The Machinery of Light ar-3

by David J. Williams

  “He thought to enslave you.”

  “It’s me who’s enslaved him.”

  “Given that he’s the world’s best actor—”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” she says. “He’s only fooling himself. He’s spent his whole life running from his own emotions. If he faces me again, his mind will be in my power. Trust me on that—”

  “I don’t need to trust you ever again,” says Morat. “That’s the beauty of all this.”

  “That’s what you think—”

  “Your psychology is endlessly fascinating, Claire. The more cornered you get, the more arrogant you become. Even though that acrid odor you’re smelling is the core of your own mind burning out.”

  She can’t smell a thing. Still can’t move either. She hears sharp cracking noises around her. Turns out that what she’s sprawled on is really pack ice breaking up. She feels herself pulled in all too many directions. Everything beneath her is starting to go.

  “It’s been nice knowing you, Claire.” Morat’s voice morphs seamlessly into that of Control. “Take comfort in the fact that you’re the most fascinating challenge I’ve ever faced.”

  “You’re done?”

  “In ten more seconds.”

  “Which is when—”

  “You become the world’s most intelligent automaton. A shame you won’t be able to let me know how it feels.”

  “Fuck you to the gates of damnation—”

  Frigid liquid closes in around her head.

  They’ve entered the domain of gravity. Apparently this is the rotating part of the ship. They cross a bridge, and Linehan can’t even see the bottom. Lynx isn’t even looking. Linehan can only imagine how much wider of a purview that man must have. He always thought razors were sad, confined creatures who couldn’t take the world and lived within themselves. Now he’s realizing that they’ve got the only world worth having. Ayahuasca taught him that. That, and Spencer—who told him that for a razor, it was basically altered consciousness every time they jack in, that all life was just a shimmering of maya anyway—endless pixel fragments scattered down some endless well of dark. He can believe it. He’s heard that back on Earth there are tribes that believe that by eating the bodies of their enemies they consume their souls. He feels like maybe that’s what happened to his. He follows Lynx as that man leads the way into a vast chamber.

  And then he sees what lines the walls.

  “Oh dear God,” he says.

  “That’s what they’ll be calling me when this is all over,” says Lynx.

  One-third of the way to the Moon, Hammer of the Skies is drawing within range of lunar artillery. It’s starting to take increasing amounts of fire. It’s not bothering to return the favor.

  “The whites of their eyes are a long way off,” says Sarmax.

  But getting closer. The ship is starting to speed up slightly. Spencer feels his magnetic clamps gripping just a little bit tighter against the wall of the shaft they’re crawling through. They’re getting ever nearer to the hull, approaching a small room set against it, identical rooms set around it. Officer quarters—and Spencer’s looking through the cameras at one officer in particular. He wears a major’s stripes. He’s sitting cross-legged, smiling very faintly. His eyes scare Spencer shitless.

  You fucking bastards,” says the Operative.

  “We’re just the errand boys,” says Riley.

  The opaque visor has slid aside. Sightless eyes stare up at him. The face of Claire Haskell is without expression. Her mouth is slightly open. She’s breathing slowly.

  “It’s not her,” says the Operative.

  “Believe it or not,” says Riley, “it is.”

  She dwelt underwater way too long. But then one day all that sea boiled away in an instant. Leaving only a voice.

  That of Matthew Sinclair.

  “Claire,” he says. “Can you hear me?”

  “I can,” she replies.

  She can feel him, too. His mental presence is very clear, totally unmistakable. Her mind can suddenly see straight through the mainframe in which she’s captive, out beyond Montrose’s base—out across the Cislunar, all the way to the L5 fleet and the ship that sits at its center. Sinclair’s brain burns before her with the intensity of a firestorm, but all she can think of is a single question.

  “Is this part of the interrogation, too?”

  “A better word is by-product.”

  What the fuck is this?” asks Linehan.

  “What does it look like?” says Lynx.

  “I thought this wasn’t a real colony ship.”

  “Guess it’s got all the accessories.”

  Cryo-bays stretch around them. The sleepers are packed about as tight as possible. Their eyes are open. Their vital signs are checking out. Lynx walks over to one of them, rips a socket out of the wall. One set of vital signs flatlines.

  “Let’s get on with it,” he says.

  Thirty seconds,” says Spencer. They’re pulling themselves through spaces barely wide enough to accomodate their armor. They’re within the duct-system of the officer quarters now. The man’s still sitting there, staring straight ahead. Spencer’s hoping that this isn’t some image that’s been put there for his benefit. Even so, he’s got a nasty feeling—

  “This guy’s Autumn Rain,” he says.

  “You know that for a fact?” says Sarmax.

  “I’m asking you. I think you know—”

  “I don’t know shit,” snarls Sarmax. “Except that we gotta be ready for anything. Are my angles correct?”

  He’s referring to the laser mounted on his shoulder; it’s just swiveled, pointed downward at the wall ahead. But Spencer’s the one with the blueprint.

  “Burn it,” he says, and Sarmax does just that.

  What do you mean it’s really her?” says the Operative.

  “Now we got him excited,” says Maschler.

  “Now you got me wondering what kind of bullshit you’re trying to fucking pull,” mutters the Operative. “There’s no way that Montrose is so stupid as to turn the Manilishi over to Szilard.”

  “Unless?” asks Riley.

  “There’s no unless. That’s not the Manilishi—”

  “Hold that thought,” says Maschler.

  The woman’s eyes open.

  I don’t understand,” says Haskell.

  “You don’t have to,” says Sinclair.

  His face is coming into view now—the one she remembers from four days ago. Its eyes are wide. Its lips are parted. She feels herself being pulled in as though by an undertow—feels like she’s already gone under.

  “You broke into the InfoCom systems,” she says.

  “On the contrary,” he says. “You broke out.”

  Did you just kill that guy?” asks Linehan.

  “He didn’t feel a thing,” says Lynx.

  Linehan can believe it. None of the people around him seem to be aware of much. The corridor stretches away, sleepers racked every step of the way. Plastic medbeds, looking disconcertingly like trays, are stacked upon one another, ten per each two meters of corridor.

  “Easier to think of them as meat,” adds Lynx.

  Sarmax vaults into the room; the camera-feed that Spencer’s giving him merges seamlessly with what’s actually sitting in the room, wearing the uniform of a major in Russian intelligence and the smile of a man who’s way ahead of everything. Sarmax brings his guns to bear.

  “Don’t fucking move,” he says.

  “Glad you could make it,” says the man.

  Carson,” says the woman.

  The Operative stares at her. She sounds just like Haskell.

  “Claire?” he says.

  What the hell’s going on?” says Haskell.

  “Exactly what I planned,” says Sinclair.

  “We’re all just your puppets?”

  “More like all just part of the pattern.”

  Meet the Martians,” says Lynx, as he starts running jacks into the wires he’s ripped from the
walls. Linehan keeps an eye on the corridor while he does so, trying not to think about all those staring eyes …

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks.

  “That’s where they thought they were going.”

  “What was the point of having them here on a warship, then—of lying to them?”

  Lynx shrugs. “To make the overall lie that much more convincing?”

  Spencer drops from the duct into the room, takes in the scene. There’s a buzz as Sarmax opens up the one-on-one.

  “Who the fuck is this?” he demands. But Spencer says nothing—

  “You don’t recognize me?” asks the man.

  “Should I?” asks Sarmax.

  “Here’s a hint: you killed me once already.”

  It’s very simple,” says the woman.

  “I’ll bet,” says the Operative.

  “I’m Claire,” she says dreamily.

  “You’re on drugs,” says the Operative.

  “Are those two things so incompatible?”

  “You’re a clone,” he says.

  “Not quite,” says Riley.

  “You really want to discuss this in front of her?”

  “Why not?” says the woman. “I’m at peace with it.”

  “With what?”

  “Being God,” she says.

  Anything but that,” says Haskell.

  Sinclair laughs. “You think you’re God?”

  She’s starting to wonder. Because all of a sudden her purview is stretching all the way to that shuttle in which Carson and Maschler and Riley are approaching Szilard’s lair. The ship that contains the cargo that’s made in her own image—the woman whose mind she’s now inside. She can’t control what that woman’s saying. All she can do is watch.

  Though she really doesn’t want to.

  “I think I’m going crazy,” she tells Sinclair.

  “Crazy enough to believe you’re the one to judge the living and the dead?” He chuckles, and it’s somehow almost obscene. “You’re so much more than that bullshit.”

  “I just want to be a normal fucking human being.”

  “Your flesh is as close as you get to that.”

  “My flesh is locked into a tank while a bodyless machine goes to town on it—”

  “Control? Let it keep on flailing away.”

  “But it’s about to enslave me—”

  “Again, you’ve got it backward.”

  Lynx has ripped out a panel of the wall. Wires link him to the electronics behind it. All the bodies around him are breathing except for one.

  “So who was he?” asks Linehan.

  “Who?”

  “That guy you just killed.”

  “Luckless.”

  I’m Alek Jarvin,” says the man.

  “Fuck,” says Sarmax.

  “Prove it,” says Spencer.

  “The same way you could prove you killed me?”

  Spencer gets the dilemma. Nothing’s certain these days. Not when faces are malleable. The man they shot to death in the floor of that safehouse back in Hong Kong, who looked exactly like a rogue CICom handler—he could have been a plant. Could have been hired to play the part—could have been manufactured—without knowing how the role was going to end. There’s no way to know for sure.

  Though it’s possible to narrow down the options.

  “You stole something from me,” says the man.

  “Which you stole from Matthew Sinclair,” says Sarmax.

  “Get your facts straight,” says the man. “I stole files from him, which I then compiled into my own. How much progress have you made?”

  Spencer coughs. “We’re still working on—”

  “We’re asking the questions,” snaps Sarmax. “Listen, asshole, even if you are Alek Jarvin, then what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Staying in the game,” says the man mildly.

  Hate to break it to you,” says the Operative. “You’re not God.”

  “But I will be soon,” mumbles the woman.

  “You’re not even in your right mind.”

  “I’ll be in your mind shortly.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asks the Operative. He feels stupid even getting into this conversation. He feels even dumber with Riley and Maschler watching the whole thing. He feels his emotions getting the better of him. It’s not a feeling he’s used to.

  “You’re being too hard on her,” says Maschler.

  “You guys need to level with me.”

  “We already tried doing that,” says Riley. “You wouldn’t listen.”

  “Listen to what?” demands the Operative.

  “The last words Szilard will ever hear,” says the woman.

  Such a thing as biting off more than you can chew,” says Sinclair.

  Haskell nods. She feels that’s all she’s ever done. She wonders if Sinclair’s some cancer that took her over long ago. She can still feel Control rummaging around inside her—can sense Montrose somewhere beyond that, eagerly awaiting the results.

  “Montrose made her bid too soon,” says Sinclair. “Should have kept Harrison in the picture for just a while longer. Too many players out there still. Too great a chance of getting squeezed.”

  Haskell knows the feeling. She’s starting to feel increasing amounts of pressure in her skull. Her awareness is expanding out on all sides. Her head seems to be encompassing so much more. She feels herself gaining in everything.

  Save understanding.

  “Matthew,” she says.

  “Claire,” he replies.

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing I don’t already have.”

  Apparently the dead have their uses. Lynx has thrust wires into various parts of his head, has slotted more wires into the skull of the man he’s killed. His eyes look like they’re far away. He’s smiling the smile of a man who’s found the thing he’s been seeking.

  “Everything you see around you is SpaceCom property,” Lynx says. “These schmucks signed up to go to Mars and here they are months later still stuck in the departure lounge.”

  “Sure,” says Linehan, “but I’m still wondering what’s the point of having them here in the first place?”

  “I’m starting to think it might have something to do with a master needing servants.”

  So you’ve been running us,” says Sarmax.

  “Indeed,” says Jarvin.

  Sarmax doesn’t even bother to use the one-on-one: “What the hell’s your problem, Spencer?”

  Spencer shrugs. “How was I supposed to know he was this good?”

  “How the hell else could I have stayed alive in HK?” asks Jarvin. He’s smiling that smile again, and Spencer’s doing his best to ignore it. “Once I cut loose from Sinclair, I was a free agent. In more ways than one.”

  “So what’s to stop us from just killing you now?” says Spencer.

  “I don’t think you get it,” says Jarvin. “I’ve got Spencer’s whole zone-signature covered. Shoot me and there’ll be nothing to stop the East from seeing you.”

  “You played us like a fiddle,” says Spencer.

  “Pretty much.”

  “You knew what we going to do the whole time.”

  Jarvin laughs. “After I fed the Praetorians some dirt on the East’s secret weapon, it wasn’t hard to guess what their next move would be. Straight onto my little square of the board. I let you in first, gentlemen. And I gotta say, you did a nice job running point.”

  “Fuck,” says Spencer.

  “That’s right,” says Jarvin. He looks around—like he’s glancing through the walls of this vast ship. Spencer suspects that’s probably exactly what he’s doing. Eyes snap back to face them: “Move on me, and the Eurasians will detect you.”

  “Come on,” says Sarmax, “we need more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re done with you calling the shots.”

  “I realize that. That’s why I let you into this room.”
/>
  “We need to team up,” says Spencer suddenly.

  “Late to the party as ever,” says Jarvin.

  Too late she sees the trap: Sinclair’s claws are reaching for her mind, far beneath any surface that Control or Montrose can perceive. Too late—and yet she slides aside and dodges past, slamming a door she didn’t even know she had. He gazes at her through its translucence.

  “Claire,” he says.

  “Matthew,” she replies.

  “Open this door.”

  “I can’t do that, Matthew.”

  “What you can’t do is resist me. You’re not capable—”

  “I am now.”

  And for a moment she sees something in his face—utter animal rage—and she keeps her shields up. Even if she doesn’t know what’s shielding her. Even if this psionic power she has remains almost completely undefined, save for the fact that it has something to do with consciousness. Something to do with mind reading.

  “And something to do with time,” says a voice.

  There’s a blinding flash.

  The woman’s face suddenly spasms. Her eyes shut.

  “She’s flatlining,” says the Operative.

  “No,” says Maschler, “she’s not.”

  Eyes snap open. Haskell stares at the Operative.

  “Carson,” she says.

  “Claire,” he mutters.

  “The lady’s joined us,” says Riley.

  “This isn’t really me,” says Haskell. She’s looking around the cramped room. She’s looking like she’s starting to panic.

  “Easy,” says the Operative.

  “Can you hear me, Claire?” asks Maschler.

  Haskell says nothing—her face contorts—

  “Can you hear me, Claire?”

  “Yes,” says Haskell.

  “Your real body is back on the Moon. We’re putting your mind through its paces. Seeing what it’s made of. Do exactly what we say, and you’ll return to your own flesh safely.”

  “Who are you?”

  “They’re InfoCom agents,” says the Operative.