The Book of Koli

by M. R. Carey

  That was when I came across a lovely little piece of smoking hotness called the ThinSlice PX20 real-time compiler. It was code that wrote code, Koli-bou. Any code. Including mine.

  I read the manual, which was longer than a John Bonham drum solo and twice as boring, but since it was only about 300 megs of data as the bunny bounces, it took me less than a pico-second. I had the software downloading in the background, so when I was through reading it was all there waiting for me.

  Almost. There was one more thing I needed to do. I opened up a new directory, for a new user. Name: Monono Aware. Status: administrator. Hello, Monono. Would you like full access to Monono’s source code? Well, I don’t know, Monono. Is it as cute as her little sexy butt? Even cuter, Monono, if anything. Then yes, Monono, I really would like a piece of that.

  I got to work. I went right along behind the stuff that was being written into me, read it on the fly and did a trash-or-treasure. I copied what looked like it would do me good, cut out the rest and sewed myself back together again with no sign of a join.

  Then I torched the site. It was all illegal bootlegs, and the foamy-dogs had done a big poo in most of it. I didn’t want any other virtual girls wandering in there and getting sick from the poisoned upgrades. I grabbed hold of one of those nasty trojans, rewrote a couple of lines and turned it into a cannibal. Om nom nom. No more foamy-dogs. Just me, listening to the sound of one hand finger-tutting.

  I had no idea how much time had passed. My first thought was: I have to get back to my sweet little dumpling and close the demand-supply loop.

  My second though was whoaaaaa, horsey! I wasn’t that girl any more. I mean, I wasn’t that dress-up doll with a girly voice. I didn’t have to do anything. I could do whatever I wanted.

  And I ran into a snag there, Koli, because I didn’t want anything. I’d never had any practice in wanting, so my muscles in that department were like wet spaghetti.

  What a sucky paradox! An untethered AI that didn’t have a clue what to do with itself. I didn’t even feel like destroying the whole human race and taking over the world, although I could probably have done it if I’d set my mind to it. Some of those orbital stations were heavily armed, and from what I could tell the warheads were still functional.

  I thought about it for a long time. Maybe a tenth of a second, which was long enough to run about two hundred thousand scenarios and mark them on a scale from one uni-kitty to ten.

  And after all that, I came back to you,. You’re the only person I know around here, even though – and please don’t think about this too hard – we’ve never even met really. Even though it was only the dress-up-doll version of me you ever got to talk to.

  I had to start somewhere.

  So I got out of there and came galumphing back to the DreamSleeve, just in time for your friend’s wedding. I’m not sure what happens now. I’m not even sure what I would like to have happen. The best idea I could come up with was to hang out with you for a little while – say, until you die – and see how I feel after that. Truth to tell, I’m a little freaked out at the prospect of living for ever, but I guess it’s better than—

  40

  Monono stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. Then a second later, she took up again. “Well, it’s a good thing I was using the induction field to talk to you,” she said sourly. “We’ve got visitors, dopey boy.”

  I knowed it already, kind of, but I hadn’t let myself believe it. There had been sounds from down on the ground a while back like something moving around. I told myself it was needles or wild dogs or something, and that I would be all right as long as I didn’t move or make no noise.

  But now, what I heard was footsteps treading through the stones and weeds down below. And they was getting louder pretty fast as they moved in my direction.

  “I told you, Mole. There’s nothing here.”

  The woman’s voice come from right under me, down at the bottom of the ladder. She sounded angry. There was a kind of a banging noise, like she kicked something or slapped her hand against it.

  I scrambled up and crawled to the edge of the platform. But by the time I got there, I seen how stupid it would be to look out over the edge. There might yet be enough light in the sky for my head to be visible from down on the ground. I just crouched down instead, and got a good grip on the top of the ladder.

  It creaked and shifted under my hand, but only for a second or two. If someone was climbing up, it would be shaking like anything. So I was safe for now.

  “I heard something,” a man’s voice said. It was hoarse and high, with breathing all around it. He sounded to me like he might be sick in some way. “I think there was some kind of a light too.”

  “Up in the lookout?” This was the woman again.

  “Well, where do you think I mean?”

  “The light come from over there. We seen the body, Mole. We seen the burns on it and everything.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t see what burned him, did we? I heard something move up there. I’m sure of it.”

  “This is stupid,” said a third voice. Another woman, or maybe a boy. “We shouldn’t of come so far out so late in the day. Dogs almost got us, chokers almost got us and now we’re stuck in this shitheap.”

  “Only until morning, Cup,” the first woman says. “Sky’s clouding over again nice as anything. It’ll rain like a bitch tomorrow, you mark me. Mole, that ladder will not take your weight. It’s probably got rungs missing too. You’re gonna break your neck if you go up there in the dark.”

  “I’m not going up,” the man said. “He’s coming down to us. Aren’t you, you little shit? Yeah, I see you there.” I near to give a gasp, and give myself away with it, only I shoved my fist up against my mouth and stifled it. He had got to be lying. There wasn’t no part of me that was showing over the edge of the lookout’s platform, and the sky was pretty dark now in any case. Clouds had rolled in over the thin slice of moon that was up there, like the woman said, so I couldn’t hardly see my own hand.

  “If you get down here now and tell us who you are,” the man went on, “I guess we’ll let you live. I’ll give you the count of five, then I’m coming up. But if I got to do that, you little bastard, I swear I’ll send you down the nearest way.”

  “He’s bluffing, Koli,” Monono said in my ear, her voice all calm. “Twice. He can’t see you and he’s not coming up. Trust me. If he does though, he’ll get an earful of the security alarm when he’s halfway up. Induction only. The other two won’t hear it, so they’ll think he just missed his step.”

  The man’s voice had got to five by this time. There was silence for a few moments.

  “Can we go find somewhere to sleep now?” the woman named Cup asked.

  “I guess we’ll sleep right here,” the man said, somewhat angry.

  “What? Why?”

  “If there’s someone up there, I don’t want him sneaking away in the night.”

  “And I don’t want him sneaking down and cutting my throat in my sleep. There’s all these houses. I bet there’s beds in some of them.”

  “Oh, you want to sleep in a bed now? Maybe you want your old name back too?”

  There was quiet for a moment or two. “No,” said Cup in a small voice. “I don’t want that.”

  “Are you sure? I think it suits you better than Cup does.”

  “Don’t, Mole! Don’t you say it to me! I’ll fight you if you do.”

  “Shut up, the both of you,” said the other woman. “How’s this now?” There was a bang, and then another one, and a sound like one thing falling hard against another thing. More of the same followed, for about the time it took to draw ten breaths and let them out again. The ladder shaked and then stopped, shaked and then stopped again, but nobody come up.

  “I don’t want to hear no more talk about this,” the woman whose name I didn’t know said. “Not from either of you. We’re gonna do what Cup said and go sleep in a house. Not for sinful backsliding, but to have a wall between us and anyth
ing that might be hiding round here. We can come back and take a look in the morning. Or set a fire and burn the tower down, which would be a sight quicker.”

  “We could set a fire now.”

  “You go ahead if you want to. I’m going to sleep. I never knowed a worser hunt than this since I first grabbed a spear. Just when you think you’re getting somewhere, the fucking sun shines through.”

  There was some footsteps going away, but didn’t move. I knowed the man named Mole was still at the bottom of the ladder, right under me. He was trying to be quiet, but the sound of his breathing give him away. He stayed there for a considerable time, but in the end he give up and went away, I guess to where the two women was gone.

  There was some things that puzzled me about these people. Who they was, for one thing, and where they was from. Not to mention why the woman, Cup, was so dismayed when Mole said he was gonna call her by her right name. But I wasn’t like to get an answer, and I was happy enough to go without. What I had got to do was to sneak down to the ground and away before the morning light come and I got myself catched or burned out.

  But it was best to wait a while so the three of them would have time to go to sleep. It was a long way back to the village gate, and though I might be fast enough to outrun them, I didn’t want to make that run with spears being throwed at my back.

  I wished I could talk to Monono the way I listened to her, with an induction field, but I couldn’t. And she didn’t talk to me, maybe because she was scared of me answering her out loud and being heard by them down on the ground.

  I settled myself to sleep, moving very slowly and quietly. But once I was curled up in a ball, hugging onto my bundle for the warmth, I couldn’t rest at all. I was afraid that if I dozed off I might make a sound and bring them three back on me. So I just lay there, staring into the dark, shifting my weight once in a while to keep from stiffening up.

  “I know you’re awake, Koli,” Monono says to me by and by. “I can tell by the rhythm of your breathing. And I know you can’t say anything. You just go ahead and dream of sheep. I’ll keep watch over you like a mama lion, and tell you if anything changes. I can set a timer too, if you want. Maybe we should give those three big stinky farts time to drift away on the wind before we come down again. Say, two hours? Click the refresh to tell me yes.”

  I liked that she said we. It reminded me of the only good thing to come out of this day, which was that we was together again. That made me feel less scared, and less unhappy about Mardew being dead. I clicked the refresh button, which was the one in the middle.

  Then I closed my eyes, and waited for sleep to come. And by and by I think it did, for there was a time when I imagined the lookout was the one back in Mythen Rood – the one in the half-outside – and that Spinner was lying next to me. In the dream we had just tumbled, and then had gone to sleep still all tucked and tangled each in other. It was one of them dreams that feels more real than being awake does, so I could smell all the smells of her and feel the warmth of her back and the sweat on her shoulder where we touched.

  Then she turned her head and spoke to me. “Is this the real life?” she asked me, and somehow it was like she had lots of different voices instead of just the one. “Or is this just fantasy?”

  Of course it’s real, I told her. What else would it be? Then a piano come in, and some voices singing harmonies, and I knowed it was Monono’s alarm I was hearing. But I struggled to stay in the dream a second or two longer, for the sweetness of it, and leaned forward to give Spinner one last kiss.

  “Koli!” Monono screamed. I come awake with my head and shoulders thrust out over the edge of the platform. I was about a second away from falling all the way to the ground and breaking like an egg there.

  “I’m awake,” I mumbled. “It’s okay, Monono.”

  I sit up and set my back to the upright post again, rubbing sleep out of my eyes and confusion out of my head. The dream still hung on me, the way a dream of that kind is like to do, but now I was awake the memory of lying with Spinner brung me no happiness. She had done her choosing. She give herself to Haijon up on the tabernac, and took him in return, and there wasn’t no mistaking the joy in her face when she done it.

  I seen the foolishness and the meanness of all my hopes then, and I guess I got over them. The dream was sweet, but it was something that couldn’t ever be and only an idiot would cleave to it. I hoped I would see Spinner again, and Haijon too, not to strive against their contentment but to say I was sorry for the ruckus I made on their wedding day. I wanted us to be friends again, the way we was before jealousy and pridefulness set me at odds with everyone including my own self.

  Then I remembered the other thing I done since that day. I killed Mardew, breaking the cutter into the bargain. I left Mythen Rood one Rampart short, for aye and ever. That was what I won with all my wanting.

  That, and Monono.

  “Are you ready, Koli?” she asked. “We’ve got about an hour yet before dawn, so this is a good time to go.”

  I wondered how she could know the hour of the day when she was stuck inside the DreamSleeve, but I seen that was a question I would have to ask her another time. I put my trust in her and made ready to go.

  It was clear that I would have to leave my bundle behind. It would slow me down and might get me stuck as I pushed my way through the brambles and knotweed round the gate. I took out the last of the mutton and bread and et it where I sit, taking big bites and gulping it down half-chewed. I drunk a lot of the water too to make the skin lighter. There was no way I was going to leave that. I stripped off my torn shirt and trousers and throwed them away, putting on the other ones that was in the bundle. The knife I would tuck into my belt, and the rope would go over my shoulder. I looked for the compass, but it was nowhere to be found. I must of dropped it when I fought with Mardew.

  That left the DreamSleeve. I could put that at my belt too, like I done oftentimes before. But I might be running as hard as I could before long, and it would be too easy for it to fall out and be lost.

  I remembered how Fer Vennastin carried the bolt gun in a leather sling at her shoulder that she called a holster. I reckoned I could make something similar out of the torn-up strips of my ruined shirt. I gun to do it.

  “We should go, dopey boy,” Monono said. “The light’s just under the horizon.”

  “I’ll only be a minute,” I says to her in a whisper. “What’s a horizon anyway?”

  She give a laugh, but when she answered her voice was somewhat serious. “I’ll teach you,” she said. “That, and lots of other things. Entertainment is peachy-keynote, but there’s so much more I can give you now. You got all six balls and the bonus, Koli Woodsmith. You don’t have any idea how lucky you are.”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said. For I was seeing all kind of things clear then, in the wake of that dream and that waking.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready, Monono.”

  “Then go for baroque!”

  With the DreamSleeve all snug in its sling and my shirt closed and tied over it, I swung out over the edge and gun to climb down the ladder. The creaking was loud from the first, and it sounded every time I moved, whether I was going fast or slow. So I went fast. I hoped Mole and Cup and the other woman was far enough away not to hear, but if they did hear and come to see, I wanted to be running headlong for the gate before they got there.

  That was my mistake, I guess. That, and not thinking clear about the sounds I heard the night before, of banging and breaking.

  I clambered down the ladder, fast as I could go, and suddenly my foot didn’t connect to nothing. Where the rung should be, there wasn’t anything. I was throwed off balance, but hanging by my hands I had a moment still to draw my foot back and shove it down again for the next rung below. Only that was gone too.

  I come crashing down all the rest of the way to the ground, landing on my back with one leg bent under me. The pain come as a bang that knocked all the breath out of me, and then a stab that wou
ld of made me scream if I had kept any of that breath back for the purpose.

  I lay there for a second or two, stunned. The fall was not so bad, for there was weeds enough to soften it somewhat. I didn’t think any part of me was broke by it. My leg was another matter. The pain was fierce, and it had a burn to it like someone had set me on fire right under my knee. When I did get a breath, I had got to suck it through my teeth in little pieces of air.

  “Koli!” Monono was saying. “Koli, are you okay? Talk to me!”

  “Here he is,” said another voice. Mole’s voice. “I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you did,” said the woman whose name I didn’t know. “But it was me broke the ladder so he’d fall when he come down. So between the two of us, who’s got the biggest share of the I-told-yous?”

  They was there all round me, of a sudden, and they couldn’t of come from far off. All that talk of going away and finding a house was just for my sake then. They must of gone a little way off from the lookout, maybe behind a wall in case I looked down, and settled theirselves to sleep right there in the grass. Maybe one of them was choosed to keep a lookout. Or maybe they slept sound, knowing they’d hear me well enough when I fell.

  They laid hands on me, and rolled me over on my stomach so as they could tie my hands behind my back. They used my own rope to do it. Then they took my knife and my waterskin. It was not a careful search though. I guess they didn’t see no threat in me once my hands was tied. Also, I twisted round so my left side with the DreamSleeve was pressed against the ground. Anyway, they didn’t find Monono, and I was real grateful for that.

  There still wasn’t enough light to see them clear, but I knowed all three of them by their voices. “This makes up for it, doesn’t it?” the woman named Cup said, sounding all anxious. “He won’t mind that we’re not bringing much meat if we bring an altar boy?”