by Max Harms
“Are these things running artificial intelligences too?” she asked, gesturing at the webs of black branches overhead.
Crystal paused before answering. “There are computers in them, powerful ones too, but it’s hard to say where the line between normal software and AI is. I was designed by humans to be a fully general intelligence with sentience, sapience, and consciousness. These things… They’re running a program with a kind of intelligence, but it’s closer to what you’d find in an auto: very stupid. They’re oriented around flying a ship, for instance, and have no comprehension of what to do now that they’re stuck on a planet. Been trying to reprogram them, but there’s a lot of… obstacles. One must be… very careful when working with alien technology.”
Zephyr was about to say something, but Crystal interrupted her by continuing. “And besides, they’re working to give me energy! As long as they’re doing that, I don’t have much reason to worry about them for the time being. Have a weapon to build, and all that. If you see any of my robots working on them, let me know. Maybe I’ll have more to tell you about the god of the nameless.”
“Um, okay.”
The scorpion walked on towards Furnace Five. This… place (she wasn’t sure how to think of it yet) had roads where the dust and larger rocks had been swept away and the dirt had been compacted. The scorpion walked along these small roads, as did a hundred other robots, but she didn’t see any humans.
“So many bots… How do you pilot them all?” she wondered aloud.
The voice in her suit explained. “Been working on building up the swarm ever since we won. Got mass production of the most useful ones up and running pretty early. Most of their thoughts are handled by the computers that were in the rovers, actually. Built subprograms to handle all the walking and other basic control. The bot you’re riding on, for instance, is simply obeying my direction to walk to Furnace Five. All the decisions of which legs to move and which way to turn are handled by other software on the local net.”
There were other structures, besides the little room that Zephyr had awoken inside. Most notably was a large bubble-dome at least thirty feet tall that seemed very similar to the one the nameless had used on Earth. When she asked about it, Crystal explained that it had repaired itself after their attack, and they were using it to study the surviving nameless stalks. Most of the other structures weren’t enclosed. She could see into shells of buildings filled with robots moving this way and that carrying equipment, tools, and supplies. Crystal explained that the walls were for the wind and to serve as an anchor for the branches of crystal leaves overhead.
It was daytime, but the canopy blocked most of the light. Here and there a shaft of daytime sun pierced the dark crystals, but for the most part they moved along under the light of more of the long lightbulbs, anchored to the walls and ceilings (and sometimes the floor) with the same indifference to looking nice. Wires and cables were everywhere, leading from the crystal trees out to all the machines.
Even though she understood that she was moving through the shell of the nameless ship, nothing really had the same feel as the xenocruiser. There was no sign of water, for instance, or even ice. The soil underfoot was clearly martian, rather than the black stuff the nameless had. There were no hand-cut stone blocks or vines or anything.
Crystal seemed equally confused. “The area under the dome is closer to the habitat we encountered. It has soil and nameless stalks, anyway. I am not sure where the castles or water went, though. Just one more mystery.”
The robot wound this way and that along the little road. It seemed to Zephyr that being in this place should have been overwhelming, but it wasn’t. There was motion everywhere, and the sheer complexity of the wonderland was beyond words, but the hum of the robotic motors and the various power tools simply built up a carpet of white noise which she was able to tune out.
After seeing all that Crystal had built, it seemed strange that Zephyr’s legs weren’t functional. “Thought you needed to make your weapon. Why spend so much time on making robots and all this?” She waved her arms around, unwilling to focus on any single aspect.
Crystal laughed. It was a good sound. She’d missed that soft, gentle laugh. “They’re one in the same. Want to build, essentially, an orbital weapons platform to defend Mars. That requires a lot of different things. Most of these robots will be necessary in space once it launches, just for basic operation. The ion drive mostly decayed in the crash, but there’s enough there that I think I can put it back together in about a week’s time, maybe a few days more. But in order to do that I need—”
“Wait. More than a week? But the mothership…”
Crystal sighed. “I know. There’s just not enough time. To buy us more I’m building some rockets that will hopefully draw the aliens off long enough to finish. They’ll broadcast taunts in Xenolang and claim to be carrying the nameless I captured. With luck they’ll avoid shooting them out of the sky, and instead waste a bunch of time trying to pick them up. The computer programs on the ships are designed to keep the nameless safe, after all.”
“Don’t you think there’s a risk they’ll aim for the crash site instead of following the rockets?”
“Oh yes, quite a risk. Trying to do about a million things at the same time. Built bunkers underground in case of bombardment. Trying to build some smaller turrets that can shoot bombs out of the sky if it comes to that. Those turrets require computers, and more computers would be good for the robots, too, so I’m working on getting a computer factory set up, but that’s not going very well. Trying to set up false signals to confuse the nameless using the satellite network—”
“Jesus. Sure you still have time to talk to little old me? Don’t know how you manage.”
Crystal laughed again. “My mind doesn’t need to rest, and it’s much larger than that of a human. Parts of me are working on various problems and tasks even while we talk. And talking to you is important. Too easy for me to get blinded by the fight and not appreciate what I’m fighting for.”
“Well hey there!” said a new voice over the com.
Zephyr was confused for a moment, and then spotted a suited figure standing in the doorway to a structure about a hundred meters ahead. It waved at her.
“That’s Liam. He’s been spending most of his time with Jarvis. I’ll let you catch up with them and get your pistol back. Just say something if you need me, okay?”
Zephyr waved stiffly at the other human, feeling like her body was a puppet. This wasn’t what she wanted, but she went with it anyway. She didn’t even really know what she wanted.
“I love you,” she said over the private channel, coming to a realization about her desire.
“I love you, too,” responded Crystal.
At least she wasn’t alone.
*****
Though there had been no further casualties after the big battle, Zephyr discovered that many of the humans had left to return to regroup with the Mukhya refugees. With Cristophe, Matías, Manish, and Jian dead, the band of survivors had been whittled down to a mere nine. Omi and Jashiel had left before the fighting, Jacob and Mycah had gone with the few Indians who hadn’t died in combat back to Mukhya, and so it was just down to her, Jarvis, Liam, Shao, and Atília.
All of them were men, and none of them were her friends. Liam and Jarvis treated her reasonably well when she came to get her gun, though she could tell that neither of them actually respected her. In their eyes, she was a woman and a cripple. She had been rude to them because of it, not that she expected that helped things. That was the way she’d always been. She was either in control or she wasn’t. When she was she kept people away, and when she wasn’t she pushed people away.
It wasn’t any surprise that there wasn’t a single human being on the planet that cared about her. She knew she deserved that. What was surprising was that Crystal was still with her. It was pretty obvious she didn’t deserve their attention, their affection, or their loyalty, even if Crystal was blind to that fact
.
After that initial encounter with the men, she kept to herself. She didn’t even bother to see Shao or Atília, and they didn’t bother to see her. It was a somewhat lonely existence, but mostly it was just a relief. She realized the next day that she simply didn’t like people. It was a strange concept, but it made sense to her.
A part of her really wanted to help Crystal. She asked twice, if there was something for her to work on, given that she had nothing to do and that there was so much to be done. But unlike the men, she wasn’t able to walk, and Crystal, while dancing around the subject in the somewhat patronizing way they did, told her that it would be more trouble trying to carry her around than it would be helpful having her hands available. They did all the mental work, anyway, so at best Zephyr would have only been another puppet for the great Crystal Socrates.
Zephyr did little for two days. She listened to music in her cramped little house, did her best to air out her clothes and take a sponge bath (with Crystal’s help), eat what food Crystal brought, sleep, and try to get back into shape after having let her muscles weaken. On the second day, she had the insight to ask if Crystal had any games, movies, books or other entertainment. It turned out that they did, and she spent the rest of that day watching various things on her shitty little com screen.
Though they talked frequently, Zephyr and Crystal weren’t intimate during that time. It didn’t seem right, given that Crystal was little more than a disembodied voice. When Zephyr masturbated, Crystal either didn’t notice or decided not to interrupt. A part of Zephyr found that to be the most terrible thing of the boredom and isolation, but she knew that it would be selfish to ask Crystal for more than she had to. In her fantasies she imagined Crystal was a human of flesh and blood with a woman’s shape. Tall and strong—an amazonian warrior—but still distinctly feminine. Images of men too easily turned, in her mind, into those she had loved and lost.
She tried to focus on Crystal, and remember who they were. The fighting would be done soon, and the two of them would be together again more fully, after that. She had to believe that. Perhaps in their next form they’d be more human. They’d done so much. How hard could it be to build a soft body given everything else?
Zephyr’s dreams in those days were frightening things. She did her best not to remember them upon waking.
On the morning of the third day, Crystal surprised her with a swarm of robots carrying all sorts of gear (and a breakfast ration). As they fussed with her legs (and she ate) Crystal explained that they’d made a manufacturing breakthrough in the new chemical labs and had something which would probably make her legs at least somewhat functional. The glossy blue legs were taken off at the knees (a disturbing experience) and machines were inserted into them which made no sense to Zephyr. She knew next to nothing about engineering outside of the basic survival skills she’d picked up in her military training and the high school programming class she’d taken years ago. She could operate a fab, a com, a basic radio, and a gun. She could synth two of those four things. Outside of that she was more or less useless.
As a silver-armed bot attached the newly-modified legs back to the prosthetic-stumps that had been glued onto her legs, Crystal said “There’s still a lot to do. Unlike most augs, these won’t respond to your body, or at least, not yet. I’ll be working on the nerve interface all of today. But they’re powered now, and I can control them remotely while I try and guess what you want them to do.”
“You’re going to remote control my legs…” Zephyr said with disbelief.
“Know that’s not ideal. Like I said, the nerve interface is in the works. We need to try them out, though, so I’ll be manipulating them for now.”
The reality was just as awkward as Zephyr feared. Once they were fully attached, Crystal flexed the powered knees experimentally, and Zephyr tried to stand up. The legs “worked” in the sense that wearing them was better than being unable to stand up, but they felt like awful, clumsy stilts. The biggest failure point was the ankle, which Crystal only seemed to move in random, infuriating ways.
After half an hour of flopping around, Crystal seemed satisfied and sent the robots away, letting Zephyr lie back down. It was nice to be upright again, but she hated the sense that the legs weren’t hers. They itched infuriatingly, but there was nothing she could do.
That day passed more or less like the others. She spent more time walking around awkwardly, but it was uncomfortable enough that she mostly stayed in bed watching movies, trying to forget the world.
The itching in her legs built up over the day, until it became so unbearable that she confronted Crystal about it. They just suggested walking around more, and said that it would probably be gone in the morning.
But stumbling around the tiny room didn’t do anything. As night fell, Zephyr put on a documentary about the election rigging scandal in Australia a few years back. She hoped it would be boring enough to put her to sleep, but it actually turned out to be pretty good, albeit an hour longer than she expected.
It was almost midnight when she finished. There was no way she could sleep, though. She could almost swear that someone was scratching her toes with a cold wire brush left to right and then back again. The itching was just as bad as it had been, too.
“Crystal, I think something is wrong with my legs. Itching hasn’t gone away, and they feel weird.”
“Remember how I said I’d be working on the nerve-interface? The sensation isn’t an accident. Wanted to surprise you tomorrow morning, but I guess it’s harder to tweak someone’s nervous system without their knowledge than I expected.”
Zephyr rubbed at the joint between her skin and the blue plastic of her thighs. “You’re doing this?” she growled, more angry than she expected to be.
“In a sense, yes. The tingling is because of some nanomaterials that I inserted into the gel interface this morning. Expect your brain will have sorted out some of the sensations by morning to the point where it won’t be bothersome. Even expect you’ll be able to walk on your own direction by tomorrow night.”
Zephyr took a deep breath and paused to mull this over. “You’re saying that I’m actually feeling my legs right now? That’s what the itching is?”
“You don’t sound as pleased as I expected. This is a fantastic new technology, Zephyr. Nobody in history has gotten synthetic skin to work at the resolution or speed that—”
Something snapped within her. All the frustration that had been building up over the day broke through. “Fucking hell! Never asked for this! You’re using me as a guinea pig for some technology that’s never been established on augs that I never gave you consent to attach!”
“Would you rather be a cripple?” challenged Crystal.
“I’d rather you include me in the decision making about my own fucking body! How many times are we going to have to have this conversation?! I’m not a fucking doll!”
“But you were included! You agreed to them!”
Zephyr gripped the blanket on the bed in her fist. She wished Crystal had a body with eyes she could look into. Yelling at her com like this made Crystal seem so far away. “No I didn’t! I don’t remember anything like that!”
“In the tent, before you lost consciousness—”
“That’s…” Zephyr cut Crystal off sharply, intending to deny having agreed to anything, but the doubt seized her. “That’s not what happened…” she finished, lamely.
“Do you need me to play the recording?” asked Crystal. Their voice had an infuriating note of sincere compassion to it.
They were always like this. Crystal was a better person than Zephyr had ever known. She saw ghosts and shadows in Crystal that were never actually there. They’d stuck with Zephyr through thick and thin, and had never let their superhuman compassion waver. It had always been Zephyr that had fucked things up. It had always been her doubt.
{You deserve to be dead,} she told herself.
Though she’d been feeling fine just minutes ago (aside from the irritation o
f her legs), all the feelings of the last couple weeks seemed to come roaring up from the depths of her soul like a boiling geyser of emotion, unleashed by the previous frustration and anger. The faces of everyone she’d let down seemed to be staring at her out of the blackness of the tiny room.
{Manish was just a boy. Innocent. Who wanted to go to Mars? You did. You brought the nameless here.}
“Zeph?” asked Crystal.
The voice was too much to bear, even with the sensation of distance. Zephyr wanted to be alone. She needed to be alone. She deserved to be alone. With trembling hands she turned off her com, threw it onto the floor, and covered her head with the blanket.
{You’re such a little girl. “Oh, look at me, I’m a tough soldier!”} she mocked herself. She thought about all the actual little girls and the boys that had been in Road when it had been attacked. She thought about Sam and Tom and Kokumo and Michel. She thought about her company. Nate had been lucky to survive as long as he had, but she’d let him down too. Mark and Tyrion weren’t so lucky. {You’re such a fuckup! Imagine how much better things would be if you’d never existed!}
There were a million things she could have done differently. Maybe she never should have “rescued” Crystal from the university in the first place. She’d killed so many people…
And for what? To avenge Stewart? To punish her parents?
She tried so hard for so long. She tried to make a better world. She tried to help people. But everything she’d accomplished in her stupid fuckshit life had been through doing exactly the opposite, and it had brought her nothing but death and isolation.
And despite all that, she was still a coward. She was still scared of dying. The mothership would be in orbit in a matter of hours and she desperately wanted Crystal to protect her.
The airlock pumps turned on. She could hear them over the sound of her own bitter sobbing.
{Fucking weak. That’s what you are. They’ll see how weak you are.} She did her best to calm herself down and wipe the tears from her eyes and the snot from her nose. {And you think you’re a soldier. Dad was right: you don’t have the heart for it.}