“Welcome to the hive mind,” France says, smiling. “Using collective intelligence, we have been able to create our own stream, outside of Fell’s control. Inside it, we can store information. We can transmit and share ideas freely, instantly. The simulcasts you’ve seen from us were our very first attempts at outreach.”
I stop and stare at one of the displays filtering images, data. “You’re creating another Verity?”
“On the contrary,” France says. “We are creating an alternative. If we succeed, we will have done what no other Sovereign has ever done. We will have given people a choice.”
My stomach drops as we descend the stairs leading to the bottom level. Hundreds of programmers work around us in a symphony of concentration. I wonder what would happen if I let out the scream building up inside me.
I turn to Ledger. His eyes are alert, cautious. Then he puts into words the thing I’m thinking: “What’s to stop Pedanta becoming just another Fell?”
France pauses and turns. Her eyes narrow. “We will never become like our enemy. Where they want to control, we want the opposite. Freedom. Freedom to know, to discover, to transmit information. To share ideas. To communicate.”
“Respectfully,” Ledger says, “the knowledge you have is not very free if only a small portion of your people can access it. You are defying your own principles.”
“The knowledge is our greatest asset. It must be protected at all costs.”
“Maybe so. Maybe Fell once said the same thing,” Ledger says.
France stares at us, like somewhere inside her head a tiny wire has sprung loose.
We walk down the aisles toward the center of the room and a slick, egg-shaped black pod. On top is an enormous multisided display flickering with millions of lines of glowing code.
France stops in front of the black egg and brushes her hand across its smooth surface. “Over seventy percent of the hive mind is highly gifted with an above-average IQ. The other twenty-nine percent are average people who have learned the language.”
“And the last one percent?” Ledger asks.
“Ah,” France says, leaning against the egg until a seam emerges, revealing a door. “Those are the unique ones. Like my brother. Ferdinand.”
France pushes open the door, leading us inside. Pitch-black darkness surrounds us as we enter. My eyes adjust, sensing a light source in front of us. Fractal images float around the interior of the egg. Lines of glowing code scatter from a central source. Light particles skip across our hands, our fingertips.
“What is this place?” Ledger asks.
“It’s the center of the hive,” I say under my breath. “It has to be.”
The egg is alive, and in just moments, I spot its embryo.
NOELLE
NINETEEN
Ledger, Noelle, I would like you to meet my twin brother, Ferdinand. The mastermind of all of this.”
I search for a face, my eyes blinking rapidly in the darkness. Behind the main display, a dark figure covered head to toe in black comes into focus. “Ferdinand,” France says. “Say hello to our guests.”
Ferdinand quickly pops his head up, then hunkers back down. “Hello,” he says, quietly. To my surprise, Ferdinand looks nothing like France. Though they share the same hair and skin color, he has none of her grace and poise. His eyes, framed by overgrown black brows, are hidden behind the reflection of his glasses.
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
Ferdinand nods succinctly, then presses something midair, lighting up the far wall. He taps, bringing an image into focus before us. The light fuses colors. The colors become shapes. They dance across the far, curved wall of the egg. They eat into me, flooding my senses with their unmistakable light. It’s a stream, one I would recognize anywhere, even if I were blind. Verity. “So this is how you’re doing it. This is how you’re hacking Verity?” I say.
“We prefer the term stream-sharing. Hacking is so base a word, don’t you think?”
“How can you infiltrate Verity without being detected by Fell?” Ledger asks.
“The knowledge is not just about what we know of Fell, it is also about what they do not know of us.” The images shift and change to depict a map of the UVF. “There are twenty Vales in Fell,” France says. Each Vale lights up in quick succession, controlled by Ferdinand. He keeps perfectly in sync with France as she speaks, as if he’s reading her mind, as if she’s always been his voice. I focus on the display as Vale 1, my former home, lights up.
“Verity streams constantly from one Vale to the next. She is a virtual fortress of information, evolving constantly at a rate no human being can possibly keep up with. But Verity’s source code is self-regenerating, meaning she reprograms herself entirely more than a million times every hour.”
Ferdinand raises one hand in the air. “Polymorphic, France,” he says loudly. “Self-modifying polymorphic mutation.”
“Yes, thank you, Ferdi,” France says. “Essentially, Verity is so intelligent, she can alter her own identity endlessly, without repetition, fast enough to elude even the very best of infiltrators.”
“So how do you do it?” I ask, baffled. “How are you able to hack her stream?”
“We’ve tracked the patterns for years, and finally we found an irregularity. A single hour that occurs every so often in which Verity’s stream is reversed.”
The stream billows out from the center of the egg, rushing toward us, wrapping around the walls. “Think of it like a flowing river,” she says. “Running one way ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, and then, for just a single hour, that river flowing in the other direction. But here is the key.” France pauses and holds a finger in the air. “The river must slow down in order to change direction. Not for very long, mind you, but just long enough for us to get inside.”
“Blue Leaf Virus,” Ferdi blurts out.
An algorithm flashes up on the display. A complex set of numbers unravels a long feed of illuminated code. “The Blue Leaf Virus. That’s what we call Ferdi’s invention. When we infiltrate, we drop a few encrypted messages—leaves on the surface of the flowing river—without being detected. When the river eventually reverses, these messages flow out again as simulcasts, like they were part of the stream all along.”
“Messages. Like leaves.”
“Correct,” France says.
“But if the flow is reversing, doesn’t that mean Verity is extracting information rather than streaming it?”
“Right,” France says. “Which is why she hardly notices when we place the message on her stream. We disguise the leaves as something they would want to find, so Verity picks them up willingly, then transmits them for us before they can be decrypted.”
“When you say you disguise them as something they would want to find, you mean . . .” I pause, hesitating to say the forbidden word here. “You mean words. Text.”
France smiles for the first time. “Yes. That is the reason for the poetry. We hide the message inside it so it appears like a common threat. But the Blue Leaf, of course, is uncommon and attention must be paid to it, hence the name. Once Verity realizes what it is, it’s deleted, of course, but by then the message has already been transmitted by the stream.”
“You write the messages?” I ask.
“I do,” France replies.
“How is it possible, if you cannot read?”
“Ferdi’s software converts my voice into text. That’s how my words appear inside the stream.”
“That’s how you made the instructions on the signs.”
France nods. “If we had a reader here in Pedanta, we wouldn’t have needed to put out the call.” She clasps her hands, and stares at us thoughtfully. “If we work diligently, we’ll soon be able to infiltrate the stream long enough to mirror Fell’s velocity. Right now, we are playing catch-up, but if Ferdi’s algorithm proves successful, we’ll be able to predict Verity’s changes before she makes them.” Ledger and I stare at France blankly. “Meaning, of course, we can get in front
of her.”
“And what happens then?” Ledger asks, his voice lowering.
“Isn’t it obvious?” France says, her eyes wide. “If we can get in front of her long enough, we might just be able to stop her.”
“So this is what your people die for,” I say at last.
“Yes, this is the knowledge,” France says. “The successes of it belong to us all, as do the failures. This is why we cross.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Ledger says. “You said you wanted to provide an alternative, a choice for the people. A second stream.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Well, there’s one problem with that. If you get inside and stop Verity, there won’t be a choice, will there?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re trying to replace Fell’s stream with your own, their power with yours,” I interject. “But you are no different from them, letting innocent people suffer to uphold your so-called knowledge.”
France’s eyes fill with alarm. “You want to know why Pedanta would never become like Fell? At the heart of Fell’s power is Verity. Artificial intelligence. But . . .” She moves behind Ferdinand and hovers both hands above his shoulders. “As you can see, Pedanta’s heart is very much human.”
“Exactly,” Ledger says. “That’s the problem.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Human beings are the problem. Fell. Verity. None of it was created by computers, by machines. It was created by people.”
The voice of Pedanta is speechless, lost in a fog of the undeniable truth: this Sovereign could become another Fell.
“What about the lost knowledge?” I ask, breaking France’s reverie.
“It’s called ‘lost knowledge’ for a reason,” she answers. “Because we are no longer in possession of it.”
“If that’s true, why do you need a reader?” I ask.
“While we were inside the stream, we picked up some information. Information alluding to attacks planned on every Sovereign.”
“And you need a reader to decipher it for you?”
“No, no. Ferdi can do that with a parcel of code. We need someone to translate it once it is decoded. Someone who can read into the words. A true reader, ideally of the earlier time.” France looks at me. “Like your grandfather.”
“So let me get this straight,” I say. “You have no intention of restoring the lost knowledge? Of even trying?”
“Restoring it would be impossible. Unless, of course, you think, as a few hacktivists in the Winnow do, that understanding Fell’s technology will enable us to reverse it. The best we can do is stop it altogether.”
“And replace it with something more powerful,” Ledger says. “That doesn’t sound like stopping Fell. It sounds like winning.”
“Oh, most definitely,” France says. “We will win. That’s why we put our name to our work. You notice the letter in the transmission was ours.”
I take a step closer to France, being sure to keep my voice low. “You mean you want Fell to know your Sovereign is behind this? Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of course I am. But it is our duty to do what the Rising never could. You cannot fight fire with just paper and words, after all.” For a moment I’m not sure I can guess her meaning. She may be the granddaughter of Holofernes, one of the original Nine of the Rising, but France doesn’t seem to be a supporter. Her parents are gone, I remember. Did they choose Fell over the Sovereign?
“But what about the Rising? What they left behind?”
“The Rising is over,” France says sharply. “It has been over for many years. There is a new hope now. Right here in Pedanta. The knowledge is our future.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. The granddaughter of an original Riser, who doesn’t believe in the Rising? The knowledge of Pedanta is obviously very different from the knowledge the Risers wanted to protect. I begin to wonder what has become of Pedanta’s precious volume.
“Don’t look so concerned,” France says. “My grandfather had a saying, one I have held on to all these years. Post tenebras spero lucem. After darkness there is light.” She grips me by the shoulders, as if forcing her meaning into me through her voice—Pedanta’s only voice. “We are the light, Noelle Hartley. Pedanta is the light that is going to destroy the darkness of our time.”
As I look at her, it dawns on me. Not only does France not believe in the Rising, but the light she’s talking about is a quiet insurgency against Fell’s technology right here in Pedanta. What would my grandfather make of this place? What would Miriam think? Is this the vision Holofernes intended? I’m not sure, but I decide there’s no more time for games or uncertainty.
I grab the backpack from Ledger and unzip it. My hands meet the cloth at the back and push it aside to find the soft leather of Volume I. A chill descends my spine as I’m reminded of how it came to be in my care. John died for this book. If Miriam is right, there are eight others just like it. Whose blood will be shed to rescue those?
The books are the light. Not this place. Not Pedanta. Not France and her strange army of child programmers. This is why we need the books, I realize. So the real knowledge can be reborn. We may not be able to fight fire with paper and words, but we can douse it with ink.
I look at Ledger. He knows. It is time.
I pull Volume I from the backpack. France’s eyes grow wild with concern as I step toward her with the book. “I know you know what this is,” I say, calmly. “And I know you have one, too. Your grandfather, Holofernes, was one of the Nine of the Rising.”
Ferdinand rises, his eyes locked on the volume. He points to it as his face crumples. His mouth twitches, struggling to speak. His eyes are full of fear. “Words, France,” he says, panicked. “How did they get out? Must put them back, back, back!”
“I know,” France tries to calm him. “It’s okay, Ferdi.”
Then as if the book itself and all of us are on fire, Ferdi climbs onto his chair and screams at the top of his lungs. A sound like a soul breaking explodes from him. “Wooooooorrrrrds!”
France swallows, looking back and forth from Ferdi to us. “Please, you can’t do this. Not here. Not now,” she stutters. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t care.” I gather strength from the sturdy book in my hands. If I could only be more like its cover, strong yet soft. “I need Pedanta’s volume. Take me to it. Now.”
NOELLE
TWENTY
Follow me and don’t wander off,” France says curtly as the elevator reaches the basement floor. The lights overhead flood the long hallway section by section as we walk.
I look over and notice Ledger smiling. “What’s so amusing?”
He inclines his head toward me, being careful not to let France hear. “What you said back there, it was pretty bold.”
I cringe openly. Was it too much? I steel myself as we approach a vault door at the end of the hallway. France taps a code into the security panel by the door. The vault releases with a loud burst of air. She turns to face us. “I’ve never shown this to anyone. Ferdi has not seen it since we were children.” She hesitates, not moving from her position. “When Holofernes died, he entrusted the volume to me, and me alone. Ferdinand was entrusted with the knowledge.”
“Why was he so upset by it?”
“Ferdi is special,” France says, choosing her words carefully. “He doesn’t like what he doesn’t understand, you see. His language is numbers and logic. The words defy that. They are ghosts of the past. No one likes to see a ghost. Especially someone who doesn’t believe in them.”
“So you’ve kept it hidden all these years?”
France nods once and looks at the floor. “It was either the volume or the knowledge. The knowledge stood the best chance of freeing us from Fell. It was easier for our people to grasp. The knowledge prevailed.”
“We have risked our lives coming to you now. You can see it is important,” I say firmly. “We need to see your book,
France.”
“I knew this day would come.” She exhales, deflating like a disappointed child. “I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.”
“What are you talking about?” Ledger asks.
“My grandfather talked of the Rising like it was still alive. As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t believe it. If other volumes were out there, we never saw them, never had proof they existed. Until today.”
“France,” I say, “it’s real. The Rising left behind these books for a reason. We need to figure out why.”
France’s eyes melt into me, and for the first time, I can see her pain, her struggle keeping up the front here in Pedanta. “How can you be sure they won’t harm us?”
But how to convince her? I look at Ledger, his eyes betraying everything of his otherworldly journey, to me and me alone. Somewhere inside him, I know the books are good. I feel it, like I feel . . . him. “I can’t explain it,” I say finally. “You are going to have to trust me, France.”
“There is one condition. If I show you the volume, you must promise me you will not speak of it to anyone in Pedanta. No one must know of this.”
“They are going to know of it eventually. You can’t keep it from them forever.”
“That may be so, but right now there is only one voice of Pedanta, Noelle Hartley. Mine. I will not have our people confused and bewildered by words, thinking there is some other force that’s going to save them. They must not be distracted from their sole purpose. They must not be given false hope.”
“But everyone needs hope,” I say. “Even if it is false.”
“The knowledge is our hope. It will prevail. You will see in time.”
“I respect your position. But that doesn’t change what we came here for.”
“Very well.” France steps aside and searches the dim light of the strong room. “Straight to the back. You’ll know it when you see the light.”
Blood, Ink & Fire Page 17
