Eclipse Phase- After the Fall

by Jaym Gates

  Charlie Boy smiled, satisfied with the response. His demeanor and mannerisms often struck Jeue as old-fashioned, more in tune with the style of the Old Boys Network so prominent in old-Earth corps, but here he was, a major player for the cutting-edge hypercorps. He was a survivor as well, but far more ruthless and cold, the kind who used and sacrificed others to stay ahead.

  “Ya know what I see?” he said. “I see the greatest empire this system has ever known, and will ever know. Not everyone sees it my way, Jeue. And it pisses me off to no end. If we’re not careful, we’re gonna lose our grip. I can see it. Thousands of microscopic cuts already, with more springing up each day. The anarchists, the Venusians, the reclaimers … we keep seeping blood, drip by drip, and it’s pooling up. Eventually, we’ll collapse to our knees, and soon after that the PC is face-down dead in its own juice. It’s our turn to strike back, starting with Vijja and these Morningstar troublemakers, and it’s gonna be done my way. When I sting, it’s hard and it’s death. You will know it. That’s the way it should be. Sneaky ain’t noble. If I’m gonna fuck you, you’re gonna lose your head. Gaping hole in your chest.”

  —

  Vijja sat still within their private box at the apex of the cloud-diving observation dome, a clenched fist resting softly on their lips, awaiting the arrival of their guest and newly-appointed rival from the Planetary Consortium. Vijja had opted to wear one of the latest unique designs from Branimira Ivanova, a ground-breaking fashion house on Gerlach, in Venusian orbit. This show of opulence and influence was intended to make waves in the media and socialite circles, marking their meeting as a notable event, scoring points for Vijja as the more stylish and elegant. It was a bold move to choose fashion over formal attire, and Vijja hoped it would grab hold of Jeue’s confidence from the first moment and shake it like a misbehaving puppy. Instead, Vijja’s gambit had fallen victim to a perfectly-timed disaster.

  The news of this disaster saturated the mesh in minutes. The cortical stacks of over three dozen surface workers deemed unrecoverable by the Octavian government following a mining disaster, an explosion at the third largest operations base during a shift change, origin unknown. Dozens of desperate indentures smuggled from Consortium hands in pursuit of the dream of a new morph and a new life on Venus were wiped. Each one of the deceased had waived backup storage costs and liabilities that would have extended their terms, and had been unable to afford backups of their own. Dozens permanently, irrevocably dead. Comment streams were scathing and multiplying by the second, increasingly fierce, a feeding frenzy of anti-Morningstar sentiment. The outrage spanned all social strata throughout the entire system.

  And here was Vijja, a public face of the Constellation, the eyes of the dome upon them, broadcast across the mesh and around the system, dressed in extravagant finery, their appearance almost perfectly timed with the news. Absorbed together, it was as if Vijja was celebrating the tragedy. Their reputation was already taking a hit as scathing comments flooded the social networks, remarking on Vijja’s look and attire as the height of bad taste and a shocking lack of decorum. Their name was being mocked and reviled.

  Vijja smirked slightly beneath their still fist. The first volley had been fired and they were already on the defensive. What bad form, Vijja thought. An assault even before a formal introduction. I would expect nothing less from an amateur. Vijja ordered their muse to extinguish the comment streams scrolling across their entoptics. Peace was needed in these few final moments before Vijja would extend their hand in greeting to Jeue. Minutes, perhaps even seconds, to center their venom, to suppress their seething need to counterstrike immediately. But there would be no time for focus.

  The door to the box slid open. Vijja stood and turned to greet their guest, the warmest of smiles gracing their lips and eyes, not a hint of defeat or hate, but only two Octavian diplomatic escorts entered the room. They nodded stiffly, then one spoke.

  “Emissary Vijja. Diplomat Jeue sends her regrets, but she will not be able to attend.”

  Vijja turned their back to the escorts and dismissed them with a wave of their hand as they ordered their muse to reignite the comment streams and search the mesh for any activity from Jeue. A video statement, posted just seconds ago, emerged, and there was Jeue:

  “I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the loved ones of all those lost in the terrible tragedy that took place today on the surface of Venus.” Her bright green eyes flickered from pools of sympathy to fires of great hate as her speech rolled onward, slamming into the Morningstar Constellation. She vehemently denounced the “get-rich-quick” appeal of the Morningstar indentured contracts. She repeated, following every point, “Is the risk really worth the reward?”

  Vijja’s mind snarled and snapped. So calculated, so rehearsed, zero sophistication and subtlety. A manufactured politician, not an artist.

  I am the artist. And it’s time to get creative.

  —

  The exchange lasted for months. On the surface, Consortium-Constellation relations continued on their normal rocky course. Under the surface, a tug-of-war ensued, with each side engaging ploys and launching memetic attacks. A leading scientific proponent of the Consortium’s original terraforming plans for Venus publicly switched sides, coming out in favor of the Constellation’s Aerial Terraforming Initiative, devaluing the Consortium’s claims. A major outer system shipper canceled its contract with the Constellation to move several iceteroids into the inner system to be sublimated in the Venusian atmosphere and aid the aerial terraforming, raising the costs and shaking public confidence in the Constellation’s goals. Negotiations over intellectual property restrictions, pushed heavily by Consortium interests, stalled and then stalled again, impeding the interests of certain hypercorps in establishing standards across the inner system. An incident with a Constellation citizen found to be manufacturing restricted weapons onboard a Consortium habitat brought down condemnation of the Venusian’s lax attitudes towards nanoproliferation. Blow-by-blow it continued.

  Through it all, however, Vijja had failed to find an avenue by which to undermine Jeue directly. This was their specialty, but the Consortium diplomat’s hidden past provided precious little for the negotiator to work with. This lack itself may have been an angle to exploit, but Vijja was convinced the Consortium anticipated such a move and had a response in place. Jeue’s insertion and reception into the circles of hyperelite socialites and glitterati had been flawless, and her travels through their ranks had been studiously free of controversy, despite several pitfalls and traps Vijja had laid.

  As Vijja immersed themself in a sensuous steam bath, contemplating new angles of approach to this vexing situation, their muse suddenly flagged a new incoming file as exceptionally relevant to Vijja’s interests. Vijja called up the entoptic details, and was immediately stricken by the file’s name: “Weapon of Choice.” This was not a message from Rathe, however. The sender was anonymous, the trail carefully and completely obfuscated, as it always was. Vijja smiled knowingly. This was an opportunity, a gift. Vijja had grown accustomed to these occasional mysteries, these provident bonuses, throughout their rise to the top of the Morningstar diplomatic ranks. Their timing never failed to be fortuitous and their contents always proved cataclysmically destructive to Vijja’s adversaries. Vijja had always questioned and carefully validated their contents, and they had always proved true.

  Thank you once again, Vijja thought, towards no one in particular, but rather into the vastness of the mesh. Vijja was not one to question their benefactor’s desire for anonymity.

  The file opened and the truth of Jeue’s past spilled forth like blood from a gut slice.

  Jeue: a chameleon, in hiding for years, plotting all the while. Brilliant, yet mad beyond comparison. She was a sleeper, a ticking time bomb, a reprogrammed and rewired threat. Her past was bathed in blood, and her kind were as dangerous as they were notorious. Murderers. Decapitators. Flesh eaters. Lost.


  —

  The deed was done. Jeue’s past had been unveiled. The scandal unfolded in the most breathtaking manner Vijja had managed to devise. Her past was all over the feeds. The Consortium was disgraced for allowing a monster in their ranks. Jeue herself had disappeared, gone underground in face of an almost certain order of death and deletion of all backups.

  Vijja’s gleeful absorption of the breaking news was suddenly interrupted by an incoming call alert. Annoyed at their muse for allowing the disturbance past their filters, Vijja was about to refuse it when it suddenly connected. An avatar appeared in their entoptics that they had never seen before. It was unusual, unique, and sinister: a hand stretched wide in tension, the fingertips shaped like scorpion tails. With a sobering certainty, Vijja knew that their anonymous benefactor was finally making themselves known.

  The hand spoke in a deep vocalization with the unmistakable rasp of a throat abused for ages by all the harmful substances a body could ingest.

  [Pleased?]

  Yes. Very much.

  [And what if I told you that none of the information I provided this time was true, yet I went to considerable effort for it all to be verifiable and airtight?]

  Then I would be even more delighted.

  As much as Vijja enjoyed digging up the past and skewering an enemy upon it, they adored complex fabrications and deceit. It was the true art of their chosen profession. No one ever earned the title of mastermind by dealing wholly in truths.

  The hand continued. [There is something you must understand, Vijja. That I never want you to forget. You are a creation, of mine, of others. Your rise has little to do with you.]

  Vijja hissed aloud. It was nearly impossible to rattle them, but this shocked the diplomat into a search for words, for the proper response to this entity, whoever it was. All Vijja could muster was: I don’t believe you.

  [That would be foolhardy. Have I not provided for you, Vijja? Protected you? Guided you? Removed obstacles from your path?]

  Vijja remained silent, unwilling to challenge or to show weakness. They did not want to provide even a word that could be used against them. This was the start of the fight to remain in the arms of existence. The battle with Jeue paled sickeningly in comparison to the contest Vijja could sense unfolding with the wide-reaching hand.

  The hand spoke again. [Do you require proof Vijja? Is that it? To be fair, I would ask for proof in your position. Would you like to ask for proof, Vijja?]

  This time Vijja did not hesitate. Yes. I require proof.

  [Very well, Vijja. Here is your proof.]

  A new file was transferred. Vijja eyed the title in their entoptic display. Weapon of Choice. Warmth drained from their body.

  Barely aware that they were doing so, Vijja opened the file and examined the contents. Every claim that was made in the previous file against Jeue now became Vijja. A lifelog of the horrors perpetrated by the young woman known as Hera79 during her accelerated growth in the Futura project flooded Vijja’s display. Their mind entered a state of paralysis as the images attacked: the blood-soaked faces, the limbs, the carve of blades through youthful flesh. Vijja could recall the taste of bone and feel the scream of insatiable hunger rising from her throat, then and now. All those terrible, invigorating moments stolen from her, returned in a fantastic, raging torrent. Hera79 was changed, reprogrammed, groomed into … who? Jeue? Vijja? Anyone? Vijja could no longer tell.

  The entire fabric of Vijja’s reality was unraveling. They collapsed to the floor in shock and exhaustion.

  The hand was all that was present in Vijja’s augmented reality, the rest was haze.

  [Remember this, Vijja. Your past, your position, your power, all are under my control. I have vast wealth and resources at my disposal. I am old enough to guess what you are thinking three moves ahead. My influence is not open, but is worked through others such as yourself. When I call, you will listen. When I command, you will obey.]

  Vijja could not move. They did not want to have even a single thought, for fear that the hand would steal it and use it against them.

  [Remember, Vijja. Remember.]

  —

  Kymber whispered something in Hines’s mind and he began counting. 180. 179. 178.

  Barely aware that he was doing so, he turned and began walking away from the mining camp. In his mind, he no longer railed against the injustices piled upon infugees and indentures like himself. He no longer castigated the system of power within the inner system that traded lives as commodities, that forced living beings into virtual slavery and hellish conditions. He forgot about the rich elites who callously made decisions that negatively affected millions of lives with no empathy or care as to the consequences. Hines mind was entirely devoted to his imminent detonation.

  The code whispered by Kymber had triggered dormant programming in Hines’s brain, implanted with careful and subtle psychosurgical tricks, back when he was a disembodied infomorph in Consortium control. Hines’s incentive to free himself from the Consortium and seek indentured service on Venus had been fueled by this conditioning. Also buried in his subconscious were orders to blow up the mining station at a predetermined time, just half an hour from now. Kymber’s message to Hines, however, had triggered an abort sequence.

  72. 71. 70.

  Hines’s quartz morph lumbered along, practically running, though its movement was still stiff and slow. He had moved over 100 meters and was approaching the crater lip and the lava field beyond. He was far enough away now that the explosives hidden inside his quartz frame would not significantly damage the other surface workers or mining camp, as they were originally intended to do.

  25. 24. 23.

  He reached the lip. For a moment he paused, and Hines’s thoughts were once again absorbed by the radiant glow of burning rock below. For a second, he had no thoughts of his circumstances or the manipulations of people stationed far above him.

  12. 11. 10.

  He stepped out. For a long moment, he hovered above the melt. Then he fell.

  —

  Vijja stood at their chamber window, watching the thick gray storm clouds rushing by. Rathe had wanted to see Vijja tonight, to congratulate them with another gift from the people, more exquisite and tantalizing than the cloud sim, but Vijja was not in the mood. Though these moments of atmospheric rage were rare, they chilled Vijja, filled them with melancholy and fear. They reminded them of the haze and the hand. This was not Vijja’s soft Venus. The destructive force of their world at its most temperamental was apparent even behind the protection of meter-thick aerogel. Vijja always thought of themself as the destroyer, the protector. They felt betrayed, insignificant.

  Vijja had received credit for discovering and unveiling the plot to sabotage yet another Venusian mining operation. They had not lifted a finger, but the data had come from their office. A potential attack on a critical Morningstar mining camp thwarted by the ever-vigilant Vijja, hero of the Venusian people. Plotted by the scoundrel Jeue, a Lost Generation murderer in hiding.

  It’s simple, really, to wind up on the winning side when you’ve created the winner. And the loser.

  Vijja commanded the shades to lower and the lights to dim, then walked away from the window to sit in the darkness. They contemplated the life of the undying rich, the power and guile such oligarchs commanded.

  It is only a matter of time. Only a matter of time before I am disposable. Before the decision is made to cast me into ruin.

  What to do? What to do?

  —

  Katarine found herself in the dollhouse parlor once again, sleeved into a new pod. She took a moment to examine herself. It was always unnerving to find herself in a new body, a new face, but she also relished these short periods of embodiment. Anything beat the eternity of waiting in simulspace. She wondered who her client would be this time. She was unaware that she was ever Jeue, that Charlie Boy had use
d her, once again, or that he would continue to, over and over again.

  The next time I see Charlie Boy, she thought, I’m gonna take him up on that offer. Whatever it is, I don’t care. I just don’t care. Anything is better than this. She accessed her schedule to see when he was due, but there was nothing.

  He’ll show up, she thought. He always does.

  Seconds later she was ushered off to her appointment—another mid-level hypercorp drone with a fetish for humiliation.

  —

  Charlie Boy strolled by a roulette table, stopped for a second to observe the action, to get a read on the play, and he caught a pattern he liked. A streak was about to hit according to his newly installed high-end math boost software. He beamed a bet of ten thousand credits to the dealer. The wheel spun.

  He liked the look of the pleasure pod at the far end of the table. The pod gave him the eye and Charlie Boy walked up behind and pressed in close, his torso brushing lightly against the pod’s smooth bare back. “Watch this.” Charlie Boy said, and the pod flicked a pouty-lipped smile over the shoulder. The wheel started to slow.

  “Whaddya think? Think this bet has a shot?” Charlie Boy whispered into the pod’s ear while rattling the ice cubes in his glass of scotch.

  “I don’t know. Does it?” the pod replied.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it does.” He slammed the remaining half of his drink as the final clicks of the wheel started their march, ticktickticktick … ticktick … ticktick … tick … tick … tick …

  The wheel stopped. As the dealer called out the winner, Charlie Boy bellowed from his cigar-charred throat, “Boom, baby! BOOM!”

  Thieving Magpie

  Madeline Ashby

  The ring on your right hand is a key.

  You have never worn it before.

  Years ago, we forged it together.

  But I digress.

  —

  Years ago, you worked on what was called the Lower East Side. Off Canal. You ate soggy little soup dumplings from a styrofoam carton when you were hungover. They popped in your mouth, tiny scalding pockets of sobriety burning down your throat.