“It can wait. Your regalia’s not immediately visible either.” Balaskas strokes the leash, rubbing the clone’s—the puppet’s—shoulder with her knee. “Before I came here I was in employ to the Armada of Amaryllis as a tactical operator. I believe I can offer you valuable perspective when it comes to the application of main force.”
Palm fronds waver gently behind her. I don’t, quite, have a coherent plan. But little by little I get closer, and she does not react to the fact. “What might that be?”
“That violence, on a mass scale, ceases to be evil; it becomes instead a physical phenomenon that satisfies higher goals than ideological conflict or even greed for resources. Why do you think the Hellenes attacked Ayothaya? War is as natural as eating. It is pure.”
“What is the Armada of Amaryllis like?” I say casually, now a few meters closer to Balaskas. The conversation is nonsense but I’ve already established that Balaskas is not entirely sane. “Their commander is said to be a most unique creature, larger than life and vicious, a sadist through and through. Did you ever meet her personally?”
“A few times. She exemplifies force. Extinction events for the sake of it. Genocide that is almost incidental. War that means nothing except as a means to refine further combat. That’s the ideal way of being. Don’t you see?”
“I don’t see.” By now I’m barely five paces away. There are two guns on me, one in its belt holster, the other attached to an embed in my wrist.
She is still seated, barely looking at me, attention fixed on the thing that looks like my wife. “Empress Daji Scatters Roses Before Her Throne. I’ll offer you this only once. Forfeit the game and I’ll spare your duelist. Fight me and you’ll lose, and she will be at the mercy of me and mine. A piece of her brain gouged out and replaced with cerebral controls. She’ll never be herself again. Exit the game and it’ll be between me and Houyi’s Chariot, and I reckon you don’t care what happens to Ouru.”
Daji does not respond with either proxy. I flick my hand and the pistol emerges. No need to aim at this range—I fire point-blank into the face of Ensine Balaskas.
She reels. I reach for Eurydice.
Balaskas snaps back up and, in one fluid motion, slashes across Eurydice’s neck. It is too fast. It is impossible. Blood courses down from Balaskas’ face, from Eurydice’s throat: the peristaltic flows run concurrent, nearly in perfect sync. All I can see is the blankness of my wife’s gaze, vacant to the end, untethered even now from the final act of her own body: the arterial venting, the severing of cerebral matter from the rest of the mortal apparatus as it scrabbles for and fails to find oxygen. It should not matter. I’ve already been told this is a marionette with none of the memory that makes my wife who she was; that everything Eurydice ever was is guarded within Daji’s treasure-vault. And yet all of me seizes. All of me judders and creaks.
My wife drops without a sound, as though she’s merely paper effigy. Ensine Balaskas holds her hand against the bullet hole in her forehead. “This was utterly rude, Thannarat Vutirangsee.” Her voice is smooth, untouched by pain, as if I hadn’t just pierced her cerebrum with brute velocity. “But all is fair in love and the Divide, as they say.”
Daji falls down like a killing comet. Ensine Balaskas is not there when Daji’s blade strikes the ground. Instead she’s pirouetted away, impossibly mobile when I must have destroyed every possible piece in her cortex that grants motor control. It was not a low-caliber bullet.
The ground quakes. Ensine dodges Daji again—improbable for a human—and then I see. The regulations have been fluid all along, meant to be bent, meant to be refitted to each round of the game. Each regalia-duelist pair creates their own rules of engagement. What is not expressly prohibited is implicitly permitted.
I switch guns. Both of them are moving as though they’re bound by no gravity, a choreography of perfect propulsion and ceaseless efficiency. But I’ve aimed through much worse conditions. The shot connects cleanly, hitting Ensine in the flank. The location doesn’t matter—the entire body is the target.
Ensine seizes up. Her head—its head—whips around and fixes its gaze on me. It tries to move but its limbs convulse the way they might in cardiac arrest. This does not last: already I can see the mind behind Ensine’s body reestablishing control, links being remade at AI speed, the spine straightening and the limbs returning to order.
Daji cleaves the proxy from shoulder to hip.
She is at my side almost before her opponent hits the ground, taking my hand. The ecodome’s floor is roiling as though it’s about to split. “We’re getting out of here, Detective.”
By the time we’re two blocks away, the ecodome is gone entirely.
What replaces it is a cylindrical structure, half as tall as the Vimana and so broad that it interrupts the skyline. The façade of it is black, robed in thick golden thorns, crowned by a nine-rayed sun.
“A fortress,” Daji says. “That’s why only a few of them can be deployed in a single round. Houyi would have the other one, I suspect. It’s going to be . . . challenging. Do you have all your weapons with you, all your necessities?”
“Not all,” I say slowly. “You didn’t tell me that Ensine—”
“I couldn’t have. That’d have violated the Divide’s rules, disqualified me, and left you without proper defense.” She makes a frustrated hiss. “That fortress is in its initiating phase and will take a while before it’s armed. We get back to the Vimana, you get what you need, and make Houyi deploy their fortress.”
“Who is Chun Hyang’s duelist?” But I already know. There’s only one candidate when Ensine Balaskas was a mask all along.
“There’s a reason I never liked her.” Daji makes a face. “And I couldn’t tell you that either. I’m sorry. We’re supposed to trust each other without limit or condition, but there are laws I can’t defy so brazenly.”
“Yes. I know.”
For a time we walk in silence, the night peculiarly still around us when it should be fractured with terror. The residents must be used to this, have likely received instructions to evacuate: Libretto will soon turn into a battlefield. When we return to the Vimana, the lobby is eerily empty. All staff have gone. It seems almost unnatural how quick this mass egress must have been, when I know from experience that such things are inefficient and near-impossible to control. Panicking civilians fleeing in every direction, sometimes toward the source of disaster. Even people used to routine crisis don’t always think well during it, and they couldn’t have had warning far in advance.
Unless I was right about the Gallery.
No time to speculate, not yet, and I can’t do anything about the Mandate using Septet as a testbed for human mimesis, for what might grow into full-scale infiltration. We reach my room: I gather my essentials, weapons and spare armor. I travel well but not with excess freight, and so all fits quickly and easily back into my luggage. Daji watches me include the bottle of cologne and cuff-links she bought me, her face tense.
“I thought you wouldn’t be keeping that,” she says quietly.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I shut the suitcase. My lips move but in my mind there’s still the image of Eurydice with her throat slit. The brain’s ability to compartmentalize is tremendous.
“With everything I didn’t tell you.” Her voice catches. “And with what Chun Hyang must’ve told you.”
She is aware of what passed in the virtuality, then, but didn’t stop it or prevent the conversation I had with the enemy regalia. “Did you think I would force you to recreate Eurydice?”
“We’ve only just met. You’ve loved her for a long time and—I’ve loved you for so long, even when I thought I was angry with you, before I met you. One day you might love me the same too, but I’m running out of time. I’ve performed simulations and I know that if I become her, I won’t be able to revert. I’m not going to be able to instance myself that way because she was my human half, and haruspices are . . . made differently from other AIs. If I become Eurydice, there’ll be n
o more Daji.”
Heat pricks at my face. The entire time, subconsciously or not, I’ve held back. Now I realize why: I wanther to desire me, fixate on me, so that I’d retain the upper hand on this woman who’s made of machine precision and eternity—a creature so far beyond me in scope, tethered to me solely by the ghost of my wife. I want to tip the balance my way; I want to have that choice at the end. Daji or Eurydice. Like picking my bride from a catalogue, custom-made, designer doll.
My wife is long gone. I had one chance to get her back, and that was when she told me our marriage was over; I had that chance to plead, to reconcile and compromise, and I did not take it.
“I’m not making you do that,” I say softly. “Never.”
Daji takes a deep breath and throws her arms around me. “Maybe one day when I grow in capacity and processing power I would be able to instance her. When that happens, I promise I’ll try.”
The silken wealth of her hair against my chin. Her voice small and quiet against my chest. I hold her and say, “I want you just as you are.”
Her hands tighten on my back. “I want you; I’ve only ever wanted you. From the moment I lost Eurydice I’ve sought you, imagined you, thought of you. Every aspect that makes up your being has preoccupied every processing thread I own. You’re my prize from the Divide, Detective.”
To be the prize. That has never happened before. Always I’m the pursuer, the hunter, the one who gives chase. With a machine every stanza must be written anew, the entire rhythm and meter rearranged.
As it transpires, I don’t need to negotiate with Ouru to raise a fortress: by the time we’re out of the Vimana, one has already taken over the other half of Libretto—a slim spire the blue-white of moonstone, mantled in black feathers. Its front parts like curtains to admit us before sealing back seamlessly, as smooth as mercury.
Inside it is brightly lit, a hall of granite stairways and blue chandeliers: teardrop crystals, bioluminescent corals, twisted loops of sapphire vines. Ouru ushers us into a chamber of broad seats and a gold-leafed shrine situated overhead, filled with small Buddhas. Whatever the fortress is made of, it must be extraordinary—the entire structure emerged and constituted within minutes. Material that lies under Libretto, perhaps the foundations of the town itself, has been prepared specifically for this.
“Brief me.” Ouru gestures for us to sit.
“Ensine Balaskas doesn’t exist. Chun Hyang’s Glaive has been using her as a front; the real duelist is Recadat. I reckon she struck a deal with Chun Hyang after you made her destroy Gwalchmei Bears Lilies. What I can’t figure out is why Recadat would go along with a regalia this callous.” I shake myself. My habit of locating a person’s fulcrum will not serve us here, not even when that person was—is—my friend. “My regalia destroyed a Chun Hyang proxy. It must have another.”
“A privilege of the victor.” Houyi vaults over one of the stairways and lands, feather-light. “Any regalia who’s won before may have a second proxy in the next round. The last time ended with a draw between Chun Hyang and Daji.”
Daji crosses her arms. “Stop giving away state secrets.”
“It’s rather late to play coy, Daji.” Their armor ripples and shimmers over their outline, overlapping layers of filoplumes. “Chun Hyang has a head start, so its fortress will arm sooner than mine. I’ve concentrated on erecting defenses for now; we’re good against orbital strikes, I can dissipate those. Chun Hyang and I prefer direct confrontation.”
“What happens,” I say, nodding at the fortification around us, “if the last few remaining pairs hole up in these to wait each other out?”
Houyi emits a low chuckle. If they have a mouth it is well hidden. “The overseer may declare the round null and void at his discretion if it ceases to be entertaining. No, we’re not going to do that. I will breach its fortress. Daji—are you confident in challenging Chun Hyang?”
“Yes. I’ll need to get close. Are you willing to risk your duelist?”
They glance at their duelist and, though it’s impossible to see their expression, I could have sworn theirs is a fond look. “Ouru will do as ze pleases.”
“I want to try something first. It should stall them a little.” To ask for privacy is pointless: Houyi can see anything going on within this fortress. “I’m going to contact Recadat.”
Recadat answers. I did not expect her to.
Our shared virtuality is the bank of a river, and this time the details are precise: we both know Ayothaya the same way we know our own breath, our own dreams. And she, it’s always struck me, is a patriot. Someone who truly loves Ayothaya, who carries it with her wherever she goes. The rich mulch in the lines of her palms, the sky-lanterns and riverbanks folded into the chambers of her heart.
A single person may hold within her the light of an entire world, making of herself a living memorial.
“I still remember the night we met,” she says as we materialize into the visual field. “After we came out of that basement—your face. I saw your face and it was my salvation, my lifeline. I was reborn. A war god brought me out of the dark; my war god. You came with me for therapy. You came with me for every appointment because you knew I had no one else. I never wanted anyone else so badly.”
“You held back.” I never noticed her attraction, the same way she didn’t notice mine. I may always wonder if there was room I could have made, room for Recadat. But as with my love for Eurydice, no other was possible. My ex-wife and I consumed each other. Daji and I do the same. Ten years ago I tried to make a pinhole for Recadat to inhabit, but a pinhole is no place for an entire woman, an entire person.
“Even if you weren’t married, I’d have been—intimidated. I didn’t want to ruin what we had, and if you didn’t feel anything for me I’d have broken our friendship for nothing.” She looks down. “After Eurydice left you, why didn’t you come to me?”
I pick up a lantern float, an arrangement of pandan leaves and asters. Not a traditional choice: Recadat’s selection. “And sully your career? By that point I was practically a criminal. You wouldn’t have given up public security for me.”
“I would have.” She trembles. “For you, anything.”
Anything encompasses so much, and too much. Was I ever willing to dedicate the same to her? No. My choices in the last decade have made that clear. Selfishness has been my compass, and it has undone us both. “I couldn’t have asked that of you. Public security was your life.”
“You were my life.”
There’s no answer I can offer to that, no adequate apologies I can make. My errors were repeated and egregious. Instead I say, “Chun Hyang’s Glaive was going to sell you out. It contacted me offering to become my regalia in exchange for murdering you. I turned it down.”
Recadat stares at me then laughs, a short glassy sound. “Of course it would. Of course you did. I appreciate that, at least.”
“Leave the game,” I say. “Chun Hyang can’t possibly mean you well.”
“You don’t know the half of it. As for giving up, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
Those rapid drops in duelist count. “The people Chun Hyang massacred—”
“I knew.” Recadat clenches her hands. “I’d do anything to save Ayothaya. You’d do anything to bring back Eurydice.”
“I already have what I want. If you forfeit the Divide, I’ll make sure the Hellenes are dealt with.”
“You already have—” All of her goes still. Her jaw tenses. “Then I have no reason to believe you, Thannarat. My regalia’s right about that. Once you’ve won you could use your prize for anything and Ayothaya is far down your list—why would that change now? Your regalia leads you by the nose. She’ll persuade you to waste your wish and play you to the Mandate’s benefits.”
Chun Hyang’s words, almost certainly, in Recadat’s mouth. “She will do no such thing. I’m not so weak-willed as that.” I hold my hand out to her. “Leave Chun Hyang to its devices. Let the Mandate have its sick game. We can still leave this
behind and leave this world together.”
“You mean you’ll leave this world with Daji.” For a moment she looks like she’s going to cry, all that careful composure shredded, but she shakes herself and turns away. “I blindly believed in you and that’s never done me any good. You never came here to save Ayothaya.”
The link cuts.
I stare down at my hands, lit by the opulence of Houyi’s fortress. The Mandate may be unthinkably powerful but even they may not rewind time, repair my indecisions in those lost ten years. I am vain. I think of myself as a creature of seamless armor, impregnable to feeling. Again and again I’ve been proven wrong. First by Eurydice then by Recadat, and once more by Daji. In the end, all I am is a faulty clock.
I’ve never been anyone’s deliverance, much less Recadat’s.
Nothing for that, now; I am even less capable of bending time’s arrow than the Mandate. I return to Ouru and Houyi’s Chariot, informing them that my effort has not yielded result and that we should ready ourselves.
Daji does not ask. Instead she turns her fox proxy into gloves once more and helps me put them on. She holds my hands like a vow.
Chapter Eight
Ballistic corposant blasts the sky. Recadat and Ouru burn through their Retribution overrides so quickly that there’s barely any transatmospheric delay, each orbital strike spearing through cloud cover like divine vectors. The fortresses light up, aegis flashing as they dissipate each hit: pure blinding conflagrations that whip across the retina, quick to fade and just as quick to flare again. It brings me unpleasantly back to the Hellenic invasion, though it does not paralyze me. By chance and temperament I escaped the rewriting of neural pathways that might have left me a quivering shell whenever I’m exposed to sudden noise. There’s something to be said for prior experience.
Ouru has ceded one of zer Assembly overrides to me, giving me two in total to work with. I briefly explored them while we were preparing in the fortress: they showed me the quantity of available material, and how much two Assembly commands would allow me to utilize. Daji explained its functions to me, and when I bring Assembly online I find it not unlike piloting reconnaissance swarms. For now I leave it dormant.
Shall Machines Divide the Earth Page 13