by S. B. Divya
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said hoarsely. “I’m no good at this, Welga. I don’t enjoy risking my life, and I don’t like being in pain. Shield work was never supposed to be serious. The Machinehood is.” He switched back to text. I’m not a fighter, not like you. The leadership of Eko-Yi preaches peace, living a compassionate life. It’s what I want. Maybe what I need, too. I thought you’d agree with me.
Her heart ached at his bruised, exhausted expression. He had waited for her through all her Raider missions early in their relationship. He’d supported her transition to life as a shield, going so far as to leave the JIA when she left the service. Why the hell did they win their seats now? She didn’t want to make this choice any more than he did, but Organica was her only chance to go after the Machinehood and put the ghosts of Marrakech to rest. It’s not fair.
“Don’t do this, please. Not right now,” Welga said. “The minute the agency decides they don’t need me, I’ll head home. But, cardo, don’t make me choose between you and this mission. You’ve seen what the Machinehood has done. I want to go up there with you, but this is so much bigger than us. I might be one of the few people who can—who can do what has to be done. I can’t—”
“No, I can’t!” he interrupted. “I can’t stand the thought of watching you destroy yourself again for the same people who drove you away the first time. You don’t owe this to anyone.”
“I owe it to myself.”
He brushed at his eyes, breathing hard.
“What if…,” Welga said. Her stomach knotted at what she was about to propose. “What if you go first, without me? They’ll give me priority later on, as your life partner.”
“And leave you in the middle of all this?” He swept his arm in a wide arc.
“You can’t help me with this.” She mimicked his gesture.
He stayed silent for several breaths, then shook his head. “If I leave the planet, and you… don’t come home, I’ll never forgive myself. We’re doing this together or not at all. Just like last time.”
Welga blinked back a sudden rush of tears. “Hold on to those seats as long as they’ll let you. I’ll send you a message when I know what’s happening next. I love you.”
Connor’s expression stayed bleak, but he touched two fingers to his lips and reached them forward. “Love you too.”
She returned the virtual kiss and jogged toward the office. We’ll get up there one day, Connor, I promise.
She imagined what their life might look like off-world. How did people cook in microgravity? What happened when they had sex or fights? Did they have a local network with swarms and tip jars, or did they live the old-fashioned way, with private activities?
Then, as she stood braced against the blower in the entry, she skimmed the latest headlines that Por Qué had grabbed while outside. The raw material situation had worsened after the last round of attacks. Even the undamaged refineries had stopped production. In the interests of safety, they said. Idiots. Didn’t they realize they had done the Machinehood’s work for them? And what would happen to Connor and every other sick or injured person in the meantime?
I should go back to him, take care of him, go with him to Eko-Yi. But if things went wrong again, she’d wonder if she could’ve made a difference. When she applied to become a Raider, Captain Travis had told her that no service could occur without sacrifice. She had signed up to lay down her life for her people, and if she could stop the Machinehood, then everyone, not just Connor, would benefit.
Why did dying for a cause seem easier than living without her partner?
She restocked her own supply of pills as soon as she got inside. Might as well play it safe. The agency often left low-level freebies around to keep people in practice, but even they couldn’t produce something from nothing. She had felt small tremors ripple through her arms and legs. She couldn’t afford to expose her condition any further so she popped a duo-zip into her mouth because that was all the building had. No officer would use less in the field, so why stock anything slower?
At least the facility’s kitchen brewed a decent black coffee. When she got back to the basement, half the room had gone upstairs to dinner, including Olafson. Welga’s stomach grumbled as she sipped the scalding brew. She sent him a message to bring her back some food and then called up the data from Crawford.
The only genetic connection, Jun-ha Park, came from a traditional family: Mother, Josephine Lee. Father, Donald Park. One sibling, a younger sister, Soo-ha Park, currently age seventeen. Their permanent address: Eko-Yi Station.
Eko-Yi again. It’s a small world.
If she bailed on this mission and went to space with Connor, Park’s family would be her neighbors. Out of curiosity, she dug deeper into their public records. They had emigrated to the station in 2091, a few years after the boy died. To make a fresh start, they said. Made sense to her. If Papa had suggested going off-world after her mother’s death, Welga would’ve accepted in a heartbeat. Anything to avoid the well-meaning pity party that she’d faced in high school, or the bullshit and bullying that Luis dealt with for his tears.
Four years in space meant that the family couldn’t come back to Earth without suffering potentially deadly complications. She couldn’t find any public feeds or recordings of them from the station. The parents had arrest records on Earth, during the pre-regulation protests of the sixties. Since then, they’d become practicing lawyers and model citizens, the mother in bioethics, the father in finance. A Neo-Buddhist monk had married them and later became the head of Eko-Yi colony, eventually leading a successful effort to gain the station’s independence. Josephine Lee had a strong public presence for her work. Swarm feeds showed the family doing typical activities on Earth, with the boy encased in a mech-suit in his later years.
After that, they effectively disappeared onto Eko-Yi. No public appearances. No messages back to Earth.
Welga scratched at her neck. The family had no traceability. The blackout of the caliph’s empire was the only place on Earth where the Machinehood could disappear… but what if they weren’t on Earth? It struck her as more implausible than the sentient artificial intelligence theories, but she searched the rest of the report anyway. The only mention of the space stations was the connection with the smart-metal fragment. Jun-ha Park had never lived in space, and no analyst had followed up with his family. Welga added her findings to the document.
A dead child with unusual genes whose family moved off-world. A Machinehood operative with matching DNA sections. Smart-metal innards manufactured in space, a place as blacked out as the Maghreb. Was there a connection between Eko-Yi and al-Muwahhidun?
The space station had been built as a joint venture between China and India, a good-faith effort as the two countries learned to cooperate for the first time in modern history. China had established infrastructure in the Central African Republic, but the caliph had pushed their influence out of the Maghreb along with every other nation. He didn’t want their notorious spy capabilities breaching his information blackout. Would he buy tech from off-world rather than developing his own? Were the connections all coincidence? Was she giving it too much weight because of Connor?
The image of his bruised, emaciated face in the taxi filled her with guilt. Maybe he’s right… maybe I should quit this whole operation and protect the man I love. Someone else can take care of the rest of the world. She thought about Briella Jackson’s life bleeding out over a hotel rug. The other funders. The dead and wounded at the refinery. She saw the echoes from Marrakech, her squad mates and their captain lying scattered across the street, the acrid taste of smoke filling her throat. She hadn’t saved any of them. Was she being an idiot, thinking she could handle the Maghreb after so many years?
She ought to read up on the overseas operation, research what she could about the al-Muwahhidun. The tactics of the Machinehood echoed the caliph’s, but the mismatch in motives nagged at her like a protruding hangnail. Follow your instincts, Olafson had said. The Eko-Yi connection
hadn’t been pursued by anyone beyond Anne Crawford’s entry. If Connor was going to live there, she ought to make sure it was safe, that she wasn’t throwing him into the path of the Machinehood again.
I should’ve taken Ammanuel into the refinery with me instead of him. He’s never been in real combat.
Stop wasting time on tangents and focus!
The flow pills sat in the tray and stared at her. It took practice to think with the enhancement, but she’d had a little practice in high school. Some part of her brain must remember what to do. And really, could a few doses hurt? It wasn’t like she’d need them on a daily basis, and they would help her get through dozens of pages of analysis quickly. Plus, it might help you implicate Eko-Yi and keep Connor grounded, whispered a traitorous part of her mind. Then you can take care of him and settle the ghosts of Marrakech, too.
She was holding on to a promise to her long dead mother. And for what? She didn’t believe that Laila was somewhere in heaven, looking down and judging her actions. The zips might already be killing her. Taking flow this once could allow her to accomplish all her objectives—finding the Machinehood, helping Connor, and preparing for the Maghreb. She needed to get over her fear and do it. Whatever it takes.
Welga reached out to the tray, her heart pounding. Sorry, Mama.
Flow had a ten-minute onset. She closed her eyes. Her skin tugged and itched where it had repaired itself. The rest of her body sat in dull numbness. Her muscle aches disappeared from her perception. She breathed and let the faces of loss float in memoriam. Laila Boothe-Ayala in her vivid heyday. Jack Travis exuding charisma and kindness. Her squad mates, fierce and determined. Briella Jackson, poised, passionate, dead.
An alertness seeped into her consciousness. Her thoughts took on a rapidity and clarity that felt familiar. Yes, she could work with this.
She called up the genomes for Jun-ha Park’s immediate family. Neither parent had matches for the unusual segments their son shared with the blood on the fragment. The sister had left Earth as a minor, so her DNA had never been recorded. Welga dug into Jun-ha Park’s medical case files. The entries came from a trio of researchers who had published multiple papers about the boy’s condition.
Welga called up their publications, but she couldn’t read four words without having to look up meanings. She split her visual into thirds, one for the articles, one for a glossary, and the third for annotations from gigsters. Thanks to the flow, her attention moved smoothly back and forth as she integrated the information.
Jun-ha Park had a genetic disorder that had nothing to do with drugs or pills, but at the same time, couldn’t be helped by those means. He wasn’t the only child to show the disease’s symptoms, but it was rare enough that the world had limited data to develop treatments. The little funding that went toward researching it came from family members and philanthropists. They encased him in mech-suits to help him function, but the drugs to facilitate that interaction had exacerbated his condition. After the boy died, the father sued and won a good deal of money for that oversight.
The mother had kept a journal while on Earth. It probably wouldn’t tell Welga much more than the public records, but she put in a request for access in case it held any useful information. The medical researchers who’d worked with Jun-ha had experience with biomechanical integration. They had studied his complications in depth. And they had access to genetic material that resembled the Machinehood android, at least in certain rare segments. Were they the connection? Selling a minor’s DNA sample was illegal, but enough coin could make breaking the law worthwhile. One member of the medical team lived within the United States. A second resided in Europe, the third in China. Those two were out of her country’s jurisdiction, but she could visit the American doctor.
She placed a request to authorize travel to the domestic researcher, a white man named Mitchell Smith. He lived in an old house in New Jersey, half a day’s drive away. She could get there and back before the agency had the Maghreb operation ready to go.
A small, sharp pinch on her neck penetrated Welga’s concentration. Olafson stood next to her. She tried to speak, but her vocal cords and mouth didn’t want to produce words. By the time those muscles worked, her brain had dropped out of its flow state. Her thoughts came with a fuzziness around the edges.
“What the hell? You flushed me!”
Olafson glared. “Because you’re restricted from flow use. If you want off this operation, just say so. Otherwise, don’t pull stupid shit like this!”
“It’s one time, and it’s a fucking global emergency. Can’t I get an exception?”
“I’ve already given you one for zips. What the hell do you need flow for anyway? We have analysts to do the heavy thinking. You’re supposed to be prepping for engagement in the Maghreb.”
Welga tapped a finger at the air in front of her eyes. Check your messages, the gesture meant. Olafson should have a copy of her travel request. He frowned as his eyes shifted focus to his visual, and his fingertips twitched.
He pursed his lips, then said, “What do you think this doctor can tell you that our WAIs and databases can’t?”
“I want to check if there’s a connection between this kid’s genome and the Machinehood. It might be a colossal coincidence, but if his doctors sold out to the al-Muwahhidun—”
“Then we have a start on the money trail.”
“Exactly. It’s illegal to sell a minor’s DNA sample, and if that helped build the Machinehood operatives, this researcher is in big trouble.”
“Which could convince him to give up his al-Muwahhidun contact.” Olafson nodded. “It’s a long shot, but I understand what you were thinking.”
“Can I check it out?” she said. “It’ll be less than a day round trip.”
Olafson flicked his fingertips. “Okay, I’m authorizing the investigation, but I’m coming with you. No solo interrogations, remember?”
Welga shrugged. “It’s an informational interview, but I don’t mind your company.”
“Let’s plan to leave here at three a.m. That’ll give us enough time to see the doctor and return for tomorrow’s afternoon briefing. In the meanwhile, get some food and some rest. We need your body in good shape before you head overseas.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
As Welga finished the dinner that Olafson had brought down, the Machinehood released a full manifesto along with a second demand: shut down all WAIs and bots within twenty-four hours, or the Machinehood would take care of it themselves.
“Here we go again,” Welga muttered.
She dropped her containers into the recycler as others transformed the dynamic office space into a war room. People taped screens to the walls. The most reliable sources of news and analysis from around the world scrolled across the wall on Welga’s right. Annotated highlights from the manifesto popped like patches of yellow lichen on the left. The one straight ahead of her showed a mishmash of feeds—exfactors, hackers, and law enforcement agents trying to track down the Machinehood.
The manifesto didn’t take long to read, but the comments from other agents cropped up faster than she could parse them. The document’s themes resonated with the machine rights groups—lots of stuff about the abuse of artificial intelligences and the nature of life—but nothing in the manifesto pointed to their methods. There was a short call to action at the end, the same passage they’d released after their first wave of attacks. Welga stared at the final paragraph:
We hereby declare our intention to ensure our rights by any and all means necessary. Humans of this universe, you have a choice: stand with the Machinehood or render yourselves extinct.
The existential threat of AI had scared human beings for the past century. The Machinehood certainly made themselves sound like SAIs. Welga went back to the beginning of the manifesto, reading more slowly to look for clues that the al-Muwahhidun had written it. A sentence in Section Three tickled at her memory: We find these dichotomies to be false and detrimental to the h
ealth and well-being of humans, animals, machines, and environment.
Where had she heard that? After a few seconds, the answer came to her, and it wasn’t from Marrakech. She pulled up the recording of the monk from Eko-Yi: For too long the world has embraced Western dualistic thought, which traps people into wrong living. Black or white. Right or wrong. Animal or machine.
She skimmed the incoming comments. None mentioned the space stations or Neo-Buddhists. Not one screen had a feed from off-world.
Welga waved to get Olafson’s attention.
“The android’s smart-metal came from a space station,” Welga said. She flicked a highlighted piece of the analysis report to his visual.
He scanned the words. “Okay. So?”
“Watch this video snippet and compare it to this section of the Machinehood Manifesto.”
Olafson pursed his lips as he watched, then said, “Let’s run the words through the agency WAI for an author-similarity measure.”
While they waited for the results, Welga updated her notes about Jun-ha Park’s family and appended Ao Tara’s lecture to the general analysis report. She needed analysts to corroborate her suspicions—or prove that she was way off track. With Connor’s words ringing in her mind—we’re doing this together or not at all—her judgment was compromised by desire.
“Seventy-one percent likelihood of author match,” Olafson said. “It’s far from golden, but it’s enough that I’ll take it up with Rice.”
They found the director in the far corner of the room, huddled with several others in furious conversation. When Olafson caught her gaze, she waved them closer. He summarized their findings, ending with the text analysis.
“The smart-matter fragment must come from Eko-Yi,” Welga blurted.
Rice held up a hand. “We need more solid evidence before we can make that conclusion. After seeing this manifesto, I’m going to move the timeline up for action in the Maghreb.”
“But why would the caliph release a bunch of demands to give bots and WAIs rights?” Welga countered. “He’s never wanted that. The Neo-Buddhists want to protect intelligent machines and animals. They must be working together!”