by Duran Cross
Joseph turned his attention back to the screen he was tinkering with. “You’ve been in for maintenance,” he said softly.
“This morning. How do you always know when each unit goes in for maintenance? The order is almost always random.”
Joseph ran a hand across the top of his head and closed his eyes. Drej remembers thinking that the Sergeant would be an ideal infiltrator with human traits so well imitated. “Why are your eyes blue? We’re the same chassis type but mine are red.”
Joseph looked back to him. “Something is different about you.”
“Yours are the blue eyes. Mine are red, just like the others. You are different, not I.”
“I’m a clone. All Reaver-class units are clones. Your eyes should be blue.”
“Magnus and Cain’s are green, they’re Reaver-class.”
“No they’re not.”
Drej’s eye twitches. “Their dossier says they are.”
“The one we are allowed to read says that, yes.”
“Then what are they? Maybe we are both odd, they share green eyes and you and I are both different.”
“I don’t know. It’s irrelevant. What ever they are, they are not the same chassis type, there are too many differences in their strengths and fighting styles. You’ll notice that they are both far more drawn to physical strength whereas you and I favour energy-based attacks,” said Joseph.
“Still.”
“Still, nothing. They are not Reaver-class because they are not clones.”
“Clone tissue was supposed to be unusable due to its rapid degeneration,” said Drej.
“Boson-tissue is not. We are rebuilt from partial samples. In a way we’re all just copies.”
Drej nodded and pretended he understood the meaning behind Joseph’s words. He glanced at the screen Joseph has finally stopped adjusting. “What are you doing with that?”
Joseph smiled a genuine smile this time, at least as much as an android can manage. That smile tended to get anyone in the vicinity in trouble. The HolinMech Lieutenant, Cain, once required three days in maintenance for letting his curiosity get the better of him in regards to Joseph. “Want to see something?”
“No.”
“A wise answer,” said Joseph as the screen flickered to life. The video that began to play was an operating table featuring HolinMech Regon Tirren. At the time Joseph played the recording the actual Regon Tirren was right next door.
The video played at several thousand times the normal rate and they saw in a few silent minutes what takes a fortnight of surgery to achieve. The body of Regon is almost hollowed out and flickers around the body were the toiling surgeons. Slowly the body was opened from neck to groin. Very carefully.
“Does this serve a purpose?” asked Drej.
“Most of it is merely gore for the sake of itself, to anyone but the conversion techs,” said Joseph, riveted to the screen. The image paused where the doctors were installing a white, pearlescent box about the size of a foot. Pausing at that exact moment would be impossible for a human unless by million to one odds.
“What’s that?” asked Drej.
“Do you really need to ask?”
“The Instinctual Cluster.”
Joseph nods, “Made of our own artificially grown bone.”
“Strange.”
“I think you mean conductive.”
Drej found that an obscure comment, “What do you mean?”
“Perhaps you would like to know what’s inside it?” asked Joseph seeming to ignore him.
Drej had never thought of it before and glanced to the frozen image on the screen. “Yes. I would like to know.”
“So would I. As far as I can tell we would be mind-wiped for even hearing rumour of this, but in that box is the last piece of purity we have as life forms.”
After that conversation, Joseph left. That night Drej thought more than he ever did about the great dilemma of an android. How different are ones and zeroes? One means active. Zero means inactive. These ideas bounced back and forth in his mind for hours. That was the night he first felt the tapping in his chest. That was the night he had his first nightmare.
◆◆◆
Sindaris Tessol is cold. Despite being wrapped in a thick hooded jacket, fully lined and two sizes too big, given to him by one of the group he holed up with earlier, he doesn’t feel covered enough. The dangling straps at the collar with D rings at the ends, pockets in the sleeves, grey lining and mesh over the grey makes him look like some kind of dark jester.
He’s standing in an alleyway looking over the streets in Blackhaven District. He managed to get into the area easily enough but the military are blockading this quadrant off, and that’s driving the contaminants towards the central zone to avoid detection.
Sindaris gazes upwards at the sky to see a Desolator satellite moving into position, not directly overhead but close enough to flatten the street Sindaris is in.
With the conclave nearby, the contaminants have started to panic; but the more intelligent are going underground. And the less intelligent are going to be used as bait. Blackhaven is one of six suburbs encased in the new blockade and the soldiers will be deployed to clear it soon.
The whisper amongst the share-mind spreads horror, an image of a bald, sightless android that is coming to kill them all. Sindaris can sense a fear so thick in the minds of the contaminants that he can feel other mind try to recoil. The massive android is firing a rifle that looks like it belongs on top of a tank. The stream of fire it emits is solid light, like a Jacob’s Ladder yet impossibly hot, shearing through bodies like butter. Several contaminants get within reach, but the android swings the rifle like a club, coming down so hard the infected local is almost crushed flat. It fires projectiles from its wrists throwing contaminants off their feet with the force, and its claw attacks can cleave limbs. It’s a walking nightmare.
Sindaris feels a wave of renewed fear pass through the share-mind, and for a moment he’s drawn in with them. He puts his hand in his pocket, gripping the handgun, taken from someone or other by the contaminant that gave him the hooded jacket. He doesn’t want to know where it came from exactly but it’s the best chance he has at taking out the controller.
Part of him doesn’t want to find out what’s underground, especially with how clear his eyesight is. Sindaris wonders if he’ll ever be able to forget any of the horrors he’s already seen. The average human can only focus on approximately the size of a thumbnail on their outstretched hand but with binary pupils Sindaris’ range of focus is the size of a basketball. For a while it was very awkward for him to get used to. If only he knew how to fire a gun with a practised hand he’d be quite the sharpshooter.
He can still sense the other copies of his consciousness out in the city; but there are fewer by the hour. Sindaris finds himself smirking at how he is the real him and must pretend he’s someone else, and somewhere else. He looks from the claws of the Desolator satellite poking through the clouds to an alley across the street. The sky is cloudy and with the mass blackout the night would have been pitch black if not for his ability to see in the dark.
Sindaris can hear gunfire in the distance coming from all directions, and assumes the contaminant decoys are attacking the blockade already. The alleyway entrance to the conclave beckons, and Sindaris makes a run for it. The D rings of his jacket jingle lightly despite his efforts to immobilise some of them.
Dark Jester, he thinks ruefully. He’s scared almost out of his mind of becoming a possessed thrall to this controlling entity, responding to any whim like a good subject of this unholy court.
He stops just inside the mouth of the alley and looks out onto the street for one last time. He can feel a strong mental pull from the conclave; it feels like an intense sense of understanding or acceptance. Maybe both.
Sindaris briefly doubts that he can resist the sheer mass of minds.
But I have to, he thinks, taking his first step in.
I must.
◆◆◆<
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Rennin is pacing in front of Caufmann, a few steps to and a few steps fro.
The doctor thinks he’s having some kind of stress related episode at first, before Rennin asks a question that genuinely has him stumped. Caufmann considers several replies, discards them all, and asks a question instead. “Programmed you?”
“The night of the GA Rally part of my head was crushed. What did you put in?”
“A replacement skull fragment made of Thermosteel Plasma.”
“And?”
Caufmann isn’t sure what Rennin knows about his operation but he’s certain that the former watchman doesn’t have any idea about the piece of brain he took. “And nothing. What’s wrong?”
Rennin relays what happened in Gunship Dead Star when he tried to flee and when he rescued Carmine, emphasising how horrible and how good he felt. “So what do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“All you put in was a piece of skull?” asks Rennin stepping towards him.
Rennin isn’t a fool, so Caufmann comes clean. In his way, at least.
“There was some damage to your brain so I implanted a small gland that is designed to simply make you feel better.”
“That’s it?”
Caufmann nods, “I don’t have the expertise required to program a human mind.”
“But what about all the other shit I feel whenever I do anything?”
Caufmann shrugs dismissively, “The gland gives you a slightly elevated sense of wellbeing, all the other mood related rise and falls is you, yourself.”
Rennin blinks. “What?”
“You’re feel better in general, so when you do something that in your view is cowardly or cruel you feel as bad as you ever did but because you’re constantly feeling good it just seems like you crash harder.”
Rennin shakes his head, “I’m not talking about a mood swing. This is different. Intense.”
“Rennin, when you do something you believe is a good thing, of course you’ll feel better. It’s a side effect of the gland and you’ll adjust with a little time.”
Caufmann figures that if Rennin believes him, he’ll be fine. If he knew part of his brain was removed it would damage him badly. Rennin, on the other hand, can’t believe he’s getting a lecture on emotions from an android.
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Anything else?”
Rennin shakes his head, then, “Oh wait, yes,” he reaches into his webbing pocket and pulls out a slightly beaten envelope. “Rethrin asked me to give you this.”
Caufmann takes it, opens the picture of Forgal Lauros, and his eyes scan over it for a second before his entire form freezes. He’s so still he could literally pass for a statue. After a long pause he looks slowly back to Rennin with an expression of absolute neutrality, if there is such a thing. “Where did she say she got this?”
“She didn’t. I only looked at it after she was gone. She said I had to place it in your hand and if I’m right about what that picture means, I can see why.”
“He’s wearing HolinMech armour,” Caufmann says as if he’s about to be sick.
“Let’s show Drej then, ask what he knows.”
“We don’t need to. I know what it means,” his shoulders slump.
“But Drej-”
“No one else sees this, or hears of it, am I understood? If Godyssey finds out you’ve seen this picture you’ll be killed.”
“What, and leave all this?” he says gesticulating at the situation they’re in.
“Or you could be converted and enslaved like my kind.”
Rennin feels an ice needle suddenly lodged in his chest. “Can I get back to you on that?”
“Buy a vowel?”
“Something like that,” Rennin cracks his neck. “Look, William, I think all this is pretty far over my head, but it seems to me that all this is pointing to another CryoZaiyon War. I fought that last battle. We fought it. The Solar System was under siege for the entire last year.
“It was absolute bedlam. There wasn’t one single fight that stopped. For a fucking year. Because you guys don’t need sleep. If Venus III hadn’t happened, we’d still be at war with the GA. Only now it would be with sticks and stones. There was nothing left at the end. The world won’t survive another one.”
Caufmann’s eyes are wide and focussed. “We’re at war now. What is all this destruction if not a war?”
Rennin glances down then up again. “Did you ever study history?”
“I have detailed files on studies conducted on more civilizations, real and mythical, than you could possibly know of.”
Rennin lets the condescension of the comment slide. “Over three hundred years ago there was a war in Chechnya that most of the world ignored because no one knew what to do.”
“Meaning?”
“This is just a city. In ten years if this fight against the multiplying infection is still going, and it probably will if we don’t stop it here, it will remain ‘just a city.’”
“It will not be going for ten years, I assure you.”
“I think you see my point, sir,” he moves to walk away.
Caufmann grabs his arm. “Ren, pack your gear and get the team ready.”
“Next mission?”
“For now, yes. I told you we’re getting out of here and we will. Alive. All of us.”
Rennin smirks, “You don’t have the power to make that kind of promise,” he says, thinking of Wayne and making him a promise to get him out of here too.
Caufmann sees something in Rennin’s expression. “What’s on your mind?”
“I have a stop to make on the way out,” he says, feeling a slight rise in his mood already. I’ll get you out if you’re alive, Wanker. I will. Then I’m going to kick your arse so hard, for not leaving sooner, that you’ll be undoing your tie to take a dump.
Caufmann doesn’t say much more, he just walks off staring at the picture, the recent picture, of his former commander. He absorbs the image of HolinMech Forgal Lauros, burning it into his brain.
He has no idea where it came from. Someone recognised Lauros and thought it important enough to smuggle this single frame from wherever it was taken. People may die for seeing this picture, if they haven’t already. Caufmann scans back through his memory and makes himself relive the moment that Forgal and Saifer’s life signs suddenly flatlined.
For over a decade he thought they were both dead. He should be happy to see him alive, but to see him in HolinMech armour carrying a HolinMech weapon means only one thing to him.
Traitor.
Maybe Saifer was right to distrust him all those years ago during the war. Because here is evidence of the techno-era Achilles alive and well, yet Saifer is not. Something about that thought makes Caufmann’s head twitch, and readings suddenly fly up his glasses’ lenses:
Status achieved.
Encryption Code Parameter One: Accepted.
Parameter Two: Pending… Pending… Failed.
Unlocking hidden memory file 86.
Blocking outside invasive surveillance.
Caufmann feels his scalp prickle. His eyes clamp shut in pain, followed by loud feedback sounds screeching agonisingly against his eardrums. It’s an android jamming technique as a safeguard to prevent remote hacking. Not that it has ever happened before, as far as Caufmann knows. He doesn’t even know about hidden memory files within his own mind. Also this is Number 86, no less, so there are at least eighty-five others.
The feedback screaming in Caufmann’s ears abruptly stops and he’s alone again in silence. Caufmann’s mouth falls ajar as he realises that the jamming signal is designed to stop anyone listening to certain frequencies from decoding a message that’s being received from an outside source. Caufmann’s own reflexive jamming system activated because he just downloaded something, not because he was opening a hidden memory from in his own head.
Downloading from where?
The collar of his black armour-weave lab coat feels excessively ti
ght suddenly. Somewhere out in the solar system there must be a copy of his mind that’s obviously programmed to send him particular information at particular times. He must have rigged it himself. But he doesn’t know when, or where. He scans but there’s no data available for him.
Parameter One: Accepted.
Memory 86 begins playing in his head. All around him the scenery changes but stays the same as if a superimposed image is placed over reality. In waves of a few seconds each it changes from reality being dominant to the memory. He feels his head tilting upwards and the barely visible reality slides but the memory layer doesn’t.
In his mind’s eye he’s standing in icy tundra but it’s not the roaring blizzard of Venus III, he’s sure. He was stationed in Alaska for a while and at that thought Saifer Veidan flickers into view a few metres away in his visual range. The flickering image soon stabilises and looks all too lifelike for a mere holographic memory. Once the image is completely clear it walks a few steps forwards facing away from Caufmann’s vantage point as if surveying the area. He falls deeper into the memory and the entire atmosphere shrouds out his conscious mind. The sounds of war can be heard way off on the horizon where there are flashes against the sky from detonations and artillery fire.
Saifer Veidan’s form is filthy. His bare arms are snaked with fresh wounds, his black armour is cracked and his hair is longer than Caufmann can ever remember it. Veidan turns to face him revealing a hole blown clean through his chest plate. Most of his blood is dried but the wounds are all still emanating cold mist.
“What made you leave the front line?”
Veidan speaks. “Orders. Captains Akcoda, Zillah and Wakefield have engaged GA forces head on at the frontline.”
Caufmann feels Decora speak. “Aren’t they outnumbered?”
Nothing changes in Veidan’s tense demeanour. “Aren’t we always?”
“Since we lost the Crucible everything’s going wrong,” Caufmann says feeling Decora’s hand rub against the side of his face.
Veidan’s image flickers for a moment. “The Crucible was…” he trails off looking back to the flashes on the horizon, “unfortunate. Costly.”