Into Darkness

by Peter Fugazzotto

  “Huang Di Prime’s message instructed me to wake Marley and change course. He did not say why.”

  “You’re going to play this game with me? Seriously? Are we picking up more pilgrims to take to Carterius?”

  “He did not say.”

  Adams sighed. “Fine. I’ll find out for myself.” He slipped into his yellow and black combat skin and plucked the VR headpiece from the wall. He adjusted the goggles, and then, holding his breath, plugged into the data socket at the base of his skull. The contact made him wince.

  Penelope materialized before him: an olive-skinned Mediterranean woman, the faithful wife of the great traveler. Her long limbs were draped in a blue tunic bordered in gold. She wore a simple crown of twined olive branches from which a translucent veil fell masking her face.

  “Where are we? Can you at least tell me that?” asked Adams. He knuckled a kink in his neck.

  “You don’t have to talk to me that way. After all that time asleep, I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

  Before Adams could answer, Penelope winked out and in her place a solar map filled the wall. It zoomed into the Local Fluff and centered on the Tesa Solar System. A small green dot in the middle represented the HDC-117. Adams squinted and marked distance with thumb and forefinger. He guessed they were six hours out from the way station at Orion 7. The colonies on Carterius were distant, more than a year away.

  They were way off mission.

  Six hours to prepare for docking at Orion 7. And he still did not know why.

  He found Marley in the galley. She sat at the table, a disassembled pistol and a hot mug in front of her. He crinkled his nose at the bitter smell of coffee.

  “Why the hell you commandeering my ship?” said Adams leaning onto the table across from her. “You’re just supposed to be security.”

  Marley did not look up from reassembling the pistol with practiced hands. “Change of plans. Off to Orion 7. Get further orders there. And, Cap, it’s not really your ship anyway. It’s Prime’s. He owns it all.”

  “Company doesn’t own me. Won’t own the ship for long. What are we doing in Orion 7?”

  She snapped the last of gun together, cleared the chamber, and sighted the pistol at Adams’s chest. “Whatever Huang Di Prime wants us to do.”

  Adams stormed out of the galley into the hallway and smashed the wall with his fist. He was sure Marley heard him. But he did not care. She was a threat to everything Adams had worked so hard for. He only needed a few more years of slow steady work and then he could buy Penelope out from Huang Di Prime. They could get away. This sudden change of itinerary was a problem. Marley was trouble. She brought it with her.

  He would do whatever it took to protect his ship and Penelope.

  Eight

  MARLEY FOLLOWED A robot escort down yet another of Orion 7’s hallways. With each step, the robot emitted a sudden whine as if its internal gears were not quite aligned.

  Fifteen minutes of wandering through the way station, Marley thought. How long was this going to take? Fifteen minutes of kicking through piles of ore dust and plastic trash. She could swear that twice now they had traversed the same stretch of hallway, but it was hard to tell. She had the sense the robot was intentionally going in circles to disorient her.

  Marley needed to be patient. After a year of exile, ever since that disastrous mission in Old Shanghai, Huang Di Prime had finally made contact. He wanted to see her. Maybe he had determined that Antaboga-2 had failed to insert a sleeper virus in Marley’s implant. Or maybe he had developed code that would purge her of whatever had been sent through that cursed cable. She could imagine the surge of data she would taste when they connected again.

  The robot shuffled to the side of the corridor and Marley followed, careful to avoid the grime-covered wall. A small automated train rolled past, the uncovered piles of rock in the open cars leaving a wake of black and silver dust.

  The robot stared at Marley for a second. A dull red light glowed behind its cracked face shield. It stepped back to the center of the corridor, feet clanging, and Marley hurried after.

  Marley hoped Prime was planning to welcome her back into the fold. Surely her yearlong quarantine and the battery of tests were enough to show she was clean. If not, she would get on her knees and beg Prime to allow her to prove herself. She slowly inhaled, trying to relax. Prime had summoned her and she would do whatever he asked to prove herself so she could once again be connected with him.

  A few minutes later, a tangle of sound echoed from down the hall: shouts and laughter, distorted music, and the clinking of glasses. Ahead, a set of double doors slammed open spilling blue neon light into the hall, and five miners in dirty orange jumpsuits stumbled into the corridor. Arms over each other’s shoulders, they staggered away.

  Marley followed the robot through doors to find herself at the top of a flight of stairs looking down on a cavernous, smoke-filled nightclub. Miners and robotic technicians packed the room, bunched at the bar, shouting over their drinks to their companions. In the center of the room, a mass of people swayed and bounced to throbbing, synthetic music. Bare limbs glistened blue. The ends of joints pulsed bright orange.

  “Where’s Huang Di Prime?” asked Marley.

  “Agent Marley, please follow me,” said the robot.

  Marley descended the stairs.

  The revelers parted for the combat robot, mouthing curses as it passed.

  Their eyes lingered on Marley, her exposed biometal hands. They did not hide their feelings for her.

  “Abomination.”

  “Machine.”

  “Traitor.”

  The crowd surged suddenly. Before Marley could reach the pistol strapped to her thigh, the combat robot spun around, its red eye glaring. The revelers pressed back. Even the music seemed to die down. Then laughter erupted from a table near the door, and the room returned to full volume, the crowd to dancing and drinking.

  “Always so friendly here?” asked Marley.

  The robot led her across the dance floor to two large teak doors, weathered gray and adorned with carvings of snakes. A pair of combat robots stood, arms crossed over their chests, at either side.

  The escort pointed. “Huang Di waits for you.”

  One of the robots pulled a door open and Marley slipped through.

  A single folding steel chair sat in the middle of a small, bare room. The dull windowless walls formed a claustrophobic box. Cameras and projectors lined the ceiling.

  The moment Marley sat, the room transformed.

  She was in Old Shanghai again. The folding steel chair morphed into an oversized maroon sofa. Her bare feet burrowed into a plush bear skin rug. Paintings of ancient Chinese warfare hung on the walls. A bamboo ceiling fan overhead stirred her hair.

  In front of her beyond a wide oak desk, a window opened to a veranda. Behind drawn curtains, a broad avenue of peaked buildings and colonial hotels stretched. In the distance, the masts of old sailing ships tilted with the rhythm of sea.

  Huang Di appeared. The upper half of the interface was a Chinese matron in a yellow silk tunic. She pinched an ivory cigarette holder between her long fingers. Her eyes scrolled with green data.

  Her lower half was the thick body of a metal snake. With each slight movement, the scales rung.

  “Marley.” She whispered. “At last.”

  Marley shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Got tired of the old man interface?

  Huang Di puffed out a ring of smoke. “I’m not who you think I am.”

  “Riddles now? Who else would you be?”

  Fangs flashed behind the AI’s heavily-painted lips. “Huang Di 07 actually. Not Prime. But don’t worry. You don’t need to know about me. I know all about you.”

  “You’re a copy of Prime?”

  “Generationally I’m considered a daughter. Though personally I see myself more as a younger sister. An equal really. An improvement.”

  “Did Prime send the message? Or was it you?” Sweat broke a
cross Marley’s skin. Had she been too trusting? Was she caught in the middle of another turf war between AIs?

  07 tapped her cigarette ashes into a small porcelain tray. “He fears you, fears what you might have running around inside. Is there something dangerous inside of you, Marley? Is there?”

  “You can’t pull me off mission! Prime will find out!”

  “Is he punishing you? What exactly did you do to him?”

  “Prime won’t tolerate this insubordination. He’ll make you pay!”

  She sucked on the cigarette and exhaled. The smoke rose about her like a veil. “Huang Di Prime has a problem that needs to be fixed. Well, truth be told, I identified the problem, saw it long ago. But who am I?”

  Marley exhaled, trying to slow her racing heart. “Enough of the games. What’s Prime want?” asked Marley.

  07 licked her lips, a dark purple tongue swirling. “Mining Colony TS 34 has gone dark.”

  Marley shrugged. “Why is he concerned about a mining colony?”

  “Not just any mining colony. TS 34. You remember nothing?”

  Marley clenched her jaw. She wanted to pick up the chair and smash the snake-woman. She wanted to pound the smugness and conceit out of her. But it would be no use. The AI was just an image.

  “An early colony for Huang Di Prime’s company,” said Marley.

  “Wrong. A later colony but the largest fluvium mine in his empire.”

  “And it’s gone dark?”

  07 twirled her cigarette. “Indeed.”

  “Back up systems would be in place, an AI set up, and a company agent to oversee everything.”

  “Another agent, an Augmented toy like yourself, entertained me in this very same sitting room not five years ago. An ambitious man, eager to embrace life at the edges of civilization. A shining star really. Not damaged at all. But here we are five years later and the mining colony has gone dark. No signals. No responses. A robotic recon team missing.”

  “And so the change in itinerary.” Marley caught herself holding her breath. The mission would be dangerous. She was to be sent in where others had failed. But this was exactly the type of job that would prove herself to Prime again.

  “You, Agent Marley, are to lead a team to Mining Colony TS 34 and bring it back online. Resolve whatever problem might exist. Then, who knows? Maybe Prime will give you what you want.”

  Nine

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE they let these fucking abominations in here,” said Gomez. He stared across the cavernous bar at the half-machine, half-woman leaving Huang Di 07’s backroom. Even from this distance, Gomez could see the glint of her biometal hands. “The watering holes should be for humans. Not machines. Is there no place we can be left alone?”

  “Money’s all the same no matter who you are,” said Orlov with her thick Ukrainian accent. She slid another glass towards the empties in the middle.

  “What’s she ordering? A can of motor oil?” said Gomez with a snicker.

  “You think she just got a job from 07? Why not us?” asked Orlov.

  Gomez picked up the shot glass between thumb and forefinger and rested the rim at his lips. The whiskey burned his nostrils. He parted his lips and drank.

  A welcoming numbness spread to his limbs.

  He wondered if this would be their last night in the bar. They had been bleeding out credits biding time on Orion 7. The only jobs offered had been minor smuggling runs that barely covered the cost of fuel. Orlov was probably right: the Augment likely just walked out of that room with a pocketful of credits. Machines taking all the work. Gomez needed to find a job for his crew, otherwise they would have to consider providing security for the mines. Then they would never get out.

  By the number of empty glasses between them, Orlov sought numbness as well. She flagged down an automaton for another round of drinks.

  Gomez stared over his shot glass at the Augment at the bar. The bartender suddenly pointed in Gomez’s general direction.

  “That tin can comes near us…” he muttered.

  Orlov, her combat skin hidden beneath an orange jumpsuit, stirred her drink with a straw, ice cubes clinking. “So you get an arm blown off, you’d not get it replaced with a metal one? Shit, man, even civs get it done.”

  “That’s different.”

  “You’re living in the past, boss. Augments a reality now a days.”

  “Fucking abomination is what it is, Orlov.”

  “Special Forces all Augments now. Hell, if we were still in, we’d be metal.”

  “Well, we’re not. We’re still human.”

  Orlov shook her head. “Why say stuff like that?”

  “Because I’m actually paying attention to the universe and thinking. They’re more machine than human. It’s mad scientist shit right there.”

  “It’s only technology. A tool to make better soldiers. They’re humans beneath the gear.”

  “You strip away all the metal and tubing and power supplies and processors and what do you get? A lump of lobotomized flesh. There’s nothing human left. The machines control them.” He slammed his shot glass on the table. “Worse than that, machines are taking our jobs, and we need a job. Bad.”

  Orlov rolled her eyes. “Way too much to drink, and you’re fucking crazy man. Why the hell’d I ever join up with you?”

  Gomez poked himself in the chest with his finger. “Cause when the shit hits the fan, I’m the one who survives. And the shit’s always hitting the fan.”

  Orlov nodded her head towards the bar. “Your girlfriend’s coming this way, boss.”

  Gomez rotated the shot glass between thumb and forefinger and then brought it to his lips. He licked the remnant ship whiskey.

  The Augment stopped at the table in front of him, her green eye flickering.

  He slid his hand beneath the table to the pistol strapped to his leg.

  “Pablo Gomez?” Her voice was softer, more melodious, than he had expected.

  Gomez began sliding the gun from the holster. “Who’s asking?”

  She tossed a credit chip among the empty glasses. “Interested in a job?”

  The chip rattled between the mercenaries. Orlov licked her lips and nodded ever so slightly.

  Gomez eased the gun back into the holster. He picked up the chip and turned it over in his fingers. “And the job has you attached to it?”

  “I can find another crew. I don’t have time to waste.”

  She reached for the chip but he pulled his hand back. He slid the chip through his credit reader, and bit back a smile: enough money to keep his crew in their drinks for several years. Enough to get them off the way station and into another solar system. Enough, if he did not share it evenly with his three other teams members, for Gomez to make the well-placed bribes that would get him through the gauntlet of security and back on Earth.

  Orlov drummed her fingers on the table. She leaned over to peer at the number on the reader but Gomez pulled out the chip.

  “What kind of job?” he asked.

  “You’ll be briefed after you accept the job. Right now, a simple yes or no.”

  Gomez frowned. Usually those who hired Gomez were upfront about the job: a covert raid on a black market robot parts operation, a heavy hand on miners demanding shorter hours, an abduction for ransom.

  The work was always dirty, and the fact the Augment was not willing to divulge the mission made Gomez suspicious. He turned the chip over in his fingers. His gut told him to turn the job down. He would be making a mistake to walk blindly into this job. But it was a lot of money. A lot.

  “This is coming from 07?” he asked.

  “Further up the line,” said the Augment. “Yes or no?”

  Orlov nodded her head ever so slightly. This could be his chance to return to Earth, talk story with his grandmother, sit with her at the edges of the great forests. No more endless wandering among the stars. No more spilling blood for the machines.

  But to return home, he would need money.

  He needed this job.


  “Deal,” he said sticking out his hand. “I’m Gomez.”

  “Marley,” the Augment said.

  When her biometal fingers clasped around his, she nearly crushed his hand. He wanted to pull his hand back. But it was too late.

  Ten

  MARLEY PAUSED AT an intersection of corridors, lost, cursing beneath her breath. She was tired and wanted to get back to the ship.

  She squinted down the grungy hallway ahead. She should have found the robot escort before leaving the bar. Too late for that now. The path before her was a trash-strewn corridor. The overhead lights hummed and flickered, one moment highlighting the cardboard and plastic refuse and then next dropping Marley into blackness. To either side, the hallways were dim. She glanced behind. The lights had gone out.

  Turning back would only be maddening since she didn’t think she would be able to find the bar again, and, even if she did, she could imagine the look on Gomez’s face when she told him she needed help finding her ship.

  She already had seen scorn in his eyes. That same look she had seen in so many others. But Gomez glared with more than scorn. He hated her Augmented body. Not a single member of his crew had an artificial limb or titanium skin plate. Mercenaries rarely remained whole, so he must have been meticulous in his selection.

  Maybe she had been too quick to accept Gomez under her employment. 07 had given her a list of six potential mercenary crews. She had not even looked for the others after talking to Gomez.

  Maybe she had also been too quick to accept the job. But if she didn’t, she knew what awaited her: another year of stasis, picking up more cargo, then another deep space voyage to some forgotten chunk of rock. On and on until she faded away. This job was her chance to win back the trust of Prime and recover what she had lost.

  First she needed to get back to the ship.

  She pushed ahead into the hall. Graffiti marred the walls, and much of the crude dark ink drawings were directed against Huang Di. Apparently Gomez was not the only one on Orion 7 who loathed the machines. One scrawl showed a line of submissive robots being run over by an armored vehicle. “Obey.” Another depicted a snake woman being chopped in half with a large cleaver. “Kill the machines.”