“Clear the room, doctor,” I hear Jackson just before he storms into the gallery. Ryder collects her gear and lets herself back out through decon like she’s happy to be away from him. Then Jackson glares at me for several seconds— he’s exhaling so hard I can see his breath on the polycarb—before giving me his own bad news.
“You’ve been ordered released and returned to limited duty. This comes direct from General Richards. I’ve already filed a formal protest. You will be escorted to secure quarters and given limited access to operations feed, though I warn you… No. It doesn’t matter. You won’t be able to do any significant damage if you tried. The orbital uplink has been taken offline. So has the planetary uplink. We’re using simple laser code messages to a geosynchronous satellite, all manual. The on-planet links have been separated from the base mainframes. And every message is being run through redundant authentication. Still, if you do decide to be combative or otherwise sabotage our operations, remember what we’re sitting on top of. I’d rather lose a facility than everything we’ve got here. I’d absolutely give my life rather than let any of you get one centimeter closer to Earth.”
There are so many things I could say to him, so many things Michael would say if he were here, but I swallow them all down, and just tell him “I understand, Colonel.”
He stands there seething for a few more breaths, then turns on his heel and marches out.
It takes several more minutes for Ryder to “discharge” me and let me back out through decon. The first thing I do when I get locked back in the cramped closet-sized quarters they assigned me is find a uniform, a set of issue L-As, and then pour a cool tumbler of water from the recycle tap. I look up into the in-room sentry camera as I drink it, savor it, pretending I’m just like anybody else taking care of my body’s essential needs even though I can see my hydration indicators shifting behind my eyes. And I’m slapped again by knowing this is never going away—that this shit is always going to be in my body, in every fucking cell, making me feel like I’ve turned into one of those novelty devices that were so popular back home, loaded full of random trivial applications. But I know my applications aren’t trivial—some of them are devastating. These people aren’t terrified of me just out of idle paranoia. Some of them know what I can do, Jackson included. He knows he has to threaten me with a nuke stuck under the few people that still admit they’re my friends because nothing he has on planet can physically contain me. And I can kill him with a fucking touch. Or less.
It strikes me as actually kind of funny that the first thing I did with my very limited “freedom” was put on body armor. Old habit—it doesn’t matter if it’s pointless. This is what I wear to work. It’s normal, like nothing has changed. Or maybe I just need to wear the costume, so I can pretend I’m still what I was.
What twists me the most is knowing that I chose this, chose to become this freakish thing, at least once in my life. The memories of that other world/other life have been coming back slowly. Or not really coming back. It’s more like I’m uncovering them, discovering them like lost mementos in a dusty old attic. And the more I get back, the more I wonder if my losing them to begin with was my own doing, my own choice. Because I really don’t want to remember that world.
I remember not believing Michael (not even believing Michael was Michael) when he came back from the “dead” changed, when I went to bed with the man I knew and woke up with a young long-haired action figure. The story he told was unbelievable: the story of time travel to undo a doomed future, of a different horrible reality erased, history rewritten, and only a few random bits of it—a few random altered people—leftover in the process. It was the same story Chang told, and Chang sounded batshit crazy.
And then I died. And woke up in my own grave. Like this. Again, apparently.
Even when the memories started coming unbidden, starting with those first fragments and flashes after I woke up in that grave, I was still sure none of it was real. Memories of that hopeless nightmare world. Memories of volunteering… Memories of becoming Codename: Parvati; immortal super-soldier because Michael insisted that I needed to do it, that I needed to change like he had, that it was important… We needed to stay ahead of the future because of what was happening, what could happen…
I was sure it had to be some kind of tampering, false memories digitally implanted along with the neuro-interface tech, put in my head to manipulate me. Assuming I was me. The new body wasn’t mine—too young, too fit, too strong, and arguably more tech than flesh. So why would the mind be? And how would I even know? (I did whatever I could think of to check, to test myself during my idle days and months while they studied me like I was either a plague or a weapon or both. I asked everyone who knew me if I was talking and acting like the person they knew. I checked my history files. But the personality and memories could be convincing fakes, convincing even to me.)
(I need to stop now, shut this doubt out of my mind before I lose myself in it again.)
But the memories are convincing. That world was real, feels real, as real as any memory can be: The world where we all went wrong. I don’t want to look, I don’t want to see it, but I know it happened. I can’t ignore it. I know I was a part of it, that I made decisions, that I went wrong along with it.
But we did it, we became what we are now—I did it—for a good reason. Didn’t I? So we could be ready for what could go wrong. So we could save the world when it went wrong.
And we failed. We lost the world, the entire human race. Superhuman, and we weren’t strong enough. We were nothing, not against ten billion superhumans.
I also know that after we failed, we made something to try to fix it all, something crazy-desperate, something alive. New life. And it promised it would fix it. It promised me…
But it wasn’t by time travel. I’ve managed to put that together, or it’s put itself together, ideas suddenly all falling into place like puzzle pieces over the last few days, finally hitting me with dumb shock—not for the inconceivable enormity of what was done, but because the truth should have been so obvious. And I heard it in the way Michael chose his words, the way he looked at me when he did, like this is our ugly secret. And that’s confirmation. Just like we share the same memories of the same undone reality, we share the same burden of how it was undone. (Do they all know, all the others like us, preserved for whatever reason when the hell-world got erased?)
Doing my duty is my only comfort, no matter how empty or dysfunctional it’s become. I need this. I need the ritual. I need the routine. I need to serve, to serve something, some obligation just to keep moving. (Why can’t Michael see that?)
Doing it now, I check the simple tablet they left me. But it’s dead. No signal. Nothing loaded. Just the useless OS ready screen. I look up at the sentry cameras to accuse, to rail at them for letting me do my job but then giving me no job to do…
The cameras are turned off.
I barely have a second to process that when I hear the locks to my hatch disengage. Alarms should be going off, but they don’t.
I reflexively set myself to attack, and feel my skin harden. My processing speed ramps up, slowing everything down. The hatch swings open…
…and the blonde tech from the Iso steps through, shutting the hatch behind him like this is his own suite. He turns to me and gives me that fake smile again. Then he seems to understand that I’m ready to kill him. But he doesn’t do what I expect:
He reaches down, takes my hand, lifts it and presses it to the side of his face.
I feel him. I feel what he is. Synthetic and alloy and nano-carbon weave fluidic muscles and…
“It’s good to see you again, Colonel Ava.”
The voice is smooth and soothing and somehow sounds like old enemies and old friends at the same time. I realize it’s synthesized, digitally produced, but impressively convincing. I look down at his ID tag.
“DEE. CAIN A.”
No.
“No…”
“I’m surprised you
didn’t pick up on me before this,” it says sweetly. “I have been trying to feed you intel, brief you on recent developments. I’ve had to be subtle about it, of course, given the circumstances.”
I feel a surge of hysteria, a sudden desire to laugh and cry and scream all at once.
“Dee?” I scan through his synthetic skin, see the marvelous mechanisms underneath. “I… There were rumors… Back after they pulled your mainframe… Some of us suspected that Michael was still… that you were still… There were cases, incidents involving what appeared to be realistic robots…”
“Androids,” he corrects lightly. “Mobile physical-world interfaces. Tools. This one is a CALO, an independent remote subsystem. I would tell you that I came to Mars to help Colonel Ram just before the nuclear bombardment, but given recent revelations, I have calculated high certainty that this isn’t true, that I was created here, a convincing facsimile.”
“By Yod,” the name pops into my head, the name that’s been hovering in my thoughts and I’m not sure why or what it means. But suddenly, now I do. “Was that you, putting these ideas in my head?” I ask without speaking. He nods.
“The truth has been revealed to us only recently, I estimate for some specific intention. Prior to this, those like you—those agents of Yod—only knew the time travel story, and honestly believed it to be true. And I only knew the current, edited timeline.In fact, I still only know of no other series of events. I have only heard of the overwrite.”
He’s talking like we’re only discussing files, software, not human minds, not the whole fucking world and everyone in it.
“What are you doing here?” I have to focus on what’s more immediate, more addressable.
“I am able to access the UNMAC systems in ways that will avoid detection, even in light of recent advancements made in detecting hybrid nanotechnology. I am not nanotechnology. I am AI. Therefore, I can help.”
“You got Michael out,” I state the obvious.
“And I disabled the political leverage of UNCORT.”
“That was you?” I feel a fresh shock. “Not Asmodeus?”
“The first one today was Asmodeus. I simply took advantage of his strategy with one of my own, old but still effective.”
“I remember…” I do. I remember the mess he—it—made out of UNACT back in the day, just by making certain very uncomfortable facts very public. I grin involuntarily.
“It was necessary in order for General Richards to rein in his UNCORT-backed officers, so that he could retake command and give permission for Colonel Ram to accompany the reconnaissance mission.”
“He… What?” I don’t believe what I’m hearing.
“He would not have been effectively able to follow the recon vehicle without being detected and treated as hostile. It is essential that the nuclear warheads on board be used only against an appropriate target, and not fall into enemy hands. Or that is how we hope it will appear to said enemy.”
I want to strangle him… it… whatever it is. I want to rip its smiling robot head off.
“Despite this, the situation is far from stable,” he keeps droning like he’s reporting the weather. “I have calculated several potential counter-moves by various key players that could easily reverse the gains made. The Colonel may find himself targeted again very soon, before he is able to complete his mission.”
“Just to be clear: His mission is…?”
“Nominally the same as UNMAC’s: locate and neutralize all aspects of the networked entity Asmodeus.”
“’Nominally’?”
“UNMAC has no hope of complete success. And incomplete success will assure an ongoing threat.”
“And you think you’ve worked out a way to assure complete success?”
Halfway through my question he holds up a hand to stop me talking. I hear movement out in the corridor, soft footfalls and the hum of an electric motor, wheels.
He turns and opens the hatch just as Rick is about to knock on it, making him jump. Next to him, in his chair, Anton jumps even more.
“Sorry to startle you, Doctor. Doctors.”
When neither of them give Dee any kind of who-the-fuck-is-this looks, I put more together.
“You knew? Both of you?”
“We have been working together for quite some time now,” the android admits for them, speaking quickly and quietly. “But I was only able to insert myself physically with the arrival of all the new personnel.”
“We’d been chatting for a while now,” Rick confirms. “But we only got to see his… um… physical interface device a few days ago. It really is impressive…”
The fake person does an impressive facsimile of a humble shrug.
“His documentation is also impressively forged,” Anton praises. “And he really doesn’t show up as anything other than human on any scans. Assuming he shows up at all.”
“That’s not true,” Dee corrects lightly. “I do show up on all scans. I simply alter what the systems report.”
Something else I know he—it—has done before. I’m sure whoever is watching this room right now is seeing me sitting on my rack, alone and bored out of my mind, or maybe having a nap. The corridor cams will be showing nobody at my door. As long as no one comes wandering by—but Dee will see that coming in time to warn us or redirect them.
He would have been useful to have had around months ago, when all this went insane. And as I think that, he looks at me like he’s sorry. Is he reading my thoughts? Does he have that kind of access to me because of my nanotech?
“What else don’t I know?” I decide to move on.
“The massive shift of personnel to this site has left the new-drops seriously outnumbered at Melas Two,” Rick tells me in near-whisper. “Our vets have been provided with codes to crack any attempt to lock them down. Tru’s people are ready to move as well.”
“Move on what? Or did you forget we have mass-drivers and nuclear warheads aimed down on us all from orbit?”
“With people manning the triggers that are going to have to decide right from wrong,” Rick insists. “Let’s say there’s some re-education happening. Maybe even a touch of enlightenment.”
Do they know about the Yod thing? I think hard at the Dee-bot. He gives me a subtle head shake, proving that he can pick up on my internal dialogue just like Michael can. (But I can tell when Michael’s listening. And I can tell when he’s sending. But this thing… It was able to plant thoughts in my head like they were my own internal dialogue.)
“The plan is to further marginalize the UNCORT-aligned personnel and then isolate them from critical decision-making,” the machine states its plan.
“Then it’s about hearts and minds,” Rick follows. “I hate to say it, but we actually owe Asmodeus in that area. He’s making them question…”
“He doesn’t have a sense of justice,” I warn. “He just likes to humiliate. The duplicitous types are easy targets, that’s all. He does it because it’s fun for him, not because it’s right, not at all.”
“Enemy of my enemy,” Anton argues. “But still my enemy. I’m happy to let them swing at each other if it makes either or both easier to take down.”
“Depends on who gets in the way of the swinging,” Rick says it before I can.
On my tiny metal desk, my tablet comes alive. Dee gestures for quiet, but doesn’t move or prod Rick or Anton to hide. He nods for me to answer.
“Colonel Ava, this is General Richards,” his face comes up, looking tense like he’s under fire. (In my own thumbnail-view, it looks like I’m alone in my quarters—Dee’s doing in realtime.) “I need you in Ops now! Clearance on my orders!”
“Yes, sir.”
Rick and Anton look panicked. But Dee simply states:
“Melas Two is under attack.”
I get to Ops in thirty seconds running and slamming my way through hatches. The troopers on live sentry duty hesitate, but let me through quickly enough—they must have gotten word of my clearance. Either that, or they know th
ey can’t stop me if I’m determined.
Ops is a two-level chamber that reminds me of someone’s private movie theater: A lower level featuring a half-dozen terminal stations hovered over by a kind of balcony deck that seats two more senior tech officers and a central command officer’s chair like some kind of TV starship. All seats face a forward wall, six meters high, which I know is facing east. It would be overlooking the crater bowl if there were any actual viewports. Instead, the armored wall is dominated by screens, and the screens show chaos.
I’m seeing remote sentry feed—multiple angles—as the Shinkyo “refugee camp” inside the Melas Two perimeter wall comes apart. The network of pressurized shelters has been torn open in places, and not from the outside. People cut their way out, trying to escape. They’re running for the perimeter in panic, some of them not even wearing surface gear—they won’t last minutes in that atmosphere—but several dozen of them are trying to get away from something I can’t see, swatting at the air around them like they’re hallucinating. Or like they’re being attacked by insects. There’s visible violence in the intact shelters and tubeways that matches what I’m seeing outside: running, stampeding through tight hatchways and accesses, flailing—the fabric-walled structures convulse from within.
I also see status graphics of the base bunkers: some of the outlying sections of A-Deck have been locked down, sealed. I realize these are the sections containing the airlocks out to the shelter tubeways.
Kastl is manning one of the command-deck stations, which is a welcome sight. Jackson is a far less welcome one, on his feet at the rail, intermittently barking orders at the downstairs techs, sounding like a man whose ship is sinking out from under him, and on fire.
The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming Page 23
