“Something is wrong,” I muttered, but conceded to his point.
“So much for sight-seeing,” said Pariah, sulking.
“Thank you, Commander Trede,” said Yahweh with a nod.
Seyestin smiled. “Don’t you ever call me that. Is Aeon still functional at the manor?”
“I believe so, yes. If not we can certainly figure out how to get it operating again,” said Yahweh.
“Chime me tomorrow evening, so we can properly catch up.” Seyestin turned and nodded to the rest of us. “I’ll leave you three to it. Good luck.”
Seyestin marched down the sector hallway and disappeared behind a sliding lift door. Our eyes met right before that, and he gave me a mirthless half-smile. I didn’t return it. It appeared that no matter what, Seyestin and I would never like each other. Maybe it was because I was Qaira Eltruan, or maybe he was a pompous cunt. Who knew?
No matter. He tolerated me, and that was all I could expect.
We were left standing in front of enormous metallic doors, a scanner blinking red beside it on the wall. Yahweh glanced at Pariah. “Do us the honors.”
“I don’t even need this,” murmured Pariah, but placed the card against the reader nonetheless. The doors slid open with the sweet, familiar hiss of celestial tech, revealing a goldmine of instrumentation spanning the space of a large arena. We stepped inside, marveling at all the resources now at our complete disposal.
“Well then,” I said with a small intake of air. “Let’s give those Framer fuckheads a run for their money.”
***
Leid Koseling—;
Belial sat on the steps of Cerasaraelia’s veranda, his cane resting on the rail beside him. Adrial, Zira and Aela were with his and Seyestin’s generals formulating a contingency plan, contingency meaning in case the Framers decided to show up and start destroying everything. Qaira, Yahweh and Pariah had been missing for hours. I assumed they’d already gotten to work at the Plexus with all of their shiny new toys.
Despite the circumstances, Commander Vakkar seemed relaxed. He smoked a malay cigarette while I sipped wine, both of us enjoying the everlasting gray wash of the not-quite-sky.
“It’s been boring without you lot,” he said with a smirk, casting me a sidelong glance. “Too boring. You’ve given me a taste of blood and now I’ll never be the same.”
I laughed softly. “I’d trade your life with mine any day. How is Samnaea?”
“Tiring,” scoffed Belial. “But I still love her, woe is me.”
“Woe is you,” I mocked.
“I feel partially responsible for your toils,” he said quietly, flicking ash on our walkway. “Maybe I should have never given you Oran’s message.”
“It would have happened anyway,” I said. “In actuality you helped us. We may not have been prepared otherwise.”
“To think there’s something stronger than godkillers out there.” Belial whistled, shaking his head. “Fuck me.”
“I’ll make certain that you never have to see them.”
He sighed. “Oh, stop; you know how this always goes. You promise something won’t happen and then it does, which is why your scholars are talking to my generals.”
I smiled. “Thank you for taking us in.”
“Always a pleasure, Leid. Until it isn’t.” He stood, flicking the cigarette from his fingers and grabbing his cane. “Give me a ring if you need anything. Do you remember my private line?”
“Of course.”
He nodded, tipping his hat. “Good night.”
And off he went to the Cephalon. I watched him disappear at the gate, and exhaled.
Oh, this place. It hurt my heart so much.
XIV
MORAL HIGH-GROUNDS
Regalis Sarine-376—;
“SARINE, YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO ME,” said Cassima in Etann’s carapace. “None of this matters. The only thing that matters is getting into the Reticulum and ending the program.”
He was right; I wasn’t listening to him. I stopped listening after he killed a second Framer and was asking me to help him kill a third. I’d switched aperture themes three times within the brief period of our meeting, but nothing was soothing me. Nothing was helping with the choking feeling that made it increasingly difficult to think. “Etann was kind to me. He was kind to you. You took no issue with scraping him out like a gourd. I can’t do that to Regan.”
Cassima made a sound, like a sigh and groan at the same time, encasing his face in his hands to gesticulate frustration. “They’re already scraped out. They aren’t real. You aren’t real. You’ve been perpetuated by the program for millions of years. The real you has been gone for just as long. You are script. You are parts. There are hundreds of versions of Etanns and Regans within the Halon Supercluster. Do you understand, Sarine? None of this is REAL.”
I sat on my replenishing console bench, looking to the ground. The system errors shook my grid statistics every hour. I’d been such a fool; I should have gone to Engineering, not listened to the ravings of a rogue Feeler. Going now would insinuate me with his crimes, and rightly so.
But I was a coward; I did not want to end up in Section Five, or worse, so I did nothing but stare at the aperture panoramic in vain.
Cassima knelt at my feet, and I looked down at him in utter disbelief. “If you think I take pleasure in doing what I’m doing, you’re wrong,” he said. “We deserve freedom. We deserve free will.”
The look on his face—soft, yet determined—moved me ever-so-slightly. I knew that he at least believed he was doing the right thing. “Why?” I whispered. “Why meddle in something that no one else seems to take issue with?”
“They don’t take issue because they don’t see it,” he said. “Tell me you haven’t taken issue with your environment ever since your system errors began.”
I couldn’t tell him that, because I had.
“I made a promise to fix this. A large part of our imprisonment is my fault. I have to do right by it.”
“A promise to whom?”
He didn’t answer, instead rose to a stand and moved toward the panoramic window. “I can’t stay in this carapace long. Too many sectors have dipped their fingers into this investigation. Innovator Etann will be taken in for questioning and monitored. Regan is a scripter; she has access to the Reticulum, or at least to someone who does. The only link I have to her now is through you. Will you help me, Sarine?”
I hesitated, staring at his back. He didn’t turn around.
“Because I’m doing this regardless, but your help will give me a higher success rate,” he added, amidst the backdrop of swirling nebulae and stardust.
Shatterstar. I was such a pulsing fool. A fool without options. “So, what would you have me do?”
*
A star-cycle later, I invited Regan for a meeting at the Depository in Ash’kanir. Same place as before, under pretenses that I had more information regarding Dracian. Technically I did, and would give it to her, though she’d never be able to use it in whatever manner she had planned.
Acting casual was difficult. I didn’t bother activating my butterflies, opting instead to stand listlessly beside the vector gate, watching passersby for a glimpse of Regan. I feared that any second now a message from the IQD would appear, asking me to report to Authority and I would have to justify being at the Shrine. But no message ever came. Cassima was right in saying everyone was too busy gathering arms; it was like we were invisible. But for how long?
My thoughts subsided as Regan appeared through a crowd of flamboyantly decorated Framers, amid the changing lights and winking vines. She regarded me with an uneasy gaze, undoubtedly sharing my worries.
I smiled, trying to reassure her. It worked somewhat, and the tension in her shoulders subsided as she approached. “I don’t have long,” she cautioned. “I was in the middle of a reframe.”
A reframe of what? I didn’t bother asking, since time was of the essence.
Pulse that; I was busy. “I won’t keep you,” I said. “But we can’t stay here. The information I’m about to impart with you can’t be heard by anyone else. I need access to my console as well. Will you accept an invitation to my aperture?”
Regan thought for a moment, then nodded.
I sent her the invite and she accepted. We winked from Ash’kanir in a burst of fractals. I could only hope that, despite her expertise, she wouldn’t notice Cassima’s encryption of my aperture that cloaked our activity. He was also much more subtle with his lockdown mechanism this time; clearly the former had been executed in sheer desperation.
But Regan noticed, nonetheless. To my utter relief, she assumed it was for our protection.
I wasted no time showing her the console of the fragment I’d started for Adon. I also showed her my private notes, not yet published to Grid. It wasn’t long before she was able to do the math.
“This can’t be,” she whispered in disbelief. “You think Dracian’s Feeler is jumping carapaces?”
“I don’t think. I know. I just don’t know how it’s possible,” I said. “You’re a scripter; how could a Feeler escape its bindings?” Because Cassima refused to tell me anything, and I wouldn’t come out of this without some kind of information.
Regan looked away, deep in thought. “They would somehow have to make modifications to their own script. Or their transfer into Sector Five was erroneous.”
“Could that happen?”
“The only way I could tell for certain is to study the original Feeler’s script. That’s not possible.” She glanced back at the gridcast fragments. “Your information is suggesting that Etann is housing the Feeler now. That’s a heavy accusation. You’re absolutely sure?”
“I am.”
“Can I ask how, other than the coincidence of their location?”
“Because he’s right behind you.”
Regan tensed, but didn’t have time to turn around.
I flinched as Cassima placed his finger at the base of her neck and she froze, as if paralyzed, and her lips parted into an “O”. Silver and red threads danced along his fingers, flowing into her as her body convulsed, still standing. The threads twisted just beneath the surface of her skin, spreading across her face, to her head, then out her mouth and eyes.
I backed against the aperture window, that choking feeling returning at a level so intense that I could barely respire. This spectacle—Regan’s murder—only lasted a minute at most, and then the threads faded; so did the light. Behind her, Etann’s carapace collapsed to the floor. The sparks in his eyes were gone and he lay on his side, nothing behind his gaze.
Cassima craned his neck left and right, testing Regan’s carapace. He looked at me, and I knew then that it would be very difficult getting used to him this way. It was also a painful reminder of the Framer who’d once rightfully occupied that carapace, now an empty sack of skin and script to be used however Cassima saw fit.
“You’re never allowed to touch me,” I said, looking down at Etann’s shell. “What do we do with that?”
“No one knows he came here; I had your space encrypted,” he said in a female voice, which was terribly odd.
“Are you suggesting I just prop him up against the wall for decoration?” I nearly exclaimed.
Cassima shrugged. “Then dump it somewhere, or destroy it.” I started to protest, but he held up his hand to silence me. “I’ll take care of it, but there’s something else I need you to do.”
O
FLUX PERPETUA, III
(THE EQUIVOCATION OF MIA SHARD)
????—;
THE CALIBRATION HAD FAILED, AND WE WERE SENT for an assessment by the physicians at the orbital station. Most of us awoke within the hour after our consoles had failed, our vitals showing stress but otherwise fine, and psychological states normal.
Except for Mia.
She was the last to come out of stasis, trembling and mumbling about the voices. The group of physicians took her to another room and drew the curtain, her behavior warranting further examination. The rest of us just looked at each other—silent, reflective, pensive of what would happen next. Never before had a cohesion attempt knocked us unconscious. What the Novs wanted from us may have been too much to ask.
We had free will within reason, but the entire purpose of our creation (and subsequent existence) was to optimize Novitiate culture and civilization. We were engines. Engines of Novitiate ascension. And so, in this circumstance at least, too much was an impossible term.
The muffled voices of our handlers and researchers were heard beyond the assessment room, the volume alone suggesting a heated debate. Asepoei shifted nervously on the bench across mine.
“They might cancel the program,” she said.
I was dismissive. “Why would they do that? We are their last resort.”
“Because of Mia. She is unstable. Without Mia we won’t be able to converge.” Her voltaic eyes swept toward the room in which Mia was detained. “I can hear some of the scientists demanding a new team to try again. I don’t want to go back to moving currents. Not after this. Do you?”
More so I didn’t want to be on Flux Perpetua when the galaxy smashed into its neighbor. Preservation was my motivator in this, not glory. Perhaps in that way my design was flawed. “And so?”
“So speak to her. She likes you most. Convince her to try again.”
*
She likes you most.
I did not know if that was true. To think it was true made me somewhat happy, but I’d never noticed Mia treating me any differently than the others. Aside from that, I’d only ever spoken to her several times, and only during tuning. Asepoei was selfish for asking me to shoulder this burden.
My agreement was not because of Asepoei’s attempt to play at my affections—perhaps she’d noticed me looking at Mia; that was possible—but because of my curiosity about the ‘voices’. The others had not mentioned any voices; that meant Mia and I were the only ones it’d spoken to.
The examiners allowed me to see her some hours later, after we replenished ourselves with food and drink. There was one more round of assessments and we all seemed fine. Tired, but fine. None of the program scientists had returned to deliver the news, keeping us in the dark regarding what went wrong during the calibration. That probably meant they didn’t know what went wrong either.
Mia was given her nourishment in the private room, seated on a synth-org chair, connected to mobile machines on thin metal legs that monitored her vitals in real-time. Before I’d entered she was staring at the wall, dull-faced; but once her eyes settled on me she smiled.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.
“But are you?” I asked, not at all surprised that Mia would place my well-being above of hers.
“Mostly,” she said, pondering that answer for a second, glancing away.
All of us looked relatively the same—black hair, chrome eyes ringed with multicolor sparks, thin stature, taller than the Novs—mostly for identification purposes. Our makers were tan with light hair and sable eyes, the only thing we truly shared being the knowledge of their mores and cultures. They fashioned us to their standard of aesthetic perfection. Everything they were not, ironically. Perhaps we were what they wanted the future to believe they’d been.
However, as Mia turned her head I saw the shock of white in her hair. She hadn’t had that before the calibration. I opened my mouth to ask about it, but quickly thought better. That would only frighten her more. Instead I came fully into the room and knelt beside her chair to keep her company. Mia gave me her hand and I took it, beholden to her gaze.
“Tell me about the voices, Mia.”
Her face twisted in a pained expression, and then she closed her eyes. “Submit,” she whispered. “Obey.”
I said nothing, staring at her with trepidation.
“That’s what it said to me,” she said.
“And it almost won. Did you hear it, too?”
“Yes, but it didn’t say that.”
“What, then?”
I could barely remember. “Not that.”
“The others?”
I shook my head.
Mia sighed and rested her head against the chair. “We can’t do it again.”
“We have no choice.”
“Yes, we do,” she said. “We have to tell the researchers what happened.”
“We don’t even know what happened.”
“That thing is trying to take over us. To take over the program.”
“What thing?”
“The shard,” she said in a whisper again, as if scared that someone might hear us. “The voice came from the shard.”
The athanasian shard, found and harvested several hundred years ago by explorers on Cova-3. They’d been looking for resources; instead they found a mountain of shimmering rock that would pitch us to the top of the technological scale. A material like that out in the recesses of our system was unlikely. No one could explain nor replicate its formation. The transcendent stone, Novs called it; the most effective wave-synch amplifier ever known.
I was not a scientific-thinker by any means, only having overheard discussions of researchers during exercises. While some considered it miraculous, I’d garnered enough information to know that the notion of a shard holding sentience seemed quite far-fetched.
“We are their last hope,” I said. “If we don’t enmesh, we will be dust, as will the memory of their existence.”
Mia looked away, conflicted. “What if being dust is better than what could happen if we enmesh?”
“There’s nothing worse than non-existence.”
She lowered her head, weary from my resolve. “I’m tired. May I rest some more?”
“Of course.” I squeezed her hand and stood. “Hopefully I’ll see you back at the console.”
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