Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two
Page 48
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Voices issued from the room where McGlowrie had left Bromley and Denise. When he came in, Bromley was telling Denise about Peck—she had thrown off the covers and was lying on her side, sweaty and flushed. Her ankle had been set, using pieces of two chair legs and strips of cloth cut from the sheet.
—Before you start yelling at me, said Bromley, she wouldn't take the shot. She wanted to hear what was happening.
McGlowrie hunkered down next to Denise and asked how she was feeling.
—Shitty, she said.
He rubbed her shoulder. We'll deal with it.
—How do you figure? Despite his thinning hair, Bromley looked younger without the baseball cap, like a scrawny baby chick on whom someone had glued a fake beard.
—If the company hasn't sent someone by tomorrow morning, said McGlowrie, Peck has an implant that allows him to survive in the mine. I found a surgical package in the back that delivers the implant.
—You're going to use it on me? Denise didn't like the idea.
—We won't have any choice.
—Bromley says this Peck's all skin and bones … and retarded. I don't want to end up like that.
—The implant processes the metals that get into his system. It'll take care of your infection, and when the company gets us back to Seattle, they'll remove it before it can have a lasting effect. I'm not even sure there'd be any lasting effects once the implant doesn't have any metals to process.
—They're more likely to decide you make a great test subject, said Bromley. They'll have themselves an implant that kept this guy alive in the mine for decades. They might just provide a lot of metal for you to process.
—Then we'll have to persuade them otherwise, said McGlowrie.
Bromley pushed himself back so he could lean against the wall, his knees drawn up. People in the Movement, they've heard all about you, man. They've got this image of you. Michael McGlowrie, Master of the Machines. Know what they call you? The Emperor. Like you're the embodiment of the mine. This scary guy.
Despite himself, McGlowrie was pleased by the title. You see things differently, do you?
—It's not how I see things that's important, said Bromley. It's how the company sees them. I've overheard them talking about you at parties my mom and dad threw. All the vice-presidents and legal people my dad hangs with. That McGlowrie, they'll say. He's one of those clever types who sometimes pops his head out of the shit and scrambles up from the sewer. Sometimes they call you the Emperor, too. But it's demeaning when they say it. It's meant as humor.
—What's your point?
—Just that you don't have as much pull with the company as you think.
—You're saying they don't respect me? said McGlowrie. Ah, that comes as a heavy blow. Jesus Christ! You think I don't know that? I depend on their disrespect. I fucking cultivate it. If I didn't, I'd have been pushing up daisies back in Medford years ago.
—Because otherwise they'd perceive you to be dangerous? They might notice what a menace to their security you've become? That's ridiculous!
—Enough about me, said McGlowrie. Let's talk about Terry Saddler. Remember him?
—Stop it, said Denise.
—Hang on, McGlowerie said; then, to Bromley: You don't get it, do you? You believe...I don't know. What? That we're going to be pals, we're going to come though this with mutual respect?
To McGlowrie's amazement, Bromley's expression betrayed a laughable portion of hurt feelings.
McGlowrie was about to continue, when Denise began hitting him—on the neck, the top of the head, the face.
—What the fuck? he said after he had pinned her arms.
She tried to knee him with her injured leg, cried out in pain, and gave up the struggle.
—What was that about? he asked.
—I want the procedure now!
—Don't be crazy. We should wait.
—You know they're not going to come … not by morning. I don't want to wait. I don't want to have listen to you two bicker when I'm feeling like this.
—It's not bick …
—Whatever you call it, I don't want to hear it! She made eye contact with Bromley and said, Piss off.
Bromley looked at her in confusion.
—Piss off! she repeated. Give us some privacy.
With a display of temper, Bromley got to his feet and beat a noisy retreat.
—What's going on? Denise's face tightened, sweat beaded her brow; the front of her T-shirt, too, was damp with sweat.
—Nothing. What do you mean?
—Why haven't you gotten rid of him? She gestured toward the door.
—He might be useful.
—How's that?
—Something might come up.
She took a breath, held it, released it forcefully through pursed lips. I don't love you, McGlowrie. But I depend on you to be straight with me. We've been together long enough, I know when you're not being straight.
—I love you, he said, feeling slighted.
She pooh-poohed the notion. If I said I loved you, you'd do somersaults to avoid saying it back. But there's a bond between us. You need to tell me what's going on.
—It's complicated. I haven't thought it all through.
She stared expectantly.
—Okay, he said. Peck's carrying two implants. One in his neck that's hooked into his central nervous system. It fucks up the HKs, paralyzes them when he's close by. The implant in his back delivers a powerful anti-oxidant. I'm making an assumption, but that's all it could be, really. And it's got to be the ultimate anti-oxidant, or close to it. Peck breathes the air and shows no ill effects. He drinks rainwater that would kill anybody else in a couple of days, tops. He's got no body fat, but I bet his organs are healthy. He doesn't have any food, so he uses dirt and pit-weeds and batteries for fuel. He gets these sudden cravings and starts throwing that shit down. He's a hundred years old, yet he's got the skin of a middle-aged man.
Denise said, He eats batteries?
—He chews on them.
—Damn. We could make millions selling that diet. She tried a grin, then a look of astonishment washed over her face. My God!
— You see it now? It's kind of a mindfuck, huh?
—There's got to be something … not right. I mean the stuff, the antioxidant, it's got to be messed up. Peck's retarded, right?
—Peck may be low energy, but he's not retarded. He's autistic. You can get him talking if you force him to concentrate. The company's got some great chemists. I assume they can make the antioxidant more user-friendly and get rid of the autism. Even if they can't, autism and eating dirt's preferable to dying of starvation.
—You can't hand this over to the company! Denise caught his arm. They'll make it disappear. They'll kill us.
—Not if we're wearing implants. Like Bromley said, they'll use us as test subjects.
—There's another implant?
He nodded, held up two fingers.
She thought it over. They'd kill us eventually.
—It buys us some time, but yeah … they'd be fools not to. If this is what it appears, an end to famine, affordable longevity, you give it to anyone with the ability to manufacture and distribute, they've got the world by the balls. Anyone with any juice in the ICUs who gets hold of it … The gangs and the churches, they've got their own chemists, and they'd kill us, too. Of course, we have to get out of here before we start worrying about that.
—We have to make a decision now. We have to decide whether to wait for the company or …
—There's a chance they won't send anyone.
… or try Plan B.
They were both silent for a while. Then McGlowrie said, Since you're helping me decide, here's another question. Machines are motivated by self-interest as defined by their programming. The AI knew it was going to terminate itself in a few months. So where's the self-interest in keeping Peck alive beyond that time? Why would the AI leave no record of him? Why would it squirrel him away
here?
—He couldn't signal?
—He wasn't motivated to make his presence known. They would have shot him. And after a while, he adjusted to life here. His autism may be by design—the AI may have realized that if he were autistic, he'd feel secure once he developed a routine he was content with. He wouldn't be interested in breaking the routine for any reason. Want to hear a theory?
—Sure … yeah.
—The AI wanted the implant to get out into the world. It knew the company wouldn't disseminate the information, so it hid Peck away in hopes someone would find him, someone more inclined to disseminate it. It may have programmed Peck to investigate human incursions into the pit. I think that's likely; I doubt he'd expend the energy if he weren't. The AI has our personnel records. It's aware that we all come from the ICUs, and it assumed we'd be more likely to act against pure self-interest and try and get the information out.
—There'd have to be a design flaw in the programming for it to think that way.
—If there weren't design flaws, none of the AI's would try and beat the programming and survive.
Denise appeared to undergo a surge of discomfort, tucking her chin into her chest, her lips thinning, and McGlowrie asked if she wanted a shot.
—Not yet. This is why you're keeping Bromley alive, isn't it? You think his group might help us if we can get out.
—It's one consideration. If any are left, if they didn't all jump into the pit with him. Then there's his father. He might be able to use his influence.
—That's why I love you, McGlowrie. You're extremely competent. You think things through. And you're one lucky son-of-a-bitch, too. She put a hand to his cheek and smiled. Sometimes I think it's more luck with you than anything else.
—I thought you didn't love me.
—Did I say love? It must have been a slip. She adjusted her position and winced. I wish you'd killed him, anyway. Saddler was okay.
After a pause, McGlowerie said, Yeah. He straightened his legs, worked out the kinks. Here's another question to consider. If my theory is correct, why did the AI want to get the implant out into the world?
She gave the question a spin or two and said, Maybe it thought we'd leave it alone if we were all better off.
—It knew it was going to die. To think that way, it'd have to have developed altruism, and have the good of all machines in mind. I've never met an altruistic machine.
—I've never met an altruistic human being.
—There you are, said McGlowrie. The problem in a nutshell.
—God, it's almost like we'd have been better off not knowing about the implant.
—It's exactly like that.
He picked at the cuticle on his thumbnail. Denise stared at the ceiling. Let's do the procedure, she said.
—You don't have to decide right now.
—We don't have time to figure out what the AI had in mind. So we have to decide innocently.
—And?
—Either way, we're probably fucked. So my vote, we try and get the implant out. It's a long shot, but maybe … She shrugged. Who knows?
—Okay.
—Okay? That's it? You're going to let me decide?
—I think things through, you make decisions. That's how we work … how the relationship works.
—This isn't deciding whether we eat out or stay in. This is a pit decision—you always handle pit decisions.
—Not if we're going to decide innocently, it's not. McGlowrie came to his knees. I'll get the implant.
—Wait. Denise took his hand, showing a little fear now that the moment was at hand. What're you going to do while I'm under.
—Make a plan.
She gave his hand a squeeze. Make it a good plan, she said.
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Denise wanted to have a look at Peck before the procedure, so McGlowrie had Bromley bring him into the room and sit him on the floor beside the pallet. Peck spent the first minute avoiding their stares, tugging his dreadlocks down to cover his face. When Denise touched his arm, he flinched away, but eventually she managed to get him to look at her. She propped herself up on an elbow and put her face on a level with his and said, Hey! You in there? Peck lifted his hand to his ear, perhaps to perform that complex ritual gesture he had demonstrated to McGlowrie, but then he let his hand fall and said, Hello. With their heads so close together, they might have been some archetypal pairing. Comedy and Tragedy, Yin and Yang, the Past and the Future. Once Bromley had led Peck away (a struggle, as Peck was clearly excited by Denise, the first woman he had seen in years), McGlowrie gave her a shot, enough to knock her out, but when he placed the implant on her back, after it had shifted about to align itself correctly and extended the winglike sections to full spread, her eyes shot open and she went rigid, every muscle and ligament tensed. He was initially afraid that she had woken up but then understood that the implant had paralyzed her. Before long, he smelled her flesh burning as the implant cauterized the incision that had been opened beneath its gray beetle shape.
In the back room, Bromley was playing Peck's video game. Peck lay on the floor beside him, a hand resting on the plastic carton filled with weeds, chewing placidly, his eyes half-shut. McGlowrie watched them for a time, paced the length of the corridor a time or two, then stationed himself by the outer hatch. He could hear a murmurous roaring from outside. It was hours until morning and he could see nothing through the rectangular port in the hatch aside from flashes of light. He sat down with his back to the wall and picked at the Emperor logo on his T-shirt. He remembered looking up the Tarot card it was copied from, discovering that it represented structure, order and regulation. In situations that are already overcontrolled, the text had read, the Emperor suggests the confining effect of those constraints. He can also stand for an individual father or archetypal Father in his role as guide, protector, and provider.
In McGlowrie's estimation, that pretty much summed up their situation as it related to the company, the world, and the universe. However you redefined yourself, you were ever under the control of a stern little man on a throne, be it your conscience or your king.
He closed his eyes, released a breath, and then set about contriving two plans. The first was simple and eminently practical, yet it bothered him that he would consider it. Kill Bromley and Peck. And Denise. One way or another, she was doomed. This way he could make it painless for her. Obliterate all evidence of Peck's survival, lose the implants, and wait to be rescued. Foolproof. The second plan was more complex, contained myriad variables, and smacked of fantasy.
Bordering the Emperor, beyond the land belonging to the company, were several towns, once small, now grown sufficiently large to accommodate the black market in minerals that had sprung up around the mine. Two of the towns, Ghost Creek and Allamance, were within easy reach, assuming they were able to escape the pit, and there was a man in Ghost Creek, Rocky Alkhazoff, with whom McGlowrie had developed a financial relationship. Assuming they were quick and lucky, Alkhazoff could move them down into the Lower Forty-Eight via the black market's underground systems. Another option would be the wilderness area west of Ghost Creek, where black marketeers kept hideouts and caches of minerals, where he might be able to trade on his skill with machines; but he was loathe to go that route with Denise injured and Peck in tow. One way or another, at that point it became impossible to predict or analyze the variables, though if they could make it to the last stage, McGlowrie knew someone who might be able to protect them.
He had grown up in an ICU which occupied an area south of Trenton known as Jack Raggs, named for a ganglord who had welded together a coalition called the American Kings, consisting of the Irish and Russian mobs, street gangs, and various splinter groups that had controlled a significant portion of the Northeastern Corridor. As a kid, running the streets, doing errands for the Kings, McGlowerie had frequently been put at cross-purposes with Tony Teague, a boy his own age. They'd had more than a few physical confrontations, which neither of them had domina
ted, and wound up friends. They were on the verge of being jumped into the Kings, when it was revealed that Tony's name was Antonio, not Anthony as had been supposed, and his mother, long since dead, had been half-Cuban, thus disqualifying him for initiation. Because of his failure to reveal his heritage in a timely fashion, Tony was judged untrustworthy and forced to flee for his life. McGlowrie had helped him escape, thus placing himself in equal jeopardy and setting him on a path that led to Alaska, while Tony had gone south to Miami, where mixed bloods were acceptable, subsequently rising to the position of warlord with a powerful militant charismatic church, La Fortaleza (the Fortress). McGlowrie couldn't be certain whether or not the coin of friendship had devalued in the years that followed—he'd only had intermittent contact with Tony—but he believed it would buy him the time to see how things stood. That plan had, however, none of the emotional consequences of his first plan. Perhaps he had spent too long in the company of machines, learning their ways, not to consider murder, when necessary, as purely utilitarian, an act of self-preservation (it had been thirty years, after all, since he last acted for any other reason), and too long in Denise's company to do the deed, even in the interests of mercy. He decided it would be safest to prepare for both eventualities and began customizing one of the remotes that controlled suit function.