Rupture

by Curtis Hox

  Simone paused. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, dear. Just your brother saying hello.”

  “Should we help?”

  “We stay here. For now.”

  “Why?” Simone let the whips fall, and they instantly returned to normal leather. Sweat covered her, and her short hair stood out at all angles. Not fierce at all, but Yancey could see her daughter’s potential.

  No more secrets, right?

  “Someday in the future, if all goes well, you’ll get some Mirrorshades like mine and your brother’s. You’ll have access to a whole new world of thought—”

  “Cyberspace?”

  “That’s one name for it. You could call it outerspace or otherspace or therespace, or even theirspace—”

  “Aliens again?”

  Yancey ignored the challenge. “My favorite is innerspace, and the things coming for us are very much linked to us ... and when I say to us, I mean Wellborns.” She raised her hand for silence. “One day, you’ll see what I see, and you’ll understand who the Enemies are.” Simone gently swung her whips again, on the verge of turning around, until her mother said, “Let me tell you about what happened to your father, and his brother.”

  “Uncle Pic?” She stopped again.

  “He should be on his way to help by now.”

  “I gotta hear this.” Simone set the whips on a small deck table, then opened a foldout chair. She sat in the middle of the deck, as if ready to sunbathe. She unlaced her boots, kicked them off, and leaned her head back, shutting her eyes. “Why am I afraid to hear this story after all these years of waiting?”

  Yancey had kept their family secret, as had Rigon, because they both feared what would happen to Simone—because she was so full of potential and, therefore, a sure target—when she found out.

  “Your father was a radical computer scientist and nanoengineer, and his brother Picham was an old-fashioned mechanical engineer. Your father said they competed at everything from the time they were children. He went to M.I.T., Uncle Pic to Cal. Tech. Your father pioneered the first general intelligence systems. Uncle Pic built the machines that housed them. These were healthy pursuits, according to both of them. But I remember every holiday, every family gathering, the two of them would eventually end up locked in a room. They used to work in a federally subsidized lab in the North Atlanta Arcology before your father made his millions. They’d get out their tablets and Augmented Reality boards and play their games. They started with individual avatar matches. Boxing, gladiator contests. Then war-games. Anything you could think of they modeled. Uncle Pic got the idea to use actual hardware with the AR. Soon, they started renting space for robot battles. It was exciting. But the competitiveness increased.”

  She paused to scan her readouts, but nothing was coming from Rigon other than an all clear. The noise, she hoped, had been him just taking out a scout.

  She continued. “The split between them happened one day after Christmas. I don’t know the details because neither would talk about it. But Uncle Pic stopped coming around, and your father spent more time alone in his labs. We all knew he wasn’t just building smart systems. He was on a mission to prove a point to his brother. The problem, though, was that his old contest with Uncle Pic got the best of him, and he created a new fabricator box, what he was calling a Maker because it was a device that both communicated with the cyber world and fabricated elements from the cyber world. The first Rogue incursion emerged soon after. Your father engaged in a contest according to protocols he was working on to limit the Rogues. That’s when he woke up one morning and explained something had happened to him. Something had come in the night—something he could use to protect humanity. I now know that was his first entity. He was an Alter like us, the first real Alter with a bound entity, and he used his entity to battle the Rogues. When he lost the contest, the Rogues captured a ghosted double of him, and the fabricator black boxes began appearing and spilling out all kinds of trouble. Within a generation, the battle lines of the Great Incursion were set. Uncle Pic and his smart mechs and their psy-pilots stood on the Russian steppe and faced my husband’s unholy, accidental creations. Your father’s ghost was there, among them, battling the Rogues in his own way. As he is doing now.”

  “You really believe Daddy is alive?” Simone asked.

  “Well, alive, but ...?”

  “And that’s why you’re always saying the body is an unnecessary limit.”

  “It is.”

  “What about the entities? What about us Alters?.”

  “During the Rupture, before the war, before any of this started, your father made his first fortune in biotech by programming an AI to alter an intellect package for psychic awareness, his own. He retrofitted himself. He was simply mimicking the unforeseen expressions he noticed early but we now have seen so often in many of the Transhuman treatments in the last two generations. I got the package, too. I was engineered to be this way, as were you, but from birth. But his approach is controversial because of the nature of the entities that emerge from our enhanced genetics. Ours are preferable to those random entities that had already been emerging. As you can see with Beasley and Hutto, the results weren’t appealing.”

  “So Daddy is helping us fight?”

  Yancey shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. He was never aligned with the Rogues.” She paused when Simone screwed her face up, ready to blurt something disrespectful. “That label worked long before you demanded I call them the Lords of Darkness. Deal with it, otherwise I’ll just call them alien, and really piss you off.”

  Simone relented. “Okay.”

  “I believe he’s resisting the dominance of those masters. But, and this may be hard for you to understand, the first time, he lost his body in a contest to prove a point to his brother. Because of his connections in the Consortium, he was able to use the new rehusking technology to get a physical body again. But the last time, and this keeps me up at night, he gave up his body on purpose to beat the RAIs.”

  “Beat them?”

  “He created protocols that dictate the way artificial intelligences interact with Realspace. And they want to change these, to remove them. The best way to beat the RAIs is through transhuman warfare: disembodiment. That’s what your father and I think. Uncle Pic thinks the best way is to use mechs to physically destroy them when they pass over.”

  “Disembodiment? That’s insane.”

  Yancey shrugged. “Either way. Your father got me as an ally, after Uncle Pic got Rigon. Those two gear heads think the best way to win is, well, by fighting, either with mechanical or cybernetic means. I think it was this fact—that Uncle Pic convinced Rigon to take the machine route—that upset your father. Your brother, Jonen, was killed in a glad fight, and ever since then Rigon has turned his back on the Alter package he was given. Our family has been at odds ever since. Rigon took the body; I took the mind. We meet in the middle sometimes, but your father was never the same after Jonen died. He’s determined to prove that disembodiment is the key to our survival.” She could see that her daughter understood the implications. “Your father would never hurt you, Simone, but the Rogues know who you are. Just like they know who I am and Uncle Pic is, and Rigon is.” She looked up, thinking she heard something with her enhanced audio. But it was nothing. “The authorities put Uncle Pic and his big mech out in the woods because everyone knew your father was still associated with Sterling. Everyone expected something to eventually happen here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because all the secret chatter among the Rogues for years has been about turning the daughter of the Skippard Wellborn Maker Lord.”

  “Wellborn … Maker Lord?”

  “SWML. That’s your father’s disembodied self.” She nodded. “Yes, dear, they tried for me and failed because, well, they were weak and we defeated them time and time again in the field. Now they want you. That’s what those letters on your brand mean.”

  “Why me?”

  “Th
at’s the only way to draw your father out.” She lifted her hands. “He’s here, Simone. The contest was for all of us Wellborns. Us versus them. We’re the key players in the Great Conflict between humanity and the Rogues.”

  “Where?”

  “He moves around, but I have no doubt he’ll show himself.”

  “Why now?”

  “Turning you before wouldn’t work. You weren’t adept enough to be on their radar. Rules are rules. Now you are. The Protocols cannot be broken.”

  “Adept at what?”

  “Playing the game.”

  “What game?”

  “The only game. The one you joined when you sniffed out Joss Beckwith. The one you joined last night when you fully summoned.”

  She went for her boots, which she had taken off, and began lacing furiously. “Let them come, then.”

  Yancey bent down and grabbed her daughter’s hands. “Listen, this is no child’s game. This is dangerous.” Simone fought, but Yancey jerked her into submission. “I’m not playing with you, Simone. Only a handful of people know this. But the stakes are higher than just your life or mine. They want to draw your father out to defeat him and gain access to his Protocols. They’ll also try to slave you. If they do, they’ll have access to our world through a powerful mind like yours. It’ll create a cascading effect. More AI entities will emerge bound to Rogueslaves, enough to create an army to attack the Protocol Guardians. The world will flip over, and the Rogue AIs will become real.”

  “Is that why you wanted the Alters at Sterling, all of them but me?”

  “We need all Alters to shore up our defenses, and become protectors of humanity. Not its destroyers. They were going to be used eventually. It was your father’s hope they be used sooner rather than later. I kept you from Sterling as long as I could. But the Consortium understands the threats. The Alters will be used.”

  “Oh, my god,” she said, covering her eyes. “This is too much.”

  “Stop that.” Yancey pulled her daughter’s hands away. “No hiding now, dear. Not today.”

  Simone huffed a few more times, but eventually said, “All right.”

  “Good.” Yancey straightened. She retrieved the whips. “Keep working with the whips. They’ll give you something to do.”

  “And then what?”

  But Yancey, a mother, wouldn’t tell Simone, a daughter, what they would have to face.

  * * *

  The cyborg once called Rigon Wellborn jogged atop a berm that separated the two largest cattle pastures north of the barn. He had a perfect view of the tree line fencing the mountains in the distance. Both fields were full of grazing grass atop mostly even land spotted with a few bedrock hillocks.

  He saw a Zamp barreling out of the trees a half klick northwest of him and called it in. It moved fast, like a rhino sprinting with unnatural endurance. The other Zamps broke from cover at quarter kilometer intervals, twenty of the meanest-looking nether-beasts someone could imagine. These eyeless creatures with gaping maws filled with dagger teeth sought human blood and brains. Once they found their marks, the Dread Walker with their Nanovamp Wraiths would follow. His team, in their fire stations, waited in an east-west line. He heard the first retorts echoing through the air as they attacked the Zamps. But he was looking for something else.

  He saw a small figure in the shadows of the trees, as if it were afraid to come out. He launched himself forward, covering thirty meters in a single leap. He crossed the field with ground-eating speed and stopped fifteen feet from a little goblin-like creature with scaled, green skin, horns, tail. It was almost a cliché.

  Has to be from Dad ...

  The thing scurried behind a fallen tree trunk, only popping its head out to see. It chittered to itself and moved about like a nervous chipmunk.

  By now Rigon heard the entire line using its assault weapons against the Zamps. All sitreps were good. No messages that any advances had broken through.

  “What are the rules?” he asked the goblin. “No messenger has arrived yet.”

  The goblin jumped up on the log and sat on its haunches like a frog. Its large, globe-like eyes flashed a deep red. “The real Skippard Wellborn Maker Lord sent me to find Rigon Lord and Yancey Lord. Are you?”

  “I am Rigon Lord. Explain the contest, servant.” Rigon looked around, knowing he only had a short time before it truly started. His father had sent the goblin as a warning.

  “The Roguelords of All seek the daughter of Yancey Lord in a battle of bodies.” It scurried to the other side of the log, cocking its head, as if listening for something. “It sends”—the goblin looked around once more—”it sends a pack of beast runners—”

  “Zombie Vamps. I know. What else?”

  “It sends a Dread Walker.”

  “Figures,” Rigon said. “Simone Lord?”

  “She is the prize,” the thing hissed.

  That was all he needed to know.

  He turned and began running back as fast as he could, even leaping through the air at times. Sterling wasn’t prepared for this. The Consortium’s cy-intelligence had been all wrong. His mother had been right. The chatter that had misled his military reserve commanders was misinformation. The Rogues weren’t just going for Simone for vengeance. They had evolved beyond basic human emotions, as she’d always said. This was a bold tactic for a very sophisticated strategy of domination. They wanted to use Simone to lure out their father. Only by beating him could they ever get the Protocols that dictated how cy-intelligences could function in Realspace.

  He listened as each team member confirmed the Zamp runners were down.

  “Everyone retreat to the school,” Rigon said. “They just wanted to draw our positions. Get out now before the armor arrives.”

  Then he called his mother.

  “What is it?” He heard her voice in his head as clear as if she were standing next to him. “Are you all right, Rigon?”

  “It’s what you thought.”

  “Be careful, Rigon.”

  Rigon hurried back to the school, imagining he was chewing his lip as he cursed himself for a fool. He had gotten his team freed to “babysit,” as his reserve commander called it, but no one had believed that the Sterling School was on the map, except for his mother. And she was on the outs, near to being canned from the Force, and ready to go outlaw and become disembodied. He feared she would do that very thing to protect her daughter. If she did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to arrest her. She would try to convince him to follow her as well ... and yet he couldn’t do that.

  A Dread Walker, of all things ... how could he handle one of those without help? All he could do was try to slow it down.

  * * *

  Back in the forest that lined the foothills of the Blue Ridge, the USC-Kraken rumbled with new energy. Her systems had fired, and now—for the first time in ages—her captain and a pilot populated her command center.

  Wally relaxed in his gel seat, letting the cool, protective covering form to his body in such a way that the Megamech could topple to the ground and the impact not hurt him. Wally felt buoyant in the gel.

  He saw the myriad tiles of systems’ information hanging in space before him. He glanced beyond these tiled displays to the forest in high fidelity along the inside walls of the command center. He breathed deeply and told himself to calm down.

  Now what?

  Everyone wanted him to get her moving.

  Wally didn’t think. He acted. And felt a leg shift. With a groan of metal contracting under stress, the giant machine torso dropped a few feet, then lifted one leg that had stood dormant for a decade. The complain of metal increased to the point Wally thought something might snap. But he felt the correctness of the movement.

  Hutto and Beasley both grabbed the railing around the platform as the entire structure shifted.

  Captain Wellborn raised a fist in the air. “Forward.”

  Seconds later, the entire weight of the thing shifted, and the leg came down with a mighty crunch, sending s
hards of wood and leaves into the air. The left leg followed, and USC-Kraken was walking again.

  It was slow at first, but soon, she carved a path through the forest, looking like a giant god set free on the earth.

  SIX

  THE ROGUESLAVE GRAMGADON WALKED into the cafeteria and looked for a seat. Enough parents were still on campus that he mixed in, a regular middle-aged man with glasses, a receding hairline, and a kind smile.

  He sat at a table and sipped some orange juice. He moved aside so a fatty with her fat child could sit nearby. He listened to them talk their useless domestic talk. His entire being rebelled at the sound. He glanced at the fat boy’s horrible haircut and the acne all of his face and knew the boy was a reject fit for a school of delicious rejects. So, human, and frail. The patterns in the boy’s defective genome made the slave’s mouth water; the thought of giving the boy to his lords made his blood boil.

  He turned his head and pretended to be interested in the school posters on the walls. He couldn’t even focus enough to read them now that he felt the active agents inside him waking up. His lords in Cyberspace whispered from across the gulf, as if they sat right next to him.

  Welcome Us, Gramgadon of Realspace. Welcome us so that we may come and dine. The games have begun. And you, our envoy, must speak. So say the Protocols.

  He shut off the rational part of his mind that told him this was just a neurobot swarm in his brain communicating with smart wetware. No, he preferred the mystical because it made him feel divine. And what he planned to do here, today ... he was an agent of the Divine Ones, and they would grant him immortality when the war was over.

  He had spent what seemed a lifetime serving them, first as a powerful glad fighter whose test was to kill the son of the Wellborn Maker Lord, and he had succeeded, driving a sword into Jonen Wellborn. Now, in this frail body that appeared powerless, Gramgadon was a supreme diplomat.

  He soon saw the young Wellborn daughter and her mother walk into the cafeteria. The targets made him shiver, the Wellborn mother in that silver Alter uniform and those Consortium-branded Mirrorshades, the daughter so unsuspecting. The Rogueslave watched the mother warily, pretending to be interested in the clock over the door. The daughter wore a summer dress patterned in frivolous flowers and wore huge boots on her feet. She carried two rolled up whips through her arms, as if they were fashion accessories.