Nova spotted a couple smaller warehouses that looked like they’d been converted into militia bunkers, and whole roads had been cordoned off, piled high with wrecked gear and bodies.
Simulacra formed much of the workforce, Nova noticed. A queasy feeling roiled in her stomach as she studied the vat-born artificial life-forms stumbling about like puppets on a madman’s strings. Most manufacturing and transport companies didn’t bother investing in sims with human-realistic features, since sims were set to provide manual labor from the moment they gained consciousness. Their skin was too smooth, like unfinished dolls, their bodies clad in generic gray, brown, and white uniforms that made it difficult to tell any of them apart.
Beyond the district, greasy columns of smoke rose into the overcast sky, turning the gray day into ominous twilight. Nova eyed these, wondering how much of the city would survive before people finally got the network back under control.
Beside her, Billy stretched as if waking up from a long nap. “Okay, crew. It’s been fun. Wishing you luck in saving the world and all that. Fat. Bat. Cat, kittens, mittens. Fuck! Sorry.”
Gyro started. “Wait, what? After all that … you’re not coming? All your grand theories and this is where you get off the ride and choose to not see it through?”
The hacker shook his head, still squinting, peering at them all through slitted eyes. “Nope, kid. This is where I log off. Log, bog, sog, a …” He growled under his breath.
“But—”
“Listen, kid. I don’t have the HR protection you all do. I come along, and I’ll just be a liability. Lia … the big lie, the lay, the …” He swatted his own temple. “This here’s your show moving forward. I’ve been glad to do what I can to get you here, but you’ve got to see it through without me. I need to dig dark and deep for a while, boot up some connections I haven’t patched in years and see what I can do to help where I’m most useful.” He adjusted his lenses. “I’m going half-crazy just standing here.”
“So, what then?” Gyro stepped back, looking hurt. “Am I gonna see you again?”
“Here’s hoping.” Flashing a grin at the rest, Billy cocked an imaginary gun and shot it off. “Go get ’em. Blem. Blemish, a scar, a car …”
He shook his head and hopped off the dock platform, then ducked down an alley that curved around the nearest silo, mumbling to himself the whole way. Gyro watched him go and rubbed her nose against her sleeve. She didn’t look very happy.
Nova nodded to Anansi. “Your turn. Show us what you can do.”
Anansi took a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes. We’ll see if this filter actually protects me from Charon …” He put on a pair of glasses that he had painted the inside of, then smiled, exhaling in relief. “We’re good to go. Everyone stand close, because I don’t know how far this reaches beyond me, and the patterns I painted on your clothes will only be so effective.”
His face set in concentration, he reached into the air and began sweeping his hands about. Nova had seen such motions before during shows or club outings when Holo-DJs and band trickers formed apparitions out of the Hyper Real, molding it to create visual displays alongside the music. It reminded her of Billy’s manipulations of the code as well, as if he directed unseen currents to swoop and swirl into the patterns he wished. But to see it out in the world, instead of in a club where trickers had projectors ready to respond to their every command, this was something amazing.
After a couple seconds, Anansi lowered his arms. Out on the street, a subtle shift rippled through the people in the vicinity. They shuffled to either side, opening a clear enough path for the group to head down without bumping into any immediate threats. A bunch of those still standing just lay down, like a puppeteer had cut their strings. Within seconds they were sleeping.
“What did you just do?” Nova asked.
“You can’t see it?” They all shook their heads and he frowned. “I’ve established an overlay that matches the area except for a few key alterations. First, I dimmed all of the other overlays. I think that’s why people are lying down. They’re just realizing they are that exhausted. I cleared our path by making the asphalt look like it split into a bottomless ravine. We’re also hidden behind an environmental loop. That’s what I painted on your clothes, so anyone stuck with compromised filters won’t see us at all. The illusion will stick with us as we go and should keep people from wandering too close to cause any trouble.”
“How long can you enforce it?” Bob asked.
Anansi shrugged. “No idea. The filter on these glasses is blocking Charon from getting at me, but I’m pretty sure he spotted me the second I took over the local GENIE nodes.”
“Then we’d best get going.”
Bob jogged ahead, spookily silent. Chicken Fingers brought up the rear with both bolters out. As promised, Anansi’s HR overlay inspired those ahead of them to scamper out of the way. Even if they were aware of their TAPs playing tricks on them, who was going to risk falling into a crevasse in case it proved real?
Nova couldn’t imagine how it felt to be unable to discern the real from the virtual. If a person couldn’t trust their own mind to sort out the difference, then all the usual rules had broken down. In a way, it would be worse than being blind. In fact, blindness might be a mercy to these poor people, a way to shut out the constant barrage of data their minds were melting beneath. Better to not see anything, to rely on simple sound and touch than to be at the mercy of unreliable eyes. The true mercy of what Anansi was doing, that some of these people were falling asleep, showed her just how far beyond their limits they had been pushed. She felt like she actually understood the phrase “not in your right mind” now.
Gunfire and shouting sounded off a couple blocks over, and Bob picked up the pace. Gyro huffed beside Nova. Fortunately, her many years on the street had hardened her plenty, and she kept up with the adults easily enough.
Nova kept waiting for a strike team to materialize in their midst, for one of them to step on a mine, or for a misfired rocket to land at their feet. In the virtual bubble Anansi maintained, they slipped through the district like phantoms.
When they crossed under the highway a second time and came in sight of the lake, Bob aimed their attention to a series of long, low buildings just a bit inland. The production center. It looked relatively intact—aside from a few smashed windows—though one stretch of open area off to the south held a growing tent city. Refugees? A band of people caught in a mutual HR delusion? Was there any difference anymore?
After working their way down an embankment and across a couple drainage ditches, Bob strode straight up to the first gate on their end. Nova kept an eye out for security systems or guards, but neither made an appearance. After rummaging in a suit pocket, he pulled out an archaic ID tag, an actual physical badge, and swiped it over the wall scanner. The gate whirred and swung open.
Bob’s ever-present smile didn’t waver. “After you.” He offered no other explanation of how he had come across the keycard.
Nova caught a whispered “Aw, shit” from Chicken Fingers.
She paused and let him catch up to her from his rearguard spot. “What’s wrong?”
Chicken Fingers thrust an arm out, pointing. Nova followed his line of sight until she spotted the two VTOL craft zooming up over the highway. The transports blazed straight their way, and Nova didn’t doubt what the craft contained.
She grabbed Gyro’s arm and steered her ahead. “Go! Now!”
They raced across the clearing to an entrance in the side of the nearest facility that said “Authorized Personnel Only” in big red letters. Bob opened this as well. After they all ducked inside, the lock clicked shut behind them, but Nova knew this wouldn’t stop the ops team for long, if they even bothered coming that way. She imagined their craft already settling atop the complex, suits ghosted, weapons primed.
Bob headed down a side hall without slowing. “This way. Hurry.”
They wove through the building, taking flights of stairs up and down u
ntil Nova couldn’t remember what floor they had even started on relative to where they were. Several times, they passed enormous bay windows that provided a view of expansive vat bays with hundreds of biogel-filled tubes containing simulacra forms in all stages of development, from fetus to full-grown humanoid.
They saw few employees, and Nova assumed most of them had either wandered off or been killed when the flare first hit. The few they saw seemed cognizant of their surroundings, but inevitably someone would look their way, their eyes would widen, then Bob would pop up behind them and that would be the end of that. The spooky thing was that, as good as Nova was at her job in infiltration, she never saw Bob vanish or move away from them. He would just appear behind threats to their group.
It was downright creepy.
At last, Bob took them through an expansive lab filled with rows and stacks of unidentifiable gear. Bypassing all this, he went to an unassuming doorway in the corner marked “Maintenance”. He pressed his thumb to the latch’s biometric sensor and it clicked open.
They filed through, down a narrow passage and out into a larger room that looked like storage space converted to a crude lab. Ventilation pipes made a maze of the ceiling, with multiple workstations and control panels jutting out from the walls. A row of translucent vats lined the opposite side, two empty, but one filled with murky gel that concealed the slender form it contained.
“What is this place?” asked Gyro, gazing around in wonderment.
“Prophet’s little lab,” said Bob. “From what she told me, she’s not been one for a lot of direct action in non-digital space. She tends to work on the sidelines. This space is a rarity.”
“Is that …” Gyro pressed a hand against the full vat’s permaglass. “Is this Prophet’s receptacle? Her body?”
“Yes.” Bob went to a control panel and keyed in a command. “And no.”
With a whir, the gel churned and a portion sucked out through a drain, just enough to reveal the form inside.
Nova stood frozen, momentarily unable to comprehend what she saw. Her thoughts were suddenly big. She … remembered. She remembered things she didn’t know she had forgotten. And she knew who her real parent was.
The vat-baby floating in the stasis gel wore her face.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Gyro
Gyro stammered, staring at the other Nova in the vat. “What … what does this mean?”
“You’re a smart kid,” Bob said. “I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Gyro tore her eyes from the vat and looked to her big sister. Not her biological sister, no, but she might as well be. She ran over and hugged her midsection. “Nova?”
Nova wore a horrified look, gazing first at the vat and then down at herself. “I … I …” She shook her head and glared at Bob. “What kind of sick joke is this?”
“No joke,” Bob said. “You’re the last piece of this puzzle. The Prophet made you specifically to serve as a dub unit for her. The fact that you have grown into who you are … an active neural net was needed.”
“No no no no …” Gyro squeezed Nova tightly, tears flowing freely. “Screw you! I trusted you and you used me! You can’t have my sister. NO! There has to be another way. There has to be another body we can use.”
She looked to Chicken Fingers and Anansi for support, but both of them avoided her gaze. Cowards!
“I have memories,” Nova whispered, fighting the truth. “I have a life. I’m a real person …”
“Of course you are,” Bob said softly. “Not saying you aren’t real, Nova. And I’m sorry. Most of you is real, starting ten years back. Every time your body starts to go, we just reload you. This is your third reload over this decade. The jobs you’ve run, the people you’ve worked for, your personality … all you. But the rest … your parents, your home back in Toronto, your training … all memory implants.”
“No. I know it’s the truth, but …” Nova’s voice cracked and she sank to her knees. “This can’t be happening …”
Gyro charged at Bob, screaming. “Leave her alone!”
“I’m only speaking the truth. Nova’s genetic map was designed for this purpose from the ground up. Her neural pathways are a direct mirror to the ones Prophet built for herself when she became self-aware.” He caught Gyro and gently held her fists at bay.
Nova pointed at the other her. “Then use that version!”
Bob touched another tab and more bio-goop drained away. The Nova model in the vat ended at the waist, spinal cord trailing off into nerve tendrils. “It’s incomplete. The flare developed faster than even Prophet anticipated. She’d hoped to leave you as a backup model, running independent memories, but this version doesn’t even have a brain fully grown yet. Please understand, she doesn’t want to see you hurt. You are her daughter.” He checked a device on his wrist and frowned at what it showed him. “But the reality is we came here to finish a job. It is time now.”
Nova wrapped her arms around her midsection, but stood back up. Gyro jerked her wrists out of Bob’s grasp and backed up, stepping between them. Tears streamed down her face and her nose was running. “Stop talking like she’s a machine or something! This isn’t a job for us. We weren’t hired by anybody. We never agreed to do anything other than get the code here. Even that … Prophet just handed us parts of herself and shoved us all off to handle things alone. What kind of choice is that?”
“In this case, a choice was made before she was ever born. However, she has one now.” Gyro hated how calm Bob sounded, talking about ending Nova’s life like this. “You can choose to finish this, to fulfill Prophet’s faith in you to do the right thing and bring her back. She and Nova will share a mind and be something new. Or you can choose to turn away here. I won’t stop you from leaving, though I can’t make any guarantees about the soldiers heading for this location as we speak. Prophet will remain dispersed, and her code, her essence, will die with you eventually. The world will belong to Charon alone. Tell me, is that the world you want to live in?” Bob inclined his head and stepped back. “It’s up to you now.”
Nova bowed her head but reached out and grabbed Gyro’s shoulder.
Gyro kept glaring at Bob as she felt Nova pull her back. She finally turned around to face her sister. “Nova? We can fix this, right? We can find another way. It doesn’t have to be you.”
Her sister raised her head. A soft smile graced her lips as she held Gyro’s face between her palms. “Hon, do you trust Prophet?”
“Huh?”
“Prophet. Do you trust that she really is as important as you’ve been saying? That she can really help people recover from everything that’s happened? That she can fight Charon … maybe even win?”
Gyro struggled. On some level, she understood what her sister was asking, but it just wasn’t fair. Was she going to lose everyone she loved in her life? They’d been running and hiding and fighting for the Prophet ever since she’d revealed herself to them less than two days ago. But why would she have ever done anything for Prophet if she didn’t think it was worth the effort?
Sure, she’d thought of it as a game at first, an adventure, but this went way beyond that now, didn’t it? No happy endings here. Her sister was going to be gone. Hell, there was no certainty that any of them would get out of this building alive. Did she really believe Prophet could help the world? Screw the world, how could she say yes to losing her sister?
Yet Prophet had chosen her. She’d chosen all of them for one reason or another … their talents, their knowledge, their access. But why her? Why not any other tagger out there? Piece by piece, her heart broke in her chest as she figured out the answer.
Because Nova cared about her, she realized. If Nova had come there by herself, she could’ve easily bolted in self-preservation. But now Gyro was there, figuratively standing in her way. Nova had given Gyro another chance at life, and her being there was a reminder of what might be lost if she failed to live up to her purpose—whether she’d known it until right then or not.
So the choice fell to the girl rather than the woman. Gyro could tell Nova to run, and that’s what they’d spend the rest of their lives doing. Running and watching the world fall apart around them. Prophet had used her love like a weapon. Charon may have been made bad, but Prophet was just evil. But she knew that if she asked Nova not to do it—that would break Nova’s heart. It was all so much to try and figure out.
It wasn’t fair. She was just thirteen. How the hell was she supposed to figure these things out? “Yeah. I … I guess so. I don’t like her. In fact, I hate her right now. But I think she’s the best chance everyone else has.”
Nova smiled sadly. “And I trust you to survive, Gyro. I know what I need to do, even if I don’t want to leave you.”
Gyro threw her arms around her sister and buried her face in Nova’s embrace. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Nova held her tight, murmuring in her ear. “Do you remember the day I found you in that alley?”
Gyro nodded miserably.
“I watched you for at least half an hour. You were scrounging in every trash bin you came across, licking empty food tubes just for a drop or two of glop.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I was trying to make a choice. Up until then, I’d only ever had one person in mind … me. Or, at least I thought I did.” She laughed wistfully. “Anyways, when I saw you, something stopped me. Not sure what, but I could see these two paths in front of me, clear as crystal. I could go on my way and keep living like I always had, running jobs, hitting up the clubs, partying hard until all my worries dropped away. Or I could step in and give you a hand. I’ve never regretted the decision I made, hon.”
Solar Singularity Page 22
