Sky reached out with Geppetto and searched for the pilot’s mind. But there was nothing there.
Drones, Okiro said.
Of course, she thought. They wouldn’t have sent live agents within reach of a Geppetto-wielder. How could she have been so naïve? Her reliance on Geppetto had made her complacent.
What now? She could send her swarm up the tree and attack the P16. She could do the same to the other one, but the attempt would leave her and Winona unprotected.
The second P16 rose over the dilapidated windmill, halfway between Sky and the barn. Mother and daughter were cornered.
Sky had been so busy assessing her dismal options that she did not pick up on Okiro’s intentions until it was too late. Sky spotted him as he stepped out of the barn and walked into open ground, hands raised high.
Okiro, no.
A part of her had hoped he would join her, even if it meant leaving his family. Another part hated herself for even entertaining the thought.
Okiro did not judge her. How could he, when he had struggled with those same poles within himself?
Don’t leave me, she thought. Leave, she thought.
She could puppet him; she knew, he knew. She could stop this.
The second P16 spotted Okiro and swooped. A gruff voice blasted out from the P16’s speakers, ‘Where is Sky Marion?’
Okiro said nothing.
‘Where is Sky Marion?’ it demanded, guns raised.
Okiro pointed to the barn.
The other Assaulter hissed toward the barn. When it got there, it opened fire. The blasts ripped through the structure like tissue paper. The earth shook.
Sky’s only means of escape was gone.
It’s okay, Okiro told her. Head to the front yard.
She understood.
As the P16 circled the barn’s wreckage, Sky led her mother back along the farmhouse, then under the cover of the trees that bordered the property, until they arrived at a glade. A moment later, the earth parted and the ship, Ol’ Pete,rose out of the ground. Billy-Jay was at the helm, wearing a spacesuit. The old man had ten such alternate routes in his underground rail system; contingency was the lifeblood of the paranoid.
Sky hesitated.
Go, Okiro told her.
Winona entered the ship, then the swarm deposited Sky inside, leaving her wheelchair behind.
‘Howdy, ma’am,’ Billy-Jay greeted Winona. ‘Sorry I don’t have another suit. It must be somewhere in the house, but we don’t have the spare month it’ll take to find it.’
Realizing a jet-black ship would stand out in sunlight, Sky sent her swarm outside where it wrapped around the hull and engaged its cloak.
Billy-Jay flicked a series of switches on the dashboard. The little ship hummed then shuddered. For a moment, it looked as if it might fall apart, but then it rose to a hover. Billy-Jay manually adjusted the throttle, then drew breath through his teeth, ‘Here goes everythin’.’
Ol’ Pete shot into the air.
Okiro heard the blast, but saw no sign of the shipas it made its bid for freedom. He had time to send one last thought before the P16 stunned him into unconsciousness; you still owe me that sea moss smoothie.
15:11
Okiro’s telepathic link severed from Sky’s mind. She found herself grasping for him, but he was gone. The emptiness of loss swallowed her. She did not even have the luxury of grieving before she heard the first energy coil roar past.
‘Goddamit, they found us,’ Billy-Jay said. ‘They musta picked up the heat traces from the thrusters.’
Two columns of coils hunted Ol’ Pete like electric whips, some narrowly missing, some hitting their mark. When they hit, Sky’s swarm was there to deflect the blow, sacrificing some of its miniature bots in the process.
‘P16s can’t climb too high,’ Billy-Jay said. ‘If I can get enough altitude, I might shake ’em.’
He spun the craft to the left, hard. Winona screamed as Ol’ Pete flicked about like a butterfly on stim, barely avoiding the fiery coils determined to bring it down.
Every few seconds a message blared through the comms: ‘Sky Marion, return to the ground so that the innocents may live. We do not wish to hurt the hostages. Return to the ground.’
Billy-Jay grunted, ‘Can’t get altitude with these bugs on my tail.’ The ship lurched to its starboard side, avoiding another near miss.
Winona screamed. ‘They’ll kill us. Take us back down.’
Billy-Jay groaned, ‘I reckon you got a point there, ma’am.’
He was about to drop the ship’s altitude when Sky pulled herself out of her stupor. ‘Wait, there’s another way. Ma, I need you to connect with me. Please.’
‘How will that help?’
She stared into her mother’s bloodshot eyes. ‘It just will.’
Another hit rocked the ship.
Winona nodded, ‘Okay.’ She accepted Sky’s telepathic link. Their experiences merged. The gorge filled and Sky was no longer alone. They found themselves whole, joined as mother and daughter via a technological umbilical cord.
Now, no matter what happened, they would be together.
While her mother basked in this newfound experience, Sky performed one final Geppetto manipulation of Billy-Jay; she thordered him to unlock the ship’s door. In the instant following this decision, and just before Winona became aware of it, Sky’s swarm reached in through the breach, unbuckled Sky’s body and yanked her out of the ship.
Chapter 16
Separation
16:1
Sky fell to Earth. Her body twisted and turned and flailed. The wind roared around her and tore at her clothes like a wildcat. Despite her disorientation, she could not help but find the sensations familiar.
This is becoming a bad habit, she thought. At least this time, it was Sky who had decided to jump.
The two P16s dove after her, leaving Ol’ Pete behind, just as she had hoped. She called for her swarm, which was still attached to Ol’ Pete.
The swarm positioned itself underneath the ship, then pushed off; the force shot Ol’ Pete in one direction (up, like a jack-in-the-box) and the swarm in the other direction (down, after Sky). It formed itself into a pin, streamlined, slicing the choppy air like an icebreaker ship as it closed on one of the P16s.
The swarm caught hold of the P16 and winched itself on board. It punched a hole through the cockpit window and executed a mechanical lobotomy. The P16 spiraled out of control. The swarm launched off the P16’s belly, and the momentum shot it past the remaining Assaulter.
Sky heard her mother’s cries, begging Billy-Jay to turn Ol’ Pete around, to save her daughter.
Why did you do it, Sky?The parent sacrifices for the child, not the other way around.
Sky’s world spun with rain and storm clouds like a broken kaleidoscope.
I’ll find my own way out, Ma. Get to Apollo and wait for me.
The Earth’s crevices and tributaries expanded, the ranges came into focus, the trees, boulders, soil…
This time, the swarm reached Sky’s body in time before she crashed through the treetops. It wrapped around her unresponsive frame, cradling her against the snapping branches.
Sky and swarm barreled through the trees like a giant bowling ball, losing a mist of miniature bots in the process. It began to slow down, and as it did, it wrapped what was left of its bots around her senseless frame like a skin-tight bodice, covering every curve, supporting every limb.
She slid to a halt, snug in her swarm skin. Though her brain could no longer control her limbs, it could still control the swarm. She stood on two legs, as surely as if her spinal injury had healed.
Sky had become her own puppeteer.
Her newfound mobility was particularly fortunate, as she had landed in the middle of a platoon of NIA agents.
16:2
Sky heard the thoughts of the platoon’s commander, Second Lieutenant Crespo. NIA Director Tester had ordered Lieutenant Crespo to go off-network, rely on outdated radio
communication, and stay well away from the clearing where the P16s intended to force the brainbender—Sky Marion—to land. The platoon was to avoid her at all cost. Their job was to escort the two hostages to safety once the P16s had subdued Ms. Marion.
Lieutenant Crespo had followed his orders with precision, even going so far as to remain an extra hundred meters from the intended landing site. Which was why it had irked him all the more when the brainbender dropped from out of nowhere, parting trees and agents alike, to land in the middle of the platoon’s once perfect formation.
For a few seconds after her landing there was an implicit truce, borne of indecision; neither he nor, it seemed, the brainbender, knew what to do.
Then all hell broke loose.
Sky hacked the brain of the nearest agent and made him fire on his colleagues. It took a few seconds for the others to react and return fire, by which time Sky had thordered her swarm invisible and leapt away from the firefight in a bid to escape.
As she prepared for another leap, weapon fire pounded her from all angles. Her swarm tore apart trying to protect her.
Something hit her, hard, and she fell to the ground.
She lay there, winded by the strike. The weapon fire continued to rain around her, tree trunks and branches splintering. The shots were wild and inaccurate; the agents did not know her precise location.
She heard Crespo send a command to his platoon: ‘Cloak.’
In an instant, the agents gathered their swarms around them and disappeared.
Sky brought up a maya screen to see through her swarm’s eyes. The forest appeared empty. There was an unnatural silence.
< Ms. Marion, some segments of your swarm disconnected during the firefight. They are still in the immediate vicinity. I can recall them— >
Leave them be, Sky said. I don’t want to attract attention.
Sky remained still. In a quiet forest, with little breeze, one sound might be enough to alert others to her position. There was also the chance that her opponents’ swarms would detect changes in the surrounding electromagnetic waves if she moved, giving them a visual on her swarm’s outline.
The agents must have been as still as death too, because Sky’s swarm was unable to detect any sign of them, despite scanning across the electromagnetic spectrum and analyzing environmental disturbances.
I’ve still got one advantage, she thought. She searched for their minds with Geppetto. She heard nothing; no thoughts, not even a hint of active neurals.
Have they gone? she wondered.
A crack of a twig nearby almost made her jump.
No, I would have heard them. They’re still here, off-network. But how are they blocking Geppetto?
Sky recalled the agents back at her apartment, the ones who had saved her from Dr. Yukawa; all except one had been covered head to toe in swarm. As far as Sky was aware, Dr. Yukawa did not (could not?) hack them. And the agents who had crawled up the beanstalk, the same? Is that why Sky had been unable to access their minds? Might a human, encased in a swarm, be safe from Geppetto?
But if that was the case, how could Geppetto still have access to the outside world while she was covered in swarm? And how could she still be connected to her mother?
Fearing that the telepathic link with her mother might reveal their locations, Sky disconnected.
Dr. Yukawa had told her that Geppetto used electromagnetic waves to reach a brain.
Swarms can cloak themselves from electromagnetic waves, like light. That’s how they become invisible. Swarms might be able to block Geppetto from accessing whatever was inside their cocoons.
If Geppetto is the sword, the swarm is the shield.
Outside her swarm, there was no sign of movement. If the agents remained still, it would be nigh impossible to spot them.
The seconds ticked away. The longer she waited, the more time NIA reinforcements had to arrive. But what did it matter—even if she could escape, how long could she hide before the NIA tracked her down? And what was the worst they would do? Wipe her memories? At least she would be alive. Was it worth risking her life just to avoid a memory wipe?
A hissing breached the forest’s silence; it was the remaining P16 drone. The tops of the trees parted as the drone approached.
Sky wondered, given that the NIA agents were no longer on any external network (at least none that Geppetto could detect), whether the P16’s remote operator was aware of their presence? There was one way to find out. She risked linking with a piece of her swarm that had separated in the firefight. It was fifteen meters away, and the length of her forearm. She thordered it to fling itself through the air, away from her location.
No sooner had it touched down than it was hit with a hail of gunfire, coils, and whatever other ordnance the agents had at their disposal. Sky commanded the swarm piece to bash about the undergrowth, to draw attention to itself. The sacrificial swarm child rattled up a tree, attracting gunfire that cut through the forest canopy.
Some of the ordnance narrowly missed the hovering P16 which—believing itself to be under attack—returned fire with its cannons.
The ground shook with the pounding of explosions. There were yells and screams.
Amidst the chaos, Sky flung herself away from the firefight, just a ripple in a hurricane.
16:3
‘She’s safe,’ Winona whispered.
Billy-Jay glanced over his shoulder. ‘No kiddin’? Hell, I gotta get me one of them swarms.’
Winona had feared the worst when their telepathic link cut out, but breathed a sigh of relief when Sky returned. Winona could see her daughter speeding through the forest, the horrid rumbling of a battle in the distance.
I have to disconnect again, Ma, Sky said. They might trace me like I traced Dr. Yukawa the day of the hack.
Stay safe, Winona told her before she lost sensation of Sky’s mind.
Ol’ Pete rattled as it attempted to break through the atmosphere. Earth’s hues gave way to the darkness of space and the grey orb of Apollo.
We might actually do this, Winona thought. We’ve got a chance.
As they pulled away from Earth, an alarm sounded. Billy-Jay scanned his instruments, his head darting this way and that.
Winona leaned forward. ‘What’s wrong? Is the ship damaged?’
‘Worse.’ Billy-Jay zoomed into footage displaying a rectangular object in orbit. It looked like a collection of giant blocks. Winona assumed it was space debris.
‘Earth gunship,’ Billy-Jay explained.
Winona frowned. ‘That is a military vessel?’
‘I know it don’t look like much,’ he said, ‘but trust me, it is.’
‘Have they seen us?’
‘Can’t be sure.’ He checked the control panel.
‘Can we outrun it?’
‘Nope. But this is a big planet; we might be able to find another way out.’
Billy-Jay pushed down on the wheel and Ol’ Pete descended, back to Earth.
16:4
Sky sped through the forest like a cool breeze. Here and there, she would stop and listen, looking for any sign that she was being followed. She found none.
Although she was invisible, anyone nearby would hear her footfalls and see foliage being brushed aside, especially when she traveled at a quicker pace. To reduce this effect, she moved in leaps of about six meters at a time. She felt as if she were back in the lunar desert, hopping in the low gravity.
She stopped on the edge of a ten-meter cliff that bordered a wide river. With no sign of a bridge, she decided to swim, and dropped down onto the riverbank. When she landed she noticed the invisibility around her feet waver for a second, revealing the default black of her swarm. She had seen a similar effect on Apollo, on the swarm-wielders who had chased her caterpillar train. Sky realized she would have to avoid such impacts if she were to remain hidden.
She received a message from her mind-operated catheter, recommending she relieve herself. Another downside of quadriplegia.
After another twenty kilometers of travel, Sky felt safe enough to rest.
Was Okiro alive? With her neurals cloaked by Geppetto, she searched but found no sign of him on the public networks. What had they done to him? Just a mem-wipe, she convinced herself, they wouldn’t hurt him. A mem-wipe would do. She tried to not think about it.
She wanted to rest a little longer, to give her mind a chance to catch up, but she had no time. It was always run, run, run, go, go, go. She was exhausted, physically and mentally. All she wanted was to lie down on the forest floor and sleep.
But she had to keep moving. It was not just NIA agents that concerned her; it was her father. And worse, there may be other Geppetto-wielders looking for her.
She risked a brief connection with her mother, and watched through Winona’s eyes as Billy-Jay searched for an opening into Earth-space. The self-imposed blockade of the planet was tight. What if they couldn’t get through? Could they lay low on Earth until a better opportunity presented itself? Where could they hide? Sky weighed her options.
You won’t get past the blockade, Sky told her mother, not unless something else draws their attention.
*
Red Lake airbase was a sprawling complex of hangars, launch pads, and barracks. Sky had had little trouble getting this far; she had made her way east, stowed away on a park ranger’s off-road vehicle for a time, then travelled cross-country with her swarm.
A single gunship sat on the tarmac. It was a blocked monster of a thing, like a series of shipping containers stacked together. Sometimes those containers would move and shift. The vessel was a series of interlocking compartments, like something a giant child would create with building blocks.
Military personnel scuttled about the ship like ants. Sky scanned their minds and they confirmed her suspicions; the gunship was preparing to join the fleet in orbit.
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