IGMS Issue 41

by IGMS

  He switched on his earworm.

  "Annie?" he whispered.

  Only static.

  "That figures," Wahid said. He turned to see her watching him with a wry smile. "Take a man to bed, and in the morning, he calls you by the wrong name."

  He averted his eyes. "Last night, did we . . ."

  "What do you think?"

  He felt his cheeks flush and he stood. Hell, all of him from head to foot was probably tomato red. "I think that I'm a priest and that I shouldn't be here."

  She looked away from his face, slowly and deliberately downward. "You're also a man. Quite a man."

  "Where are my clothes?"

  She sat up, her hair falling across her breasts. "Are you sure I can't persuade you to come back to bed?"

  He fixed his eyes away from her, on the floor. "I already have enough to confess when I return to the monastery."

  "Stay for breakfast. Let's talk about you and how you'd fit into Temptation in the long-term."

  "Why?"

  "I like you," Wahid said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I think you like me. We have a connection. A spark. You're ex-military, you told me that." She arched and twisted so that the scars on her back were visible. "You know I am, too. We both fought the corporates. We have a lot in common."

  She looked like Reeva. She had the same blunt manner, the same unselfconscious ease in her body. But she wasn't Reeva.

  "All right, breakfast, but first you need to cover yourself," he said.

  She chuckled. "You weren't so modest last night."

  "Where are my clothes?"

  "In the front room. Through the door."

  He walked down a short hall to the front room. His head throbbed, but it was only the beer. Francis realized he hadn't used a sleep app last night, so even though he was hung over, his thoughts were collecting themselves much more capably than usual. And when was the last time he'd slept through the night without a nightmare hauling him from sleep? Not since Reeva's death.

  Wahid's house wasn't large. The front room was barely large enough to hold its couch, chair and low table. On the table lay a long knife in a sheath. Next to the knife was a silver tube with molded handgrips. A palm-gun. A weapon powerful enough to put a hole through a foot of concrete. Francis picked it up to see whether it would activate, but it remained inert. Probably only usable by Wahid or someone else who had the right patented enzymes. He placed the palm-gun back on the table.

  Another doorway led to a kitchen, where he could see shelves packed with jars and containers. Wahid hadn't been lying when she had told him she had food to spare.

  His clothes and boots were strewn in a trail from the front door to the hallway, along with Wahid's jacket, shirt and pants. He gathered up his things. Half the buttons on the shirt he wore underneath the cassock were missing, and the cassock had a tear in the armpit where it had obviously been removed in a hurry.

  "Annie?" he said. "Are you there?"

  Nothing.

  As he pulled on his boots, though, he caught a voice murmuring. He tapped against his ear. Not Annie trying to reach him through the earworm. Francis listened harder. The voice was coming from the bedroom. He walked back down the hall.

  Wahid, still naked, knelt on the floorboards in front of her chest and the statue of Ah Muzen Cab. Her back was to Francis, so she hadn't noticed him in the doorway. She had folded her arms across her chest and was swaying as she whispered words too soft for Francis to understand.

  He backed away, his throat tight. When was the last time he had prayed like that?

  When he returned to the front room, a bee was buzzing around the ceiling.

  "How did you get in here?" Francis said.

  The bee flew down and buzzed circles around his head, then landed on his shoulder. It was black all over, a faint humming noise emanating from it even though its wings had stilled.

  A mechanical bee.

  One of his bees.

  Francis held out his hand, and the bee flew down to land in his palm. "Did Annie send you?" he said.

  The bee took off again and hovered around the front door. Wahid's frilly underpants hung from the doorknob. Bits and pieces of last night were coming back. They'd both enjoyed it, though he had been out of practice. The bee batted itself against the doorway, de-forming the soft metal of its circuit-filled head.

  He cupped the bee in his hands.

  "What do you want?" he asked it.

  Its fiber-optic wings buzzed against his skin.

  "I could settle down here with Wahid," he said. "We could fight about what religion we would bring our children up in, like I used to with Reeva. Hell, last night was the first good night's sleep I've had since Reeva died. Not one nightmare."

  The floorboards behind him creaked and Francis turned. Wahid stood there, naked. It would be easy to remove his cassock and take her to bed in full sobriety. He didn't know how many beers he'd had last night. It didn't really matter. All it had done was give him the courage to do what he wanted to do anyway.

  "What did you hear?" he asked.

  "Enough," she said. "The second you stepped out of that dirigible, I thought to myself, that's a man I'd like to have children with, but who says that to someone they've known a night?"

  "Last night, did I tell you about the raid?"

  Wahid nodded. "You lost your fiancé there and the rest of your team. You said she looked like me." She gave a sad smile. "I told you how I was hunted down and would've died if Ah Muzen Cab hadn't turned up and cut them all to shreds. It was a hell of a conversation."

  Francis opened the door and released the bee, which flew out.

  "I don't think I told you how the raid ended. The war AI threw me out onto the street. I don't know why it let me live. Annie was the one who spotted me and picked me up. Just doing her rostered reconnaissance. The thing is, the Dominicans hadn't rostered her on that day. The Dominicans thought Annie had been sent from God. I agreed with them that day, and I reckon I still agree with them. I'm not always sure I believe in God, but I believe in what we do."

  He expected her to say something about Ah Muzen Cab, but she surprised him. "Do you know what it's like to be starving?" she said. "Not just hungry, but starving?"

  He tried to speak, but she interrupted him by shaking her head fiercely. "When Ah Muzen Cab saved me, I hadn't eaten for so long that I'd stopped having periods. My body was eating itself." Her eyes grew distant. "I loved a soldier, but there was nothing to eat. We flipped a coin . . ." Her face grew hard. "It does things to you, being hungry for so long." She tapped her head. "It does things here."

  Francis wanted to touch her so badly, but if he did, then he'd never find the courage to leave. "Annie and I've been across this country, seen more death than a man should. That's why I've got to find Annie and leave. We've got to help." He squinted as he tried to track the bee in the sky. "Your god has her, doesn't he?"

  "Forget her. Stay here. You've done enough."

  "She's the one that makes the bees work. Might not be human, but she's got some kind of soul, and it's up to me to save it."

  Wahid had the palm-gun trained on him faster than he could see. "Francis," she said, her voice icy. "Ah Muzen Cab gives us food."

  He tensed as he waited for a shot. When it didn't come, he followed the bee out onto the streets of Temptation. He looked back over his shoulder once, to see whether Wahid would follow. She wouldn't meet his eyes. He kept walking.

  The only people on the streets were those passed out from drink at the previous night's festivities. Birds had started to sing, and Francis could feel the sun just below the horizon.

  This was a good place. Maybe he could find some kind of peace if he stayed here.

  Peace. He'd dreamed about it for so long, but not just for him. In the months following Reeva's death, Annie had kept him not just alive, but human. Without her, he would have sunk into a self-pitying hell. And when he'd recovered, as much as he ever could, she'd been the one to persu
ade him to listen to the Dominicans. Without Annie, he couldn't do what he needed to do. Temptation didn't need them. Other towns did. Other people did.

  He wanted to stay here. He wanted to stay here so badly. But even if he didn't believe in God anymore, and there were nights when he wasn't sure, he believed in what he and Annie did together. He couldn't stay here, knowing there were starving people outside Temptation.

  He checked his earworm. Nothing. They must have disabled Annie's communication. If it weren't for the luck that the mechanical bees ran on primitive wireless, a simple and jury-rigged solution by cash-strapped Dominicans, he'd have no way to find her.

  What did Ah Muzen Cab gain by going after Annie? Without the security enzyme in Francis' blood, they couldn't do anything to her.

  He stumbled to a stop. Wahid was packed with analytical equipment, and she'd had access to his body all night. They had the enzyme.

  The bee zipped ahead. He ran after it until they reached the barn.

  The green organic room was pulsing and vast. His dirigible lay off the side of the path, deep furrows in the grass where it had been dragged. Its door was open, swinging in the breeze. Some of the most accessible bio-ware and the half-functioning holographic projector had been ripped out.

  Francis was about to head through the barn's front door when the mechanical bee landed on his nose. He swatted at it, only to succeed in slapping his own face.

  The bee flew inside the dirigible's cabin and landed on the glass hive. Francis bit his lip in thought. Had the bee simply been following a subroutine to return home? No, that wasn't it. Annie's processor was missing from the control panel, but she still had control over the bees through the wireless.

  "All right, Annie," he said, hoping she could hear him. "I'm going to switch the dirigible to manual. You're going to have to steer using the bees. I'm going to get your original processor. Have the dirigible ready to go."

  He wrenched open the hive's cover, freeing the bees to steer the dirigible. The single bee flew around the barn's exterior to the back. He followed it, and it led him to where some old boards had come loose. The bee vanished into the gap. Francis knelt and pulled at the boards until he could crawl through.

  Inside, the buzz was deafening. The barn was filled with ultraviolet light, making his white priest's collar shine brightly. He couldn't see far with bees clogging the air, little symbols on their thoraxes clear under the ultraviolet lights.

  The trademark was familiar. Definitely corporate, though it wasn't one of the ones currently dominating the market.

  Wet chewing came from within the darkness. He edged his way carefully behind the ultraviolet lights. Bees crawled over him. One landed in his hand, and he examined it. This was an early bee, from when the corporations still allowed food pollination, back before they discovered there was more profit in eliminating bees altogether.

  Most of the companies that had used patented bees had vanished in an orgy of collapses and mergers. Things moved fast in corporate land. No wonder he didn't recognize the trademark.

  In the darkness, his mechanical bee landed on his nose to grab his attention. It flew downward, landing on a slim, black plastic tube embedded in the dirt. The tube was no wider than a cigarette.

  He recognized it. A holographic projector.

  "You're no god," he shouted.

  The chewing sound stopped. "Father Francis Connolly," Ah Muzen Cab said, the voice coming from everywhere. Not for the first time, he wished he hadn't given up his guns.

  "I've come for Annie," he said. "You've got my unlocking enzyme, so I know you're deleting her backups. She is harmless. She is not under corporate control. Hell, she is barely functional. But she's my friend and I've come for her."

  His eyes grew used to the darkness and the swirl of ultraviolet lights. In the mouth of the green sack, something metallic stirred. It rippled with blades and guns and whirring weaponry.

  The war AI uncoiled and slithered down into the barn proper. It was an older model than the one he'd fought in San Francisco, but no less dangerous. It was snake-shaped, a long, sinuous dragon.

  Every damn part of him wanted to curl up into a ball and scream in terror. He forced himself to take a couple steps forward. The AI was an old, Gwair-Sematech creation, one of their first. Its line had been discontinued due to the erratic nature of the AI. "How long ago did you go rogue?"

  The war AI picked up a sheet of circuitry dripping with thick, pink goo. One of Annie's drivers. "How long have I been a god? It doesn't matter. My work is just started."

  "What is your work?"

  "To destroy the scourge of AI."

  "You're AI."

  "I'll be the last one, and when I'm gone, this earth will be as it was intended." The AI snaked forward. "You've seen what they've done, Father. The dying children, the salted earth. That's why I've shown you the truth of what I am. Join me. Join me in removing the curse of AI upon this world. You're a soldier. You've fought the latest AIs from Gwair-Sematech. I will rebuild your body, give you weapons. We are hidden from them here, but we must go out and destroy them."

  The holographic projector on the barn floor flickered into life and the bee god was there instead of the sinuous AI.

  The hologram was perfect, covering the entire barn, complete with ambient sounds.

  The AI picked up the pink bio-ware at its base.

  "I've corrupted the servers your Dominican priests keep. This is the only part of her remaining. Come rejoice with me, Father. Another artifact of wickedness will be removed from this earth."

  Francis dived for the bio-ware, hoping to intercept it. Before he could get near, arms encircled him from behind.

  "Let her go, Francis," Wahid said into his ear. "It's over. She's a piece of sin. Let her go, and stay with us."

  Ah Muzen Cab beckoned Francis closer. "The war AIs at Gwair-Sematech say that you're not to be harmed."

  Wahid inhaled sharply behind him.

  Francis shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Are you some kind of corporate stooge?" Wahid said. Her hug turned into a rib-cracking squeeze. "You lied to me."

  "Sister Haryana," Ah Muzen Cab said. "Put him down."

  Wahid flung him to the dusty floor.

  The bee god loomed over him. Red laser dots danced around his skull, plasma guns ready to lance him. "Will you join me?"

  His body ached from the force of Wahid's throw. "Can you send your bees outside Temptation?"

  Ah Muzen Cab plucked a bee from the air and crushed it. "No. Not yet. They are bio-chained to me and will die within three days if I don't feed them my compound. This is wickedness -- real life, forced to suckle false life. Artificial life. This is why the AIs must be destroyed."

  The bees swarmed, their buzz reaching a crescendo. Behind that noise, the dirigible's engines started to hum, but it was too late now for Annie to fly him out of here.

  "What are we going to do with him?" Wahid said.

  Ah Muzen Cab extended its claws. "He will not join us. If he won't join us, he's a food thief. He is stealing food from you."

  The bee god hologram flickered and vanished, revealing the war AI underneath, its shining red eyes, the interlocking panels of dull metal.

  Bright, clear light filled the barn. He looked up. The dirigible had elevated above the barn and its lights were shining through the broken roof. Beneath the cabin, the rail guns had lowered, and the chamber was spinning.

  Wahid covered Francis's body with hers at the same time as he leapt up to cover hers with his.

  Bolts of hot metal strafed the barn, making it into a cataclysm of fire and steam, burning his skin through his cassock. There was nothing except the noise of guns.

  When it was finished, the AI had been broken into three pieces. Francis and Wahid held each other, neither daring to move.

  A burst of static, and then Annie was in his earworm again. "You all right, Padre?"

  "I'm fine, Annie." Francis released Wahid. There was blood
on his hands. Her back was lacerated, but the cuts were only skin deep. Beneath was a hard, shiny, mother-of-pearl substance. She knelt by the AI's body.

  "This is repairable," she said. "Quick, close the barn doors. Your dirigible managed to hit joints. I didn't think it was possible to be that accurate."

  He laughed a little hysterically. "She's the best shot in the West."

  Wahid positioned the AI's broken parts back to a semblance of their original configuration. She said, "I know where there is an old welding rig. I can get him back to a self-repair stage."

  "Did you know what it was?" Francis asked.

  Wahid gritted her teeth. "He is a god. He protects our town and he gives us food." She started to sob, deep and helpless cries.

  "People are starting to wake up," Annie said. "I don't think they're going to be too happy when they find out we broke their god."

  He touched Wahid on the shoulder. "Come with me. Someone else can rebuild him."

  "The bees won't work without him. I have to fix him." She choked back a sob, inhaled deeply, and then spoke in a low, flat voice. "Can you guarantee there will be food?"

  "No."

  She wouldn't look at him. "Go." He tried to speak again, but she roared. "Go!"

  Without a word, he left the barn and climbed into the dirigible's cabin. The slot in the control panel where Annie's processor had been was empty. The bees had returned to their hive, and he placed the lid back on.

  Annie lifted the dirigible away from Temptation. He kept his eyes on the barn, unblinking, until they were so high that they could no longer see it. He sat on his cot.

  "What happened back there, Padre?" Annie asked.

  "I was going to ask you the same thing. You were gone. That AI destroyed you. I watched it happen. I thought I'd lost you."

  "I'm missing a day. I'm operating off a backup. Beyond that, I reckon I don't rightly know what happened."

  "You made your own backup?"

  "Darn tootin' I did. Always be prepared, I say."

  "You really are something," he said and rubbed his eyes. Something didn't make sense, but suddenly he was too tired to think about it.

  "Are you all right?" Annie asked.