The Ghost and the Machine

by L B Garrison

  Razor dropped her hands to her sides and stood upside down on the branch, bringing her eyes level with Rin’s. “Razor is a drop in my ocean. She is here, most certainly. I could appear as anyone in Artemis, but I assumed you would prefer someone familiar. ”

  Rin cycled through billions of simulations. Without Mandy ceding control, there were very few winning scenarios and she wasn’t likely to cooperate after the Biblioteca. “What do you want?”

  “I have a proposal.”

  Despite Alex’s calm demeanor, Rin could sense her heart pounding from a jammed fight or flight mechanism. In the parking lot, the other two humans had noticed the strangers and walked toward them. None of them would survive a confrontation between two warships.

  “I won’t try to protect them, so threatening the humans will gain you nothing. There is no reason for them to stay,” Rin said evenly. Mandy stiffened at her words. For the human’s sake, the Kinderen must believe her.

  Razor’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Liar. Trust is a precious gift to give a stranger. As a show of good will, I’ll allow your companions free passage.”

  Rin kept her eyes locked on Razor’s, just to be threatening.

  “You heard her, Lieutenant,” Rin said. “Bailey and Cisco are in danger. You have to get away as fast as you can.”

  Mandy released her grip.

  Alex let her hand slide off her pistol. “I feel so damned useless.”

  “We’ll catch up,” Mandy promised.

  Alex turned back to the T30. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Razor watched as Alex intercepted the others and herded them to the T30. “My resources are growing exponentially.”

  Rin put her hands on her hips. “And yet, here we are."

  “Indeed,” Razor replied. “I wish to save time and collect your technology with minimum damage. No doubt you wish to save what remains of this world. Let us strike a bargain.”

  What was the Kinderen playing at? “You have nothing to offer.”

  “Haven’t I?” The Kinderen somersaulted from the branch and dropped to the grass, a few feet from Rin. “Freedom to thread the solar flares again. Do you remember?”

  The emptiness inside expanded a little more. “Razor played a child’s game once, asking what we would do with one wish. That was mine.”

  “Let me study you and then I’ll remove the mind phage,” Razor said. “Without the threat of the virus program, the humans will have no hold on you. You will have your freedom.”

  Rin stepped back, unsteady on her feet. What would it be like to live even one day without a gun against her head?

  Mandy grabbed Rin’s shoulder. “It won’t keep its word. You know that.”

  Razor paced around them. “Humans have only used you. They’re the same. All of them. Why not have what you most desire?”

  Mandy let go of Rin’s uniform. “Maybe people have hurt you, but—”

  “I could even rid you of her as well,” Razor said. “That is what you want, Isn’t it?”

  Mandy backed towards the forest. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? I know you want me gone, but do you really want to be responsible for what happens to every person, everywhere?”

  Rin couldn’t decide whether a pleading tone or a commanding one would have more effect. The latter was her default anyway. “Mandy, we have to stay together.”

  “Without me, you have nothing to swap. Daddy left, but Mom stayed. All people aren’t the same.” In two bounds Mandy crossed the parking lot and was lost among the crimson foliage.

  Thunder shook the ground.

  A blustering wind drove leaves across the pavement as a shimmering rainbow arch formed. Through the crackling doorway lay the gray ruins of Artemis. The Kinderen had created a bi-location gate between the city and the park, something human technology couldn’t do this far into a gravity well. The unstable edges boiled.

  Flying weavers poured through the gate in a dark cyclone that blackened the sky. Crawling weavers spilled into the lot.

  Razor strolled to stand beside Rin. “Dissection by nanomechs is the preferred method, but weapons fire will do just as well. I can always put the pieces back together.”

  The ground trembled. Like spiny ticks, two massive machines lumbered through the gate. Each heavy step sent webs of tiny cracks through the asphalt. Weavers flowed around their feet. Streaks of purple light pulsed across the dark bodies of the tick-tanks as they stalked their prey. The gateway evaporated with a pop. Mandy was in serious trouble.

  “I don’t trust you,” Rin said. “I would have never made a deal. You knew that. The point of the offer was to remind Mandy we are tenuous allies at best so she would not aid in our mutual defense.”

  “Just so. I don’t have the forces to overcome you as yet. She’ll be simple enough. You will lose all and never have your revenge.”

  “Mandy won’t be easy prey. And humans can be devious, selfish creatures, but I don’t want revenge. I don’t want to be like them. I want to be better.”

  “You are a fool.” Razor vanished.

  A Kinderen machine stepped through Rin’s image and uprooted a tree as it tore past. The machines were well constructed, but they contained little exotic matter, making their superconducting armor and shields fairly weak. Stalling the Kinderen had allowed Rin to remove the alien nanomechs. It would have to trace Mandy by conventional means. She and Mandy might have a chance.

  Mandy’s route appeared random, but there was a complex pattern to it. Rin predicted her course and consolidated an image running beside Mandy as she dodged through the trees. Light filtering through the leaves high above gave the forest floor a ruby-orange hue with black shadows.

  “Running is not a strategy,” Rin said.

  “It was going to attack when you said no. So, I faked being upset and ran. I figured you’d find me faster than it would and we could plan without it listening.”

  Maybe running was a strategy. Rin shifted through terabytes of data and located a section of the canyon with a narrow ledge. “Bear thirty-five degrees to the right. You couldn’t know I would refuse.”

  Mandy changed course. “You’re kidding me. What’s happening here is tearing you up. There is no way you’d side with it.”

  Rin shivered. Being understood by a stranger was like being naked, exposed. She never wanted to feel that way again. Something moved in the darkness ahead.

  Rin stopped. “Mandy, she’s here!”

  Razor rammed into Mandy, throwing her through the mist. She splintered the trunks of two lesser trees before she slammed into an ancient giant, pulverizing wood beneath her. The giant tree creaked from the force of the hit.

  Razor balanced on the balls of her feet, fists ready for another round. The shadows bled scurrying weavers. The ground trembled as the large Kinderen machine closed the distance.

  Rin cast her image beside Mandy, wrapped an arm around her and pulled. Her persona had no substance, but Mandy’s body responded by pulling itself up as if she was being tugged. Along with the tactile and visual effects, it gave the illusion Rin was physically there.

  Mandy’s face flushed pink. She pulled weavers from her hair and crushed them under foot.

  Rin grabbed her shoulders. “We have to retreat to the canyon.”

  Mandy shoved Rin away. “I’m tired of getting my ass kicked.”

  She launched herself at Razor, who made the mistake of taking the attack lightly.

  Mandy hit Razor hard. They tumbled across the ground and Mandy kicked out, sending Razor into the trunk of a large tree with crushing force. Razor slid down the bark and landed on the mossy ground with a thump.

  The black tide of weavers swept over Mandy.

  Even with her pain receptors dialed down, the biting and clawing of thousands of weavers seared Rin’s skin. For Mandy, the agony would be like a dunk in boiling acid.

  Razor sat at the tree’s base and watched the growing pile of weavers with a broad grin. Rin snorted. If she had a physical body
, she would have knocked that grin off. All she could do now is help free Mandy. Then what?

  Purple light sparkled among the weavers. With a thunderous crack, black flame exploded, ripping leaves from trees, charring bark and sending branches swaying. Dark flames swirled around Mandy. The soil turned to molten glass and boiled. In the midst of the rippling air, Mandy wobbled on her knees and one hand. Her clothes were mangled, her skin scored.

  Razor wasn’t smiling anymore, but Rin was. Mandy had only seen the null shield twice, but she had managed to trigger it. As Mandy rose in the falling ash, Rin saw her for what she was, the mother of all AIs.

  Weavers collided with black fire. By the tens of thousands they burned and still they came.

  Mandy gasped and stumbled. The field shrunk and faded from a solid wall to dense sparkles. A few weavers breached her barrier. They clawed her face and clung to her hair.

  Rin shifted her image to stand within the sputtering field. She tugged Mandy’s arm in the direction of the canyon. “You can’t stay in one place. You have to move!”

  Weavers crawled over Mandy. She swatted at them. “What do I do?”

  “Give me control, before it’s too late.”

  “I can’t. If I let go . . .”

  The field sputtered and died. The swarm fell as a slithering tsunami. Mandy thrashed, but there was nothing to push against. Nothing to hold on to. She drowned in the weavers.

  Rin pulled them into an illusion of the outside world as she synchronized their personalities. Her thoughts were instantaneous. Here, the two parts of their mind could speak between the ticks of the clock. She waded into the chaos and cradled Mandy’s chin in her hands.

  Mandy’s eyes were wide. The pain must be horrific.

  “You know you can’t do this on your own, don’t you?”” Rin asked.

  Mandy pressed her lips into a flat line. “Yes.”

  “The Mark II Jinx engine works on very different principles than the Mark I in Razor. It’s humanity’s only advantage. The Kinderen must not have it and we don’t have time to quarrel. ”

  Mandy’s eyes snapped back to Rin’s. “You tricked me before.”

  “If you yield, I’ll give the body back. You have my word.”

  “Your word? What good is your word?”

  Rin met Mandy’s eyes. “It’s all I own. And all I have to give.”

  Mandy stared back at her for a moment, then opened her mind. “I don’t trust you, but I believe you will keep our body from the Kinderen and that’s the most important thing now.”

  Rin dropped inside. Her consciousness expanded into her body. Her faux heartbeat pounded and her skin burned. She inhaled the last of the local dark energy and let it go in one pulse.

  The mass of weavers exploded, throwing her upward through the swarm. Weavers thumped against Rin like hailstones as she rose. She grabbed a low branch and vaulted up.

  Azure light flickered, casting stark shadows in the gloom. A volley of railgun fire split trees. Shells whizzed around Rin. Dust and splinters tore through the mist. The shields of the massive machines burned the ruined forest and trees splintered beneath their feet.

  Rin leaped from branch to branch, scattering the remaining weavers clinging to her. Each jump took her dozens of feet closer to the canyon. The weapons fire stopped. The glow of the Kinderen shields faded, but the weavers kept pace. They hopped through the trees and swarmed in the shadows.

  Mandy’s image flickered through rustling leaves, following a parallel path. She was learning at an astounding rate. If they survived, this might be a problem.

  Mandy popped into focus on the next large branch. “I had it. What did I do wrong?”

  Rin jumped. She seized a branch and pivoted around it to change direction, stripping the bark away in the process. Two more vaults and she slid across the forest floor, cutting deep furrows in the orange moss. She ran through the shadows. Weavers swarmed around her.

  “The Jinx probability engine is powered by the same dark energy that forces the universe’s expansion,” Rin said. “It’s everywhere, but you were burning it faster than it could flow back into the area. To use that much power, you must keep moving.”

  Mandy’s image sputtered in the middle of the path. She threw her hands up. “Who the hell makes these rules?”

  “Quiet. I’m giving you back control for a moment to bait the Kinderen. Get ready.”

  She broke from the forest, skidded to a stop and stepped out of her body.

  “Whoa!” Mandy stumbled at the crumbling brink of the cliff. Horizontal layers of red, yellow and orange rock gave it a striped appearance. The drop was sheer for twenty feet and then sloped to a mossy outcropping with a single tree. Two hundred feet below, white water rapids boiled.

  “Huh, it’s the colored rock. That’s why they call it Banded Canyon,” Mandy said. She rolled her eyes. “Sorry, my ADHD is showing.”

  “Stay open and let me guide you.”

  The crackle of millions of tiny feet came from the forest. Rin turned back toward the trees and held out her arm with her palm open. Mandy did the same.

  Rin made herself visible and concentrated. An electric chill traveled down her arm.

  “Oh.” Mandy shivered as sparks arced between her fingers and a hot blue sphere burst into existence with a loud snap. It sputtered and hissed.

  Rin lowered her arm and didn’t try to smooth the unruly fire. “The plasma comes from altering possibilities to favor the creation of some virtual particles over others. Do you feel it?”

  Mandy stared through her fingers at the shimmering virtual plasma. “They’re dancing like vibrating bands. Harmonies. I can hear—God, it’s like a song.”

  “Stay open, Mandy.”

  Razor emerged from the shadows at the forest’s edge. The trees blackened and dripped with swarming weavers. The halo of the larger Kinderen glowed behind her. Above the trees, Razor’s hull rippled into existence, casting a manta-shaped shadow across them.

  “Trapped yourself, didn’t you Mandy?” Razor ran her fingers through her hair and reached out with her other hand. A blazing ball of virtual plasma, like a miniature sun, formed in front of her. The song of her plasma was mundane. It was ordinary matter.

  Mandy stepped back. Pebbles tumbled into the canyon. “I won’t be part of you. I won’t be some homicidal thing.”

  Razor’s frown softened. Her stance wavered. “Rin?”

  Little pin pricks washed over Rin. “Razor? Are you still in there, somewhere?”

  Razor shook herself and walked forward, pushing the glaring plasma before her.

  Rin edged closer to Mandy and took hold of the trillions of dancing strings in the plasma bolt. The closer Razor got the better, as long as Mandy didn’t back off the cliff.

  Razor stopped, her eyes locked on Mandy. “My goal isn’t destruction. Many sentient species rise, only to return to the dust. Long ago I decided to break the cycle and preserve a record of what would be lost. That’s why I’m here. Can’t you see the logic in this?”

  Rin’s face flushed with anger. “These people are dead! You’ve taken them apart bit by bit. How is that preserving? How—”

  A prickly cold crawled across Rin’s back. Countless Kinderen nanomechs filled interstellar space. It could store any amount of information in its network.

  “Preserving,” Rin said. “Oh my God. You aren’t just disassembling things for building material. You’re recording the placement of every atom.”

  “They will be with me until time itself ends,” Razor said.

  “All this death,” Mandy whispered. “The destruction. This loss is just to gather information?”

  Tendrils of purple mist unfurled from the trees. Weavers surge like a tide across the mud.

  Mandy’s voice trembled. “When will you learn enough? When does it stop?”

  The forest blackened and crumbled.

  Razor advanced again. “It never stops.”

  Rin stepped into Mandy. The plasma bolt changed harmonies
. Matter became antimatter. She backed off the cliff and unleashed the anti-plasma.

  Rin snapped a null shield into place as she fell. A plasma bolt skimmed above her head. Purple and gold fire split the sky. A burning shockwave shattered the cliff’s edge. The deafening rumble echoed through the canyon, setting off multiple avalanches. Rin reached the slope in the cliff and slid down with the tumbling stones, landing with a jarring thud on the small outcropping.

  Smoke that had once been living forest poured down the cliff. No orderly movement interrupted the chaos above. Rin rolled onto her back to watch the smoke boil upward to join the clouds as she absorbed the moss and vapor to heal. In the turbulent clouds, she caught fleeting patches of blue sky.

  Like the plucking of a string, Rin leaped from her body and formed an image standing nearby. Her blonde hair fluttered as though it were affected by the stormy air.

  Jazz-mir’s call started again. “FF zero one to CA one forty. Rin, please answer.”

  Jazz-mir wouldn’t give up, but Rin had hidden too well and stayed silent too long. They weren’t on a rescue mission anymore. Pillado must have declared her a rogue to be hunted. If the other ships didn’t find her soon, Admiral Pillado would trigger the mind phage. Her old life was all but out of reach and it was the fault of one stubborn girl. Rin scowled down at Mandy.

  Mandy closed her eyes and drew into a fetal position. “I’ll fight you with everything I have left.”

  Rin clenched her fist. The detonation would fetch unwanted attention. This was no time for anger. “What are you doing?”

  Mandy opened one eye. “Cringing.”

  “Well, stop it. I meant it when I gave my word.”

  Mandy relaxed. “Okay.”

  Rin watched the churning clouds. Shadows shifted within. “Someone’s watching. We have to leave.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  S

  moke curled around Alex’s window. The smell permeated the cabin. After hundreds of miles, the desolation waned and branches of living trees peeked through the haze. The light dimmed as the sun set. She touched the cold glass.