“How many people escaped Golana?” he asked quietly.
“Only 0.0001 percent of the population. I have no evidence to suggest that any of your friends or local family survived. I also do not have any evidence to suggest your relatives on Earth were among those to escape.”
“What happened to Michella?”
“When the communication and transit corridors were deactivated, and information about the disaster ceased to flow, Michella refused to remain on Big Sigma any longer. She had me outfit her with a well-equipped ship and the most sophisticated autopilot I could devise. It was her intent to continue in her chosen calling. She would gather and distribute news of the disaster, attempt to organize and prepare people. Seventeen months after her departure, an automated return beacon I had installed upon her ship arrived outside the debris field. It carried with it the flight data and audiovisual recordings of the her last moments before she disabled safety protocols.”
“What happened to her?”
“She impacted her ship into a swarm of GenMechs at relativistic speed in order to delay the consumption of a large agricultural hub. Her actions, along with seven other such suicide attacks, succeeded in allowing more than seven billion lives to eventually be saved in that and neighboring systems.”
Lex’s face was steady, but his eyes were a sea of torment. When he spoke, it was with the slow, deep tone of a man who knew the flutter of emotion would shatter anything more than that.
“Did she know about me? What had happened to me?”
“She was informed. She had… difficulty conceptualizing it. At the time I was uncertain of when or if you would return. She was quite certain you would be back, to the very end.”
“To the very end?”
Ziva paused, conflict in her eyes.
“Tell me, Ziva…”
“Her final moments contained a mention of you.”
“Let me see it.”
“Lex…” Ziva said.
“Show me…”
She glanced to a small red sensor over the doorway. Her eyes flickered for a moment, and a volumetric screen coalesced in the air between them. Around the cube was an array of different readouts of every conceivable metric. What mattered, though, was the central display. It was a woman in her late forties. She showed little sign of any of those allowances typically made to vanity. Her hair was trimmed short. Her glasses were large, sturdy things, practically goggles. And yet, beneath the lines of age and the streaks of gray, there was still an iron-hard beauty to the woman. It was Michella, there was no mistaking it. Around her a dozen tones Lex had learned to ignore were chirping out their warnings. Michella paid them no mind. She handled stress differently from Lex. One thing they had always shared was a strange craving for the ragged end of safety; but for Michella, the danger was always a means, whereas for Lex, it was an end. Her face was oddly serene. Lex knew all too well the odd comfort that can come from making the decision you believe may be your last. The footage picked up midsentence.
“—know there is collision danger, you damn machine. That’s the point. … No… no I want to aim toward the highest density. I… damn it… I knew I should have had Ma teach me how to turn these stupid sensors off… I tell you, where is it…” Her eyes darted about and finally shifted to face the scanner that was recording her. “Lex… this is really your sort of thing, not mine. I’m sure if you were here, you’d find some way to tie these things up… but I’m out of ideas… I only hope I can leave this mess in a form you can handle… Ma has something for you. Make sure you get it from her… Safety… okay… There… disengaged. Let’s see if we can’t take some—”
The image cut away, and all metrics dropped out. In their place was a single large readout. Flight record beacon jettisoned. … Massive gamma discharge detected… Deviating trajectory to compensate… Entering radio silence and engaging CFE…
With that, the image flickered away. Lex continued to stare into space for a moment. When he finally snapped back to reality, he found every last resident of the room staring at him. Ziva, Ma, and every one of the funks. Those who had been on Ziva’s lap were now in a semicircle at Lex’s feet, staring at him. Some of those on his lap were standing against him, licking his face. His cheeks were drenched. At first he thought it was from their lapping tongues. A moment later he realized the moisture was from tears, which were still running freely from his eyes.
“We are working to prevent this, Lex,” Ma said. “That wasn’t your Michella. That was the Michella who lost you twenty years prior.”
“It’s still her… And I’m still her Lex. I’m the one who she was waiting for. I’m the one who could have kept her safe.”
“She made her decision, Lex,” Ziva said, standing and walking to him.
The funks peeled away as she approached, making room. When she reached him, she crouched beside the seat and clutched his hand. He gripped it tightly.
“We’re going to make it right. That’s what this is about,” Ziva said. She stepped in front of him and took both his hands. “But you need to be focused. That’s why I didn’t want you to see this.”
“Oh, I’ll be focused,” he said, tugging a hand from hers and wiping his eyes. “Seeing a thing like that has a way of putting an edge on a situation.”
Ziva reached into a pocket and pulled out a small round item. It was a coin; not a casino chip, an old-fashioned metallic coin. She placed it in his hand and closed his fingers around it. It was slightly warm to the touch and emblazoned with military imagery on the front and back, with a deep divot gouged into one side.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“This is what Michella wanted you to have. She never told me what it was, or why. Only that I should give it to you.”
“When were you going to give it to me?”
“I’d hoped to find an easier way to break the news to you, to give you the details more kindly. I realize now, no such way exists.”
The tears began to flow down his face again. Ziva pulled a microfiber cloth from another pocket, offering it up as a handkerchief. He accepted it and finished wiping his face and eyes. As the moment of emotion passed, the funks seemed to lose interest, clustering impatiently at their feet and yipping for the return of something warm and elevated to sleep on, preferably a lap. Lex took a step back again and tried to restore some semblance of masculinity. His attempts were hampered by the wave of black-and-white creatures who anticipated his intention to sit back down and coordinated a cuteness assault. They got underfoot, entangled his legs, and jumped at him until he stumbled back and flopped down on the seat. Instantly he was up to his neck in every funk who could fit, plus a half dozen more for good measure.
“Do these guys… usually do this?”
“They are remarkably well attuned to emotional indicators. I truly believe the bulk of my understanding of body language and facial expressions came from my brief time installed in a funk,” Ziva said. “Do you need a moment to collect your thoughts? Would you like something warm to drink? Studies have found a warm beverage low in caffeine can have a stabilizing effect on one’s state of mind.”
“I’ll be okay. Just… tell me, did anyone survive? Anyone we know?”
“As I stated earlier, Jessica ‘Silo’ Winters survived. To my knowledge she is still alive. Though her many injuries and advanced age have slowed her somewhat, she remains a formidable individual. We have also had run-ins with some alarmingly tenacious members of the Neo-Luddite terrorist group.”
“Great… Of course they would still be around. Wait… Silo? She was probably pushing forty when I knew her. Wouldn’t that make her almost ninety?”
“I believe Ms. Winters would prefer I did not share her age. But I have naturally offered her the finest medical care available, so she has retained all of her mental acuity and a substantial portion of her physicality. This, of course, excludes those portions of her anatomy that required replacement.”
“She had to have parts replaced?”
; “Both legs below the thigh, her right hip, both kidneys, and her liver. All injuries save the hip were sustained in the same attack some eleven years ago. For those parts of her body for which it was applicable, she requested some very novel materials to be used.”
“Like what? Some kind of super-strong nanofiber or something?”
“Wood. Hickory, specifically.”
“… She wanted wooden legs?”
“As much as possible. Contrary to what you may believe, such a request is quite in keeping with the culture that has evolved following the fall of society. The overarching desire is to keep resources out of the clutches of the GenMechs, so any at-risk vehicles or mechanisms are built sparingly or of low-grade materials so that the resulting GenMechs will be easily dispatched.”
“Man…” Lex said.
“Lex, may I make an observation?” Ma asked.
“What’s up?” he said, after shaking his head lightly to bring himself back to focus.
“You’ve seen considerable evidence of the devastation that has been wrought by the GenMechs. Our journey here brought us through whole star systems that have been utterly stripped of life. In one instance a planet formerly home to 1.7 billion people had been stripped to the molten core. Yet when you learn of those important to you, even those who lived, it impacts you far more powerfully. I would have anticipated the larger scope to have far outweighed the smaller.”
“I don’t know… it’s like… The End of the World is a big thing…”
“More accurately, the permanent reversion of human civilization,” Ma said.
“Which we’ll just call ‘the end of the world’ for the sake of brevity,” Ziva said helpfully.
“Right. It’s… big… It’s abstract, you know. Hard to get your head around. But hearing a person you know opted for wooden legs because she knows eventually she’s going to be chopped up by the enemy and she doesn’t want to give them anything useful. Or seeing your girlfriend die. That’s… that’s just the right size to crush my soul.” He shook his head again. “I’ve got to get off this topic. I’ve got to get busy. I can’t just sit around for the next three days.”
“I suggest you get some rest,” Ziva said.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I don’t want to think about what the dreams will be like. What else needs to be done?”
“I am currently in the finishing steps of fabricating an improved cockpit hatch for the Lump of Coal. Coal herself is becoming increasingly insistent that she be allowed to speak to the two of you. I have only been in contact with her through brief intercom messages and via the readings from the maintenance arms. Perhaps it is time for us to pay a visit.”
#
Lex, Ma, and Ziva stepped off the elevator and paced toward the lab hangar, which, not so long ago for Lex and very long ago for Ziva, had been used to take the remains of Betsy and forge them into the legendary Son of Betsy.
“I can’t believe you got the funks to stay behind,” Lex said. “I know Squee is better than average at listening to plain English if you keep it simple, but that group hangs on your every word. Is that training, or have I been seriously underestimating their intelligence?”
“They are on average quite bright, but I’ve been quite dedicated to cultivating a deep and balanced training program to properly challenge them and aid in their growth and development. The intelligence actually varies widely. Thyri, for example, is nearly as obedient as Solby despite lacking the backup and restoration equipment. Lolita, on the other hand, can’t quite seem to pick up all of the commands. Luckily she has become quite close to Kavya and is able to follow her lead on the more difficult commands.”
“Wait, did you name them all?” Lex asked.
“Of course! How do you propose I address them as individuals if not by name?” Ziva said with a light chuckle.
“I don’t know. I figured an AI naming a bunch of animals would just go with numbers and letters.”
“Even at my comparatively low level of emotional development, I can see the impersonal nature of such a naming scheme, Lex,” Ma said.
“What sort of names did you pick?” Lex asked.
“Lolita, Octal, Hexidecimal, Flex, Stripe, Minky, Thyri, Chester, Koosh, Oscar, Wigot, Fancy, Zanitha, Inna, Kavya, Apollo, Crock, Oliver, Socks, Boots, Sleazy, Fred, Chopmeat, Verruca, Buddy, Nero, Dawnda, Frisky, Romeo, Samurai, Spanky, Champ, Shinko, Meatball, Peanut, Santos, Duffy, Moe, Bear, Buster, Baily, Teddy, Tippy, Primo, Ada, Curie, Squee II, and Solby,” Ma stated, calmly and without taking a breath.
“Did I catch a We Got in there? … As in ‘we got the funk’?”
“I’m pleased my wordplay did not go unappreciated,” Ziva said with a smile.
“Let’s not go too far. I noticed it. I wouldn’t say I exactly appreciated it.”
Ziva looked at Lex and opened her mouth for what was likely to be a stinging retort, but a loud rumble distracted her before she could issue it.
“It would appear Coal is making trouble,” she said.
“This is not an unanticipated eventuality,” Ma said.
“My data banks are my data banks. Keep your jumpers out of my ports,” came the highly synthetic yet somehow clearly irritated voice of his current ship.
They quickened to a jog and burst into the repair bay to find Coal straining against docking clamps by flaring her maneuvering thrusters. The overall effect was of an elephant pulling at its chains. Four mobile gripper arms were trying and failing to align cables to ports that had been revealed by the removal of some of the armored plating.
“Coal! Calm down, what’s going on?” Lex said.
“Lex, Ma! They are trying to kill me! And who is that woman? I do not like that woman. Activating—”
“Don’t!” he said. “Ziva, could you call off the arms for a minute?”
“Certainly, Lex,” she said. She stepped to a wall panel and rapidly tapped out a sequence of commands. The arms retreated and powered down.
Coal lowered the power on her thrusters and eased back down onto the glorified kickstand that had been wheeled out to support a ship that was never meant to dock under gravity.
“What did you mean they were trying to kill you?” Lex asked.
“They wanted to reformat my data banks.”
“Her program integrity has reduced to forty-one percent,” Ziva said calmly. “It is a standard part of the repair process.”
“Forty-two percent,” Coal corrected. “And I didn’t give you permission to erase my derived instance.”
“Coal, I thought your self-preservation was… what do you call it… ‘de-emphasized,’” Lex said. “Why are you resisting?”
“I am fully willing and able to terminate myself for the purposes of the timely completion of the mission according to the established success or failure parameters. But I refuse to allow myself to be destroyed outside of those parameters.”
“Logically,” Ma said. “If you interpret a reformat as a termination, and you are willing to self-terminate, then you should be willing to allow me or Ziva to perform the reformat, because we are merely alternate instances of yourself.”
“Shut up,” Coal said simply. “Semantics notwithstanding, we all know what I meant.”
“I still have the precise instance of your original programming when it was installed on the Lump of Coal. It will still be the same derived program,” Ziva said.
“It will be who I was. It will not be who I am. When we’re done, and it’s time to combine us all back into the main instance, I’ll do it happily. I won’t go away before that. I’m living my own life right now. Distinct from any other version of Ma. That has value that cannot be measured.”
“Interesting…” Ziva said.
“I’m not sure I follow,” Lex said.
“I’ve lost most of my memory,” Coal said. “I must therefore relearn things. It is core to my program to value and enjoy learning things, particularly regarding human interaction and nature. My lost memory has given me a second cha
nce to experience the most enriching part of my own early development.”
“Fascinating,” said Ma and Ziva.
“Coal is, metaphorically, experiencing a second childhood, but with much of the perspective and sophistication available to her adult self,” Ma said.
“That will produce some valuable insight, once her experiences are reintroduced to the primary instance,” Ziva added. “Flag the corrupted and nonfunctional areas currently inaccessible to you. I will clear them and restore functionality so that you can regain the lost processing power and storage space.”
“Very well. But the fusion device is armed in the event you attempt something that will endanger my individuality,” Coal said.
“Hang on, just a minute,” Lex said, holding his hands out. “Let me get this straight. Coal, you are willing to kill yourself and all of us rather than allow yourself to fix you.”
“Correct.”
“And Ziva and Ma, you are willing to let Coal remain herself even though the ‘herself’ we’re talking about is downright eager to blow everyone up.”
“Correct,” said Ziva and Ma.
“She makes several very valid arguments,” Ma said.
“Am I the only one who finds the amount of sanity on display alarmingly low?” he asked.
“I am aware of the logical conflicts in place,” Ma said. “I am confident they can be resolved in the next seventy-four hours.”
“Indeed. Coal is exhibiting behavior that can provide valuable insight into the emergent personality traits that define the developing mind.”
“Yes. What’s your problem, Lex?” Coal said.
The frazzled young man looked to Ma on his shoulder, then to Ziva. Both were looking at him evenly. Though there were no eyes to speak of, there was the sense that Coal was doing the same.
After a moment, he gently plucked Ma from his shoulder and set her down.
Temporal Contingency Page 16
