The Hidden War

by Michael Armstrong

  His other self.

  Krim pulled his outer hide down, let it spread over his body—no, made it spread. Nourished by the soup, the hide had regained enough strength to allow him to spread the silver barrier around him. The Ship-Krim opened the hatch for him, sealed it behind him, and gave him a long couch to lie down upon. When he had reclined, the couch enveloped him, and Krim felt himself drawn in—into his self.

  “Welcome back,” the Ship-Krim said.

  “It’s good to be back. What should I call you?”

  “‘Ship’ is fine,” it said.

  “Take me to Earth, to Sea City.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  The black ship moved out of the hangar, gently sliding into space. It retracted its legs and manipulators, tucking them up against its sides. From within its belly Krim felt Ship move through real space, putting distance between it and Corso’s ship. He felt Ship make the connection to Ur, felt the many threads of other ships and other Beats winding to and from the other realm. Ship made a hole in the fabric of Ur and entered, going through it and beyond. Krim knew it would take only a moment to return to Earth, only another instant to come out, but in that moment, he and Ship became one.

  The other presence flowed into him, into his own being. It felt like putting on an old coat, or an old body waldo, something familiar and long-used. The Krim that was the ship reunited with the Krim that was the body. Large parts of their shared consciousness fit smoothly, experience unto experience, but other memories—his lost mission, his time spent apart from the ship—became new for both of them. Ship showed him the mission, the battle during which Corso had captured the Poddy. He saw the first reunion, the reunion between old lover and artificial essence. But Ship lived, was real, Krim knew, as real as he had ever been. It held his life, his memory, his consciousness—his soul? he wondered. Did it hold that, too? Krim saw the lost mission, came to understand it, and he saw Ship fighting off the Poddies, searching for him, finding him, and taking him back. He saw it waiting in the hangar to fly again, saw Ship’s long moments of idleness. Not an it, he corrected himself, a he, a him.

  Krim showed Ship his other experiences: Minae and their flight, discovering the truth about the Poddies. He showed Corso taking him into herself, showed Ship the great connection with the rest of Ur, showed him, even, the immense pleasure of eating soup. Ship and Krim, Krim and Ship became one again, memories and essences reunited. In Ur, bound through that instantaneous connection, they need never be sundered again. When the joining of Ship and Krim was complete, Ship took them out of Ur. With the least effort and no great distress, the black ship appeared in the plaza of Sea City. Krim stepped out to again see his fellow humans.

  Ship rested on his bottom two rows of legs, with the upper arms waving back and forth like whips, keeping the crowd back. He opened the aft hatch, and Krim stepped out onto the Sea City plaza. Making his outer hide transparent and pulling it down off his face and scalp, Krim stepped forth, naked, his right hand gloved in the golden slate—the Ur slate, he reminded himself. As he stepped forward into a soft rain, he listened inside himself for the net—for Sam, even.

  His Sentient Animated Mode had vanished, absorbed by all of Ur, as well as by Ship. Ship spoke to him not in words but in images, showing him his perspective from one of the scanners on the manipulators above. He saw a group of gray people moving through the crowd toward him. Krim could not feel the net, though, could not sense the roar of commands the net gave him. In its absence he became conscious of it, just as one comes to hear the waves of the seashore only after the storm abates. By deliberately accessing the net, he could acquire knowledge, but the sentient interface was gone, dead.

  Flowing from him, though, he felt the vast connection through Ur to the other Beats. The virus that Corso had infected him with now spread out into the local net. Reverberating throughout Ur, he could feel Minae infecting Redoubt Ya and the other redoubts at the edge of the system. He could feel Brigid on Payday suddenly jump upright as her hide shut down, her muscles sloughed off, and her slate became something else.

  Krim walked toward the crowd. Electric beasts stood in clusters, their slaves grouped around them. He saw the Naturals making their way to Ship, their brooms whisking before them and causing the hacked to step away. Krim’s slate glowed as, through him, Ship spread the virus. A Zoetrope stepped away from her subjects and stood in front of Krim, blocking his way.

  “Oh, you’re a strange tabby,” the Zoetrope said. “What rough beast is it you ride?” She peered over his shoulder at Ship, his manipulators waving.

  “Ship,” Krim said.

  “Do they send prisoners now in their own cars?” she asked. “How quaint. Usually they just walk into Sea City. You are so old, tabby—do you need healing?” She waved a wand, a slate rolled into a tube, at him.

  “Yes,” Krim said. “You must heal me.” He spread out his arms—a little too melodramatic, he thought, but, hey—and dared her to touch him.

  “Oh, my poor man, let Kino change you into one of mine.” She waved, indicating her little tribe, seven or eight short, squat men, naked and pink, with fluffy fluorescent hair shooting straight up from their heads.

  “Please.” He held out his glowing hand to her, and she touched it with the tube.

  The tube slipped out of her hand, unrolled, and curled up into a fist-sized ball. All the slates covering her body fell off, joining the slate on the ground, and the balls began rolling and skittering over the hard pavement. The troll-men froze in their movements. Kino clawed at the dropping slates, chasing them, but they darted away from her, too many and too fast to catch. She tried to grab one, dived for it—fell onto the hard pavement. Her lower leg turned out at an unnatural angle. Kino looked at it, smiled, then grimaced. Her own slate remained stuck to her. Staring at a spot before her, she kept shaking her head, then pounded on her slate. No relief came. Kino howled, screaming in anguish as her knee failed to heal itself—to be healed by the slate.

  The trolls moved as they regained their slates. Hair and skin sloughed away. As they were transformed back into themselves, they writhed on the ground, bodies stretching, legs and arms stretching. Men and women, Krim saw, becoming their own selves. Kino’s hack broke down, while the silence repaired them.

  As the virus Ship had introduced spread through the crowd, Krim felt a vision, a memory rise up in him, not his, he now understood, but Prima’s as she ran away from the light, away from the camp and Zoetrope. She felt the comfort of their companionship screaming for her to return, but Lazuli ran, Prima ran. She ran until not only did her feathers not bleed, but she ran until she also could no longer feel Raven, feel any of Zoetrope’s tormented creations. A stranger came down the path toward her, a chocolate man, and as he followed the flagging plants, she ran to him, grabbing hold of him.

  “Go back!” she yelled at him. “Go back, go away, do not go down there, you must help me, go back!”

  “It’s okay,” the man said, “I won’t go back there if you don’t want me to—”

  “You came back,” a woman said.

  Krim came out of the vision, the darkness drowning out the memories, and then he saw the light of the world again.

  “Returned,” the woman said.

  He turned to her—one of the Naturals—squinted, then smiled. “Prima.” Ship heard the name, scanned her, and confirmed what Krim had known: not the Beat Prima, of course—she’d died in prison long ago.

  “Krim?” She stepped forward from the group, hair still gray, but her body—her body harder, it seemed to him. Stronger, more self-assured.

  “One of ’em.” He waved at Ship, knew he’d have to explain later. “Yeah, me.”

  “Something’s happening,” she said. Prima waved with her broom at the writhing trolls, and beyond.

  More Zoetropes, or Kinos, more Electric bullies, fell down screaming in the plaza. The one touch had started it. He had touched Kino and her slates fell away, then they touched her slaves, and they touched
others, who touched others. . . . He saw one of the trolls—now a long-legged woman—run across the plaza, touching people. Still more liberated ones dashed around, daring to be touched, and at their touch, sundering the connection. A geometric progression, he thought, two then four then eight then sixteen and on and on, like balls cascading down a pyramid. Sam could have done the math, but he guessed inside of a day, his touch would have been extended a billion-fold. All the slates would break down.

  “You don’t feel it?” Krim asked Prima. “The net broken? You don’t feel the absence of direction?”

  Prima held up the broom. “Don’t you remember? This protects us.” She realized what he had done—touched Kino and not been transformed. “Only you don’t need it.”

  Krim grinned, then started laughing. The brooms—he had forgotten about the brooms. They jammed the signals the Electrics had broadcast. That was why the Naturals carried the brooms: to avoid being hacked. Who needed the virus, who needed to sunder the net here? It had already been broken.

  “You don’t feel anything, then?” he asked. “The net does not broadcast to you?”

  “No.” She looked up, then recognition came to her face. “Oh. When I was with Zoetrope I got messages, but I thought that was him.”

  “We gave up the net,” another Natural said, stepping next to Prima. “The broom gives us control over our own lives. We cannot be as extravagant”—he waved at the hideous forms spread all across the plaza—“but who needs that?”

  “You don’t need the broom anymore,” Krim said. He took Prima’s broom, held it so she could reclaim it. “See? Do you feel anything?”

  She cocked her head. “Nothing. As it is with the broom.” Prima reached for her broom, curling her fingers around it.

  “You don’t need it,” he said again.

  “It feels good in my hands nonetheless,” Prima answered and began to sweep. “It gives me work to do.”

  Krim looked out at the plaza, could almost see the virus working its magic as it spread in ever-growing rings. Soon the hide would break down—would quit doing its job of feeding them, protecting them, healing them. Kino still writhed on the ground, her knee broken. Dumbfounded—she couldn’t understand pain.

  “We’ll all have work to do soon enough.” Krim knelt next to Kino, touched her slate with his. She would have to learn to heal herself, but he could start. Prima came up to him. He glanced at her, realized that the Naturals must have been able to heal themselves, too.

  “Prima, did you ever get hurt?”

  She nodded. “Once—a cut.” With the broom, she waved at Kino. “One of my brothers touched me with his broom, and I learned how to do the healing.” Prima smiled at him. “I have learned much from these people, Krim. They are good people to know.”

  “I think so.” He pointed at Kino. “Touch her—use the broom. Show me.”

  The false Beat knelt down to the Electric woman, and with the end of the handle tapped Kino’s slate.

  Something lit up in the slate, a slight burp of lights. Kino squinted at Prima, at her knee, at the broom. With her hands Kino took the knee, twisted it, the ligaments cracking, but she did it as calmly as if she snapped a twig. Kino stroked her knee, massaged it, easing the swelling down.

  “She’ll be hungry,” Prima said, “but that’s okay. Ezra makes a damn good soup.”

  “Soup?” Krim asked. What was this, some magic potion universally known? “Who’s Ezra?”

  “The Broommaker. I’ll take you to him.”

  Ship followed Krim and Prima through the city, away from the central plaza and to a park on the waterfront. Brooms had been stuck around the perimeter of the park, butts in the ground and graying broomcorn weathering in the rain. The black ship lumbered along on its daddy-longlegs feet, stepping over liberated bodies, all naked and bald. In Ship’s belly they had placed Kino, who promptly fell asleep when she finished healing her knee. A curlicue of fire rose up from the woods, and he could hear singing, drumming, and laughing.

  A group of Naturals looked up at Ship when it came in, the five-meter-long black cone on its league-long legs. For a moment Krim chuckled at their shock, but they proved to be shockproof, for all but a white-haired man returned to the music and dancing. He came up to them, held a hand, palm forward, to Prima.

  “Daughter,” he said.

  “Great Uncle.” Prima turned to Krim. “He calls everyone son or daughter. Ezra, this is Krim.”

  “Ah, you came back.” Ezra’s hand glowed golden in the firelight, and Krim realized the other man’s slate glowed from within and did not reflect light. The virus had already journeyed here, faster than they could walk.

  Ship lowered himself down, squatted, pushing Kino out on a tongue of padding from inside. “Ship,” Krim said, pointing. “He’s, uh, a friend.”

  “I know him,” Ezra said. “I know your story.” The old man looked at his slate-gloved hand, as if it were someone else’s hand and not his. “This is remarkable, this new knowledge. I hear voices, people all across the world, even unto distant stars. You did this?”

  “I am only a carrier,” Krim said. He looked at his own hand. “You have food for this woman?”

  Ezra went up to Kino, lying huddled on the ground, arms and legs tucked in like a babe. “She learned the healing? Good. They’ll all have to do that, I think.”

  “Prima says you taught her.”

  Ezra shrugged. “I learned it myself. Why waste knowledge? When I figured out how to be free of them”—he waved out at the city—“I had to learn other things.”

  “You make the brooms, Prima said. How?”

  The old man stooped down and put an arm under Kino, and with a grunt lifted her up on his back. “There’s a kettle of soup ready, a new batch. Let’s get this poor lass fed, and I’ll tell you the story.”

  “He loves this story,” Prima said.

  They sat around the fire, the other Naturals slurping soup from carved wooden bowls. A fire-blackened kettle hung over the fire, and every now and then someone would get up and ladle out another bowlful. Ezra passed a bowl to each of them, then sat down cross-legged, laying Kino’s head in his lap. As he spooned soup into her mouth, he told them the story.

  “Long ago, I was captured by one of the Electrics. I didn’t know who I was, and so fell easy prey. Sometimes I remembered working in a laboratory, or recalled dipping vat-born babies in oozing white hide, and slapping on their slates. But that past seemed overlain by the thing the Electric man had made me.

  “He enjoyed having us fight in contests. We would be bulked out and built up until our bodies were as large as elephants—you know what an elephant is?” Krim nodded. “I didn’t think the hide could do that, but this Electric man, he had the power. So once I fought this other hacked person, fought him with an ax. We had found some weapons somewhere—an old museum, I think, who knows? And the other guy—or maybe it was a woman?—swung at me, at the little bit of slate that was like a bracelet on my wrist, and he cut my arm right off.

  “I felt this silence because the slate was gone. You know the Electrics always leave a little slate so they can broadcast their hacks from the slate they’ve stolen from you? Well, I lost even that. I didn’t know what to do. So I picked up my arm with my remaining hand and held it. I went up to the Electric so he could put it back on, only when I did that, my slate—the rest of it—fell off his chest and returned to me. Later I figured it out. The two pieces of hide and the two pieces of slate seemed to create some sort of feedback, canceling out the Electric man’s message.

  “Only—and here’s the funny thing—when my slate rolled back to me, I still heard that silence. I had the slate but now the feedback continued. Damn, that hurt—I don’t know how I endured the pain—but I figured as long as that arm was off of me and that bit of slate was off of me, I could think clearly.

  “So I tromped off, my body becoming normal-sized, and that Electric chased me and chased me but couldn’t come near me. None of the others could, either. I was
puzzled about it, and as my memories came back to me, I understood what had happened, I figured it out. If you had a little bit of your own slate and a little bit of your own hide separate from your body, that would do. So I chopped off a finger”—Ezra held up his left hand, and sure enough, he was missing a pinkie—“then put a ring of slate on that finger and reconnected my arm to my body. I had to think about it, imagine all the blood vessels and nerves and muscles and bone growing back together, and it still hurt like hell, but I got my arm back.

  “Then I took that finger and crushed and burned it until only the hide was left. I stretched the hide into a skein of cord and hammered that bit of slate into wire, and wrapped them together around a broom.”

  “Why a broom?” Krim asked.

  Ezra shrugged. “I had found a broom in an abandoned house, and noticed how dirty the world looked, so I figured, why not? As long as I carried that broom, no one bothered me. Eventually I figured out how to make more brooms. You can grow hide from old hair, you know.”

  Krim thought of Nurel’s gift to Sherl on Payday. “Yeah, I know.”

  “And this is what happened,” Ezra said, spreading his arms wide. “Only now, you come bringing something else. What is this Ur?”

  “Everything,” Krim said. And he explained it to Ezra.

  He slept soundly that night, dreaming of Corso and Minae and even old Admiral Thom, out on the edge of the system. Visions swept through his brain as he slept, visions of the change sweeping the solar system. Inside the park the Naturals slept quiet and content, immune from the change except for the minor transformations of their own slates into Ur devices. In the morning Krim awoke, and over yet more soup, the Naturals spoke of their visions and their dreams.

  The sun had burned away the rain. Prima took Krim up to a mound overlooking the park and the bay, where they could see the city. Ship, his protector and companion, followed, and through Ship’s eyes he could see Sea City rising. Every hide had been wiped, every human had been changed. They were all bald and naked, changed to whatever age they had been and whatever color and body size they had been. Kino had turned out to be a mere child after all, her breasts barely budding and just a bit of downy fuzz on her crotch.