by Al Robertson
He smiled weakly. ‘Well, here goes.’ He closed his eyes, held his breath and stabbed down on the shark icon.
His nerves were infectious. Leila found herself wondering what she’d do if some broken, ancient piece of code lanced out of the shark and into her mind, and started rewriting it. Memories of the Blood and Flesh plague shook through her. Something close to panic rose up. She forced the past back down again, but still started as the shark lanced into being in the glass coffin. Its eyes were misted with weaveware. The rest was hard and sharp, distilled by aeons into lethal perfection.
She looked to Ambrose. ‘All right?’ Fear scratched at her. She hoped his silver shields wouldn’t leap up around him.
A moment, then Ambrose breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Yes. Thank the gods.’
Leila relaxed. ‘Thank you. I really appreciate this. Dieter will too.’
‘I’d hate to lose him like we lost Cormac.’ Figures danced in the air between Ambrose and the shark. Leila moved round the tank, fascinated by the creature. ‘And to be honest it’s about time I faced up to it all,’ continued Ambrose. A nervous smile. ‘Can’t hide from the past. That’s not the Lazarus Crew way.’ The figures stilled, catching his attention. ‘Ah, great. It’s found traces of his passage through the weave. Regular stopping points. They moved him back into the Totality, then on from there.’ He peered at them. ‘Hmm, interesting – you said your Totality friend couldn’t find anything out about Deodatus?’
‘Cassiel? No. It’s driving her nuts.’
‘The trail leads back to an old Kingdom satellite. High Earth orbit. Vintage stuff, looks like it’s been unused for quite a while. Deodatus must be using it as an off-Station base. Should have been easy enough for her to track down, it’s not too deeply hidden. I wonder why she couldn’t see it?’
‘Holt tried to stop me from digging too deep,’ mused Leila. ‘Maybe they’ve been a bit more efficient with her. Hamstrung her without her even realising it.’
‘So the Totality isn’t as all-powerful as you’d think. That’s almost reassuring.’
A thought struck Leila. ‘This satellite. It’s the kind of place you used to explore with Dieter?’
‘Abandoned for centuries, weave content not fired up since who knows when, probably first built by one of the lost gods of the Pantheon? Yes, absolutely.’
‘Can we go there now? I mean – we’ve found him, and that’s great. But Dieter might not have much time left. Deodatus could be running him as a partial fetch. Breaking his memory structures. Or just deleting the bits of him it doesn’t need.’
Ambrose went pale. ‘That’s a lot to ask, Leila.’ His flask was in his hand again. The shark hung between them, radiating danger.
‘I know. I’m scared too. But I don’t want to lose Dieter.’
Ambrose put his face in his hand, hiding his eyes from her. ‘I can’t, Leila.’
‘You’ve got so much experience. Much more than Cassiel. We’re even wearing your old exploration gear. We can jump right there. I’m sure we’d be safe. If we can find out where Deodatus is holding him – it’d be such a big step.’
‘But Cormac…’
‘That was terrible,’ agreed Leila. ‘But the psychoactive tech hurt his family, not him. His defences worked.’
Ambrose didn’t reply.
‘I’ve seen broken people, Ambrose. I’ve been broken myself. I know how bad it is. I don’t want Dieter to end up like that. We’ve got to find him and bring him back.’
‘We should wait. Do some research. See what we can find out about this satellite.’
‘We don’t have time. Please.’ Ambrose turned away. ‘You said it was time to move on from the past. You were right.’ She thought of the Coffin Drives and the Fetch Counsellor, both asking for and offering help. ‘Perhaps it’s something we both need to do. For Dieter’s sake. Neither of us want to lose him.’
Ambrose gave a heavy sigh. ‘Oh, Leila. All right, I’ll take you there. And when we find Dieter I’m going to give him the most almighty bollocking for getting us into this.’
Leila smiled. ‘Yeah. Me too.’
Chapter 11
They jumped directly to the satellite. For a moment, there was darkness and an impression of great velocity. Then the world returned. Leila’s senses told her that they’d moved into a fully virtual environment. Understanding that helped her deal with the sudden, destabilising shock of the jump. This place is a simulation, she told herself. Of course we jumped. It’s the only way to get in here.
They were standing in a bland corridor, studded with round windows. Fluorescent tubes cast dead light down on beige walls and a soft, pale carpet. There was a door in front of them. It was made of dark, heavy wooden planks, criss-crossed with rivet-studded iron bands. An iron handle hung over a large, dark keyhole. A little wire mesh covered a square, eye-level window. The door represented a port into the satellite’s internal systems, the corridor behind them the digital trail they’d followed to step into them.
‘So Dieter’s weaveself stopped here?’
‘Yes,’ said Ambrose. ‘For half an hour or so.’ He looked back nervously. The corridor behind them was empty.
‘Worried that Deodatus will spot us?’ asked Leila. ‘And send some pressure men after us? It’d be nice to actually see one again. Maybe we could get him to answer some questions.’
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ chided Ambrose. ‘Anyway, that shouldn’t be a problem. The buffer selves should keep us hidden.’
‘Getting caught might actually make things easier. They could take us straight to the boss.’
‘No, Leila,’ Ambrose told her firmly. ‘The one thing we know for sure about Deodatus is that it’s very secretive. We really don’t want it to know how close we’re getting. It might take fright and hide itself properly. We’d be back to square one again.’
Leila glanced out of one of the windows. There was deep sea beyond, blacker than space. She imagined the search engine swimming through it. ‘Did the shark see the corridor?’ she asked.
‘Oh no. It doesn’t need it, the deeps are its natural home. The corridor’s just for us.’ He bent to examine the door. ‘This must be the entry point to the satellite’s internal systems.’ There was a hollow thud as he knocked his fist against it.
‘Can you open it?’
‘Let me activate my intrusion package…’
Leila smiled when it appeared. ‘Cute,’ she said.
The intrusion package was about the size of two clenched fists. A delicate little fringe waved around the sides and rear of its oval, neon-bright body. Finger-length tentacles reached out from the front of its head – two held straight up to scent the air, the other five drifting lazily on invisible data currents. Alert little eyes with black, w-shaped pupils sat on either side of a little skull bump.
‘It’s a cuttlefish,’ explained Ambrose. ‘Highly intelligent, a very delicate spatial manipulator and extremely sensitive to local stimuli.’ He touched two fingers to its straight tentacles. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while.’ Patterns of light pulsed across its skin. ‘So can you unlock the door for us, little fellow?’
The cuttlefish drifted down to the door handle and hung in front of it. Tentacles reached out and explored the keyhole. ‘I’d forgotten how fond I am of this little chap,’ Ambrose said.
Leila touched one of the iron bands. A shimmer rippled around her finger, then the illusion was whole again. She peered through the mesh. There was nothing but blackness on the other side. Water dripped, each drop calling up a tiny echo. A musty smell clogged her mind with thoughts of age and decay.
‘Seems pretty grim in there,’ she commented.
‘No updates for centuries,’ replied Ambrose, standing back up. ‘Dormant tech.’
‘How long’s it going to take?’ asked Leila.
Ambrose was looking
back down the corridor. ‘Nothing behind us.’ He peered out into the depths. ‘Nothing out there.’ He sounded worried.
The cuttlefish disengaged from the lock.
Ambrose tipped his head as if listening, then turned to Leila. ‘Well, it’s a tough one. The door only opens for certain specific weaveselves. The cuttlefish can unlock it, but it’s going to take some time.’
‘How long?’
Ambrose looked simultaneously embarrassed and relieved. ‘Er… not much more than a couple of weeks, usually…’ He looked back down the corridor again. ‘We shouldn’t linger here, Leila. We don’t know what might find us.’
‘Shit.’ Everything had been going so well. She’d been so sure they’d find Dieter straight away. Frustrated, she balled her hand into a fist and bought it down on the door. It shimmered again, for a moment wanting to be unreal.
‘Ambrose – this door. You said it opens for specific weaveselves?’
He turned back towards her. ‘Yes.’
‘Watch this.’ She knocked on the door. Her fist made no sound. The point where she touched it became for a second not quite present, then returned to full solidity. ‘You see?’
Ambrose was fascinated, fear vanishing as curiosity took over. ‘Do that again!’ Leila did, and the door wavered again. ‘You and Dieter share a lot of memories, don’t you?’ he asked.
Leila remembered lying next to Dieter when she was rebuilding herself. Her past was a confusion of unconnected moments. He’d shown her his version of it, and she’d used it as a roadmap to rebuild her own memory chains, pulling them all back into coherence. She’d even copied some of his memory blocks directly into her mind to replace ones she’d lost to the plague.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Far more than most people.’
‘It’s picking that up when you knock. It thinks you’re him and part opens. Then it runs a deeper scan, sees the full shape of your weaveself, realises you’re not and locks back up.’ He beamed, then started a detailed technical explanation of how he’d now be able to open the door in a couple of days.
Leila let him ramble on as she unhooked the necklace from round her neck. She held it up in front of him. He barely noticed. ‘Ambrose,’ she said, then again, more firmly: ‘Ambrose.’ He stopped talking, his eyes losing their distant focus and finding her again. ‘Look at this.’ She let the lightning bolt spin round. ‘It’s a three-dimensional representation of the shape of Dieter’s weaveself. Can the cuttlefish use it to make a key?’
‘Oh! Oh yes, yes, I think it can! You knock, the door queries, we show it this – and bingo!’
Tentacles reached for the pendant. Leila watched the cuttlefish analyse it. She was surprised at how much she felt the pendant’s absence. She hadn’t taken it off since she’d created it. After a couple of minutes the pendant dropped to the floor. Ambrose scooped it up and passed it back to Leila.
The cuttlefish re-engaged with the lock as Leila slipped the pendant back on. Ambrose nodded and Leila touched the door. It shimmered again. The cuttlefish flickered, colours dancing across it. The shimmer spread out across the whole of the door, then all of a sudden there was no door, only an archway giving on to an ancient passageway. Air heavy with damp and rot gusted out.
Ambrose gave a triumphant whoop. ‘Fantastic! And if they’ve got other locks that work like this, we’ll be able to walk straight through them. Well done!’
He looked overjoyed. There was no trace of fear. Leila imagined him as he must have been before Cormac’s tragedy, striding through the deep past with his two closest friends beside him. It was such a pleasure to see that side of him returning.
‘Come on,’ he said, stepping through the arch. The cuttlefish was already beyond it, a phosphorescent ghost hanging in the void. Ambrose reached into his pocket and pulled out two torches. ‘Everything’s very old through here,’ he told Leila. ‘Decayed, unpredictable. So we’re not going to run a full simulation of it.’ He clicked his torch on. A yellow circle of light danced across damp stone floors, crumbling brick walls. ‘These let us look at it in a much simpler way. We can still see where we’re going and we’ll be a lot less likely to trigger anything nasty.’
‘Why would Deodatus use this place?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps because it’s so out of the way. Maybe this is camouflage and it’ll all get a bit more up to date further on.’
The corridor was long, straight and low. There were no more doors. Every so often they passed pointed arches carved into the walls, framing darkness. Leila shone her torch into the first few, wondering if they were doors, but the light only showed more brickwork. ‘Broken links,’ commented Ambrose. ‘Would have led somewhere once. Not anymore.’ The damp stones were hard beneath Leila’s feet and the cold, still air chilled her. It was like walking through a tomb. Neither of them said much. Every so often, Leila looked back. Their silver cords led away into the gloom, reassuring links back to the known.
The corridor ended in another pointed arch. This one was open. Leila stepped through it into a high, round room and shone her torch around. It was about fifteen metres across and twenty metres high. The round walls were punctured by three layers of high arched doorways, some bricked up, some full only of darkness. A dome rounded out the ceiling above them. A circular opening lay directly underneath it. The cuttlefish hung over it.
‘Is that where they took Dieter?’ she asked.
Ambrose nodded. But his attention was elsewhere. ‘Look at that,’ he breathed, staring up into the dome. Something gold gathered the light and glimmered it back at them. ‘Amazing…’
Leila looked up too. Her torch beam joined his. Definition blossomed, and she saw a stylised image of a young man. He was dressed in scarlet robes and held a pair of dividers and a laser stylus. His face was sketched out in gold. He sat against a dark background, pricked with golden stars. A logo that seemed to be based on the letter ‘M’ hung over his right shoulder.
‘Now that’s someone you don’t see much of anymore,’ said Ambrose. ‘He’s one of the original Pantheon gods.’
‘Dieter used to talk about them.’ She gazed up at history. ‘It all seemed so distant. So irrelevant.’ She let herself drift for a moment, remembering her brother’s enthusiasm. ‘There were twelve, weren’t there? Back when we broke free from Earth?’
Ambrose nodded. ‘And now seven of them are gone.’
Leila remembered East, sitting on her bed, radiating power. It seemed impossible that an entity like her could ever fall. ‘How?’
‘Well, you saw how Kingdom went. The Totality moved in and took over most of his systems when his core was smashed. And you remember how Grey’s structure decayed while he slept – his corporate body torn apart, limbs scattered around Station, because there was nothing left to hold them together. The rest went the same way, strong-armed out of existence. Aggressive takeovers, mostly.’ He looked back up at the dome. ‘Kingdom seized this one. He was always pretty ambitious. If Jack Forster and Hugo Fist hadn’t done their thing, he’d have taken two more gods by now – he was pretty much running Grey’s legacy systems and he was winding up to absorb Sandal too.’
‘I never knew.’
‘The gods don’t like us to. They want to seem eternal and unchanging. So they don’t mention it, they just rebrand and let us forget. And we do, far too easily. The truth of the past disappears. People like us know, but nobody else really cares about it all. Which, if you ask me, is a crying shame.’
‘So who was this guy?’
‘A god of construction and heavy engineering,’ said Ambrose, reverence filling his voice. ‘He built the out-system hubs. Farafra Station, Siwa Station, everything around and beyond them. All down to him. Then Kingdom took him over. Took the credit for it all.’
‘What was he called?’
‘Mikhail.’
The name hung in the air. For a moment, it reverberated as an e
cho, and then it became something more as the gold lines that defined the image of Mikhail blazed into life. They became a kind of fire, hanging at the heart of the dome, and then the stars around him caught fire too. The fire leapt out, dancing across the whole of the dome. It was like a slow, silent explosion.
‘That’s beautiful,’ breathed Leila.
It kept spreading, raining down from the ceiling to fill the whole room, falling against the arches so that one by one they lit up too. The cuttlefish drifted upwards, tentacles fanned out. Ambrose’s face was suffused with joy.
‘His brand iconography’s booting up,’ he whispered back. ‘This is original stuff.’ He concentrated for a moment. ‘Six hundred years old, according to the date stamp. Almost as old as the box. We’re definitely on the right track!’
‘Are we safe?’ asked Leila.
‘Oh yes,’ replied Ambrose. ‘This is drawing on a local server. It’s not trying to make any wider connections. And my defences have already checked it out. There’s no malware hidden within it.’ He gestured towards the cuttlefish. ‘It’s keeping an eye out. Just in case.’
Then the music began. First there was one voice, then three or four, then perhaps a dozen. They twined in and out of each other, hushing and then building up again in increasingly powerful crescendos. Their soft, intricate interplay spoke of harmony and order, of logic and reason, of group structures that were so much richer than anything any one person could ever achieve. The choir sang out in increasingly powerful pulses, as more and more voices joined in and the song grew to both describe and embody vast human achievements. Chasing melodies through it, Leila found visions of great engineering projects shifting and evolving in her mind’s eye. They grew in scale until they showed her a series of physical platforms for one vast, harmonious society, stretched out across the whole of the Solar System, glowing with brilliant, endlessly sustainable life.
At last the music pulsed to a final climax. The room was all fire now. Wonder filled Leila. Mikhail was something entirely new to her. His branding had never been used to sell her anything, to force her to acknowledge achievements that the reality of her life denied. She had never experienced it as propaganda, so she was free to enjoy it as a piece of pure art. The vision of ordered, harmonious, immortal structure it shared was intoxicating. But it was tragic, too, because all that Leila knew of Mikhail was that he was gone and completely forgotten.