Cibola Burn (Expanse)

by James S. A. Corey

  Holden smiled at him. Mimicking Alex’s drawl he said, “Come on, Black Bart, you always knew it would end this way.”

  Murtry laughed. “You’re a funny —”

  Holden shot him.

  Murtry staggered, clutching at his chest and fumbling for his gun. Holden put his second shot into the man’s right arm. He tried for the elbow and only managed to get the bicep. Just as good. Murtry dropped the gun onto the bridge in front of him. When the RCE man went to one knee to try and pick it up with his left hand, Holden shot him in the leg. Murtry pitched forward onto the bridge, sending the gun tumbling away into the abyss. Murtry slid to the side, going over the edge, but managed to throw his left arm onto the metal mesh and stop his fall.

  The whole thing had taken about three seconds.

  As the last echoing report of the gunshot faded, Holden walked out onto the bridge. The uncanny musculature pressed at the soles of his feet. Murtry clung to the mesh with his one good hand, his face tight with pain, but still managing a mocking grin.

  “You got the balls to finish this, boy?” he said. “Or are you going to let gravity do it?”

  “Oh, no,” Holden said, then knelt down to grab Murtry’s left wrist and haul him toward the ledge. “I’m not killing you. At least not until I’m sure about Amos.”

  Holden stepped off the bridge onto Murtry’s side of the chasm and pulled the RCE man until his torso was up over the edge. Murtry scrabbled the rest of the way up with his one good arm.

  “Then what?” he gasped out, lying on his back next to the pit and trying to catch his breath. A small pool of blood was forming under his right arm and left leg.

  “I take you back,” Holden said, sitting down next to Murtry and patting him companionably on the head. “And I burn you down in public, with news coverage of the entire thing. Then we throw you in a hole so deep everyone forgets you ever existed. No fame and glory for you, Cortez. Montezuma wasn’t impressed by your fire stick this time.”

  “Everything I did was within the bounds of the UN charter,” Murtry said. “I acted responsibly to protect the employees and investments of Royal Charter Energy.”

  “Okay,” Holden said, then pulled out his medkit and sprayed bandages onto Murtry’s two bleeding injuries. “So you’ve got your defense strategy mapped out. That’s proactive thinking. Lawyers’ll be happy to hear it. Wanna hear mine?”

  “Sure,” Murtry said, and probed at the wound on his arm. He grimaced, but no blood squirted out.

  “The most powerful person on earth owes me a favor, and I’m going to tell her you’re an asshole who tried his best to make her look bad. It’s just a sketch of a plan at this point, but I think it has potential.”

  “That’s what passes for justice with you?”

  “Apparently so.”

  Murtry opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was lost when the factory exploded into chaos. A wall of blue fireflies shot up from the chasm next to them, and then streaked across the cavernous factory space to disappear into small vents in the walls. All around, the cacophony of massive machines coming to life filled the air. Something flew out of the shadows by the ceiling and swooped low over Holden’s head. He threw himself across Murtry, not unaware of the irony in using his own body to shield a man he’d just shot three times.

  “What is it?” Murtry said.

  “Elvi,” Holden replied. “It’s Elvi.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Elvi

  “Y

  eah,” Miller said, sounding satisfied. “I’ve got a plan, but I’m going to need your help. I need to get as close to that whatever-the-hell-it-is as I can. You can see it, I can’t. So this one’s on you.”

  All right,” she said. “What… what are you going to do?”

  The robot shrugged. “Every time we… I… well, you get it. Every time anything reaches into this, it dies. This thing takes down networks like the one I am. I’m going to get connected to as much of the crap on this planet as I can and escort it all into, y’know. That. Take it down. Break the system.”

  “Won’t that shut you down too?”

  “I think so. That’s the thing about using complicated tools. Sometimes the features you’re looking for come with a whole lot of baggage.”

  “I don’t understand,” Elvi said.

  “It built me to find something that’s missing,” Miller said. “Turns out I’m also a good tool for dying when that’s the right solve. Seriously, I’ve got practice with this. So come over here and get me as close as you can to the whatever-it-is. I don’t want to touch it, though. I slip in before I’m hooked up to everything else, and I’m pretty sure you’re just boned.”

  “All right,” Elvi said, shifting until she could see the robot and the darkness both. “Turn about thirty degrees to your left.”

  The robot shifted with the speed and sharpness of a startled insect.

  “The boundary’s about half a meter in front of you. Why do you need to be close to it?”

  “Well, the thing I’m part of? It may not be conscious, but it’s not stupid. When I do this, pretty much all the tools its got are going to know what I know, and they may not take a forced shutdown well. Whatever else this thing was designed to do, it likes still existing until it finishes its job. It’s a survivor. I’m pretty much the opposite of that.”

  She thought she heard a smile in the thing’s voice. Where had that come from? The patterns and habits in a dead man’s brain? Or was that fatalism another good move in design space? Did the universe evolve eyes and wings and sense organs and bitter amusement at the prospect of death all the same way?

  “Okay,” Miller said. The robot shifted, hunkered down, prepared to spring forward. “We’re going in three. Two. One.”

  The impact was like being in the heavy shuttle again as it crashed. Elvi’s world contracted to a small space inside her own skull, and then slowly bloomed out again in pain. She struggled to sit up, trying to see straight. Trying to think. Had Miller exploded? Was she dead? The cacophony of shrieking metal and violence made it hard to get her bearings.

  She was against the wall. All around her, mechanisms were crawling down from their niches. Many of them were failing – legs scraping at the walls without the strength to pull themselves forward or landing on the ground only to crawl in a panicked, spasmodic circle like insects dying from poison. The air was thick with the mindless chittering of their joints. Three massive machines had pinned the Miller-robot and were pounding it while Miller’s voice shouted shitshitshitshit. One of the attackers caught Miller’s claw and pulled, ripping the appendage off in a shower of sparks and bright fluids. He wasn’t going to make it. There was no way.

  A small winged machine with a bright blue margin on the knifelike edge where a beak would be swooped down from above, passed through the darkness, and fell clattering and rolling to the ground. Elvi ran to it, picked it up. It was light enough to carry, as long as her forearm, and sharp at the front. With a howl, she charged the machines that were piling on Miller. The impact stung her fingers. Something struck her across the back, and the world narrowed again, but she lashed out with what strength she still had.

  One of the huge machines turned from Miller toward her, its claws splaying out three meters to either side. She jumped back, fell, scuttled. The pulsing, malefic blackness of the dead spot was on her left, and she crawled around it, trying to keep it between her and the massive attacker.

  The robot skittered toward her, its claws swinging like scythes until it reached the margin of the blackness and crumpled down dead. Inertia rolled its corpse across the floor, legs and claws flopping and limp. The chittering in the room paused. The attention of the artifacts turned toward her. She put her foot on the fallen monster, lifted her fists, and howled. Miller twisted, driving his remaining claw up and through the body of one of the two machines that were still at his side. The chittering began again, even more overwhelming than before. The sound itself felt like an attack, battering at her ears, robbing he
r of her balance.

  She was in the center of an invisible waterfall, a thunderstorm, a tempest. Adrenaline more than conscious will lifted her up over the body of her fallen enemy, and she skirted around the dead spot. Another machine fell from a higher niche, smashing itself on the ground before her. She stepped over it as it writhed. The last remaining fully functional attacker swung at Miller, the blades of its claws plunging deep into Miller’s carapace. As Elvi came close, it tried to turn toward her. The claw still inside Miller bound with a deep creaking sound. Miller’s remaining claw fastened on the other robot’s wrist, holding the attacker’s claw close, pulling it in, deeper. A viscous fluid poured out of Miller, filling the air with the stink of petroleum and acid. Elvi scooped a length of fallen robot’s leg and slammed it into Miller’s assailant, striking sparks. The blows had no effect other than to confuse the thing. She could no more have injured it than she could will herself to fly up into the air and lift the falling ships by force of will. But the moment’s hesitation was enough.

  Miller pulled himself under the remaining attacker, on his back. Four of the six articulated legs started digging at the robot’s undercarriage. Belly. She didn’t have a good model for this. The unencumbered claw smashed down, knocking shards of metal from Miller’s side, but with Miller mostly underneath the attacker, it couldn’t get an angle that would let it deliver a killing blow.

  A thin-limbed, spindly robot skittered through the opened wall, sprinting toward the battle. Elvi grabbed it as it passed and knocked it into the dead spot. Bits of plating began to peel off the attacking thing’s belly, and Miller burrowed up into it. The filthy and stinking ichor started pouring out in a flood. It was an ugly death, slow and violent and unpoetic. When the attacker had stopped moving, Elvi came close. The dead robot was on top of Miller. The pool of thin liquid all around stung her eyes with its fumes.

  “Well, that could have gone better,” Miller said.

  “Did it work? Are you connected?”

  “Yeah,” Miller said. “Not sure how much good that’s going to do. There’s another wave of these things coming, and I’m not seeing how I get from here to there.”

  Elvi put her shoulder under the dead robot, pushing as hard as she could. The tendons in her neck ached. She imagined she could hear them creaking. She put everything she had into the effort. There was nothing to hold back for. No later that mattered. Keeping anything in reserve was a waste of resources because there was no future left. She screamed with the sheer physical effort.

  The robot didn’t even shift.

  She fell to her knees. With a groan, Miller put his claw out, resting it gently on her arm. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant, muffled. Words from a grave.

  “Okay, this is going to be tricky,” he said. “I’m going to need one more favor from you, kid. And we don’t have much time before they get here.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Whatever.”

  “Okay, stand back a little. I’m popping the seals on this thing.”

  She slid backward, the slime on the floor flowing up to the ankles of her pants. There was a hiss like steam escaping from a holed line, a deep, meaty click, and Miller came apart, the plating and scales of his body collapsing. The thing on top of him rolled away and lay dead on its side.

  Elvi stood over Miller’s corpse. It looked like nothing so much as a huge insect smashed under a giant’s heel. The chittering all around her rose to a shriek.

  “What do I do?” Elvi shouted. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Miller’s voice came from deep inside the mess. “There’s a unit in here. It’s about a meter long, bright blue, and there’s a row of seven… no, eight dots along the side. I need you to dig it out.”

  Elvi stepped forward. The plating was all knifepoints and sharp edges. She felt the sting where it cut her palms, and the burning where the robotic fluids flowed into the wounds.

  “I don’t mean to be that guy,” Miller said. “But you also need to hurry.”

  “Trying,” she said.

  “Just saying there are more bad guys and they’re getting a little closer than I like.”

  “All right. I have it,” Elvi said. “It’s right here.”

  “Good. Nice work. Now I need you to pick that up and walk it into the dead spot.”

  The blue thing was the shape of a huge elongated almond. The surface was slick and soft. She put her hands around it, strained, grunted, and slid forward, panting. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said.

  “It may be a little heavy,” Miller said.

  “It’s like ninety kilos.”

  “And I’m really sorry about that, but we need to get it into that dead spot now. Try sliding your arms under it and lifting with your back and legs. Just like it was a baby.”

  “Baby made from fucking tungsten,” Elvi muttered.

  “You’re exaggerating,” he said as she shoved her hands under the thing.

  “I can’t throw this,” she said. “I have to walk it in.”

  “All right.”

  “Is that thing going to kill me if I go into it?”

  A new sound rose behind the chittering. A deep booming sound like a massive drum. She didn’t want to think of what might be making it.

  “If I say yes, does that mean you won’t do it?”

  Elvi braced herself, straining her back. The blue thing shifted up into her lap. She bent her head, trying to catch her breath.

  “No,” she said, surprised at the answer even as she spoke it. “I’ll still do it.”

  “Maybe, then. I don’t know.”

  Elvi rocked back, keeping the thing – Miller – on her thighs and still getting her feet under her. She felt it start to slide to her left. If she dropped it now, she didn’t think she’d be able to get it up again. The booming came closer. Elvi pushed with her legs. Her knees ached. Her back was a single, vast sheet of burning. She pressed the blue thing to her chest, crying out from the pain.

  “You’re doing great, kid. You’re doing great. You can do this. Just a little more. But do it now.”

  She didn’t step forward. Just slid one foot a little ahead, shifted her weight, pulled the other foot in. The floor was slick as ice. Not quite frictionless, but close. The booming came again, near enough that she felt the room vibrate with it. She set her gaze on the blackness of the dead spot and moved forward. Another step. Another. Another. She was close now. Her back was on fire. Her arms were numb. Her fists something that belonged to someone else, and only happened to be connected to her.

  A swarm of silver and blue gushed in the doorway, flowing in at her like a cloud of flies. Elvi pushed, slipped, fell forward —

  The closest analogy, the one her brain reached for and rejected and reached for again, was splashing into a lake. It was cold, but not cold. There was a smell, rich and loamy. The smell of growth and decay. She was aware of her body, the skin, the sinew, the curl of her gut. She was aware of the nerves that were firing in her brain as she became aware of the nerves firing in her brain. She unmade herself and watched herself being unmade. All the bacteria on her skin and in her blood, the virii in her tissues. The woman who had been Elvi Okoye became a landscape. A world. She fell farther in.

  Cells became molecules – countless and complex and varied. The demarcation of one thing and another failed. There was only a community of molecules, shifting in a vast dance. And then the atoms that made the molecules gave up their space, and she was a breath. A mist. A tiny play of fields and interactions in a vacuum as perfect as space. She was a vibration in nothingness.

  She rolled onto her side. Something hurt. Everything hurt, and the pain was interesting. A subject of curiosity more than distress. She was breathing. She could feel the air moving through her throat and into the complex network of soft caverns behind her ribs. It was a strange and beautiful sensation. She stayed with it until she began to realize that time existed. That moments were passing. That meant basal ganglia and cerebellum and cerebral cortex were al
l actually starting to work. She felt distantly surprised about that. She opened her eyes to nothing.

  She was holding something pressed to her like it was precious. The blue thing. Miller. Only it wasn’t blue anymore. It was the closed-eyes blackness of everything else. She let it go and sat up. The world was silent. No booming. No chittering. Her breath. The hush of her blood. After a few moments, she drew her hand terminal out of her pocket and turned up the screen brightness, using it like a lamp.

  All around her, the artifacts of New Terra lay dead. Knife-sharp legs were still. Vast, inhuman claws that could have been carved from stone. A spray of silver flecks on the ground showed where the cloud of tiny mechanisms had fallen, a million tiny bodies turned off at once. The light was too dim for colors. Everything was only gray.