= = =
The girl sat in front of a small pink vanity, combing her hair. Barbie dolls were propped against the mirror, and after she combed her hair, she combed theirs too. A knock came from the door. Justin could feel outside the program. The knock was an audio file. There was no knuckle against wood.
“Come in,” the girl said, not taking her eyes from a Barbie dressed in a blue flight attendant suit.
The door opened onto a hall, and in the hall was an older version of the girl. The cheekbones, the eyes, the thin mouth. It was a replicate. To anyone else she would appear human, but Justin knew the truth: she was zeroes and ones.
“Are you getting your Barbies pretty?” The woman walked over and knelt down beside the girl.
“Yeah.” The girl held flight attendant Barbie up to show. “She’s pretty.”
“Not as pretty as you,” the false mother said.
Justin reached past the immediate construct and felt a string of these programs. A dozen variations were running. Children being treated like children by constructs of parental love. What is this?
He was invisible, but the mother glanced in his direction. It was undeniable.
“Can you play?” the girl asked.
“I would love to. What do you want to do?” the mother said.
“Dress-up!” The girl ran over to a closet. Inside were racks of clothing, costumes, and shoes.
The woman helped the girl dress up as a princess.
Justin felt that the time was accelerated. He rose slightly above the program, and the woman and girl sped up. The day passed, just the two of them playing. The woman holding the girl, reading to her, telling her she loved her. When night came, the woman helped the girl into her PJs and tucked her in. She checked for monsters in the closet and under the bed. She turned on the nightlight. And when the girl fell asleep, her outline in the bed disappeared and the sheets made themselves.
The room darkened, and Justin could barely see the woman. She was frozen in place.
A shadow pulled free of the mannequin’s back.
“You can come down,” Vanessa said.
= = =
Justin settled onto the floor. He had never seen Vanessa before, but if Glass were here, he could have told him it was a spitting image of her in her twenties.
“What is this?”
“This is what I do. The Northern Star is mimicked around the globe by Multipliers. They’re children. All of them are conditioned, except those like me. Those are just trapped.”
“This girl . . .” Justin began.
“Is a Consciousness fuse to a Multiplier on the shores of the UK,” Vanessa said. “And in a year she will die and another will take her place. And I will love her just the same. And I will lie to her about her future like I have with all the others. When she asks what she can be when she grows up, I will tell her ‘anything.’ I have raised over six hundred of these boys and girls, and the whole time I do, I’m cannibalizing their minds. My living is the reason they die.”
“That’s not your fault,” Justin said.
“That doesn’t make them less dead. Of the children that repeat the Pieces—they are Forced Savants—I’ve held the hands of nearly seven thousand. But Evan is the worst. He requires four children at each Multiplier, and the team only lasts a few months. Over ten thousand have died with his twisted thoughts in their brain. Do you know how little the world would care if things changed?”
“Cynthia said something about that. How no one would notice.”
Vanessa nodded. “But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t change. Evan’s right in many ways: we are well past democracy. At the end, it was top heavy with corruption. And the while the mechanism was there to change that, by then the masses had enough needs met to not care. Hunger—and lack of it—is why empires rise and fall. It was inevitable, and worse, it was predictable. We had been in the arena of the unwell for over a century. But it was modeled after Eden, filled with fruit and tidings and illusions of progress, and with every bite we turned to sloth.”
She reached out her hand. “Come.”
“Where?”
“There is more to show.”
“Am I safe?”
“No. We don’t have much time.”
He took her hand and they vanished from the room.
= = =
China Girl dropped from the helicopter to the platform. Defying gravity, she scurried along the side of it, then rolled up into the field of heat sinks and scurried toward the dish.
Yoshi saw a metal crab zipping between the metal slats.
Fuck. Fuck.
He glanced down at Justin—he was still out. Yoshi didn’t know what to do. Glass was gone, and downrange the forest was being blown apart. He took the FN90 and made sure the safety was off. His heart relocated to his throat and he tried to keep track of the thing that was zigzagging toward them.
= = =
All around Raimey, hell had risen. Trees were on fire, collapsing and exploding, the sizzle from their boiling bark filling the air. Pulsing embers whipped around in the thermal winds.
Twice Raimey had tried to close the distance on Kove, and twice he was rebuffed with massive firepower. He’d had no choice but to flee, and now Kove drove him farther and farther away from the people he was supposed to protect.
The forest ended, and Raimey broke free into an abandoned Costco parking lot. The barrage had stopped. Raimey turned just as Kove emerged from the inferno. There was nowhere to run.
They quietly regarded one another. Raimey almost thought to say something, but what would it matter? What would it do? They were soldiers on the opposite sides of war. Kove gave a curt nod, as if acknowledging the moment, and then the grenade launcher cycled up and pelted John, caking his legs and detonating him down to the ground. Raimey turtled, covering his face.
This is it, Raimey thought. It’s over.
= = =
Yoshi heard the first breaker trip, and a moment later, the second. The Northern Star was attacking Justin-01, and there was nothing Yoshi could do. He was hiding at the opposite side of the dish, gripping the submachine gun so tight his hands were numb.
The spider stood over Justin-01.
The spider was doing nothing. It remained in the same position, straddling Justin-01 with its three pairs of legs.
Yoshi heard another breaker trip.
Lindo wants to kill Justin himself, Yoshi thought. That’s why that thing isn’t doing anything. It’s guarding Justin so Lindo can take him.
“No,” Yoshi said to himself. He counted to three.
Then he ran toward the metal crab, firing the submachine gun the entire way.
China Girl was waiting for instructions from Lindo while she stood over Justin-01. She twice let him know that the target had been acquired and that she could disconnect him and take him to the helicopter, which was hovering a half-mile away, waiting for her call for pickup. But she received no response.
The electricity and heat around the dish caused her night vision to crackle and fizz. She switched to daytime vision. Suddenly, a gun opened up on her face, and she turned toward it. A skinny Asian boy ran at her with a small submachine gun, yelling the whole way. The rounds caused her head to stutter, but they rolled off her like rain: they were designed for soft tissue, not armor.
Then suddenly, one nailed her, and she was thrown back. A second one nearly tore her off the side of the dish mount. It didn’t make sense.
= = =
The bullets aren’t working! Why are you still running toward her? Self-preservation screamed in Yoshi’s mind while he charged the metal crab. And then suddenly she teetered. With the next burst she nearly fell off.
And with the next muzzle flash Yoshi saw why: Glass was dragging her away from Justin.
= = =
She realized what was happening. Glass pulled at her back legs and got four of them off the platform, but the other four dug into the rubber floor and metal grate below. She kicked at him, blades out, and rotated
her body. She pulled a submachine gun from her back and fired on Glass. He shook into a blur and her rounds ricocheted.
The Asian boy reloaded the clip four feet away from her and fired at her face. She swiped out and gutted him. He collapsed, howling. But that action had left her with only two arms anchored, and that wasn’t enough. Glass pulled her down into the heat sink field.
= = =
Yoshi pushed himself against the wall, next to Justin. He held his stomach together as if it were a broken zipper. Blood covered his legs and pooled beneath him and the King Sleeper. He started to cry as his vision peppered with orange bursts. He felt so tired. He wanted to go home.
= = =
Raimey soldier-crawled and Kove kept his distance, coating him in plastique and detonating it. Raimey could not stand up. Every time he tried, Kove would flood him with more explosives and knock him back down. But Raimey wasn’t damaged. The human part of him was defeated, but if Kove disappeared, Raimey would simply stand up and be just as operational as he had been when he was first made.
Kove was thirty yards away. Close, but not close enough.
Just a break. I just need one break, Raimey thought. And then his wife whispered in his ear.
Kove slowly circled in. When he was within ten yards, he was going to holster the launcher and hydraulshock Raimey. But he knew to be cautious. He wanted to win; he wanted to be done. Lindo had promised him a future that seemed worth seeing.
The giant had quit crawling. He was huddled up like a beaten dog. It was time.
Kove maneuvered toward Raimey’s back, getting ready to holster the gun. Suddenly, Raimey’s two hover-rovers boostered off his shoulder blades and rocketed toward him. Kove dove out of the way.
Raimey stood up and charged.
When he got within fifteen yards, Raimey knew there was one thing he could do that would nullify any of Kove’s offensive measures. And it was important that Raimey survive this day. This was only the first part of his journey, and at the end of it the dice would roll how they may. But not now. Not yet. He had to live. For his daughter’s sake, he could not let this be the end.
Kove sprang to his feet and fired the grenade launcher. Raimey unloaded five hydraulshocks in a row, alternating arms, the inertia of each throwing Raimey forward. The grenades piled on him and exploded, but their force was insignificant compared to the hydraulshock of the most powerful Tank Major ever created. Raimey went through them like they were firecrackers.
Kove tried to get out of the way, but while he was the quickest Tank Major ever built, he was not as quick as a giant propelled by gunpowder. The fourth hydraulshock tore Kove’s upper body from his legs. The fifth turned his upper body into rags of tissue.
China—
That was the last thought that went through Alan Kove’s mind.
Raimey wasted no time. He sprinted into the inferno toward the Sump.
= = =
Glass pulled the spider down and hauled it away by its rear legs. China Girl squirmed and thrashed, spinning relentlessly, trying to break free. Glass didn’t know who she was, but it was clear who her designer was. He gave it no more thought. That part of his brain was gone.
He dragged her into the sinks to get her away from Justin. That was a mistake. Her upper arms grabbed the metal slats near her, and suddenly her feet turned to hands and grabbed him. She catapulted him back toward the dish mount, flinging him over her head. His back hit the cement and he crumpled for a flash before tracking her.
She retreated into the field of heat sinks. He amplified his hearing, but the Sumps’ transmission clatter overrode any nuances that would give away her position. The dish cycled back and forth, rattling the surroundings with its electric whine. He cycled through noise filters and then turned them off.
He pulled the two carbines from his back. She was in there. He kept to the perimeter of the dish mount and let Justin work. He didn’t know that Yoshi was bleeding out. But he knew his current objective: keep the spider away.
Stay or go. Stay or go, he thought.
And he then became aware that he was thinking. His new consciousness had given him purpose, and a knowledge of his past. But now it gave him pause.
In addition to his incredible design, one of the things that had made Glass so deadly was his complete lack of hesitancy. He lived on instinct and reaction. This had been true even when he was a human, and it was even more true when that was stripped away. But now he felt fear: he had something to lose. And he realized that he couldn’t beat her like this.
He scaled the mount quickly. He knew what he had to do.
He moved backward to Justin, keeping his eye on the platform below. Justin was still out. He saw the sticky thick red of arterial blood and followed it to Yoshi. Yoshi was pale and shaking.
“Sabot was right. Reading about it is better than the real thing,” Yoshi said. His teeth were stained red.
Glass holstered one carbine and knelt beside the boy, keeping the other on the checkered slats, knowing what lay in their shadows.
“Am I dying?” Yoshi asked.
Glass held his hand. The boy’s grip was strong. It pulsed with his fading heartbeat. “Yes, Yoshi.”
Yoshi shook his head and cried. “I don’t want to!”
Glass pulled him to his chest while the boy sobbed.
“Why did I do this?” Yoshi cried. “Why didn’t I just give you the equipment and go home?”
Glass lifted the boy’s chin. “Because you are brave.”
Yoshi nodded. He cried, but he nodded.
And then a moment later, he died.
Glass felt Yoshi’s life give way to death, and a rage filled him that was as detrimental as the fear that had driven him up the platform. And a bitterness chased behind it, because Glass knew the rage would dissipate, along with all his memories, when he removed the memory card.
Glass had tasted the dessert of the living these last few days. He would never taste it again. He wouldn’t remember to retrieve the memory card. But he didn’t hesitate. The time to hesitate was over.
Mike Glass reached into his waist where his brain resided and found the memory card that Cynthia had inserted into him. He pulled it out and curled it into Yoshi’s cooling hand.
The memories slipped away in an outgoing tide. Yoshi’s name. Vanessa’s face. The way her back felt when he ran his hands down it. An old memory of his dad, sober, teaching him how to shoot. His second week at basic training when his captain ripped off Glass’s mask in the gas chamber and Glass just smiled. His first meeting with Evan. The memories that had brought him back to humanity faded into a pinpoint of light—
And then to nothing.
His system reset to the parameters Cynthia had programmed into him at his abduction:
Protect
Justin-01 (GPS pin)
John Raimey (Tank Major V1, whereabouts unknown)
Jeremiah Sabot (deceased)
Cynthia Revo (deceased)
And in the wisp of his final awareness, Glass made one modification:
Eliminate
Spider Minor (Primary)
All other threats
He silently rolled off onto the main platform and went into the sinks after the Spider Minor.
= = =
Justin-01 stood on molten glass that had once been a beach. Tarry water lapped against its jagged edge, gorged with dead aquatic life. Beached whales and sharks littered the surf. They were all burned. The air shimmered with a sickly heat, but he felt none of it. It was a mirage. It was Vanessa’s mind. She was not with him.
“When I called to you, it came from here,” she said. Her voice was all around.
Facing the ocean, Justin saw a black, melted structure that led out to a sunken ship. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“You are here because of what happened at this place,” she replied. “Less than a week ago, a Tank Major and an old man fought Evan and won.”
A charred metal hand rose from the glass a dozen yards away. Justin
went to it. It was the arm of a Tank Major. The fingers were melted to the nub.
“When they won, I thought you could too. That with my father, with Mike, with Cynthia, maybe that would be enough. But this was their reward. It was foolish to think a few noble souls could overthrow a god.”
There was nothing around Justin but the melted remnants of a town. “He nuked them.”
“By destroying the Multiplier, they removed this region’s worth. And if word had spread about their victory, it could have started a chain reaction of revolt. It was the logical thing to do. No one noticed.”
“Why show me?”
“You are all alive right now because Evan sees value in you.”
“We can use that against him.”
“Yes.” But the way Vanessa said this, it felt as if she was holding something back. “How is Mike?”
“Cynthia gave him back his memories. He remembers you.”
He felt her smile. “And Dad?”
“Sad. Furious.”
“He was the sweetest man when I was a kid.”
“Where are you?”
Justin felt the coordinates fill his brain. The Northern Star bunker was south of Washington, D.C.
“I need to go, Vanessa. I’ve been online too long.”
He tried to disconnect and failed. He tried again. Nothing.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“You’re in the Northern Star, Justin. This isn’t cyberspace,” Vanessa said.
“Then release me!”
“I can’t, Justin. I’m sorry.”
“Is Evan here?”
“No. This is my domain. He can task me to control the Pieces and Multipliers, but he can’t enter.”
“Then why won’t you let me leave?”
“Because you need to be caught.”
Justin was torn out of cyberspace. He stared up at the two Tank Minors who had shaken him awake. One held the Mindlink. He tried to break free, but it was pointless.
“We got him,” one said. “Get up!”
Justin was pulled to his feet and felt a tackiness that ran down his entire back. He looked down, saw that he was covered in blood. Then he saw Yoshi. The boy was pale, his eyelids not quite closed, revealing the cloudy stare of the dead.
The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition Page 86
