(ID)entity (Phoenix Horizon Book 2)

by PJ Manney

  Dressed in her steampunk regalia, Veronika entered TCoMT. She placed herself at the doors of the cathedral, the center of the world she had helped create. She sent an emergency text and voice message to all congregants: “Major Tom and his team are under attack IRL Port Everglades. We need your help.”

  The congregants stopped, processed her message, then continued on their business.

  “No! Really! We need your help!” insisted Veronika.

  On the cobblestone walk in front of the cathedral, a tiny fairy asked, “Where is he that he asks us to help? Shouldn’t the savior show himself?”

  “Tom? I need you here,” said Veronika. She got no answer.

  “Don’t use the savior’s name in vain,” chastised another, dressed as a munchkin.

  A priest in a Bernhardt-azure-blue cassock exited the cathedral doors and descended the front steps toward Veronika. “You’re creating a disruptive presence, miss. Please behave, or the moderators will have to suspend your account.”

  “I am the chief moderator!” she said.

  “Well, you’re not a good one,” clucked the priest.

  “Have you seen what’s happening, like, out in the real world? There’s an attack in Port Everglades. Major Tom is trying to save refugees. Why aren’t you helping?”

  “I haven’t heard or seen anything of the sort,” said the priest.

  Veronika contacted another moderator named Fitzy and showed him what was unfolding both inside TCoMT and at Port Everglades.

  “Holy shit!” Fitzy replied. “Is this for real?”

  “Yes!” said Veronika. “Help me convince them.”

  In TCoMT, a crowd gathered outside the cathedral, brought by the sound of the argument. Veronika said, to no one in particular, “That’s because you’re all obsessed in here. Tom’s right, being a deity sucks.”

  A beautiful, statuesque woman emerged from the gathering crowd, her long blonde hair flowing to the ground. Dressed all in white like a Greek goddess, she stood next to Veronika’s goth princess.

  “She lies,” said the goddess to the crowd. Her voice was beautiful, modulated to persuade. “She’s trying to divert us from the truth.”

  Major Tom scrutinized the avatar. There was something familiar. It wasn’t a design element. What was it? Veronika displayed the avatar’s membership information for Tom and Fitzy. It had joined and created itself soon after TCoMT had been created, but it hadn’t been used until today. Real identity and payment information had been scrubbed.

  The goddess turned to the gathering crowd with authority and grace. “My dears, we’ve been duped. This is one giant con. Major Tom isn’t a god. He’s a devil. And he certainly doesn’t care about you. He’ll destroy us all!”

  It could be only one person.

  “No. Not here you won’t,” Veronika threatened the goddess.

  “Oh, you poor sweet things,” said the goddess. “Such a waste.” She studied the crowd for a moment. Then she opened her mouth and began to sing an a cappella version of the Tea Party’s “Empty Glass.” Written thirty-five years after the musical astronaut’s first appearance in “Space Oddity,” David Bowie’s Major Tom is revealed to have abandoned Earth. Now humanity must wait for another “star man,” another “diamond dog” to avoid losing their souls.

  The ever-growing crowd was mesmerized. The goddess stopped midstanza and pointed to the horizon in horror. “No! Your Major Tom knows I sing the truth! Look what he’s doing to us!”

  The crowd turned in unison to see its world disappear.

  It started at the edges. Space folded in on itself. The landscape curled up and rolled inward toward the cathedral, slowly at first, then gaining in speed, deleting entire neighborhoods, businesses, and characters in its inexorable advance. In their place was nothingness.

  Back on the Zumwalt, Veronika struggled to stop TCoMT’s crash, desperate to save the world she and others had created, even if they didn’t know enough to save themselves.

  “Lock it up!” she voice messaged Fitzy.

  “I’m trying!”

  But there was no saving anything. Her link to Fitzy through TCoMT disappeared. Her avatar was gone. Her world was gone. She ripped off her mixed reality glasses, covered her eyes, and cried. This hit harder than the devastation in the port below.

  Tom sent a message: I’m so sorry. She didn’t see it until later.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  On the southwestern corner of the port, outside the gates, a late-model Mini Cooper drove against the flow of people. Tom zoomed in. A transport company sign lit the front window. It should have been looking for a fare. There was no driver, and no passengers. It didn’t stop to pick anyone up. It looked too small to be threatening, and refugees made way for it to pass. Some tried to commandeer it, but the doors were locked, the windows would not break, and the car kept moving.

  Tom looked back in the direction it had come from. More empty cars headed their way, and no one could get into them. This was bad. He’d seen what one car had done today.

  Running toward the first car, he tried to scream above the din of weapons and terrified humans. “Get away from the car!” Few heard him. They were too consumed with trying to escape.

  He reached the gate leading out to the street. It was locked. A biometric reader topped a steel post to his left. He ran to it, looking for anything he could hack . . . And the gate opened. The ID reader had accessed his chip. Veronika’s little gizmo was coming in handy.

  The Mini Cooper puttered on just thirty feet away. He screamed, “Away from the car! Get out of here now!” He grabbed a middle-aged man and shoved him in the opposite direction.

  “Hey!” the man yelled. “Don’t—”

  BOOM!

  The Mini Cooper exploded. The fireball was larger than the Jeep, incinerating those near it. Tom dived to the ground, covering the man, then leapt up and ran to help anyone he could.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The cars behind the first exploded in quick succession.

  His visual recognition pinged. It had found Tom 3 heading toward the ships. Both guns were out, and he was shooting at refugees indiscriminately. His aim wasn’t great, but it didn’t matter. People saw a Peter Bernhardt–look-alike sexbot shooting into a crowd. Headline news.

  The car bombs were meant to lead Tom away. He grabbed the nearest able-bodied person, a woman with a baby in a pack on her chest. “Please, help organize anyone who can be carried away to safety.”

  “Why can’t you?” she asked.

  “I have to catch the ones doing this.”

  Tom 3 marched in the direction of the Ocean Harmony. Firing with both hands, he mowed down anyone in front of him. Tom kept out of Tom 3’s range, wondering how he could stop the robot.

  It wasn’t like harming a human. A single shot to the head or the center of the chest would not take him down. The shot could miss all the crucial mechanisms and electronics. Tom ran an analysis of his own robots’ schematics, searching for vulnerabilities.

  But Carter would assume Tom would look for weaknesses. Could Tom 3 have been altered so an obvious attempt to stop the robot would hurt others?

  He voice messaged Ruth: “If you were going to sabotage Tom 3, so anyone trying to harm him would be hurt, where would you do it?”

  “Most important part? Central processing unit. And memory chips. In the chest. Two inches above human heart.”

  He wouldn’t aim at the chest. Tom ran.

  Three hundred feet from the cruise ship, Tom 3 stopped, turned, and faced Tom, raising his submachine guns.

  ZZZZZP! Tom shot at the robot’s hands, destroying them and damaging the guns. He raised his sights to the elbows.

  ZZZZZP! Elbows burnt and crispy. Forearms fell to the ground.

  ZZZZZP! Off came the right foot. Then the left. Tom 3 stumbled and toppled over.

  Next, Tom destroyed the knees, separating the lower and upper legs. Tom 3 had only thighs and upper arms. The robot tried to rise but didn’t have the programmi
ng and engineering to do it without full limbs. He wriggled around on the asphalt like an injured beetle on its back.

  Tom approached carefully, fearing an auto-destruct, and reached for Tom 3’s neck. The robot turned its head and tried to bite him. Tom leapt back. “Man, you’re a nasty piece of work.”

  “You would know,” said the robot.

  Tom kicked it in the head, hard, and shot the power switch. The machine went silent and still. He took a deep breath and started to back away. One down.

  Tom 3 waited for 3.5 seconds. With a whir, the robot turned on again, righting itself with one upper arm. It turned its head jerkily at Tom. “Surprise!”

  Tom knew—he knew—he should come up with a better idea, but he couldn’t control his hands. They shook. Sweat poured into his eyes. He had had enough. He scooped up Tom 3’s submachine gun and aimed at the neck.

  B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B!

  Until the robot’s head had been shot clean off. Then he went after the rest of the body, avoiding just the chest.

  B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B!

  Tom 3 was reduced to a heap of metal, fake skin, and rags. Like the mangled remains of a twin that he had once inhabited and that knew what he was feeling.

  The disembodied head buzzed, then clicked. It’s one working eye winked.

  Tom ran.

  BOOM!

  He staggered from the blast. It killed at least a dozen people and injured dozens more.

  Tom 3 was not just a bomb. He was an IED, a shrapnel machine. Recorded by all the cameras—security, drones, GOs, news services—so the world would see that Thomas Paine’s robot was a part of the terrible story. The new plotline written by Carter: Tom 3 was part of Major Tom. The robot killed everyone in its path. The footage was edited to make it appear that Tom, when he had come upon the robot, had flipped a switch on it, turning it into a bomb, and run away.

  Carter was shooting a movie, and government media would call it news.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The Ocean Harmony’s hospital comprised a handful of small rooms on Deck Two at the ship’s lower entrance, near the tender platforms. To keep people moving up into the ship and avoid an unmanageable crowd at the doors, Steve set up his triage unit on Deck Fifteen, outside, in a sports complex with plenty of light, room, and fresh air. After triaging with the help of some medics borrowed from the Zumwalt and the Roosevelt, Steve sent the serious cases back down to the hospital.

  Tom messaged, Sure you don’t want to set up in the ballroom?

  “Air-conditioning isn’t on yet. We’re fine,” said Steve. “I can keep an eye on things here. And no drones.” He waved to another medic and pointed to a man having sudden difficulty breathing. “Hey, Chaiprasit! Red tag! Stat!”

  Dr. Steve Carbone was in his element.

  A satellite cam showed the outer decks of the Ocean Harmony filled with refugees. Suddenly, passengers on board staggered as the ship lurched from the dock without the help of tugboats. Steve regained his balance and looked over the side. The gangways were still coming up, even with refugees waiting to board.

  He voice messaged Talia through his MR glasses. “We’re leaving now?”

  “Yes. I’ll explain later,” she said.

  He jogged over to a new patient, a teenage girl. Her leg had a gangrenous wound, probably a week old. Someone had attempted to dress it using ripped clothing, but without proper first aid supplies, she was showing signs of sepsis. She had no identification papers and no one with her to tell him who she was. He took her fingers and pressed them to his GO to record her prints, then linked his glasses to record and spoke quickly, sending her triage information down to the hospital deck where the pharmacy would prepare IV antibiotics and a nurse would set a time for surgery. By the looks of it, he had gotten to her in time to save her life, but she’d lose most of her leg.

  Suddenly a blinding white light blasted everything.

  Sound was sucked away. So was sight.

  The Ocean Harmony’s screens went dark.

  “Steve!” screamed Talia from the Zumwalt bridge. She had been inside a dome with his MR feed on her screen. It felt like she was there with him. She leapt from her seat and ran for the gangway.

  Major Tom zoomed the satellite cam out. The rear wall of the Harmony’s bridge was gone, but the room was not destroyed. He could see Captain Allesandro and other officers collapsed inside. For Tom, it was sickeningly familiar. He quickly analyzed the images he collected. Light covered only the central part of the ship. Apparently there were limits to the size of the target that Josiah Brant’s favorite satellite laser weapon could cover. But who had control of the weapon now? The Phoenix Club? The SSA? Another country?

  As the light faded, Tom saw that the midvessel was completely gone, vaporized in place. Seawater below boiled from the intensity of the laser’s heat. The fore and aft of the vessel hovered in place, then slowly collapsed toward each other like falling giant redwoods, their hulls rising. From ten and twenty stories above, bodies flew from the decks and exposed rooms onto the dock or into the sea.

  Tom bolted toward the ship.

  The fore and aft of the Ocean Harmony took on water and sank. Tom watched helplessly as Steve tried to save himself and the young woman he held. He grabbed her, one arm around her torso as they slid to a stop at a fence surrounding the tennis court. He tried to reorient them as the deck turtled over. Then the aft section lurched to starboard, pitching Steve and the young girl off the fence and down into a sliver of black water between the dock and the sinking ship.

  Talia watched it all on her GO as she ran across the gangway to the pier. “Tom, you have to save him!”

  The ends of the ship continued their torturous, groaning submersion, until only a part of the fore and aft hulls peeked out of the water. Running to the edge of the dock, Tom saw a few flailing survivors but mostly dead bodies, either burnt from proximity to the laser or crushed from the fall. He unstrapped his flak jacket and helmet, blew out all the air in his lungs, and took a deep breath, facilitating the respirocytes that would allow him not to breathe for several minutes. He dived into the murky algae-clogged water. The wrecked ship’s shadows made it impossible to see underneath the muck. He bumped into arms and legs, some flailing, some still, too late to save.

  Steve had pocketed his GO. Tom pinged the signal before water could destroy it. It was still there. He kicked hard, swimming down toward it.

  He bumped into the body before seeing it. It drifted limp and unresponsive. Tom knew how badly injured Steve was the moment he touched him, but he grabbed him and kicked hard again for what he hoped was the surface. Battling tangled bodies in the dark, he finally emerged, the goop at the surface stuck to his face, dragging Steve’s body up after him.

  On the dock, two refugees—a middle-aged man in a mechanic’s shirt with the name Balthazar embroidered in red on a badge, and a scrawny, malnourished teenager with his chest covered in tats and wearing only shorts that hung off his bony hips—dove in to help Tom carry Steve up the ladder and onto the ground.

  Tom pulled out a gun and handed it to the teen. “If anyone tries to hurt us, use this.”

  The teen’s eyes went wide.

  “Help me,” Tom said to Balthazar. They placed Steve on the ground, where Tom saw for the first time the head, neck, and torso injuries Steve had sustained. But there was no blood. Tom checked for a pulse. There was none. He cleared the gunk from Steve’s face, laid him on his side, and tried to open his airway. Water poured from Steve’s mouth. They performed CPR, the mechanic doing compressions and Tom breathing. He exhaled, filling the drowned lungs with enough unused oxygen to give Steve a chance.

  Talia rounded the corner, skidded to a stop, and gasped. She stood helpless as the men continued CPR. First for a minute. Then two. After four minutes and no response, Tom stopped the artificial respiration, held out his hand to stop the mechanic, and turned to Talia.

  “Steve!” She dropped to her knees, weeping.

  “Let me save him,” s
aid Tom. The mechanic and the teen looked at each other, confused.

  “How?” wailed Talia. She hugged Steve’s body.

  “Injection of preoxygenated respirocytes, then get him cold to preserve what’s left. Every second counts.” He sent an urgent message to the medics on board the two remaining ships, asking if they had respirocytes in their stocks and whether they could get them to him. Respirocytes had been invented to bring oxygen to drowning and fire victims. Tom had invented them. Steve had made them available to EMTs and ERs around the world. And they were not available to them now.

  Talia cried, “No. No!” and rocked back and forth.

  “I can upload him!”

  Tom had assured Arun that he would never offer this to anyone, and he wasn’t sure it would be successful. But this was Steve. To whom he owed so much. Steve might not have thought so highly of Tom, but Tom owed him. And he owed Talia even more. He would do everything in his power to keep Steve alive, even if he had to make it up as they went. Major Tom began to map out plans for the preservation of Steve’s brain.

  “Never,” she said.

  “What?” Tom said. “You realize what I’m offering?”

  “No!” Talia screamed. “Get away from him!”

  “I’m saving his life!” said Tom.

  “No! You’re not!”

  “Talia, please,” Tom begged.

  At that moment, he knew he had lost not only Steve, but Talia, too.

  Horrified, he laid his hand on Steve’s head for the last time. Talia yanked the body back, but Tom’s hand stayed, and she allowed him a moment of his own grief. Emotions he struggled to contain clawed their way to the surface. Tears formed. His chin twitched. Then he gave up the little control he had left and wept.

  Why did Steve, the real hero at Port Everglades, have to die?

  Why couldn’t Tom have been smarter and not walked them right into a set-up?

  Why couldn’t he anticipate all these disasters?

  But it wasn’t just his fault. It was Carter’s, too.

  And Carter would fucking pay.

  He looked around him and through the cameras. The Ocean Harmony had sunk. Thousands had been murdered. His friend was dead. Another blamed him for it. The time for sadness had passed. He felt an overwhelming urge to kill, but it didn’t come from Major Tom’s servers. This body’s cells shook with a bloodlust he could barely contain.