“That’s it, then?” I asked. “That’s all there is to it? You’re just storytellers? That’s the great mechanism of the Grand Alliance? You manipulate your people with stories?”
Hayan stared at me with an expression of genuine surprise. All at once he burst out laughing. “How can you not know this? You’re a journalist. All of human history is manipulation through storytelling. It’s the only kind of manipulation that works over time.”
“But the collar—”
“A modification,” he said, holding up one hand, first to his neck, then to the Divanese Special on his wrist. “Quite simple. Instead of telling one story to almost a trillion people, we tell each person their own story. That is, we tell the story they want to hear. And who is the hero in your own story, Mr. Dahl?”
I blinked up at him as the truth washed over me. They couldn’t make me open my mind to them. The symb-collar didn’t control the will. It just magnified the tricks, the illusions, the physiological effects available to the Builders.
The wyrms, I corrected myself. Careful what you call them.
“You are, of course,” Hayan continued when I didn’t answer. “Every person is the hero of their own private drama. No one casts herself as the villain, or the mentor, or even as the lover. No, you are all the hero. Every one of you. A hero in a sea of heroes. We simply use this natural inclination for our own ends. Yes, we are, as you say, the storytellers. We give every person the story he didn’t realize he wanted to hear. And that’s why the colonies cannot win, Mr. Dahl. It’s why you are losing this war. A public story will never conquer a private one.”
“A good story is all you need to turn anyone into a robot?”
“Something like that, yes.” Hayan smiled. “And now, what shall it be? Shall I ask Master Sergeant Ulles to carry out justice against Miss Weber, or would you prefer to let go of your private torment and allow the real Ivy into your past?”
The real Ivy. Who was still noticeably absent.
I couldn’t help wondering, even then, did she really want to be with me?
“Let her go,” I said, staring at Ivy Weber’s pallid, pain-filled face. It was my fault they were hurting her. My fault they held a gun to her. “Please.”
Hayan came closer. “You need not sacrifice her, Mr. Dahl. We don’t want to take anything from you. We don’t want launch codes or troop locations. We don’t even want your dignity. The truth is all we care about.”
“My story,” I said. “Would never see the light of day.”
“Your ‘great war story,’ you mean?”
“Yes. You want my memories? Let my story go out on OrbSyn’s live feed, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Don’t do it,” Ivy spat, her face contorting. She strained against the quick-cuffs as lines of blood appeared on each wrist. “Corporal! Don’t give them anything!”
“You are not in a position to negotiate, Mr. Dahl,” Hayan said, his voice calm.
“She’s done nothing wrong!” I shouted.
“Miss Weber, if that’s her real name, tried to stop a critical negotiation of peace between our warring governments. Her actions could have cost the lives of millions. I have every right to call for her summary execution. And you have no reason to object. Unless—”
“You kill her, and I’ll tell you nothing!” I snarled. “Understand that, Mr. Ambassador? I’ll tell you nothing!”
Hayan gave a long sigh. He turned and looked sadly at where Ivy Weber sat frozen to her chair. “Meaning there is something after all.”
“There’s nothing!” I shouted stupidly.
“Idiot,” Ivy Weber screamed. “Stop talking! Don’t tell them—”
Behind her, Hayan flicked one finger, a silent signal.
I reached for her.
Ulles pulled the trigger.
19
Great War Story
I launched off the neural recliner in a red haze, catching Hayan’s jaw with a right cross. It broke two bones in my right hand, though I felt no pain from that until later.
I don’t know how many times I hit him. The room went cold gray and started to spin—probably interference from my new symb-collar. Seconds later the ambassador’s goons entered the room and pulled me off of him. By then his face was mashed to a red pulp.
The rangers were not as accommodating as His Excellence. One of them held me while the other beat me. Somewhere along the way a rib cracked, and I doubled up in agony.
They hauled me by the ankles down the corridor and stuffed me into a security locker. Alliance warships don’t need brigs. Enemy prisoners are crammed into reinforced bins that are not quite tall enough to stand in but are too narrow for lying down.
In one of these I hunched, knees to my chest, each stabbing breath little more than a gasp.
But I deserved the pain and didn’t want it to end.
It kept me focused on something besides my last glimpse of Ivy as that round tore through her neck and exploded from her throat.
My fault, I told myself in the eerie blue light of an overhead panel. My fault. My fault. My fault.
I’d gotten her killed. And she didn’t deserve to die. Not for loving her homeworld too much. Not for wanting to tell the story everyone needed to hear.
But who was left to tell people what Ivy Weber had really given her life for?
Not me.
Some great war story. I was going to die in a storage locker on a grendel frigate, and no one would ever know what had really happened here. Ivy Weber’s death would go unexplained and unavenged, her body dumped in a nameless grave. And Fleet still wouldn’t know what gave the Alliance wyrms their power.
My MADAR team should be happy, I thought bitterly. This is their sort of war story. Nobody dies except the traitors and the journalist.
Gradually I became aware of another person squatting next to me in the tiny locker.
Ivy.
Her presence congealed in my mind, as ethereal as smoke from a distant fire, and just as real. She was saying something I didn’t completely understand. Something about post-traumatic blah-blah, and the challenge of integrating Alliance technology when I hadn’t been conditioned for blah, didn’t have a lifetime of blah to adapt to the blah of the caustic blah-blah fusion blah. And would I let her in now?
Would I let her in now?
Now?
Now?
Restless fingers tapping a drumbeat on a locked door.
[It’s not your fault, Raymin.]
[No.]
[I’m sorry. I asked Hayan’s Builder not to kill her. I know she is important to you.]
[You do?]
[It was just an act, wasn’t it? Even though you had feelings for her?]
Such a complicated question.
I nodded, gritting my teeth against the pain in my right side, the growing heat radiating from my right hand. [Was it real? Did she really die?]
A long pause. [I’m not allowed to tell you.]
[Why?]
[You demonstrated beyond any doubt that you are hiding something from us.]
[Is Ivy Weber alive?] I asked stubbornly. The fact that this Ivy was not answering seemed an invitation—a golden thread I must unspool.
[I know how your story ends,] she said. [There’s nothing you can show me that I haven’t already seen.]
[You know all the stories?]
[More or less.]
I didn’t believe her. Not that it mattered much. But I knew the secret. Stories were all the Builders really had. And even though I’d confirmed that it had been the real Ivy Weber who was quick-cuffed to that chair, they could easily have faked her death. They had access to my optic nerve, and God knew what else. [Is she alive?]
[Yes,] Ivy said at last. [Ivy is alive. Does that help?]
The smoke thickened, and I pushed my feet out to the far side of the locker, felt my body relax as the pain in my chest subsided.
Ivy wasn’t dead. She was alive. She was here.
Wasn’t this Ivy? And n
ot just Ivy, but everything flesh-and-blood Ivy had been, plus a little bit more? A sense of gathering completeness, depth, personality? Who else could be so utterly companionable? Who else would never be apart?
My heart thudded as I felt her take my right hand in her left, curling her forearm over mine. I still couldn’t see her, but immediately the pain there lessened too. In my mind she turned her penetrating green eyes and dimpled cheeks towards me.
[All right,] I said as relief flooded through my body. [I’ll let you see everything. But you need to give me something.]
[What do you want?] she asked.
[I want my story on OrbSyn’s live feed. My words, unaltered, with my own byline. Corporal Raymin Dahl. Embedded with MADAR Team Two.]
[That’s it?]
[Yes,] I said. [I mean, no. I don’t want you to recreate it for me. I want you to un-strangle our nodes and open up New Witlund’s secure channel to Fleet. I want my words, unaltered, sent to my editor’s desk. And I want to do it myself. No tricks, no interference.]
[What difference will that make?]
[All the difference that matters,] I said. [It’s my story.]
[Then you’ll let me see everything?]
[Everything.]
[All right. The link is open. Go ahead.]
A terminal opened on my grid.
The base file structure seemed intact, and I immediately recognized Sterling’s PSYOPS designation. Now, sitting in a cargo locker on an enemy warship, I had access to stuff Raymin Dahl wouldn’t have been able to see in a hundred years at OrbSyn.
Most of it was intel from the war on Quelon, a flood of digital imaging from quick-response units and fighter squadrons and orbiting missile platforms.
Which meant of course that there was a war on Quelon. So flesh-and-blood Ivy had been wrong about that attack planet-side being a party trick.
A week ago so much data would have seemed overwhelming, but now I barely noticed any of it—just scrolled past the explosions and flickering combat maps and pulled up the military news desk on Holikot.
Major Charles Weston, OrbSyn editor.
Inbox.
The system demanded my private passcode.
I thought for a moment, then entered a string of gibberish just to make sure I was really touching OrbSyn’s live portal. Sure enough, Weston’s surly voice spat out, “Wrong. Do you even work here?” And while Ivy could certainly have found a way to imitate Weston’s voice, she wouldn’t know when to simulate the error message.
Which meant she seemed to be playing this straight.
And why not? She had nothing to lose.
Still, I wanted to make sure, so when I entered the correct login and found myself staring at a blinking icon with Weston’s initials emblazoned across it, I hesitated.
—THAT YOU, EDITOR SIR?—
I typed via thought-to-text. “Editor sir” was about the clearest signal I could send regarding who I really was. And I needed to be clear, because my story would carry the byline Raymin Dahl, but my comms was screaming to the system that I was, in fact, Captain Ansell Sterling.
—WESTON, C: WHO ARE YOU?—
—YOU SENT ME TO DIG UP A STORY ON THE MADAR TEAMS. IF IT’S REALLY YOU, EDITOR SIR.—
—WESTON, C: DAHL? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IF IT’S REALLY ME? AND WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I’VE BEEN TRYING TO GET THROUGH TO CAMP LOCKE, BUT ALL COMMS INTO QUELON ARE FLOODED.—
—QUICK QUESTION. WHAT COLOR IS MY DESK AT THE ORBSYN STATION THERE ON HOLIKOT?—
A pause. I suppose he was trying to decide whether or not he was being played. In the end his journalistic curiosity must have gotten the better of him.
—WESTON, C: YOU DON’T HAVE A DESK HERE AT ORBSYN. IT REMINDS YOU OF WORK.—
—THANKS, BOSS. I’M ONTO SOMETHING BIG HERE. STORY OF A LIFETIME.—
—WESTON, C: I’VE HEARD THAT BEFORE. FROM YOU.—
—I’M IN A STORAGE LOCKER ON A GRENDEL FRIGATE. IT’S A LONG STORY, AND YOU’RE GOING TO LIKE IT. BUT I NEED YOU TO PROMISE ME YOU’LL RUN IT AS IS.—
—WESTON, C: AS IS? WHAT’S GOING ON, DAHL?—
I thought about how to tell him that I was in real trouble, that I had no plan for escape, that I didn’t expect to live much longer. I didn’t want to admit this, especially to myself, because once you let the poison of hopelessness in, the mind starts to cloud. But I needed him to take my story seriously, and nothing gets an editor’s blood pumping like a tragedy.
—NOT TO SOUND MELODRAMATIC, BUT . . . I DON’T THINK I’M GOING TO MAKE IT OUT OF THIS. AND I NEED THIS ONE. I NEED IT.—
A pause. I imagined him staring at his own grid, wondering if he should contact STRATOP. Or maybe he was linking directly to counterintelligence and not overthinking it at all.
Finally he sent,
—WESTON, C: I CAN LIVE WITH YOUR ADVERBS. SEND ME SOMETHING WORTH READING, AND I’LL ROLL IT OUT ON THE BREAKING FEED.—
—THANKS, SKIPPER. SENDING PART ONE NOW. I’LL SEND PART TWO WHEN I SEE THE FIRST FEATURE GO LIVE.—
—WESTON, C: BLACKMAIL, HUH?—
—I LEARNED FROM THE BEST.—
I pulled up my story notes, found the first feature, and remembered I’d called it, “Grendels Invade Quelon!”
People were going to lose their minds when they saw that go live. All of Fleet Strategic Operations; most of the Corps PSYOPS unit; maybe even Weston himself.
But definitely Commander David Dahl. He deserved better.
I nudged the feature over the transom and waited.
A moment later Weston replied,
—WESTON, C: YOU SURE ABOUT THIS, CORPORAL?—
He’d obviously read the title.
—READ IT ALL AND SEE IF YOU STILL NEED TO ASK.—
Ivy squeezed my left hand. I felt it even though I still couldn’t see her. [Your turn.]
[I’m not done yet.]
[Fair is fair,] she protested, and the feed went black. [You promised.]
The message was clear. No more feed. No more uploads. No more feature stories going to OrbSyn until I let her into my memories.
I thought about Hayan’s bloody face. How good it had felt to pound his nose into pulp. Better even than lining up Vermier’s head in a scope for that kill shot.
And I shouldn’t be thinking this way, because was this really me? Was this who I had become? A man with no conscience, driven only by mission and brute desire? A robot ridden by a quantum master?
A grendel?
Yes, I decided. This is who I am now. This is what they do to you.
And people should know.
Maybe I could have held out longer, but the feed was black, and the light in the locker had gone out, and the hopelessness of the timer ticking down in the corner of my vision pressed against me. It seemed I was spinning alone in a universe devoid even of the stars.
Vibrations rumbled through the wall at my back, and I knew the ship’s nav system must be preparing its engines for a hard launch.
All at once Ivy sat next to me, her left hip wedged against my right side, her head snuggled into my shoulder. I felt her warmth, inhaled the subtle perfume in her hair. Lilacs.
She took my broken right hand in both of hers, touching it gently where it had begun to swell, and a sensation like cool water flowed over the pain, numbing it to a dull ache.
“What do you want to see?” I asked.
“Everything,” she said.
It was her. The real Ivy, sitting there with me in my misery. Ivy Weber’s flesh-and-blood voice filled the cramped space like a song, caressing my heart and my mind and washing me in relief.
Why had I imagined her dead?
She was in my mind too, unlocking the cabinets and flinging files into the air.
Images flashed before me—not the concrete, razor-edged imaging of neural recordings, but the fuzzy, shapeshifting bio-stories we call memory.
She stood at a club table under pulsing neons, leaning on her elbows, her hands cupped around a beer mug, her eyes shopping the room. W
hen she saw me I blinked and lifted my chin to let her know I was there.
She turned away.
“New Witlund?” I asked when I finally made it to her table. Had to make sure it was the same girl.
“Born and raised,” she said.
“Did you read the file?”
She nodded, then glanced to the exit.
I saw that the music was irritating her. “You up for a walk?”
“Sure.”
In the storage locker Ivy looked up at me, her head cocked to one side. I guess I was looking at her the way I’d looked at her back on Holikot.
“The feed,” I said. “You promised.”
She blinked, and the stream of images and subnet portals flashed back onto my grid.
In the back of my mind I could still feel her sifting through every thought, every memory, every clue I’d given her since I snapped Sterling’s comms onto my wrist.
“I’m from New Witlund?” Ivy asked. “Not Holikot?” Her presence in my mind didn’t seem to be paying much attention to me at the moment, but I knew that must be because she was trying desperately to figure out what I had been hiding all along.
“You know that.”
Weston sent another message, short and laced with fear.
—WESTON, C: YOUR FIRST FEATURE IS LIVE. ALREADY PULLING MILLIONS OF EYES. HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.—
“Why It Had to Be Done,” the second feature, sat in queue, ready and waiting on my outbound platform, so I shot it across the link before Ivy could close the pipeline again.
Not that she seemed inclined to. She was still rummaging around in the attic.
I checked to make sure thought-to-text was still recording, scanned the document to check that the words were appearing . . .
scanned the document to check that the words were appearing
. . . and saw that Ivy was still running through my cloudy memories of that first night: the broken doorjamb, my apartment in disarray, the long wait for the cops. She was looking at everything, but her comprehensive search was taking too much time. Bio-memories aren’t sorted in neat stacks. They aren’t alphabetized and cross-referenced. To save time, she would have to use me as an interface.
Operation Grendel Page 21