by Tom Merritt
“It makes no sense,” Michael said.
“To you,” Dabashi said impatiently. “Speak it.”
“CIT32 Active, NYC acknowledge. Comm REQ.”
Dabashi nodded. “Very good.”
“Do you know what it means?” Michael asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Dabashi shook his head.
“I bled for that message. Tell me,” Michael demanded.
Dabashi raised his eyebrows. “I see. Too lazy to figure it out, I guess.” Dabashi chuckled and went over to a side table and poured out two drinks of werewater. Michael almost declined. He didn’t drink werewater and worried what it would do to him. But he took it graciously in the end. Dabashi toasted him. Michael took a small sip that burned his mouth.
“‘Cit32’ obviously means Citadel 32 or the Moon. ‘Cit32 Active’ means that the Citadel is active. Most likely, that means the machine, but if the machine is active, then people are too. ‘NYC acknowledge’ means they are asking for the New York Citadel to acknowledge the message. It was the customary way, in the Citadelian Age, to begin communication at a distance like this. ‘Comm REQ’ means communication requested. It means they aren’t just sending us a note, they want to talk in real time,” Dabashi took another sip. “That’s all. A big, long line of gibberish that means, ‘Hey, let’s chat.’”
“So,” Michael scowled, “how do we chat?”
Here Dabashi looked disappointed. “That is going to be difficult to do and keep secret. And even if it is possible, it’s dangerous. I’m afraid this is a situation come too early. My family did not expect our society to still be in this state at this point. I’m not sure we’re ready.”
Michael heard the doubt. “But we have to talk with them! They’re us. They survived. Think of all the knowledge and information they must have preserved.”
“Exactly, Michael. Think of all that knowledge in the hands of someone like Chao or Jackson. Can you say we’re ready, Michael? Can you?”
CHAPTER 18
Corge couldn’t relax, especially with Chi-lin there. He tried to focus on the machine, but he kept looking over his shoulder expecting to see Passives coming for him. Every time he did, he saw Chi-lin instead and then had a whole other panic attack as he tried to remind himself that she was not, in fact, breaking the law and risking their discovery.
It would take some getting used to.
He stared out toward the area where the Telfer tube let him out on the surface. It was no wonder the tube hadn’t been discovered. Dust covered it quickly with all the traffic in the area, and it was hidden in shadows anyway. Even a team that knew where it was needed him to come show them. He barely found it himself. The airlock cover seemed to disappear under the thinnest layer of anything.
“Corge, I know it’s fun to reminisce, but I’m getting hungry,” Chi-lin said through the com.
He laughed. “You can go without me Chi-lin. As much as my brain doesn’t want to believe it, I don’t think anyone’s after me.”
“Tell that to Ibrahima who will pass it along to the two guys who roughed you up in your bunk,” she answered.
“They didn’t rough me up.” He wished he had never mentioned it. In the two weeks since the incident, he hadn’t heard a peep out of the Passives. He decided to put all that out of his head and get back to the reason he was here. He actually got to investigate the entire machine interface this time, not just race to the send button. He was doing his job as an Observer. Ibrahima had hinted that a good report on this would make him a lock to become a Specialist in Observations.
He was capturing and documenting all the menu pages this time, hoping to recreate some kind of user manual. As he flipped back through the options to see if he missed any, he noticed a red indicator light in the messages menu. He was almost certain it hadn’t been there before.
He checked his portable. An image he had just captured of that screen showed no red marker. He wasn’t imagining it. Something had changed. He entered the messages section and let out a low whistle. Next to the menu item for receipts, he saw the number one. There was a message.
“Chi-lin!” he yelled. “You must see this!” She didn’t answer right away, but he couldn’t wait. He selected the menu item and there in the Receipts screen was the following: “CIT32 Message Op Rec’d NYC - 1528030476.”
The New York Citadel’s machine had received the message and an operator had authorized a return receipt. Corge didn’t care what kind of operator—human, mutant or robot—it was not an automatic response. Something down there had looked at the message and acknowledged it. He frantically rechecked to make sure a follow-up incoming message had not been received, but there was nothing there.
Still he let out a wild cry of “Whooop!” and turned to tell Chi-lin. She wasn’t there.
Instead, two figures in suits grabbed him and leaned in to touch their helmets to his. When they did, he noticed Chi-lin on the ground, motionless.
Their voices came through the helmets, not through the coms, weak and thin but menacing.
“You didn’t see anything, Corge. You got that?”
Corge didn’t say anything.
“It won’t be violence we use against you. You know that. But your hard-earned reputation will bleed away. Stories about your faults and fetishes will circulate. People always want to believe that heroes have a dark side. We’ll make yours very dark and very believable. You won’t make Specialist. You won’t stay a Generalist. You’ll be lucky to avoid Tender. Tell me you understand.”
“I do,” said Chi-lin’s voice over the coms. She had got up without any of them noticing and caught on to what was going on. “You’re unstable elements threatening the community. Even if you weren’t picking on one of my best friends in the whole station, I’d still want you busted down to Tender myself.”
Before Corge knew what happened, and before she had even finished her speech, the two men were on the ground and she had their hands behind their backs.
“Where did you learn that?” Corge asked.
“I failed out of Security, remember? I learned a few things there.”
“How did you hear them?”
“What do you mean, ‘how’? Through your com. I thought it was smart you left it on!”
Corge realized he’d flicked it on to tell Chi-lin the good news and never turned it back off.
“Yeah, exactly! Glad you picked up on that.”
Chi-lin laughed. “I’m an old hand at accidentally doing the right thing. Your secret’s safe with me. I already messaged for someone to help take these two off our hands. Are you done?”
Corge began to whoop again. “Oh man, you don’t even know yet. You are not going to believe this!”
CAPITULUM 12
Superior Murreket sat in the restaurant, a cup of something steaming in front of him as he reviewed some documents. He did not look up as Dabashi brought Michael in but merely waved for them to sit across the table from him.
“Superior Dabashi speaks well of you, Michael,” Murreket said without looking up from his documents.
“Uh, thank you,” Michael stammered.
Murreket looked up at Michael. “No need to thank me for his compliment. He has told you why you’re here?”
Michael opened his mouth, but the Superior didn’t give him the chance. “And you know the consequences if you speak of our meeting to anyone?”
Michael didn’t respond this time and Murreket glared. “Well?”
“Superior Dabashi told me that if anyone asked, I should say that he was introducing me to you as a potential scribe.”
Murreket nodded. “You’re right, Dabashi. He doesn’t appear to be much at first but he has a mind in him. Michael, what I’m about to tell you is dangerous for you to know. I would not burden you with it if it wasn’t necessary and if you weren’t already burdened with more dangerous information as it is.
“My family has guarded the annals of the ‘Delians for time out of mind. We jour
neyed on foot from Ellay, through the museum city of San Francisco, across the great mountains, through the museum cities of Salt Lake, Danver, Santlewis, Clevund and all the way here, gathering what we could preserve.
“Many know this, but most misunderstand. We hold information that points to other information that would help unlock the true knowledge many hope would return civilization to its proper state. Many within the hierarchy want it to stay lost. No, Michael, not like the Heretics do. Rather, they feel we would be better to relearn it all ourselves. Others wish to control it to gain power. Those are the ones who took you. They believe the machine holds that information. They believe if there are people on the Moon that they should be brought back to give us the information. None of that should happen. We cannot allow it.”
“Why?” Michael interrupted. Dabashi moved to chastise him, but Murreket raised a hand and an eyebrow simultaneously.
“It would be impudence if Michael did not know what he knows. But he does. Michael, the one principle my family knows directly is the principle of the ready society. When we, as a society, are capable of certain things and hold certain ideals in common, then we will be ready to restore the knowledge of the ‘Delian Age. We are not ready. Not yet.”
“So what do we do?” Michael asked. “Ignore the Moon?”
“For the moment, yes. What you have done has accelerated things a bit on their end, but we can maintain balance on ours. We have to let others here think the information has become irretrievable again. We have to let their agents see you destroy it. Or seem to.”
“Agents? Guteerez?”
Dabashi spoke up. “We don’t know. But we do know that what has played out in that room with the Sculpture has been discovered. Either it is monitored or Guteerez is their agent. Either way, he has to be dealt with, as he knows more than is good for him.”
“Superior Dabashi has a plan,” Murreket said. “Which I wholly endorse.”
It took some doing, but Dabashi convinced Michael to play along with the scheme. They confronted Guteerez in the Reliquary and ushered him into the Sculpture room where Dabashi closed and barred the door.
Michael thought Guteerez showed a hint of fear, but he mostly looked curious.
“Michael has done a stupid thing,” Dabashi declared, rounding on Guteerez then glaring at Michael.
“Whatever do you mean?” Guteerez protested. “Michael, is this true? What is it?”
“Tell him,” Dabashi commanded in a furious tone. If Michael didn’t know for sure this was the plan, he would have been convinced Dabashi wanted to kill him.
“I sent a receipt to the message.”
Guteerez’s eyes lit up at this. “So you decrypted the message!”
“No,” Michael lied. “I don’t know who it came from or why. I believe it may even be a bug. But I found the receipt menu and—I thought if I sent the receipt, they might send a response in clear text or something. I don’t know.”
“What if it’s wilderness people?” Dabashi yelled. “What if it’s Heretics, Michael?”
Guteerez looked thoroughly worried. “I’m sorry to say it, Michael, but he’s right. It very well could draw unwanted attention to the Sculpture and the Complex. Yes, the Heretics know where we are, but they don’t know we have a machine capable of signaling the Moon. If they did, it might stoke their fires to the level of days of old.”
“Shut it down,” Dabashi commanded.
Michael pleaded against the command and looked to Guteerez for help.
Guteerez just shook his head. “He’s right, Michael. We can’t risk it. Don’t worry. We won’t destroy the Sculpture. But I know you know how to disable it and you must do so. There can be no chance of another message slipping out or traced in any way by broadcasts or electrical usage. You can keep copies of the encrypted message and continue to work on it, of course.”
“No,” Dabashi snapped. “No records. No words. Nothing happened in here. He shuts it off. Guteerez, you and I make sure that antenna is sealed in for good and we speak no more of it ever.”
Guteerez sighed. “I suppose.”
This was too easy, Michael thought. He had expected Guteerez to put up a fight.
“Michael,” Guteerez laid a hand on the Monk’s shoulder. “It may have been wrong of us to let you keep at it, anyway. The forces that took you are known to me. Not by name but by their works. Had they known you made any progress, I can’t say they wouldn’t have tried again, and who knows what they would have done this time. Dabashi is hotheaded,” here he looked slightly chiding at his fellow Superior. “But he has the right idea usually. Can you promise to put this behind you? I know how it must break your heart. It was your life. But it may save your life to abandon it now. You were not wise to send that receipt.”
Michael felt that Guteerez was being honest. Whatever Dabashi suspected, and whatever secrets Guteerez hid, Michael found it hard to believe the Superior meant him any harm or could have had anything to do with the torture or kidnappings.
“You wanted this as much as me,” Michael said almost as a question.
A tear came to Guteerez’s eye. “Let’s just say another young Monk spent a lot of time in this room and never got near to the secrets you’ve uncovered. If that Monk could see you now, he would be overjoyed. A real smile came to Guteerez’s face.
Michael began to doubt. Was he doing the right thing? He still half suspected Guteerez was on the wrong side. How could he know for sure?
“You heard him,” Dabashi said, snapping Michael out of his reverie. “Shut it down and speak no more of it. If anyone were to ask, we will say it simply stopped working on its own. Such are the mysteries of the Citadelian Age.” It was a common enough occurrence with old things like this.
Michael slowly made the selections that leaked the power out of the machine. He felt the lack of its energy in the room. Dabashi climbed up on a chair and pulled out a vial of a thick, milky substance.
“Superior Guteerez, if you would be so kind as to grab that cloth over there and guard against spillage,” Dabashi asked in his polite voice reserved for fellow Superiors.
With Guteerez’s assistance, they used the substance to plug up the antenna hole.
“And that is that,” Dabashi said, wiping his hands on the cloth with a grim air of finality.
“But we know so much more than we did,” Guteerez said wistfully. “It’s a shame we can’t share it.”
“We know they’re there,” Michael said. Guteerez gave him a questioning look and Dabashi just looked away.
“We know they’re there,” they all repeated.
CHAPTER 19
It was a ceremony. More than a ceremony, it was a blasted party. Almost everyone in Armstrong who didn’t need to be inside the dome running the place gathered on the surface.
Serafina stood by the machine and blasted a message over the coms.
“This is an unusual use of surface resources today, as you all know.” No one sent their laughter back over the coms but the nodding and bobbing helmets made their reaction clear.
“But it’s an exceptional day. Against much undue resistance, and with a singleness of purpose, Specialist Corge successfully made contact with Earth and received a confirmation that the message was received. While we have not received a further response, the Assembly has unanimously authorized another message to be sent in clear text.
“We don’t know what the state of the people in the New York Citadel is, or even if they are people. Possibly they could not encrypt our first message. With that in mind, our unencrypted message will read as follows. Corge?”
Corge switched on his com and his voice shook as he read. “Attention Earth, this is Moon Base Armstrong. We are alive. Please respond. Armstrong out.”
A silent wave of clapping reached Corge’s eyes, and he nodded. Serafina said nothing more but waved him back to the machine.
Corge approached and went through the same procedure he’d gone through when he sent the first message, this time turning
off encryption.
However, when he got to the transmission screen, he received a punch in the gut. A red error warning existed where the transmission details should have been. Before, the NYC machine was listed as a destination. Now it gave him nothing. He tried several alternate ways, but they all read the same.
Finally he made it to a status screen he hadn’t explored before and saw the code “NYC - Offline.” He pounded a fist on the machine. He tried several other ways to get to a transmission screen but found nothing. From what he had learned, this meant someone, or something, had turned off the New York machine. It hadn’t been damaged. He was certain. That was a different code. This was voluntary shut off. They’d received his message and their response was to turn the thing off? Had he scared them? How was that possible? He’d sent the simplest of machine messages. And yet he had tried everything. There was no way to escape it. New York didn’t want to talk right now. He almost collapsed onto the machine when he remembered that most of Armstrong was watching.
He turned and saw them standing silently. Waiting. He couldn’t see expressions. He couldn’t tell their attitude. All helmets were turned toward him. Serafina, who was closest, just motioned toward her com button and pointed at him. This was his job.
He took a deep breath and pressed the button. “I’m sorry, everyone. The machine says NYC is offline. Maybe they had a malfunction and had to turn the machine off to repair it. But there’s no doubt they turned it off. They got our message. Then they turned off their machine for some reason. I—” his throat caught. He could not let himself break down now. He had to take responsibility. What had they done? “I’m so sorry. There won’t be any communication with Earth. Not today.” He hung his helmet.
“It’s OK,” Serafina said, broadcasting to everyone. “We’ll keep monitoring. Keep listening.” Other helmets hung in sorrow and solidarity. No one spoke, but everyone moved forward. Corge thought they might try to rush him. His gut knotted up at the memory of the attack at his bunk.