by Joel Dane
“To fuck up some lampreys,” Cali says. “When do we deploy?”
“Soon,” Sergeant Manager Li promises. “As soon as the next generation of firepower is developed and we’re recertified for active duty.”
“I like the sound of next generation,” Shakrabarti says.
“I like the sound of firepower,” Cali says. “They better not screw us with crappy tech.”
“We’re grunts,” the sergeant tells her. “The only thing I do know is that they’ll screw us. Think it over. What do you want? Stay or leave?”
CHAPTER 53
What do I want? I want to swim.
My shoulder starts stiff but feels better after twenty laps. At forty I find my rhythm—and four laps later, the monitor withdraws permission for continued exercise.
I grab a snack and head for a gazebo in a private corner of a balcony garden. I raise a privacy film and finish working on my black-and-red smartwire lockpicks. While I’m making adjustments, I browse the news on an approved channel. Despite the traces of quarantine that remain, the channel’s toppicks strike me as an honest reflection of the current state of MYRAGE.
Panic.
Confusion.
Terror.
The world has discovered lampreys. After the news broke about the attack in Belo City, every hint of a previous sighting received millions of upvotes. Nineteen incidents appear on MYRAGE. At least four hundred thousand casualties, with ten times as many injured and ten times that in displacements.
The most inflammatory thing is this: while new remorts, even deadlier than cataphracts, slaughtered entire blocks, the corpos concealed the damage. Everyone understands why. Everyone knows the corpos acted out of concern, because panic only makes things worse. Still, the backlash against the embargo is harsh, and MYRAGE is writhing with questions.
What are these remorts? What tech spawned them? What program drives them?
There are no answers.
Conspiracies flourish in the vacuum. Lampreys aren’t a new class of remorts, they’re an alien invasion! They’re bio-forged prototypes developed by a crypto-corporation, living weapons of the now-sentient New Growth, or divine retribution.
I adjust the smartwire, turning things over in my head. The lampreys aren’t aliens. Human civilization is surrounded by an impregnable defense against aliens; it’s called the speed of light. The New Growth didn’t develop self-awareness; there are no secret, hidden crypto-corporations. And I’m pretty sure lampreys aren’t supernatural punishment for our sins, though if the Seven Heavens decided to wipe the slate clean, I couldn’t really blame them.
This is simple. Lampreys are experimental weapons with uncanny cellular defenses, deployed in the SICLE War and then transformed by the New Growth into something inhuman. Maybe. Probably. Almost certainly. In the end, I find comfort in not seeing the big picture. I’m with Ting. My vision doesn’t extend beyond a single square of the mosaic.
That’s okay. I’m a soldier, not a strategist.
When I’m done fashioning my lockpick, the smartwire looks like a braided bracelet and a matching ringset. An ugly bracelet and ringset, because I copied the design from a fashion channel that Shakrabarti calls “aggressively bland.”
Which happens to be my personal style motto.
I roll my shoulder and decide the lockpick needs a test run. I’ve popped the lock to the drone maintenance garage twice in the past four days, to stare out the window at the CAV deployment post. I don’t know why, but I’m drawn to them.
“You feel a kinship,” Ting said into my earbug, the last time I stood at the window watching the CAV post.
I jerked in surprise. “Stop watching me all the time!”
“Okay!” she said. “Sorry! Bye!”
The line went dark. “Tingting?” I asked, after a moment.
“I’m not here,” she said. “I’m not monitoring you. I mean, I don’t always keep tabs on people I care about just in case.”
I snorted at the distant Bumblebees. “I don’t feel a kinship with them.”
“You do, too.”
“Why would I—”
“Because you almost paired with your CAV when you were a cry pilot! It interacted with you, didn’t it?”
I didn’t answer, remembering the CAV’s ribbons groping toward me, the sensation of untapped power, my urge to seize the controls.
“I mean,” she said, “in that first fight outside the ocean installation place. Against that Ijapa, the submarine remort thingie.”
“You watched me?”
“Not at the time! I was busy trying to save my life.”
“Which you did by using your . . .” I paused. “You hacked your CAV?”
“I tricked it into bonding with me, at least for a few seconds. Which is what you almost did, even without my trick.”
“It didn’t feel like bonding,” I said.
“Almost means almost,” she told me. “CAVs were designed to pair with cry pilots, but they can’t, not usually.”
“They don’t pair with us, Ting. They use our cerebral activity for computing power or something.”
“That’s what everyone thinks,” she said, “but there’s deep, buried code in CAVs—not even code, really. There’s a protocol for pairing CAVs with the human mind, except they can’t.”
“Why not?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Who knows? I guess the AIs didn’t understand humans.”
“So they can’t pair with us.”
“Well, they can, maybe, sort of, in theory. Not easily, though. It’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round peg.”
“A round hole.”
“Oh, no. Pairing is much harder than that. You came pretty close, though, because—I don’t know. Your brainwaves sort of flatline sometimes.”
“You monitor my brainwaves?” I asked, and didn’t mention my cultish terrafixing meditation.
“I monitor your stomach lining,” she told me. “How do you do that?”
“Do what, digest?”
“You know what I mean. Suppress your brainwaves.”
“I stop using my brain.”
She sent me a picture of herself, sticking her tongue out. “Fine! Don’t tell me.”
“Wait. So you paired to your CAV?”
“Not really. I only tricked it for a minute. Maybe I could pair you, if you flatlined first, but probably not. It’s like convincing a million fleas to march in, um, consonance or concordance or—”
“Unison,” I said. “It’s like catching a tsunami in a drinking glass.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re weird. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s possible, even for me. And without a technopath, forget it. And also, a patrol is coming and they’ll find you unless you move.”
So I moved, taking care to lock the door behind me with a recoded meal-chit I’d arranged.
That worked well enough for a simple lock, but my smartwire pick demands a more rigorous challenge. So what the gehenna—that night I break into the CAV post itself.
I clone an all-base permission and wander the grounds until my anti-surveillance loops close. I’m about to pop the exterior gate of the CAV post when three BPs—base police—appear. Before I have a chance to launch into my prepared lies, they open the gate and wave me through.
I catch the lift down to the ninth floor and find a high-security door to the CAV operators station. Too high-security. I’m an adequate street burglar, but I can’t handle military-grade stuff.
This is a stupid idea anyway. What am I doing? Clinging to my image of myself as a rebel or a Freeholder? Hungering for the hit of adrenaline that comes from breaking the rules? Trying to prove that I’m more than a faceless cog in a corporate military machine?
Maybe I’m just finding reassurance in my old skills. With the lampreys attacking military installations, with old squad memb
ers dead and new squad members delayed, I need something to settle my nerves.
I head back toward the supply lift—and spot a door into the CAV bay. Sloppier security than the operators’ station, and so what if I am just trying to prove I’m not a faceless cog in the corporate machine?
That’s a reasonable thing for a faceless cog to try to prove.
When I rub my thumb against my ring, the smartwire unfurls into a tool as fine as a rat’s whisker. I direct the head into a film sensor. Twenty seconds later, a tiny decoherence opens. The wire extends through. I feel resistance and current on my fingertips and smile to myself. The lockpick works perfectly; there’s no problem with the pick.
However, when I slip into the bay, I find someone waiting for me.
The Djembe is standing in the shadows at a line of damaged CAVs.
She’s looking directly at me. She’s wearing an elegant corporate suit, with her hair in tidy corporate beadwork, and my first impression is that she’s small and old and alone. Nothing about her looks commanding . . . but in the gutter, you’d automatically call her boss.
For some reason, my heart keeps beating. For some reason, I don’t babble excuses or slip away.
Instead I cross the bay to her.
We stand together and watch the strange, looming CAVs self-repair. Alloy ribbons ripple and shrug. Buckled walls shudder, creak, straighten. Flattened shapes smooth and expand.
“There is a limit,” the Djembe says.
I’m not sure if she’s talking about the CAVs or me. “Yeah?”
“If they’re damaged too heavily they never return. You’ve seen that, I believe?”
“I saw a lamprey shred them into scrap.”
“When that happens, we can’t even salvage parts.”
“Why not?”
She reaches toward a swaying ribbon but doesn’t quite touch it. “The CAV repair algorithm is organic in ways we don’t understand. Do you know how many CAVs there are?”
“About three hundred.”
“Not anymore, Mar Kaytu, not since we’ve sent them after lampreys.” When she turns to me, the light filters through her jacket and I realize she’s a high-end holograph. I wonder if she’d been a projection the first time we met, too. “Have you considered my offer?”
“Have you made one?”
She ducks her head. “We are not looking for an agent who is primarily—as I believe you say—a ‘hitter.’ A trigger-puller. Despite your remarkable numbers in Belo City, we don’t need a combat consultant.”
“I don’t know what our remarka—”
“You’re good at forging relationships. You don’t crave attention. You think creatively, you understand debts, and you are comfortable inside Freehold blocks.”
“I wouldn’t say comfortable.”
“Credible, then.” Her mild gaze shifts past me. “What do you know about lampreys?”
A damaged CAV trembles and expands. There’s a faint clicking sound, and a murmur of voices carries from an office across the darkened bay.
“Not as much as you,” I say.
She inspects my face. “You’d prefer not to take me up on my offer.”
“Did you make me an offer or give me an order?”
“A reluctant employee is of limited use to DOPLAR.”
“The fight I believe in is here,” I tell her. “We’ve got three soldiers rejoining us and—” And maybe four, maybe Rana. “Let me stay in Javelin.”
“To act as a cleanup crew for CAVs?”
“If that’s what they need,” I say. “What do you know about lampreys?”
“My assistant director of research believes they’re related to the Gone AIs.”
She means the Big Three AIs that ascended, kludged, and crashed. “Related how?”
“Nobody understands the Gone, Mar Kaytu. Some processes they started are still ongoing. Perhaps lampreys are the effects of long-forgotten cause, like flowers blooming over a grave.”
“That’s not creepy,” I say.
She smiles faintly. “What I would like, Mar Kaytu, is—”
“Wait, I’m sorry. You don’t think they’re remorts?” The full impact of what she’s saying strikes me. “You don’t think they spawned from the terrafixing because you think they spawned from the dead AIs!”
“That’s the assistant director. The director tells me they’re remorts. What I would like, Mar Kaytu, is for you to leave Javelin and accept assignment with the Garda in the Mosiah enclave.”
“What? No, I’m not—”
“However, you won’t be in Mosiah long, not after your thefts are discovered.”
My head is spinning from the change of subject. “My thefts?”
“Such a disgrace. Your superiors will banish you to the Honeycomb Inside Joyful Freehold. There your continued greed will attract the notice of certain criminal elements—”
“Wait! Stop, stop. The what Freehold?”
“Honeycomb Inside Joyful. Commonly known as ‘the Joy.’”
“Cute,” I say. “You want me to play a corrupt employee to give me cover?”
“Yes.”
“To get access inside some Freehold?”
“DOPLAR believes that a patriot group based in the Joy is working with a group of rogue research scientists.”
“Rogue scientists? That’s something out of a cheesy MYRAGE channel.”
“You make a credible criminal, Mar Kaytu. You’re well suited for this task—”
“Let me stick with Javelin,” I say, a pleading note in my voice. “I trained to face lampreys.”
“And it’s a fight you believe in. For good reason. But you bring no special value to it. The cause is worthy, but your contribution is slight. Now that we’re relying on CAVs, it’s less than slight. It’s negligible.”
Every word is true, but abandoning my squad feels like betrayal. “I can’t leave them.”
“Which is exactly why you must. Do you remember these?”
Reprimands appear on my lens: Kaytu, Maseo
“Old news,” I tell her.
“Outstanding reprimands remain on your record until resolved,” she says. “Yours are not resolved. You are unwilling to sacrifice your squad to achieve mission success.”
“I’m not,” I say.
She ignores me. “You graduated from Phase Two despite the reprimands for one reason: your Javelin training. However, the time has come to see if you learned your lesson. I pulled a few strings and will test you now.”
“Now?” I feel myself tense. “How?”
“By giving you a chance to sacrifice your squad.” She raises a placating hand. “Not their lives. You must sacrifice your life with them. Choose to leave them, Kaytu, and prove that you place corporate goals above your own.”
I watch the hologram’s face. Is she even human? Is she a real person, projecting her real self, or is she a construct, an illusion, a trick? Is this how Corporate Intelligence recruits all its agents? Maybe ten of these holograms are talking to ten potential recruits right now, to learn which of us will jump through the right hoops in the right order.
“What if I say no?” I ask her. “What if I stay in Javelin?”
“You mean, will we discharge you?”
“Yeah.”
“No. You make a fine trigger-puller, Kaytu, though that’s all you’ll ever be if we can’t trust you.” Her holographic gaze gleams. “Are you here to serve the corporation? To serve the planet and the human race? Or to serve yourself?”
CHAPTER 54
The Djembe is right. I know she’s right, but I want to stay with my squad. In honor of Pico and Ridehorse, in support of Elfano. To wait for Rana. To stand with Ting and Cali, for M’bari and Jagzenka and even Voorhivey and Basdaq.
Not only because of the blood on my hands. Also because the thought of Anvil
Squad fighting a lamprey without me makes me sick with dread. I can’t let them clear patriots from a Freehold apartment without a gutter roach on the team. I can’t abandon them in a battlefield, crouching on a ledge waiting for hostile contact.
We’re a team. We’re together. Maybe we don’t see the big picture, but we live or die in the same tiny square of the mosaic.
“You risked a great deal to enlist,” the Djembe continues. “You locked yourself in a CAV looking for redemption—or punishment. If you say no to this, you’re betraying the reason you enlisted. You’re here to serve, Maseo. Honor your contract.”
She’s right. What I want doesn’t matter. You don’t join the military like you’re picking food off a buffet, a nibble of this and a nibble of that. The chain of command fills your plate, and you eat what’s in front of you.
“Can I tell them?” I ask. “My squadmates. Can I explain why I’m leaving?”
“You know the answer to that.”
I rub my face. “Shit.”
“You’ll be notified of your transfer soon,” the Djembe tells me. “After you leave Ayko, you’ll spend three weeks training for Inventory and Distribution.”
“Office work?”
“In theory,” she says.
“And in practice?”
“In practice, you still have a great deal to learn.” Her projection starts to fade. “No more unsanctioned break-ins, Mar Kaytu. We’ll speak again soon.”
She vanishes, and I’m left alone with the CAVs.
Emotions surge inside me but I don’t want to feel them. I adjust my focus until I’m watching myself from a thousand miles away. I slip into flow. My fear and failure aren’t real because I’m not real, I’m not myself, I’m simply a ripple in the endless fractal branching of the terrafixing. The breeze on my cheeks, the hum-grunt of the CAVs, the tightness of my throat: they’re all fathomless currents in the Edentide.
I’m leaving my squad. Fine. That’s the job. You go where they tell you, you do what they say. I know that. And I screwed up in training: I deserved those reprimands. I earned them. I should thank the Djembe for giving me a second chance.
Instead, I walk through the rows of CAVs, between unfurling leaves and twining ribbons. Strolling through alloy mandalas, I can’t tell my meditation from my surroundings. Despite being damaged, the CAVs hum with power. I feel it in my spine, like the pounding rhythm of a Freehold dance.
