The Farthest City

by Daniel P Swenson

The floor shook.

  “We don’t have long,” three-arms said. “Their reinforcements have arrived.”

  “The Precautionists aren’t telling you the truth,” Chronicler told them. “They want to use humans to distract the Hexi. They plan to embroil your race in an endless war, a war we chines started.”

  Someone wasn’t telling the truth. Sheemi just didn’t know who. Her perfect dream of seizing revenge, of wreaking destruction on an entire planet’s worth of the hated Hexi, faded a bit. Somewhere a thread had come loose.

  “What do you mean?” Gavin asked.

  “Four hundred years after the Array was established,” Chronicler said, “Chine evolution continued to accelerate. New generations developed at a rapid pace. Some were assimilated into chine culture, others rebelled and escaped. One of these, an uncontrolled class of self-aggregators, escaped, made its way into Hexi territory, and annihilated a populated world. The Hexi have been searching for those responsible ever since. But the Array was too far away, too well hidden. Then the Hexi found Earth, probably by detecting signals given off as humans experimented with the n-technology we left behind. We suspect that is why they attacked Earth—humans don’t concern them, but by attacking Earth, they sought to draw us out. Their real goal is to find the Array, the heart of chine-controlled space, to have their revenge and ensure their worlds will never be attacked again.”

  Sheemi wished the chine would stop talking. More of her dream threatened to unravel with every word these chines spoke. They’re liars. They wanted to divert them, sow enough uncertainty they’d lose their will to defeat the Hexi.

  “If you do this, if you murder an entire Hexi world, they will refocus their wrath on humanity. The Precautionists will help establish humans through space, but not for your sake—they’ll use humanity as a buffer so the Hexi never trouble the Array. Your war with them will go on for countless generations.”

  Something big crashed into the doors, which began to grind open. Dust and smoke billowed inside. The chines retreated back into the museum.

  “Don’t let that happen,” Kellen called, before disappearing around a corner.

  They had little time to absorb the new information. Two massive pairs of claspers peeled back the doors, then withdrew.

  Interlocuter-Proxy stepped inside. “Who were your visitors?”

  “They only wanted to talk to us,” Xin replied.

  “Regarding what topics?”

  Gavin glanced at Sheemi and the others. She understood they were not to speak.

  “We discussed culture, politics, and history,” Gavin said. “An academic exchange.”

  “They were highly motivated academics, then,” Interlocuter-Proxy said, its voice cheerful as always.

  “Well, they’re gone now,” Gavin said, “and we’d like to return to our quarters. All this excitement has tired us.”

  “Yes,” it said, “they are gone, but the information they transmitted is not. I must ask you to relinquish it.”

  Gavin looked at a loss for how to respond.

  “But we’re not chines,” Xin said, exasperation building in her voice. “We can’t simply transmit data and have it removed from our minds. We cannot forget so easily.”

  Interlocuter-Proxy shifted forward, its spike-like legs clicking on the floor.

  “Unfortunate, but that’s what I was told as well. Biological systems are so limited. Here, let me help you forget.”

  Interlocuter-Proxy reached out and thrust a spike through Gavin’s chest. The point of it came out the other side of his suit, slick with blood. The scientist’s eyes opened wide. The spike retracted, and his head lolled in his helmet.

  “Gavin!” screamed Xin.

  “Get her back, Sheemi.” Fu planted himself between them and Interlocuter-Proxy. “Get Doctor Yang out of here.”

  Xin was already moving toward Gavin. Sheemi pulled her back into the nearest exhibit, a standing collage of panels.

  As Fu wrestled with Interlocuter-Proxy, one of the big uglies pushed through the doors. Before she could utter a warning, it brought its massive arm down. One moment Fu was there, strong and brave, then he was reduced to a pulp of flesh and suit fragments.

  Sheemi choked off a scream of impotent rage. I need my weapon, she lamented. She ran, pulling Xin along behind her into another exhibit. She searched for somewhere they might hide, but there was no concealment to be had.

  She turned. Interlocuter-Proxy stood before them. The big ugly joined it, forcing exhibit walls out of its way like tissue paper. Sheemi pulled Xin behind her.

  “I apologize for having to kill you.” Interlocuter-Proxy pointed a spike at them. “I would never choose to kill humans, our revered ancestors, unless ordered to do so. Sadly, that is the case.”

  “Run, Xin!” Sheemi cried as the chine impaled her.

  She gritted her teeth as the pain hit and her suit alarms sounded. She’d brought her crossed arms up in time. The spike must have glanced off the bone. It protruded from her left arm and had dug a scratch across her faceplate. Interlocuter-Proxy lifted her off her feet by her skewered arm.

  Sheemi felt the spike retracting. With her free arm, she grabbed hold of the spike and pulled herself closer to the chine. She screamed as her flesh slid along the spike. Pain swarmed up her arm and into her brain, making her see red and black.

  Interlocuter-Proxy pulled her even closer and scraped the tip of a second spike along her faceplate. Sheemi pushed that spike away with her arm, drew back her head, and bashed its sensor with her helmet. The jaw-like housing snapped shut, and its spike slid out of her arm like a snake. She hit the floor and lay there, crumpled, pain coming in waves from her wounded arm. She kept her eyes open, defiant, as Interlocuter-Proxy opened its sensor and sent a spike lancing forward.

  Something deflected the thrust in a shower of sparks. Three-arms was there somehow, had blocked the killing blow with its metal blade. It was the sweetest sight.

  Three-arms pointed a weaponized arm at the guard coming round Interlocuter-Proxy. The three chines stood fixed. Were they talking? With a blur of motion, three-arms cut Interlocuter-proxy in two. The halves fell twitching to the floor. The guard brought its weapon arm to bear, but three-arms fired first. The guard’s sensors exploded. With its other arm, three-arms hewed the guard’s torso, gutting it down to its massive legs.

  Kellen reappeared with Abby and Chronicler.

  “Are you alright?” Abby asked.

  Sheemi smiled at the absurdity of the question. She got to her feet, surprised she still could. Her suit had resealed, but she felt dizzy and cold. How much blood was clotting in her boots? The sensation of the wound itself was lost in a general fog of throbbing ache.

  “No,” she said, as Xin went back and bent over Gavin’s still form. “We’re not.”

  “Gavin’s dead, Sheemi,” Xin said. “And Fu…”

  “We stayed nearby in case the Precautionists did anything unexpected,” Chronicler said.

  “Was this unexpected?” Sheemi said. “We did nothing to justify this. Nothing. What’s wrong with you chines? We trusted you. Gavin trusted you.”

  Precautionists, Discoverers, this entire mad chine world they’d landed in. It was nothing like they’d hoped for. Who could they trust now?

  “Yes,” Chronicler said unhappily. “We didn’t think they’d go this far. We expected interrogation, but not assassination.”

  “You didn’t think?” Xin said, almost snarling.

  “We’re so sorry,” Kellen said. “We’re sorry for your friends, but you had to know. We had to give you that knowledge. This is so much bigger than individuals, than any of us.”

  “We’ve got to get back,” Sheemi said. “Back to our people. Can you help us?”

  “We will try,” he said.

  “We should go now,” three-arms said. “More are coming.”

  “Kinetic Strategist will take us to safety,” Chronicler said, indicating three-arms.

  The whole place shuddered, the walls
vibrating, as the floor warped beneath their feet. Something extremely heavy had landed nearby.

  They ran after Kinetic as fast as they could in their suits. They passed through a long hall, down another, and out into a vast concourse of tubes and platforms—an underground rail station. Kinetic ushered them into a waiting train car. They accelerated out of the station, the chines on the platform reduced to blurs, then washed out entirely as they flashed forward.

  Sheemi slumped down onto her side. Exhaustion dulled the pain, and for a brief interlude, she slid into welcome oblivion.

  “Get up, Sheemi.” Xin tugged her arm. “You’ve got to keep going.”

  Sheemi stood with Xin’s help. Kinetic led them off the rail car and onto a crowded street. A group of spherical chines rolled down from above, their gears clicking like mad in the chine tracks. They opened like clams a couple meters across.

  “Get in,” Kinetic said.

  Xin looked at Sheemi, who shrugged. Too late for questions now. Sheemi stepped into the sphere. Its inside contained a complicated mesh of parts that somehow accommodated her body, gently pressing her into a fetal position as it sealed around her. Expecting darkness, she was surprised when the chine disappeared and she rocketed straight up the outside of a building. The moment of terror subsided. She was still inside the chine, seeing the external view somehow, as if the sphere was her own personal theater.

  They came over the top of the building, and the sphere opened to release her. Sheemi stepped out, disoriented, feeling as if she might fall. Kellen and Abby helped her onto one of several waiting fliers. They took to the air, followed by the others.

  Sheemi’s gaze scanned anxiously across a sky full of fliers and cable-riders. Some loomed overhead, only to pass them by. Several identical fliers moved on the same flight path—escorts, she guessed. At any moment, she expected some combat chine to shoot them out of the sky. They would splatter on some anonymous pavement in the Surface Minima, just organic debris to be cleaned up.

  “They’ve shut off access to the Apex Core and both discs,” Kinetic said. “All entry and exit points are closed, departures and arrivals suspended. They’re looking for us—for you.”

  “What can we do?” Sheemi asked. “How are we going to get back?”

  “We’ll see what can be done,” Chronicler said.

  “Don’t worry,” Kellen said. “If anyone can get you back, it’s Chronicler.”

  The sky exploded, and the two nearest fliers disintegrated. Fragments zipped through their flier’s belly. A piece of shrapnel tore a hole above Xin’s helmet. She screamed and tried to stand up, but Kellen pulled her back down as the flier dipped and yawed, then went into a spiraling nosedive toward the Surface Minima. The structures below rose up to meet them. Sheemi saw three of their escorts still on their wing, giving off bursts of cannonade as smaller chines dove and darted, spitting fire at them. Waves of heat washed over them, but whatever struck out at them, whether lasers or projectiles, were too fast for her to see.

  Kellen and Abby sat immobile, their hands tightly gripping their handholds. Even chines must feel fear. At least chines that used to be human. Chronicler for its part turned and twisted, focusing its oculars to better observe the relentless dismantling of their fliers.

  As the city rushed up to meet them, Sheemi closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting for the crash. Instead, the acceleration eased as their flier adopted a steady speed. Sheemi opened her eyes. They were on a level trajectory once more, a lone surviving escort a length ahead. Their aerial attackers fell behind as the Apex Core filled their view ahead.

  “We were able to get a message through,” Chronicler said. “The attack must have been called off because of that. Your crew knows you’re alive, and you’re on your way to them. The Precautionists would reveal too much of their motives if they killed you now.”

  “It’s time,” Kinetic said.

  “How do you know they aren’t setting an ambush?” Sheemi asked. “They already killed Gavin. They killed Fu.”

  “There’s only one way to test that hypothesis, but you’ll have to go on alone.” Chronicler turned to Kellen and Abby. “Ready?”

  Kinetic was already hanging halfway out of the flier as their escort positioned itself directly below. It leapt outward, landing safely on top of the escort. It beckoned to the other chines to follow.

  “Will you be safe once we leave?” Sheemi asked.

  “Uncertain,” Chronicler said. “But we’ve been fighting this war for some time. I imagine we’ll last a little longer.”

  She could have sworn it was smiling inside, if that was possible. “Thanks for getting us back.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What will you do now?” Sheemi asked Kellen.

  He shrugged and gave her a resigned smile. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, good luck, then.”

  “When you get to Earth—” Abby hesitated. “Can you send a message?”

  “Of course,” Sheemi said.

  “It’s for Muriel and Edward Tau, in Jesup. Tell them I’m alive. Tell them I miss them, I love them, but—” She glanced at Kellen, then looked back at Sheemi. “Please don’t tell them what I’ve become.”

  “I understand,” Sheemi said. “I’ll give them the message myself.”

  The chines dropped one by one onto the escort, Kinetic catching them. The flier peeled off and down and disappeared from view.

  As their own flier approached their quarters in the Apex Core, people waited on the landing platform in vac suits.

  “Sheems!” Neecie cried.

  Connor and Jerrold were there with Major Veillon. Even Mertik had come to help them off the flier and through the airlock. She thought she would pass out every time her arm flexed as they got her out of her suit. Connor looked worried. She wanted to tell him not to, say she was sorry for everything, but then Veillon stuck her, bliss replaced agony, and all her worries fled for a time.

  Chapter 29 – Message

  Satisfied they had left behind any pursuit, Chronicler took them to a new domicile and absconded once again. Kellen thought of Sheemi and Xin. He wished them well and hoped they could convince the others to do the right thing. Destroying an entire planet of living beings couldn’t be the answer. It just couldn’t.

  He hadn’t expected their meeting to escalate into outright war with the Precautionists, but having survived Iron53, he didn’t feel the fear he once would have. Perhaps he’d become numb. Or was he becoming more like a chine—no longer controlled by biology and hormones, but just the electromechanical computations of processing one moment to the next? He hoped not. Now that he’d begun to understand what it meant, he didn’t want to lose what little humanity he had left.

  “What is that?” Abby asked.

  “What?”

  “I think there’s something on the wall outside.”

  Kellen followed her gaze. One of the passing chines had come to a halt. Insect-sized, it crawled across the wall. Another tiny chine joined it, then a third. A growing swarm darted about, the outside light dimming as more arrived.

  “We should leave,” Kellen said. “I don’t know what they’re planning, and I don’t want to find out.”

  “Then what?” Abby shot back. “We’ll be completely exposed outside. We’ve got to call Chronicler.”

  “It said only for an emergency.”

  Abby gave him a look.

  “Yeah, okay, you’re right. Call.”

  The walls quivered.

  “The call won’t go through,” Abby said.

  The outside light disappeared, blocked by a layer of crawling chines. Only the soft glow of the interface illuminated the room. The vibrations intensified, and the room gave a shuddering metallic groan as its outward-facing wall buckled. The mesh gave way, a tear working its way across the wall.

  Abby opened the door. “Come on.”

  They raced down the hall, attached themselves to the nearest elevators, and dropped to street level. A few sh
abby street chines stood nearby.

  “Where should we go?” she whispered.

  Before he could respond, a tiny chine the size of a ladybug drifted down and settled on Abby’s wrist. She flicked it off, but another landed on her shirt. Another, resembling a dragonfly, landed on Kellen’s shoulder. More and more alighted until he and Abby wore coats of tiny fliers. The street chines stirred, sensing something out of the ordinary.

  “You must go here,” the fliers told Kellen. A spatial representation of here came into his mind. “To find the one who waits. Remember. The one who waits.”

  “Who is that?” Kellen asked, but the fliers were already lifting into the air, dispersing as rapidly as they’d come. They rose higher and higher, going who knew where.

  “What happened?” Chronicler asked, coming up to them with Kinetic. “The building alerted me it was under attack. I came as quickly as I could.”

  Kinetic scanned street and sky as the last fliers disappeared.

  “This is where we need to go,” Abby said, sending an encrypted packet.

  Kellen opened it. It matched the location that had been placed into his mind, a series of images, a set of coordinates, the crystal surfaces of the Apex Core intersected with a vast disc. The root tree, a door.

  “This is from First,” Chronicler said. “Somehow, it had this message delivered to you, and only you. It must have been meant for any humans who arrived in the city.”

  “How do we get there?” Abby asked.

  “I know this place. This is where Central Control resides, or at least the main part of it. The part that can be communicated with, as much as it can be.”

  Chronicler noticed their blank stares. “Central Control is where the basic functions of the Array are managed. It’s an autonomous entity, a para-sentient. Massively conscious at deep levels. It was designed to be resistant to attack or infection. It coordinates all physical aspects of the city and the entire Array—from the assignments of the smallest repair drones to the orbits of the Six. We cannot go there.”

  “What?” Abby asked. “Why?”

  “Central Control used to be open-access, but the Precautionists have made it off-limits to regular citizenry. I’m sure they’ll have entry points heavily guarded.”