Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  — There's not much to do here, God knows. If things were in good order, they wouldn't need me. But things aren't in good order. Things are fucked. I'm sure you must have noticed that half our equipment is outdated, and the other half's hung together with paper clips. McGlowrie reached down beside the chair, groped for his bottle, failed to snag it. That said, the pressure doesn't arise from living on the doorstep of hell. It arises from knowing the job's irrelevant. The mine runs itself. Our function is to observe, to file reports that will doubtless be misfiled, to do some repairs, to make suggestions that will be ignored, and to perform a few simple tasks … like the one we're performing today.

  —Replacing the command-control's a simple task? I'd call it our central task.

  McGlowrie shrugged. Call it what you like, all we do is tow the bitch out and reposition her. Every so often the old AI decides it doesn't want to be shut down. When that happens, some of us die. But it inevitably shuts down. It can't escape its programming and commits suicide. The loss of human life, now. That's not a major complication. And there's the real source of the pressure. Out in the world you hear people saying that mankind's in a state of peril. We've become an impediment to the planet's survival. Here, you feel the full weight of that pronouncement. You realize all we're doing as a species is busy work. Waiting for the final collapse in whatever form it comes. Maybe prolonging things a little. So try a shot of that every day for a year, then get back to me about my drinking. If you last that long.

  Bromley appeared to be bursting to speak, but he restrained himself. After a passage of ten or fifteen seconds, he said, Is that all? Can I go?

  —Oh yeah, said McGlowrie. I've had my fill.

  · · · · ·

  In all the grunt and swagger of his life, days weeks months wadded up and pitched away like grease rags into a bin of years, McGlowerie had not found much use for any pastime that did not have at its heart a spirit of raw functionality. He had climbed a steep slope up from the slums of the Northeastern Corridor (an urban area extending from Boston south to DC and west to Pittsburgh), achieving a rare upward mobility for someone of his class, and thus he was by nature diligent and arrogant. By profession, he was a tender of machines—machines that had grown increasingly complex as he progressed from youth into his fiftieth year—and he believed a man should dedicate himself to his trade, toil at it until he dropped, a principle given objective form by his father, who had keeled over at the age of eighty-four while repairing a toaster. Like his father, he measured happiness by the amount of work there was for him, and, when given charge over pit operations at the Emperor, ten thousand square miles carved from the Alaskan wilderness, a vast strip mine filled with machines of every shape, capacity, and dimension, it seemed he had happened upon his Shangri-la. Looking down each day into the bleak heart of work, the endless labors of the machines had opened him to abstraction and exposed a slim vein of poetry in his soul.

  His initial tour of the mine horrified him. He was appalled by the sight of the twisted trees and cancerous grasses that sprouted along the rim of the pit, struggling to process metals from the poisoned soil. He was repelled by the greasy rain that fell from a constant cover of noxious, bilious-looking clouds, and even more repelled when he understood the damage it could do to one's skin. The pit was an expanding canyon system with five-hundred-foot-high walls that slumped into hills of talus. Scattered about were beaches of blue and red and green oxides, and banks of sulphur, their colors dimmed by the dense particulate haze that muddied the air. Here and there were silvery lakes of mercury and tungsten, edged with black foam, from which robotic spiders—skittering on mesh feet that barely disturbed the surface—extracted rare metals and then excreted squirts of indium, osmium, and such along the shore, there to be collected by larger machines. In every quarter of the mine, foundering amid piles of debris, were gutted, rusted hulks that had been cannibalized for parts, their exoskeletons left to corrode and collapse, serving as monuments to the Emperor's infernal system. The environment was thronged with machines, many with replacement parts and improvements grafted onto them. It seemed that every inch of the place was jerking, churning, jittering, making it all but impossible for the eye to find a secure purchase. Crushers, spreaders, smelters; mammoth excavators and reclaimers dating from the last century, when machines had been operated by men; recyclers, ore carriers, HKs (hunter-killers), sniffers, and countless more that ranged in size from that of a housepet to the microscopic. The stationary units, such as the command-control AI and the factory units they were towing—fifty feet high and three times as long—were shrouded in thick gray dust, except when they were engaged in fabricating the machines that populated the pit; and various of the mobile units were so bizarre in design, they brought to mind the nightmarish fantasies of Hieronymous Bosch, an artist unfamiliar to McGlowrie when he had arrived, but whom he had since come to appreciate.

  Among the many varieties of carriers were flat metal beds to which six or more double-jointed legs were attached, each leg terminating in a claw hand capable of squeezing projections and gripping cracks. They would emerge from the murk with a sofa-sized lump of gold, say, clamped to their backs by steel bands, and climb the pit wall toward railheads near the rim; sometimes these carriers traveled together, and you might see what appeared to be a herd of aluminum or silver or uranium loping along in close order. When one of them fell, as frequently they did, hunter-killers—wolf-sized predator machines with jointed bodies and flexible treads, plasma torches in their bellies, and powerful robotic arms capable of pinning their victim—would descend upon the cripple and neatly cut it into pieces. It was after witnessing a slaughter of this sort, during a time when he had been stranded out in the pit, himself exposed to its savagery, that McGlowerie's attitude toward the mine underwent a sea change. From perceiving himself to be the overlord of some hellish region, he came to view the Emperor as a machine Serengeti over which he had been appointed warden.

  This transition involved some considerable philosophical adjustment. Though a relative handful of crackpots still adhered to the cause, environmentalism had run its course as a viable political stance; nonetheless, there was a human reflex that went contrary to places like the Emperor, and, more to the point, there was a general fear of machine evolution, one fueled by media representations of demonic machines dedicated to the destruction of humanity. McGlowerie was not immune to those fears, but after several years of duty on the front lines of the conflict, he was convinced that mankind was capable of blasting, bombing, or otherwise subduing any machine threat should the need arise. And if he were wrong, if some cybernetic mastermind were to devil its way into a crucial system and bring down what was left of civilization … well, he might take it personally as regarded his life and those of his friends, but he was not about to get all species-ist about it. With a population of ten billion, the vast majority of them impoverished, a considerable number of those enduring life-threatening poverty dwelling in the ICUs (Inter-City Urban areas), slums that would have made Charles Dickens gasp, lawless but for the feeble infrastructures maintained by gangs and street churches, and a wealthy minority satisfied to cling to their creature comforts in the face of global warming, famine, pestilence, and whatever terror-of-the-day came to the fore—you didn't get a lot of talk anymore about the nobility of the human spirit and the destiny of mankind. The basic conversation had been reduced to: how much longer we can hang on? McGlowrie had learned to focus on his work, to be passionate about it, and thus achieved a simple resolution to an old and complicated question: You did what you had to, you loved what you did, and you didn't permit yourself to get involved with existential stupidities that caused you doubt.

  · · · · ·

  At mid-afternoon, a storm swept in from the mountains to the west, clouds fuming black as battlesmoke among the snow peaks, and by dusk it had completely shrouded the Emperor. Lightning twigged the sky, striking down into the pit, flashes illuminating machines that moved beyond the range of the rov
er's headlights. McGlowerie knocked the electrical systems offline and dropped into his chair to watch the show, staring out through the grizzled ghost of his reflection, made ghoulish by red emergency lights. Warning buzzers sounded as the factory units behind the rover shut down, settling on their treads; the intercom squawked and Saddler, who was down in the galley, asked, Hey, Mac! What's going on?

  —We'll be sitting for a while. Too much electrical activity, said McGlowerie. Everything okay down there?

  A burst of static issued from the com, which McGlowerie took for an affirmation.

  —The others asleep? he asked.

  —Denise is. I think Bromley's watching a porno.

  —He's a growing boy, said McGlowerie.

  Thirty yards ahead, the eerie blue-green radiance of St. Elmo's Fire sketched the carcass of a gutted ore crusher, a dinosaur of a machine with crude stitchings of bolts across its massive steel plates.

  —How far to the site? Saddler asked.

  —Once the storm passes, about a hour.

  A pattering on the glass.

  Several dozen fliers had attached themselves to the window. Storms often drove the smaller machines to seek shelter in the lee of the biggest, but McGlowrie had never before seen fliers like these. Reddish brown splinters about a centimeter long, with a vibrating wire protruding from each.

  —Want me to bring you up a sandwich? asked Saddler.

  —I'm not hungry,

  —You need something to soak up the alcohol. I got turkey, cranberry relish, lettuce …

  —All right. Thanks. No mayo, huh?

  McGlowerie dialed the magnification of the glass higher, so that the image of a single flier dominated the windshield. He studied it, stored the image in the computer, made a note, and returned the glass to normal. When Saddler, a tall, melancholy Brit with a stubbly scalp, brought the sandwich, he noticed the fliers—there were more of them now—and asked what they were.

  —A new type of diagnostic unit, maybe, McGlowerie said. I don't know.

  —They look more like sniffers to me, said Saddler after brief study. That wire could be a bonded strip of nano-machinery.

  —Persons'll figure it out when we get back to base.

  —Didn't you do a scan?

  —Not yet. McGlowrie lifted top of his sandwich and inspected the fixings. Fuck! I told you no mayo.

  —Did I put mayo on it? Saddler grinned.

  —You fucking slathered it on. Jesus! It's inedible. Fix me another.

  —Fix it yourself, you rude bastard!

  McGlowrie stared at him through lowered brows and Saddler said, Holy Christ! It's the look! When might I expect my brain to start frying?

  —Ah hell, said McGlowrie. I want to check in with Denise, anyway. Cover for me awhile, okay?

  —How long?

  —Twenty, thirty minutes. McGlowrie winked. Significantly less if she's too sleepy.

  Saddler said, No problem.

  McGlowrie winced as he stood, an old back injury tweaked, and more of the fliers struck the glass, making a sound like hail. They were distributed so thickly across the windshield, in Escheresque profusion, they almost obscured the view.

  —Shouldn't you clear them away? asked Saddler, peering more closely at the fliers.

  —Zap 'em if you want. They'll just return once they recover. They're more frightened of the lightning than anything we can do. McGlowerie opened the hatch and stepped through. If I'm not back in … let's say, forty minutes, give me a buzz.

  —Is this a crack? Saddler poked the windshield with his index finger at the exact instant it exploded inward.

  McGlowrie ducked, wrangling the hatch door shut, and had a dervish glimpse of Saddler beginning to fall in a storm of fliers and flying glass, his head engulfed in a red mist; he caught a whiff of burning metal and heard the sound of the pit—clangs and grinding noises embedded in a background roar, loud as a rock concert. The emergency alarm began to bleat. He punched the intercom in the corridor and, knowing it was useless, called out to Saddler. A deranged crackling issued from the speaker. He swung down the narrow stairway to the living quarters. Denise, a lean, buzzcut brunette in panties and an old T-shirt, her fey good looks starting to display the erosions of age, stood halfway out her door, shock written on her face.

  —Get your armor on! McGlowrie told her. And clean out the galley. All the food you can find. I'll take care of the water.

  —You're bleeding, she said in a dazed voice, and made to touch his forehead. He pushed her hand away, restated his order in a shout, and shouldered open the door to Bromley's cabin. Bromley, too, registered shock, but he was already wearing his protective suit, all except the helmet.

  —Directly ahead of the rover, about a hundred feet, McGlowrie said, there's an old wreck. An ore crusher. You and Denise wait for me there.

  —What're you going to do?

  —Boot up the AI in command-control. Wait for me as long as you feel safe. Take your cues from Denise.

  —I'll go with you.

  Furious, McGlowrie grabbed the collar ring of Bromley's armor and hauled him face-to-face. This is not subject to debate. Get your helmet on and do what I say. All right?

  Bromley nodded.

  —Once we're outside, if you even hesitate to follow orders, you become a liability. You understand?

  —Yes.

  —Then put on your fucking helmet!

  In his cabin, as he threw on his gear, McGlowrie was plagued by the thought that he shared in the responsibility for Saddler's death, that if he hadn't been so casual in his response to the fliers, if he had done a scan or transmitted an image back to base, if he'd taken normal precautions … but he was too busy to indulge in guilt. He hitched a pack of micro-tools to his belt, slipped a sidearm and extra clips of ammunition into a vented pocket at his thigh. Collecting his helmet, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sink. Several pieces of glass were embedded in his forehead. The blood trickled down both sides of his nose, followed the tracks of the deeply scored lines bracketing his mouth, painting the semblance of a savage mask. He hadn't felt them, but now they began to sting. He managed to remove one of the glass fragments, but the process was taking too long. He turned toward the door and found it blocked by Bromley, still helmetless, aiming a gun at his head.

  —For the Earth! shouted Bromley, and McGlowrie, stunned, did not at first comprehend what the words signified. Bromley tensed, his jaw muscles bunched as he prepared to fire. His determined expression gave way to one of concern. The repetitive buzz of the emergency alarm emphasized the silence that stretched between the men.

  —The average survival time out in the pit is slightly less than an hour, McGlowrie said. I've survived it for more than three days.

  —Shut up!

  —I had to drink the iodine milkshake afterward to flush out the poisons, but I made it. I'm good with machines. What's more, I'm lucky with them. You don't want to kill me.

  —I said shut up! Bromley's voice was almost a scream.

  —You can take your choice. Arsenic poisoning … there's a fun death. Or maybe you'll contract one of those exotic infections that affect the central nervous system. Maybe you'll simply go mad from the metals accumulating in your brain. That's, of course, assuming the HKs don't rip you apart. Which is a very large assumption.

  Bromley's gun arm straightened, then relaxed. The barrel of his weapon drifted to the side.

  —Phil Tatapu, said McGlowrie. Big old Samoan kid. He went outside to inspect the treads on the factory units. Two HKs hit him at once. We had the cameras on him, naturally. It was a hell of a thing. They pulled his arms off, like you'd tear off a drumstick, and waved them about. They couldn't understand why they'd come off so easily. Phil's suit had sealed around the wounds and he wasn't conscious, but he was still alive. When they began cutting into him, it woke him right up.

  —I … I … let me think, said Bromley, and then his eyes rolled up and he sagged to the floor. Denise stood at his back, just b
eyond the door, dressed in her armor, holding a fire extinguisher in both hands.

  —Earth, my ass! McGlowrie kicked Bromley in the side.

  —What's he … crazy? Denise asked.

  —I think he's Green. Same fucking difference.

  Kneeling beside Bromley, McGlowrie felt for a pulse. Still thumping away. He typed an instruction on the forearm keypad of Bromley's suit—the flexible plastic of the suit hardened into an exoskeleton.

  —Here, he said. Help me get him up.

  Denise grabbed Bromley under one arm and together they wrestled him to his feet and propped him against a wall. The back of his head was bloody.

  McGlowrie unclipped a remote from Bromley's breast pocket and passed it to Denise. I ought to leave him, but I want to hear what he has to say. Can you walk him out?

  —If I have to. She touched a switch on the remote; Bromley's arm lifted, then lowered. This was sabotage?

  —Maybe … Probably.

  Bromley moaned.

  —There's a wrecked crusher up ahead, said McGlowrie. Wait for me there. If you run into any trouble, don't put yourself at worse risk. Lose him.

  —Where's Saddler?

  McGlowrie shook his head and said, No.

  Denise's chin quivered.

  —We'll be okay, said McGlowrie. You've got my luck working for you. And there's always Plan B, right?

  She crooked an arm around his neck, drew him down so their heads were together, her mouth by his ear, and held him like that for a few ticks. She kissed him on the mouth, not a gentle kiss, but one with plenty of tongue that slowed everything down and stirred his cock. When she broke from the kiss, she stepped to Bromley's bunk and retrieved his helmet. She stood a moment, staring down at the helmet. In that pose, she looked almost childlike. Sprite With Plastic Jug. She turned to him. Her smile seemed jerked into shape, but she managed to pull off a cheerful face.

  —See you later, she said.

  · · · · ·