“What are you doing?” 547 said. “You’ll puncture the suits! Stop!” One corner of the thin bioplexi of the grate broke off, and still they kept pawing at it.
Then came a shocked, gurgling inhalation.
“What’s happening there?” NJt994 shouted, though they already knew.
The one from whom the noise had come collapsed, the air inside his suit shifting and blowing traces of foam against the face shield. The other kept digging furiously at the wall until the rest of the grate clattered to the floor. Rats poured out and climbed up the orange suits, settling on heads and shoulders.
Executive auditorium, Des Moines Amelix movable structure
Gregor Kessler breathed in as deeply as he liked, gazing up from the podium as the twenty other ranking Amelix officers settled into seats. He had never realized how wonderful it felt to be in control of such a simple thing as breathing until that control had been taken away.
“Hello, everyone,” he began. He concentrated on faces instead of looking around the space; the walls and ceiling were too close, here. Only the pleasure the rats provided made existence inside the structure bearable.
“I would like to start by offering a word of warning,” he said. “The Rat Gods have given me some leeway over the last several days as I prepared for this meeting. I was able to breathe easily and have relative freedom of movement. At one point, it crossed my mind that I could perhaps stall this process and buy myself a little more of that independence. I thought about it for maybe fifteen or twenty seconds, and the rats didn’t like that. I’m sure you’ve all figured out by now that they know what we’re thinking. Did you also know they have the ability to stop your heart? Not just suffocate you, but actually stop your heart. I could feel the muscle writhing inside my chest with the impulse to beat, but my vision slowly went out of focus and then all black. I wouldn’t wish that on you so I’ll tell you now: Just do what we’re supposed to do. You cannot think your way out of this.
“And so, on to business.”
He scrolled through the notes he had open in his EI, finding his first slide:
Need for Medical Doctor
“Right now, there are no Medical Doctors, so there is no way to change the synthesizer settings regarding medication. If you were being treated for a cold on the day of the Event, you will be treated for that cold for the rest of your life, unless something changes.
No New Medical Doctor
“In the world as it is, there is no way to credential a new MD. The schools, mentors, licensing boards, and all the other steps, are gone. The credentialing process is ironclad, and so complex that only eight hundred eighteen people in the world held the coveted MD title on the day we sealed. I’ve spent my entire career reading and interpreting regulations, and I’ve always prided myself in finding ways to achieve goals in full compliance. In the case of credentialing for MDs, the language is ironclad, and I could find no alternative interpretation. There will never again be a Medical Doctor.
The Preconditioning Czar
“As I informed you all prior to this meeting, you have been nominated as the acting emergency board of trustees, pursuant to Amelix Emergency Protocol 16A107 (a). You also received my detailed argument, spelled out over twenty-three pages, as to why the emergency board has the ability to designate a Preconditioning Czar and endow that position with the power to alter synthesizer settings regarding medication. Recall that under section two-thirty, subsection q, it was found that while Medical Doctors had total authority over every human body, they shared that authority with the board when it came to power over individual minds.
“By extension, I argue that as the new Board we do have authority to reprogram the synthesizers. While we’re absolutely prohibited from changing them to manage physical health, my interpretation of the regs is that we can alter physical health as a means to control mental states. The Medical Doctor retains exclusive power over the physical world forever, even though she’s now dead.
“As such, the proposal before us is this: We will leave the current Medical Doctor as the name of record, and the synthesizers will continue to record and send out billing data to that office forever. As synthesizers wear out, that name will be installed also into successive generations, in order to ensure proper functioning. Our highest-ranking civilian, Dr. Chelsea, will take over the role that used to be performed by the Medical Doctor’s processing computer, authorizing the changes recommended by the diagnosing synthesizers here in the flesh. She will be the designated Preconditioning Czar.”
Vote
“What’s left now is to vote. Please think carefully about all I’ve said here today. You must accept it in its entirety in order to vote yes, so please give me an opportunity to address any doubts you may have. Consider all the parameters and—”
Ten people crumpled in their seats, dead. The rats must have disapproved of how they’d been planning to vote.
Vote
Kessler blinked his eyes hard a few times before realizing he had control of his hands. He had been rubbing them together. “We …”
No stalling.
“There still remains the matter of the vote,” Kessler said.
“All in favor of establishing the position of Preconditioning Czar to serve as conduit between the synthesizer and the Medical Doctor, for the purpose of directly and indirectly influencing mental states under section two-thirty, subsection q, of the one hundred fourteenth version of the Amelix regulatory code, say ‘aye.’”
Kessler said “Aye,” as did everyone else still alive in the room.
“Motion passes. All in favor of promoting Dr. Zabeth Chelsea to serve in the new position of Preconditioning Czar, with power to adjust synthesizers for the purpose of regulating individual minds, say ‘aye.’”
Everyone did.
Sublevel two
Dok sat gently scratching between the little dog’s ears, feeling the coarse fur beneath his fingertips. Since the little animal now spent his days trying to urinate on as many areas as possible of the structure’s biomachinery, they’d begun calling him Peety.
Lawrence was sitting across from Dok, both of them leaning up against biomachines with their eyes half closed. Since they were constantly on watch there was no opportunity for true sleep anymore, but they sat together and took turns dozing. These lower floors had no interior walls other than the hulking equipment, and they were dimly lit. The combination gave Dok the feeling he was perpetually sleepwalking.
Better than the sewers, in any case.
A voice called out from the stairway. “Sett? Sett, it’s IAi547. You once knew me by another name.”
Dok hadn’t seen him move, but Lawrence was now standing, partially crouched behind machinery with his handgun drawn.
“Sett, I’m here alone. I need to talk to you.”
It was Lawrence’s former friend, the one Lawrence had called Li’l Ed. Lawrence looked at Dok. Dok shrugged.
“This ship, the Agnes, is in danger,” Li’l Ed said. “I have footage to share with you. I am the recognized and de facto second in command aboard the Agnes, and I have authority to talk with you. We need your help, and I’m willing to make a deal.”
Lawrence holstered his handgun and took the rail gun from over his shoulder. He held it with his finger next to the trigger but not touching, his other fingers separated to allow for the metal bracelet that had been crushed around the grip. “I’ll meet him,” Lawrence whispered. “You circle around us to make sure he’s really alone. Yell out to me at the first sign of a trap.” He moved off cautiously in the direction of the stairs.
Dok chose a path roughly ninety degrees from the direction Lawrence had gone. There were few of the classic clanks and rattles of machinery here, but the biomachines did produce a lot of ambient noise. Things tensed, sounding like apartment-sized sponges being squeezed, and relaxed, producing low, slow bowstring groans. If he concentrated, Dok could also hear the subtle rhythmic pumping of liquid common on every floor down here in the sublevels
. He tried to tune those sounds out as he listened for some indication of where Lawrence and Li’l Ed might be.
Finally he heard the murmur of two voices and made his way toward them. When he drew close enough to be relatively certain of their location, he turned off to the side, circling all the way around the voices, inspecting under, above, and behind every piece of equipment. There were no signs of any deception or trap.
“You can join us, Dok,” Lawrence called out. “I’d like to know what you think of this.”
Dok crept toward them, finding the two giants facing each other in a relatively open area. Lawrence nodded but said nothing as he approached. Dok halted several meters away from them, still peering through doorways and around corners, looking for signs of deception as Lawrence and his former friend talked, one in crisp white and the other in tattered black.
“Dok,” Lawrence said. “That struggle we’d heard was an attack from another structure like this, one owned by Amelix Integrations. This one we’re on is called the Agnes, and it’s owned by Andro-Heathcliffe, which is another biotech firm. It’s an amazing feat of bioengineering but nothing like the Amelix ones. They’re fast and aggressive, and they’re stalking the Agnes, apparently planning to attack again. Li’l Ed is asking for our help.”
“Our help?” Dok asked. Nobody spoke for a moment and then Li’l Ed began to explain.
“We tried to set up a rendezvous with another structure—not our Organization’s—that had been out past Cheyenne when we’d made contact with it,” Li’l Ed said. “Safety in numbers, you know. We headed west toward it and it came east. We know this region and our sensors indicated little Amelix activity around here at that moment, so we determined it was in our best interest to slow our pace, increasing the likelihood that the other company would encounter and engage Amelix first, weakening it for us. We misjudged the scope and speed of that encounter. The last transmission we had from the other structure showed three Amelix beetles surrounding it. The communication feed was still on as they attacked. First, we heard the clamping and tearing noises, sounding just like what we’d experienced here. There was a rift that they were able to seal at one of the legs, but then one of the Amelix beetles managed to crack the hull.”
Li’l Ed’s face slackened for a moment, but then he recovered. “They were assessing damages, reporting to us on video. They dissolved as we were speaking to them.”
“How many Amelix beetles are there in total?” Lawrence asked.
“Since we’ve seen three together in one place, it’s likely there are many more,” Li’l Ed said. “It seems most of the materials in them were Grown rather than built. Once the genetic engineering work was done, it would have just been a matter of letting the structures produce themselves, providing them with raw nutrients to keep the process going. Assuming they put the same DNA into production near only their biggest facilities, they’d have twenty-eight of them around the globe. If they had Grown one at each of their locations worldwide, there could be as many as four hundred of those things. Even now they could still be Growing them, if they had a way to populate the new ones.”
“I guess you’ve got a real problem to solve, Li’l Ed,” Lawrence said.
“Look, Sett,” Li’l Ed said. “The next time we encounter Amelix, it might not be just one beetle. We have no defense.”
“I have faith that you’ll figure something out,” Lawrence said. “Or maybe I should say I have more faith that you’ll save your own asses than I do that you’ll honor any deal you make with me. Anyway, all the Feds are dead now. There’s a whole building full of weapons over there.”
“There was a mission already. Six brave employees went out in HAZMAT suits, down into the Federal building to look for weapons we could use. Rats took control of the entire group. There are five remaining, but as they are, they’re completely useless to us. We’re planning the next team with savvier personnel.”
“Rats will take the next ones, too.”
“We have some ideas. But it probably doesn’t matter, anyway. Every weapon there is new-issue or retrofitted Fed tech with user-specific coding to a particular Agent. Even if we could get them into a lab and try to reconfigure them, it’s close to hopeless. The security upgrade is classified Federal tech. Still, we have to try something.”
“You can’t send another team!” Dok blurted out. “The rats will take them, for sure. Only non-reconditioned people are capable of resisting the rats. Every company in the world was already a hundred percent Accepted when you sealed this thing, so the rats will take them all.”
Li’l Ed stayed silent a moment. “How certain are you that non-reconditioned workers can resist the rats?”
“Pretty certain. One hundred percent of those I saw taken by rats were reconditioned, and one hundred percent of the ones I saw resist them were not.”
“I’m just going to say what we all know,” Li’l Ed said. “If only non-reconditioned workers can face the rats, my organization’s employees can’t do it. There are currently seven hundred seventy-three people onboard. That’s a lot of lives at stake, Sett.”
“But whoever goes out can’t come back again, right?” Dok asked.
“That’s true,” Li’l Ed said.
Lawrence cocked his head slightly. “Are you asking me to throw my life away by jumping into someone else’s fight?”
“You are the last Williams and heir to the Williams Gypsum Corporation,” Li’l Ed said. “What I’m doing now is negotiating with the chairman of a sovereign corporation. I’m asking your firm to work out a deal with us. We’re out of time, Sett. We need the best shot we can take, and there are no other weapons available. We need your first-generation Trident, and we need you.”
Lawrence said nothing.
“There’s something else,” Li’l Ed said. He locked eyes with Lawrence, who apparently opened some flagged page or file. Lawrence’s nose and upper lip curled in disgust.
“What is this?”
“A workroom inside an Amelix beetle near Mumbai, India. For whatever reason, this single camera is capturing and relaying this feed; it seems nobody knows it’s on. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that nobody can know—or do—anything there anymore.”
“Dok, the image I’m looking at is just people sitting or standing,” Lawrence said. “I wish I could share it with you. It’s the creepiest thing I have ever seen. Maybe a hundred people, standing stock-still. The room is dimly lit, but you can see maybe twenty or thirty rats milling around on tables and consoles. Every once in a while, one rat breaks off and a person carries it away, which looks kind of like cowboys leading horses in old movies. Is there a sound feed, Li’l Ed?”
“547,” Li’l Ed said.
“Is there a sound feed?” Lawrence asked again.
“You’re listening to it. Another structure shared this link with our Whites several days ago, and not one human voice has been heard. We’ve also observed that the same employees stay at their posts for days, apparently entering trance…or, maybe I should say a deeper trance…for a few hours every so often in lieu of sleep. They literally do nothing but work.”
“Dok, I wish you could see this. There doesn’t seem to be any human consciousness, or really, anything human about these people at all.”
“This is what we’re fighting, Sett,” Li’l Ed said. “It’s us and a few other companies, against a worldwide army of those things, populated with what you just saw there. Of the non-Amelix companies that made it into structures, five have now started behaving like Amelix, attacking nearby corporations, refusing all communication, and so on. We suspect they had rats caged in their labs that somehow communicated with the Amelix rats.” He rubbed his eyes. “The Cheyenne structure is gone, now. The closest surviving human-controlled structure we know of is outside Mexico City.” He lowered his voice. “Sett, this is much bigger than you and me. It’s about everyone. Every last person on the planet.”
Lawrence’s expression changed and his eyes lost some of their glassines
s as he let go of the page. “It’s about everyone, Li’l Ed? Tell me, is this the same everyone who shunned me for standing up for someone who was helpless back at the diner? The same everyone who chased me with the Feds and ruined my life and made me live in a sewer?”
“So you’re just going to let the whole world die? Or worse, let everyone exist like you just saw on the Amelix ship?”
“Instead I should just give up the tiny shred of security I do have, trusting you to protect me? You don’t have a great history of standing by my side in times of conflict, you know.”
Li’l Ed and Lawrence both stood straighter and took a step toward each other.
Finally Lawrence turned to Dok. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m tired, Lawrence. I think I’ve had enough of hiding, of doing nothing. If there’s even the smallest chance of doing some good, of helping what’s left of humankind, that sounds better to me than cowering in the depths of someone else’s structure, waiting for the end,” Dok said. “I’ll do it.”
Lawrence stayed quiet.
“Good,” Li’l Ed said. “Thank you.”
“Lawrence, you should come with me,” Dok said.
“He can’t,” Li’l Ed said. “All Unnamed are reconditioned.”
Lawrence shifted his feet a bit.
“Oh,” Li’l Ed said. “Maybe that’s not true when your daddy owns the company.”
“We don’t belong here, Lawrence,” Dok said. “This isn’t a life, sneaking around down here in the dark, living on what we can suck out of the biomachinery with my needles and tubes. We’ve done this already with the Subjects, and I don’t want to do it anymore. Do you?”
Lawrence’s face was stern as he nodded once at Li’l Ed. “We’ll do it.”
Dr. Chelsea’s lab aboard the Amelix beetle
Chelsea shot forward down the hall. Lately she was walking less stiffly under Rat God control than she had been initially. The rats were learning how control a human gait so that it almost seemed natural now. They’d never had her move this fast before, though. Wherever she was headed was clearly important to them.
The Book of Wanda, Volume Two of the Seventeen Trilogy Page 38