Only Superhuman

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Emry glanced over the heavy armor and razor-sharp claws of the car-sized auxons and decided this was not a hand-to-hand situation. With a sigh, she hefted the high-power firearm she’d been assigned for this mission and began firing, thrusting forward to cancel the recoil. Goddess, I hate these things. But her aim was true and the explosive bullets smashed through the auxons’ armor quite effectively. She made sure to focus her aim on the core sections to cripple their self-replication ability.

  After that it was just point and shoot for a while. Emry didn’t have the more complicated job on this mission; that fell to Juan and Kari, whose task was to capture the Michani and access their control network to shut down the auxons. Emry and the rest were just muscle. But the auxons kept things interesting by firing back. Their armaments were clever and nasty, firing nanotube-based projectiles which could be readily resupplied by their internal weavers. Their main guns shot out madly whirling nanobolas, which could slice through nearly anything. The torso armor protected her vital organs, but it was open-sided for freedom of movement; her flanks and limbs were covered only by the light-armor tightsuit that hugged her skin. It had no air to lose except in the helmet, but too many cuts could loosen the mechanical compression that kept her body pressurized. Emry had a close call with a razor grenade: a sphere of electrically charged nanotubes, its mutual repulsion against itself forcing it to expand outward, building enormous tension until it snapped at predesigned weak spots, causing hundreds of taut monofilament strands to fly outward at deadly speed. She had to duck and cover to protect her visor from the nanotube shrapnel, but sustained deep cuts across her left arm and hip, some of them slicing clear through the tightsuit to the flesh beneath. Her repair systems acted efficiently to minimize blood loss, so she allowed herself to hope that no stray nanotubes had been left in her body to poison her cybernetic or biological systems.

  One auxon came in close and grabbed her leg with its pincers—luckily around the armored boot instead of higher up, or she might’ve lost half a leg. Twisting sideways and back, she thrust out her fingers, sent a command to the glove to stiffen, and rammed it into the joint between two of the pincer arm’s modules. Her hand knifed through and she tore at whatever she could find until the pincer fell limp. Other deadly grippers flailed toward her, but she twisted away, repeated the stabbing maneuver with one of the seams on the underside, fired several explosive rounds into the gap, and pushed free as the auxon suffered terminal heartburn.

  As the battle went on, Emry realized the auxons were dying rather easily. Their nanotube-based weapons may have been easy to replenish, but were also their Achilles heel; damaging their innards caused stray nanotubes to get into their electronics and short them out. Emry was beginning to understand why such weapons weren’t used more often. Again, she thanked the Goddess for shortchanging the Michani in the brain department. Just imagine if someone really competent had tried this.

  At last she made it to the other side of the stroid, where the Michani’s main staging area had been. “Had been” was the right tense, since the tether impact had torn into it badly, as Tin Lizzy’s weapons had no doubt done a few seconds later. Fragments of auxons drifted all over. Emry looked around through the half-settled dust to see Lizzy and Cowboy finishing off a few remaining auxons, but there didn’t seem to be any left for her to play with. And it looked like Kari and Juan had the Michani well in hand. There were four of them—gaunt, shiny-carapaced bipeds without pressure suits, originally human but having replaced as much of their bodies as possible with robotic parts in pursuit of “technotheosis,” the transcending of the flesh to achieve the divinity of AI. The idea fell flat considering that they couldn’t replace their very human brains, but they tended to gloss over that, giving an indication of just how poorly those brains were working. And their shiny new bodies, as tricked-up as they were, hadn’t helped them much against the cream of the Troubleshooter Corps. They were all bound, a few with missing limbs or torso damage, but all alive and reparable. Juan had one of his hands sticking into the back of a Michani’s head, morphed into an interface jack. The other hand was in tool mode, manipulating the innards of some kind of mainframe. Jackknife was the only person Emry knew who wore a short-sleeved space suit. “Looks like I missed the good part,” Emry broadcast. “You get the shutdown codes?”

  “They didn’t have one,” Kari replied. “Jackknife’s DLing their data, but we’re having to finish them off the old-fashioned way.”

  “Seems like they were counting on divine providence,” Juan told her, his tone mocking. “This is their destined triumph, after all, so of course their holy host wouldn’t turn on them.”

  “Traitor,” one of the Michani cried in a blatantly synthed voice. “You could have been one of us. You understand the divine gift of the machine, you’ve already cast aside half your vulgar flesh—so how could you stand with these animals and oppose the perfecting of the universe?”

  Emry saw Juan’s head turn in her direction. “Blaze, I’m too tired to think of a witty comeback, and I don’t really care enough about these psycho morons to try. You got anything?”

  “Maybe a good sock in the face, if I thought they’d feel it. Hey, is that my job around here, the comic relief?”

  “Well, it shore was funny the way she landed,” Bhattacharyya told the others. “Her tether broke, and I had to—”

  “Not another word, cactus-face!”

  “She’s right,” Kari said. “Let’s can the chatter and get this scene secured.” Emry felt grateful to her friend … until Kari added, “Then you can tell us all about it while we wait for the ships to get here.”

  But suddenly Cowboy swung a rifle at Emry and fired, too fast for her to react. For a split second she wondered if he was retaliating for her insult. But the shot had gone over her shoulder, and something spattered her helmet from behind. She thrust herself around … and there behind her floated a fifth Michani, a hole blown in its ceramic skull, with a red cloud expanding around it. Its (his? her?) limbs jerked sporadically as it drifted slowly backward and down in the stroid’s faint gravity.

  Emry’s stomach convulsed; it was fortunate she hadn’t eaten in hours. Swallowing her bile, she spun back to face Bhattacharyya. “Sorry, darlin’,” he said in a cavalier tone. “Only shot I could take with you in the way. Another second, that woulda been you. Looks like that’s two you’re owin’ me.”

  “You could’ve warned me! I could’ve taken him!”

  “Wasn’t about to be takin’ the chance, sweetheart. Your life’s worth more’n his, far as I’m concerned.”

  That silenced Emry, but brought her no comfort. It was faint praise, considering how little he seemed to care about the life he’d just ended.

  * * *

  They had to wait a while for their pickup. Spaceships traveling fast enough to reach the Trojans couldn’t just stop and turn around. Juan’s Dulcinea and Kari’s Nausicaa had set out last week on a course that would intersect the Michani’s stroid nineteen hours after the battle, to serve either as pickup or backup as needed. Docked together, they had room for the five Troubleshooters plus their prisoners, who were confined in the holding cells on the ships’ “basement” levels. Luckily this part of the L5 Trojans was currently only three AU and change from Ceres; with plasma drives thrusting at over half a gee most of the way and the Ceres drive beam catching them, it would take roughly a week to get back to Demetria, not long enough to put a strain on the ships’ resources—although it was fortunate that the four Michani needed little food, air, or water.

  Emry liked her friends’ ships well enough, but was eager to get back to the Corps; she missed Zephyr. Hearing his voice would’ve been very comforting right now. Still, she had good company in the form of Kari. She didn’t know Elise or Juan all that well, and as for Cowboy—Sanjay—well, he had saved her life twice, and though she wouldn’t repay him in the coin he desired, she figured she should at least be civil.

  Thus she didn’t decline when he invited the ot
hers to join in a game of full-uniform strip poker. Elise was the only one who bowed out; she didn’t share the typical Troubleshooter fondness for sexually charged competition. Emry couldn’t blame her, given how those Palladian raiders had raped her and killed her parents in front of her when she was fifteen. At least she had an excuse for her hard-line approach to Troubleshooting; Cowboy just seemed to think it was fun.

  Emry was too reckless and too bad at hiding her emotions to be a decent poker player. That was why she only played strip; she didn’t mind losing. True to form, she was the first one out. As for Kari, everyone expected her to have a perfect poker face; but her modesty made her nervous, though not nervous enough to trigger her battle peace, so she played poorly. She managed to stay in longer than Juan—who, after all, had no boots—but lost soon thereafter, retreating behind Emry for cover. Emry was happy to see Cowboy win, having little interest in seeing him naked.

  Which left only Juan or Kari as potential bed partners, and Kari’s sexual tastes were pretty much unidirectional. Emry liked legs on a man, sure, but the rest of Juan was impressive enough. And when he offered to show her what he could do with his hands, she was hooked. As it turned out, he didn’t disappoint. And as a fellow Troubleshooter, he understood how to keep it casual—friendly but with no strings attached. Just the way Emry preferred it.

  Demetria

  Back at HQ, things were bustling, though it was mostly the enlarged support staff since the T-shooters were staying busy out in the field. She overheard some of the details from the staff (though not from Sally Knox, who couldn’t be bothered). Lodestar had uncovered and thwarted a scheme of the Wellspring’s scientist elite to break hardened inmates out of a Trojan penal habitat to perform mind-altering experiments that its governor had refused to permit. Paladin had exposed a major embezzlement operation within the government of a carbon-mining colony in the Hygieans, while Bellatrix had talked the exploited miners down from launching an armed revolt. Coyote had foiled a scheme of the Gagaringrad mafia to hijack the Eunomian drive beam and amp it up into a weapon of mass destruction, while a team of Sheaver technical advisors had helped the other local habitats augment their magnetic shields to combat levels, a precaution that had proven unnecessary. All in all, the news lately was more about battles averted than battles won or lost, and Emry found it refreshingly boring.

  She was surprised, though, when Sally called her to Sensei Villareal’s office and told her that Greg Tai wanted to speak to her. “What happened to Sensei?” she demanded on her arrival.

  Sally looked her over, as unimpressed by her righteous indignation as by, well, everything else Emry had ever said to her. “Mister Tai is expecting you. You’re late,” she added.

  Emry blinked. “I came as soon as you paged me! How can I be late?”

  “By continuing to waste my time arguing about it.”

  Emry blinked, shook her head, and stormed into Sensei’s office. “What happened to Sensei?”

  Tai looked her over and smiled reassuringly. “Come in, Emerald, have a seat. Yukio’s fine, he sends his best. He just decided that he could do more good for the Corps by getting out more. Concentrating on public relations and lobbying—you know, taking advantage of that swashbuckling charm of his to advance our goals—while leaving the day-to-day logistics of the TSC in other hands.”

  “Your hands.”

  “I was honored when he picked me. But admittedly, it was the most practical decision.”

  Emry smiled as she took a seat. “I guess it was, yeah. I mean, you’ve been doing so much good around here, you’re practically one of the family. So why not make it official?” She shrugged. “It’s just weird to see someone else sitting behind that desk.”

  “Believe me, it feels weird. But we’re talking about the Archer here.” He gestured to the display case, which contained Sensei’s old Shashu uniform, the green-and-gold body armor styled to suggest a samurai Robin Hood. “The legendary man of action. Does it really make sense for him to plant his ass behind a desk? That’s much more in my line.”

  She had to admit, the thought of her childhood hero getting back into action—even if it was a more sedate, political kind of action—was gratifying. But she ventured to disagree about the rest. “I don’t know. You have the ass of a man who stays pretty active.”

  Tai laughed, but it was a controlled, polite laugh. “Thank you, Emerald … but given our working relationship now, I think a certain … professional decorum is called for, don’t you think?”

  “Oh. Sorry.” She tried in vain to seal her top up higher without drawing attention to the act. “So what did you want to see me about … boss?”

  Tai looked at her with approval. He stood and came around the desk, resting his weight on it, and looked down at her. “I have an assignment that I think you’d be uniquely qualified for, Emerald.”

  “Emry.”

  “Ah-ah.” He raised a finger. “Not during office hours.”

  She shrugged. “Whatever fills your tank.” He just stared. She subsided, clearing her throat.

  “As I was saying: For this mission, Emerald, I need … what you are. I need a Vanguardian.”

  She looked up at him sharply. “I’m not a Vanguardian. My dad was, but they turned their back on him. On everyone.”

  “My understanding is that he chose to leave them.”

  “Only because they wouldn’t help people after the war. And they never bothered to take an interest in him either after he left.”

  “True, they’ve remained very insular ever since. Until now,” he told her.

  “Now?”

  He stood fully again. “Eliot Thorne has recently begun making overtures to other transhumanist habitats, in the Outer Belt and elsewhere,” he said, pacing slowly around her. “It seems he’s trying to arrange a summit to discuss a possible alliance.”

  Emry stared. “You’re kidding. Thorne? Offering an alliance?”

  “It would be a rather radical shift in policy, wouldn’t it? That’s why we need someone there to find out what’s behind it.”

  She looked up at him quizzically. “You want me to spy on them?”

  Another controlled laugh. “Not exactly. Of course there’s no way the Green Blaze can go incognito. But Troubleshooters are mods too, so the case can be made that the Corps has a legitimate interest. We’ve made overtures, and they’ve shown a … guarded willingness to allow a TSC observer to attend. Which is only natural. If they have nothing to hide, they should have no problem with it. And if they do have something to hide, refusing would only raise suspicions.

  “But they’d be most likely to accept if it were you, Emerald. Plus your family ties would give you an in that other Troubleshooters would lack. If you approach them as a … long-lost relative interested in learning about her heritage, that could give you access to channels they might not open to another delegate. You might learn something they wouldn’t reveal in public.” He crouched by her chair, one arm around its back, and spoke more softly. “And if you give them the impression that your loyalties might be … flexible, you might learn even more. Say, information about their real intentions for this alliance. Whether there’s been some change to make them suddenly interested in broadening their reach, and whether that change might pose a threat to other states.”

  She fidgeted. “So you do want me to spy on them.”

  “To gather intelligence, yes.”

  “To seduce them. Pretend I want to get close just so I can … take advantage of them?”

  Tai was amused. “Emerald, I’ve studied your files. I’ve seen how you dress. You’re no stranger to seduction.”

  “That’s different. That’s sex, not … not family.”

  He furrowed his brow. “Frankly I didn’t expect you to worry so much about the Vanguard’s feelings. You’ve never shown any interest in dealing with them before.”

  “And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  He stood again, forcing her to look up. “You’re a professional, Ms
. Blair. You have responsibilities beyond your personal likes and dislikes. Responsibilities that include identifying threats to the peace, regardless of where they originate.”

  She frowned. “What threat? Thorne’s bunch may not have been too neighborly for a while, but have they done anything wrong? They were heroes once upon a time.”

  Tai studied her. “Maybe that’s how it’s taught in the Belt, but Earth’s experience with them was more … ambivalent. Yes, they took it upon themselves to use their enhancements for peacekeeping during a time of turmoil. But even then, they acted like a law unto themselves, not respecting the proper authorities, not caring about the property damage they inflicted in their battles or sometimes even the innocent people they endangered. They thought they were above us, in more senses than one, and they weren’t afraid to exploit their advantages. Not all of them, of course,” he added. “There were some fine people in their ranks, your father and grandfather among them. But sadly, neither of them is around anymore. The Vanguard is ruled by its most ambitious, politically radical, and charismatic member, and given how thoroughly closed it’s been for the past thirty years, it doesn’t seem like he has a lot of opposition. And if he’s suddenly interested in broadening his ties to other mod nations … well, that’s something we need to investigate.

  “Especially given the nature of the pitch he’s been making. This summit is also something of a coming-out party for his daughter, Psyche Thorne.” Tai scoffed. “Psyche. Even the name is a boast. Rumor is, she represents the pinnacle of the Vanguard’s efforts to enhance the human mind as well as the body. The summit is meant to show her off as an example of how far Vanguard science can elevate the human potential. It’s a sales pitch, and she’s the demo model. Join us and you too can become part of a superior race.”