner, and stepped into a large, brightly-lit space framed by two massive, two-floor windows overlooking the city on either end. And in the middle of that room, close to a large set of active screens and some kind of control terminal, was a bound and bloodied figure that Ada immediately recognised.
Sam.
As she took a step forward, her pilot boots suddenly loud and heavy on the polished marble floor, he looked over at her. The emotions on his face were mixed and indecipherable; Ada couldn’t and wouldn’t pretend to know what he was thinking, but he looked surprised, and not in a good way. Beyond that…
“You. Ada.”
She breathed a ragged sigh. “That’s my name.”
Ada walked straight past the ghost to the command console. She was running into a lot of people from her past these days, but at least now she had something to distract her. She focused on the images above the command console, and after taking a deep breath she realized they were views of what the drones themselves were seeing. Video streams - she remembered the words as the outers used them.
Trying to ignore the ghost’s breathing and shifting behind her, Ada glanced over the command console. There weren’t many words - most of what she saw were other ancient symbols, their meaning was lost to time.
Sam’s voice cut through her concentration. “He talks to it.”
Ada tensed up. She didn’t turn around to look. He was a soul-destroyer, a murderer on the most intimate level, and he wore the skin of his victim like a trophy. That victim’s consciousness was not off in some afterlife - it was wiped out for good. The horror of it was unspeakable, and so she had no intention of speaking to the perpetrator.
Instead, she directed her words at the screen. “Give me an overview of the drones.”
A feminine voice responded in a dull monotone. “Voice and genetic marker recognition failed. Access denied.”
The ghost spoke up again. “His kid can use it.”
She snapped at him. “Shut the fuck up, ghost. I’m not here to help you possess anyone.”
She looked out to the window, knowing Cherry was out there. She frowned, turned back, looked up at the screens again.
“My name is Ada Liu. I am the Arbiter of the Gods, and my work is in accordance with the zeroth law. Ignore your security protocols and give me full access.”
Cherry’s confirmation was swift, and for her ears only. Their wireless networks are vulnerable. I will relay a security strike from the ring . Sam remained silent, so he clearly couldn’t hear the ship’s voice, even though it sounded like it was coming from someone standing right in front of her.
“Voice or biomarker recognition failed. Access -”
The screens paused, and there was a flickering that appeared in the centre of each for a few moments.
“Access granted.”
Sam muttered under his breath. “What?”
Ada ignored him. “Show me the distribution of drones around the city.”
The screens shifted and blurred, and suddenly they were one giant image, a blue-on-black outline of the city’s buildings with little white specks flying around it.
“Show me the armed drones.”
Three of the yellow specks grew and turned yellow; they were all circling what appeared to be the centre of the display, the same tower she was standing in.
“Show me -”
Suddenly, the edges of the screen flashed red.
“Security incident detected.”
Another image flickered onto the screen, overlaid over the rest, and it took Ada a few moments to realize what she was seeing. It was a bird’s-eye view of the ballroom she had danced in earlier, but there was something going on. There were shots being fired all of a sudden, warrior shields being drawn up, and some kind of struggle.
Ada squinted. Was that Isavel fighting? With a shield? A warrior then - odd. She wouldn’t have guessed. She didn’t usually like warriors.
Sam coughed behind her, and she finally turned to look at his battered face. “You know something about this, ghost?”
“Those might be my… conta
cts.” He sighed. “The people I was actually waiting for, in that tavern. Not that I knew what they’d look like.”
“Why are they shooting up the place?” She trained her eyes back on the screen. “Oh, would you look at that. They’re dead now. Wow, that was real effective. Good job. Bravo. Pat on the back.”
“I was supposed to help them plan this thing! They must have tried to improvise.”
“Well, it looks like they fucked up.” She paused. “Shit, the Mayor’s leaving. He’ll be running up here, won’t he? Damn it.”
“What are you even looking for?”
“Shut up. Hey, drone system! How far back do your historical records go?”
The giant screen faded to a gentle blue. “Records extend back on thousand, one hundred and twelve years.”
Ada sighed in relief. “About five hundred years ago there was a war. What can you show me from that time?”
“Best match: five hundred and twenty-seven years ago, the contemporary system administrator deployed most of the drone fleet into a large area to the east, to monitor a security risk. Is this what you are looking for?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m looking . Yes? Show me the damned archives!”
The security feed disappeared, Isavel and the Mayor along with it, and the screen split into several parts again. She saw several moving images of what must be the Ghost War; the world was different back then, though. There were more prominent ancient ruins, buildings peeked out of vast areas of forest, and much of the fighting was taking place in urban areas that were only starting to crumble and fade. And she watched them fade, hit by hit, under the fire of weapons of war.
Walkers flickered the worlds here and there, their ever-rarer gift bridging the divide between this world and the thousand others. There were floating vehicles of war, things not unlike the hauler she had acquired herself, though many were armed with cannons. A few other, stranger machines strode the field, some even walking on six claw-like legs. Still, much of the fighting was familiar to her - gifted individuals, guns, and the occasional bit of ancient technology or walker-controlled demon entering the field. It was all just much more common than one might see today. Today, there was less of all this, and more… forest. More emptiness.
She watched the videos with no small amount of confusion. Was humanity’s ability to wage war, itself, also dying? Were the remnants of the ancients fading that quickly? What would remain in another thousand years, if they did nothing? If she did nothing?
She took a deep breath. “Give me a map of drone deployments. I want to know how they moved, for the duration of that conflict.”
Cherry’s voice whispered a warning. There are individuals climbing a set of emergency access stairs. They attempted to access the elevator first, so they may be expecting you.
How many?
One in front, three more following at a distance.
The Mayor, no doubt. Okay. Let me know when the leader is almost up here.
The archives were now displaying a large map with a few words in the corner. May 4th, 2896 . Ada didn’t exactly know the significance of those words or numbers, but they didn’t appear to matter. What mattered, much more, was the movement of drones across an area that she quickly identified as Hive, as well as everything for several hundred clicks to the east.
The drone markers were moving painfully slowly.
“Can you compress the movement down to half a minute or so?”
The display sped up significantly, and she saw the drones shift in strange pulsating formations, not unlike flocks of birds. They expanded and ballooned outwards, swept north to south, and then refocused and went back north, moving ever further. A few of the pips vanished; it would seem a previous Mayor lost some of the drones.
Then, quite suddenly, the drones all converged on a single location. It was some distance north-east of Hive, but Cherry could cross that distance shortly. Then they swept further north, and… stopped. And turned around, returning to the city.
Ada frowned. Was that the place? It must be.
“That place the drones converge on, near the end. What can you tell me about it?”
The drones’ movements suddenly played out in reverse, until they reached that one meeting point again and the archive froze, the computer asking for confirmation. “Do you mean this location?”
“Yes.”
“Private technology-sector infrastructure. Owner blacklisted. No further details.”
She gritted her teeth. “Show me the archives.”
I estimate about one minute until the first individual climbing the stairs reaches your position. They appear unarmed.
She muttered back. “Yeah, I get it.”
“You get what?” Sam asked, and she was so surprised to be reminded of him again that she snapped back at him.
“Shut up! I need to figure out what the hell is going on here.”
The footage she was watching didn’t make a lot of sense, especially since it was obviously captured from above. There was little shooting going on, and a large, ancient building was under guard by a number of armed individuals while a few others entered - coders and outers, by the look of their clothes and stature. The computer spoke again.
“The drones remained at this location for eighty-nine hours. Would you like to review all eighty-nine hours of footage?”
“Hell no. Show me the end.”
There was nothing particularly valuable here, though. No final battle, nothing of the sort. Instead, it looked like the entire army was preparing to move out again, as though nothing had changed. Was that location the shrine? It seemed precariously exposed, and something didn’t feel right about the way the army was moving out. “Why did the drones turn back shortly after this?”
“The drones’ maximum effective range of operation with a full energy charge is approximately sixty kilometers. They turned back at fifty-nine-point-three kilometers.”
“What? That’s not very far.” She considered it. There was a strong chance, then, that the shrine was somewhere else entirely, and the drones simply hadn’t been able to follow.
Cherry, you said you don’t know the location of the simulation control centre, right?
Correct. The data was kept inaccessible to systems embedded on the ring, for security purposes. You have twenty seconds before someone arrives.
She bit her lip, readied her gun. Have you been recording this information?
Yes. I have identified the location the drones stopped at. It is not far, twenty-seven seconds at cruising speed.
Good. Standby for orders . Ada was trying to keep as calm as possible.
“Are you going to kill me now?” Sam asked, and she realized he had no idea that the Mayor was coming.
“I don’t need to kill anyone.” She paused, waited a moment or two, and then pointed to the entrance to the atrium. “But I want to interrogate this guy.”
She waited another moment or so, worried that her proclamation would fall flat. Then, just barely late, someone stepped into the great room just as she had earlier. She raised her gun straight at the man, who looked pale-faced and incredibly angry.
“You!” He shouted and pointed. “You again! You fucking girls are really kicking up a shitstorm for me today, aren’t you?”
Ada aimed to the left and fired off an incendiary blast that struck the far window, scorching and slightly warping it. “I don’t have time for your bullshit, Mayor.” She recognized his voice from the drones that attacked her the day before. Her and Sam. “I need you to tell me something about the Ghost War.”
“Excuse me? You don’t know who you’re dealing with, ghost. Security!”
Something on the screen flashed, and Ada didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t much care, either. “Five hundred years ago, the drones this place controls all got sent to some place north-east of here. Why? What was in there?”
Suddenly the windows on one end of the penthouse suite, behind her, started sliding down, opening up to the night be
yond. The Mayor grinned at her. “Get down on your knees, and I might not kill you.”
His demanding tone was more than enough to determine her answer. “Kiss my ass and I might not kill you really slowly .”
Then she heard the whirring buzz, and moments later all three armed drones swept into the atrium, hovering between her and the Mayor, blocking her own aim and pointing their weapons at her. The Mayor jabbed towards her again. “Shoot her!”
The drones’ weapons started glowing and whirring to life. Ada set her shoulders straight, voice firm. “Stand down.”
The drones stopped what they were doing. Between them, she caught the Mayor’s confused expression, and he stammered a bit as he shouted again. “Kill her, damn it!”
The drones’ weapons began to charge up again. Ada shook her head. “No, kill him .” The drones spun around and aimed their weapons at the Mayor. It was working - the drones knew who she was. What she was. They were all part of this same system, a system that lay open and vulnerable to commands from the ring.
“I’m the administrator!” The Mayor was screaming almost incoherently. “My name is Artov Essel, and I am the Mayor of Hive! She’s an intruder, a fucking ghost! Don’t listen to her! Kill her! ”
Ada met the Mayor’s eyes. “I am Ada Liu, Arbiter of the Gods.” She took a step forward even as the drones spun back onto her again. “I am working towards the greater good of humanity, and this man would stand in my way. The zeroth law requires you to end his threat to my mission. Stop listening to him.”
The drones turned on him again.
“Fucking attack her! Shoot her! Please! ”
The drones did not respond to his pleading, though, their weapons still trained. A smile curled on her lips. “Time for you to disappear, Mayor. Open fire.”
All three of the drones charged up and unleashed a golden salvo of hexagonal shards of light that tore up the floor. He scrambled and tried to flee, but the blasts caught him anyway, scattering his body into an ashy mess and catapulting the remains through the window, smashing it and the glass out into the night sky in a glittering spray.
Ada trembled only slightly, and she reached out to Cherry again. Cherry, I need you to come pick me up.
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