Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes

by Castro, Adam-Troy

  if those ones back there think you’re still worth destroying and ours think you’re still worth saving the neither side thinks this is over they still think something can be salvaged out of all this pathar see screamed something back but the sound of lani whips impacting earth had turned into a drumbeat that swallowed everything else in the world Skye clutched the two loops of whip forming the seat upon which she sat lowered her head and winced as a bone rattling jolts and waves of agony racing up and down her ravaged legs the ground was a brown blur moving by in streaks of angry done it hurt her eyes to look at but she forced herself to keep looking driven by the knowledge that this was important that every detail could be critical then she had to shut her eyes because a spray of dust and grit had just hit her cheeks like ten thousand bullets fired by an enemy intent on fleeing her to the she had previously been protected from the wake of the Fulani running ahead of her owned by the v-formation they had assumed as they galloped across the desert an arrangement that had placed every runner in the forefront but the group was now making a long wide turn to the left which sent several of them through the wake that they’d been avoiding until now Skye’s breathing space disappeared she coughed gagged let something Brown dribble out of the corners of her mouth and made her lips a little pursed circle in the hope that this would shut out the dirt while admitting enough air to breathe the Villani carrying her stopped listing to the left and straightened out the air turned sweet again she used the back of her hand to clear the caked dirt from her tearing eyes as she peered at the horizon still many kilometers away it looked higher and rockier than the open flats they were passing through now no doubt there’d be canyons up ahead narrow passes places where her group could gain the height advantage against the group chasing them if it came down to a battle and the Porrinyards could only hope for Skye’s sake that it would not that might make the difference between annihilation and survival except that there was something else up ahead something that made her heart sink a line of low black forms rising from the dirt only specks right now but growing closer with every moment meanwhile it wasn’t the first time I’d seen a seated communique there used all the time in the dip core on those occasions when protocol requires the intimacy of face-to-face communication but secrecy requires a veil over the sender’s physical appearance a seeded message may be one of the more grotesque compromises ever worked out because of humanity’s need to accommodate the contradictions of diplomatic etiquette it hides every single distinctive element of the sender’s features not by erasing or during them but by removing all their character reducing the usual geography of eyes and nose and mouth to an in expressive common denominator and thus creating a new facade that stands in for the sender but could be anybody it replaces the face of the individual with a face no one will ever remember or recognize a face that is not so much a nonentity as in every entity chilling in the way it approximates humanity but denies the specific personality that makes humanity meaningful for derreck chef receiving this must have been like not hearing from his daughter at all hello it said there was a jerk no doubt one of the excised sections I know I broke your heart another break I’m sorry it was nothing you did I love you and I wish I could make you believe that I’m doing this because I have no other choice this is not about the life I’ve left this is about my purpose on vlad a long time ago before i ran away i downloaded a couple of the ballet noir x just to see what all the fuss was about i was surprised when parts of the performance started making sense to me more surprised when i saw an obvious way to bring it closer to where it needs to be i don’t expect you to approve it must sound like i’ve gone crazy but you must believe me this is bigger than me bigger than you bigger than everybody we know it matters it matters so much that I can’t stand to do anything else I know that not everybody who makes it to Vaughn gets chosen most of us get changed and spend the rest of our time there just waiting I don’t mind with everything at stake it’s enough if I can just contribute somehow I’m breaking the rules by telling you I shouldn’t be able to the surgeons install governor’s that keep us from saying too much about our past lives it’s not working so well on me I guess even trying to talk to you hurts but it’s not impossible the way it should be I don’t know that’s the thing about what this is the explanations go around the back of everything only to hit you in the face again all I know is that I’m happy very happy that I had the chance to say I love you one last time please don’t come after me you won’t even be able to recognize me just understand what I’m saying I’ll always be entirely your daughter there was one final break catching the seeded image in mid breath just as he/she/it prepared to say one final thing then it faded the message had seemed as useless in its own way as the holo portrait had been but we’d both caught the oddness of the moments chosen for excision they’d seemed arbitrary nothing about the context suggested Marron about to blurt out anything personal or proprietary or as I’d have expected threatening to shifts corporate interests it was always possible of course that Maren had said something wildly revealing that we could not infer from the context hello dad or whatever your vast terrorist network is calling you nowadays I know I broke your heart dad and I know you think this is about your involvement in the slave trade and your plans for a violent overthrow of the government but it’s not I’m sorry but this did not feel anything like that this was a simple earnest declaration of faith from a young woman who felt that she had found her calling why would anyone edit that what had Derek shift thought he was hiding that could possibly be more important than full cooperation with anybody who agreed to help him find his daughter Fox studied me you have something to say I sure as hell did this would be a lot easier if you would play straight with me I have given you everything I can I might have pursued it further because there was too much at stake in the investigation I cared about two ways time in a tug of war with someone who just wanted to play games but that’s when Ocean said we seem to be close I took my first look at the ground since shortly after our departure from the embassy sometime in the last 20 minutes of flying the terrain had changed the hills growing steeper the spaces between them narrower the rolling landscape giving way to heights dominated by towering edifices of black volcanic stone the low areas were still lush and green especially near the Great River that cut the map in half but the plateaus were too steep and too elevated for that kind of lush ecosystem to take hold they were stark and bore green only in

  scattered patches thinning as life struggled to reach the rarefied heights the entire chain running from north to south for as far as I could see must have contained hundreds of them and looked a lot like the aftermath of some ancient battle each tower the hilt of some giant sword plunged deep into the planets flesh by some angry god I didn’t even want to consider what kind of ancient Cataclysm created a Vista like this I only knew that it must have been violent Pawel ania reading my mind said yes my people call this range the human teeth amused potion said the rear gold talent for evocative place names must be exceeded only by their profound disrespect for the quality of human dentistry well they’re fascinated by teeth in general never having evolved NE

  pas : II had directed him closer to the summit of one particular forbidding monolith but I would not have been able to pick out as especially different from any of the others it was not anywhere I want it to be excuse me we’re landing there are you sure yes said pocketful Ania that is our destination I can only hope that the people we want are still home

  my high diversion had shown tremendous improvement since the days when it had been next to pathological but I still didn’t like the idea of standing in the middle of a tiny open area with nothing but empty space on all four sides there was no place to retreat no direction to run that wouldn’t run the risk of a stupid misstep than a fall long enough to spend cursing myself for my clumsiness Ocean set the skimmer down at the exact center of the summit an area about 20 meters in diameter when we disembarked I saw that the area had been flattened and polished by some sentient hand the sole conce
ssion to texture a lattice of grooves that provided welcome friction for visitors who otherwise might have slipped on rain-slicked stone and tumbled over the edge I would have been happier with a fence there was not nearly enough space between the sides of our vehicle and the sheer drops on every side of us for the comfort of an old height sensitive like myself especially one who was at this point only one day removed from a nearly catastrophic fall worse was the powerful wind which rustled my suit and whipped about the one lock of hair I keep long giving me terrible visions of a sudden gust sweeping me into oblivion Ocean stayed close to me giving me a welcome constant Fox just stood beside the skimmer unmoved by awe or fear or confusion over this odd choice of destinations Pavel Ania went on her hands and knees and began to search the dirt I wrapped my arms around Ocean needing his presence but finding him cold in more ways than one the chill in him went beyond the recent tension between us beyond even the cold of the high-altitude his limbs seemed to have little pulsing blood I had never encountered this phenomenon in him before but I feared I knew what it was about Skye is not doing well is she he lowered his voice no she’s not how bad is it bad profitable in terms of information gathering but bad is she in danger she was not long ago she seems alright now but the way things have been going is she could find herself in the thick of it again at any moment I felt all the bad emotions fear anger self-hatred hopelessness and black despair all at once damn it Ocean it’s worse for me Andrea I’m there and there’s no point in dwelling on it when there’s nothing we can do about it now necessity makes us endure things we

  would rather not know nor was there any point in asking him to keep me informed if anything of a permanent nature happened to Skyee the effect on Ocean would be immediate and devastating the shock alone could kill him or destroy his mind even if he remained functional it might only be as a stranger whose soul had been halved the effect on me would be exactly the same if I lost them I would lose everything that had made my life worth living this last couple of years I might not be able to resist abandoning humanity to its fate as I made immediate use of the cliff now only a few steps away counsellor court it was pocketful Ania calling me for what I know realized was the second time I resented the interruption and was not mollified at all when I saw that she was just calling my attention to the man emerging from the open hatchway at her feet the new arrival was a stocky no necked figure with a wide jaw than a face that had taken on the texture of leather after what must have been years of exposure to high winds and direct open altitudes son his eyes were tiny things nothing more than pin pricks poked in what seemed to be a permanent squint but when he grinned at me his weather-beaten cheeks crinkled with smile lines nearly bald on top

  he had a sparse fringe of shoulder-length white hair that the wind whipped around his face like cirrus clouds his outfit battered pants and a crude open vest looked like it had been handmade out of local materials and struck me as the kind of thing worn by a man who either didn’t give a damn about appearances or couldn’t afford to he beamed at fellini a— and took her hands you don’t know how happy I was to hear that you’d been kidnapped after the news from the amphitheater it was the only way we knew you’d survived she lowered her eyes a lot of people did not and I was not kidnapped not exactly it was my choice his blue irises were wasted behind those weather-beaten slits you would be councillor Andrea Court I am I’ve been glued to the high Tech’s traffic since last night and caught the recent alerts about your activities the consensus among the local diplomatic community seems to be that you finally gone insane I bristled the consensus among the diplomatic community at large has always been that it happened years ago I’ve heard that too I assure you I’ve been following your career for years and suspect that the suits are just covering their asses but since the Confederate and she embassies have skimmers headed here right now with orders to place you under arrest again and can’t be much more than 20 minutes out any other notes we exchanged had better be on the run hurry up I’ll get you situated we followed the weather-beaten man through the open hatch and down a metal spiral staircase he led Paco Linea followed Ocean trailed along beside me and Fox brought up the rear I’d expected some relief from my height sensitivity once we were free of the view but the first chamber down below wasn’t much of an improvement the walls were transparent on all sides and offered a panoramic view of the human teeth that must have been the kind of thing loved by people who loved that kind thing an interior balcony nestled

  against one such wall held the table bearing a cooked meal half-eaten and still giving off steam the aroma enough to remind me how long it had Vincent died last eaten I felt the wave of hunger that failed to dissipate as we descended past two levels that seemed mostly empty space to one that seemed to be his living room no panoramic views here the irregular visible rock walls had been left rough to accentuate the Chamber’s resemblance to a natural cave the couches here were patchy and homemade but looked like plush heaven to sit on and were primitive only in the sense that a rich people often allow their furnishings to look primitive which is to say as a statement the spiral staircase continued further down but I’d reached my saturation point excuse me sir but will you mind explaining where the hell we are he didn’t break stride my name is Paul Rico this is my home I blasted it out of the rock with plasmids and directed explosives and the help of some friends and sympathizers do you like it like didn’t enter into it concern for the legal ramifications did the Confederacy’s efforts to fight human participation in the ballet had long included restricting travel - Vlad -

  diplomatic personnel and any corporations willing to defend their activities in court it hadn’t stopped the dance pilgrims from smuggling themselves here but their presence in defiance of the embargo subjected them to prosecution if they ever re-entered Confederate space the dance pilgrims wouldn’t mind paying that price they hoped to die here but what was this man’s excuse you don’t seem to be a dance pilgrim I only wish I had that gift then I’m afraid I don’t understand

  Pikeville Ania took pity on me Paul’s a retired member of the media I was anorexic Royko explained

  he was a living neural recorder a man who had wired his brain to record his personal experiences next to diplomacy it was the one profession that makes my skin crawl the most in part because I disliked knowing that the AI source are inside my head and have trouble understanding anybody who would make a similar arrangement without lives at stake I consume noir X as much as anybody else does but I also found the people behind the business flaky and had encountered a few who’d stayed on the job too long and become broken agoraphobic wrecks unable to connect with the feelings they’d once been paid to share something else seemed to have happened to this Royko whose apparent outgoing nature was a definite contrast to the social blanks who made up the majority of his occupation a bunch of years ago my network sent me here to interview one of the more famous dance pilgrims shellac on just before her own death in the ballet I flew in got the story as well as a much larger one nobody was interested in and flew out but the mysteries of the place had gotten under my skin by then so I ended up coming back for good a while back best decision I ever made even though I had to abandon my Confederate citizenship to do it why because I never believed in any of the human history I covered over the years and I believe in what’s happening here I don’t claim to understand it all but I can feel something profound happening something that makes all our politics and all our diplomacy and all our bullshit look like passing madness you do sound like a dance pilgrim they talk just like that unfortunately I’m more a sympathizer than a participant I don’t have the calling and have nothing to offer the show but I sure as hell do want to be here when it accomplishes what it’s meant to do but you can’t explain what that is anymore than the pilgrims can nope he said his grin both broad and self-deprecating you know us slingers we’re pretty good when it comes to recognizing great events pretty half-assed when it comes to explaining them a box your ears off arguing that the Ballet’s as important to the futu
re of humanity as it is to the future of lawn but it’s mostly something I feel as opposed to something I know if you want specifics about why it’s so crucial or how it’s going to work I’m afraid that you’re in the wrong place talking to the wrong person so what this boiled down to at least as far as he was concerned was faith which made me grown a little faith couldn’t help in a crisis where what I really needed was raw data so I changed the subject so you gave up your citizenship and aligned yourself with who I’m pretty much a man without a country these days unless that country’s full on but I suppose you could call me a real gull by default since I’m now married to one of their citizens and there it was finally the explanation for the we he’d used way back at the beginning of this conversation Pavel Ania must have felt my aggravated look through the back of her head not me counselor her paths adopted daughter cheetah Park this was becoming one hell of a tangled knot and where’s she right now I’m not sure Boyko said she’s more plugged into this business than I am I know she’s out trying to get a handle on this madness but I don’t know where or how I’m surprised you’re not frantic I’m surprised you think I’m not don’t get me wrong choppy may be one of the most frightening ly competent human beings I’ve ever known but she is hubris to match and her mistakes when they come her all the more spectacular she won’t talk about them much but she falls into depressions about them that sometimes lasts for days and yet she’s out there alone in the middle of this madness I don’t want her in the line of fire but when she says she has to be I trust her and when she says I have to stick around and wait because somebody like you will be by needing a distance I’d do what she says what does that mean somebody like me somebody Royko said with an intimate connection to the forces pulling the strings I was beginning to understand his steadfast avoidance of any specifics the unseen to Tupac struck me as somebody who’d made her own alliance with the AI source under terms that could not be discussed with an earshot of unaffiliated parties like Fox and Parkville Ania but that cast unexpected suspicion on her other associations you mean like your father-in-law is he involved I haven’t spoken to him in years Royko said chubby had to renounce her own citizenship a while back in order to avoid a messy legal situation that would have had her executed under rear gone law she applied for asylum with your lot but could only apply through Kroy who refused to sign off on her repatriation unless she made a statement supporting sanctions against the Villani I noticed it’s hard not to in any event she wouldn’t do that so she’s like me a sentient without a country unless that country’s flan I’m afraid Valle enniaa here has had to pay a bit of a professional price with both embassies just for associating with us on what you’d call humanitarian grounds which is just one reason I’m always so willing to give her anything she needs ah here we are we had entered the lowest and crudest of the dwellings chambers an irregular oblong hangar with primitive rock flooring and sliding metal gates on magnetic tracks there was room for two open cockpit skimmers only one of which was here that one looked battered and ancient and in dire need of a good wash but in acceptable repair there was seating for six in a cargo area in the rear stocked with hard plaster drums strapped into place with elastics the side walls of the cave were stacked ceiling high with crates of Confederate issue emergency rations enough for an extended sea Royko said you won’t find any of this stuff tasty but I don’t think there’s time for me to make you something hot not when I’ll have to leave right away myself he turned to leave and was several steps back up the stairs before I thought to protest where are you going he stopped in mid-step absolutely nowhere important councillor but it will be far away from here and I’ll be going there in your previous vehicle staying in the air and taking as roundabout and as ridiculous a route as possible just to make sure your pursuers need the rest of the day to figure out that I’m not you allow me a bit of a head start and I think you’ll have the freedom to get wherever you’re going but you will have to move fast I’m afraid what if I have questions I’m sure you have about 000000