The Ghost and the Machine

by L B Garrison

  “What’s wrong?” He asked.

  The blonde nodded back the way they came. “It’s only a lone scout, but the mob isn’t far behind. You can’t handle the mob—actually, you can’t even handle the scout.”

  Far down the tunnel, one of the motion-sensitive lights came on and faded to black. A cold tingle ran down the back of Mandy’s neck. Cisco followed the direction of her stare. There was only blackness in the tunnel.

  Mandy grabbed Cisco’s arm. “We have to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t look, let’s just go.”

  Of course he looked.

  They ran. The lights faded in and out as they passed.

  The butterfly zipped ahead and landed near a dark circle on the ceiling. “This is it.”

  Curved, woven bars formed a ladder that rose fifteen feet above the platform. A safety cage made of more woven bars surrounded the ladder, starting at six feet above the floor and continuing to the top. The hatch’s rim glowed angry red.

  Cisco climbed up the ladder with Mandy close behind him. He stopped at the hatch, which had no obvious handholds on the underside. He pushed on it, but it wouldn’t move.

  Mandy braced herself on the bars opposite of Cisco and a little lower.

  The butterfly crawled around the seam between the metal hatch and the ceiling. “I think the red light indicates it’s locked.”

  Down the tunnel another light lit and faded to black.

  Cisco drew his gun and turn to face the tunnel.

  “Can you open it?” Mandy asked.

  The butterfly flattened against the hatch. “Why the bloody hell would a sewer hatch require a nine-digit passcode?”

  The tunnel lights flickered in rapid succession. Whatever was coming, it was almost on them.

  “Can you open it?” Mandy repeated, trying to keep panic from leaking into her tone.

  “I’m sorting through it now,” Bailey said.

  Whatever was advancing on them was just three lights away. What could she do?

  Psycho-girl was in the cage beside them, her arm intertwined in the bars. “They think you’re me, which is why they haven’t attacked. If they deduce who you are, we are all dead.”

  The murmur of the water echoed in the gloom. Dread sat in Mandy’s stomach, like a cold stone. A whisk of air brushed her face as something rushed by. She gripped the bar of the safety cage. Just beyond the faint red glow of the hatch, the tunnel was utterly black.

  Something scuffled around her. Footsteps. Someone was walking on the ceiling. Words without form, echoed back and forth in the dark. The soft voices of children.

  The glow above them turned green.

  Bailey flapped happily. “Ta-dah. The station—”

  The butterfly went dark and dropped, turning lazy circles, like a fall leaf before it disappeared into the darkness below.

  Back the way they came, the glow of the origami relays had vanished. Lights along the walkway strobed down the length of the tunnel. Dozens of shadows moved within the flickering glow.

  “It’s coming to test you,” the girl whispered.

  Cisco’s pistol fired.

  The cage jolted. Mandy lost her footing and fell. She flung her arms wide, barely grabbing the bars with her fingers and yanking herself to a stop. The tunnel floor lay eighteen feet or so below. She stared at the stone floor, and listened to her thumping heart for the space of a couple of breaths before shifting her weight and looking up.

  A pale young boy in corduroys and suspenders knelt upside down on the ceiling. He couldn’t have been more than eight. His empty eyes bore into Mandy.

  The kid held Cisco by the collar of his uniform jacket. He pulled back, but the boy easily yanked him forward, pinning him against the inside of the cage. Small hands reached from the shadows and held the barrel of Cisco’s gun down. The heavy fabric of Cisco’s jacket tore like paper. Small fingers wrapped around the bars of the cage. It creaked and shifted under the assault. Everything the children touched sizzled with a spreading black stain.

  Small figures climbed up the ladder, struggling with the adult-sized gaps between the rungs.

  “A strategic withdrawal is advised,” the girl said, looking up. “Our immune system repels the nanomechs as long as the numbers are small enough. If he is infected, you’ll have to leave him.”

  The cage bars fizzed and dripped where the children touched them, but the path across the safety cage and up to Cisco was more or less clear. Mandy grabbed the next bar and climbed up the inside of the cage. Cisco’s pistol clanged against the bar by her hand and ricocheted across the cage on its way down. There went their only defense. At least it hadn’t fired.

  Hands reached for her. She swung over, lengthening her path to Cisco. Her muscles stung with the effort, but she ignored them.

  Corduroy-boy tightened his grip on Cisco, squeezing the breath from him with a huff. Up close the frothy sizzle where the boy touched Cisco’s coat was made of hundreds of black threads, weaving themselves into the fabric, like bobbing worms.

  Cisco’s breath sounded like a strangled squeaky-toy. It stopped. The stain spread across his jacket.

  Mandy’s heart raced. At first she had been scared, now she was pissed. She pulled up level with the child holding Cisco’s collar and punched the kid, right between the eyes.

  His head snapped back. A trickle of dark blood meandered upward along his chin and splashed on the ceiling.

  She hit him again and again. “Don’t make me come out of this cage!”

  The kid dropped Cisco, pulling back to retreat along the ceiling into the darkness.

  Cisco came back from the brink of unconsciousness with a shudder and grabbed the cage.

  Mandy lunged forward, pressing into his back with her forearm. Fortunately, she only needed to help him balance and not support his full weight. If Cisco hadn’t been standing on the bars of the cage, he would have fallen. Mandy yanked at his sleeve. Cisco helped her pull off his fizzing coat and dropped it on the children below.

  “Go,” Mandy shouted.

  Cisco pushed against the hatch with his shoulder. A crescent of glorious white light splashed over them. He went through the hatch, pushing it completely open.

  Mandy climbed, not daring to look back. Hands clutched her boot and pulled her down. Her grip slipped on the rungs. One hand came free. “Shite.”

  She kicked. Hard. Her boot hit something fairly solid, but with a little give. A child’s face, probably.

  Another kick and her foot was free. From above, strong hands grabbed her arms and hoisted her into the light, eliciting an involuntary squeak and spilling her on the floor of a cluttered workshop. Mandy scrambled into a sitting position. She examined her boot quickly. No sign of the stain.

  Cisco slid the hatch into place. The glow around the edge went from green to red.

  Something smacked the hatch. Mandy stared into Cisco’s wide eyes, but the sound wasn’t repeated.

  Mandy snatched Cisco’s hands, looking at the uniform cuffs all the way around. She pulled the cloth up to examine his unblemished skin.

  Cisco raised his head to look into her eyes. “Mandy.”

  She ignored him and examined his collar. Her breath came in short pants. Tears blurred the world, making it hard to see the skin around his throat. Dammit. Why did she always do this? She sniffled.

  He took her hands gently and looked into her eyes. “I’m all right. I didn’t get any on me.”

  “I can’t lose anyone else.” Mandy bit her lip. She said it. Dammit, she said it and she couldn’t hold it in anymore. The tears started flowing. In the middle of a war she cried like a baby. Her face warmed. What a dork. She grabbed part of his shirt and hauled him to his feet as easily as she might a sock puppet. Damn her inconsistent strength too. “We have to get out of here right now. You’re not safe.”

  He should have acknowledged the tear shower. Made fun of her irrational female behavior or shown sympathy to impress her with what a great guy he was. Maybe t
hat was a little cynical. But he didn’t do any of that. He allowed her dignity and treated her reaction as reasonable.

  Cisco put his hand on hers. The warmth of his touch and his cardamom scent broke her concentration.

  He turned to the door and pulled her along. “Before we dropped into the drain line, Bailey downloaded a simple map to the station for me. It isn’t far.”

  The workshop door was a heavy metal block. Possibly to prevent theft, if that was even a problem anymore. Cisco closed it with a whoosh and put his hand on it. “Since when do you say shite?”

  Mandy glanced around the empty hall, but the girl was missing again. “It sounded sophisticated when Bailey used it. Cursing is kind of my default. I only stopped because Mom thought it harmed my immortal soul. I guess I’m not worried so much about that anymore.”

  “I liked you the other way. It made you unique.”

  Unique. “Really? I’ll try to remember that.”

  She shouldn’t have thought of Mom. Mandy concentrated on her breathing. In and out. She wiped the rest of the tears away with her sleeve. Greif took time to process. Knowing that didn’t help when it was happing to her. She couldn’t go around spontaneously crying. As long as she could be useful in this world, she had to hold herself together.

  Cisco looked over his shoulder at her.

  Mandy shook herself. “Sorry. I’m a little distracted.”

  “I was just saying, Bailey gave me a little lock pick program for the T30s. It should work to seal the door. We used to sneak out at night and ride into the forest.”

  “Oh. That sounds clandestine.” Mandy’s face warmed again. She must be so easy to read.

  Cisco smiled. “We had pasts that set us apart from the other cadets, I supposed. I would talk about growing up in a predator infested jungle and she talked about her Grand-Mum. We had a chemistry together. We knew that from the beginning, but it turned out to be more of a brother, sister thing.”

  “That’s good.” There went her mouth again. “It’s good to have friends, I mean.”

  The door clicked shut.

  Cisco let go and turned back to Mandy. “Yes. It is.”

  Seamless white panels extended into the distance on either side of the maintenance hall. A menagerie of pipes murmured overhead. They moved quickly in silence.

  Small talk seemed pointless and how could Mandy say what she really wanted to tell him? Did I mention a voice inside my head told me I’m a machine powered by the soul of a dead girl? And what could he possibly say to that? Oh, same thing happened to my cousin.

  “Mandy?” Cisco stood by a panel marked in multicolored symbols.

  Mandy stopped beside him. “Is this it?”

  “You are distracted. If you want to talk about it, Bailey or I will listen. We may not be able to fix anything, but sometimes it’s good to be heard. A shared burden is lighter.”

  “That’s kind of fortune cookie-ish.” Mandy regretted that immediately. “Ignore me. My intimacy-defense mechanism is overdeveloped. I appreciate you. I do. When I can figure out how I even describe what’s going on with me, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Fair enough.” Cisco pressed the white panel. It yielded to his touch and azure light fought against the white glow of the maintenance corridor. “Welcome to Fair Weather Station.”

  The room was endless. Gothic columns of white marble rained down from a sapphire sky with a smattering of puffy clouds. The floor reflected the ceiling, like a placid lake. Mandy stepped onto the shimmering floor, and ripples spread around her. It must be an illusion, but it was so cool.

  Her feet whirled in a spontaneous jig, sadness forgotten in the miracle of one amazing moment. Waves bounced across the open space and ricocheted from the columns. The ripples made by their footsteps tangled together. Sage would have loved this.

  Cisco watched with his head tilted to one side.

  Mandy grinned. “Sorry, it’s just—the floor ripples, Cisco. What?”

  Cisco had the broadest, most perfect grin on his face. “It’s like watching the sun come out.”

  Mandy’s face warmed a bit, but she didn’t care. She stepped one more time. The ringlets spread across the station. “Okay, I’m done. So, where do we go from here?”

  Cisco scanned the floating crystal symbols in the air and motioned for Mandy to follow. “Bailey’s download says our mag-lift leaves from gate G32 in seven minutes.”

  Mandy’s insides knotted. The disassembler cloud was close, reaching for them. She couldn’t have known that, but she was sure of it. “That maybe too long.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  M

  arble columns and darkness marked the edge of the train platform. A cold draft from the tunnel carried the smell of new plastic. Train schedules floated in the air, though most of the routes displayed red circular symbols with slashes through them.

  Cisco studied the board for a moment. “The damage to the city must be widespread. Our mag-lift is still on time, though.”

  A row of snack machines lined the wall opposite the train platform. Glowing images of chips, candy and baked goods floated in front of the machines. Further down the platform stood another group of vending machines boasting pictures of frosty bottles.

  Mandy let her gaze rest on a drink machine.

  After a moment, Cisco looked down the platform. “Thirsty?”

  Mandy dropped her gaze. “Uh, yeah. Do you mind? Anything would be fine.”

  He surveyed the empty platform. “It should be safe enough. Sure, I’ll be right back.”

  Mandy leaned against a pillar across from a pair of lacquered black doors. On one was a silver outline of a person, while the other had a person with a triangle plastered over the waist. She frowned. How long had it been? Three days? She had drank a lot and hadn’t even thought about a restroom. Dammit. That reinforced Psycho-girl’s brand of reality.

  “You can come out now,” Mandy said.

  The blonde mirrored Mandy’s stance, leaning against the wall between the lacquered doors. “He’s well trained.”

  Yeah, she felt a little guilty about that. “I can’t very well talk to thin air with him around, can I? The anxiety. It’s you I’m feeling, isn’t it? ”

  The girl looked towards the cloudy sky illusion that formed the ceiling. “This is the street sixty feet above.”

  The room fell away. Mist and shadows swirled. Buildings foamed and dissolved. Countless tiny machines, like feathery dandelions with spider legs filled the air. They gnawed steel and fused bits of the city together to form towering machines that bristled with weapons. Other dandelion-spiders scurried through air vents as they raced toward the train station. Reaching. Craving.

  Mandy gasped as the station slammed back into focus. Her rapid heartbeat sent jitters through her body.

  Psycho-girl glared at Mandy. “Artemis isn’t like the forest. It has metal, radioactive material and even exotic matter. Enough to build real weapons and it’s coming for you. It will be here when the mag-lift arrives. Without the hacker-girl, you’ll have to rely on the train’s automatic routine to get you away from the station. You must be at the platform the moment the mag-lift stops. If your surrogate boyfriend inhales even one of these machines, he will become like the others.”

  “Surrogate boyfriend?” God, was that really the one item Mandy picked up out of all that? And since when did the girl care about Cisco?

  “You don’t have to worry,” Mandy said. “We’ll be ready.”

  Mandy turned back to the train tunnel and the girl was in front of her again.

  She paced around Mandy. “Don’t screw this up, ghost-girl.”

  Mandy clenched her fist. “Yeah, I’ve got a name for you too. This isn’t cotton candy and sprinkles for me either, not that those would go together, but we’re stuck with each other. If we learn to get along—”

  Psycho-girl leaned into Mandy, her breath like cool wintergreen. “There’s no we. No us. Do you think this is the first schism? It’s not. Your personali
ty template has awakened in others. It never lasts long or ends well.”

  “It’s happened before?”

  The girl pulled back. “Rarely. God, Mandy, if this had to happen, why couldn’t it have been five years ago?”

  Someone tugged Mandy’s sleeve. She jumped.

  Cisco stood behind her, offering a bottle of cherry soda. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Are you—all right?”

  “Fine. I’m fine.” Cisco must have seen some of the argument with the girl.

  The blue sky ceiling flickered to a starry night, then back to cloudy blue. A female voice echoed through the station. “Warning ladies and gents, a mag-lift is arriving. Won’t you please step back from the platform?”

  “Does it matter where we stand?” Mandy asked.

  A jade-colored line appeared on the floor at her feet and flowed over to the platform where it ended in a glowing square at the edge.

  “Come on.” Mandy grabbed Cisco’s wrist and pulled him along the glowing line.

  A shimmering security membrane snapped into existence at the edge of the dark tunnel. Mandy stopped on the glowing square, just short of the membrane and watched a pair of lights rush up the tunnel towards them.

  She let go of Cisco’s wrist. “Sorry. We just need to leave as fast as possible. I feel.”

  Cisco handed her the cold soda. “Oh, I agree.”

  The membrane billowed with displaced air as the train silently rushed into the tunnel. The blur of glass and teal metal decelerated to a crawl in seconds. The membrane popped and the glass doors opened.

  “Mind your step,” the station said.

  The edge of the platform wove itself into the door frame, forming a seamless closure. The station’s perky voice began listing destinations. The Southwest Biblioteca was ten minutes away. Mandy surged into the train car, with Cisco behind her.

  Plush teal benches faced each other, with pairs of evenly spaced floor-to-ceiling silver poles in front of each. The interior smelled like a new car.

  The train didn’t move.