Exodus

by Alex Lamb

  Nada plucked away the lice repairing her damaged cheeks and spoke.

  ‘I am conflicted,’ she said quietly. The events of the past few hours had left her exhausted and hoarse. ‘Strategy alignment is required. You must assist. Contemplation of the data acquired from this system has filled me with irrelevant sensations of sadness and existential horror.’

  She paused. Her subunits waited for her to continue. Leng stared dolefully into the wall-mucus. Zilch trembled like a palsied limb.

  ‘The Total Peace that a homeworld offers lasts for ever,’ she said. ‘Units consume the fruit manufactured by the homeworld and witness its bounty. The shared joy they experience contributes to the homeworld’s processing. Homeworlds and units persist in harmony. This cycle of happiness is the guarantee of the Founder Entity. The existence of a mature homeworld that has successfully embraced its child species but is not in Total Peace appears to refute the Founder’s promise, which is impossible and disgusting. What, then, has happened here?’

  ‘I lack a complete explanation,’ said Leng. ‘I concur that the current stimuli are repugnant. However, I now feel confident that the humans did not cause the decay of this home. The surface samples we were able to obtain prior to atmospheric devastation suggest a mutagenic timeline measured in millennia. Our quarry is not responsible. They have no new weapon.’

  ‘I concur,’ said Nada. ‘This was my assessment also. But this makes it worse. How can we ever relax into the peace we deserve when we know that this can happen?’

  ‘Remember that there is much about the observed scenario that we do not yet understand,’ said Leng, his voice becoming a whine. ‘It is possible that this world may have been happily united for millions of years prior to the onset of Fatigue. It may be that the brilliance of their shared joy was such that the planet was no longer required. The happy entities existing here may have been uplifted to some different, more Founder-like format. If they had access to the Founder Entity, who knows what secrets he may have revealed? Despite appearances, this might be the remains of a glad event, not a tragic one.’

  She stared at Leng’s floating body and felt an unexpected warmth towards him. Sadly, her head remained stewed with unwelcome questions. She was Photurian. She had no use for empty existential meanderings. They had a species to save. And yet she found herself wondering which side of the Zone her own homeworld had been spawned from. If the Founders had originated on this side, there might be other homes for them to visit. But if this was what they looked like, there’d be little joy in it.

  ‘A delightful concept,’ she said. ‘I wish to adopt it. However, consider this: our consensus has long been that the Transcended race which interacted with humanity represents an obsolete and defunct authority in the galaxy. Our kind is independent of origin species and thus immune to Transcended manipulation. We therefore represent a superior form of life. What we see here bears out that theory but also fuels concern. What if Fatigue is another weapon of Transcended control, wielded against us just as the suntap flares are wielded against lesser species? Instead of using suntaps to exert influence, perhaps they use criminal mutants like the hated Monet. What if they are using his ilk to poison our beautiful homes, and lesser species as pawns in their game?’

  ‘I cannot rule out this hypothesis,’ said Leng.

  ‘Enough,’ Zilch blurted. ‘We need more data before any viable model can be constructed. Until then, we must consider all joyless musing a dangerous habit to be suppressed. We must remain strong and pragmatic at all costs. It is better to focus on what must be done than these—’ His body arched as another wave of anxious energy poured through him. ‘Obscenities!’ he roared. ‘Obscen—’

  She reached into his mind to help him stabilise his vision.

  ‘This focus must be reinforced by communion,’ he continued. ‘Superior Nada, you must take action in this regard.’

  He was right. Nada knew it and felt grateful for his bluntness.

  ‘Accepted,’ she said. ‘Next point. We have a choice. The biology of this world has degraded but it retains a habitat skeleton amenable to reuse. There are also research findings to be explored in the outer system. We therefore have the strategic option of returning through the Flaw to inform the Yunus, despite the implied failure. We must consider it. I solicit opinions.’

  ‘I have never felt such clarity of purpose,’ said Zilch, breathing hard. ‘My joy at being Photurian and my hunger for closure in the quest to destroy the Abomination are effectively fused at this juncture. I want to personally save the crew of the GSS Edmond Dantes and wake them to love, so they can understand just how foolish they have been. If that is not possible, I would like to burn them alive. My subunits are already charting their exit vector.’

  Nada smiled and felt a shared happiness at that response. Zilch had become impressively strong in the face of adversity. She swivelled her head back to observe Leng.

  ‘A return trip would be risky and slow,’ he said. ‘Furthermore, the news we would return with is sad. Degraded homeworlds are not good for morale and therefore risk accelerating Fatigue. Studying the alien detritus may produce military benefits but the psychological impact of our central finding is likely to offset them. Your own uncharacteristic neural activity serves as proof.’

  ‘You both recommend continued pursuit, then?’ said Nada.

  Both her reports nodded. Nada felt another blast of curiously deep kinship towards them.

  ‘Then we have alignment,’ she said, with relief.

  ‘Despite initial discomfort, I am glad that events have occurred in this fashion,’ said Leng. ‘We have seen and done things that make me feel deep union with the units in this fleet. I would not have experienced this without your enforced direction.’

  ‘I concur,’ said Zilch. ‘The swift delight of following simple orders has been absent from this endeavour. However, the perverse satisfaction of solving arduous tactical problems has compensated. We are stronger now. I believe that despite the unevenness of our joy, we are further from Fatigue than any Photurians in the Utopia.’

  Nada found a broad, human smile on her face. She wiped it off, though a thrumming feeling of closeness remained.

  ‘It is decided, then,’ she told them. ‘Zilch, relate this consensus to your subnodes in the fleet. We will head onwards as rapidly as possible and either rescue or obliterate the GSS Edmond Dantes as circumstance permits.’

  11: FALTERING

  11.1: WILL

  After Smiley left, Will wandered the angst-infused chambers of his own past while his mind churned over what the other Glitch had told him. When he could stand it no longer, he exited soft-space and found himself in yet another habitat-tunnel, this one full of swaying purple horsehairs six metres tall that rattled like bamboo.

  ‘I found forty-seven,’ he told Moneko.

  She’d arrived in the transit-grave next to his, dressed in a flowing gown. Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be anyone close by this time.

  ‘That’s awesome!’ she said brightly, then noticed the woodenness of his smile. ‘Did it feel a bit pointless?’ she asked.

  Will nodded. ‘A bit.’

  ‘Don’t worry, that’s normal. We sent you to an easy site this time on purpose. It’ll get more interesting, I promise. But one day with no adventure has to be a good thing, right?’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Will.

  He saw her watching him and knew he’d not quite sold her on his enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he chose not to say more. For the rest of the trip home, he stuck to safe topics: the details of his findings and questions about diving. He felt uncomfortable keeping secrets from Moneko, but if Smiley was right, he couldn’t let her know that he doubted the Underground’s intentions, even if he decided to trust her personally. He saw no choice but to keep the truth to himself until he’d gained a little more knowledge.

  The following day, Moneko asked him to dive again.

  ‘I have another axiom site for you,’ she said. ‘If you’re up for it
. It’s around the idea that we’ve been here for ever. The access point is a little further from the target memories so you’ll have to search around, but it should be doable. Sound okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Will blandly. ‘Why not?’

  When she led him down the hill on their bicycles, Will had to bite his tongue to not ask about mesh sites. She noted his silence.

  ‘You’re in a funny mood today,’ she said.

  ‘Still getting used to all this,’ he told her. ‘It’s not an easy world to like.’

  ‘Fair point,’ she said. ‘It grows on you, though, if you let it.’

  She took him via the Carnevale to a science-aggregator site in soft-space where research clones from all over the Willworld pooled information about Snakepit’s geology. The place looked more like Will’s old memory of Snakepit’s virtual presence than anything he’d seen so far. Long museum aisles with glass-fronted cabinets and chequered floor tiles stretched into the distance. Each cabinet contained a research result with diagrams and videos that played in real-time when you glanced at them. Wills in tweed hoodies strode this way and that followed by clouds of little research SAPs like anxious fireflies.

  Within seconds of arriving, Will learned that covering Snakepit’s continental shelves with a thick layer of habitat-tubes had played merry havoc with the normal order of plate tectonics. He’d have lingered to find out more but Moneko led him to a room off the main thoroughfare where they kept projects that had been shelved for future study due to lack of interest. There were thousands, all iconified and tucked away in alcoves. The room looked like a refuge for unloved snow globes.

  This time, Will smelled the secret entrance before he reached it. It reeked, rather incongruously, of plastic furniture. Moneko opened a wall at the back. In the Underlayer beyond lay a Galatean commuter train he’d once been stuck in for several hours.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ she told him. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you, Cuthbert. I know none of this is easy.’

  She tucked her handkerchief into his doublet as usual and then let the portal swing shut. It occurred to Will as he gazed out at the butter-coloured scree beyond the train’s curving windows that the handkerchief probably doubled as a tracking device.

  He asked himself if he cared and for a moment doubted what he was about to do. But if Smiley was wrong, as he hoped, he could just go back to trusting the Underground. His confidence might even gain a boost. Will examined the memory landscape until he found an anchor, then concealed Moneko’s handkerchief alongside it. That way, he’d be able to find it later.

  With the suntap’s hiding place restored, Will went looking for the surface of the Underlayer where it butted up against the edges of normal soft-space. It didn’t take him long to find it. He simply reversed the technique that had led him down to the suntap chamber on his first dive. After a brief wander around the less-impressive moments of his personal history, he found himself sliding into another room at the back of the science library.

  Will paused on the threshold to scan the space. Given the stealthware he still wore, the only person who could see him now was presumably Moneko. However, there was a chance she’d be scouting the library in case he resurfaced. Will waited until he was certain the coast was clear and then walked quickly to the nearest bank of search doors.

  He jumped to the Mettaburg soft-station feeling nervous and dishonest. From there, he headed out into the mesh and started hunting for the pavilion that Smiley had mentioned. It was right where he’d said it would be. Artistic Temperaments R Us was scrawled above the doorway in large, spidery letters, ending with a jagged, unnecessary flourish.

  Will stepped inside. The interior of the pavilion had soft grey walls lined with black and white photographs. They depicted clones of him in various poses suggesting poetic turmoil. Here was Will hunched dramatically at a writing desk with data stylus in hand. There was another poised in front of a canvas, engaged in the act of wildly reformatting a painting. The pictures were as moody as their content was ridiculous.

  In the centre of the space was a small wooden table with a bell sitting on it and a plaque that read Ring for service. Set into the back wall of the pavilion was an incongruously solid wooden door.

  Will idly examined the row of pictures and wondered how long he was prepared to wait. As it happened, John strode through the wooden door five minutes later, dressed in his trademark black coat. Beyond the opening, Will could make out a bland virtual office with stacks of icons hovering up against window-walls and a fake ocean view.

  John strode into the mesh without a backwards glance. Will followed. It was almost too easy, he thought. Was he even following the right John or just a clone with an identical appearance? In the Willworld, how could you ever tell? He ignored his misgivings. He’d give Smiley’s notions exactly one experimental run before taking anything else the Glitch said at face value.

  John used the Mettaburg Station to make a search. Will didn’t catch his words but managed to slip into the corridor behind him before the door slid shut. As he stood there, inches away from his unsuspecting variant, he started to wonder why such apparently good stealthware even existed in the Willworld. What was this stuff used for when the Underground wasn’t borrowing it? The society Will had built appeared to have remarkably lax security given some of the secrets it harboured.

  John took an exit near the end of the corridor that opened into a nightclub. As Will stepped through after him, he flinched from the onslaught of noise. The space on the other side was packed with bodies, a racket loosely approximating music and hellish flashing lights. Steel stalactites loomed overhead. John pressed himself into the crowd.

  Will worried about the effectiveness of his stealthware under such intimate conditions but the revellers let him squeeze by without so much as a glance in his direction. As he struggled to keep pace with John, he passed a huge open room where two hyena-headed Wills were fighting in a cage. Open wounds gaped on their chests where razor claws had ripped holes. Around the walls, on small stages, female Wills pole-danced. None of them had eyes.

  Will stumbled to a halt. His jaw sagged open at the revolting sight. Clones dressed like Earther troops from the Interstellar War egged the cage-fighters on with yells barely audible over the deafening music. Will had no doubt what he was looking at – John had brought him to a den full of Cancer.

  He belatedly noticed that his quarry was almost out of sight and forced himself onwards. His brow furrowed, a sick sense of anger boiling inside him as he struggled to catch up.

  He passed another room crowded with people shouting and hooting at what looked like multiple gang rapes in progress. Will fought back nausea, furious in the pit of his gut, and hurried past. In every direction he looked, some form of depravity was taking place. He passed a clone bleeding on the floor while four others cheerfully kicked it.

  It astonished him that some versions of himself had sunk so low. It hurt inside – shame as a form of physical pain. He fought back the desperate temptation to reach through the soft-space to end all of it. He knew that if he did, the jig would be up. His chance to follow John undetected would vanish. And now he wanted to know what was going on more than ever. After that, he could come back here and yank every thread in the site.

  John disappeared around a corner. Will followed, elbowing his way through the oblivious revellers, and found himself staring down a short passageway with no one in it. He suffered a moment’s panic and strode quickly along the passage, testing the walls. His hand went straight through the panelling at the end as if it was made of soft mud.

  Will didn’t hesitate. He threw himself against the wall. On the other side lay a heavy, blessed silence. Will gasped in relief and then froze as he recognised the corridor he stood in. It belonged to the orbital prison where the Truists had kept him during the war. His fury came back, pressing against the inside of his skull like water behind a dam. He caught sight of John walking swiftly away, his footfalls echoing. Will focused on that in
stead.

  On either side, repeated dozens of times over, were copies of the cell where the High Church had tortured him. All were empty, save for the same exact chair they’d bound him to for ‘religious education’. Will’s breath started coming in heaves.

  John took a left turn into one of the cells. Will entered behind him unseen like the angel of death. A Truist monk like one of the others Will had encountered with Moneko was sitting there. He rose as John entered and lowered his cowl. As he did so, his face melted from Will’s features into John’s. Will’s new SAP-talents made it clear what he was seeing. A virtual screen had just been drawn aside, revealing one thread hiding inside the husk of another – a Cancer trick just like the one Moneko had described.

  ‘How’s it going?’ said John. ‘What kind of coverage are you getting?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said the monk. ‘We’re at about twelve per cent. I’d love it to be faster, but progress is solid.’

  ‘Any wrinkles I can help with?’

  The monk smirked. ‘Other than the obvious, no. But that’s work enough.’

  Will wondered what the hell they were talking about.

  John reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a wedge of improbably large physical bills. Will could guess what he was looking at: a stack of favours.

  ‘This should handle any other problems you encounter,’ said John.

  ‘Are they clean?’

  ‘Of course.’ John laughed. ‘Faultless and innocent, as you’d expect. Very recently washed. Don’t you trust me?’

  They both had a good laugh at that. John slapped the monk on the shoulder and wished him good luck before heading back the way he’d come.

  Was John colluding with the monks? Were the monks actually copies of John? Either way, the exchange stank. Will contemplated ending them both. Instead, he stuck close to John while righteous wrath boiled inside him like a lightning storm, tailing him all the way back to the pavilion from whence he came.