Why hadn’t she told me?
I dropped into her line, seeing who she was talking to.
Mom and Dad crowded the camera, looking concerned.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty, love,” Mom reassured her. “We saw what Amichai did on the news – blowing up that factory, disrupting Times Square–”
“He’s a terrorist, Izzy,” Dad said. “Endangering billions of dead citizens. The news told us he’d voided, but Mr Drumgoole told us not to believe that until we saw the body…”
Izzy flailed her hands, confused. “Amichai’s not… a terrorist, Dad! You’re the terrorists. You’re enslaving the living to… wait. Why did I call you? Why would I risk that–?”
Mom pressed her palm flat against the screen. “It’s for the best, Izzy. We’ve been waiting for your call. Mr Drumgoole gave us a program that’s traced your signal. Just sit tight. Everything will be over soon.”
Izzy ripped the Mother Mentor from her head, horrified. She focused woozily on me, her eyes dilated–
“Amichai, I’m… I don’t know why I… I had to call, I missed them so bumper, every day I creosote biotic syntax–”
She fell backwards to the floor, her teeth chattering as she went into a seizure.
I grabbed her, remembering what Gumdrool told me:
I instituted my own rule: always have contingency plans when dealing with Amichai Damrosch.
Dare helped me get Izzy to a safe position, screaming at Wickcleft: “I thought you guys brainscanned her!”
Wickcleft pulled up images of Izzy’s brainwaves, doublechecking them. “Whuh-we did! Dr Hsiang chuh-checked her scans personally! I duh-duh-don’t understand…”
“I do,” I said, seething.
“Huh-how?”
“Gumdrool didn’t alter. He amplified. Izzy was always close to Mom and Dad – Gumdrool piggybacked on an existing concern. He left the rest of her brain pristine – but when she got a chance to talk to them, she was driven to call.” I grimaced as I wiped drool off Izzy’s chin. “It’s those ‘subtle changes’ you were talking about.”
“I’ve uh-uh-alerted the camp that it’s tuh- tuh- time to evacuate,” Wickcleft said. “Fuh- fortunately, we have suh- suh- security measures that–”
A hollow boom fired overhead. The glass in the mall rafters shattered, raining down; the Brain Trust’s monitors fizzled and dimmed. Wickcleft’s image flickered into darkness.
Dare and I ducked for cover, huddling as the glass shards splintered on the tile floor. Above us, we saw cloudy contrails etching their way across the sky – incoming warships.
“I guess Wickliffe was ready to strike,” Dare said.
49: ONE WISE CHOICE, AND ONE UNWISE ONE
* * *
I caught Dare by the sleeve before he ran off.
“You need to help me get Izzy to safety!”
“No,” Dare snapped. “You need to get Izzy to safety, then send in some help. I need to get up to the solar panels and restore power, so we can wipe the Brain Trust server.”
Distracted by Izzy’s seizure, I hadn’t thought that far. The Brain Trust was darkened – not quite offline, saved by emergency power sources, but as offline as complex Upterlife software could get without corrupting itself. It jutted up, big as a rocket, too large to move.
Dare shook off my grip. “We can’t move the hardware. Wickliffe’s troops are incoming. They will get their hands on this server. Which means they will find the back door you discovered. If we don’t destroy this, we’ve lost our last advantage.”
“But… Wickcleft’s in there.” I thought how proud Wickcleft had been of me. “And… all the other rebels–”
“They’d give their lives to stop Wickliffe. Will you let them?”
Dare gave me a flinty, merciless look, his gaze sending a clear message: Will you finally make the hard sacrifices, Amichai?
I had no choice. Only Dare, who knew the mall’s layout better than anyone alive, had a chance of getting the server up online again to start its selfdestruct sequences.
“…Go.”
Dare gave me a sarcastic salute and bolted.
I needed to get Izzy to a medic. She was emaciated after her time in the factory – but I was no bodybuilder, and my broken shoulder wasn’t helping. I grabbed her by her wrist and hauled backwards, dragging her across the tile floor, yelling for help. But there was none. I heard commotion from outside. The contrails above were getting larger, the skies filling with explosions as people brought our antiaircraft defenses back online – but Wickliffe’s troops would be here any minute.
I heaved her backwards, my good arm practically popping out of its socket. I did a crabwalk with my feet to brush the broken glass away before hauling her back another yard or two. The troops were incoming, terrified the LifeGuard would rappel down through the broken ceiling to scoop me and Izzy up…
“Come on.”
Evangeline tossed Izzy over her shoulder. I should have been overjoyed to see her, but Evangeline had the disgust of a woman shoveling out a stable.
“You’ve got to tell… your people,” I huffed. “We need firepower. We need… need you… to get to the server, protect it until we–”
Evangeline’s nose wrinkled. “That will not happen, Amichai.”
“But Wickcleft – he–”
Evangeline almost flung Izzy to the floor in exasperation. “Amichai, my people will not sacrifice themselves to save a program. I know you think this Wickcleft is a person – but it’s a tricked-up Turing test. There is no soul there! I think it’s disgusting how you expect humans to sacrifice their lives for this… this playtoy you’ve befriended!”
“Holy crap,” I whispered. “Are you jealous?”
I really should not have said that.
Evangeline stalked off. She kept her gaze fixed on the wide multiple-doored exit, where people ferried supplies to the spirocopters, directed by Peaches.
“I offered myself to you,” she said bitterly. “And you pledged yourself to a glorified tutorial.”
I felt my last hopes for Evangeline plummet into an abyss. Wickcleft was my friend – but to her, Wickcleft was a thing. For Evangeline, treating Wickcleft as though he deserved social niceties was every bit as crazy as her God was to me.
We could never cross that gulf.
“Not only is that not fair, it’s not why I’m concerned. I’ve found a–”
“Found a what?”
“…a… thing,” I finished, stumbling to a stop just before I screwed everything up.
I was in a NeoChristian bind: if I told Evangeline about the Upterlife exploit, and she got captured, then Wickliffe would scan her brain. Wickliffe wouldn’t know the precise nature of the security hole, but he could lock down the Upterlife until he tracked it down.
“Your people need to hold the line until Dare gets through,” I told her. “You have to trust me.”
“I’m thin on trust with you.”
“It’s… I can’t share the details. Not now.” I tapped my temple, waved at the incoming ships. “You should understand.”
She softened. That, at least, we had in common now – that fear that everything we knew would be used against us. She pressed her fingertips to the cross on her throat. “Is it necessary for… to end this, Amichai? Have you learned something that can stop the Wickliffe program?”
It’s Wickliffe, not a program! I thought.
Instead, I nodded.
Evangeline kicked open the doors to the mall, exposing the overgrown courtyard. Peaches whirred back and forth in her wheelchair, directing traffic, as rebels and NeoChristians alike evacuated the area – carrying the wounded away, hauling equipment, getting blown apart by the stray missile that made it past our defenses. Overhead, you could see the gleaming outline of the incoming ships, the heatshields blackened from descending from orbit, parachutes jerking out to slow them to a stop.
Evangeline handed Izzy off to Facundo, then fished a loop of black wire out from her belt – a loop studde
d with silver crosses. She wrapped it around my neck with the care of an explosives engineer applying detcord. Then she pressed a black metal canister with a red button into my hand.
“Click it twice to enable it,” she explained, tugging on the canister to show me how it connected to my neck with a wire. “Once you activate it, you have to keep a constant pressure on the button. If it’s untouched for thirty seconds, it explodes, presenting your body as a living sacrifice by blowing out the carotid artery. You bleed unconscious in under a minute, unrecoverable brain death in three.” She grinned. “It’s an old NeoChristian trick to keep secrets.”
“You are…” I looked down at the button. “You are the weirdest girl I ever dated.”
“That’s over, Amichai.” She made the sign of the cross over her lips, then touched her fingers to my forehead. “Facundo and Ximena, they’ve shown me my way back to God. Iron sharpens iron, and you have blunted my edge. It turns out in the aftermath of great tragedy…” She blushed. “Many do foolish things in their grief.”
The hard wall of NeoChristian faith rose between us. We might have been able to forge a friendship in another time, but she had fundamental beliefs she was unwilling to question – and I had mine.
“Now, I think… I think you mean well,” Evangeline continued. “But my people – they fear that as long as you worship the servers, you’ll come around to the Wickliffe program’s view…”
“But can we be allies? You and me?”
“I will fight for you.” She glanced nervously at the sky. “I’ll see who else will.” And she broke away, waving NeoChristian soldiers over to listen to her.
Her hesitation was gone, replaced by a beautiful certainty as she directed her fellow believers to intercept Wickliffe’s troops. Like me, she’d sacrifice everything for principle.
I’d been drawn to her confidence. I still was. But I was drawn for all the wrong reasons.
And in truth? I loved someone else.
Peaches steered herself next to me.
“Amichai! Where’s Dare?”
“Inside.” I ran my fingers along the silver crosses, felt the tiny wads of explosives behind them. “He’s gone to destroy the servers before Wickliffe gets his hands on them. Stay still, I’m going to try something.”
I fired up the IceBreaker, grateful it still functioned. Mama Alex had shielded it from whatever electrical malfuckery Wickliffe had rained down upon us. I trickled a charge into Peaches’ earputer, wrote files to her shared drive.
“There,” I said. “I’ve just passed you the back door to the Upterlife.”
“What the void, Amichai? Why would you give this to me when Wickliffe could capture us at any moment?”
“Because you’re the only person I trust.” I knelt down, getting face to face with her. “And you’ll leave as soon as I’m done talking. Listen, Peaches, I’m sorry–”
Peaches’ chest hitched; she clasped her hands over her heart. “Are you finally choosing me, Amichai Damrosch?”
“I can’t,” I told her. “You don’t let people choose you. All I can do is apologize and hope you choose me.”
She gripped her armrests. “Why do you say the perfect thing only half the time?”
She grabbed me by the back of the neck, bringing me so close I could smell the perfume on her. I trembled at her touch; I hadn’t realized how badly I’d needed to feel her again.
“…so you’re not mad?” I asked.
“Furious. I found another boy that night. He was gorgeous, with big thick muscles and long blond hair. He got me through.” She chewed her lip, contemplating. “So did others. But none of them were you. You stupid, shortsighted, bullheaded idiot.”
She yanked me down into a kiss; all my nerves shorted out. If I’d ever been foolish enough to think only Evangeline could kiss with passion, Peaches made those NeoChristian kisses look like fizzled matches.
Peaches was fireworks.
Peaches was forgiving me.
Peaches was love.
Gunfire started up. Wickliffe’s troops landed on the mall roof, looking more like robots than men – encased in airtight uniforms, smoke-glassed helmets, prepared for any dazzlers or biohazardous gas. Thick green teargas permeated the woods. The NeoChristians laid down suppressing fire, making the LifeGuard scramble for cover, but soon enough Wickliffe’s troops would turn this courtyard into a killing zone.
“You were the one I always trusted,” Peaches told me, kissing me between sentences. “You respected my limits even when I made them arbitrary. So when my world tilts sideways, I cling to you. Any questions?”
“No, ma’am. Now get out, and take that Upterlife vulnerability with you.” I doubleclicked the red button and sprinted back towards the mall.
“Amichai!” Peaches leapt halfway out of her wheelchair as a rebel guard dragged her back to the last of the spirocopters. “Where are you going?”
“To rescue Dare!”
With the memory of her kiss still on my mouth, I had never felt better in my life.
50: DARE, UP SO HIGH IT BREAKS MY HEART
* * *
I booked for the mall’s upper levels, my thumb mashed on the dead-man’s button. I was betting Wickliffe’s forces would head straight for the server, which had to be visible from the sky once all the glass had shattered. They’d be focused on retrieval – why take captives when you could extract far more information from an Upterlife server?
NeoChristians charged past me, ready to play hit-and-run with the incoming troops. Ready to distract Wickliffe’s men so I could get Dare out.
Because Dare’s skills were way more important than mine.
Dare was right: we couldn’t afford to hand over the Brain Trust’s secrets to Wickliffe. But our best-case scenario ended with the Brain Trust selfdestructing – and if that happened, our rebellion had lost Mama Alex, the Brain Trust, and possibly Wickliffe. All of our technological expertise, gone.
The only person I knew who could build another Upterlife server was Dare. All Amichai can do is break things, Mama Alex had said to Dare; you have a special talent for building.
The Pony Rebellion had only gotten this far thanks to our technological edge. Without Mama Alex or the Brain Trust, Dare was our last hope for building a future. If I had to sacrifice my life to get Dare to safety, well, that was a solid exchange.
Fortunately, I had a plan to get both of us out. I wished I could text him a message, let him know I was coming, except Wickliffe had depowered our earputers…
I raced up to the fourth floor, near the shattered glass ceiling, approaching the edge of the wide walkways that looped around the Brain Trust’s server stack. Bullets shattered the concrete below me. The NeoChristians had lined up on the lower levels to fire down into the courtyard, while the LifeGuard fired back with much heavier weaponry that punched through the tile floor.
The LifeGuard’s armored suits were airtight, hermetically sealed so no one could gas them. But that came with its own dangers.
I flung myself into an old pharmacy and fired up the IceBreaker.
The IceBreaker scanned the area, bombarding me with information about the LifeGuard’s military-grade encrypted broadcasts. The suits had to communicate with each other, which gave me a vector of attack.
Fortunately, I’d spent the last weeks being trained in decryption methods by Wickcleft himself. I flooded the air with quiet login attempts, hunting for access to their armor.
I remembered to mash down the dead-man’s button before it blew my head off, then bit back a curse. The LifeGuard’s high-level communications were brainencrypted – as secure as a man’s thought patterns. I’d expected no less. But there had to be lower-level maintenance protocols I could hijack…
That’s when a voice drove all thoughts of programming from my head:
“Don’t waste your fire on these NeoChristians!” Gumdrool said.
…Gumdrool said.
“Their weaponry can’t hurt you! Get those emergency generators working!”<
br />
Yes. That was my enemy – my dead enemy – speaking. It was madness, peeking over the edge of that walkway, where troops could put a bullet in my brain. But I had to see him…
…and sure enough, Gumdrool was there. Not a copy – Gumdrool, in the flesh. Preening.
How had he survived?
But survived he had. He barked out orders on a megaphone, having removed his faceplate. It was a show intended to demoralize the NeoChristians – if he was serious about tactics, he would have communicated to his men over their encrypted frequencies.
Worse, his show was working. Armored men dragged a glowing generator up to the Brain Trust server. The NeoChristians’ bullets sparked off the LifeGuard’s black shiny exosuits without leaving a mark. Gumdrool was right: there was no sense in fighting, and the NeoChristians weren’t eager to protect a collection of programs anyway. My defenders withdrew.
Then I heard a rattle from above.
Nestled between two girders, high off the floor, Dare tinkered with a solar panel. I don’t know how he got that high up; I could see no access panels. He might as well have been Spider-Man.
Wickliffe’s men, distracted by the firefight, hadn’t seen him yet. Dare stuck his tongue out between his lips as he reconnected wires, trying to…
…I didn’t know what he was trying to do. That was why we needed Dare. I’d studied the Upterlife’s vulnerabilities, but Dare had trained himself for Upterlife maintenance and repair. I had no idea what Wickliffe had done to disable the Brain Trust’s selfdestruct routines, nor how Dare intended to bring them back up online.
Everything depended on Dare. If I could get root access to the armored suits, I could buy him time…
He looked down, verifying the LifeGuard hadn’t spotted him – then scowled when he saw me. I realized how things looked:
It looked like I’d endangered the mission to rescue him.
I gesticulated, touching my neck, holding up the button to demonstrate how they’d never capture my secret from me – but there was no good way to get all this across without alerting Wickliffe’s troops. I handed the Upterlife exploit to Peaches! I wanted to yell. If they capture me, the rebels still have the loophole! Now we need to get you out, so you can rebuild our defenses!
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