They couldn’t ask Sharma about it—she’d been dead when the medics took her, and was sixteen hours in surgery with Aurora’s best pulmonologists, surgeons, and neuroscientists. She came out wearing a new proprietary info-implant nobody had ever seen before and would never see again, waved to the cameras, and then retreated into silence for months.
So the other companies could only speculate about the Auroran logs and records—whatever the mutineers had done, they’d left the local Corporate Alliance servers in absolute tatters, corrupting and destroying dozens of years of work. Aurora Intergalactic’s records were so corrupt after the battle, in particular, that even the best programmers sent themselves away scratching their heads, talking about files they’d never seen before, about files that moved themselves. Similar reports started occurring in other companies that had been present at the battle, and then everyone was too busy with their own internal problems to care.
Sharma’s recovery kept her away from the investigation, but as soon as the rumors started flying that she should be replaced, she dragged herself from her sickbed, leaned on a cane to walk all the way to the boardroom, and—alone, because Aurora had no board, and wasn’t that strange too—made a hoarse-voiced address. She refused to send any of the Auroran bodies for common burial, citing internal investigations, then kicked out the Alliance investigators and the Alliance itself, and the broadcast that ensued was the last thing the Alliance was allowed to see for months.
My fellow Aurorans, the broadcast began. It is time for you to know the truth about what happened at the White Line. It is time for you to know the truth about how things are going to change because of it. I call you my fellow Aurorans—because that is who you are. Every indenture, every citizen, every birthright.
Forget those dividing words, she said, from now on, you are simply friends.
The Alliance executives suspected a civil war. Spies reported flames on Auroran ships, and agents talked about uploaded intelligences and other impossible things, and when the doors were reopened to the public, a number of high-ranking Aurorans had been executed, a number of others had agreed to give up their positions, and things seemed back to normal—as much as a company that allowed full citizenship, access to all technology, full health benefits, and other incredibly stupid things at the time of sign-on could be normal.
There’s no way that can work, whispered the other Alliance companies. You can’t pay everyone. Impossible.
I give ’em six months, they whispered.
And the CEO never looked overwhelmed or out of her depth on-camera, even if she needed her wheelchair, her cane, her IV with that strange silver medicine she needed injected on a regular basis. There was always a bright blast in her eyes, something brilliantly enameled—almost inhuman, people said, that matched the inhuman profits coming out of Aurora’s colonial sector.
But that’s because the CEO herself waited until she was in her own quarters to break, to allow the panic to take over, the quiet anger, the constant wonder about when the ruse would be discovered—only it wasn’t a ruse, was it? It was reality.
She’d done what her mother had asked of her.
They’d forgotten.
They’d all forgotten.
Only: she’d forgotten too.
* * *
At night, Natalie Chan Sharma would shut the door to her spartan quarters, hook herself up to the machines that kept her alive, and wait for the deliveries.
Ward was the one to bring them, of course. He was the only one she trusted enough. He’d arrive, push in the isolettes with the modified Heart that had once been used in the computer that was no longer Ingest, and leave. She’d open the delivery alone, and listen quietly to the Vaisong, hoping to hear a new song pointing her back toward home, wherever that was. He brought her weapons, too. Black glorianas. Blue screamers. Weapons that glittered and gleamed, that sucked in light and cracked open her emotions, each one opened, caressed, searched, returned.
Did you find what you were looking for? Ward would say.
No, she’d say. They’re not answering me.
And Ward would take the weapons away, and she’d open the reports from her trusted neurosurgeons, the ones working on the Resurrection Project, and the new memoria that powered her broken brain and body. She’d sign off on the lists of Aurorans who had decided to return to their bodies, and on the lists of those who chose not to, and Natalie wondered what beautiful things her mother had built in the Vai together that kept them so happy they’d give up the rhythm of blood and breath.
She knew that someday she would find out for herself—they all would—but, for now, there was plenty of work to do on both sides of the veil. Natalie had plans. She had long-term goals and charts and project managers. The uploaded Aurorans poured through crackable handshakes in the Wellspring matrices and InGen computers and great Penumbran stations, and while the corporations vied for inches in the marketplaces and shoved each other around for celestium, Natalie started to build her new empire.
This was just the beginning of her plans for Aurora, for the Corporate Alliance, for everything else. In every computer in the human universe, in every new technology and dorm and mine and lounge and bridge, Aurorans would whisper songs of change, of life, of the long walk. It didn’t need to happen overnight. That was her mother’s mistake—trying to force her new world into being through blood and fire. No. Change could take centuries.
But they had centuries now.
* * *
She was working on their faces, as she did every night.
A graphite pen, a shaking hand, thoughts like tightly held sand: until the newer memorias were ready, she’d have to be kind to herself. She planned to draw their portraits until she remembered who they were, where they were, how she could find them.
Her family: two women holding hands, always together.
An older woman with upswept hair, who should have been her family, a face lost in the darkness, who gave her the name she carried and then chose to leave her behind.
And a man who always smiled—a smile that broke her heart, only she could never get it quite correct, could never shade his skin properly, and for fuck’s sake, she’d always ruin it with the tears that would run careening onto the graphite anyway, so what did it matter—
“It matters,” he said.
She gasped, looking up. “How—”
He wore a familiar dusty blue jumpsuit, a sweat-stained undershirt, and an illegal indenture insignia. He was leaning against the side of her room, his arms crooked together, his head tilted to the side. He smelled of work and tight quarters, of celestium fuel and Twenty-Five. Her heart rioted.
“It’s you,” she said, feeling dumb.
The man brightened. “I was hoping you’d remember me,” he said. “You were pretty hollowed out when you went up against Solano that last time.”
“Went up against—who?” Natalie grabbed at her forehead, touched the place where her new memoria lay. “You’re him, the one I’m missing.”
He smiled. “I made a copy of myself a long time ago, when I realized I could never go back. I was waiting for the memoria to index me.” He pushed off, walking over, and she felt his hands on her shoulders, as warm as her own, and she shivered. “Until you were ready.”
“Fuck being ready,” she whispered.
“I had to let you heal.”
“I don’t heal. Bastard.”
He laughed, like bells. “There you are.”
And then he was in front of her, his hands grabbing hers—
“You did it. The gates are open. The Vai are adapting to life without me—without a master node. And there are humans out there adapting to life without bodies, life in a true together. The corporate age is over. This is our age now, and those of us who choose it will no longer stand for the abuse of power. Not even from you. Not when we know how beautiful the universe can be.”
“Are they here?” she said, not even daring to hope.
And over his shoulder, she saw
them, smiling, tried to remember their names. Her family. A dishwater blonde with her hair in a ponytail; a dark-haired indenture who dreamed, and tried, and lost, and won in the losing. They held hands, and smiled, and she felt warm for the first time in a very long time.
“Life has a different definition now,” he said. “Look at you, for example.”
“My heart—”
“Needs to be rebooted six times a day. Your liver and your kidneys exist in that box back there. Your brain’s getting zero-point support. But you’re still you.”
She shook her head. Chuffed out a laugh. “You have a point.”
“Do what you can,” he said. “We’ll be here when you’re done.”
She didn’t cry. She wanted to.
“I loved you, didn’t I?”
“You loved someone like me.”
“Bastard.”
He laughed, like bells. “You can call me Len,” he said, and winked. “And I have some friends I’d like you to meet.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The year I wrote Engines of Oblivion was one of the best and one of the toughest of my stay on this planet. I found out that I was going to have a baby the day after starting the novel and handed in the final draft while covered in spit-up in the middle of a global pandemic. In the middle of it all, I am not sure I got very much sleep at all. What a ride.
Sincere thanks go out to my amazing beta readers, who picked up my sleepless drafts, brushed them off, and helped me back on the road to the finish line, especially Jane Pinckard, Amanda Williams, and the incomparable Jo Miles, all of whom read the book on extremely tight deadlines.
My thanks also go out to the MD-SPOC plotbreakers who swept in with metaphorical firecrackers and C4 when I felt utterly buried: Phil Margolies, Beth Tanner, Sydney Rossman-Reich, Martin Sherman-Marks, Jo Miles, Kelly Rossmore, and John Appel. Thank you, too, to Benjamin C. Kinney for the neuroscience consult, and to the baristas at Atwater’s, who were there with my usual order on even the rainiest of days.
Of course, a simple thank-you isn’t even enough for my brilliant editor, Jennifer Gunnels. When I needed to cut to the bitter, hopeful heart of both of these novels, she gave me the knife. My gratitude as well to everyone who worked on these books at Tor, including production editor Lauren Hougen and publicist Libby Collins, and to Mike Heath, the artist who took my breath away with the cover art.
My deep gratitude also goes to my fabulous agent, Dorian Maffei, who took a chance on a PitMad post some years ago and remains a tireless advocate for my work and for myself.
And thank you, thank you, thank you to the readers. Yes, you—each and every single one of you who took a chance on the Memory War and read through to the end. You are why I do this. You are why I’m here. I hope that I can continue to write stories worthy of your attention.
Thank you, too, to my family. To my amazing husband, Glenn, and the marathon we’re running together. To my parents, Sandi and Rich Dietlein. To my brother, Mike, and sister-in-law Samantha. To Jennifer, Courtney, Jacques, Margi, Fran, Jack, Bob D., Bob G., Tracy D., Caitlin, Pam, Gavin, Benjamin, Steve, Addie, Cole, Paige, Tracy R., Pete, Sandi, Tamara, George, and all the Gilsons and Dietleins. To the Osborne side: to the memory of Bill and Janice, and to Carrie, Kalli, Baron, and everyone in Nashville. You were there for me. You’ve always been there. And I can’t thank you enough.
And finally, to my clever and amazing daughter, Claire, who was my constant companion while writing this novel: you continue to show me the meaning of love and joy every single day. Please don’t read this book until you’re at least thirteen.
ALSO BY KAREN OSBORNE
Architects of Memory
Praise for Architects of Memory
“A thrilling labyrinth of plot twists exploring loyalty, trust, and promises.”
—Sue Burke, Arthur C. Clarke Award
finalist and author of Semiosis
“A nonstop dystopian space opera adventure that screams F*** CAPITALISM at the top of its lungs. Equal amounts sweet and painful, but 100 percent human, this is a mystery and a treatise and a nail-biting kick to the stomach all in one.”
—K. A. Doore, author of The Perfect Assassin
“Kick-ass and poetic.”
—Emily Devenport,
author of Medusa Uploaded
“Far-future corporate dystopia plus deep-space mystery plus powerful character drama. For fans of Firefly, Killjoys, and The Wrong Stars.”
—Michael R. Underwood, author of
Annihilation Aria
“Completely heartbreaking. Utterly brilliant.”
—K. B. Wagers, author of A Pale Light in the Black
“An absolutely stunning debut … razor-tipped and diamond-sharp. A deadly first shot from one of the most incisive new voices in the genre.”
—Tyler Hayes, author of The Imaginary Corpse
“Architects of Memory is the queer, nail-biting love child of the humanity of The Expanse and the action-fast pulse of Die Hard, and I loved every minute of it.”
—A. J. Hackwith,
author of The Library of the Unwritten
“A plot-twisty, heart-stealing delight … It’s a safe bet that this debut is the start of something really special.”
—Bryan Camp, author of The City of
Lost Fortunes and Gather the Fortunes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen Osborne is a speculative fiction writer and visual storyteller living in Baltimore. She is a graduate of Viable Paradise and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and has won awards for her news and opinion writing in New York, Florida, and Maryland. Her short fiction appears in Uncanny, Fireside, Escape Pod, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more.
Visit her online at karenosborne.com, or sign up for email updates here.
Facebook: karenosbornewriter
Twitter: @karenthology
Instagram: karenthology
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments
Also by Karen Osborne
Praise for Architects of Memory
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ENGINES OF OBLIVION
Copyright © 2021 by Karen Osborne
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Mike Heath
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-21
550-5 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-250-21549-9 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250215499
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: 2021
Engines of Oblivion Page 38