Ten Thousand Thunders

by Brian Trent

  Gethin was walking briskly now, energized by his surroundings. “The IPC has a copy of her voicemail. I’ve heard it. Her words were slurred—”

  “Which made some people assume she was drunk,” Jack said. “Drunk on duty.”

  “Right, except that theory has been discredited. To the untrained ear it might sound like intoxication. But analysts have concluded her speech was impaired from physical injury. As if she had been beaten half to death and managed to crawl to a phone.”

  The rest was one of history’s unexplained events. A nuke went off on base. Suddenly a lot of panicked, conflicting commands go back and forth from Washington. Six nuclear bases make unauthorized launches against foreign targets; the commanding officers insist proper authorizations were received. Other nations retaliate, and suddenly the pent-up aggressions of a tense geopolitical arena lets loose all at once, corks popping, destruction flowing like pyroclastic eruptions. There’s chatter about hackers, forged authorization keys. Global communications collapse and an age of history ends. Years later, efforts to investigate the mystery turn up only cold trails and contradictory clues.

  And a name: Apophis.

  “‘It was Apophis,’” Jack repeated thoughtfully. “You threw that name at Cavor. Why?”

  “It’s an anomaly. I threw a lot of things at him, but that one got a reaction. Seemed more appropriate than asking about alien cities on Mars.”

  Jack blinked. “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  The giant sector chief gave him a perplexed look. “Uh…okay. We couldn’t find anything on that second case you mentioned. You said Apophis had something to do with the march of Enyalios against a militia army.”

  Gethin gave him a sidelong gaze. “Couldn’t find anything? Really?”

  “Really.”

  Of course they had found something, Jack thought uneasily. Promethean hackers had pilfered the data from an IPC database two hours ago. No need for Gethin or his employers to know about that. Jack was starting to realize how crafty Gethin was. He had received a full report from Victor Slotkin, who came right out and proclaimed: “The guy you’re dealing with is dangerous, Jack. Watch yourself.”

  Gethin breathed easily in the jasmine- and olive-scented air. “Rewind the clock three hundred-and-fifty years. Enyalios is about to complete his conquest of North America. On the eve of invasion, he turns to one of his generals and says, ‘Apophis dies today.’”

  “Apophis.” Jack shook his head.

  Celeste caught Gethin’s arm and whirled him around. “Who is Apophis? What does all that mean?”

  “Don’t know. There are lots of possibilities.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  Gethin stopped on a curbside, letting the Athenian pedestrians flow past. “Well, Apophis was an Egyptian god representing chaos and darkness…”

  Celeste gave a bitter, hateful laugh. “So maybe an Egyptian god killed you, Gethin! Maybe all we need is to find the Feather of Truth, weigh it against your deeds, and summon Ra in a flaming chariot to vanquish the Devourer.”

  Gethin gave her a curious look. “Impressive.”

  “The Wastes still have books.”

  As she was growing up with Mom behind the barricades, books were one of the few luxuries afforded to a child who had grown amid a measure of protection. Gigantic hardback books that smelled of mildew. Books with bright illustrations. Celeste still remembered the name of her favorite series: World Myths for Children. The copyright page listed the publisher on Lexington Avenue in New York; an astonishing thought, really, because the only Lexington she knew was a river, though people believed that ancient buildings lay below its watery depths.

  A teardrop black taxi pulled alongside them. The window opened, a young man motioned. “Poseidon Suites?”

  “Just a moment,” Gethin told him. He turned to the others. “It’s a little late to start our investigation. How about we freshen up at the hotel, get some dinner, and begin fresh tomorrow? Say around 0700?”

  Keiko scowled. “Dinner?”

  “Coming back from the dead works up the appetite.”

  “So does sneaking off to conduct your own inquiry,” Jack added, and Keiko nodded in agreement.

  “No sneaking. Dinner at Leda’s. The four of us.”

  “Leda’s?” Keiko said skeptically. “Why there?”

  Gethin laughed. “Why not? Best restaurant in Athens. We’re going to be working together, we might as well break the ice. Maybe catch up on old times.”

  Keiko shook her head. “No. But feel free to comb through my public file, Gethin. I’ll even send you the link.”

  “I’ve already seen it. Time has been good to you. Prometheus should count itself lucky. So why not come to dinner?”

  “Because Jack and I don’t trust you. And I’m not buying this nostalgia act from you. It’s not your style.”

  Gethin nodded. “Is it distrust? Or fear of being reminded that you had a life before Prometheus got its claws into you?”

  She turned on him with controlled anger. “If you feel there is unfinished business between us, then I pity you. Life now is precisely what I want, not galavanting through online fictions like two children pretending they rule the world.”

  Gethin turned to Jack. “What’s it like to work with a living powder keg? Say the wrong thing and she explodes.”

  “I’m not exploding. I’m explaining that—”

  “That our marriage never happened? That you were never an Athenian citizen? That together with good friends we ruled Arcadia?”

  “A fictional playground!”

  “Doesn’t mean a part of you doesn’t miss it.”

  “I miss nothing about those days. I know exactly who I am—”

  “A cultist,” he snapped. “Victim of the biggest cult in history.”

  Keiko exploded.

  It lasted a half second, and no one but Gethin saw. Her incredible rage flashed incandescently in her eyes, only to be captured and wrangled with a steely control Gethin had never witnessed from her before. So! he thought. Prometheus has taught her to delay her anger, to shape it like clay, to utilize it in other ways. He had read about the behavorial philosophies they implemented with their workforce, customized to harness strengths and reprogram weaknesses. They knew their employee base down to the dendrite.

  “Thanks for the personality assessment,” Keiko said. “But Jack and I will dine alone.” She glanced towards Celeste. “Outlanders marry for life, right? Tough break.” She opened the taxi door and slipped in, followed by Jack. The vehicle turned onto a narrow road and sped off.

  Celeste shook her head. “You have a real way with people.”

  “It worked.”

  “What did?”

  “We’re alone.”

  Celeste looked sidelong at him. “So…we’re not going to dinner?”

  He scratched his head. “Not hungry. Actually I need to break into someone’s room, and was hoping you would accompany me. Yes?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Goblins and Things Not Human

  They found room 334 in the apartment cluster of the arcology’s Hermes wing, in full view of towering rows of windows and balconies. Hardly a private locale for a break-in, and Celeste was tense as they approached the door’s companel. It was evening, and the arcology walls had dimmed to their nightly shade, but it was not a true darkness, and plenty of citizens were visible on their balconies, sipping wine and watching the world below.

  The door’s companel displayed a soft blue readout: Michael Disch.

  “A friend of yours?” Celeste inquired.

  “Sort of.”

  “I take it he’s not expecting you.”

  “I haven’t seen him in ten years.”

  Gethin touched the companel. It took his Id six seconds to crack the code, and the door slid open with
a gentle hum.

  They entered softly, footsteps masked on dark blue carpet.

  Ego reported.

  Gethin crept to the living area. While most apartments differed wildly in décor, they were built on the same design: bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, office, closet, and living room. Not so with Disch’s abode. There wasn’t a scrap of furniture in sight, and the ‘kitchen’ was a junkpile of empty food cartons. Gethin peeked into the bedroom…where there was no bed.

  Instead, a pilotchair and five-terminal display dominated the narrow alcove.

  Celeste peeked over his shoulder. “Does he hang from the ceiling when he sleeps?”

  Gethin shook his head. “Professor Disch was always an odd one. I never realized he was a sleep-depper too.” He sat in the soft pilotchair. The screen prompted for a login.

  “That’s one thing you definitely are not,” Celeste said. “On the shuttle over here, you were out in seconds. Slept like the dead.”

  He bristled at the comment. She was already inspecting another part of the apartment; clearly her remark was just off-hand observation. But she was right. Gethin remembered lying back in his shuttle seat and falling into sleep as if he’d been deactivated. The first real sleep of his new body.

  No dreams.

  How could that be? With the spiderweb of rebuilt synapses and dendrites, my skull’s interior should be a tornadic storm, wild flashing signals, anxieties shoving old memories or new fears into amorphous dream symbols. But there had been nothing. For the second time, Gethin worried that he was not a real person anymore, that the Digital Capture technology didn’t resurrect people at all but just simulated them.

  He sighed and stared at the login screen.

  There was no keyboard. Virtuboards had replaced them, which meant zooming in on wear and tear to deduce passwords was useless. Not an impossible task, but nothing to hedge bets on, either.

  Gethin abandoned the chair to see Celeste pacing slowly through the living room, peering at scattered magazines. Fringe, crackpot publications: The Frontierist, Fortean Kingdom, and Discordia.

  Celeste tucked her hair behind her ears. “This guy is a professor? Of what?”

  “AI systems. He could program base intelligences in his sleep.”

  “Except he doesn’t sleep.”

  “Right.”

  “What if he catches us here?”

  “I’m counting on it. I’m trying to—”

  “Gethin!” Celeste cried.

  He spun around, in time to see that a tiny humanoid figure was now standing on the carpet. It was blue-skinned, rubbery, about twelve inches tall. The bulblike head sported two empty eye sockets, a tiny bump for a nose, and an impossibly wide grin. The tiny arms waved about playfully as it scampered towards them.

  Celeste pulled back her foot to kick the thing.

  “It’s just a goblin,” Gethin said at last.

  She blinked. “A glop of some sort?”

  “A rapid-processor joke.” The critter ran to Gethin with palpable joy and hugged his ankle. Then it craned its neck, inviting him to pick it up.

  Celeste felt an inexplicable revulsion towards the little blue being. “Is it a…robot?”

  Gethin lifted the thing in grotesque parody of cradling a baby. “Not precisely. Some pranksters figured out a long time ago how to hack rapid-processors. People started getting flooded by giant penises. Eventually, programmers learned to create functioning power systems that draw modest energy from…hey!”

  He nearly dropped the goblin when he saw that it had defecated a small lump of blue matter onto his shirt.

  “Son of a bitch!” Gethin exclaimed. Another lump popped out from its rear, rolled down Gethin’s top and onto his pants. The flex-gel wasn’t wet, but had the consistency of warm clay.

  He threw it away from him, where it bounced gently, stood up, and tottered towards him, shitting out its innards as it came, until the head sunk down into the hollowed-out interior. Unable to see him, the mockery scurried past his shoe; Gethin nodded to Celeste, and she kicked it into the wall. There it splattered, still grinning clownishly.

  “He was the one!” Gethin exclaimed, his eyes like green fire. “After all these years, it was him! I don’t believe it!”

  Celeste felt her head spinning. She was filled with renewed disgust at arky society. This was how these people played. With fetal Pinocchios boasting an excretory system!

  Ego advised.

  “Good!” Gethin growled. He grabbed Celeste’s wrist and drew her into the kitchen as the apartment door flung open, and Michael Disch hurried in. He was on his way to the pilotchair when Gethin stepped out from concealment.

  “Michael?”

  Disch froze, turned. He was more than six feet tall, and at least four hundred pounds. Most people opted for muscle density enzymes to keep themselves fit, but not Disch. He was a quivering boulder of flesh. His eyes bulged in outrage.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Your memory files degrading?”

  “Professor Bryce?” He gathered himself. “I didn’t realize you were back in town. Mars, wasn’t it? Nor did I realize you’re a criminal. I’m recording all this right now. I never invited you over. I doubt very much you have an explanation for intruding here. Who is she? What the hell are you doing here?”

  Gethin looked sidelong at him as he made an oblique approach. “When we were at university together, a bunch of goblins flooded the administrative offices and left pounds of gel-shit everywhere they went. No one figured out who sent it. The damned things showed up every few months, despite our security programs.” He stopped a few inches in front of Disch. “You were doing it.”

  Disch swallowed, his flabby throat quivering like the folds of a frog. “I’m not recording anymore.”

  Gethin stared at him for signs of sanity. “That was a costly joke, Mike.”

  “You still broke into my apartment. And who the hell is she?”

  “I’m not here about the goblins,” Gethin said, still astonished. “If I was, I’d be sure to send your ass to the Redemption Board.”

  Disch paled so quickly that Gethin was alarmed; he wondered if the man was going into clinical shock. The threat had been a bluff. Disch could certainly be arrested for his ridiculous sabotage, but no one had ever died from the goblin attacks. A Redemption wouldn’t apply.

  Or would it? What else had this lunatic done?

  “Hey!” Gethin snapped his fingers loudly. “Listen to me. I’m here to look into the private habits of an old colleague of ours. I was going to ask for your help, but now…I don’t need to, do I?”

  A splash of color formed on Disch’s marshmallow cheeks. It had the effect of making him look like a clown. He regarded Celeste once again, visibly disconcerted by her presence. Was it her gender? Or the fact that he couldn’t patmatch her to any known database? Or both?

  Disch swallowed hard. “We square after this, Bryce?”

  “Sure.”

  “You won’t report this?”

  “Unless your damned imps kill someone, I’ll forget about it.”

  Disch nodded vigorously. “What colleague? Why are we looking up a colleague? Why don’t you look up the colleague? Who is it?”

  “Professor Doros Peisistratos. And I’m not an active faculty member anymore. Somehow, you still are.”

  A minute later they were all crowded around the five-panel monitor array. To Gethin’s astonishment, Disch simply called up a lengthy file on the professor.

  “I like to know my universe,” Disch said absently.

  Gethin shook his head. He decided to report Disch anyway when they were done. The world would be a safer place.

  “What do you need to know?”

  “Everything.”

  All f
ive monitors filled with the life story of Doros Peisistratos. Abbreviated, crammed full of links, with videos and images.

  To Celeste, it was like reading a fable as unreal as any of those mildewy mythology books in her childhood attic. Here was the tale of a Greek boy born in Athens three hundred and twelve years ago, when the first arcologies were nearing completion and Republic peacekeeping forces had cleared flight paths and trade routes to and from civilization. Fresh out of college, while his fellow graduates were indulging in the new tradition of making a Grand Tour along the Apollonian Ring, Doros got into politics. Not satisfied with regional posts, he campaigned to be Republic Senator of Athens Arcology.

  He ran a populist campaign full of bright-eyed optimism. Even a skeptical press remarked on his natural charisma and savvy networking among constituencies, and when he won, the post-election analysts remarked that it had been about timing as much as glad-handing. Young and idealistic, Doros Peisistratos seemed to reflect a young and idealistic new era. Governments of the past had belonged to old men with old notions. A nascent country could only benefit from young blood and radical ideas.

  Like when he proposed the Outland Charter Deal.

  The Outlands, the Wastes, the dogtowns, the gloplands…these were regions so thoroughly ruined or contaminated, so rife with violence, that they had been rejected by the Republic. There were many facets to the New Enlightenment – celebrations of rational discourse, artistic expression, scientific advancement – but that zeitgeist also lay steeped in separatism. Let the Wastes remain the Wastes. Civilization would be reborn on a smaller, more manageable scale than the ‘global village’ model of failed, bygone nation-states.

  Senator Peisistratos’s Outland Charter Deal was a kind of blasphemy, then. It proposed allowing Wastetowns to apply for admission into the Republic. “We are a humanistic civilization!” he declared in the halls of the Senate. “The arcology is not the end point of our goal. The world is still shattered, and therefore we are all shattered until we have an Earth Republic deserving of the name.”