Chapter 15
Blood. A tannic taste. Then the sensation of bubbles slipping past skin. Extreme heat, jangling bones. Being very aware of your hands. Falling. A deafening thud from your heart. Pins and needles, then a sharp pain in the gut. Suddenly, anger, bitterness, doubt and a deep sense of loss. Then the realisation that you have felt these things before. Steel runs through your veins and your hands close into fists. Your head clears.
Arianne’s vision was coming back slowly. She was standing in a chryochamber. She managed to make out a few letters on a screen in front of her.
EJECT
Another blink and the screen came into focus.
EJECT
That’s all it said. The hood of the chryochamber levered open. Arianne stepped out into the lab’s antechamber in a light blue chryo suit. She gritted her teeth against the biting cold of rapid reanimation.
Opposite her was the emergency shutdown switch. A shambolic miniature scaffolding of splintered wood and wire was built up against the wall below it. A dozen mice were standing on top of the scaffolding around the switch. They turned to look at Arianne. At the bottom of the scaffolding a larger group of mice were gathered, staring at her, transfixed. There was a single mouse at the centre of the group, its fur dyed blue and that appeared to be wearing a tall paper hat with the shutdown symbol scrawled onto it. It stood on its hind legs, raised its forelegs into the air and let out a series of squeaks. The crowd went wild and the mice began bolting in all directions, shrieking.
Arianne looked towards the lab. Professor Sura’s body was slumped on the desk, the skin on her face grey and dry. Ragged structures were ranged along the shelves of the lab and hundreds of mice were running between them, scratching and lunging at each other with sharpened wire clutched in their paws.
A deep rumbling vibrated through the floor. Flashes through the antechamber’s window stole Arianne’s attention away from the chaos at her feet. Across the rooves of the administration buildings, she could see laser fire bursting in all directions. A fighter ship was tearing a flaming arc through the sky. Black smoke was spewing out of its starboard engine. It was falling directly towards the lab.
Arianne turned away from the lab and forced her stiff limbs into action. She ran towards the main door, burst through it and pelted down a corridor, absolutely silent except for the sound of her feet slapping against the floor and her heart beating in her ears. The door seemed impossibly far away.
Slap-thump-slap-thump-slap-thump.
She slammed into the door and ripped it open, not daring to look back.
With her first step outside the lab complex a massive explosion erupted behind her and she was sent flying. She crashed into a railing and grabbed at the bars. Her body tipped over the edge and span around, battering against the other side of the railing. Her grip held. Flames and dust blew through the air above her. Below her - tens of stories below - people were running through the square towards the forest of trees. The building opposite her was on fire. Another ship screamed past overhead, pursued by laser fire. Another explosion juddered the railings and Arianne almost lost her grip.
She turned to face the railings and tried to lift her legs onto the lowest bars, but they wouldn’t reach. She stretched up with her left hand for the bar above. Her hand was shivering and the polished metal rejected her grip. Arianne let out a furious scream and kicked the wall below her. She began clawing her way up the bars towards the top of the railing. Her arms ached and dust clouded her vision and worked its way into her lungs. She reached the top and heaved herself over the railing, coughing.
She sat, slumped with her back to the railing. An explosion erupted below. A rush followed by a deep, blunt thud, followed by shimmering glass echoes. Arianne found herself mimicking the sound, suddenly blocking an exhalation with her tongue, and realised that she had her eyes closed. She opened them and looked down towards the sound. Terminal-black smoke was escaping from the corner of a building. People were running out, hands above their heads. As she watched, larger figures appeared out of the smoke. They were massive, chunky human forms, but moved with the rapid lumber of machines. Their shoulders and shins glinted. They strode across the square in a spear formation. Suddenly, arcs of laser fire and weapon flare burst from their arms and shoulders, spraying into the air. A ship screamed through the air, sweeping dust and noise around her. The ground fire followed the ship, ripping into the building all around her.
Arianne kicked away from the railing, covering her head. She scrambled away from the edge and brought her back against the outside wall of the lab. The noise died away, but she still had her eyes closed. Through the floor, through the wall, she felt heavy thuds. Footsteps? As she opened her eyes, she saw a huge, hulking figure appear around the corner nearest to her. It stamped into full view. It was a man, clad in fragmented armour. Metallic panels hugged the shin, thigh, forearms, mimicking bones. Silver and black tubes ran between the panels. Arianne realised that they also dug into the exposed flesh beneath the panels. An angular chest plate rose from the torso and dived back towards the neck. At the ridge of the chest plate was a dark metal strip, engraved with a single word.
“PERSISTER”
Above the chestplate was a square frame encasing a human head. Bald and rugged and angry. It turned towards Arianne, and peered at her through dark circles grafted into the eye sockets. The grimace soured. Arianne tried to push herself away, but her calves felt heavy and weak. The body turned to face her squarely, and raised a thick, multi-barrelled machine gun.
In the moment that their eyes locked, a ship descended like a drop down menu alongside the balcony. Its graceful flowing hull glistened with petrol swirls of deep blue and green. It didn’t appear to have a cockpit. Or any obvious propulsion engine, for that matter. It just hung there in the air. One of its sides folded and swivelled like an insect’s eye, revealing several people inside.
One waved.
Another one was holding a very big gun.
A torrent of wind and gunfire lurched out of the ship. The Persister struck several horrifying poses impossibly quickly and fell to the ground. The ship shrugged off the force of the firing and nuzzled closer to the building. Arianne struggled to her feet as a group of people jumped off the ship onto the balcony. They were all wearing dark combat fatigues and azure jackets which Arianne couldn’t help feeling impressed by – a blue so brilliant that it instilled calm and exuded energy. The word “confident” rang in her mind.
Who were these people? The Persisters were clearly bad news, but these people seemed to be attacking the hub, too. But they had saved her from the Persister. After nearly killing her in an explosion. There were parts of her brain desperately encouraging her to think about the conspiracy against the Agency, and also that she had possibly become a figurehead in a mouse proto-religion based on semi-mystical symbols and thereby bootstrapped a culture.
She tried to get a grip on the situation: were these people on her side? What were the sides? But all she could think was these people know what they are doing.
The man closest to her looked down the balcony to the smouldering corpse of the Persister, then directly at her.
“Karen Arianne” he said, “We are from the Bloggeration ship Correlation Machine. We are rescuing you.”
Arianne was dumbfounded.
“Who-”
Good start, but now she had to pick a question.
“How-”
Nope. Finally, Arianne managed to strike a pose from 21st century North American culture halfway between curiosity, disinterest and disgust, best described as “what the fuck?”.
The man looked up briefly, then back at her.
“Did you know there’s a typo in your funding application?”
Arianne shifted into “what the ACTUAL fuck?” just as a part of the building opposite them exploded. The bloggeration soldiers were already rushing for the stai
rwell as the blast faded. They flowed over the body of the Persister, so close to one another that Arianne was sure one would trip, but they just moved forwards quickly and silently. The man in blue motioned towards the door.
“Let’s get to cover”
Maintaining outraged confusion while skipping over rubble and dead cyborgs was difficult, but Arianne managed remarkably well. She began her questioning again as they were descending the stairs to the ground floor.
“How did you know who I am?”
“I saw you, facial recognition matched you with your meta profile.” he said. “You’re looking remarkably well for over 200”.
Arianne’s blink could have been due to the dust filling the stairwell.
“Wait, when did you scan me?”
“Just now, with my eyes.”
Arianne had to stop in mid step and stare in wonder for a second time.
“Wait, you have viable e-brains?”
“Of course!”
“Right now, your brain is connected to a network?”
The man nodded.
“Ten terabyte connection to the Correlation Machine hub, and fifty terabyte connections to each of the members of my team.”
Arianne looked down the stairwell below her, and saw the soldiers flow around the structures, individuals breaking formation to cover the corners and then folding back into the line.
“How did you find out about the Persisters?” she asked.
“Ah, is that what they’re called?”
“Yes”
“We found out about them when they started firing at us about 30 minutes ago.”
“30 minutes ago! But how did you know I was in danger?”
“We didn’t. Some local nodes put it together after I saw you: your background in Cultural Evolution, you being unfrozen at the right time and whisked away to the hub, the suspicious deaths: it all pointed to a conspiracy within the Administration.”
Suddenly, the whole team stopped in mid-step, paused and laughed out loud at exactly the same time. Then they all continued as in nothing had happened. Arianne looked around desperately for the source of the hilarity.
“What was that?” asked Arianne
“Oh, sorry”, said the man in blue, looking sheepish. “Someone just sent around a very funny picture of a space cat. What were you saying?”
“So you’re not here to stop the Persisters?”
“Well, that wasn’t our primary objective, but it’s been bumped up the priority schedule.”
They reached the ground level. The team burst out into the sunlight and smoke and took defensive positions against raised flowerbeds, ornamental walls and a small fountain in the middle of the square. The only noise was distant shouting and a weak alarm gasping for breath in a billowing office to one side. Arianne and the leader, as she assumed he must be, made a dash for cover against a large abstract sculpture of a snake eating itself. In the open spaces of the plaza, a few bodies lay contorted and still.
The leader turned to Arianne
“So, how did they know we were coming?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The Persisters. Some sort of Seldon simulation? Or they hacked our schedule network?”
“Huh?”
“Did they subscribe to our twitter feeds?”
“What? How would I know?”
“Because you built them.”
“WHAT?” said Arianne
“You and the other cultural evolutionists. You built the Persisters to destroy the Bloggeration.”
“No! That’s … it wasn’t me - I don’t know anything.”
The leader pulled from a holster a moulded block of dark material about the size of a pistol grip with one side flashing shiny metal. There appeared to be some sort of aerial and various buttons along one side. He pointed it at Arianne.
“You know what they’re called.” he said in a level tone.
Arianne found herself attempting to stare at the muzzle of the device being pointed at her, only to find that she wasn’t sure where it was. She shook herself.
“In case you didn’t notice” she said “they were shooting at me as well. And you see that body over there?”
Arianne motioned towards a figure laying face down against the concrete. Memories crawled in shivers over her brain: I love you … stupid bitch …
“That’s an employee of the Administration.”
The whole team turned to look at where she was pointing.
“They’re shooting at everyone.”
Helpfully, a barrage of fire hit the statue around them. A large number of chunky figures had appeared at the other end of the Plaza. The Bloggeration team was taking cover and returning fire almost instantaneously. The leader hardly flinched.
“Hmm, the local net is confused. If they’re not here to protect the hub, and they’re not trying to stop us getting the article, then what’s their objective?”
“What’s the article?” Arianne said “Something that can destroy the Persisters?”
“What? No, no, like a journal article.”
“What?”
“A journal article. From the CAFCA repository.”
A distant part of Arianne’s brain vaguely wondered at what level of recursion the current series of misunderstandings had reached.
“Eh?”
“That’s why we’re here.” Said the leader “A node wanted access to a paper on sensory memory in Onhian shriek-wolves, but it wasn’t open access, so we’re here to extract it.”
Arianne’s left eye twitched.
Nothing happened for a full second. The leader was smiling helpfully.
At this point, Arianne’s eye did a double-twitch, which then appeared to reverberate around her face at an alarming rate. A paparazzi brain imager (of which there were many embedded on the hub) would have seen a remarkable thing happen inside Arianne’s skull. Almost every part of her brain lit up at once. Repeated cascades of activation ran into each other and rebounded, flooding across white matter and leaking across lobes. Axons blew out. There were motor commands trying to get into the primary visual area, and signals from the thalamus lost in her phonological loop. Her amygdala was trying to speak to her superior frontal gyrus, but it was currently in a conspiracy with Broca’s area against regions of the outer cortex.
This supernova of thought was caused by Arianne searching for a word. A very specific word. A word that expressed every kind of communicative confusion that was possible to have in practice and theory. Every what, why, wherefore, whoozit, whadjamean, whatzitcalled, what-the-fuck ever uttered; every pother, bother, fluster, flap and fuddle ever flet; all the air pressed between exasperated lips, all the bewilder-winced eyes, all the facepalmed faces, open-mouth mouths and jaunted jaws in the universe, compressed into a single concept. It was a word that simultaneously referenced every breakdown of understanding, every tragic mix-up, every bungled exposition in all of human cultural history. An archetype of ancient myths of turmoil triggered by tangled talk and a post-modern searing satire on severed speech. It was onomatopoeic and utterly robust to noise or historical change. It was universally understood, children could fast-map it, and domesticated animals got the gist. It expressed every level of puzzlement from an embroiled perplexion to a bemused dither. It was a fusion of confusion. It was a word that was entirely unambiguous, and made interactionally relevant, without delay, a full, direct account and explanation of everything from first principles.
But while the form was universal, the intonation was entirely personal. Arainne’s brain was firing up to press her staggering confounded mess into the suprasegmental layers. The gravelliness of her voice put into perspective the utter ridiculousness of the whole academic system which actively worked against any sort of progressivity. The pitch contours were an operatic lament of lives lived – or not lived – being carted around the galaxy, with every decision revolving around the incomprehensible hub she was now on. A lament, an
d indictment of herself and everyone else, for entering a system that separates people and puts the need to exhibit a capacity for new ideas above care. And with the final twist of the tongue, the word would become a pun on a name. A name she was calling in a parallel dimension without administrative super-beings and cold, empty departure rooms.
Against all odds, Arianne’s brain found the word, and it was planned, launched and spoken.
Unfortunately, a very loud explosion stopped anyone else from hearing it.
“What?” said the leader.
Arianne leapt at him and put her hands around his throat. She got a few good wrings out before a searing pain gripped her abdomen and she fell to the floor. She saw the leader re-holstering the dark pistol grip. Her muscles were not responding, but she didn’t feel like moving anyway. All of the energy had left her body.
The leader was peaking over the concrete statue, and firing his pistol. Suddenly he froze, then laughed out loud, then shook his head and went back to firing. Arianne was casually wondering if they were safe. She turned her head and to see one of the Bloggeration soldiers standing completely in the open, pacing around in a contemplative manner. Laser fire scorched the ground in front of him, and he jumped, looked like he was shocked to find himself in a fire-fight, and dove for cover. Behind him, another solider was apparently taking a picture of himself next to the fountain. Another had taken a laptop out and was laughing at something on the screen. Two other soldiers were having a debate about something. Amidst the sound of machine guns, Arianne caught the word “cupcake”.
She looked back up to the leader. He was scratching his head, looking into the middle-distance, as if nothing was wrong. Arianne tried to get her jaw to work.
“What’s going on? Why have you stopped fighting?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah – the battle.”
“Yes, the terrifying cyborgs trying to kill us”
The leader peeked over the edge of the sculpture again.
“Well, of course” said the leader “… it’s just … well, someone posted a very interesting problem to one of the net boards.”
The leader relaxed a little
“Our group wrote some code years ago that I’m pretty sure could work. It’ll only take a minute…”
Arianne’s eyes attempted to roll.
“… though someone should really be writing a blog post about new Vastion La Quana paper …”
Arianne’s arm was slowly calming down, just in time for her to start punching the floor.
“Oh” continued the leader “a Betelgeuse node has just released a database of space traffic accident stats. I wonder if …”
Arianne managed to turn onto her side. The leader stood up and started strolling towards the other soldiers.
“Hey D, have you got that repository of - ”
He was cut short by a shower of bullets slamming into his chest. He flailed and did nearly a full somersault in front of Arianne. She managed to sit up in time to see two of the other soldiers hit by flanking fire.
Fucking Bloggeration, thought Arianne.
“Some people you just can’t reach.”
A rocket-propelled grenade spiralled across the air above her and hit the wall of the building to her left, sending a shower of smoke and rubble. As Arianne turned to shield her face, she saw a small black rectangle on the floor next to her. A personal terminal – the leader must have dropped it. Not that it was much good against cyborgs with heavy weaponry. She supposed she could get on the Hub network, but what was she going to do? Submit a grant application for tactical cover?
She felt a resigned laugh begin to wash through her. So she would never become a real researcher. So what? All this served her right for even trying. Perhaps she deserved to die by the hands of over-engineered scientists, in the middle of nowhere in space, alone – hungry, even. Arianne reflected with almost a proud stoicism that she hadn’t eaten anything in over two hundred years. With a smile, she realised her last meal had been a packet of crisps from the department vending machine on Io. She’d been munching them as she submitted her thesis. She was thinking about getting lunch, but she’d submitted, her grant application was done, and the chryo-chamber was just down the hall. May as well save some credits, she had thought, I’ll be back online in a month or two.
As smoke streaked across the plaza, she began to think about what her last thought would be. Bits and pieces of all the Standard Culture Canon began filtering through to her. Hundreds of thousands of years of literature, music, licks, paintings, stories, skits, history, philosophy. Any number of fine choices for contemplation, and all pan-galactically recognised and approved. And, she suddenly realised, nothing to do with her at all. She had never created anything worth passing on.
Ah well, she thought. And decided that would do.
Persister: Space Funding Crisis I Page 15
