by JM Guillen
I leaned back in my chair, Crowe’s words sinking in. 2015? That seemed impossibly far away.
The rest of the recording was quite brief. We listened as he discussed his plans for future intel gathering and the kinds of things he felt were important. We learned that the city outside was called Dhire Lith, and that as far as Crowe could tell, the entire city was one vast topia, a city with innumerable doors across the unknown myriad universes.
“There is one more thing. Don’t mistake their rhetoric for truth.” Crowe leaned closer to Alexander. “45171R is not united in their desires.” He cleared his throat. “There are... tribes or clans of some kind, and they loathe one another. Our allies stand against the clan attempting to take Rationality.” He gave a thin smile. “One only hopes that we can trust them.”
That was the end of the recording. For a long moment, we sat in silence.
Then Gideon cleared his throat, giving us a long look.
I knew him well; he already had a plan.
“Here’s the play. Alexander said that this substation holds resources, specifically for our Caduceus-Asset.” He turned to Rachel. “If that’s the case, there might be more injectables here. More injectables imply a ready source of bioenergy. I need you to check that out—”
“But Bishop—” She was objecting before Gideon was even quite finished.
His gaze locked onto me. “—will be sitting very still and taking it easy.” He resumed his instructions to Rachel. “Do what you have to do to keep him stable. I don’t care of you have to bend every axiom of biology, we need every member of this cadre whole.”
“Yes, sir.” Rachel glanced from Gideon to me.
“We both know you have the means to begin knitting his bones. He just has to sit still.” Gideon turned to me. “Which he will do while reviewing our intel packet.”
“Yes, Alpha.” I tossed in a compliant smile, knowing better than to even appear to disagree.
“Anya, I need you to look over the telemetry stations. I want to know what’s operative and what we can use. You also may need to assist our Caduceus in cataloguing available systems and activating anything that requires your Preceptor initiation codes.”
“Of course.” Anya nodded.
“Bishop, Wyatt, and I will divvy up and dig through what looks like over one hundred fifty quantum packets of data.” Gideon growled out a frustrated sigh. “Pay special attention to Crowe and Alexander’s experiences here.” He gave a tight smile. “With any luck, they devised a plan to get home.” He studied us before asking, “Any questions?”
No one had any.
Rachel stepped to me before Gideon had quite finished speaking, grim despite her reassuring smile. Looks like you’re not escaping my attention. Her link was only for me. Your injuries will be far worse if we ignore them. Just stay still.
I’ll be good. I promised with a wink.
Five minutes later, Rachel had given me the proper injections to axiomatically knit my bones and maintain my dulled pain responses. I tuned to the packet of data, pain free and feeling fine. As I perused it, worry began to blossom in my mind, harrowed by the Assets’ stories.
Crowe and Sparks had been well and truly adrift, living out months of their lives while hidden in the remnants of Substation 306. More than once, they had been found by servitors of the Vyriim and had participated in the intrigues between them.
That still surprised me. Factions among the Vyriim did not correlate with anything I knew about them. However, Crowe’s records left little room for doubt.
Soon, pieces of the story began to drift together. The Vyriim knew very well that Facility Assets roamed their city. Some had moved to engage them and seek an alliance, while most sought to harvest the technology they wielded.
Chaos and terror followed.
Wyatt had been correct back in Detroit, when I had first come online. Even then, with the little that we knew, he had nailed our situation perfectly:
We were in it deep.
But it seemed as if the Rook had been in it deeper, and that he hadn’t made it home alive.
15
The best news came from Rachel.
“There’s almost endless bioenergy.” She didn’t link, despite her statement. “I mean, not enough to waste, but apparently Substation 306 was a research station for the different utilizations of viral mecha. Crowe and Sparks wouldn’t have been able to fully make use of the resources, but I can.”
“How much is almost endless?” Gideon didn’t look up from his interface.
“We can keep our systems optimal for over eighteen months before we should consider rationing.” Rachel tapped at her interface for a moment before continuing. “I mean, we shouldn’t link or patch everything. It’s probably not wise to run old movies over the phaneric node or anything, but, yeah.”
“That’s good to know.” Gideon’s smile, however, felt grim.
I understood. Being castaways in this warren of Vyriim insanity for eighteen months?
I knew Gideon. He would initiate the Primary Protocol long before that happened.
“Well,” Wyatt said as he leaned forward. “Can we still port this monster truck of a packet to memory without any problems then?”
Rachel nodded. “We won’t drain much bioenergy just from that.”
Gideon nodded his assent.
Good, Wyatt linked to me alone. I wasn’t looking forward to reading it all.
I’m just shocked you can read at all, I sent only to him.
“I cannot track how he powered any of the equipment,” Anya inserted. “Crowe seemed quite interested in acquiring a constant telemetry feed on certain parts of the city.” The tiniest frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. “I believe the equipment is faulty though. The feed shows the city as impossibly large.”
“The Rook believed it to be infinite.” Wyatt leaned back in his chair, wearing a shit-eating grin. He remained overly pleased that the Rook had been here just as he had said. “I dunno if I agree, though. It might be recursive, or our telemetry might be jacked either by the local axioms or the Vyriim themselves.”
“I know visual is off.” I sat forward. “Looking at something close up is fine, but I’m sure you noticed how things far off seemed to regress and progress at the same time. It’s nauseating.”
“Right.” Wyatt nodded and scratched at the edge of his oculus interface. “The packet says that the Rook believed the city is a topia all its own. It’s stable and well established, although riddled with gateways to other places.”
“Stop going over it piecemeal.” Gideon regarded Rachel. “If you’re certain bio-energy isn’t an issue?”
“Only if we’re stuck here a year and a half.” Her smile faded a touch. “If we’re here that long, then I imagine we have to discuss the Primary Protocol.”
“That’s what I wonder,” I interrupted and looked at Wyatt. “If Crowe and his cadre were caught, a point had to come where they had to acknowledge that they weren’t getting home.” I didn’t need to follow up the implication. The Primary Protocol stated that Assets must terminate their own systems rather than let them fall into Irrational hands.
After a pause, Gideon stated, “The records just cut off. They should have considered the Primary Protocol, but it isn’t mentioned anywhere. 45171R may have Facility technology because Crowe couldn’t pull the trigger.”
“There’s a lot about this that stinks.” Wyatt sounded suspicious and a touch defensive, as if that thought had dented his admiration for Crowe. “How does the Facility lose an entire substation?” He looked to Gideon. “Alpha, were you briefed that we lost part of a Facility complex?”
“Negative, Guthrie.” Gideon’s voice was firm. “I’m as shocked as you are, I’m certain.”
Anya cut in. “Obviously the same technology that brought us here brought the substation. At the point where the substation ends, the wall simply stops as if it was sliced by a blade. Yet there’s quite a bit of the substation here: quarters, a supply depot, even a ma
tter-energy conflux that could keep us fed if required.”
“Well, that’s something.” I turned my brilliant charm on Rachel. “I’d hate to miss a meal while convalescing.”
“If the Vyriim brought it here, then why is the substation still secure?” Wyatt wore a confused frown. “It seems like their purpose is learning about our tech in preparation for their invasion. I mean, they were even willing to settle for kidnapping chucklehead here.” He jerked his head toward me.
“Your question is…” Anya paused. “Why the Vyriim failed to capture this station?”
“Right. You’d think they would just pull the station somewhere they could dissect it.”
“Easy.” I shook my head. “I think that the technology they are using isn’t quite stable yet. If it was, your spikes couldn’t have gummed up the works.”
“That was Crowe’s belief.” Gideon nodded. “In my part of the packet, he claimed that he and his cadre were training at 306 when the Vyriim attacked. Said that it was as if they simply plucked half the station from Indonesia and brought it here.” He ran his fingers through the scruff of his beard. “He thought that his spikes may have altered the Vyriim calculations, burying the substation in the ground.”
“Are we porting this thing to memory?” I grinned at him. “If Rachel says we have the resources, it’d be simpler than hashing it out.”
“Affirmative.” Gideon nodded. “Let’s do that now so we’re all on the same page.”
Porting it was a simple matter. The packet was stored in my Crown—taking up quite a bit of space, I might add. Shifting it to memory was like saving something to a hard drive instead of a floppy disk, just a matter of location.
The moment I reallocated, I felt the data hit my mind. It slammed into my consciousness like a hammer, a hammer welded to the front of a two-ton truck.
But once finished, the data was mine. I knew every bit of intel the Rook had gathered, as if I had done it myself.
I knew it in my bones.
“Fu-huck!” Wyatt shook his head. “That was a bit of a ride.”
An understatement.
In a matter of seconds, I remembered in Technicolor brilliance what had to be the worst nine months of the Rook’s life. I remembered the chaos of drifting into this awful place and the Assets who had been slaughtered like sheep on the first day.
That had been the simple part.
How did they do it? I could feel Rachel as she linked, all but overwhelmed with emotion. To be taken so suddenly and castaway here…
Unfortunately, we all knew exactly what she meant. Crowe and his cadre had truly lived through a horror, and the Facility had never found them.
As far as we knew, they had never tried.
“Assets, I need you to take a moment and process what we’ve learned.” Gideon was, as always, a solid rock when we needed him. “Remember how easy it is to fall victim to empathic bias.”
I took a deep breath. Of course he was correct.
Empathic bias was a known and potentially dangerous phenomenon. An Asset would often tend to agree with the perspective of someone who had authored a large packet, once that packet was ported into memory. Porting the data was the ultimate method of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, but tended to weaken critical evaluation, leading to unchecked logical fallacies.
As I thought, Rachel stepped over to me, tinkering with an interface I could not see. Her mouth pulled into a thin line.
“Okay.” Gideon looked around at all of us. “What mistakes did Crowe make?”
“Most of this data could be compromised.” Anya looked around at each of us, her ice-blue eyes thoughtful.
“Maybe.” Wyatt looked uncertain. “He received it in a psionic link. Is it possible to lie about something when you’re intimately touching the mind of another?”
“Unknown.” Anya persevered. “However it is known that Crowe received his intel from a Vyriim servitor. It’s inherently untrustworthy.”
“A servitor that was an ally to the Roo—to Crowe!” Wyatt shook his head. “I think it’s trustworthy.” Wyatt looked around, trying to gain support. “He and his cadre, along with the station personnel, were brought here against their collective will. Over a dozen people died. Instead of lying down, the Rook went out into enemy territory and found the enemy of his enemy.” He looked back to Anya. “Smart man.”
As Wyatt spoke, I couldn’t help but remember my own experience with the Vyriim. I had become part of the oneness, a unity that seemed blissful. I hadn’t had any inkling of any violent schisms within their group, only pleasure and ease.
How could I reconcile that with Crowe’s experience? In the packet, he detailed multiple different groups, constantly scheming against each other. Then I remembered the Drażeri’s nice little fistfight in the street, which muddied things further.
“Even though the servitor claimed that she was warring against the same faction that brought the substation here, much of this information cannot be substantiated.” Anya refused to back down. “Why would one of the Vyriim give us so much factual information about Dhire Lith? It was simply not required. It couldn’t impact Crowe or his mission. There’s no logical reason for anything the servitor conveyed to be true.”
We all grew quiet for a moment.
“Fuck.” Wyatt ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “You may be right. I may be assuming the data is all true when I have no proof.” He looked up at her, and I could see a tiny piece of his interface drift across the blue lens over his left eye. “But you have no proof it’s false either.”
“This is my true concern.” Gideon looked around the small room. “We are in an identical situation to Crowe and Sparks. We have the same resources but several more Assets.” He paused to ensure we were paying attention. “He had a plan to return home, one he pulled out of his ass in the shittiest situation possible.” He raised one eyebrow. “Is his plan a good one?”
“Well, Crowe’s skiff is in the next room.” Rachel glanced up from her interface to join the conversation. “Anya and I didn’t know it was a realmship, obviously, but now that makes sense.”
“We did not have the benefit of the information in the packet.” Anya looked toward Gideon but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Now that we have, however, I can report that Crowe’s vehicle is present and in the expected condition.”
“So it’s still here.” Gideon had apparently wondered the same thing that I had—if Crowe had already escaped Dhire Lith. “That’s quite interesting.”
Crowe’s plan certainly seemed feasible enough. Through alliances, he had apparently gained access to Drażeri technology, an interesting twist on the presumed purpose of his kidnapping. The Drażeri had a craft, which they used to travel between various topias, something typically used to patrol Vyriim holdings. Unfortunately the skiff’s psionic command center made it useless to the Rook.
So, he had made alterations.
“Much of the Artisan equipment is meant to be fused into the interface, as detailed.” Anya looked at Wyatt as she spoke. “I believe he was attempting to do something such as you did on our last dossier. When we found ourselves in an unstable topia, you were able to create Rational axioms and drift us home.”
“This place is far too stable for something like that.” Wyatt frowned. “But it makes sense. If the realmship is built to travel between topias, then the tangler is a good interface. If you turned the entire vehicle into the equivalent of a spike, you could shift axioms around the vehicle.” He paused. “In theory.”
“You said the man’s a genius.” Gideon interjected.
“He was.” Wyatt paused. “He is. If the Rook thought his rigging would work, then it should. But according to what I make out, once I engage the tangler into the skiff, that’s end game for the Artisan gear. We make it home, or we’re here with no tangler.”
“Understood.” Gideon nodded. “Wyatt, I want you to take a look at it. It may take you some time to figure it out, but this matters.”
> Wyatt’s grim eyes didn’t match his jovial smile. “Alpha, I have most of the specs in my head, same as you. I still don’t really understand what he did.”
“Well, we need you to.” He paused. “Crowe had a plan to get this thing going. If we’re going to even attempt it, we need to know it’s possible.”
“Will comply.” I could see Wyatt’s uncertainty creeping over his face.
Bishop? Rachel’s link was only for me. I think your hip will be fine in a day or two. Your right ribs too, though only after some more tinkering. She gave me a consolation smile. The left side, not so much. It might take several days. There’s only so much viral mecha can do.
Understood. Thanks, Rachel.
“We’ll need to decide if we’re going to trust his contact.” Gideon leveled a look at all of us. “That’s the key point.”
“Can’t know.” Wyatt shook his head. “Not really. I mean, based on what we learned, I think she’s trustworthy, but then I would. After all, every bit of data we have is from Crowe’s perspective.”
“If we choose to mistrust the Drażeri contact”—Anya glanced around the room—“as would be wise, then it is probable that any plan involving the realmship is non-functional. Asset 081 was clear in his packet; the device requires fuel.”
“We can’t make a choice unless we get some intel on our own.” I regarded the others but let my gaze come to rest on Anya. “Empirical evidence. That’s what you would want.”
“Yes.” She nodded her head slowly. “If possible.”
“We have a lot of data, but much of it isn’t pertinent. One thing we know, however, is that Crowe’s contact wasn’t far from here.” I suggested to Gideon, “I can lay a quarrel here but leave it inactive. We can go and meet Crowe’s contact ourselves and make our decision. Crowe left the specifications for the meeting signal.” I shrugged. “If you decide she’s trustworthy, then perhaps the plan will work. If it’s a trap or we feel as if we are in danger, I can create an aperture back here. We’d be just as safe as we are now.”