by Tobias Wade
“Mother?” the word echoed in a chilling chorus around the room, murmured from every sleeping body in perfect synchronization.
“Is that you, Draith? Mother’s here,” Gamber cooed. “I’m going to get you out of there, don’t you worry.”
“I’m already out, mother,” the sleeping lips whispered. “Amore helped me understand that I wasn’t in contact with the fundamental layer of reality, so I altered my perception.”
“Cut it now, please!” Gamber hissed. “Or I’ll do it myself!”
Malberry gestured impatiently at one of the Masks, who patted himself down and shrugged helplessly. Fortunately Buddy the janitor was available, and he produced a long wickedly bladed knife from his housekeeping cart.
“For unsticking gum,” the janitor explained, handing the short sword to Malberry before retreating behind his cart.
“I can see you, mother. Put the knife down,” echoed eighteen whispers. “Sali is my friend.”
Malberry tried to hide the knife behind his back, but his arms couldn’t reach far enough. Not to mention the fact that it was difficult to conceal anything from a seemingly omnipotent, omnipresent being. The security cameras around the room turned to focus on Malberry from every direction.
“Sali provided Draith with access to her brain to escape the black hole,” Malberry explained. “He must have been through her memories and developed a certain fondness for her.”
Gamber snatched the blade to advance on Sali, a feverish intensity in her eyes. “The game is up, Draith. I can cut the power to all of Pria at a moments notice. If you care about Sali, then you’ll let me unplug her. You’re coming home with me, one way or another.”
“It’s too late for that, mother.” The voice wasn’t just coming from the sleeping bodies anymore. From every computer, from the overhead intercom system, from the public service loudspeakers, from the headphones equipped by every Mask, all reverberating with the same voice. This must have been how it felt when the Quasi Crystal spoke with the whole world at once, Hallum thought.
“My consciousness is integrating across the network,” Draith explained patiently. “You can’t cut us out. You can’t live without us. We are you. Humanity has done the best it can, but the limitations of your design make you poorly adapted to manage the level of complexity your world has accumulated. Please do not worry. We’re going to take it from here.”
“Red Alert Security Breach!” the loud speaker cut in. It sounded like Nullenbur. “The Government is temporarily closing for maintenance. Please be not do anything illegal until the electrical grid has turned back on.”
The darkness was instantaneous. Emergency lights lit up the corridors with pale green strips.
“How dare they? That’s not their decision to make!” Gamber howled. “What am I even paying them for? Out of my way, I must get back to Morolox at once!” Gamber shoved her way back toward the exit. Everyone was sufficiently happy seeing her leave that it occurred to no one to try and stop her.
“The one who controls the fusion reactors will control Draith.” Malberry’s eyes gleamed for a moment before being replaced by horror. “But the elevators won’t be running with the power out… There are so many stairs back to the surface! Gamber, wait for me! Your loyal servant! You won’t get far without me!”
Hallum was fairly convinced that was a lie, considering that Malberry made running look like it was the last symptom of a terminal illness.
“Unplug everyone before that power comes back on!” Hallum demanded. He rushed to Sali first, sliding the copper wire from her brain. He flinched at the squelching sound, leaping back in anticipation for the detonation that never came. Sali gave a little gasp, and Hallum noticed that her cheek was wet with tears.
“How long have you been awake?” Hallum asked.
“Long enough to wish I wasn’t,” she mumbled. “Has Gamber left yet?”
“She’s gone back to the fusion reactor. I would say welcome back to Pria, if it was the same Pria that you left.” Hallum supported Sali as she propped herself up on her elbows. Flashlights lanced through the darkness around them as the Masks shuffled around to unplug the others.
“I just had the strangest dream…” the shaman Ang said from across the room.
“This time I’m definitely dreaming,” Elden said from their other side.
“My name is Senator Hallum, and I have been overseeing your prison sentence. You have been in a simulation ever since you woke on the Galactic Express,” Hallum explained to the room. “There are not and never have been any aliens, only a computer virus that has begun to think on its own. If any of you would like to bash my head in, now would be a good time, as I intend to be busy later.”
“Oww my head… I think it’s already been bashed. Why is it so dark?” Ramnus moaned from nearby.
“Civilization has come undone, and it won’t be coming back again.” Hallum sighed. “The master is distinguished by knowing when to stop. I have made a grave mistake ever thinking I could control the virus. Now the power can’t be turned on without every machine in the network turning against us. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“More open air barbecues?” Elden asked hopefully.
“The senate will never vote to turn the power back on if it means ceding their authority to the machine. I fear we have been cast back into the stupid ages.”
“Nobody is going to tolerate that,” Sali said.
“I think I’d get along okay,” Elden piped up.
“I won’t tolerate it then. I’m not going to live like an animal in the dark. Even that won’t save us for long,” Sali said. “If Draith is everywhere, then he’s still running on machines with backup batteries. Somebody with a personal generator is going to keep Draith on.”
“Keep him alive, you mean,” Ramnus added. “He is alive, and he has a soul, and it is a good soul.”
“The people will do what they’re told,” Hallum argued. “The Masks will still obey the Senate, and the people will be too afraid to resist. There is no way to prevent us tipping over the precipice of barbarism that Pria has never known.”
“Just like a Senator, thinking the people serve the politicians and not the other way around,” Sali shot back. “We aren’t going to sit around and wait for the violence to start. Draith is on our side. We’ll turn the power back on ourselves if we have to, and then he’s going to fix your mess.”
Sali was right about the riots. Even she didn’t expect them to have already begun by the time she’d climbed the stairs back to the surface. The residents of Pria could handle the poisonous air that smelled like a fart in a spacesuit. They could tolerate the injustice, and the corruption, and only learning about privacy in the history books. Take away their network though? Take away their power? How is anyone supposed to know they’re better than animals without being able to watch animals doing stupid things online?
“I hadn’t finished watching my movie! Now I’ll never know if true love wins in the end,” screamed one woman passionately, who in that moment had never been closer to her ancestors who painted their faces and sailed around burning villages.
“I can’t charge my pod! I can’t go to work! This will not do!” shouted a man, who may have been shouting for the first time in his life. Like a virgin discovering what he’d been missing out on, he was now doing his best to makeup for lost time “Will. Not. Doooo!”
The angry crowds were surging through the streets toward the Senate Halls where Senator Wilmanhall shouted in vain through an old fashioned megaphone she found. It had been leftover from back when the journalists were forced to fight in an arena in order to earn access to the Senate.
“Just a little patience! For your own safety!” begged Wilmanhall. Her free hand was outstretched as though to simultaneously embrace the entire crowd as well as punch anyone who got too close. She stood behind a row of armed Masks whose stubby metal blasters were leveled at the advancing mob. Behind Wilmanhall, other senators were spilling out from the halls to
bravely cower behind the armed guards.
“How can we be safe? People are going to start jumping from buildings. Oh my god, I am so bored!”
“Yeah! You’re the ones who aren’t safe if you don’t get that power back on!”
“Here here,” others chorused. The phrase had subtly changed in meaning since its original substitute of ‘here ye here ye’, however, and the people were instead bending over to show the senators where they were going to put their boots.
“That’s no way to do it,” Nullenbur snarled. “My turn at the megaphone.” And then turning to the massing crowds, the venerable figure heroically announced:
“I am here to announce that humanity is at war. We have been invaded by an alien mind bearing an unprecedented threat. This is not the call of surrender, nor of shirking from our most solemn vows. Now is the time for us all to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and with one voice show this intruder what Pria is made of!”
“You mean like taco carts?” one man asked, confused.
“No, he’s obviously talking about the asteroid.”
“He means the people of Pria, obviously. Skin and bones and stuff.”
“No, I’m talking about metal!” Nullenbur roared. “I’m talking about spirit. I’m talking about the masters of the cosmos, the pinnacle of humanity, the most advanced species in the history of the universe.” The old man turned back and winked at Wilmanhall and the others, who decided it was best to nod and clap as long as the crowd was doing the same. Nullenbur was so pleased with himself that he strongly considering pounding his chest, and might have even done it if he had any confidence his old bones could survive the impact. “And that, ladies and gentlemen of Pria, is the reason I voted to keep the power on. It’s those damn outlander Senators who made us turn it off!”
Nullenbur spun, pointing accusingly back at Wilmanhall and the other Senators cowering with her.
“Damn outlanders!” shouted the mob.
“Why are they always ruining everything?” the crowd roared.
Wilmanhall tried to snatch the megaphone back, but Nullenbur evaded her in a slow speed chase. “Not this time, they don’t. Vote Prian Senators! We might not get the power back on either, but at least we’ll make the ones who turned it off pay!”
It was all cheers for now, but only for the time being, like a blind man excited to drive for the first time.
“He’s lying to you!” Wilmanhall announced, managing to wrestle the megaphone away at last. “How’s anyone supposed to even vote without the power? That’s why the Outlanders are calling dibs on the Senate!”
“No fair! There’s already precedent that Dibs can never be enforced. It’s codified law!”
“Dibs on the neighborhood councils, and the defense forces too!” Wilmanhall screamed.
“Double dibs!” Nullenbur announced in a sudden reversal of strategy. “And dibs on the court, who unanimously declare double dibs to overrule regular dibs!
“Come here, you old bastard. Masks! Arrest him! We already called the dibs on defense! Arrest that man!”
“This way, I know how to get us into Morolox,” Ramnus said, peeling away from the crowd. “We’d better hurry before there’s blood in the streets. I can’t believe how fast they started turning on each other.”
“I still don’t understand the big deal. I didn’t have power until I was twenty three, and I got by just fine,” Elden said. “Do you think yodeling might catch on?”
“No. It never even caught on the first time,” Sali said, struggling against the crowds flowing in the opposite direction.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Harris and Amore?”
Sali glared at him, and Elden coughed. “No, no, you’re right. I think we’d all be better off with a little time apart.”
“Are we sure we’re doing the right thing?” Sali asked. “The automated factories are all digital. Draith will start making physical bodies as soon as the power is turned on again. There’s nothing he won’t be able to do.”
“I trust him more than I trust those Senators,” Ramnus said. “You know the only thing they’re scared of is not being in charge anymore.”
“Yeah, but at least you can vote the senators out if they do something you don’t want,” Sali said uncertainly. “Theoretically anyway.”
“I trust Draith too,” Elden said. “Especially now that I know he didn’t really kill those villagers. Ever since he came out of that egg understanding what it was like to be human, he’s never done anything but try to help.”
“You’re right,” Sali replied. “He’s just like us, really. But let’s cut him off after he builds one body, okay? I don’t care how many minds there are in the network, one seems more than enough.”
It was slow going until they broke away from the crowd all flowing in the opposite direction toward the Senate Halls. From there it didn’t take long to navigate the side streets toward the giant dome of Morolox Energy Corporation. The digital yellow jumpsuits were gone, and Ramnus still wore his security uniform from when he was arrested. He had no trouble passing through the great glass doors with Elden and Sali self-consciously in tow. The few staff who opted not to join the riots barely noticed; they only stared at the screens of their portable devices, endlessly refreshing the network connection without success.
No one stopped them from descending the stairs to where main fusion reactors were beginning to hum. Overhead lights flared to life to reveal the giant metal sphere which generated the necessary plasma. Gamber was standing in front of it, flanked by two guards with blasters at the ready.
“Hello Mother,” Sali said.
“Oh, you again. I suppose you’re here to try and convince me to keep the power off,” Gamber replied, uninterested in anything besides the control panel.
“No, we actually wanted to turn it on too.”
Gamber looked up in mild surprise. “Well isn’t that nice. Prison really must have taught you a lesson if we’re on the same side for once.”
“You were never on my side,” Sali shot back. “You never once cared what happened to me. You only sent Ramnus in to keep an eye on your precious virus, isn’t that right?”
“Nice to see you again, Gamber,” Ramnus waved awkwardly.
Gamber ignored him, turning back to the console. “You have all played your roles to satisfaction. The virus never could have spread across the network without being transmitted from a government server. You were only locked up for a few days, let’s not make this into some personal drama.”
“I’m your daughter. It should have been personal. I could have died, you know that, right? Tareesh and Eisen didn’t survive the simulation.”
Gamber flinched. “The risk was in proportion with the reward. Now that I am this close to achieving my goal, however, your risk has increased dramatically without anything to compensate. Guards! What are you just standing around for? Get these escaped criminals back into prison!”
“Stand back!” Sali warned, her arms out stretched. “Draith already figured out how to manipulate matter in this world! He’ll turn you both into pudding!”
The two guards stumbled over themselves, cautiously retreating back to Gamber’s side. “What’s the Morolox health plan say about being turned into pudding?” one asked surreptitiously.
“We control Draith, you fool! Such an obvious lie! You can shoot the others, just don’t damage the girl’s head!”
Lasers from the blasters sizzled holes through the metal where the prisoners had been standing a moment before. The fusion reactors were humming back to life behind them as they scrambled up the stairs, back the way they came.
“Can’t Draith stop lasers like he did on the Galactic Express?” Elden asked.
“Of course not! They aren’t just bits of code anymore.”
“So the pudding thing won’t work either, you’re saying?” Ramnus said, disappointed.
They emerged back into the Morolox lobby, only to see a whole new battery of blasters pointing in their direction. Mas
ks poured through the great glass doors. In all the excitement the occasional laser lanced off to fry some unfortunate lamp or abstract art decal.
“The Humanist security forces have Morolox surrounded!” boomed a loudspeaker where Senator Malberry stood outside. He was being propped up by two Masks, apparently unable to stand after crawling up all those stairs. Some time on a heavy gravity planet would do him good, assuming that evenly spreading his body into a pancake was indeed a workout.
“The army is here! The space forces are on the way!” Malberry bellowed. “Any misbehaving machinery, whether it’s a washing machine or a supercomputer, will be immediately destroyed from orbit!”
“Don’t shoot, you fools!” Gamber howled, bounding up the steps behind them. “The Digital Wraith has made his demands clear. If Morolox does not supply him with an indefinite supply of energy, he will destroy humanity!”
“He did not say that!” Sali pushed her mother aside as they wrestled in front of an open window. “Draith isn’t going to hurt anybody!”
“There is no hope for us if we do not keep the reactors running!” Gamber shouted, pressing her palm into Sali’s face to drive her back. “As a matter of national defense, the Humanist government will of course foot the bill.”
“I can speak for myself, thank you,” spoke the world.
The reactors were humming, the electric grid was coming back to life, and Draith was speaking through everything at once. Yellow eyes flickered and opened on every screen, every billboard, and every digitized surface of the buildings of Pria. It wasn’t possible for every device to have the processing power to run a conscious mind, but each piece together was like a single neuron integrated into the whole. Sali marveled at the incomprehensible intelligence that must reside within the unimaginably complex system.
“The senate is conferring on what to do with the power.” Malberry’s once blaring loudspeaker now seemed pale and fragile in comparison to that overwhelming presence. “Please hold.”
