by Liam Clay
“Sounds like you’re splitting hairs.”
She sticks her tongue out at me. “What would you know about it? And what do you care, anyway? Based on your accent and armor, I’d say you are part of an invading Opacian army. Carlel finally grew a pair and made his move, did he?”
So she (he?) doesn’t know who I am. For some reason this infuriates me, and I decide to tell her.
“I’m not Opacian.” I growl.
“Then who are you?” She asks with genuine curiosity. “You sure as hell aren’t Jamaican.”
“You’re the genius, you figure it out.”
She grimaces. “I’m not, unfortunately. My brain isn’t fully mature yet, and I’m still working through the educational training program Sheva left for me.”
I wave a hand at her lab coat. “So that’s what you’re doing right now: homework?”
“Yes, with my former self as a teacher. But I still have a long way to go, so if you aren’t Opacian then I have no idea who you are.”
I guess I’ll have to spell it out for her. “You’re supposed to have the Designer’s memories, right?”
“Yes. And some of them are pretty gross, let me tell you.”
“Okay, then do you remember him slapping together a little something called the Genesis Batch?”
It is fascinating to watch the facial gymnastics the girl goes through when I say this. Then she repeats my words to her.
“Don’t tell me you’re the survivor. Just don’t, okay?”
“No can do. Your predecessor has a lot to answer for.”
She whistles through her teeth. “Wow. At least that explains how you found me. In fact, you might be the only person left in the world who could have. And yes, Sheva does have a lot to answer for. I - he - could be a real asshole. Did you know that he received every message your handler ever sent? But after the boat battle he labeled her mission a failure, and scrapped the whole thing. He was practical like that.” She closes her eyes. “So anyway, you might as well get it over with.”
“Get what over with?”
“Killing me. It’s what you came here to do, and to be honest, I’m tired of living underground with only my shitty past self’s software for company.”
“But what about your grand plan to save humanity from its limitations?”
“Are you kidding me? After all the sacrifices he demanded from the people of this island, do you know what brought the whole thing crashing down? The fucking flu. A new variant, sure, but still basically just a case of the sniffles. And if he couldn’t protect against something that simple, what chance do I have?”
For some reason I can’t stop playing devil’s advocate, and so I say, “But weren’t things pretty good here for a few years before the plague? I mean, you transformed the Hive from a shithole into a paradise!”
I break off as Francis walks up, a dismal expression on his face. “Bad news.” He says, holding up Judith’s retcom. “These damned things are booby trapped to the nines. If I so much as change the logo on your log in screen, it will pop and kill you.” Then he notices the girl for the first time. “Who the fuck is she?”
“The Designer, apparently. Transferred into a new body.”
“Well I’ll be damned.” Francis breathes. Then he gestures to the milky sphere. “So, I’m dying to know - what is that thing?”
The girl sighs. “I was wondering when you would ask.” She turns to me. “Before my previous iteration let you escape the island, do you remember hearing rumors about a procreation transition?
I nod cautiously.
“Well that was supposed to be phase one of the Designer’s awesome world-saving plan. First, he was going to build a network of decanting centers all over the Hive. Then he would have sterilized everyone, and -”
“Wait.” Francis interrupts. “Did he really think people were going to be okay with that?”
“Not right away. That’s why he spent so much effort turning the island into a utopia. He wanted to prove he could deliver the goods so they would start to trust him. It was a long term strategy, to be carried out over decades. But as I said, the procreation transition was just phase one. That,” she nods at the sphere, “was the endgame.”
“Now this I gotta hear.” Francis says.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you everything I know. I’ve never spoken to a real person before, and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Now,” she says to me, “I told you earlier that there were three limitations dooming humanity to failure. But there is also a fourth: limited lifespan.”
“But wouldn’t longer lifespans place even more strain on resources?”
“On this planet, yes. But the Designer believed that in order to survive long term - I’m talking thousands of years into the future here - we would need to colonize other planets.”
“He didn’t want us putting all our eggs in one basket.” Francis supplies.
“Exactly. But traveling through space to anywhere worth going takes a long time. Way longer than physical bodies can survive, even in stasis. So the Designer built the Mindrack, patent pending.”
“Swell. And what does it do, exactly?”
“Think of it like a data center except for people. It digitizes human consciousness.” She adds when we just look at her stupidly. “The idea is that you load one of these things up with a bunch of digital colonists, and roll it onto a spaceship along with a suite of decanting pods. You shoot the thing at the Trappist planets or Alpha Centauri or wherever, and when it arrives thousands of years later, the system downloads said colonists into new bodies so they can start terraforming and what-have-you.”
Lecture delivered, she watches us intently for a reaction. Francis has a faraway expression on his face - probably imagining attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. But my thoughts have stayed closer to home.
“What are we supposed to call you?”
“I’ve tentatively settled on Amy.”
“Okay Amy, can you tell me where the original Designer and his 2.0s went?”
The girl looks astonished, and then she smiles broadly. “Got it on the first guess! I’m impressed.”
Francis returns from space to stare at the Mindrack. “They uploaded themselves into that thing?”
Amy nods. “Almost ten years ago. It was either that or die of the plague.”
“And what about you?”
“Before he uploaded himself, Sheva set me up on an automatic gestation process. The plague had run its course by the time I decanted. He created me to manage the Rack, but the thing pretty much takes care of itself so it’s super boring.”
“Do you ever go above ground?”
“Sometimes. But only inside the Hexwall, and not at all since the Jamaicans moved back in. It’s a dangerous world up there for a ten-year-old. Plus I grow my own food and the sluiceway provides water, so there isn’t really a need.”
A thought comes to me. “The jamming device that keeps the Hive isolated from the outside world - is that down here somewhere, too?”
“Yup. I’ve toyed with the idea of turning it off, but then Carlel would fly over here and trash the joint.”
“Probably. You wouldn’t happen to have a spare jammer though, would you?”
She eyes me appraisingly. “Say I did. Why should I give it to you?”
“Because we can promise you safe conduct in return.”
“I already told you I don’t care about that.”
“Then do it because we would use it to kill your brother.”
She gives me a pitying look. “Your conditioning is still driving you to kill Carlel, isn’t it?”
“Well yeah, but mostly it’s because he kidnapped my daughter.”
Her face hardens. “Sounds like something he would do.”
I sense an opening. “And it’s not just my daughter, either. He has conscripted the entire Opacian Underworld into service using our kids as leverage. So that’s my motive. What about you, though - do you still hate your brother?”
“Always. He murdered dozens of my friends back when my mother was trying to reign me in. The best artists of their generation, killed for no good reason.” She indicates the artwork scattered about the lab. “I’ve tried to recreate some of their pieces here, but they are shit-poor quality.”
“So it’s settled then.” I say hopefully. “You give us the jammer, and we kill Carlel for you.”
She wiggles her toes. “Alright, but there’s a catch.”
“There always is. Tell us, then.”
“The device wasn’t designed to be moved. It should be possible to keep it functioning on the road, but you will have to bring me with you.” She laughs. “Man, are the Jamaicans going to be confused when they see me.”
CHAPTER 31
They certainly are. A lot of questions get asked, and although we neglect to mention that our new friend is the Designer revisited, Ini still doesn’t like our answers. Until Amy offers to supply the entire Hex with electricity; then the tone of the conversation shifts considerably. In a remarkably short time we are saying our goodbyes, with promises to return when Korezon is kaput.
“This is impossible.” Francis pants an hour later, dropping his side for about the hundredth time. “Damn thing must weigh a hundred kilos.”
“62.5.” Amy says.
“What’s that?”
“It weighs 62.5 kilos.” She explains patiently. “Not a hundred.”
“Oh, well that’s just fine then.”
The jammer is a one-meter square steel cube on rollers. But one of its wheels broke off while we were loading it onto the sky elevator, forcing me and Francis into our current predicament. Suffice to say, neither of us is in a very good mood.
I am also struggling to sort out my feelings about Amy. On the one hand, her predecessor is more or less single-handedly responsible for all the shitty things that have happened in my life. Nor was I fully buying her ‘I’m not the Designer’ routine. (Seemed a little too convenient.) But that was before we got her out of Kingston. If she is faking her present aura of wide eyed wonder, then we should get her to Opacity and line up some auditions. Also, she’s a ten-year-old girl, you know? Maybe I’m being sexist - or possibly ageist - but killing her just wouldn’t seem sporting.
But there is more to it as well. I also have a sneaking suspicion that, in his own messed up way, the Designer really was trying to save humanity through his actions here (and god knows we need it). I will never forgive him for some of the steps he took - the American Hex massacre primary among them - but it does change things to know there was a method to his madness.
After a brief rest, we pick up the jammer and carry on.
“So,” Francis asks Amy some time later, “Do you self-identify as male or female now?”
“What do you think?” She replies sarcastically.
“How should I know? I’ve never met a trans-bodied person before.”
“I’m a girl okay, and why do you want to know, anyway? Trying to decide whether to hit on me?”
“Nah.” Francis says lightly. “Your body is way too young and your brain is way too old - it’d be super pervy in both directions. I just wanted to be respectful of your wishes, that’s all.”
Amy looks surprised, and then appreciative. “Thank you.” She says gravely, and I am struck by how childlike she seems in some ways.
“I still can’t believe you’re the Genesis Batch survivor.” She adds to me. “You have no idea how upset Sheva was when the Opacian navy killed the rest of you off. You were his first great breakthrough, and after all the successful missions you ran for him, I think he was starting to believe you were indestructible. It was a big blow to his psyche when they died.”
“How terrible for him.” I retort, making no attempt to keep the anger out of my voice.
“Oh, I’m not trying to defend him. I just thought you might be interested in getting a look inside your creator’s mind.”
“Don’t call him that.”
Amy winces, causing some of her freckles to merge.
“Shit, sorry. I spend so much time trying to disassociate myself from him in my own head that I forget there are other people who want to do the same.”
Finding this statement too complex to unravel, I choose to let the conversation die. We finally reach camp around sundown to find the army in mid-mobilization. Which is good, because there are six days left until Porter’s deadline, and we need to have the wall manned and our children saved within that time.
I expect Tikal to be in the middle of the action. Instead I find her waiting for us at the edge of camp. Devin and Tolam jog up to take the jammer off our hands, and before I can slink away, she’s pulling me aside. Francis gives me a sympathetic look and then heads off in search of food. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Tikal rounds on me so quickly that I almost fall over backwards.
“What is your goddamn problem?” She says in a soft, tightly wound voice that means serious trouble. “So keen to avoid me that you’re trying to go off and get yourself killed?”
My first instinct is to deflect the question, try to play the whole thing down. But this is supposed to be the new me, right?
“Dodging this conversation may have been a factor.” I admit. “But we’re speaking now, so here goes. I’m sorry about all that wishy washy stuff with Kalana the other day. I’d like to say I don’t know what it was about, but that would be a lie. The truth is, she has always been the linchpin holding my life together. And finding out that our relationship was based on false pretenses made me wonder if she ever really cared about me at all. So when she started reminiscing about the old days, I latched onto that as proof that she did, once. You have to understand: I have no parents, no aunts or uncles, not even childhood friends. So if she never loved me, it would mean that no one ever has.”
Tikal looks down at the ground. “I can understand all of that. But none of it changes the fact that you hurt me.”
“I’m going to be honest with you, Tikal: the thought never even crossed my mind. I assumed you just wanted a roll in the hay.”
She snorts. “One, nobody actually says roll in hay. And two, I don’t just sleep with anyone I feel like, you know. I’ve spent most of my life fighting to be taken seriously as a female soldier. A man can fuck whatever passes into his field of vision and it’s just blowing off steam, but when a woman does the same thing, her authority is instantly undermined. So I have to be careful.” She shakes her head angrily. “And I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I thought you were different, man. I even let you cuddle me, for christ’s sake.”
I am such a stupendous asshole. Of course her hardnose persona is an act. Well, not entirely an act - she did recently kill a small giant with her bare hands - but still. I’m opening my mouth to apologize when I see Delez and company approaching.
“I think we’re about to get cut short.” I tell her instead. “But if we both survive the next few days, maybe we can... I don’t know, start over? Because I really do like you a lot.”
I spit the last sentence out in a rush, and immediately hate myself for it. What is this, junior high? But then something incredible happens.
Tikal blushes.
“I like you too.” She says, a second before we become the center of an impromptu strategy session.
.
By the time it’s over, a number of major decisions have been reached.
Decision 1: our army is to march for the wall at dawn, where it will spread out and wait to receive the conscripted Underworld platoons.
Decision 2: A handpicked squad will find a way across the Gulf, infiltrate Opacity, and rescue the children. They will leave tonight.
Decision 3: This group is to consist of Delez, Peace, Lucy, Fort, Devin, Tolam and me. Oh yes, and Amy too.
The first two decisions take almost no time to reach, but the third is a different story. Delez and Peace are shoe ins due to their fighting abilities, but there is a good deal of argument against me. Most of this, predictably,
comes from Lucy and Fort, who only capitulate on the condition that they be allowed to go too. Amy’s true identity causes an uproar when it is revealed, and some time is needed to convince people not to string her up by the heels, never mind let her come with us. But as she’s the only one who knows how to operate the jammer, necessity eventually wins out. Devin and Tolam sneak in the back door by offering to act as jammer mules, and there you have it: the eight brave banditos. (Not that anyone is likely to call us that. The eight soon-to-be-dead idiots would be a more fitting nickname.)
This leaves Tikal, the Soccer Moms and the rest of the platoon to manage our rabble army. Before I know it people are saying goodbyes, and it occurs to me that I may never see them again. Some, like Aiyelo and Emily, I don’t really know that well. But others, and Francis in particular, have become good friends, making the separation an emotional one.
“I hope you find your brother.” I tell him, reaching out to shake his hand. He ignores this and pulls me into a fierce bear hug. I hold back for a moment out of instinct, and then return the gesture.
“Morgan is tough as nails.” He tells me. “And he also knows when to put his head down and shut up. He will survive the training camp, and when he reaches the coast with Porter’s invasion force, I will be waiting with a towel.”
And then it’s over. One by one they melt into the twilight, off to make their various preparations. I should do the same, but there is something else I need to sort out first.
I find Kalana alone on a grassy hill, sitting against the base of a domed structure that may once have been an observatory. I’m not surprised she has chosen to seclude herself. Although she hasn’t been formally kicked out of the platoon, only the Soccer Moms have stuck by her these past few days. Everyone else is taking a stab at pretending she doesn’t exist, which is a sensation I can actually relate to (from the period following my Kaleidoscope incident).
“Hey.” I say awkwardly. And then, “Look, I’m about five years of counseling away from being ready to have this conversation. But this might be the last chance we get, so I’m going to give it a try anyway.”