“It makes me sick, the attitudes of those godd-damn protesters,” Ivan said.
“If people didn’t screw with us, nobody’d get hurt,” said Claire, hammering a coffee table with her palm.
Agustín, who was protective of his furnishings, didn’t seem to notice. He stood. “We need a protest of our own. A demonstration. We have the right to be Melded, and no one’s taking it away!”
The group talked of nothing else for the rest of the evening. It was eventually decided that they would contact other rights associations. Any inter-group squabbles would be put aside. They needed a big protest to push back against growing anti-Meld sentiment. They needed bodies.
It wasn’t going well. The Melded who returned from the Out, those women and men who had forced the rights issue in the first place, didn’t organize into clubs, it seemed. It was instead individuals who came out in counter-demonstration. Jonny Nadd’s association, along with all the other local chapters turning out today, had their hands full with the Outers. This blunted the message they meant to present: that the Melded were united in their determination to preserve their rights.
The media were all over it. Every time a sneering Outer stepped up, the confrontation was eagerly streamed. Those of the Out all made the same basic condescending argument. Anyone who got Melded on Earth didn’t deserve a Meld. You had to face treacherous conditions; you had to undergo tribal initiations. Else, you were just some dilettante playing with a dangerous toy.
It was a provocative accusation. And provoke, it did. Not everyone in the Earth Melded community was disciplined enough to withstand such scorn. Over the course of this humid bright afternoon Jonny had witnessed several engagements between the two factions that had very nearly gotten out of hand. No one’s Meld was deployed, but there had been lots of name-calling and even some pushing.
The group continued along the authorized protest route.
Jonny’s feet hurt, and the sun smarted his eyes. He would much rather have been at the practice range, where he spent a lot of his free time lately, setting his Meld after inanimate targets. Or maybe it would have been better just to stay home in bed. This whole exercise was wearing him out. He was certainly in favor of the rights of the Melded. But he wasn’t quite so sure how far he wanted to go with demonstrating his support. Why the hell did everybody have to make such a big deal about this?
It wasn’t just Outers showing up, of course. There were un-Melded people on the scene who offered support, but these were few and rather far between, Jonny noted. Other un-Melded folks had come to jeer, to shout, to wave old-fashioned signs disparaging Melds.
Incidents of violence involving Melds had continued. In fact, they were on the rise.
As their group turned onto the last leg of the march, Jonny saw that the greatest concentration of anti-Meld protesters lay ahead. They were a mass, overrunning the street. Police were politely trying to clear the way, evidently baffled by this civil disobedience.
Jonny paused. He could read the signs from here—vitriolic condemnations of Melds, of the World Supreme Court, along with petty childish insults directed against the Melded themselves. The throng ahead booed and shook fists, as if this were a sporting event.
Probably, thought Jonny, this would be a good time to quietly step out of formation and head home. He had done his bit today. Yet, with the tension gripping this scene he had to wonder how these people might respond to him as he tried to make his way, a lone individual with a Meld on his shoulder. Maybe he needed the protection of his fellows.
And certainly they were all capable of defending themselves against physical aggression. His Meld twitched on his shoulder. He was quite adept with his, able to direct its deadly force with accuracy.
The marchers and the throng of anti-Meld protesters were almost upon each other.
The screaming started somewhere. At first Jonny thought it was behind him. He would only understand the layout of the bloody episode later, when he watched the endlessly broadcast footage. In the moment, it was nothing but panic. People jostled him, then he was being pummeled by elbows. The unfocused strength of the crowd unnerved him, and he had the very real sense that he might find himself trampled to death. Something had happened, obviously; but he knew no specifics.
He was knocked to his knees at one point as he tried to cut toward a side street along the protest route. People raced every which way. A general roar had gone up, drowning the initial screams, which had sounded terrified. The inadequate number of police had moved in, but order wasn’t being restored.
Jonny’s Meld twisted violently on his shoulder, razor-fine crests whirling across its face in complex patterns. He felt the creature’s readiness to leap off into combat, but that was only his own reaction coming to him in a feedback from the Meld. Melded who claimed they could communicate with their components were delusional, or at least overly sentimental. Melds were organic tools, not sentient beings.
And someone here today had let one loose, Jonny feared. He was afraid not just for his own safety, but for how this incident—whatever its brutal particulars—would affect the rights movement.
He staggered up from his knees. He kept control of his own Meld. He made for the side street. The riot continued all around him.
The blame for the fatal event would eventually be laid on an Outer with a Meld, a man who had provided security for eight separate highly hazardous diplomatic missions in the Out. An anti-Meld dissident, the comprehensive media coverage would reveal, had taunted this man several times, finally spitting on him. It was a primitive form of criticism, direct and offensive.
No one in Jonny’s group, or anyone from the other associations, had to bear any legal responsibility for the four deaths which resulted from the Out man’s utilization of his Meld.
He had a lawyer. Just as the market for imported Melds had sprung into being to meet demand, so too a new class of lawyerly merchandise was now available to the public.
Jonny Nadd claimed he was being pressured to quit his job at the bio assembly plant. He had documented the slights, the looks from his formerly friendly coworkers. He noted the reduction of his working hours, though management asserted that everyone was facing that decrease. Hard algae was no longer a booming construction material. But his lawyer, who specialized in Meld discrimination cases, was making great hay of it.
It left Jonny with more free time than he was used to, however. He didn’t see the rights club people much anymore. There wasn’t even the pretense of formal meetings these days, just folks huddling together trading bitter paranoid opinions. Protesters were even staking out the test ranges.
He didn’t feel safe anywhere.
Maybe that was a common feeling these days. Episodes of Meld violence, which virtually always included fatalities, had grown far too frequent. Melds fought other Melds in some instances. Citizens clamored for a revisitation of the Court’s ruling. It was a turmoil the Earth hadn’t known for many years.
But it stayed in the small scale for Jonny, in the first person, the present tense. Personal.
He’d stayed indoors too many days, and tonight he went out. He walked. There was no hiding the silver creature on his shoulder. He resented the notion that he should even think about doing such a thing, just as he hated himself whenever he began to consider having his Meld removed. He should stick to his convictions. Besides, by now it truly was a part of him. He couldn’t imagine the psychological damage he would do to himself by undergoing decomponentization.
Consciously or unconsciously, he stuck to quiet streets on his walk. A canopy of leaves closed over him on a tree-lined lane. Soft light glowed from the nearby houses. He heard a cat meowing. The constant tension started to ease a bit in him. He liked the gentle night breeze on his face.
He turned a corner. Taking a few more steps, he realized there were cobblestones underfoot. Only now did it occur to him that he didn’t quite know where he was, despite having lived in this city most of his life. He didn’t feel lost, though; this
was more like an adventure.
A smile tugged at his mouth, unfamiliar and welcome.
People milled ahead, several dozen of them. There appeared to be no vehicular traffic. He walked further out onto the common, which was fronted, he saw, by an array of scrupulously preserved structures. The quaint ambience was palpable. This area made him feel he had stepped back seventy years. He gazed around at the architectural oddities. When was the last time he’d come to Old Town?
But the people … He had to be wary of the other people strolling about. They didn’t know he was harmless, that he meant no one any ill will. Perhaps, though, they would let him be. Maybe they wouldn’t even notice his Meld if he kept to the shadowy fringes. He was so charmed by the vicinity that he didn’t even think to be indignant about the need to keep hidden.
He ventured forward a few more paces. And then he saw her.
Her shape and movements were as he remembered, as he had replayed them in memory until she had taken on a kind of hyper-reality. She was more than a woman to him. She represented a turning point, a missed milestone. Retroactively he’d awarded her great significance. Yet he’d never tried to seek her out again after that failed first date.
Inika was walking with a Melded man. Even at a distance he exuded a peculiar hardiness, with a swagger in his stride, an arrogant tilt to his head. He even had some facial tattooing. This was a man who had faced amazing dangers. This was an Out man who still proudly bore his Meld.
She hung on his arm. Jonny fancied he could see her dark eyes flashing lustfully as she gazed at the man, and at his Meld. They were walking past.
After a hesitation, during which vast roaring silences seemed to compete for space in his head, Jonny Nadd stepped out behind the pair. His Meld was moving in an agitated manner, levitating above his shoulder, gyrating faster and faster. Wicked blades appeared on its surface.
Ahead, twin towers of pale brick rose above a picturesque structure.
THE FALL OF STRONG HOLDS
JOSHUA STEELY
THE SKIMMER MADE GOOD time coming over the last swirling expanse of Mediterranean and up onto the African coast. They hugged the ground, not cruising more than ten meters above it; twenty would still be safe before there was any chance of the atmospheric sentinels targeting them, but Captain Fletcher liked to be well within the safety margin.
James didn’t mind that one bit. He wasn’t fond of leaving Coventry for any reason, and this expedition had him particularly on edge. Why the prolonged silence from Faiyum? Not just the null link, but total neuromach silence.
He forced himself to look out the window and take in the scenery as they whisked by. It was important to be reminded of the price of defeat. For safety reasons, Coventry didn’t have many windows; a trip in the skimmer meant the unusual opportunity to gaze upon the ruined Earth.
Fourteen hundred hours put them at near maximum sunlight, so, despite the roiling dome of colored clouds above, a dim twilight lit the world around them. Bizarre plants, many of which no human had named or studied, mingled among the hardy remnants of terrestrial flora in the acid jungle—and swift black shapes moved among them.
They passed areas where ruins of the peak civilizations reared their devastated heads above the alien tangle: industrial plants now twined in scarlet leech vines, broken bridge supports like concrete stumps, devastated skyscrapers, torn now with vast gashes and showing jagged ends of steel.
Fire snaked back and forth in the clouds, casting an occasional burst of added orange light onto the nightmare landscape. In one of these flashes James caught a glimpse of a trio of reapers watching the skimmer pass, their double serpentine tongues tasting the air.
“Captain …”
“I saw them,” Fletcher said. “No point routing them now, they may not keep up anyway. Save your strength. But before we land I want you to clear the area.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Approaching Faiyum,” the navigator reported.
James watched expectantly. He’d seen projections of Faiyum before, with its flame barrier and triple interlacing towers, but never actually had been there.
They came up a rise and down again into a bowl valley.
“Where is it?” Fletcher said.
The navigator didn’t answer. He shook his head; his mouth hung open.
Another technician leaned over, checked the instruments.
“We’re here, sir.”
They swept in and soon the wreckage became visible, strewn all about the valley: twisted hunks of glass and metal, broken beams, ruin and devastation that had once been a marvel of engineering.
“Faiyum.” James felt sick. Destruction abounded, but of bodies he saw only bones. All flesh and life was gone; so many voices silent forever.
“There were half a million people here,” Fletcher said, “a fifth of the human race.” For a moment he buried his face in his hands. Then he sat up again and took a sharp breath. “Carlyle, are there any minds out there? Any survivors?”
James nodded, already stoic with schooled numbness. Feelings roiled inside him—grief, rage, fear—but in this moment he could keep them all down and do his work. He forced himself to concentrate. He set two fingers on each side of his head where the implants were; it wasn’t necessary to touch them, but most neuromachs had their gestures or rituals for focus.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing.”
They kept gliding over the ruins, back and forth, straining for any signs of life.
“Nothing. Wait!” James could feel it, weak but working, a presence. He reached out, sensed for its direction.
“Over there!”
Fletcher took a dozen soldiers with James to locate the survivor. They had to move a bit of wreckage before they found the man, badly hurt. But his air supply remained intact, so at least he wouldn’t die of atmospheric poisoning before they could get him back to Coventry.
One of the marines drew attention to dark shapes moving on the hill above the valley.
“Reapers?” Fletcher asked.
James probed out with his mind, felt the awful predatory cunning.
“Reapers. Five or more.”
“Get him aboard,” the captain told the marines carrying the survivor. “Kill one,” he said to James.
James was only too happy to comply. He reached out with his mind and closed on one of the monsters, felt its alien intelligence, and extinguished it. It was a strike of surgical precision, like cutting a cable by finding the place where it’s been sheared nearly through and snapping the last fine filament. James’ saw within his mind a bright, burning flash and felt the sudden quicken of pulse, the zing of adrenaline. Up on that ridge one of the shapes gurgled and collapsed.
“The others are holding back,” James said.
“Good enough.” Fletcher grunted. “No other survivors that you can sense?”
“There’s no one else, sir,” James said, his voice strung with awful finality.
“Right. Back aboard, everyone. Let’s get out of here.”
They headed back north. They radioed in their findings as soon as they came in range, and command confirmed their decision to return with all speed. The men aboard the skimmer were silent and depressed; the survivor remained unconscious.
James tried to distract himself watching the ruins pass by; some were very impressive, even after centuries of decay and abuse by alien growth. He wondered what the world must have looked like before the alien landfall.
The histories said that when the aliens came humanity was spread all over the globe, and had so little to worry about that people could waste time fighting each other. They were, in fact, just getting geared up for a major blood-letting with NATO on one side and the Chinese Empire on the other. Sprawled across the solar system were space stations, colonies, and starships owing allegiance to this party or that, ready to do their part destroying civilization.
So when the gigantic alien ship arrived and started leveling major cities, there was enough paranoia to make a coordinat
ed response unthinkable. Everyone thought this was someone else’s super-weapon, everyone ignored the plain evidence until whatever slim chance the human race had was gone.
James could only watch the leavings of humanity’s glory for so long before he turned his gaze; the sheer magnitude of what had been lost was overwhelming. But, two centuries later, a remnant held on to their tortured world.
Two days later they reached Coventry. For James it was enormously comforting to watch the citadel come into view, its five curved ridges converging on the monumental spire, its steel armor glowing silver in the midday gloam; it would be even more comforting to be safe inside again.
They swept over the scorch zone and the acid moat, past the first and second line of heavy railguns, and slowed for their entrance through the airlocks into the fourth hangar. Each door was marked with the NATO star, from back in the day when such identity had any meaning.
Coventry dated from the time of the Reprieve. One of the great mysteries of the post-invasion era was the Reprieve: that, having beaten humanity to a pulp, the aliens stopped short of exterminating them. Their war machines fell into patrol patterns rather than seeking new targets, and many eventually broke down and activated self-destruct protocols. The terraforming the aliens had initiated continued on its course, but no new efforts to wipe out the native species manifested.
At nearly the same time, crippled human forces had discovered the Singularities—nine alien machines scattered across earth’s surface. The purpose of these devices had never been divined; but scientists had learned from them how to open the world of neuromachy; even more importantly, they’d learned how to harvest the Singularities’ energy, and now that the energy infrastructure of civilized humanity had been demolished, this appeared to be salvation itself.
Dark Horizons Page 6
