Severance

by Chris Bucholz

  “I did.”

  “Can you believe there’s people out there who don’t love this stuff?” He kissed the bruised meat fruit, then tossed it to the ground. He stood up. “So…I think they know where we are.”

  “So it would seem. Hiding’s probably out,” she agreed.

  “Then let’s do the opposite of that.” Bruce stepped over the unconscious security officers to the door of the farm. Peering out cautiously, a huge smile spread across his face. “Oh, yes!” he shouted, stepping outside. Stein trailed him out the door to see a security van parked nearby, Bruce already climbing into the front seat. She joined him on the other side of the van.

  “Do you know how to use one of these things?” she asked, getting in.

  “No. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m a faster learner.” Bruce pushed and twisted the control stick, sending the van around in a clumsy circle. “Where are we, again?”

  “Uh, that’s Africa that way,” Stein said, pointing at the street that they had just lurched past. As she was pointing, she caught a glimpse of a group of security officers scrambling down an escalator. Behind them, shots rang out. “We’re also heading south, incidentally.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “We want to head north.”

  “All right, then,” Bruce said, hurling the van into another sloppy turn. They rocketed down a side street, Bruce fumbling with his terminal as he drove. “E? It’s Horatio again,” he shouted into it. “Slight change of plans. We’re now in a security van. It’s awesome, so don’t shoot it.” He dropped the terminal in his lap, swerving slightly. A block ahead, another security van turned into the street and accelerated at them.

  “Shoot,” Bruce said, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  Stein nodded. “Dammit!”

  “No, I meant you should shoot. Shoot at them.” He gave her several encouraging nods. She swallowed, then leaned out the side of the van, steadying the pistol against the frame. Taking a deep breath, she began repeatedly pulling the trigger, sending a woefully inaccurate series of shots in a direction that could just barely be considered forward. Not in any actual danger from this, the other van nevertheless swerved violently, bashing into both sides of the street. Before she could line up to take another shot, she was hurled back into the van as Bruce pulled another hard right. “Going north now, boss,” Bruce said.

  “Superb,” Stein replied. She leaned out the window and looked behind them. The other security van had entered into the street on their tail and adopted her strategy of spraying crazily inaccurate gunfire across the road. She squeezed back a few shots of her own, no more accurate.

  “There’s another van behind us, E,” she heard Bruce say. “That one’s okay to shoot.” Another violent swerve pulled Stein back inside the van. Stein faced forward and watched Africa Street approaching. Getting the hang of Bruce’s driving technique, she braced herself. They turned onto Africa, the blockade visible five blocks ahead. She looked back, watching the other security van careen into the street behind them.

  “Got it,” Ellen’s voice, tinny over the terminal speaker. “Stay right.”

  “Your right or my right?” Bruce yelled.

  “My right!”

  “So, my left?”

  “Rrr…correct!”

  “Ahhh! You were going to say right!” Bruce cackled.

  “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” Stein shouted. “NOW? NOW? OF ALL TIMES?”

  The van swerved in a direction, although facing backwards, Stein had no way of telling if it was the right one, or, for that matter, the correct one. A sharp crack, and a gaping hole appeared in the front of the tailing security van. It lurched and drifted to the left — its left — smacking heavily into the wall, grinding to a halt.

  “Get in here,” Bruce yelled, yanking her back into the van. She turned around, seeing the blockade only a block ahead, muzzle flashes blazing. Bruce accelerated with his head down, peeking over the dash with one eye. “Also, hang on.” She dropped the pistol to the floor and braced herself against the dashboard.

  A thousand hammer blows of pain, all over every part of her body. No, not spread evenly. More hammers on the right side. And not all hammers. At least one axe. Blood in her mouth, cotton in her ears. She opened her eyes. She didn’t know they had been closed. Feet. Not her feet. Too big for that. Bruce’s? Yes, but from a funny angle.

  She realized she was on the floor of the van. She turned her head, which made the hammer blows a bit worse. There was Bruce, swinging the control stick around, blood on his forehead. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. It looked like “Whooo.” No, wait. It sounded like “Whooo,” too. So, she could still hear. That was nice. Someone needed to do something about those hammer blows, though.

  “Oh, man,” Bruce said, as he twisted the control stick. He had a big grin on his face. That made Stein happy. “They were right to not let just anyone drive these things,” he said. He looked down at Stein. “Laura? Oh, shit. Laura? Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Hang on.”

  Previously

  Data modulo 2 insertion in sanctuary will cause base pairs to align with great forthrightness. Success!

  Harold’s eyes ached, dry and itchy from lack of blinking, as if they didn’t want to turn their backs on the insanity he was making them read. A cookbook on illegal genetic manipulation techniques was open on the screen in front of him, part of a big text file of forbidden knowledge he had stumbled upon in his school days. He wasn’t the only one; getting your first copy of this nonsense was a rite of passage, something the science nerds passed around for fun.

  Most of the material in it was pretty tame, vast tracts dedicated to recreational pharmaceuticals and surely exaggerated cautionary tales about their usage. Anything that wasn’t harmless — such as the genetic engineering section — was completely impenetrable. The section on data genes was written in some kind of mongrel, bio–mystic version of Chinese, and the translator was having a hell of a time sorting it out. Thankfully, it was heavily footnoted, explanatory notes attached by past readers, explaining their missteps.

  Harold knew he could probably manage what he was planning with just the footnotes alone, but still wanted to step through the original text to ensure nothing important had been omitted. He needed as full an understanding of the process as possible, because he was pretty sure he was about to break new ground in it. The location where the data would reside was critical, lest something important — perhaps the bit that stops people from growing beaks — was overwritten. This had always been done by hand, by experts — apparently strange bio–mystic Chinese experts. Harold’s plan, to program these strange instructions and logic into the gene tinkerers, had never been tried before. It was the only way his plan would work, autonomously, long after he was gone.

  The key to his plan was the tinkering engine, the device that stored the nanobots when they weren’t in use, maintaining their population at a fixed level. It also contained the broadcast mechanisms which imprinted the desired programming into each set of nanobots as they were prepared for a specific patient. This engine had its own logic circuits and memory, independent of the ship’s central network. The data from Kevin’s terminal could live there secretly and indefinitely, to be scribbled into the DNA of every person who ever got tinkered. Repair jobs, fetal screenings, canned babies, every one of them would end up tagged with Harold’s graffiti. This was profoundly unethical — if he got anything wrong, the amount of risk he was putting these people in was enormous. But as profoundly unethical behavior seemed to be the only way things got done on the ship, well, why not roll the dice on some beak–people?

  There was still the question of how to get the data out of these unsuspecting genomes once it was in there. There would be no one to explain to his subjects what had happened to them, and, hopefully, no outward sign at all that there was anything unusual about them. A very low–level genetic analysis would spot it, which was som
ething anyone with a medical terminal could do if they saw the need to. But Harold didn’t know any diagnostic methodology that prescribed an analysis of that detail. Which meant he needed a way to provoke one of his unknowing subjects into an investigation of that depth.

  A beep on his terminal from Martin. His treatment completely successful, Harold had almost immediately hit the fabrication man up for the favor he had offered before entering quarantine. Martin had seemed a little surprised, obviously not having made the offer with any expectation it would be accepted. But Harold played it delicately, asking Martin to knock together a little shelving unit for his office, which he did genuinely need. He had received the shelving unit — a pretty nice one made of wood — and thanked Martin with a couple of drinks. Martin seemed happy to talk to someone with so many questions about fabrication. He reminded Harold of Kevin in a few ways. Smart, kind, slightly awkward. It was a shame to use him so utterly, but it was a small thing compared to everything else Harold was up to. Harold tapped at his terminal, reading the message.

  Sure, I could make flyers. But why would you want to?

  “An extremely good question,” Harold said, shaking his head, as he tapped a message back.

  It’s for a retro party thing I’m planning for a friend.

  Plausible enough. He set the terminal down on his desk, covering the translated nonsense that he no longer wanted to look at. He leaned back, rubbed his beard, looked down at the terminal, and sighed. “Come on, Harold,” he said, steeling himself. “You can do this.” He brushed the terminal to the side of the desk and leaned back in over the cookbook.

  Ghosts are the retrotransposons — tread wisely with enormous canons best left unused?

  “Oh, come on,” he said, eyes widening. “Now you’re just fucking with me.”

  Chapter 8: Come Get Your Guns

  Leroy fidgeted as the gun made its way down the line. He wanted it. Why didn’t they have more to go around? He was pretty sure the guy had said something about that. He hadn’t really been listening at the time, had probably been looking at the gun. No, scratch that. No probably about it. He had been looking the fuck out of that gun. He had no time for listening — even his ears were looking at that gun.

  A moment of self doubt washed over Leroy. Could it be possible that by listening more, he would get the gun faster? Leroy thought about that for a bit, but it mostly turned into thinking about the gun again.

  Ricky had gotten scared and run as soon as he saw the crowd in the arena. Leroy had known he would and had made only a token effort to mock him. Let him fiddle with himself in his room. Let him miss out on the coolest thing to happen on the Argos in infinity years.

  The trainer guy who knew how the gun worked seemed pretty cool–looking. He had a hat and a holster to put the gun in. Everything about him screamed ‘Serious Gun Business.’ Leroy knew that impressing him was the key to getting his own gun. Would listening do the trick for that, or would just a lot of looking work? Leroy looked and thought about the gun some more.

  Trainer guy stopped in front of the dude next to Leroy. Leroy watched how the training guy explained how the parts of the gun worked. From what Leroy could see, there were really only two parts, a front and a trigger, and you didn’t want to be on the front side when the trigger was pulled. But trainer guy dragged it out, way more than was probably necessary. Like he was some kind of big shot or something. A gun joke! Leroy was getting so close, he could think of gun jokes without even trying.

  Eventually, his neighbor got his chance to hold the gun himself. Leroy watched as he tried shooting at the dummy on the wheeled chair a short distance away. Shot after shot in rapid succession, all misses. What an idiot. Finally, the dummy shuddered. “Got it!” the moron shouted.

  Trainer guy — Leroy could see now he had a name tag that read Croutl — took the gun back. “Did you?” He walked over to the target. “Your first eight shots,” he said, pointing at the dummy, “did not land here. Your next four,” he said, holding his arms up searchingly, “may not have landed in this room.” Finally, he pointed at the chair beneath the dummy. “Here’s your thirteenth.”

  Leroy laughed. The moron glared at him, but Leroy didn’t care. This guy sucked.

  “You think you can do better, kid?” trainer guy said. He ripped the gun out of the moron’s hands and flipped it around, holding it tantalizingly out in front of Leroy. “Were you listening to what I said about how this works?”

  This was a trick question, but Leroy was pretty sure he saw a way through. “Yes,” he said. And swallowed. The gun waggled in front of him. Holy shit, it’s really happening.

  But before he could reach out and take it, a thump from the front of the arena. Everyone but Leroy turned to see the double doors slam open, a pair of men entering pushing a big crate on wheels into the arena. “Guns here!” one of them yelled. “Come get your guns!”

  The gun that was rightfully Leroy’s withdrew, the trainer guy quickly sliding it into his holster. “Everyone calm down,” he shouted to the excited trainees. “No one’s getting any guns yet.” To the men who had just entered with the crate, he shouted, “Put those away. They’re not done yet.”

  “You’ve had like an hour with them!” one of them said.

  “You’re not teaching them how to write with the fucking things are you?” the other asked. They kept pushing the wheeled crate over to the recruits, who broke ranks, rushing over to it.

  “Hey!” trainer guy shouted. “This isn’t a fucking game.”

  “Relax, pig,” one of the men delivering the crate said. “Get your guns here, folks. Use ’em for shooting assholes!”

  Leroy had stayed rooted in place throughout this exchange, eyes having not left his gun, now in trainer guy’s holster. Within seconds, the other recruits reached the crate and began arming themselves. Only moments later, shots began echoing around the arena, impacting target dummies, chairs, walls, the floor, everything else.

  “Shit,” trainer guy said, backing up into Leroy. A pair of shots bracketed his feet. Someone laughed. Another two sailed overhead, and as he turned to run, one caught him square between the shoulders. He collapsed on top of Leroy, sending them both to the ground.

  Leroy wriggled out from underneath the comatose trainer guy. This is fucking bonkers! Leroy could tell this wasn’t a particularly cool situation to be in, and he definitely intended to run away as soon as he could. But there was one thing first, one thing staring up at him from the trainer guy’s hip. Take me, Leroy, it whispered.

  “All right, gun,” Leroy whispered back. He took it.

  And it was awesome.

  §

  Helot stopped a short distance away from the barricade watching his security chief throw a fit about a couch. Two wide–eyed security officers shifted the offending piece of furniture into a less objectionable position, reinforcing whatever weakness in the barricade Thorias had perceived. Thorias directed his attention to something else worth yelling at, and the process repeated itself, this time with a pair of desks. Beyond the slowly growing barricade yawned the inviting glow of the garden well.

  They were on the fourth level inspecting Thorias’ lines and arrows. Even aside from correcting couch placement issues, it was useful doing this in person; the Sheeping effect worked best when orders were delivered face–to–face. And indeed, Thorias had made a point of speaking with every officer at every barricade, a painstaking process of learning and forgetting names as quickly as possible.

  No longer seeing anything worth yelling about, Thorias left the officers and returned down the street. Helot fell in step beside him as they rounded the corner onto 8th, moving parallel to the new front lines. A block later, they stopped at one of the side streets.

  Here, the bulkhead doors were still closed. Thorias walked up to the door to inspect it along its seams. Helot had already seen this up close and knew the welded spots Thorias was looking for. Thorias knelt on the ground, if not actually sniffing the welds, at least coming awfully cl
ose.

  Helot liked the idea of welding the doors shut. He liked it a lot. He still didn’t fully understand the chief’s logic for leaving the doors open on the main streets, even if they were now all protected by fortified barricades. Thorias had said something about “fields of fire” and “cones of control,” and Helot had let it go. It had sounded convincing enough; since the riot, Helot hadn’t wanted to second–guess his security chief anymore.

  Thorias got up and returned to Helot at the intersection. “We’re sure they can’t be cut?” Helot asked.

  “Curts assures me they don’t have any fuse torches,” Thorias replied. “Though who knows how reliable that ass is.” He turned and began walking to the next side street. “Explosives? Probably not. They could fab those, but it’s fussy work. Would take them at least a few weeks.”

  “And what happens if a van hits it?”

  Thorias growled but didn’t say anything, instead rounding the corner to go smell another door. Helot didn’t push him on it, didn’t like thinking about it much himself. That the two people they had falsely accused of terrorism had turned out to be pretty capable terrorists was a bothersome irony. Two of the fuse torches demolished, Curts’ schedule set back at least a month. Not even the hilarious bruise on the back of Curts’ head could make Helot feel better when he had found that out.

  After Thorias’ door–smelling process repeated a few more times, they came to the broad expanse of America. Turning north, they passed the locked entrance to the Bridge and approached the barricade and officers stationed out in the garden well. This barricade had been pushed much further north than the rest, a necessary step to protect the Bridge. Helot couldn’t give a damn about what the civilian government did or didn’t do while he tried to cut the ship apart again, but Thorias had pointed out that from many of the civilian government offices a “terrorist” could access the upper–levels of the ship. Having this space defended was a necessary element for several of his arrows to be…something. Fully self–actualized? That sounded right.