The Machinery of Light ar-3

by David J. Williams

  “You can make me live forever?”

  “Been wondering when you’d get around to asking that.”

  “Stefan,” says the Operative, “back off.”

  “What do you mean?” asks Lynx.

  “I mean he’s tempting us with whatever we most desire.”

  “More than just tempt,” says Sinclair.

  “You can really deliver?” asks Lynx.

  “Haskell’s already cheated death. No reason the rest of us can’t either.”

  “Has it occurred to you that might be a bridge too far?” says the Operative.

  “No need to get all mystical,” says Sinclair. “Death is merely the ultimate event horizon. And Claire’s already crossed it. She’s seeing things that no one has a hope of seeing until they expire. Access to states of consciousness that one typically has to give up the body to get to—”

  “I did give up my body,” she says.

  “But I have yet to cut the cord,” he replies.

  Which you’d be a fool to do.”

  Except she’s nowhere near as confident about that as she’s trying to sound. Even though her body seems just like a fiction to her now, she’s under no illusions that it gives Sinclair advantage. She feels like a balloon on a tether that he’s controlling—feels like all her purview is merely a function of his sufferance, that everything that’s happened is still part of the way he intended it. She takes in the Room, an anchor far beneath her—takes in the way it hangs amidst nothing, superimposed against the core of the Moon of one universe in particular, superimposed against all those other Moons in all those other universes—all of them resolving themselves into Sinclair’s face. She can see he’s only looking at a few of the images on those screens now—that many of the remaining screens are starting to wink out. That he’s almost narrowed down her coordinates. That as soon as that happens—

  “You’re mine, child. You can’t escape that—”

  “But whose are you?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  But she doesn’t. Not when the real question is how this all began. Did Matthew Sinclair become the tool of some entity that reached in from beyond to give him guidance as part of some unholy barter? Or did he accomplish this all on his—

  “What makes you think there’s a difference?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Whatever I summon, I consume.”

  “Just like he did with Control,” says Carson.

  “I thought you built Control,” says Lynx.

  “I did,” says Sinclair. “In my own image, I might add. Same with all of you. Endlessly scheming, endlessly rebelling, and all of it really just furthering my own purpose. But in the end, everyone here is going to have to make a choice. A genuine one. I was born human like all of you, but we’ve broken beyond all frameworks now. The lives you left behind were plotted through one particular universe. That’s what made the Autumn Rain hit-teams so unstoppable. They made the right choice every time—threading their way through the most advantaged world-line, navigating the forking paths of multiverse to get the drop on their enemies.”

  “And those versions of the Rain that didn’t?” asks Sarmax.

  “Got left behind in the dust,” says Sinclair. He shrugs. “You have to shift your thinking. Multiverse is a matter of probabilities. Everything happens. Some things happen more than others. Once we had a mind that could ride existence like a water-strider rides liquid—that was when things got interesting. That was what laid the groundwork for steering one universe in particular toward—

  “A singularity,” says Haskell.

  any moment now

  The Operative breathes out slowly, relaxing his body, preparing his flesh. It seems to him that Lynx and Sarmax are doing the same thing—like they know what’s about to happen even though they don’t know which way everybody’s about to jump. Linehan seems to be off in a world of his own. Most of the screens are blank now. There are only a few left. And Sinclair just seems focused on whatever duel he’s waging with the thing that Haskell’s become—

  “Exactly,” he says. “A real singularity. Not the low-rent kind they envisioned back at the dawn of the networked era. Paltry imaginations capable only of conceiving some kind of mass-uploading—like we’d ever take the masses—some silicon version of the Heaven they’d been conditioned to think of as their birthright—or some machine overmind to act as the God they’d been promised as children and which their subconscious was still bleating for. Infantile’s the only word to describe any of it.”

  “What was infantile about it was the conflation of the fate of the self with the fate of the species,” says Haskell. “The lust for personal immortality. The same thing you’ve been offering—”

  “And the prize which everyone here can claim. We’ve already broken through all the barriers humans were never meant to cross. This meat we inhabit is of no more significance than flea-bitten clothing. And I’ll have need of servants as I explore the ultimate. Why would I deny them attributes worthy of their station?”

  “But that’s not the real reason you brought us here,” says the Operative.

  “You’re the ones who’ve done that,” says Sinclair. “Came here under your own power, of your own initiative—the strongest members of the Rain—the survivors … all of you converging upon this point along a precise sequence of events in which you mirrored each others’ actions, ebbing and flowing against one another, running point and counterpoint in games of byzantine complexity played out across the Earth-Moon system, patterns so intricate no single mind could possibly divine the probability clouds that define them—”

  “Save your own,” snaps Lynx.

  He can barely follow the conversation, but he can see that things are coming to a head. He’s aware, too, of these creatures in his mind, and they don’t seem to be able to make up theirs. One’s struggling to absorb the infernal machine. The other’s not coming through too clearly. It sounds like the woman from earlier, though. Even though Linehan can barely hear her. He can remember even less. But there was a woman. It’s her face—on the screens in front of him. And on the vast screen beyond all of that …

  You really want to know that price,” says Sinclair.

  “I think I already do,” says the Operative.

  “Then how about spelling it out?” says Lynx.

  “We climb aboard and ride it,” says Sarmax.

  “More like get plugged in,” says the Operative.

  She straining at the tethers, but the Room’s not coming with her. It’s still attached with part of herself—Sinclair’s still got her in lockdown. She increases her energy, grinds against the shoals of limitless ocean, but all she’s doing is expanding her purview and not her power—

  “Too bad,” says Sinclair. “You’ve got the world’s best view, but you just can’t seem to get to grips with it.” He gestures at the three pods on the tripod that sprouts off around her, looks at everyone else. “Sentimentality’s a bitch: I’d like it to be the original triad, but—”

  “And why the fuck would we be stupid enough to climb inside?” says Carson. “We’d be your playthings—your pets—”

  “Earth to Carson,” says Sarmax. “We’ve been that all along.”

  Everyone looks at him. He can feel energy pulsating through the Room—practically radiating from the screens. He can only assume they feel it too. He struggles to keep his mind off Indigo, struggles to stay focused.

  “Matthew intends to absorb Haskell the same way he absorbed Control,” he says.

  “But he still needs us why?” asks Lynx.

  “Buffers,” says Carson.

  “Let’s not get carried away,” says Sinclair.

  He doesn’t need any of you,” says Haskell. “Not anymore.”

  “It just makes it easier,” says Sinclair. “Think of it as outriggers on a canoe. Helps keep the balance. I’ve prepped your minds since inception to be the amplifiers in the grid I’ve formed around Claire. Even one of
you would be useful, but all three would be just peachy—as specialized a set of neurotransmitters as I could orchestrate, and Linehan’s chowed down enough psychedelics to qualify as a spare tire. In return, you’ll get—”

  “Consumed,” says the Operative.

  “Transformed,” says Sinclair. “Into godlings.”

  “Under your direction,” says Lynx.

  “The alternative being I butcher you all right now.”

  “Butcher?” says Haskell. She’s making one last effort now. She can feel something start to give way. “Butcher? If you absorb me—the amount of energy—the psychic backwash when the Room breaks free of its last moorings will kill every living thing back within the Earth-Moon system—probably wipe the slate clean out beyond the radius of Mars—”

  “And it’s all just fuel for the engines,” says Sinclair. “Necessary to attain our Archimedes point on all else. You came through a labyrinth to get in here, but the real labyrinth is everything that’s beyond: all of it just interlocking computations. And your last-ditch efforts are merely strengthening my hand. So you better take a good look, Claire, because it’s the last you’re going to get with eyes that aren’t fucking mine—”

  “I don’t think so,” says Haskell—she reaches out—

  “I do,” says Sinclair—flicks his wrist. A dart whips toward the Operative’s head—

  —who ducks out of the way. Shakes his head.

  “Now why did you have to do a thing like that?” he asks.

  “Take him,” says Sinclair.

  Lynx and Sarmax move toward the Operative. But Linehan heads in the other direction, dropping down to where Haskell is. Sinclair whirls, hurls another dart after him, but just misses as Linehan ducks behind the pod that contains Haskell.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Sinclair asks.

  “Fucking your whole day up,” says Linehan—

  —by doing what Haskell’s telling him to. She’s managed to shield his mind with hers, managed to convince Sinclair that he’ll do whatever he asks. But the cat’s out of the bag now. And Sinclair’s coming right after him—will be on him in seconds. He starts grabbing at the piping around Haskell’s pod, ripping it straight out of the paneling—

  The Operative’s scrambling up the side of the inner Room, Sarmax and Lynx in hot pursuit. A knife thrown by Sarmax just misses his head. A dart flung by Lynx whips past his leg, skitters past him. He snatches it from the floor as he clambers up. They’re down to basics now. Behind him he can hear Linehan going to town on Haskell’s equipment—can hear the belching of pneumatic pipes torn asunder while something presses in upon his mind—

  “You can’t escape us,” says Lynx.

  He might just have a point. Sarmax alone would still be more than a match for him. And with Lynx in the equation, it’s even more of a long shot. Especially when there’s no zone left for him to access, his mind pressed back into his skull by the vortex the Room’s becoming, his brain once more having purview over nothing save his body. The Operative depresses a trigger in his mouth, feels a needle slide into his cheek, one last shot of grade-A combat drugs surging through him, a rush that’s intensified by the certain knowledge that Sarmax and Lynx are riding the same wave, too, building still further as he thinks of Claire at the center of it all … remembering her on the edge of seventeen, a mind like nothing he’d ever seen, a single endless summer …

  Hide-and-seek: Linehan’s on one side of the pod, Sinclair’s on the other. Linehan’s doing his best to keep it that way, moving back and forth to prevent Sinclair from coming to grips with him. He knows the only reason he’s still sane is because Haskell’s offering some protection. But this is a game that can have only one ending. So he’s smashing against the equipment with his bare fists, rending metal as Sinclair starts bellowing like a wounded animal and Haskell’s mind starts convulsing—

  The Operative feels it too: a mind in meltdown, flailing against him as Lynx and Sarmax close in from both directions. It’s like all surfaces are twisting around him now—mentally and physically—more darts flung by Lynx and Sarmax slicing past him as he struggles to breathe and the walls along which he’s climbing seem to be somehow bending—

  “What the fuck is going on?” yells Lynx.

  “The no-room’s crashing,” mutters Sarmax.

  The Operative shoves off one of the screens, straight back toward his pursuers—Lynx draws a knife, slices it in toward him—

  —just as Linehan doubles back again—wrong way this time. Sinclair’s right there, scuttling in toward him like some kind of demented crab, hands looking more like claws—and Linehan does the only thing he can do: leaps at him, burying his teeth in Sinclair’s neck—

  —as the Operative ducks in under Lynx’s killing blow, smashing his fist into Lynx’s face, puncturing the skin with a fingernail that hides a needle that extrudes—

  “Fuck,” yells Lynx—the last coherent thing he says as the poison enters his brain and he starts frothing at the mouth—

  “Good riddance,” says Sarmax.

  “Just us now,” says the Operative.

  “Like it should be.”

  Teeth tearing through flesh that’s really something more—Linehan feels Sinclair’s claws rending him but he’s still pushing the man-who’s-no-man backward, shoving him up against the canopy-door as Sinclair’s blood gushes into his mouth, turning to acid as it does so—burning, overwhelming him with pain even as his teeth clash together, even as the thing he’s fighting keeps on rending him—

  —even as Sarmax feints left, goes right, then lashes a kick against the Operative—who pulls his leg out of the way as the blade that’s extending from Sarmax’s ankle just misses hamstringing him.

  “Oldest trick in the book,” he mutters, as he stabs Lynx’s dart at Sarmax’s face—

  “This one’s even older,” says Sarmax, knocking the dart flying as he unleashes an almost impossibly strong punch—but the Operative ducks, grabs that arm, hauls Sarmax in as they start to grapple—

  “Like we’re back in the ice,” he says.

  “Ice is all there is,” says Sarmax as he gets the Operative in a headlock. The Operative tries to break free, but it’s no use. Sarmax always was the stronger. And now his former mentor is cutting off his air.

  “Over soon enough,” says Sarmax.

  “Like right now,” says the Operative—he shoves backward, smashing Sarmax through one of the screens. Shards of plastic fly. Blood’s all over the back of Sarmax’s head. But—

  “Won’t save you,” says Sarmax.

  “Think again,” says the Operative—he’s grabbing one of those shards, twisting his arm as he plunges it through Sarmax’s eye—

  He’s blind now, Sinclair gouging out both eyes, but still Linehan fights on, pure dying adrenaline pumping as his opponent starts crushing his skull with fingers that may as well be drills. As the bone cracks, the brain within processes images: temples opening into universes that unfold onto the ramparts of all the heavens, all of it falling past him like myriad shooting stars, far-flung patterns somehow coalescing into the face of the woman he’s giving his life for and even with his ruined mouth he’s still going out smiling—

  —whereas Sarmax just stares at the Operative for a moment with the one eye he’s got left. The shard protrudes from the other—

  “Bastard,” he says.

  “You just won,” says the Operative. “You’ll see her now—”

  “Always …” mutters Sarmax—trails off, his remaining eye rolling upward in his head. The Operative springs to his feet, whirls—takes in Sinclair standing at the base of the pod, facing him—

  “Time for your final lesson,” he says—just as Claire Haskell leaps from the pod—

  —her body manipulating gravity itself as she throws herself onto his back like some kind of wildcat, biting and scratching and clawing while his mind reels back before her and she tells him exactly what’s on hers—

  “Didn’t count on m
e getting out of jail, huh?”

  “Whatever it takes to tame you,” he mutters, but the battle between them isn’t really a function of what’s going on between their bodies. Their minds surge into each other—hers billowing in from every direction, his coalescing around the core of Control that he’s absorbed—straining against each other, seeking even the most momentary of advantages as they navigate endless quantum architectures of no-space and no-time, begetting infinite numbers of progeny minds that swarm in upon one another, a growing cloud of probabilities as the no-room goes ever further out of control and the multiverses start to blur. Somehow Sinclair’s staying focused. She’s not. It’s as though he planned for this. Her mind’s unraveling through labyrinthine chains of universe, infinite regressions prior to the one she’s left, each universe a chunk of false time that hangs in the true reality, each one a fragment of some greater picture that’s still blurry. But through that haze she can see the Operative moving in—

  “Stay back,” she mutters, knowing he won’t—

  —can’t—as he grabs a piece of piping and swings it with all his might down upon the rear of Sinclair’s head—yet as it impacts with that skull, there’s a blinding flash as untold energies run along the pipe back into the Operative’s body; he’s blasted backward, vision collapsing in upon him, the last thing he sees is those two inhuman figures grappling—

  —and it’s just the fraction of the merest instant, but she’s taking all she can get at this point—Sinclair’s distracted momentarily and she’s threading in through a wilderness of worlds to take advantage of that fact, diving in toward his center as—

  —he sees what she’s doing and—

  —shifts—

  —gets past her—

  —their positions reversed—

  —her mind dropping back into her flesh—

  —his accelerating out into the infinite—