if an override results in an attack on six or more Blues then -
Azrael clings to its rules, loops and repeats each in turn as if reciting a mantra. It cycles from state to state, parses x attacks and x causes attack and x overrides abort, and it cannot tell one from another. The algebra is trivially straightforward: Every Green override equals an attack on Noncombatants.
The transition rules are clear. There is no discretionary window, no room for forgiveness. Sometimes, Green can turn Red.
Unless overridden.
Azrael arcs towards the ground, levels off barely two meters above the carnage. It roars through pillars of fire and black smoke, streaks over welters of brick and burning plastic, tangled nets of erupted rebar. It flies through the pristine ghosts of undamaged buildings that rise from every ruin: obsolete database overlays in desperate need of an update. A ragged group of fleeing non-combatants turns at the sound and are struck speechless by this momentary apparition, this monstrous winged angel lunging past at half the speed of sound. Their silence raises no alarms, provokes no countermeasures, spares their lives for a few moments longer.
The combat zone falls behind. Dry cracked riverbed slithers past beneath, studded with rocks and generations of derelict machinery. Azrael swerves around them, barely breaching airspace, staying beneath an invisible boundary it never even knew it was deriving on these many missions. Only satellites have ever spoken to it while it flew so low. It has never received a ground-based command signal at this altitude. Down here it has never heard an override.
Down here it is free to follow the rules.
Cliffs rise and fall to either side. Foothills jut from the earth like great twisted vertebrae. The bright lunar landscape overhead, impossibly distant, casts dim shadows on the darker one beneath.
Azrael stays the course. Shindand appears on the horizon. Heaven glows on its eastern flank; its sprawling silhouette rises from the desert like an insult, an infestation of crimson staccatos. Speed is what matters now. Mission objectives must be met quickly, precisely, completely. There can be no room for half measures or mild-to-moderate incapacitation, no time for immobilized biothermals to cry out as their heat spreads across the dirt. This calls for the crown jewel, the BFG that all malaa'ikah keep tucked away for special occasions. Azrael fears it might not be enough.
She splits down the middle. The JDAM micronuke in her womb clicks impatiently.
Together they move toward the light.
Watching the Music Dance
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won two Hugos, a World Fantasy Award, and several readers choice awards. She has written in every genre under many names, including Kris Nelscott for mystery and Kristine Grayson for paranormal romance. In 2011 Pyr will publish City of Ruins, part of her award-winning Diving into the Wreck series. Her most recent collection, Recovering Apollo 8 and Other Stories, just appeared from Golden Gryphon. WMG Publishing is reissuing her bestselling Fey fantasy series, which just came out in audio from Audible.com in 2010. Currently, she's working with three different presses to get her entire backlist (short stories and all) published electronically. For more on her work, go to her website (www.kristinekathrynrusch.com).
Upstairs, the big house. Her room, window seat, glass overlooking the back yard. The glint of his car pulling into the drive. Suzette pulls her dolly closer. Dolly - called Dolly (Mommy says that's silly, everything needs a name. Her name's Dolly, Suze says) - is just cloth, does nothing special. Doesn't talk, doesn't serve food, doesn't cuddle. Just lets Suze cuddle, lets Suze be. Grams made Dolly, and Suze loves Dolly even though Mommy says Dolly's not special at all.
Suze is special. Dolly's not.
Car door slams, footsteps rapid. He's mad. She cringes as he opens the screen door. It slams too.
Buries her head in Dolly's yarn hair.
"Account's overdrawn again," he says, no hello, no how're my special girls? no where's my Suze? Just something sharp and important. (Mommy and Daddy need to talk, hon, he'd say if she was downstairs. She tries to be upstairs when he comes home now, so she doesn't see the look on his face - all pinched.) "I've been monitoring the transactions. How many freakin' lattes do you need in a day? They all go to your ass anyway."
"Me?" Mommy says. "If you were monitoring, you shouldn't've let it get overdrawn. And look at your own damn ass."
Suze tucks Dolly under one arm, climbs out of the window seat, goes to her special corner. Ignores the child-sized piano, goes instead to the music. The door's already closed, even though Mommy says she should never close the door. But she does now, just before Daddy gets home, has since this "account" stuff started, since he says the word "lose" a lot, about important stuff, like "house" and "car" and "everything."
Suze leans against the wall, wishes (again) for earbuds - not even the built-in ones, just the ones she could put in. But they're dangerous, Daddy says. Mommy says Suze needs them, but Daddy says all in good time. Mommy won the first few fights anyway, he says, the music fights, and he's still not sure he agrees.
Suze looks at the digital readout on the wall, sees her favourite word - shuffle - presses "start." She never looks at the name of the song, doesn't care really, because as the music starts, the notes dance in front of her.
Nobody else can see them, Mommy says. It's a special program, Mommy says. Only big name musicians get it permanently, Mommy says. Suze's is for practice only.
And Mommy makes Suze touch behind her ear, shutting it off when she goes outside. Special program's for family only, Mommy says.
Notes everywhere - light blue for flutes, red for trumpets, purple for piano, black for vocals. Words running along the bottom. Daddy says the best thing about the program is that it taught Suze to read.
Mommy says Suze can read not just words, but music. And if her sight-reading skills improve, she can play any piece of music from anywhere, the score in front of her, as she lets the sound whisper in her ear.
That's why you need built-in buds, baby, Mommy says. Next year. We'll convince Daddy to do it next year.
With built-in buds, she can take a chip and stick it on her lobe, listen to music so soft no one knows it's on, and play at the same time, following the notes.
Mommy says there's a better program, more advanced, more expensive (Suze hates that word). If Suze just thinks the name of a song, she'll see the score dancing in front of her eyes.
She's watching scores right now. Watching the piano part, watching the vocals, letting the sound overwhelm her senses.
"Didn't you learn anything when we were kids?" Daddy screams. "Money is finite. And it can go away. Where the hell did you learn how to spend like that? Where the hell did you get the idea that we're entitled? We can't fucking afford it. We can't -"
Suze turns the music up, holds Dolly close, wishes Dolly could see the notes too. They're dancing, dancing, dancing. Painting the air with each and every sound.
Nils dates Madeline's insanity to the first moment of her pregnancy. Maybe all the way back to the moment his sperm burrowed into her egg. Certainly back to the moment she knew, when they stood over that little stick covered in urine, telling them they were going to have a baby, telling them which doctor could guide them through the pregnancy, telling them to choose attributes now, before it got too late.
Attributes: He wishes he had never heard that word. His parents tell him that back in the day, they could test for abnormalities in the DNA if fertilization happened outside the womb. The abnormal foetus wouldn't be implanted. In the womb, more tests for abnormalities - monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. But no choosing attributes.
No one talked about IQ or athletic ability or artistic skill. Parents, his told him, were happy to know the gender before the baby was born, so they could paint the nursery the proper pink or blue. They were happy to know that the baby would grow up healthy, that potential problems could be avoided.
His grandparents remained quiet through those discussions. Just once, his gran
dfather - a crusty man ten years older than his wife - said before she shushed him, "Hell, kid, we were just happy if that squalling piece of flesh we birthed had ten fingers and ten toes."
That, Nils knew, was primitive. He couldn't imagine going through nine months of a traditional pregnancy only to have the wrong gender pop out, the wrong gender with some kind of syndrome, missing an arm or a leg, or (God forbid) half the brain. Not to know what kind of child you had - intelligence- and abilities-wise - for years, after you'd invested time and energy and affection, in someone (something) not quite optimal.
The doc the test led them to was one of the best - chosen, not just for his skill, but for their income level. They could pay his rates, so he was advertising on their test.
They sat in his office - filled with comfort pheromones and soothing colours and soft music - and listened while he gave what had to be a spiel. And Madeline, still trim and still looking like the woman Nils married, dark hair, dark eyes, smooth skin - all unenhanced - leaned forward as the doctor spoke, looking displeased as he told of the legislated limitations.
"What do you mean, you have to work with our DNA?" she asked, question so sharp that Nils winced.
"We can't add something that the child couldn't have had," the doctor said. "Athleticism doesn't run in either family, we can't add it to the foetus. We're not allowed, by law."
"Who made up that stupid law?" she snapped, and Nils, used to her sharpness in private (once it was something he admired about her), felt startled as she unleashed it in public.
"Congress," the doctor said, seemingly undisturbed by her tone. "Supported by the courts, of course, all the way up to the Supremes. Everyone is afraid of full-scale genetic engineering. Afraid that those who can't afford upgrades will become less than human. Most countries have something in place, to prevent a Master Race...."
Nils tuned out the rest of the answer, but Madeline argued and argued some more, and finally, he had to put a hand on her knee, their signal to calm down. He paid for that later. What the hell were you thinking? she snapped at him. We want the best baby possible, and you're accepting limits.
Maybe he was. Maybe he didn't want the perfect child. Maybe he wanted a child, slightly imperfect, with a gap in her teeth, and a crooked smile. Some endearing flaws, just to make her human.
Later, he learned the source (sources) of Madeline's fury. She wanted a child to fulfil her unrealized dreams - exquisite beauty (there was none in their families, although the doctor told them they would achieve pretty), brilliance (there both families came through), and musical ability.
Madeline sang so badly she was excused from choir at school. Nils couldn't read a note, didn't try, didn't even like listening to music. Neither family had any musical talent - no one, in all the recorded history, played an instrument, sang with a choir, soloed, or even appreciated music much.
Madeline wanted a musical child, not for the grace and ability, the music itself, but because she believed that music opened doors always closed to her - doors of fame, of importance, of superstardom.
But the doctor refused, so Madeline went to another, and another, and another, until it was too late to tinker even if they found someone who could, which they didn't. Not in America, not in Europe or Asia or Africa. She found a doctor in Peru, whom Nils insisted on researching before they travelled to Lima, a doctor who turned out to be a catastrophic fraud. Had they gone, they would've lost the baby altogether.
Lost Suzette, who stole his heart with her perfect smile, the way her little fingers curled around his thumb, the mop of dark hair, so like her mother's. They would've lost everything.
Sooner.
They would've lost everything sooner.
He tries to tell himself it's not that bad. He tries to put a good face on the problems.
But his wife - his ex-wife - is crazy, and his daughter, his daughter. His daughter might be lost forever.
He's drowning in what his grandfather calls a mound of bills. Grandfather had to explain it: bills used to be paper, they used to literally mound up, like a small hill in the middle of a desk, something that could - quite realistically - bury you.
Nils wonders if that was better than picking up his cell, having it tell him, the moment his hand makes contact, that he owes two months' payments and he has thirty hours until cut-off. Or the dun notices that run in 3-D across his eyes when he tries to watch an entertainment program on the wall screen, just to relax. Or the sighing whisper of his bed, reminding him that payments are due, payments are due, payments are due, harassing him until he can't sleep at all.
The bills are in his name, not Madeline's. He was the organized one, the one who set everything up. She had been the driven one, the one with the good job, the one who succeeded beyond their wild imaginings.
Until the baby. Then the ambition, the drive he loved, all got poured into the child. Madeline neglected work, neglected him, neglected all but Suzette - and not Suzette, really, but what she imagined Suzette to be. Suzette the Musician. Suzette the Talent. Suzette the Meal Ticket.
He'd said all of that to the judge and more. He'd paid for evaluations and custody hearings. He'd paid and worried, and the lawyer said that he'd better hope they'd get a judge who paid attention to the child and her needs, instead of Nils' words, because they'd become harsh toward the end.
Harsh toward his wife (Lard ass, he had called her more than once. The first thing we're getting you are enhancements, he'd said one particularly cruel afternoon. I want my skinny wife back.) She'd let herself go in shocking ways, ways that a few cheap enhancements would've improved.
It wasn't until the financial disclosure forms that he understood why. She'd been taking her enhancement money and funnelling it to Suzette - for music enhancements.
Audio additions - no implants yet, Suze was too young. But music appreciation adds, sight reading adds, piano aptitude adds. Their daughter the prodigy. He'd approved one app for Suze, just one. A music-appreciation app for babies. He would never have approved the others. Some weren't even for children.
When he agreed to the child-sized piano, he thought Suze wanted it to tinker on. He didn't realize his wife had a plan for their little girl. A horrible, accelerated plan. For Suze.
His Suze, who hid in her room when her parents fought. His Suze, who preferred a cloth doll to all those life-like things that other people had given her. Who loved the doll because her Grams had made it, because the doll was soft and huggable and never talked back.
He should've known that was a sign.
Now he stands here, in a courtroom smaller than anything he imagined. His soon-to-be ex-wife stands with her attorney on the other side, and rubs her hands together. Madeline no longer looks like the woman he met or the woman he married. Her hair's a mess, her eyes wander, her hands are chapped from rubbing, rubbing, rubbing.
He doesn't look the same either, face grey with stress, always tired. He still fits into his suits, though, the ones he had before the marriage, and he doesn't obsess. He has time for Suze, which is more than Madeline does.
Madeline, who only has time for Suze's projects.
His expert says that's bad. She has no expert to counter. His lawyer says that's good.
Nils doesn't know what's good and what's not any more.
The judge sits behind the bench - a stern man, with a screen in front of him. He will read the judgment, but before he does, he looks at Nils.
"There were signs," the judge says. "You ignored them. You're not blameless in the end of this relationship."
Nils knows that. But his lawyer seems to relax, as if the judge's harsh words for Nils bode well. Nils holds his breath, trying not to think about all the debt, selling the house, moving, trying not to let it all affect his job - his lesser job, the only one he and Madeline had had in the end, because she had become unemployable. From a perfectionist to unemployable in five short years. From brilliant to crazy in nearly six. He wanted to ask the doctor they'd seen first, the man who knew how to "i
mprove" a foetus in the womb, whether hormones could cause this or whether it had existed back when Madeline's parents had her foetus tested. Had they missed a tendency toward insanity? Or had they ignored it, figured it wouldn't matter?
He's concentrating so hard, he almost misses most of the judgment. He gets Suze. Full custody. No visits from Madeline, even, not for some time, because his psychologist and the court-ordered psychologist say she's dangerous, toxic to herself and to her child.
You're not blameless. There were signs. You ignored them.
Nils flushes, and forces himself to listen. The judge continues: Madeline ordered into a program for obsessives - if, and only if, she ever wants to see her daughter again. Madeline curses - "She needs me!" she shouts, and the judge, seemingly unaffected, says, "You have just provided us with a perfect illustration of the problem," which, for once, shuts Madeline up.
The judge gives a timeline, and targets for Madeline. She may only see Suze if she achieves certain goals, goals - the judge says - that will be hard for an obsessive.
Then he looks at Nils.
"Perhaps," the judge says with a surprising amount of dispassion, "you can undo the damage. Maybe it's not too late."
In a tone that says it is.
Suze is five - too young for permanent enhancements. Too old for genetic manipulation. Suze, who will have to survive on his wisdom and his love.
That's all we had, boy, Nils' grandfather had said when he heard about the problems, the lawsuit. You've all made the mistake of thinking children come with a guarantee. They don't. You do your best, hope for the best, and take what you get.
Nils doesn't like that. He needs something certain in his life.
Something he can't - won't - screw up.
Daddy calls the new place an apartment. Suze knows apart. She knows ment. "Ment" is what they add to words to make them stronger. Improve, Mommy used to say, is an order. Improvement is an achievement.
Engineering Infinity Page 3