by Zack Jordan
“I’ll get us off the station,” murmurs Sarya, cradling the hard edges of that beloved head. She strokes the side of a mandible. “Cart,” she says without looking up. “Emergency mode. Take us to Dock A.”
“Now that I’ve been cleared of negligence, I’m happy to provide more details on the current situation,” says Ellie’s voice as the cargo cart rocks through a dark and crowded corridor. “It seems we have a teensy guidance problem with a nearby ice shipment, which will most likely collide with the station. As this shipment is not Networked, there is very little we here on the station can do besides evacuate. So carry on, everyone! You have twenty minutes.”
Sarya strokes her mother’s carapace, her fingers finding damage in new places. Her mother hisses with pain now and then, but the sounds are becoming softer and more widely spaced.
“Mother,” says Sarya, tapping her mother’s face gently. “Mother, talk to me.”
Her mother’s mandibles flutter. “What’s…happening?” she asks.
Sarya strokes the outside of those mandibles, staying away from the razor inner edges. “No idea,” she says. She attempts to smile. “But I’d guess somebody’s getting fired.”
“It’s my fault,” her mother whispers.
“I really doubt that,” says Sarya. “Unless you’ve been plotting shipping routes.”
“It is,” her mother murmurs, as if to herself. “Where Humans go, disaster follows. I knew this, and still I—”
“I think that might be a little dramatic,” says Sarya, but there is a weight in her stomach. “Why don’t you tell me a story?” she says as lightly as she can manage.
“I’m…tired, child.”
“Eighteen minutes, everyone,” says Ellie’s voice in her earbuds. “And there’s even a chance of a clean miss! Not much of one, but I thought you’d like to know. Anyway, I want to congratulate everyone on the extremely low number of casualties so far: only three evacuation-related fatalities that I’ve seen! Excellent work, team!”
“A chant, then,” says Sarya, racking her memory for one of her mother’s favorites. “The Eight Blades, I want to hear that one.”
“You…hate that one.”
It’s true. Her mother used to make her recite it every day, back when she was tiny, until she despised it. But it’s simple. It’s reassuring. She swallows. It’s the perfect lifeline for a fading Widow.
“Do you know why I named you Sarya?” asks her mother with a sigh. “I don’t remember. Why don’t I remember?” She drifts off into soft clicks and chitters.
Sarya’s throat tightens. “Count my blades…” she prompts gently.
Her mother’s mandibles tremble as she picks up the rhythm. “Count my blades, my bond, my love. Tell me what I’m thinking of…” She rattles, somewhere deep, and it tears Sarya’s heart. “One is triumph, two is rage. Three is…three is…”
“Craft,” says Sarya.
“…three is craft…the gift of age.” The words are so faint that Sarya can barely hear them over the clamor of Watertower’s circulatory system.
[Dock A!] says the cart, rattling to a halt. [It was my pleasure to bring you here.]
“Don’t stop,” murmurs Sarya, unsnagging her stained utility suit from her mother’s sharp edges. The mandibles are still moving, though Sarya can no longer catch the words over the crash and hum of ten thousand drones on useless missions. Both her hands are occupied arranging razor-sharp limbs now, so there’s nothing to stop the tears from falling. This time, however, she is unashamed. This is no weakness. She doesn’t know how she gets the hard body out of the cart, but here she is with two black limbs thrown over her shoulders, half carrying, half dragging a Widow through a tangle of miscellaneous Network transmissions toward the hatch. The burning love in her chest makes her mother light. She will carry her mother to the end of the galaxy.
[I hope you survive!] says the cart behind them.
“Four is kindred, five is bond,” murmurs her mother in her ear. “Six is…” she says. “Six is…”
The pauses are the worst, because Sarya doesn’t know if there will be a next line. “Brood,” she grunts.
“Six is brood…desire has spawned.”
Sarya leans against the wall next to the hatch, gathering herself. It’s a familiar feeling, like when she was mustering courage outside an apartment with a sleeping Widow inside. Like the apartment, there’s no telling what’s out in Dock A: but there’s possible safety on the other side. The thought gives her strength, and she pulls herself up straight. “You can rest in a minute, Mother,” she says. “But right now, I could use some help.”
Her mother struggles, a blade opening a slit in Sarya’s utility suit. It might have gone through flesh as well; Widow blades are so sharp that Sarya knows from experience that she would feel the trickle of blood before the sting of the cut. But her mother supports enough of her own weight that Sarya is able to crank the door open with one hand and drag the clattering body into the echoing expanse of Dock A. Here it is, the site of the first actual Human sighting in a millennium. Still empty, thank the goddess. And there it is on the other side of the dock, her target. Eleven.
“Dock A is closed until further notice,” says the friendly voice of the dock intelligence. “If this facility exists after the current emergency, you may return then.”
“Almost there, Mother,” whispers Sarya. “Pain without fear, right?”
“Seven’s fear…demands subjection. Eight grants…eight—”
And then her mother chokes into silence as Sarya freezes, her dangling burden clacking limb against limb. Her tunnel vision had completely excluded anything but her objective, but there it is: Dock A is not empty. In the center of the open space, hovering just above Sarya’s line of sight, is a brilliant fifty-meter silver shape. It’s long and fluid, with no visible ports or engines. It’s an expensive-looking ship.
A corporate-looking ship.
“So you did find me…old friend,” murmurs Shenya the Widow. “Older than you look…older…”
“Twelve minutes, everyone, and it looks like all lifeboats are away!” crows Ellie from the ceiling. “In further good news, I’m thrilled to announce that Section C1 will almost certainly survive. So congratulations, C1! Of course, if you’re hearing my voice, that means you’re one of the four hundred twelve individuals still on Section F. Just know that we’re all out here rooting for you!”
The station’s voice dissolves into echoes, and the ship doesn’t open. It does nothing, in fact, but hover three meters above the deck of Dock A. Sarya watches it for a moment, muscles burning from strain, a corner of chitin boring into her shoulder. If anyone aboard wanted a Human, they’d be out here by now…right? Meanwhile, her mother is dying and the station is twelve minutes from actual catastrophe. That makes the decision for her. She hoists her mother farther up on a throbbing shoulder and pushes forward. The quickest way is directly underneath that thing, so that’s the way they’ll go.
If it weren’t for the red-hot purpose pumping through her veins, Sarya would not have made it. The completion of each step seems like an impossible dream, but each time she begins the next with furious determination. I am Sarya the Daughter, she tells herself, and her self responds with strength. She carries her mother, step by step, out of the maze of drones, out into the empty space on the other side, and under the gorgeous silver ship. It’s a perfect mirror, its rounded surface reflecting a crazed version of Dock A, where a bloodied Human drags a crippled Widow across a ceiling, leaving streaks of combined gore behind. But it doesn’t open, thank the goddess.
“Eleven!” calls Sarya when they reach the other side. Her voice echoes around Dock A for a full five seconds.
AIVVTECH QUALITY IS WORTH THE WAIT, says the suit’s holo ring for a few seconds. Then, with a massive clang, it falls forward onto its arms. “Hello!” it says in its devastatingl
y cheerful voice. “Thank you for choosing an AivvTech R2 Universal Autonomous Environment! How can I improve your day?”
“Eleven, medical mode!” Sarya gasps. Just a few more steps…
“This intelligence may not be authorized to—”
“Your owner is not coming,” says Sarya, nearly stumbling with exhaustion. “And also the station is about to explode.”
“Not to worry!” says Eleven. “This suit will likely survive any depressurization event.” The voice changes, slightly enough that Sarya might not have picked up on it before her previous experience with the suit. “But…please explain about my owner?”
“My mother—” She drags her mother another step. “This is my mother, by the way—”
“Hello, your mother!”
“She—” She pauses, weighing what she knows. This is the suit that released her. It is now her—and her mother’s—only hope. Which means it’s worth the gamble. “She killed your owner,” she says.
Eleven’s holo ring changes through several colors and finally settles on blue. “You killed Hood?” it asks in a quieter voice.
A long sigh emerges from Shenya the Widow’s battered mandibles. “Old…friend,” she murmurs. “So very…old.”
“This is what Hood did to her,” says Sarya, refusing to glance back at the silver ship. “She was protecting me…like you protected me.”
Eleven stands there, silent. Its holo ring flicks from blue to orange, but no words are displayed.
Sarya squats to let her mother slide off her shoulders and onto the deck. She slides one hand between head and deck, carefully keeping the other away from the trembling and razor-sharp mandibles. She’s never seen her mother look weak before, but here she is, helpless as a premature hatchling, limbs splayed across the metal. They’ve come so far. They’re so close.
“I know you’re more than you pretend to be, Eleven,” Sarya says, looking up at the towering suit. “You freed me, and you risked something to do it.” She pauses, realizing: she’s not trying to manipulate a sub-legal intelligence. She is, honestly and genuinely, appealing to a fellow mind. She is petitioning a sub-legal, not ordering it. It’s a strange feeling. “Please…help us,” she says. “Take us off the station.”
The suit does nothing at all for a moment, while Sarya’s words and hope die away around her. And then, with a now-familiar tone, its gleaming front cracks open and its gangway descends. Sarya stands, nearly screaming as her utility suit slides over her various wounds. She’s done it.
She takes a step back as the two massive arms heave into motion with the low hum of servos. They are surprisingly gentle as they collect Widow limbs into an easy-to-transport package, wrapping her mother and lifting her into the red-lit interior. The straps emerge, helping guide the wayward extremities.
“Six minutes!” says Ellie. “I’d also like to inform everyone that an emergency relief fleet is outbound from our Network corridor and will arrive in approximately eight days. Those of you in lifeboats should be fine, but those in pressure suits might want to scavenge some canisters of your preferred atmosphere before then.”
Her mother whispers something, a broken sound in the silence of the dock.
“It’s going to be okay,” says Sarya, smiling through her tears. “We can both fit, and Eleven can fix you up.”
Her mother says it again, but again Sarya can’t quite catch it. She can’t hear much of anything, actually, over the low ringing that has been steadily building behind her. Something resonant, metallic, heavy and continuous—
Sarya whirls.
At the main entrance, something is moving. It’s not Hood mysteriously returned to life, it’s not Observer, and it’s nothing like either one. It flows, like a gleaming river of mercury, like nothing she’s ever seen. It pulls itself up and stands, if that is the right word, under a golden [Welcome to Watertower!] that rains virtual sparkles down onto its silvery surface. Sarya feels, very strongly, that it is looking at her.
And then the metal crashes forward like a wave and comes, more quickly than she would have believed. She turns back to Eleven, who has secured her mother in its interior. “Go,” she says, as calmly as she can. She knows, as surely as if she had been told, that this thing wants her. This is the latest in a string of incidents, not accidents. At this level of exhaustion it is far easier to accept the truth: today, her life on Watertower comes to a close, and there is nothing she or her mother can do about it.
She turns again to face the approaching silver tide. It’s hypnotically beautiful, washing over obstacles and between machinery. The ringing sound is not unpleasant; it’s almost a chime, a chord of tones that fill the air to bursting. She limps forward—one, two steps. She holds herself straight, like a Widow. She takes a breath—and then she hears a voice behind her, cracked and broken.
“Release me, suit,” says Shenya the Widow.
Sarya turns. “Eleven!” she shouts, her sense of purpose beginning to fracture into panic for the first time. “We had a deal!”
But the suit doesn’t answer her. Its straps unwind from around the Widow’s frame, and its giant arms pull her twisted shape from its cavity and set it at the base of its gangway. Shenya the Widow sinks to the floor, then struggles to raise herself. A stream of black fluid runs down one limb to the floor.
And then a clang echoes across the dock, and Sarya whirls to see a severed utility hatch sliding to a stop on the floor. From the hole it once covered gushes another stream of silver. The sound heightens as two rivers of mercury flow toward the little group.
“Three minutes!” says Ellie’s cheery voice. “To those of you still on Section F, it’s been a pleasure working with you all.”
“My child,” says Shenya the Widow, hauling herself upright. “Go.”
Sarya’s jaw clenches. “Mother,” she says quietly, in a voice brimming with fury and desperation. She points. “Get the fuck into the suit.”
“If you ever speak to me like that again,” hisses Shenya the Widow as she takes a tottering step past her daughter, “I shall be forced to discipline you.”
“I’ll never be able to speak to you again,” shouts Sarya, keeping pace. She has forgotten about her pain, about anything but getting her mother off this goddess-forsaken station. “Outside that suit, you will die. If you try to fight this thing, you will die. We can still escape if you get in the damn suit.”
“Not from this,” hisses her mother, clawing her way forward. “Go.”
Sarya’s eyes are fastened to the river of silver as she racks her mind for words, for something that will save her mother. It is one flow now, the two streams having merged beneath the gleaming ship. A third stream pours downward into the reflective pool, and the combined metal stretches upward into a new shape. It’s something more vertical, something that can reach for her.
“You are dangerous,” says Shenya the Widow, still clattering forward one blade at a time. “More dangerous than even the Daughter of a Widow. Now. Go.” And then she tilts her head to the side, the way she always does when she uses her Network implant.
And Sarya is off the ground again, shouting again, seized from behind by Eleven’s gigantic arms. She struggles, but her strength means absolutely nothing. She is pulled backward, packed into the suit like cargo, and the straps wrap her and anchor her. She screams, a long and wordless cry as she reaches for her mother. This is not how it goes. This is not how a Widow is treated. And then the hatch closes over her and Eleven begins rocking itself backward. The golden light of the planet below stretches across the floor and toward her mother as the hatch behind the suit splits open.
Sarya kicks the suit’s interior. She hurls punches that are arrested before they land. She tries to bite, but she can’t reach anything. Outside, in perfect fidelity, she sees what very few intelligences have ever seen twice: the Widow battle stance. It’s shakier than it was, it’s co
ckeyed, as if one or two of those limbs can’t quite handle what’s asked of them, but it’s there. Her mother has inserted herself between Eleven and this massive thing, between her daughter and danger—
But no. That is where Shenya the Widow has always been.
Sarya is not prepared for the war cry. It ascends like a living thing. It battles and conquers even this grinding chime of metal. It reflects off every surface, and Sarya forgets about everything but pressing her hands into her ears. She can barely see through the burn around her eyes, but she refuses to close them. She will not abandon her mother. She clenches her jaw against the pain in her head, against the ice-pick cry working into her temples.
Even that massive silver shape hesitates in the face of the Widow’s shriek. It draws itself up, towering above that black shape, and waits. But the cry does not stop. It shatters, it breaks into a wild peal of deafening Widow laughter. And then the metal reaches past her mother and her mother strikes more quickly than thought and when they both withdraw Shenya the Widow has one less limb. And yet she laughs, her cry of fierce joy ricocheting around the dock like lightning.
But her daughter is not laughing. “Mother!” Sarya screams, unable to help herself and forgetting everything but the fact that she must be out there, she must help somehow. She claws at the straps but it is too late because the suit has launched itself backward through a sparkling pressure field and into the black and gold of space.
(“Welcome to Network!” revision 5600109c, intelligence Tier 1.8-2.5, F-type metaphors)
WELCOME TO CHOICE!
Many species have noted, when pondering Citizenship, that Network law appears to be relatively inflexible. For example, some have already developed or even depend on technologies that are illegal for Network Citizen species to possess. This is as good a reason as any to wonder: is Network Citizenship mandatory?