The Ghost and the Machine

by L B Garrison

  Cisco steadied his rifle across the hood and fired into the mob breaking through the tree line. Bailey stood beside the T30 with her arms extended. She fired at the closer children.

  Alex turned. “Mandy! We’ve got to move.”

  “They’re just children,” Mandy whispered.

  Rin walked beside her. “It’s testing their resolve and yours. This thing is forever experimenting, changing strategies. It’s studying us in preparation for a larger conflict. By the way, these are different. They aren’t much more than ordinary humans. Be careful how much force you apply.”

  “Mandy,” Alex yelled. “Get your butt in gear!”

  The children rushed the steps. Bailey and Cisco each took down an attacker. The children fell, then struggled to rise. Neither Bailey nor Cisco was shooting to kill.

  Bailey ejected her ammo magazine while moving to the T30’s door.

  Leaping in a high arc, a boy about twelve was coming down on Bailey.

  “Crap.” Mandy ran and jumped. She slammed into the boy as he descended. Her momentum thrust them back into the air, the boy’s fluttering black hair slapped against her face.

  The boy wrapped his arms around Mandy and bit her shoulder.

  A searing pain ran up her neck and down her arm. Mandy landed and stumbled. She pushed the boy away, sending him rebounding across the pavement. She grabbed her throbbing shoulder. The frantic battle went in and out of focus. Sounds garbled.

  Rin grabbed her by the shoulders. Demanding attention. “We can’t . . . let me . . . before this goes too far.”

  The world snapped back into focus. “No!”

  “To the right,” Rin yelled.

  Hands clutched Mandy’s shirt. She hit someone, knocking them away.

  More hands clutched her clothes and jerked the fabric tight, pulling her up. A teenage girl in a red and white plaid dress had Mandy by the shirt.

  The girl tilted her head to the side, making her ebony hair and red ribbons stream down to touch her shoulder. She opened her mouth, curling her lips back to expose fangs. “Don’t resist, Mann-dee.”

  Mandy shoved the girl with enough force to send them both tumbling forward. Mandy landed on top, catching herself with outstretched hands. The girl’s head hit the pavement. Blood splattered across Mandy’s fingers. A sweet smell filled the air.

  The girl stared into Mandy’s eyes, ribs pressing against Mandy’s thighs with each shallow breath. Her grip loosened as the dark pool expanded around her head. Mandy’s heart beat so hard. The girl’s breathing slowed. Her hands slipped from Mandy’s collar and smacked the stone. Mandy stopped breathing.

  A hand grabbed Mandy’s arm and yanked her to her feet. She made a fist and turned.

  “Mandy!” Cisco’s tight-lipped face was inches from hers.

  “Cisco?” Her fist relaxed.

  He pulled her into a stumbling run. Gunfire popped above them, the hypervelocity rounds creating tiny sonic booms. She stumbled into the T30 and across the seat. The door slammed.

  The T30 fishtailed and threw Mandy against the door as it spun out of the parking lot. Tiny hands streaked across the glass, inches from her face. The vehicle rocked as it bounced over small bodies. Nausea gnawed at Mandy’s stomach. She clenched her fist and cringed with each impact. Sticky, burgundy smudges covered her hands. Blood. The girl’s blood.

  “The bite infected you with nanomechs,” Rin whispered from no particular direction. “Our immune system should fight it off. I hope.”

  Cisco tugged at Mandy’s shoulders, pulled her into the middle seat and secured her safety belt, before buckling his own. Purple mist rolled over the Biblioteca. The building crumbled. The T30 lurched and trees flashed by.

  Rin sat next to her. “I could tell you it was an accident and she wasn’t human anymore, but it doesn’t help much, does it?”

  With a thump, the T30 hit smooth pavement and accelerated. Bailey directed Alex along a safe path. Mandy rubbed her hands together, but the stains wouldn’t come off. Dizziness and the rocking of the T30 made her stomach jumpy. She swallowed and tried to slow her breathing. “I can still see her face.”

  Rin turned to the window and watched as the T30 climbed a ramp that merged with a multilevel highway. “Machines can’t forget and a weapon with a conscience is no use to anyone. It takes a monster, like me, to be effective. This life is not for you.”

  The pain in Mandy’s shoulder faded and she dropped her hands into her lap. “When you warned me to hold back, it was to keep me from killing. To save me from guilt. You’re a crummy monster.”

  Rin frowned. “Quiet. They can hear you.”

  Mandy jerked at the warm touch of Alex’s fingers on her wrist. Alex pulled Mandy’s hands apart and gently cleaned the blood with a moist wipe. The T30’s steering wheel moved as it drove itself. Bailey sat with an open first-aid kit on her lap. Alex gave the bloody wipe to Bailey and took a clean one from the kit, running the cool towelette across Mandy’s hot face.

  Alex’s touch was just as soft as Mom’s. The world blurred and hot tears trickled down Mandy’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Shh. I know. We’re all doing the best we can.” Alex wiped the tears away. “I suppose you’re one of my kids now. So Mandy, it’s time. You have to tell us everything.”

  Rin shrugged. “We’re a triple-S level military secret, but don’t let me stop you.”

  Cisco placed dry tissues in her hand.

  Bailey leaned towards Mandy. “Are you Amanda Clementine?”

  Cisco frowned. “Who is that?”

  Bailey stopped just short of rolling her eyes. “The person from the twenty-first century that most AIs are based on, that’s all.”

  “Are you?” Alex asked.

  Mandy blew her nose and took a shaky breath. “Yes. At least I feel like I am. I told you I was in a hospital. It was for brain scans to build an AI. Something went wrong during the last mapping session. I woke up here.”

  Bailey rocked back and forth, nodding with her whole body. “Yah, I read about that one. Naturally, it’s your last memory.”

  Mandy opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. Did she want to know the details?

  Mandy hesitated, as if it wouldn’t be real if she didn’t publicly confess her sins. She swallowed and found her voice. “I’m a machine. I didn’t know it at first, but I’m a machine. And a powerful weapon of some kind. I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

  The tension in Alex’s face loosened, as if finally knowing was a relief. Bailey nodded like she’d known it all along.

  Mandy was just numb. All the emotion was wrung out of her and she could barely sit upright in her seat.

  Cisco took her in a warm embrace, but he faced Alex. “This doesn’t change anything. She is still the same person.”

  Mandy put her head on his strong shoulder and stared at her clean hands.

  Alex shifted her body toward Cisco. “You knew.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Alex drummed her fingers on her armrest. “Cisco, print me a coffee. Mandy, I thought Bailey’s mem-wraith theory might be right, but your speed, your strength when you held the door and the large area you burned at the Biblioteca . . . it seemed less and less likely you could be human. This makes more sense.”

  Mandy glanced at Cisco, who reached over the seat to run the matter printer. “I kind of thought everyone would be more weirded out.”

  “I’m surprised, but it’s the mystery I didn’t like and realistic androids are fairly common,” Alex said.

  Bailey kept her hand over her mouth and watched the others’ reactions. She was holding something back.

  Cisco handed Bailey a steaming wassail. “And you’re looking at me because?”

  Bailey blew on the wassail. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It was Mandy’s story,” Cisco said.

  “I suppose I can forgive you,” Bailey said. “Sorry, Mandy. I know you hoped to return home someday, but y
ou do have mates here.”

  “Thank you. I mean that.” Mandy accepted a cup of hot chocolate from Cisco, rolling it between her hands to feel the warmth. She was too knotted up inside to stomach a sip.

  Alex wasn’t drinking either. “I don’t understand the purpose of making a weapon in the shape of a teenage girl.”

  Mandy stopped fidgeting with her cup. “There is something else. The original personality of the machine is in my head too. That’s the last secret, I promise.”

  Bailey stared. “There are two of you?”

  Mandy turned to Rin. “Can you make yourself visible to them?”

  Rin crossed her arms. “I don’t do party tricks. Besides the little looks they give you when you talk to empty air is my only entertainment.”

  Mandy sighed. “She said she can’t because she’s a jerkette.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Rin growled.

  “I was translating. You should speak for yourself if you don’t like my interpretation,” Mandy replied.

  Rin watched the passing forest. “I’m bored with this conversation.”

  Alex sat back. “The multiple personality aspect is disconcerting.”

  Mandy examined her cup. Tears threatened to come at the thought of the girl in plaid. “I haven’t hurt any of you and I won’t. The girl—it was an accident.”

  The hum of the tires filled the cabin. The quiet ate at Mandy’s gut. She had to break it. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

  Alex finally sipped her coffee. “More for you than for us, I suspect. What I said still holds, we’re in this together. You’ve proven your loyalty. Can you keep the other personality under control?”

  “Yes. Of course I can,” Mandy said with more confidence than she felt.

  “Lying doesn’t become you,” Rin murmured.

  “Someone will be looking for her,” Bailey mumbled and covered her mouth again. “Sorry. I was thinking aloud. They might be willing to help us.”

  Rin elbowed Mandy. “She means that they’ll look because you’re dangerous and expensive.”

  That thought was like free-falling. It was an obvious consequence of all this, which Mandy had never considered. Someone owns me.

  “What about the rest of all this?” Alex asked, nodding towards the window beside Mandy.

  Mandy followed Alex’s gaze and shivered as the mist washed over the city. “No one’s getting out of Artemis, are they? The machine told me that thing is called the Kinderen.”

  Bailey clasped her ring necklace until her knuckles turned white. “No. That can’t be right.”

  Mandy scanned the faces of each person in turn. “What? What are the Kinderen?”

  Alex frowned. “Even in your time, radio telescopes had detected hollow carbon spheres in nebulae. Those spheres are alien nanomechs. Hundreds of millions of years ago nebula were seeded with them. We don’t know why. They evolved into filter feeders, pack hunters, a whole ecology. Now every nebula has Kinderen.”

  “The space between the stars is littered with them as well,” Bailey said. “Some of the unseen matter that binds the galaxy together is actually Kinderen.”

  Cisco threw his hands up. “Yeah, but they’re only animals.”

  Alex swirled her cup. “That’s what we’ve always thought, but if they’re organized—if they’re attacking planets . . .”

  The cabin fell silent again. Rain started thumping against the windows and the roof.

  Bailey was still taking surreptitious glances at Mandy. What was that about?

  “What are we going to do?” Mandy asked.

  Alex stared at some point beyond the cabin. “I had considered going to Rhea. It’s the largest city on the continent and has a standing garrison, but I think we’ll go to Persephone’s Landing. It’s further away, but it’s an Orion naval base and the most heavily defended location on the planet.”

  Rin didn’t turn from the window. “It won’t be enough.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  R

  in tracked and categorized every sizable molecule out to the horizon. Her essence filled the Banded Canyon Travel Center, roamed its brick hallways, touched the surrounding woods and tasted the morning sunlight. She focused her attention into a human form and walked the green lawns. The Kinderen hadn’t followed, but it didn’t need to.

  As long as one of the nanomechs infecting Mandy remained, the Kinderen knew exactly where she was. It would be another sixteen minutes until Rin could complete the expulsion. The Kinderen would likely attack before then. She would.

  Rin closed her eyes as the calls started again. More pleading this time. She would answer, if only she could.

  Gravel crunched as the T30 entered the Travel Center parking lot. Its vacuum batteries were nearly depleted, forcing them to recharge. If the schedule held, in two hours they would be in Persephone’s Landing, and soon after Rin would complete the physical isolation of the portion of her mind where Mandy resided—effectively killing her.

  Rin hadn’t taken a life outside a simulation since she was seven. Her insides churned. Wasted emotion. Mandy was just an echo, not a real person, and weapons were meant to kill.

  The humans headed to the restrooms, while the T30 parked itself by the radiant power station. Mandy walked across the modified grass that never grew, but smelled freshly cut. She wandered rain-darkened paths through terrestrial gardens, touching the flowers and pausing at each historical plaque.

  Rin paced, while Mandy found a spot to sit in the shade of a red-leafed giant.

  Mandy patted the grass beside her. “Why don’t you sit by me?”

  Rin paused. She was not concentrated enough for Mandy to perceive.

  Mandy closed her eyes and let her head rest against the scaly tree trunk. “I can feel your tension and it’s giving me the jitters.”

  “Fine.” Rin formed an image in a sitting position beside Mandy while she continued to scan. Nothing.

  “How long does it take to empty a human anyway?”

  Mandy opened her eyes. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  A cool breeze rustled scarlet leaves and swayed branches.

  “Rin? I was wondering, how did they get here?”

  Rin hesitated for a moment. “The Kinderen? It was the final exam. Our small tactical battle group of Mobius ships against an EC main battle fleet of ten thousand AI warships. If we were victorious, our classified program would go into full production. Admiral Pillado would gain rank and prestige.”

  “So, I’m some kind of spaceship?”

  “A warship. A Shatter-Master class heavy cruiser.”

  Mandy stared someplace beyond the woods. “That shadow above the library.”

  “Yes. Most of the time I’ve been here, the ship portion of me has been folded into the higher dimensions of the elsewhere. This human-shaped portion is call the avatar. It’s meant to interact with humans, putting them at ease and giving us some connection to people.”

  “That’s all kinds of awesome,” Mandy breathed. “I mean, if you think about it.”

  “I suppose,” Rin replied.

  Mandy shook herself. “Why can’t you see—because it’s normal to you? It’s all you’ve ever been. Sorry. I got sidetracked. So, the battle. It didn’t go so well.”

  “Obviously,” Rin snapped.

  Mandy shifted her body away.

  Rin’s cheeks warmed. Why did she feel like she should apologize? “We were victorious over the EC battle fleet. However, as we fought, millions of Kinderen surrounded us. They had never been aggressive. They attacked. Our munitions were depleted. The levels of dark energy drained. I detonated a protostar to cover our retreat. We linked dark energy capacitors and I swept the survivors here, to the furthest human outpost I could reach with the energy I had. My Jinx engine was damaged in the process.”

  Mandy sat silently for a moment. “But how did they get here?”

  Rin’s throat tightened and her voice went husky. “There were few of us left and no time. I got slo
ppy and brought some of the Kinderen debris here with us. That allowed them to trace us. They had never come to a planet. Never done a lot of things before this.”

  Mandy was silent for much longer this time. “This isn’t your fault.”

  Rin fidgeted with the cool grass. “Are you consoling me? Why would you show me any sympathy?”

  “Because you showed me some. Isn’t that how it’s done?”

  The humans gathered around the T30. Alex approached.

  “I didn’t want to hurt them,” Rin said. Why was that important?

  Mandy watched the swaying branches. “I know. You have hard choices to make. We’re at odds, but whatever happens, I want you to know that I don’t consider you my enemy.”

  Rin squirmed. Talking was dangerous. If she thought of Mandy as a person, it would make what she must do difficult. She got up. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Now what did I do?”

  “It’s not you. It’s me.”

  Mandy pouted and whispered. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  Rin frowned. “Be serious.”

  “Ready?” Alex asked as she walked beneath the tree’s shadow.

  “Yeah.” Mandy stood and dusted the loose grass off her butt.

  Dark energy rippled. Probabilities shifted behind them and caused the swaying rhythm of the branches to change ever so slightly. In a flicker, Rin turned visible and put herself between Mandy and the other ship. Razor knelt upside down on a branch a yard above, long raven hair cascaded down behind her.

  Alex grabbed for her HV3 pistol.

  Mandy was faster, laying her hand on top of Alex’s to keep the gun holstered. “Don’t make yourself a target.”

  Shadows from fluttering leaves played across the child’s face. She stood at the center of a vast web of quantum filaments that spread in all directions. This must be a central router for all the Kinderen on Demeter.

  A hollow formed in Rin’s chest, like her own personal black hole. “You’re dead. I saw it.”

  Razor clasped her hands. “Aw, I missed you too, Big Sis.”

  Rin trembled. She wanted to reach out, to touch her, but Razor had died in a black explosion when her probability capacitors ruptured during the battle. Rin clenched her fists. “Don’t mock her.”