HUSH

by Craig Robert Saunders

  Anna didn’t back up, but stepped forward, toward the giant metal man.

  ‘I heard you walking,’ she said. ‘Before. A man who walked on steel legs, roaming the Crypt, just like me. You’re not an Aug, are you? Something else?’

  She was ever curious, and not forgetful. This machine, whatever it was, walked with heavy footsteps. Of course it did. Probably weighed as much as one of those houses rich people built in the sky.

  ‘Your team is on the way to the Clerestory for departure. Doctor Skerry?’ he asked. Where Hush’s voice was full, female but feminine, too, Jin’s voice was merely functional – male, but straightforward and somehow more comforting because of it.

  Skerry nodded, composed now.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ said the metal giant.

  ‘You...’ the thing paused. Maybe it was searching some kind of log in wherever its thoughts resided. ‘I do not know you.’

  ‘Anna,’ said Anna, ‘and I don’t know you.’

  ‘I am Jin.’

  ‘Big fucker, aren’t you? Can I call you that? ‘Big Fucker’?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Jin, ‘And please do not. Follow me.’ Jin turned down the dark hallway and light illuminated a new path for them.

  ‘You didn’t say what you are,’ said Anna. ‘And what if I don’t want to follow some strange man down the aisle?’

  Jin tilted his blank face to her, and it was just as effective as any stare, even without discernable eyes or any change in expression.

  ‘I am a Titan, Anna. If you would allow me the honour of escorting you? Please,’ said Jin.

  Anna looked at Lian, shrugged, and then smiled to Jin. She kind of wondered what the alternative might be, but she wasn’t that curious.

  Maybe he’s why the halls are so damn tall.

  The Titan towered over both of them.

  ‘Fair enough,’ she said.

  *

  10.

  Jin and Anna

  Port Aisle to Clerestory Ship Bay

  Hush

  Lian walked behind Jin and Anna with whatever her own thoughts might be. Anna walked beside the giant, ever curious. Maybe that was just how she was built. Maybe that’s why she was on Hush.

  Maybe that’s why I didn’t want to die. Didn’t have much else going for me, did I?

  Maybe curiosity was the reason some woke, and some didn’t. She was curious about that, too, but mostly the metal monster escorting them.

  ‘A Titan? Like from the war? Are you...some kind of Aug? Like an upgraded...’

  ‘I am only Jin.’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘I am Jin. Singular. There is nothing like me on this ship but me. Definition? Once, I was a Titan. No more.’

  ‘But what is that? Titans are myth, right? All gone. But are you like an Aug? Or artificial personality? AI? A mech? Come on, cough up something.’

  ‘Aug. Yes. Mech. Yes. Once a Titan and now I am...Jin.’

  ‘So there’s something...’ she didn’t want to say human. That seemed rude, somehow. ‘Organic inside you?’

  ‘Some remains of what I once was,’ said Jin. ‘The important parts.’

  ‘What are they? The important parts. Answers seem to differ, don’t they?’

  ‘Important parts for me,’ said Jin.

  *

  ‘How tall are you?’ asked Anna.

  ‘4 metres, 18 centimetres.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why are you so tall?’

  ‘I was...constructed a long time ago. I was made to counter the Goliath Unit.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Anna.

  ‘How tall are you?’ asked Jin.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Anna.

  ‘Would you like to know?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said.

  ‘1 metre and 60 centimetres.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Answers differ,’ said Jin.

  Lian watched, and listened, and followed.

  *

  ‘How do you spell Jin? Like the drink? Or like ‘Djinn’? You know, like you grant wishes?’

  ‘J-I-N,’ said Jin. ‘Like the person.’

  ‘Which bits are left then? Seriously? You were a man?’ she asked, before she remembered herself.

  If there is, he’s dead. That’s probably a sore point.

  ‘Shit, Jin. Sorry. Too far?’

  ‘I don’t mind, Anna. I have...moved on. Most of my brain, some spinal stem. Some hormonal functions remain, but even my organic systems are augmented and supported. My thoughts...they are human as you, or Doctor Skerry. I think.’

  ‘You’re still a man. That’s what I think,’ said Anna, and touched Jin’s arm. ‘You feel like a man.’

  Jin said nothing.

  ‘Did you sleep? Like us?’

  ‘I did not need to.’

  ‘Since the Aug War?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wow. You’re old.’

  ‘And you are young.’

  ‘And shorter. It’s not a competition, right?’

  ‘I do not think it is, Anna of no second name.’

  ‘We’ve got something in common, then.’

  ‘Yes, we have.’

  Jin placed his hand against a pad set beside a door and the wide doors opened into a large bay which took up almost the entire upper level of Hush. About as far as you could get from the Crypt, too. Reawaken from the bowels, to travel to the heavens themselves.

  Cool, she thought.

  ‘Maybe you’re not so mad at all,’ said Anna, staring around, wide-eyed.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Lian, standing beside Anna, but still wary of Jin.

  The bay was entirely open, end-to-end, not compartmentalised like the rest of Hush, and Anna finally understood just how large Hush was.

  ‘The Clerestory,’ said Jin.

  Anna didn’t bother trying to count the ships arrayed in the hangar, or bay, or whatever this was. Beside five of those ships were Augs troops, and each of them were armed and armoured. Like an army, and the kind of army Anna had never thought or hoped to see again. She wished it wasn’t so. Many did. She guessed there were around a hundred Augs for each ship, except one.

  Around that ship, only humans gathered, and she was surprised by just how few.

  ‘Our crew, I imagine,’ said Lian.

  They walked toward the others who had lived through reanimation. Jin’s stride remained short, and careful, in deference perhaps to them.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Anna. ‘We get to be in a gang. Not many, though,’ said Anna. ‘You think?’

  ‘I do. It’s...strange.’ Lian spoke quietly, because it was ingrained when keeping a conversation private. No matter how quietly Lian voiced her thoughts to Anna, the mountain of metal escorting them could probably hear their words a kilometre away, and Anna imagined Hush could hear whatever she pleased.

  *

  PART TWO

  Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.

  -

  H.G. Wells.

  DAWN

  11.

  Cassie Kiyobashi and Ayobami

  Clerestory Ship Bay

  Hush

  Cassie Kiyobashi stood beside Ayobami at a respectful distance, not combative at all in her manner or stance, despite what she knew of the tattooed null. Cassie was no different to Ulrich. Not a soldier, but someone who looked to learn what they could, what they must. On the long walk along high, domed hallways, their ascent in huge elevators, all of which had taken ten minutes and more, she had read what she could on her commset. The headset now dangled, loosely held with just her fingertips. There was only so much you could discover about a person without ever looking into their eyes, and getting a feel of who they were.

  And what they were capable of...

  Cassie’s ba
ck ached, was beginning to feel hunger, and she was all too aware she must smell after over a hundred years asleep. That wasn’t why she stood a good distance from Ayobami, nor their tattooed face or piercings.

  ‘Ayobami?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah...’

  Ayobami was thinking, like they were struggling to remember what they’d just read.

  She helped. ‘Kiyobashi,’ she told them. ‘This part’s not my business, but you’re null?’

  Ayobami smiled. ‘Null, yes. Null’s fine.’ Scars were there, but gender, colour, accent, language, there were all a matter of choice.

  Killing, too, thought Kiyobashi.

  ‘Don’t, you know, get bent out of shape. Habit. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Need something to put in a box on a report, right?’ said Ayobami, crossing their thin arms over a concave chest.

  She smiled. ‘You read up, too.’

  ‘You’re the cop.’

  ‘Was. You killed seven men?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘I can’t promise I won’t kill anyone – Detective?’ Cassie nodded. ‘Don’t sweat, though. I’m old. You look spry enough.’

  ‘We’re all old,’ she said. ‘Just looking out. Close quarters, you know?’

  ‘Some things don’t change?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s ingrained,’ said Cassie. ‘What I am, I guess. How I’m built.’

  ‘You’re on me, about what I did...what about you? Should I be worried?’

  ‘We should all be worried,’ said Cassie. ‘We’re heading to an alien planet. Half-asleep, hungry. Are you worried?’

  Ayobami smiled, shook their head. ‘Nope.’

  Totally relaxed, she thought. She wished she was.

  ‘Me either, then,’ said Cassie. She paused this time, like she was thinking. Not trying to remember, like Ayobami had. Just thinking. ‘Good to meet you,’ she said, and held out her hand.

  Ayobami shook.

  ‘Good,’ said Ayobami, but didn’t let go of Cassie’s hand. ‘We’re all killers, though, aren’t we, Ms. Kiyobashi? It’s a fancy prison, this ship...but it is a prison, just the same.’

  ‘Point taken, Ayobami. I’m not worth worrying about.’

  Ayobami smiled. ‘Begs the question, then, doesn’t it...who is?’

  Cassie figured it was all of them, but didn’t reply because Steve Ames interrupted. Not intentionally, but loudly enough he couldn’t be unheard.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’

  Couldn’t get away from it. Some people don’t have tact, and when they whisper it’s the same as a shout. Just how it is.

  They all turned to watch the new arrivals.

  *

  12.

  Once Reluctant Enemies

  Clerestory Ship Bay

  Hush

  Orde Vella had once been Company, working weapons development. He’d been high up, talented. Orde had Maltese somewhere in his background, and spoke with a mismatched vocabulary like many who moved around, accustomed to making short-lived homes in an endless succession of different cities. Ulrich didn’t care what Orde had done to deserve space. He figured whatever was coming, they all did something to deserve it, somewhere down the line.

  He was wrong, though.

  The two latecomers who approached the ship, the Blue Sun Dawning, weren’t killers. A diminutive half-bald woman who looked young, but maybe that was just because she was small, together with a serious-looking woman who didn’t smile, but seemed to watch everything very carefully.

  The third of the trio, though...it was something Ulrich never thought he’d see again. A Goliath-killer. A thing build to only to destroy.

  A Titan.

  The sight of it made Ulrich very aware he wasn’t augmented. He was just a simple man who didn’t mind pain in himself or others. The Titan was the closest thing to a God he’d ever seen, or was ever likely to see.

  It appeared to be around four or five metres tall. Wide, but not unnecessarily so. It wasn’t built to look insane or intimidating, like some soldier with musculature enhanced beyond anything practical. It was build with a very specific and limited function in mind; to kill and to not be killed. Nothing more than that. It walked slowly (for the Titan, certainly) in order to keep pace with the two women it escorted. While the women were watchful, the Titan didn’t seem to be looking at anything at all...but how could he know? It could be anything looking at anything, everything, or nothing. The giant’s face was ever expressionless, like an ancient statue with worn features remade into something new.

  He didn’t think such beings existed any longer. Obsolete, outmoded, upgraded, and yet in all his years as a warrior he had only ever seen two destroyed.

  There would be a remnant of organic matter within – possibly no more than a mind, which might be in its head or in its leg. Ulrich had never known. He had never wished to know. The idea of a man caged inside a Titan was why he had fought.

  Once, perhaps, Ulrich had been a better man.

  Introductions began again – Anna, who either didn’t have a surname or didn’t wish to give it, and Doctor Lian Skerry.

  Ulrich noticed Ames and Alison didn’t bother to say anything to the Titan, not introducing themselves but staring sidelong. Djima Kanado and the hunched and scarred Ayobami and the Titan greeted each other perfectly politely. Ayobami was null-gender, which didn’t bother most, especially not the Titan. Titans, Augs, gender, creed...those thing bothered others plenty, though, and maybe Alison more than most.

  ‘John Alison. Physics professor, used to lecture for Tech-Dev at AIN. We both worked for AIN, Right?’

  That’d been Alison’s way of introducing himself. Trying to slide into something. What did he want? Counsel? A seat at the high table? Might as well be squeezing himself into a pair of pants that weren’t there.

  Idiot. That was Ulrich’s first and last impression of the man.

  Ulrich nearly told the man he’d fought for AIN, but that was petty, and pointless, and ultimately unhelpful. The guy wasn’t a threat, he was just...

  Pompous. Thinks he’s still important.

  Ulrich figured out none of them were important way before they all took their long sleep, but for all his learning, this guy Alison still hadn’t got it. Ulrich hadn’t missed the fact that Steve Ames and John Alison avoided Ayobami and Orde, and he hadn’t liked that. Like it was still hundreds of years ago, like Ames and Alison hadn’t understood the simplest tenets of humanity then and weren’t about to get it if travelling millions, or even perhaps billions, of miles hadn’t given them the perspective to see it.

  ‘That thing...Jin?’ said Alison, quietly, like they were conspirators.

  ‘That thing’, the man’s tone of voice, the whispered inferences, the sidelong looks...

  ‘Yeah?’ said Ulrich.

  ‘Can it even be killed?’

  ‘It was,’ said Ulrich. ‘There’s a man in there, friend, and he didn’t chose to be.’

  Alison didn’t say much after that.

  Hardly even a limb, thought Ulrich, but kept his own counsel.

  *

  Cassie Kiyobashi spent longer than most speaking with the Titan. She was good. Useful. Ulrich imagined she viewed information as he did – a weapon and a shield.

  Core, he thought. Kiyobashi and the Titan are definitely core.

  He tucked each of his observations away, figuring everything was important, and nothing was wasted. He was leading a team to an alien planet and that would be a challenge for anyone whether it was a first time or a tenth...and this was a first time with a team who’d never even met, had no opportunity to train with any equipment...all under the assumption the only skills they’d need were those they’d trained for before their exile.

  But it didn’t work like that. Ulrich knew it. Cassie Kiyobashi would know it. The Titan, for sure. Anyone who’d faced any kind of combat would know better.

  Sure, maybe they were supported (at his estimation) by around five hundred Au
gs, and a Titan. The craft, too, would have armaments. Each of the team would have suits, weapons...but knowing how to pull a trigger didn’t mean a damn thing if you didn’t know the rest of it. Combat wasn’t pulling triggers, or pushing buttons, or yelling and running for cover.

  He was under no illusions; how they functioned together, how they interacted, who cared...these things made the difference between life and death, and death was rarely selective.

  Slowly, Ulrich moved toward the Titan, but he stopped to meet Anna and Doctor Skerry first. Reading about people wasn’t the same as meeting people. Even in a picture, or a hologram, you can’t tell what’s in a person’s eyes.

  Unknowingly, Ulrich was thinking just the same things and the same ways as Cassie Kiyobashi.

  Ulrich liked what he saw when he introduced himself to Anna and Doctor Skerry. There were core, and he was completely sure of that in his first assessment, and in the first moment he met them. He didn’t speak with them for long, and didn’t feel the need to. Sometimes talking got in the way of good sense, but eyes could never cover intent with words.

  *

  Ulrich excused himself and moved through the crew – his crew – to stand before the towering, slender metal construct.

  ‘You’re a Titan?’ Not a question. Just a statement. Incredulous, perhaps, but not rude.

  ‘Was,’ said Jin. ‘You are Sergeant Ulrich Bale?’

  ‘Long time ago.’

  ‘I am Jin. I have record of you.’

  ‘I know your kind. We fought your brother and sister Titans in the Aug War.’

  ‘I am aware. You fought for Aug freedom.’

  ‘We lost.’

  ‘I am sorry that you did.’

  It wasn’t a strange thing to say at all. The Titans were on the winning side. Ulrich never wore a Goliath suit in the war, but he’d seen what the Titans could do against them. The Goliaths were cheaper, and plenty, but the Titans – rare, expensive, and enslaved by the Company – were why Ulrich’s cause and so many good people were dead. Why the world burned.