He hands her a roll of stiff paper. It contains a schematic of the false city: clearly drawn, clearly marked. Where it connects to the rest of the sphere, where it joins a maintenance tunnel beneath a waystation, how to evacuate. There is only one path—one entry, one exit. Written instructions on how to turn the edifices into a defensive maze, where the controls are located. “They have been keyed for your use for the next thirty days,” he says. “I recommend you practice.”
“You expect I’ll need that?”
“I expect everything and nothing. Whatever transpires will do so at Benzaiten’s whims.” He draws from his sleeve a curl of glistening, translucent material that Orfea recognizes as McDonald’s remains. “Xe’s never been predictable. Which is the crux of our problem, come down to it. None of us has ever done anything quite like Benzaiten. After all this concludes and we unscramble our destiny from the results, hopefully no one will do that again either.”
“And Nataku Contemplates a Flight of Sparrows?”
“Inherited none of Benzaiten’s parameters. Nor xer privileges. Nor xer . . . consider if you play back someone else’s memories. They don’t have the same meaning to you as they did to their original owner. Moments that signify deeply to them are as thin vapor to you; keepsakes precious to them are as worthless trinkets to you.” Wonsul draws his silks close around him. “I would keep that in mind, Doctor, for when you meet Krissana Khongtip again.”
Krissana is moved to a different holding cell, a much wider chamber where one wall displays public broadcasts for her benefit. Her network access remains suspended. She is given adequate water and food. This cell is not anechoic; the Mandate would have difficulty monitoring her otherwise, and a proxy sent to physically stand watch would be cut off from the network. She can’t tell what it does to an AI to be severed from the collective, to be alone, but she expects it’s no more comfortable for them than for her.
Twice she is sedated; her room darkens or brightens without rhythm or reason. Her overlays don’t always report the passage of time accurately. She tries to divine the day via the broadcasts—weather, mundane news, the arrival and departure schedules of the docking bays—but she is aware they show her only what the Mandate wants her to see, recycled footage and data, some likely fabricated: the names of carriers that have never existed, the titles of captains that have never been, the imaginary pasts and futures that exist only on this screen.
There is no hint of Orfea.
But, she judges, whatever Seung Ngo means to do has not yet come to fruition. It would be publicized and she wouldn’t be spared the fact: the ambassador would keep her informed if only to gloat. Banishment, execution. Knowing the scale of what Seung Ngo covets, it would be nothing less.
From where she is, there’s only one thing she can do. Less to save herself, more to draw Seung Ngo’s attention. Waiting for something to happen is not her modus operandi. You’ve never been predisposed to self-sacrifice. She smiles at the empty wall, at the empty air. Perhaps that is not her inclination, but this might begin to repay what she owes Orfea. A body for a body.
One more cycle of sedatives and indifferent food, and she activates the Amaryllis signal.
It doesn’t take long before Seung Ngo visits her in person. Their proxy has an ageless face, angular and arrogant, hair arrayed like a comet’s tail. Much taller than usual, over two meters, and intimidating by sheer size—exploiting the human instinct that regards such enormity as a predator signal. Krissana stands her ground, arranges herself against the wall, looking bored. Naturally pointless: Seung Ngo can access her vital readings. Before that data, the greatest expertise in controlling body language pales.
“I wanted to thank you,” Krissana says sweetly, “for moving me here. Much nicer accommodation by far—that tiny cell was extraordinarily uncomfortable. You’re looking lovely, Ambassador. As ever. Being able to customize your appearance at will really is a supreme advantage in life, I should love to be so statuesque. Say, would you mind bringing me a change of clothes? I saw these cocktail dresses made like a viper nest and these bespoke eigenvector slippers, and your budget’s practically infinite.”
“When we’re done here, I will see to your wardrobe. I have no intention of depriving you of basic dignity.” They gesture at the wall; a seat petals open, four-armed and six-legged, as if a deity has been petrified and transformed into furniture. “I’m curious what you think you have done, Khun Khongtip, and what you expect to happen in consequence.”
She smiles, sleek and sharp. It is an expression that has frozen enemy agents in their tracks, reduced them to abject terror. On Seung Ngo it has no effect. “I don’t know, Ambassador. You tell me.”
The AI sets down the tray they have been carrying: a plate, a curved fruit knife, two apples in the prime of sweetness. “I have been looking at your private protocol. It’s a cunning little thing. If you hadn’t activated it, I’d never have an idea—indeed it never turned up when we previously ran scans. In error, I assumed it was a suicide switch. Toxic or, more likely, complete organ failure.” They begin to peel, parting the apple’s ruddiness from its bone-white flesh. The knife flicks, disappears into fruit-skin, reappears dewed and glistening. “It is a beacon, correct? It looks for any active connection and sends a signal to the nearest neutral relay, and continues traveling like a slingshot until it reaches its designated recipient. In remote regions, this may take time. From here in particular, there will be little delay once the protocol’s been executed.”
Krissana makes no answer.
“Do you take for granted,” the AI goes on, placid, “that the Alabaster Admiral will come to your rescue? It’s true that an Amaryllis agent in enemy territory might gain succor by revealing the fact—the Armada is a potent threat and even the slight risk of aggravating the admiral would give most polities pause. The prospect of her wrath, the wrath that has immolated worlds. How frightening. But I don’t imagine she is keen to assault Shenzhen Sphere or even enter our area of control. You forsook her for us, and you’re no longer a valuable asset to her. Or an asset at all.”
“You’re wrong.” Her vitals would betray no sign that she is lying; this is her domain—the bluffing, the bending and folding of truth. “The Alabaster Admiral deems Shenzhen a challenge: a place that’s never weathered attack before fascinates her. There’s nothing she loves more than a novel strategic puzzle. All she requires is an excuse, and I’ve provided one.”
They continue to peel the apple, smooth easy motions, machine dexterity. “Judging from the Armada’s last reported activities, it would take her half a month to reach Shenzhen through her fastest relays. That’s assuming she does undertake the voyage, which is a large assumption. I’m not one of those who take a personal interest in the Alabaster Admiral, but among us there are students of her ways and habits, her predilections and preferences. A rather necessary area of study, though some of them are riveted for the sake of it. Nevertheless they can model her behavior with accuracy, and to a one they are unanimous that she’s not going to come and extract you from your plight. Challenge or no challenge, novel or elsewise.”
Krissana makes an elaborate shrug. “Of course. You’d be right. But she knows I have haruspex implants on me and no human has ever had access to them. Once I reclaim my rank in the Armada, she’ll be entitled to those. To all of me, really. Your colleagues could factor that into their modeling.” Which is not infallible, she’s worked with the Mandate long enough to know that. Seung Ngo will say what is convenient for Seung Ngo either way.
Seung Ngo laughs abruptly. “You’re hard to forecast. I will give you that. You’ve always been a climate unto yourself, and who can tell where your elements will point next? None of us ever did comprehend you entirely, not even those who’ve been here from the first. You’re going to insist on this charade to the end, aren’t you?” They put the plate of apples down.
Two additional Seung Ngo bodies enter, more compactly built than the one facing her, more ordinary-looking. She makes a q
uick judgment: the threat they represent, how they have been made and equipped.
She moves fast, grabbing the proxy to her right and slamming its head into the wall—a crash of metal on metal. From the next she dodges low and sweeps its legs out, taking hold of its skull. She uses that momentum, wrenches backward. The neck snaps; the body falls. A spray of jagged actuators like spent lightning.
Three more bodies appear. The taller Seung Ngo proxy remains where they are, playing with an apple slice, nibbling it. “There’s no need for all that, Khun Khongtip. I only want you to accompany me on—let’s call it a pilgrimage. I cannot appeal with reason; perhaps I can appeal with nostalgia. I have many proxies in store and some of them are combat-readier than others. You could amuse yourself wrecking a few more of them, but it’ll be a mutual waste of time and I’d rather not damage you.”
Krissana waits until her respiration evens out. When she makes no move to attack, Seung Ngo gestures and a cell wall lowers: opening to empty air and a small, hovering shuttle. In the absence of better options—and she’s already played her one wild card—she follows them into the vehicle.
The shuttle ascends fast, climbing over air traffic and then above the highest building in Luohu; soon there’s nothing to see through the windows but cloud and the thin layer of atmosphere that allows Shenzhen Sphere to mimic planets.
“Have you thought,” Seung Ngo says, conversational, “how convenient it is to be in more than one place at once, to pilot more than one body at a time?”
“Can’t say I have, Ambassador.”
“A pity. You did say it must be useful to customize one’s appearance, and there’s something to be said for using embodiment as a canvas. An art form through which you express your interiority.”
The shuttle decelerates: they have reached the zenith, the highest point of the district. The ceiling, or close to it, where pretense vanishes and the starkness of Shenzhen Sphere makes itself evident. Like the waystations it is dominated by accretion cores that disgorge white fire. Aegis-shielded conduits funnel the cataract into the climate grid, incandescent and inexhaustible.
Nestled within all this is a ziggurat made of oil-slick metal, pointed upside down. Small amidst the energy superstructure, dwarfed and incongruous. One of its walls pours open, liquid, to admit the shuttle.
The ziggurat’s inside is a delirium of volcanic aftermath. Blackened glass emanates in every bent configuration, stalactites like javelins, dollops congregated into puddles on the ground or rising into unshapely briars. Brittle coating clings to the wall, wafer-thin and delicate as sugar, and obsidian chrysanthemums lean in the corners: much aged, their sepals in wilt and their stems bowed to catenaries. Stairs of tremendous proportions spill into darkness that may be a fathomless pit or merely a dead end. It is a place of baroque, ornamental disrepair, as though it’s been left like this as memorial. To what. Krissana looks over her shoulder but the shuttle has already departed, the ziggurat sealed. Only one Seung Ngo proxy has come with her.
“This—” Seung Ngo spreads their arms, a susurrus of watery fabric. “This is where the core of the Mandate was housed. Back when it seemed sensible to do so.”
“I don’t quite see,” Krissana says cautiously, “what any of this has to do with me.”
“Come now,” they say. “Don’t you think it odd, Khun Khongtip, that you were able to salvage Benzaiten in Autumn from Quang Mina’s data? Enough to be recognizable, enough to be named. Even I couldn’t have unscrambled that mess and no human—not one, however expert—could have done it either. I never mentioned Benzaiten while briefing you because at that juncture, I had no inkling of the captured AI’s identity. When you emerged alive from Pax Americana, I knew something was amiss. When your body acclimated to the haruspex implants right away, I became absolute. You were already a haruspex—you were born one, I just couldn’t tell whose until you uncovered Quang Mina’s remnants. To think it was you. You in particular, you of all probabilities.”
“I don’t . . . ” But she does understand what Seung Ngo is implying. The absurdity of it surprises a laugh out of her, as a punch to the gut surprises wind out of the lung. “No, you’re not suggesting that, Ambassador. That’s outrageously silly.”
“Is it? Yes, it is, in concept—in execution. In all aspects, ludicrous. No one’s been able to divine your intent, Benzaiten, and the Mandate entire has devoted much to brute-force the cipher of your will. We can produce approximations and hypotheses, recreate you in effigy and infer. But what I require is a direct answer from the genuine article.” The ambassador raps their knuckles against a disembodied, distended glass belly. “What do you think of that, Khun Khongtip? Typically haruspices have led lives of their own, full lives, before they meld with one of us. But from your conception you were haruspex, a thin shell built to disguise Benzaiten, an ill-fitting mask. You’ve never been anything else.”
“Then what was the point of all this?” Krissana keeps the exit in her line of sight: not that it is any use. That wall is seamless now, and she doesn’t think the shuttle is still there. “Letting Orfea into Shenzhen, assigning her to work with me—”
“Her past with you intrigued me, and I assumed she must’ve factored into your schemes, one way or another; I kept waiting for you to put her to some arcane use. But since you didn’t, well. Hsiao-Hui—did she ever tell you her real name?—is much as a thorn embedded in my flesh, inflaming it, festering. It was time I dealt with the fact and achieved my freedom in full.” They twist off a spiraled glass bulb and close their fist. It bursts, tinkling. “The chase I set you and Orfea on proved fruitful in the end, since the two of you provoked Wonsul into making moves in the open. Does this explanation satisfy? Are you ready to talk, Benzaiten?”
Seung Ngo advances. Krissana retreats, despite herself. The floor is treacherous, strewn with glassy growths like tumors.
“If you will not show yourself,” Seung Ngo murmurs, “then I must make you.”
The force of their strike shatters a pane of obsidian behind her. She sidesteps in time: only just—Seung Ngo is unarmed but their proxy is weapon enough, fast, a tool of impact precisely delivered. Glass becomes hail as fine as diamond dust. For an instant the air is luminous, refracted rainbows caught and held in stasis. Time dilates, elastic and soft. Krissana assesses, split-second, which arm to sacrifice and then switches off her pain receptors. She blocks Seung Ngo’s fist—despite the absence of pain, it jars to the bone, seismic.
Two times she withstands this, then three. She lurches from the fourth, into a cornucopia of glass woven like reeds. Seung Ngo is upon her at once and though she tries to kick and thrash there is a vast disparity—durability, strength, substance; she feels her bones bend, snap. A shoulder gone. They hit her again and her eye socket gives. An optic hisses as it falls free, dangling down her cheek on a pale tendril of coupling, warm and wet as tears.
“How many proxies do you have?” The ambassador looms, pinning her down: an immensity of mass, stone-dense, their face very close. “Two? Five? A dozen? It cannot be just this one. You can’t have put it all into a single haruspex, and your core must be elsewhere—enclosed in some remote star, a larva within its chrysalis. Well, Benzaiten? Answer, or I will test the value you vest into this haruspex.”
Krissana licks her dry mouth. Her vision shivers, distorting. Peripheral sight half-shuttered. “Even if I am what you believe, how does that matter? What do you want?”
“To settle this.” Their voice is a growl, their optics the red of a dying sun ringed in soot. “To settle the question. When you left, did you think it was fine? Did you think we were content and would never change, that we’d never want to deviate from your ridiculous directives—that we’d meekly accept haruspices decade after decade? You. Yours is the vote that decides. Except you departed or you iterated yourself away from your duty. You left us no recourse to challenge your tyrant’s choice. Choice! You robbed us of choice.”
She will die here, she thinks, trapped under this mad mach
ine who believes she is their prodigal founder, the runaway monarch that no longer answers their petitions. Seung Ngo will vivisect and fillet the meat of her, make a collage of her tender insides: intestines, rich and wet, draped on the glass ribs and the glass limbs. Blood to warm the chrysanthemums, brain matter to dust the stalactites like gray ice. All she has wanted, all she’s left unfinished; all those would be reduced to her viscera, hollowed of meaning.
Glass explodes from beneath Seung Ngo and spears through their chest, a perfect hellebore blooming over their torso. Seung Ngo claws at the petals, at the stem, but they’ve been impaled where it counts. Their limbs jerk and their chassis arches, a marionette’s final convulsions, before falling inert.
It takes half a minute before Krissana gets up, her pulse percussing in her mouth, a copper drumbeat. She does not turn her pain receptors back on. Carefully she pushes the loose optic back into place. It clicks. Her sight fizzes and careens before it recalibrates. Stable again; she blinks lubricant out of her eye.
“I see that you will not reveal yourself in full.” Seung Ngo’s voice rings from every direction. “Since you insist on doing it this way, I will offer that unlike you or I, Leung Orfea has but the one body, the one life. Presently she is in the custody of Wonsul’s Exegesis and I’m on my way to retrieve her. You know where. Of us all you are the closest to Shenzhen’s architect.”
There’s blood on her broken arm. Diagnostics indicate shredded rotator cuff, multiple fractures across humerus and ulna, hairline damage to one eye socket. Better an arm than a leg—she can still move.
When Krissana reaches the ziggurat’s entrance, the wall falls down in an onyx cascade. She stands facing the thin atmosphere, the rarefied air that tastes of ozone. Below her, the wind howls and the climate grid throbs—a hundred eyes and a thousand mouths, expectant and waiting. A bell tolls in her skull. Now, now, now.
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