Cosmic Powers

by John Joseph Adams

  Diamond did not share her melancholy. “I can’t believe it!” she crowed. “They let us go! Mom, you did it!”

  The bullet pod continued to glide, though from within the windowless hull, their motion was hardly perceivable—and it was not fast enough. Ash would be opening a link to headquarters, begging for an order to stop the launch. But the lightspeed delay would slow his communications.

  “Realignment underway,” the bullet announced.

  Prior to every launch the BTS track had to be realigned and reaimed, its trajectory calculated by a fragment of the mind of Machina Overlord. A minute passed as the machinery reoriented. “I just can’t believe it,” Diamond said again in quiet excitement. But Violetta listened to the pounding of her heart and wondered, What have I done?

  “Prepare for launch,” the bullet warned.

  The launch of a bullet pod was always accompanied by a standard special effect. The transit authority claimed the purpose was to orient the passengers, but everyone knew its real purpose was to make the launch more exciting.

  First, the bullet’s curved white walls went black. Though Diamond had seen the show before, she gasped at the sudden darkness. Many seconds sifted past and then, as they began to accelerate, a point of white light flared at the front of the pod. The white point expanded into a ring that passed slowly through the darkened walls. Another ring followed it, and another, at ever shorter intervals as their acceleration ramped up, pressing them deep into their seats.

  Too late now for anyone to stop them.

  The light began to strobe, while Violetta grew so heavy she could not draw a breath. Hard seconds passed under that suffocating pressure—and then it was over. They cleared the track and the pressure was gone.

  Zero gravity.

  The special effect finished with a burst of slowly swirling colors, an imaginary vision of the mythical realm of hyperspace.

  The pod announced, “Glide phase will last two hours, forty-eight minutes, and thirty-two seconds. Deceleration to follow.”

  Violetta watched the colors fade and the walls return to everyday white. No changing course now. Their path was fixed. No one could interfere. In two hours and forty-eight minutes they would reach Nexus. Ten minutes after that, the countdown running on the world breaker would reach zero.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “You know what’s crazy about all this?” And then she immediately answered her own question, perhaps fearing what Violetta would say. “I don’t think we’ve ever been on the same side before.”

  Violetta squeezed her eyes shut and wondered, Is that what this is about?

  “Mom?”

  Violetta looked again, to see Diamond peering at her past the gap beside the seatback.

  “Are we on the same side?”

  “Do you understand what will happen if Machina Overlord is destroyed?”

  Only one eye was visible, but that eye narrowed. “It’ll be bad.”

  “Let’s talk about the world breaker.”

  “What about it?” Diamond asked suspiciously. “Because I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know how it works.”

  “I’m not asking for the physics of how it works. I just want to know what the mission plan says. How do you use it? How do you set it off?”

  “I don’t know. The plan says I just need to get it there. Then I get back in the bullet and leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “Yes. Leave. Mom, you didn’t want to hang around while Nexus blows up?”

  “I don’t think Nexus is going to blow up. I think it’s going to collapse into a parallel universe and pull any surrounding matter with it.”

  “You mean pull Nexus—and Machina Overlord—with it.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want to be there when that happens.”

  “We can’t let it happen!” Violetta’s temper flared. “What I don’t understand is how the Professional Revolutionaries made this thing. They’re vandals, troublemakers. They don’t have the knowledge to manipulate spacetime.”

  Diamond’s answer came in a subdued voice. “Machina Overlord must have made it. Who else?”

  Of course. No one else could have.

  The Professional Revolutionaries were obligated to carry out the acts of chaos assigned to them. Violetta had just never guessed the AI might target itself. But it was a machine, after all. No reason to think it would fear death as people did. No reason to think it would try to protect itself. Why should it? Contending against the Professional Revolutionaries was a hunter’s job.

  * * * *

  It was not Diamond’s nature to waste time on guilt. She had made her apology. Now, peering past the seatback, with only minutes left in the transit to Nexus, she reaffirmed her new resolve, insisting again, “I don’t want to lose. And I want to make it right. I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Violetta said.

  “So, we need to make a plan.”

  “I have a plan.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. When we reach Nexus, your task will be done. I’ll take the world breaker. You stay in the bullet pod. As soon as we’re sure your black spot has reset, you leave.”

  “Without you? That’s not a plan! I don’t want you to die.”

  “I’m not going to die. I’m going to get rid of the world breaker.”

  “How?”

  “Push it out an airlock.”

  Diamond’s one visible eye shifted to take in the bullet pod’s hatch.

  “Won’t work,” Violetta told her. “We can’t open the hatch, and even if we could, you don’t get your life back until you deliver the world breaker to Nexus.”

  “But you don’t know what will happen. Just because the world breaker is outside the world, that doesn’t mean it won’t be dangerous when it goes off. It could still suck the station into a spacetime hole.”

  “You’re right,” Violetta conceded, “and that’s why I need to make sure it’s far away from Nexus when it goes off. So I’m going to drop down the emergency chute, find an escape pod, put the world breaker inside it, and use the centripetal force on the rim of the world to fling it far away.”

  “You think that’ll work? You think you’ll have time?”

  “I think so, but I want you launched and out of there, just in case.”

  * * * *

  They fell into the maw of Nexus’s bullet catcher right on schedule. The gee forces of deceleration were as severe as at launch, but once their momentum was synchronized to Nexus, their pod glided smoothly to the platform. Violetta released her harness. Diamond did too. “Stay in the pod,” Violetta warned as the hatch unlocked.

  “But you might need my help.”

  “I won’t need your help.”

  A mechanical tentacle darted in as the hatch slid open. Diamond shrieked in fury as it encircled the world breaker and snatched it from her grip.

  The tentacle was attached to the disc-shaped carapace of a maintenance robot that had been waiting on the platform—a compromised robot, infiltrated somehow by the Professional Revolutionaries. Only knee-high, it scuttled away with astonishing speed on its six mechanical spider legs. It kept a second tentacle folded against its carapace as it made for the platform’s glass doors.

  “Stay in the pod!” Violetta shouted, jumping out after it. It was too fast for her to catch. So she pulled her stunner from its holster and shot it just as the doors opened to allow its escape.

  The stunner’s net smacked its carapace, delivering a jolt that caused its legs and both its tentacles to spasm. It collapsed, losing its grip on the world breaker, which bounced away into the darkness beyond the doors.

  “No!” Diamond shrieked. “We have to find it.”

  “I’ll find it,” Violetta told her as she ran across the platform. “You go. Launch the pod.”

  She jumped over the sprawled robot—and one of its tentacles darted up, wrapping around her ankle. She went down hard on her sh
oulder, her head bounced against the floor, and she lost her grip on the stunner. Shock drove out pain as she scrambled for the weapon, but the robot dragged her back and she came up short.

  “Grab its other tentacle!” Diamond shouted.

  Violetta was vexed to see Diamond on the platform, dancing from one foot to another in her eagerness to help.

  Diamond said, “If you grab the tentacle, I can get past it and get the stunner.”

  “No, you’re supposed to launch! Time is running out.”

  “I’m not leaving you, Mom. So cooperate and grab the tentacle.”

  Fear and frustration fought for dominance, but they were useless emotions. There was only one viable option, and that was to do exactly what Diamond had said.

  Violetta twisted around and dove for the second appendage. She caught it halfway along its two-meter length. It flailed and wrapped around her arm. She shoved a boot against it—and Diamond was able to jump over the robot unhindered. She scooped up the stunner, turned around, and fired.

  Nothing happened.

  “It has a biometric lock,” Violetta said through gritted teeth. She had one tentacle wrapped around her ankle, one around an arm. But she still had a hand free. “Pass it to me.”

  Diamond turned it over.

  The seconds were ticking past, but Violetta needed to know. “Show me your hand.”

  “Mom, just shoot it!”

  “Show me.”

  Diamond glanced at her palm, then held it up for Violetta to see. The black spot had gone white. “That means I finished the task, right? I’m clear.”

  Violetta nodded. “That’s what it means.” By the amnesty rule, Diamond would get her life back—assuming she lived. “Okay. I need to finish my task.”

  “We’re doing this together.”

  “I think we have to. It’s already too late for you to launch. Diamond, I’m going to need your help.”

  She grinned in delight. “Anything.”

  Ignoring the robot’s scrabbling legs, Violetta aimed for its core. “This jolt is going to hit me, too. If I pass out, you need to make sure I wake up before this thing does.”

  She fired.

  She didn’t pass out. Not quite. But it was two long, agonizing minutes before she could move again. Diamond used the time to find an off switch on the compromised robot, to pry its tentacles off Violetta, and to recover the world breaker from the shadow where it had rolled, on the edge of the inner ring of Machina Overlord’s computational strata.

  By the time Violetta made it to her feet, the countdown had reached 2:59. She briefly considered putting the world breaker into the bullet and launching it to anywhere—but a launch took time, and there wasn’t any.

  “Let’s get out to the rim and get rid of that thing.”

  Diamond narrowed her eyes, and nodded. “I already found the red door. Follow me.”

  * * * *

  They emerged on the rim, in a curving corridor with a narrow, illuminated path down its center. To the right and left, crowding the path on both sides and looming close overhead, was the chaotic black brickwork of Machina Overlord’s computational strata. Directly across the corridor was the hatch to an emergency escape pod—only a step away. All that prevented them from reaching it was the maintenance robot—twin to the first—that crouched in front of it.

  “How did the Revolutionaries compromise these robots?” Violetta demanded in frustration as she shoved Diamond behind her.

  “How should I know! That was someone else’s task.”

  “I meant it as a rhetorical question.” She pulled her stunner and fired.

  Nothing happened.

  “Out of ammo.” She dropped the weapon as a tentacle grabbed her by the wrist.

  “Mom!”

  “Don’t worry.” Violetta held out her other hand and the robot responded, seizing that wrist with its second tentacle. As soon as it had latched on, she yanked hard and backed away up the corridor, dragging the robot with her. Its spider feet screeched against the glowing path, but she was able to move it half a meter.

  “Okay, Diamond. It’s up to you. Get the world breaker into the escape pod and then jettison it.”

  Violetta braced her shoulder against a protruding cluster of black bricks, a tiny part of the brain matter that was Machina Overlord, and she pulled again. But the robot changed its strategy. It released her wrists, leaving her to lunge for its tentacles. She caught them and held on, while Diamond skirted the spider legs and reached the hatch. She worked a red lever and the hatch slid open. On the other side was the round sphere of the escape pod.

  “Put the world breaker inside.”

  Diamond knelt, setting the device gently on the floor. Then she stepped back and closed the hatch.

  “Trigger it,” Violetta ordered, feeling her heart flutter as the time counted down in her retinal overlay.

  00:59

  00:58

  Diamond opened the translucent box that covered the red trigger switch. She toggled it.

  Nothing happened.

  She turned mystified eyes on Violetta. “Why isn’t it working?” For the first time, she sounded afraid. “Did they compromise the escape pods, too?”

  00:52

  00:51

  Violetta let go of the robot, kicked it hard, and then stepped on it. “You probably don’t have the right authorization.” The robot tried for her wrists again, but before it could stop her, she jammed two fingers against the toggle.

  The machinery responded. Soft electronic motors whirred; the inner hatch closed with a clunk. A hiss and a pop followed—and the robot gave up the fight. It released Violetta and walked away, presumably returning to its regular programming.

  “Is the world breaker gone?” Diamond asked.

  “I think so.”

  A monitor was mounted in the hatch, set up to display the feed from an outside camera. Violetta switched it on. It showed them a circle of bright white lights—already distant—that outlined the perimeter of the pod as it receded rapidly into darkness.

  They lost sight of it as Nexus rotated. Violetta turned to Diamond. They embraced each other while time wound down—ten, nine, eight—not knowing what would happen at zero. She thought again of Ismo and the twins, wanting them to be her last thought if the world breaker was still close enough to pull them in.

  Together she and Diamond watched the monitor—and when zero came, the blackness outside awoke. A diaphanous network laddered into their field of view, rainbow-hued, flickering like distant lightning. It raced toward them, and hit. And then it was inside, all around them, flickering threads of color against the black bricks, color in Diamond’s face, in her eyes, in Violetta’s hands—and she felt as if she was being both crushed and cut apart by those lines.

  Then the lines of color retreated. The sensation fled. It was as if time reversed.

  Nexus completed a rotation so that on the monitor they could watch as the last glimmerings shrank to a bright point and vanished in the dark.

  “Are we still here?” Diamond whispered. “Or are we somewhere else?”

  Violetta directed Diamond to look again at the monitor. “Do you see it?”

  A tiny object caught and reflected the light of the sun. It was a distant world, one of the Nine Thousand, and as Nexus turned, they spotted another and another, giving Violetta the confidence to say, “Let’s go home.”

  * * * *

  There was a hearing to evaluate Violetta’s response to the crisis. Several physicists testified on her behalf, describing to the judicial committee in lurid detail the fatal disaster that would have ensued if Violetta had not promptly removed the world breaker from the vicinity of Tranquility. The revolutionary she’d arrested agreed with their assessment.

  Perhaps she had not chosen the most efficient means to rid the Nine Thousand of the world breaker, but the committee agreed that the task had been accomplished without the delay of debate and with no real loss. It was decided that a year’s suspension would settle the issue
.

  Diamond was happy. “We can follow Dad. Travel all together for a year.”

  “Maybe we will,” Violetta conceded as they walked home together.

  Diamond looked up at her with a coy gaze. “By the way, the Revolutionaries have been talking to me again. They have new assignments.”

  This brought Violetta to an abrupt stop. She put her hands on her hips. “Did you know that the amnesty rule only works once? Diamond, I swear, if you—”

  “Mom! Take it easy. I told them I resigned. I think now I might want to be a hunter.”

  Violetta scowled and started again for home. Only after a few steps did she grudgingly admit, “I think you might be a good one.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LINDA NAGATA has won both the Nebula and Locus Awards. Her most recent work is the Red trilogy, a series of near-future military thrillers published by Saga Press. The first book in the trilogy, The Red: First Light, was a nominee for the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2015. Book 3, Going Dark, was runner-up for the Campbell Award. Linda has lived most of her life in Hawaii, where she’s been a writer, a mom, and a programmer of database-driven websites.

  She lives with her husband in their long-time home on the island of Maui.

  THE CHAMELEON’S GLOVES

  YOON HA LEE

  Rhehan hated museums, but their partner Liyeusse had done unmentionable things to the ship’s stardrive the last time the two of them had fled the authorities, and the repairs had drained their savings. Which was why Rhehan was on a station too close to the more civilized regions of the dustways, flirting with a tall, pale woman decked in jewels while they feigned interest in pre-Devolutionist art.

  In spite of themselves, Rhehan was impressed by colonists who had carved pictures into the soles of worn-out space boots: so useless that it had to be art, not that they planned to say that to the woman.

  “—wonderful evocation of the Festival of the Vines using that repeated motif,” the woman was saying. She brushed a long curl of hair out of her face and toyed with one of her dangling earrings as she looked sideways at Rhehan.