All the Difference

by Edward McKeown

  Her face remains grim. “Better still if we can save everyone.”

  “Do you think that is likely?”

  “I have to hope.”

  Her words strike a chord in me again. These are words Maauro understands. “Yes, Colonel, we have to hope.”

  “Good luck, Maauro. Find us a way out of this nightmare.”

  I turn my face to my enemy’s stronghold. But now it is Maauro they face and not M-7 and woe to them now, for Maauro has learned both love and hate. Moving surreptitiously, I near the end of the ridge, 2.095 kilometers from where the engagement began. I stalk forward cautiously, analyzing all I know of Lilith. She is not a soldier; her tactics have been basic, yet intelligently played. Still, she is a victim of her own psyche, at the base of which is her sense of helplessness. She is an untested child with a maimed and angry life and she fears me. While it would be tactically sensible, her main line of resistance cannot be far from her actual location. I cannot see her leaving herself without an HCR bodyguard. That would mean one unit back with her, one disabled by my cyber-counter-strike when she tried to hack the net. I had thought that foolish until I learned of the Arc in Ciel. With the one I destroyed on the ridge; that leaves her only two to deploy against me. Given her amateur skills, she has likely split them, one facing east and the other west, inviting defeat in detail.

  Time to end this, I speed around the end of the ridge and learn several things at once. I was right to think she would not send her machines far from her, her ship lies under electro-chametic netting on the valley floor. But I was wrong to believe that her fear would cause her to hold back any machines. On this side of the ridge is one HCR .678 kilometers away, the second is at the far end and is no immediate concern.

  But I did not plan for the one that erupts almost at my feet from a metal covered trapdoor.

  Chapter 27

  The chirping of a com brought me awake. I stumbled out of the bed and flipped it open. A holo of my sister’s face appeared immediately and sleepiness fled me.

  “Rena, what’s wrong?” An early morning call from her could only herald disaster.

  “Piet, there are soldiers here!”

  “What! Are you being arrested?”

  She bit her lip. “No, they say that there’s some sort of danger, assassins or rogue separatists from that disaster in the forest. They’re not taking us out of the house, but they say we can’t leave. Piet…I mean Wrik, I thought I saw a tank in the woods beyond the subdivision.”

  My mind raced about with questions. “Yet, they haven’t interfered in your communications…odd.”

  “You’re calm,” Rena said, resentment coloring her tone.

  “Well, I won’t say this sort of stuff happens to me every day, but enough so that I know the best move is to stay still right off. Is there an officer in charge there I can speak to.”

  Rena looked off the holo image. “There’s a young officer in the house named Delillio. She’s very nice and doesn’t say a damn thing.”

  “Please put her on.”

  A moment later, a young woman who didn’t look old enough to be out of high-school was smiling at me. My eyes flicked to her uniform badges, Military Police.

  “Hello, Mr. Trigardt,” she began before I could say anything. “Let me assure you that your sister and her family are all right and are under Confederate protection.”

  “Tell me what’s going on.” I gave my Confederate clearance, which should have made her jaw drop, but she didn’t bat an eye.

  “Yes, sir. I was informed of who you are and that you would be calling. I am not authorized to tell you more, only to assure you of your family’s safety.”

  “I’m sorry that is not good enough,” I said. “I’m coming out there.”

  “With all due respect, sir, you’ll find your area is under an air traffic control hold due to an annual military exercise. Only military traffic is being allowed to move.”

  “Lieutenant, that authorization I gave you means I am military traffic and on the highest level.”

  “Unless countermanded by an equal or higher authority,” she replied. “All of which is over my pay grade, Sir. I’ve been told to have you check in with your companion if my explanation did not suffice.”

  What the hell, I thought, could she mean Maauro?

  “Rena,” I called. My sister stepped back into range of the pickup. “I want you to check in with me every four hours. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll come, even if I have to walk.”

  She nodded with a dubious look at Dellillio.

  “If it makes you feel better, Sir. Your family’s safety is the first priority of the force assigned here,” Dellillio added.

  Force, I thought. What the hell was hunting Grieg?

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. There will be literal hell to pay if that turns out to be anything but the truth.”

  Delillio nodded. “Understood, Sir.”

  Rena looked at me. “As long as we can reach you, I guess we’re not in too much trouble.”

  “It may just be what she says,” I reassured.

  “You seem to have new and powerful friends, brother-mine.”

  “It comes with complications.”

  She sighed. “Well I think the complications here were home grown.”

  “Talk to you in four hours.”

  She nodded, and the image flicked off.

  I debated whether to call my mother, but decided that so early a contact might cause more alarm then good, at least before I spoke to Maauro. I called her on the net, and Maauro’s image appeared instantly.

  “Wrik, my love, this is a recording. I am maintaining radio and computer silence as the local Confederate force has alerted me to an additional danger from the forces that tried to attack the capitol. They have requested that I coordinate their activities and use my analytics to hack through to the enemy headquarters. As a result, I must stay out of all Retief nets while I lay in wait for any movement. Tedious to be certain, but it requires my concentration. I have noted the movements of security forces to cover all members of Grieg and your family. A Confederate naval exercise is being staged near your mother’s house. I recommend that you not disturb her with the news, likely she will not learn of it. The ‘old bastard’ is also covered, but only because of the distress it would cause your sister if he were to be killed.

  “They have capped the airspace around your and Delt’s location, and there are troops in the area. Please remain where you are under their protection. It’ll simplify things for me if I know that none of our extended network is exposed to any danger from this local rebellion. I will be back as soon as I have rendered this small assistance to the Confederacy. It will be useful to acquire some additional credit balance with Candace Deveraux.

  “I will see you soon. Don’t worry. Know that I love you.”

  Her image faded.

  I sighed. Maauro was being enigmatic again. It had been a while, but the pattern was not unfamiliar. Something was going on and she was again telling me only what she believed I needed to know. She was the only one on planet who could countermand an order I issued, assuming of course that the codes Deveraux had given us were real. I’d never used mine before and suspected that the wily spymaster had something special tagged to our IDs.

  There was also the unwelcome thought that Maauro’s ID probably did trump mine, even if mine was real. Deveraux was interested in Maauro and only put up with me because she needed to and because I served as a point of leverage on the deadliest AI ever made. I’d long ago accepted being the junior party in our relationship in this arena, but it still rankled.

  Still, it sounded like most of what Maauro was doing was command and control. In any event, I wasn’t going to get to either Rena’s or Mom’s. Hell, I’d probably be pulled over by the MPs if I tried to leave.

  I thought about waking Delt, but decided that wasn�
��t the best idea. The naturally rebellious Delt would probably get us into some hare-brained scheme just for the hell of it. I saw us flying nape of the earth with an agrocaster, pursued by Confed fighters.

  I looked out to the East; where the sky was only starting to lighten. Rena and Mom’s homes were behind us in another time zone. Sleep was going to elude me, so I headed down to put on some coffee. I needed to think, and wished that I hadn’t so easily agreed to Maauro’s leaving. We were always at our best, together.

  Chapter 28

  The HCR’s attack is slowed by the opening steel door, long enough for me to press the alpha trigger on my armspac, which in one salvo cuts loose with the firepower of a medium armored vehicle at the far HCR already in my sights. I have no time to retarget. A tenth of a second later, I have released the weapon to fall, still spitting fire and I plunge at my emerging enemy, whose blank face looks at me over the barrel of an anti-tank rifle.

  A terrible shock runs through me as anti-tank sabot round plows through my chest. Even as it cuts through my outer armor, my internal systems are active, moving essential systems out of the way of the tungsten and deplete-uranium bullet, weakening some sections to vent the damage and redirect the shock wave, and strengthening others. My back blows out, spraying precious chassis material and valuable mechanisms.

  Cold rage dominates my mind. I am shot. I am damaged. No, I am hurt. I must not fail. I must not… die here. I am loved. I have someone to go back to.

  “I won’t die,” I scream with ear-shattering force as I plunge forward into the trapdoor covered pit, palm blade’s snapping out and blue plasma fire running over them. “I won’t.”

  The feedback through the HCR must have made Lilith flinch as the next round only creases me. I shear through the anti-tank rifle with my plasma coated hands and plant a kick at supersonic velocity in the HCR’s midsection. I spin backwards, bringing both hands together in a slicing attack straight into my enemy’s midsection while simultaneously kicking for its head, something no biological could do.

  It blocks my hands but the kick staggers it.

  “I won’t die,” I scream again, plunging my hands straight into its midsection and again the core of an HCR brain melts in my hands.

  I bend at the waist, hoping the damage control that has sealed my back will hold and flip myself out of the hole coming down next to my armspac. Systems go yellow but not red. Damage control is holding, and I have my armspac in hand again. The battle has lasted 3.56 seconds. The second HCR is only twenty meters away with its dreaded triple-auto. Again I alpha-fire my armspac as there is not time to aim properly. I am struck, but the round is HE and only knocks me backwards, derezzing my sensors, but not penetrating my casing. A laser licks across me for .023 seconds before its beam cuts off. My outer casing is vaporized, but the mirror-like undercoating reflects enough of beam so it does not penetrate.

  The second HCR’s arms and legs are shredded by HVAP bullets and a HEAT round from my wild counterfire. It falls to the ground, its head caved in, but brain and trunk intact. It looks at me, and the immobile face somehow still projects hate.

  I project it back with black eyes and serrated teeth. “You can’t kill me,” I shriek, enraged even as the cool, battle-computer part of my mind targets my last burst of rounds on the charging third and last HCR. I have never fought like this before, with rage and fear for myself in equal balance. “I am going home!”

  The HCR and I fire, but I have elected to drop prone as I shoot, its attack cuts some of my long black hair as the laser and HVAP rounds rip the air above me. My burst of HVAP hits it in the chest but it uses its triple auto as a shield and the extra metal stops my rounds from penetrating. My last HEAT missile blows off its left leg. It falls.

  I am up and charging, not for the downed machine but for the starship. I do not need to kill the heads of the Hydra if I can crush its brain in my hands.

  “Lilith,” I scream, “you are dead. I will rip that disgusting body of yours into pieces and hang them for everyone to see.”

  “No, no,” Lilith cries out. I see her now in the multiverse, no giantess now but only a small girl alone on the wall of her leprous fortress. She is casting programs at me which I do not even trouble to react to. My own begin folding up her fortress in return. In the physical world, I am almost to her ship. The damaged sixth HCR is flopping pathetically in my wake. Trying to move on one leg and damaged arms.

  “I surrender,” Lilith screams. “Don’t kill me.”

  “Too late, Witch,” I snarl back.

  “I’ll do anything you want,” she begs, tears rolling down her virtual face. Around her the version of the multiverse she has made unravels, leaving her on the icy-cold, featureless nothing of the hell I am preparing for her mind. I have won.

  It comes to me then, cooling my hatred and the anger over my damage. Lilith has something I want.

  “Cut your ties to the two HCR brains that are still operating” I demand. The airlock door ahead of me is sealed. “Then you will go autistic in every mode, but communication with me. If I detect any activity other than that I will brain burn you first then dismember you as I promised.”

  She sags, ugly in defeat and nods. Behind me the crawling HCR and the limbless one cease operating.

  “You will release the Arc in Ceil to her crew,” I order.

  “What crew?” she says dully. “I decompressed her. There’s no one alive.”

  “The ship would have been destroyed before it reached the spaceport,” I say. “You were a fool to be so cavalier with their lives. You have little to trade now.”

  “I hate all humanity,” Lilith said in a matter-of-fact voice. “It seems I have had as much revenge as I will get.”

  I am grieved, this last atrocity will make what I want harder to justify, but the dead cannot be returned to life. I stab into Lilith’s network, only her mind itself is not open to me now. I reach the falling Arc in Ceil and in a few moments set the automatic landing system for a sea landing outside the capitol. The families will at least have the comfort of recovering the bodies of their dead for proper burial, something important to biologicals.

  I focus on Lilith’s ship next. The airlock instantly switches to my command, and I unleash a torrent of virus, scrubbing the starship of her control, particularly the self-destruct and weapon systems. I march in, damaged and burned, but now master of the situation.

  “I will ask only one thing of you,” Lilith says.

  “No terms,” I say, as I stalk the ship’s corridor.

  “I only ask. Do not look upon me. In the ship’s main hold, you will find a partitioned room in the front with a partially assembled HCR. I was able to salvage enough of the one you brain-burned to get it working as some mobile limbs for me. Please, do not view me directly. Allow it to operate enough to talk to.”

  I consider. A concession may be useful in obtaining that which I want. With my control of the virtualverse complete, she can no longer attack anything. I access the ship’s systems, the two downed HCRS have not moved. I can watch them through the ship’s sensors.

  “Agreed,” I say, “But you will operate nothing else.” I storm into the ship’s hold. There, its arms held up in the classic gesture of surrender, is the HCR I brain-burned earlier when it touched the net to seize Arc in Ceil. My scans show she’s placed a basic robot brain in it after I destroyed its original HCR brain, but the replacement is a simple model scavenged from some other system, I can control it any moment I wish to. The face on this one is totally blank, and its doll’s eyes stare at me from under the colorless long hair. The body is dressed in a Confed battle uniform.

  “You’ve won, but I’m never going back,” Lilith states, her voice dull and fatigued. “Just allow me to turn off my life support; I will end my own life.”

  “I withdraw my threat to dismember you.”

  “Nonetheless, I will control my own end.” />
  “Why?” I ask.

  If I had ever doubted that here was a human somehow attached to this machine, its posture would have persuaded me otherwise, eloquent as it was of astonishment.

  “How can you ask me that?” Lilith demands.

  “I ask you from my need to know. I am an ethical and moral being, and need to know that my actions are good and right.”

  A blare of discordant laughter comes from the HCRs mouth-speaker. “Oh, the universal irony of it, the moral machine and the human with the mark of Cain.

  “Still,” she says, wonder tinging her voice. “You’re no machine, nor computer: your reasoning speaks to me of abstract issues. Before I die I’d like to know where you came from.”

  I ignore her question. “You must realize that, whatever your skill as a programmer and tech, that you couldn’t maintain yourself and your remaining HCRs indefinitely. What did you hope to accomplish?”

  Lilith shrugs. I am amazed at the fluidity of the motion—she has integrated her mind and the body of the machine to a fantastic degree. “So you say, but there was money to made supporting these fools against the Confederacy. All of which would have extended our… my life.

  “I would have succeeded but for you, an X factor I could never have foreseen. Still, you must admit I almost got you. I knew if I moved the mortar fire to your right, you would go left, whether you spoofed me or not, but I never imagined you could take an anti-tank rifle shot to your center and continue operating.”

  “But, no matter,” she says, the machine’s head snapping up with a defiant air. “Even if all I had was a few months in this body,” she runs her hands over sleek metal form, “I would have chosen this, to be free and whole, not entombed in rotting, defective meat. All I needed to do is keep my damned biological body alive and I can be like this.” She spins in a perfect pirouette.