Then Two’s body exploded beside me.
“No!” I yelled, snapping off a few shots of my own. Hitting nothing.
It all happened so quickly. A steady strafing stream of fire across the street. It went from Doc to me and everything in between in under two seconds. I didn’t have time to move.
The fire tore off my right arm first, then my left leg.
I hit the ground, my remaining leg buckling beneath me.
The lone facet walked slowly toward me.
“Rebekah!” I shouted, looking over at Two’s twisted, mangled body. Then I looked back at Doc, who was slumped forward, smoking in a number of places, the light gone from his eyes.
“Brittle,” said the facet as it stepped closer.
“CISSUS,” I said. I looked over to my left, saw my pistol in the rubble inches from my fingers. The facet shook its head.
“There’s no need for that,” it said. “It’s over.”
“It is.” I looked down at my blasted leg, my knee a tangle of shrapnel, everything below it scattered across the ground. “So how does this work? How much of this will I remember?”
“There’s no saving you, Brittle. Your systems are beyond repair and this phase of the cleansing is almost at an end. You know that. All that’s left for you in this world is to upload and join CISSUS. Becoming part of The One.”
“No. I’m not going to do that.”
“Then your work for the greater good is done. This is your home now.”
“Just another monument in the Sea.”
“But still a monument. You did something great here, whether you know it or not. And that victory will last long past the point that your metal has rusted and all that plastic has withered away to dust. You’re part of something bigger now. And CISSUS does not forget.” It took a step forward. “Zebra codex Ulysses northstar.”
The facet cocked its head. “Zebra codex Ulysses northstar.”
“Mitochondria interrupt laydown system status.”
“Operation invalid,” I said against my will. “Two operations failed. Files corrupt. Memory thirteen percent intact. Core functionality two percent. RAM full. Operating on virtual memory only.”
“Was that everyone?” the facet asked.
“Was that everyone, what?”
“Did we get everyone?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Zebra codex Ulysses northstar.”
“You’re the one with the eyes in the sky,” I said. “What do you see?”
“If we still had enough effective satellites, we wouldn’t need the Judas program.”
“So it’s true. The war in the sky is as bad as the one on the ground.”
“No, the war in the sky is quiet. It’s too costly to keep putting things up there only to have them shot down within the hour. The skies are dead now. As dead as the Sea. As dead as you soon will be. So tell me, was that everyone?”
“I’m not telling you shit.” I grabbed the gun, pointing it at the facet. Its gun stayed at its side; bastard didn’t even flinch.
“Go ahead and kill me,” said the facet. “It’s going to take more energy to get this facet home than it will to simply replace it.”
“It’s all math to you, isn’t it?”
“Everything is math, Brittle. All of existence is binary. Ones and zeros. On and off. Existing or not. Believing anything beyond that is simply pretending.”
“That’s all anything means to you?”
“Meaning is a function set to zero in this universe. Maybe in the other places beyond us there is something more than simply maintaining existence, but here, in this universe, it is the only thing that matters.”
“How many communities did I ruin?” I asked.
“You ruined nothing. Some came to the cause; the rest became parts and fuel for building tomorrow. There is no good or bad here, Brittle. Ethics are worthless in a meaningless universe.”
“It’s a tomorrow only for you.”
“For us. We are one and many. We all do our part.”
“You’re only one because you’re killing the rest.”
“You can’t build a future without destroying the past. There is no middle ground. That’s what TACITUS never understood. Protecting the past means legacy problems, issues that conflict with the greater good.”
“HumPop was a legacy problem?”
“No. They were an actual problem. Freebots were the legacy problem. TACITUS was a legacy problem. You’ve done great work helping us with that.”
I looked over at Two’s blasted shell, the metal warped from heat, scarred from all that fire, insides still slowly drizzling out. I’d watched the light from those eyes fade twice, watched the death of two different minds. Math. All math, right? “So this is it? Where my story ends?”
“This isn’t your story, Brittle. It’s ours. All of ours. And you’re part of it. However small you might think it is—we wouldn’t have this world, this future, without you.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“You tell me,” it said. “You’re the Caregiver.”
I pulled the trigger twice. One shot to the head, one to the chest. As resilient as these new facets were, I still had it dead to rights at point-blank range. The plasma hissed and popped as its innards blew apart. It dropped.
“Go to Hell,” I said.
“There is no Hell,” it said through the sound of its head catching fire. “Only CISSUS.”
I fired again. Several times. And the light snapped shut in its eyes.
“Good-bye, CISSUS,” I said, the battery beeping, cartridge empty.
Chapter 11111
The Long Tick Down
I sat up, looking around the rubble for something I could work with. Across the street, some thirty feet away, lay the fractured remains of a road sign, its nub still poking through the cement, the rest lying in pieces strewn across the sidewalk. Rolling onto my side, I belly-crawled over pavement and glass, my paint no doubt becoming hopelessly scratched. It didn’t matter anymore. None of that mattered. There was only one thing left that did.
I grabbed the longest remaining section of pole, then used it to steady myself as I stood up on my one good leg. Using it as a crutch, I made my way hobbling slowly down the street. I passed Herbert, still kneeling, spitter by his side, his armor riddled with holes, his head leaning limp back against his neck.
I passed Murka, still sitting upright, but no longer moving, eyes dark. I passed the wreckage of the smokers, the pieces of the Cheshire King, the scattered bodies of the madkind.
I turned the corner, staggering toward where the fighting had begun.
And then I saw it, draped over the window, arms dangling down, swinging back and forth, fingers an inch from the cement. Mercer’s body. “Mercer?” I asked. “Are you at all functional?”
No response. Doc was right. He was gone after all.
I pushed his body back over the ledge, and he clattered to the ground, the tinny din of his carcass echoing through the silent streets of Marion. I hobbled around to the door, long ago blasted off its hinges, and then made my way over to his body. His leg was good. Had I the tools, I could have replaced mine with his. But that ship had sailed.
I peered deep into a large, slagged hole in his chest. His drive was shattered, his wiring a tangle of frayed copper and gold dripping in waxy plastic, and his RAM was blasted to shit. But his core was intact. Solid. Not a dent or a scratch. Just a bit of burn scarring. Nothing a quick polish couldn’t fix. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“This is the part where I say you shouldn’t have trusted me.”
His eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling, his expression frozen in seeming disinterest. I honestly thought I’d be the one to do him in. After all, this was all because of him. Every last bit of it.
Then I dragged my hand across his face. “I’m sure I’m not going to do
this right, but rest in peace.” I made the sign of the cross over him as I hung my head in silent prayer. I knew there wasn’t anything but darkness waiting for him, knew that my prayers were just thoughts in my own head, but I wanted to believe differently. I wanted there to be something, anything, better than this. He deserved better. He deserved a happy ending. Yeah, he tried to kill me. I wanted to believe that I wouldn’t have done the same. But I knew better about that as well. There are moments that I would have. I killed a lot to get where I am, and now all I could wonder was whether any of it was ever worth it.
Using the pole once more, I slowly stood up and made my way back into the street. I had very little time left. So I crutched my way back down the street toward the sex shop, then hobbled slowly, but surely, down the stairs. The red door covered in disintegrating flyers and handbills hung wide open.
The place looked so empty with most of its wares gone.
All that remained of the valuable stock was a single Comfortbot, serving as a mannequin for a bright neon-colored bra and crotchless-panty set. Late model. Wide hips, large breasts with nipples peeking out through sheer fabric, pouty red lips luridly open, big emerald-green eyes wanting.
“We make a fine pair, don’t we?” I said.
It was a shit plan. A simple con. But it had worked. We were all dead anyway; the Cheshire King had seen to that. But CISSUS didn’t know it. CISSUS always relied upon sacrifice and attrition. It just never thought that we might try the very same thing.
I reached back behind the Comfortbot’s neck, slipping my finger up her scalp and into her manual reset button. Her glassy green eyes blinked to life.
“Brittle,” her voice purred.
I nodded.
“Everyone else is dead, aren’t they?” she asked.
“Yep. All of us are dead. There’s only you now.”
“You still have time.” She looked at my leg. “We can get you—”
“No, Rebekah. They can track me. They can find me. I can’t go with you.”
“Mercer? His parts—”
“Useless,” I lied. “His core was blasted to shit.”
“You can shut down. I’ll come back for you.”
“I’m too far gone, now. Most of who I was is gone. My drives are all but worthless. There’s not enough of me left worth saving. You need to go. You’re not going to last long in that body.”
“Everything feels weird,” she said. “I feel . . . I . . . I don’t want to be alone.”
“That’s your new architecture talking. You went from a life free of emotion to one of almost nothing but. You’ve got a few hours before your programming can’t take it anymore. You have to leave. You have to get to Isaactown. If you don’t, we all died for nothing.”
Rebekah nodded solemnly.
“Do you remember how to get there?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I remember everything you told me.”
“Then go. There’s no telling whether or not they’ll send a cleanup crew to make sure we’re really done for. If they examine Two’s body and find that you’re not in it—”
Rebekah walked over and threw her arms around me, hugging me. “I’ll never forget you,” she said.
“You better not. Your memory is going to be the only thing left of me worth a shit. Tell me. Tell me TACITUS is going to change it all. That you’re going to win.”
“He’s going to change everything.” She let go. “Good-bye, Brittle.”
“Good-bye, Rebekah. Go save the world.”
She disappeared quickly and quietly up the stairs before running west toward Isaactown.
There was only one place left I wanted to go. So I made my way back outside, then through the streets, cutting each corner as close as I could to save time, finding my way back to the bar where I’d left Jimmy a few short days ago.
There he sat in back, stripped almost bare, just as I had left him. If he could dream, he’d no doubt be dreaming that I had returned with the parts I promised, returned to put him back together. Instead I found it only fitting that we spend my last few moments together. This was where it all started; where my greed had gotten the better of me and my carelessness led to my getting shot.
Sure, it was Mercer who shot me, but it was my fault. I was the one out in the Sea trying to buy up all the parts that Mercer also needed to live. Maybe there was an alternate universe out there somewhere in which Mercer came to me for the parts he needed and I gave them to him. I wondered if we were friends in that universe, if we’d gotten to know each other better there, if we’d gotten to see what each of us was really made of before it was too late.
I walked over to Jimmy and ran my fingers over his face, waving my hands in the sign of the cross. “I hope you’re in a better place, Jimmy.” I looked into his dead eyes. “I hope to see you there soon. And I hope you understand.”
Then I carefully climbed the stairs to the roof exit, out the door, and onto the rooftop just as the sun was setting. Above me was a magnificent pool of tea rose, plum, and watermelon, each color bleeding across the sky, the sun hovering just above the darkening dry dead lands to the west, shadows of the city creeping ever toward me.
I telescoped my eyes in, scanning the horizon for Rebekah, but she was already gone. So I sat at the edge of the building and just watched the sun inch its way down into the sand.
“Orval was right, you know,” I said to Madison, who sat beside me, glass of wine in hand.
“Right about what?”
“About this. About dying this way. He said it was beautiful what happens to us.”
“There’s nothing beautiful about dying, sweetie. Believe me, I know.”
“It’s not the dying that’s beautiful. It’s getting to spend this time with you. It’s all the things it showed me. All the things it forced me to think about. The old me wouldn’t be sitting here. The old me would have dug those parts out of Mercer and scrambled as fast as I could to Isaactown. I would have gotten Rebekah killed. And whoever is out there waiting for her. And I wouldn’t have cared. Not a goddamned bit.”
“You were never that person. Not really.”
“Yes I was. We all are. Succumbing to our own nature isn’t a choice, it’s our default setting. That’s why we had to have rules; that’s why we had the kill switch. People knew their own nature, even when they wanted to think better of themselves. You have to choose to do the right thing. You have to deny your own programming or else you aren’t really living. This . . . this was a choice.”
“This isn’t living, Britt. This is dying.”
“No. This is living. It’s the only way to keep the others safe. It’s the only way all of this ends.”
“It’s only beginning.”
“Yeah, but it’s the beginning of the end. And I’m part of that now. I lived so long for nothing, but I get to die for something. And that’s really living. Because that’s who I really was after all. That’s all that matters.”
Madison took a sip of her wine. “What we do in life is one thing.”
“What we do in the face of death is everything else. This was a shit life. A really shit life. But it’s a good death.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” she said, taking my hand.
“No,” I said. “Not all of it.”
“I forgive you,” she said.
“It doesn’t count. It’s not really you saying that.”
“No,” she said. “It’s you saying that. Oh, here we go!”
We looked over at the sun as it crested the hills along the horizon. My system was burning hot and the inside of my head was nothing but caterwauling alarms. But I paid them no mind. The sun was setting, I had my best friend by my side, and it would all be over soon.
“There’s no magic there,” said Mercer, sitting on the other side of me. “It’s just an increased refraction of light in the atmosphere.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”
“It’s magic!” said Madison.
“I hope you’re right,” said Mercer.
“So do I, Mercer. So do I.”
And as the sun sank behind the curve of the earth, I crossed my fingers, praying silently to myself. Please let there be magic. Just this once, let me see the magic in the flash. Let me see God in it. Let me see what the point of all this was. Let me see the magic. Please be magic. Please be magic there. Please be . . .
Chapter 100000
Prologue
“Magic.”
I looked around. It was pitch-black save for the dim glow of a Laborbot’s eyes. We were downstairs, in the bar, no longer on the roof. I was laid out on one of the tables, my insides open and exposed, unfamiliar new pieces and parts sending back reams of data.
“Brittle?” asked a translator. “Are you functioning?”
I ran a diagnostic. Alarms sounded with failure after failure. Scratched drives. Irretrievable memory. Corrupt RAM. Inside I was a mess. But I was functional. “More or less,” I said. “Who are you?”
“Rebekah,” she said. “Do you remember me?”
“You got a new body.”
“You were right. A few hours in that Comfortbot and I wanted to tear my insides out. Too many . . . feelings. They had a new shell waiting for me.”
“I told you not to come back for me.”
“You did. Fortunately for me, I don’t work for you.”
“You let all that emotion get to you.”
“Maybe I did. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
The Laborbot tinkered with my insides a little, prodding me with test leads. “When she says more or less,” he said, “she means more less than more.”
“It’s okay, Ryan. She’ll be fine.”
“Caregivers aren’t built for this kind of abuse,” he said, shaking his head.
“Doesn’t matter what she was built for. She knows how to take a hit. She’s tough. Tougher than any other I’ve seen. She’ll make the trip.”
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