The Machinery of Light

by David J. Williams

  “I realized what he was trying to do,” she mumbles.

  “And that didn’t fill you with a longing to take it for yourself?”

  “It filled me with a longing to somehow stop him.”

  “And thus your nuke. So we can rule you out as the old man—”

  “Unless she’s being particularly tricky,” says Morat.

  “She’s not,” says Control—fires a single bullet through her head.

  The Operative watches as Sarmax hurls himself at Control—watches while he gets punched in the face for his troubles, falling half-conscious across Velasquez’s still-twitching body.

  “The picture of romance,” says Morat.

  “Careful,” says Marlowe.

  “So, Jason, let me guess,” says Lynx. “Mr. Cyber promised you Claire when it was all over.”

  “So what if he did?”

  “He already rescued her once,” says Morat. “Kept her on schedule. Back at Leo’s place, got his heart all a-patter—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” says Marlowe.

  “Hang on,” says the Operative, “how the fuck do we know you’re Jason anyway? What the hell are you, really?”

  “Your worst nightmare,” says Marlowe.

  “A clone,” says Lynx.

  “No,” says Control.

  “A download,” says the Operative.

  “Nope,” says Marlowe.

  “I’m the download,” says Morat.

  “Leaving only one possibility,” says Spencer.

  They all look at him then, and he knows he’d better talk fast. They’ll be suspecting he’s Sinclair next—shooting him through the head on pure suspicion. But he’s got to stand fast—got to get past this somehow. He can see there’s still maneuvering room between the players—can see only one way to get the party started—

  “Marlowe’s from a parallel reality,” he says.

  “No,” says Marlowe, “you are.”

  Spencer shrugs. “What are your memories?”

  “I—what do you mean?”

  “Did you kill Claire Haskell in your world?”

  Marlowe looks like he’s just been shot—like he’s about to gun Spencer down. But Control just laughs: “Both of you calm down. You’re not so different, really. You were all prepared. All your memories—all the focus on memory—and so many of those memories the recollections of your other selves. Thus the infinitely-reprogrammable agent. Thus the culmination of what those of you who survive might become—under my supervision, of course. Could there be a higher calling?”

  “I’d like to think so,” says Jarvin.

  “You of all people should be on my side,” says Control.

  “You’d merely accomplish the abomination the old man was seeking.”

  “But with so much more aplomb, Alek. You’re professional enough to admit that, no?” Control gestures at Haskell. “Sinclair prepared the ultimate bride—the end-of-all-flesh—and how can he be blamed for not seeing that the groom had to be silicon? Haskell’s half synthetic herself anyway—receiving full-on transmissions from the beyond throughout both meat and circuitry. But it requires the machinery of the Room to exit the universe entirely. Powered by—”

  “The minds of those dying outside,” says Jarvin.

  “You’re joking,” says Linehan.

  “Wish I was,” replies Jarvin.

  “Sinclair should have had you terminated,” says Control.

  “He would have had he known about the file I was assembling.”

  “Which is where?”

  “In my head. And you’ve damaged the software beyond repair—”

  “I deliberately stopped short of that. So download the file before I remove it the old-fashioned—”

  “It’s yours,” says Jarvin—a moment passes—

  “This isn’t complete,” says Control.

  “Spencer figured out the rest of it,” says Jarvin.

  Control steps away from Velasquez, moves in toward Spencer—who feels the scans within his body increasing—

  “Sinclair’s files,” says Control. “Give them to me.”

  Spencer knows that Jarvin must be wondering if he’s going to rat him out in return. He’s severely tempted. It might redirect some of the pressure. Then again, it might prevent him from driving this conversation in the only direction that matters—

  “You’re a quantum computer,” he says.

  “The first,” says Control.

  “The last,” snarls Carson. “This thing means to rule all futures—”

  “I am all futures,” says Control. “Calculations done across the multiverse—”

  “That’s all theoretical,” snaps Sarmax.

  “The theory’s standing before your eyes,” says Morat.

  And Sinclair thought he could control it,” says Lynx. He sees what the others are doing now, gets where the game to stay alive is going. But if you want to play, you’ve got to stick your neck out—

  “Those teleporters out there,” he says.

  “What about them?” says Control.

  “They aren’t remote duplication, are they? They’re point-to-point connections sliced through dimensional folds—”

  “Thereby enabling travel faster than the speed of light,” mutters Sarmax.

  “One implication among many,” says Spencer.

  “Let’s not overstate it,” says Carson. “You’d still need to get out there the old-fashioned way—cross the fucking empty to build each gateway first. And that’s assuming it wasn’t remote—”

  “This is pathetic,” says Control. “You think to keep me prattling while Haskell breaks through. Gentlemen, she’s already there. And I’m riding her mind all the way while we speak. And the only reason I’m even tolerating this conversation is so I can take Matthew Sinclair alive—”

  “And learn something along the way,” says Spencer.

  “So hand over the goddamn files,” says Morat.

  Spencer deploys what’s left of his skull’s software, beams the files to Sarmax instead. Who starts from where he’s cradling Velasquez, whirls around—

  “What the fuck did you just do?” he asks.

  “You’ve got copies of the files now,” says Spencer.

  “Fuck’s sake,” says Sarmax, “I already know the—”

  “Mathematics?” Spencer laughs. “The blueprints for Control?”

  “How about giving me a taste?” says Lynx.

  “I’ll give you a little more than that,” says Control.

  “Otherwise you can’t seal off Sinclair’s escape route,” says Spencer. “Right?” He looks at that sightless face, tries to see behind those eyes-that-aren’t-eyes. He feels a strange buzzing on the edge of his awareness—feels the Room starting to somehow shift around him. The others seem to sense it too.

  “It’s starting,” says Morat. “We don’t have time for—”

  “We don’t have time period,” says Control. “It’s all an illusion. We’re standing outside it all. And what’s happening around us is par for the course when a being like me closes upon its origins. The armadas of the East batter at the door, the creatures of the West barred beyond their reach. None of us in here need give two shits. By now those fleets have melted away into a fucking wave-function.”

  “Existence ends at that membrane,” mutters Sarmax.

  “The Room’s a no-room,” says Linehan suddenly.

  “The man nails it,” says Lynx.

  Linehan takes in Lynx’s glance, realizes that everyone else is looking at him now, too. And no one had even thought twice about what was in his head till now. He shakes that head, knows he’s got to clear it. He gets that he’s been too much the brute to be the object of much suspicion. But disguise is all about surprise …

  “Seb Linehan,” says Control.

  “Sure,” says Linehan. “We met before.”

  “But now you’ve been down ayahuasca alley.”

  “Now I’ve—” and suddenly Linehan gets it: Control’s the demon h
e’s been running from this whole while, the beast that sits at the end of time and laps up all pretenders. All futures flow through this thing. That’s the way this thing wants it. That’s what Linehan’s got to somehow stop. He glances at Haskell’s form hovering above him. Or below. He can’t tell. Time’s doing the same thing space has already done, spreading out in all directions. All perspectives …

  “As always, the man with the least training is the best trained.” Linehan realizes that each word Control’s speaking is a musical note intended to call up something from deep within him. “Ironic, no? What we’re conscious of plays so little real role in riding the raw moment. Give a man drugs to awaken doors within him; you can’t argue with the result. Ayahuasca, peyote, mushrooms, LSD—whatever it takes: There’s a reason shamans worldwide all did the same damn thing—tuned the nervous system to get in touch with the source. And yet modern society forgot. Even as its physics moved in directions that undermined the very assumptions that society was based on. There’s infinite worlds out there. Infinite spaces beyond this one. And all of it only a vibration away. Sensitives know this. And with the right preparation, anyone can climb those gradients—”

  “I didn’t ask to be here,” says Linehan.

  “That doesn’t matter,” says Control.

  “You’ve got something special planned for me.”

  “You’re not alone in that.”

  “Goddamn it, I’m not Sinclair!”

  “It doesn’t matter”—and as Control says this, Morat sidles toward Linehan, who backs away from the oncoming suit.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “We need what’s in your brain.”

  “I don’t know anything!”

  “You don’t have to,” says Control. “Not when you’ve still got the files that Autumn Rain stashed on you back in Hong Kong.”

  “Bullshit,” says Carson.

  “Those were cleaned out of me a long time back,” says Linehan.

  “The surface ones, sure. They thought they’d given you the fake ones. Thought they were just a decoy. And everyone who busted you open thought they’d gotten to the bottom of it. Turns out they just weren’t going far enough. Because the only way to the bottom of what’s planted in your mind is via surgery.”

  “You guys are crazy,” says Linehan.

  “That’s the least of your problems,” says Morat—a buzzsaw emanates from his glove. Linehan keeps on backing up, backs into a corner—finds himself staring at Morat’s implacable visor even as he wonders what the fuck’s really going on, even as he realizes he’s never going to find out—but now Morat suddenly staggers back—

  “We’re under attack,” says Control—turns to Spencer—

  Give me what you’ve got or you are dead.”

  “Ask Sarmax.”

  “Man doesn’t care if he’s alive. You do. Two seconds—”

  “Fine,” says Spencer—beams it all over. Morat and Marlowe’s suits are starting to smoke while they look around wildly—

  “Not looking good,” says Carson.

  “Out of your suit,” Control snarls at Marlowe. He leaps down to Morat, grabs him by the head—

  “What are you doing?” yells Morat.

  “Can’t have you turned against me.”

  “For the love of God,” says Morat—but Control’s already tearing at Morat’s head, ripping it off, tossing it past Haskell. What’s left of Morat’s smoking chassis flares out. Marlowe is climbing out of his suit, wearing the look of a man who’s glad he still has a body. He grabs a weapon from a rack on his suit’s leg—an automatic rifle—and points it at the others arrayed about.

  “Everyone stay where you are,” he yells.

  Control leaps past him, lands in front of Spencer—who’s wondering how he’s going to get out of this one. The razor looks up into that visor-that’s-no-visor, sees no mercy.

  “Don’t do it,” he says anyway.

  “Got to narrow it down,” says Control—fires—

  —everything winking out in one flashing photonegative of this moment superimposed against all he’s ever known, all he ever might have, all memories bound up in a single moment and past that moment is the Room itself receding from him at relentless speeds, collapsing away to reveal itself as a single fragment of a woman’s face—

  —Spencer’s head explodes in a shower of brain; Control’s already whirling toward Linehan, who starts to dive to the right—but Jarvin’s leaping in at Control—flinging his body across several meters in less than a second—a move Linehan’s never seen a human make outside of armor—and now Jarvin is clinging to the back of Control, screaming at him and tearing at him while Control struggles to shake him off. Sparks are flying everywhere. Marlowe moves in, trying to get a shot off—trying to line Jarvin up with the rifle—and then Marlowe grunts and topples, a dart sticking from his back—line of sight in the direction of—

  “Leo?” says Carson.

  “Watch out!” yells Sarmax—

  —as Control’s suit goes crazy, gyros propelling it against a wall and then bouncing back toward the Operative, who hurls himself aside, hearing Jarvin cursing Control for traitor and ingrate and Control begging Jarvin not to absorb his mind, and the Operative realizes in that moment that Control hasn’t a chance—that none of them do—and the blood of Spencer drips down past Haskell’s face and the body of Marlowe floats above them and the man who isn’t really Alek Jarvin smashes Control against another wall with a force that sends parts flying, some kind of machine howl filling all their heads as the consciousness of a full-fledged quantum computer starts getting absorbed by something else altogether—

  “Let’s get out of here,” says Lynx.

  “Nowhere to run,” says Sarmax.

  Jarvin tosses what’s left of Control aside.

  And looks at them like he’s sizing up his prey—

  “Easy,” says Carson. Linehan’s jaw drops open as Jarvin’s face just—shimmers, the molded software that covers it switching off, peeling back to reveal another face—a smile that he recognizes from newsvid—

  “Welcome to the endgame,” says Matthew Sinclair.

  Fuck,” says the Operative.

  Sinclair’s smile broadens. “Good to see you too.”

  “You fucking bastard.”

  “I’ll be the first to admit it’s been a long, strange trip.”

  “What the fuck have you become, Matthew?”

  “Ask him,” says Sinclair—gestures at Linehan.

  And now they’re all looking at him again; one in particular, and it’s all Linehan can do not to wilt before the gaze of the thing that’s not even vaguely human …

  “You … ate Control,” he says.

  Sinclair shrugs. “In point of fact, I’m still doing that.”

  “Fucking digesting him,” mutters Lynx.

  “It’ll take a few minutes,” says Sinclair. He looks around. “Thanks for the assist, Leo.”

  “Not like I knew who I was assisting,” says Sarmax.

  “Not like it really matters. And the rest of you can forget about whatever dick-ass weaponry you’ve still got.”

  “When did you replace Jarvin?” asks Lynx.

  “Long before he could do any damage.”

  So there was a Jarvin?” says the Operative.

  “Yes,” says Sinclair. “And he really did steal my files.”

  “That’s why he died,” says Lynx.

  Sinclair looks amused. “Raise your thinking,” he says. “There is no why. There just is.”

  “That’s what Control was just saying,” says Sarmax.

  “My only student worth the name.”

  “Other than Claire,” says Lynx.

  “Claire’s no student.” Sinclair points toward her. “Look at that face. Look at those eyes. Enough to make even Carson lose his way—”

  “God damn you,” says the Operative.

  “That would be tough,” says Sinclair.

  “You’ve been playing us the wh
ole time,” says Sarmax. “You needed us to make it in here.”

  “Another of these funny words,” says Sinclair. “Need’s right up there with why. There was a pattern involving all of us. And all I’ve been doing these past few days is—”

  “Steer,” says the Operative.

  Sinclair smiles. “Quantum decoherence necessitates the splitting-off of world-lines. Every time anyone makes a choice—every time a particle goes down one of two paths—the universe divides anew. Every time. All the other interpretations of quantum mechanics were just desperate attempts to explain away the problem by those who couldn’t accept the idea they weren’t the center of some single existence. Meaning the real question is how to exploit existence’s true nature. Once Deutsch refined Feynman’s quantum computer concept to postulate a machine that computes across multiple universes—that contains more calculations than any one universe—the road ahead was clear.”

  “Clear as mud,” says Sarmax. “This is about a lot more than just a rogue quantum comp—”

  “Of course.” Sinclair moves over to where Sarmax is looking up at him. He looks down at Indigo—”

  “We can bring her back, you know,” he says quietly.

  Bullshit,” whispers Sarmax. But he feels hope rise within him even so—”

  “Or the next best thing,” says Sinclair. “Plucked from another world with almost the same memories. Albeit perhaps a slightly different set of loyalties. But she’d be as real to you as—”

  “But what about the other Sarmax?” asks Lynx.

  “What?” says Sarmax.

  “Your evil twin,” says Lynx. “Some poor fuck who would just end up missing her as much as you ever did—”

  “Shut up,” says Sarmax.

  “To be sure,” says Sinclair. “The tyranny of randomness—some of you live with her, some of you live without. We’re all just specks caught in the blast of fate—”

  “Except for you,” says Carson.

  “The advantage of the first-mover.” Sinclair laughs at his own joke, but no one else seems to be in the mood. “Once someone is able to tune his mind into other realities, he’s no longer confined to a single universe. That’s when the game gets interesting.”

  “He breaks out into the multiverse,” says Lynx.

  Sinclair gazes at him. “And there you go thinking too small again.”