Ten Thousand Thunders

by Brian Trent

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Deathbots

  IPC Colonel Leon Tanner was standing by the tall windows of the security office on Level 151 when they were led in. Tanner was a trim-looking man with Teutonic fair skin and elegantly sculpted features. He wore the smoky blue, gold-trimmed uniform of IPC admiralty. Although stationed in Athens, he was clean-shaven and wore his hair utilitarian short, an austere schoolmaster’s presence in a land of hedonistic abandon.

  The office seemed carved out of black glass. The tabletop crawled with the latest newsfeed headlines: the Actors’ Guild was in uproar over rumor that Cry of an Alien Midnight producers had announced they would use a virtual copy of dead actor Salvor Bear to complete their film.

  Tanner turned as his guests entered the room. “Mr. Bryce,” he said stiffly. “What happened in Poseidon Suites?”

  “We were assaulted by two constructs, sir.”

  “Just hours after you order a Hassan detail for Doros Peisistratos?”

  Gethin grimaced. “It is pretty damning, but they’re the same ones I noticed on Luna, not an hour after my resurrection.”

  Tanner regarded the Prometheans. They needed no introduction; their data was probably flashing red on Tanner’s optics. He frowned at Celeste, however, who wasn’t linked to any infosystem.

  Speaking quickly, Gethin said, “This is Celeste Segarra from the Hudson Outlands. I reported to your office that she is a material witness.”

  Tanner’s searing blue eyes were hard.

  Right, Gethin thought. The old enemy brought into paradise. A reminder of where we all came from.

  “Good afternoon, Colonel,” Celeste said sweetly.

  Tanner tapped his desk with one hand. It was an uncharacteristically anxious twitch from a man who, in Gethin’s experience, was as stolid and cool as a block of ice. “I have a sweep team examining your assailants. Maybe there’s enough to run a trace.”

  “I doubt that, sir,” Keiko interjected.

  Tanner looked startled at her edgewise interruption. He tilted his head. “Why do you doubt it?”

  “Because they were top-line golems. Whoever went through the expense of creating them and setting them loose in Athens wouldn’t be sloppy enough to leave their fingerprints over it.” She swallowed. “Sir.”

  Celeste was amused by how subservient her compatriots were being. In the Outlands you showed respect to the powerful because they could cut your life off with one knife-flash or squeezed trigger. That shit didn’t happen here.

  She smiled thinly. But then, quite unexpectedly, she caught a whiff of danger too. Like the stench of overwarm electronics. The office was dim and quiet, like being submerged in murky water.

  “Perhaps the behavior itself might yield a clue,” Tanner suggested.

  Keiko had already thought of that. “Hopefully.”

  “Colonel?” Gethin started. “Has there been any luck in tracing the other voice on that recorded call? The one between Peisistratos and someone from NoCal?”

  Tanner continued drumming the desk. “I read your report, Bryce. We have sniffers tethered on all comlines to seek a vocal match. Either he hasn’t used a phone since that conversation…or he was voice-cloaking from the start.”

  Gethin considered that. The voice he’d heard was edgy and savage, seemingly too genuine for digital fakery. Such raw ferocity had surely come from a fleshy throat; the sonics rooted in an excitable, dangerous spirit, someone capable of exploding like a supervolcanic eruption.

  “Disguised or not, I believe I could recognize that voice if I heard it again.”

  “How?”

  “The man seemed…uniquely dangerous.”

  Tanner grunted.

  Except that it wasn’t really a grunt. It was a low sound, nearly inaudible. Celeste, already on the hidden scent of danger, felt a difference in air or temperature or arrangement of molecules in the room. Again, she imagined they were all underwater, only now lava was spilling into it, gradually raising the temperature and releasing toxic compounds.

  “So what’s your theory, Bryce? Is this a Stillness plot?” Tanner asked.

  “I doubt it, sir. This is too high-profile for them.”

  “Agreed. Peisistratos?”

  “I doubt that too.”

  “Why?”

  Gethin shrugged. “My judgment of his character. Of course there are groups he might support. The Frontierist radicals, for instance. Doros is not a fan of the ban.”

  Tanner had stopped drumming the table, but now he was gliding his fingertips over the surface. “You didn’t mention them in your report.”

  No, I didn’t, Gethin thought, trying not to stare at the rapid fingers. Just like I won’t mention that the IPC remains atop my list of probable suspects. Just like I’ve noticed that you aren’t acting like yourself at all, sir.

  “I didn’t mention them,” Gethin answered carefully, “because there is no evidence to link their involvement. I simply bring them up to illustrate that some extremists have the technical reach to conduct this attack, and have procured sympathizers in our society. Stillness has never been able to do that.”

  “Is Peisistratos a Frontierist?”

  “Not formally.”

  “How does he feel about Avalon?”

  Gethin’s confusion showed for a second before he regained control of his face. “The AIs? He never expressed any opinion of them one way or another.”

  Tanner rounded the desk. “Two minutes after the Base 59 explosion, a series of multi-spectrum communications were intercepted from the AI Lunar outpost of Camelot to Earth. To Avalon, specifically. Seven hours later, our satellites confirmed Avalon was abruptly shifting its collective effort into a new project.”

  Jack frowned. “How can you tell with them?”

  “We keep a very close watch on the AIs,” Tanner explained. “As I’m sure you can appreciate. We can penetrate right into their facilities and track changes in production. Seven hours after receiving the signal from Camelot, they shifted all manufacturing efforts into a mysterious effort.”

  Jack and Gethin regarded each other.

  Keiko stepped forward. “Did you decipher the signal?”

  “No. And not for lack of trying. Our analysts are losing sleep over the encryption. If it is encryption.” Tanner wrinkled his nose unhappily. “But here we come to it: Avalon is keenly interested in preserving a technological edge over us, their nearest and most dangerous competitors. Prometheus Industries,” he nodded to his guests, “has been working on the TNO project, which by its very nature requires research into experimental and exotic energies. We figure that your company developed something the AIs didn’t have, and so they decided to conduct an acquisition.”

  Keiko’s face went slack. She started to speak but checked herself.

  Tanner continued. “You said there was only virtual data and a cathode rail at Base 59?”

  “Yes.”

  “How easy would it be for Camelot to break in, download the data, and transmit it for planetside manufacturing?”

  Keiko cleared her throat. “We were ready to perform field tests in the Belt.”

  “Avalon isn’t waiting. It would appear that their entire race is working on it.”

  Keiko’s face blushed with anger. “If true…”

  “It is our working hypothesis.”

  “But it’s a very good hypothesis.”

  Gethin stiffened at her eager tone. Yes, he thought, it certainly seems reasonable. But it also feeds too easily into global fear.

  “How did you discover the Lunar signal?” he asked.

  “You are not the only investigator working this, Bryce. I want you to examine the data from Luna and work in conjunction with other teams at our orbital facility. Naturally, I cannot order your Promethean friends to go with you, but as this does involve them, the IPC formally
invites Yamanaka and Saylor to take part. We need as much input as possible. As for her,” Tanner gazed penetratingly at Celeste, “I see no reason why an Outlander should continue to be part of this case.”

  Gethin was appalled. “You’re pulling me off an independent investigation because you think your theory is correct? Pardon me, sir, but that is not how I operate. My skills are uniquely suited to asymmetrical inquiries—”

  “Which is why we need you in orbit,” Tanner countered hotly. “You have a knack for spotting patterns. We need you to pit your skills against Avalon’s entire civilization. If we’re wrong, you can return to your independent study. But right now time slips away from us.”

  Celeste felt a rush of terror like winter slush in her veins.

  It all came back to her.

  The humid evening, flies swarming in an orgy for her sweat. The adrenaline in the back of her throat.

  Jeff’s death.

  The Stillness High Priest lunging at her, his expression of illimitable hatred, the flash of white.

  Time slips away from us!

  He had used those very words just seconds before she blew his damned head off. Celeste’s panicked heart seemed to claw up into her throat, and she thought: My God! It’s the same man who murdered my beloved! He’s here with us now!

  Tanner pressed a button on his desk. Two guards entered the room.

  “There is an airship awaiting you,” the IPC colonel said. “If you need a moment to pack your things, these guards will escort you.” He was looking at Gethin, but as he spoke his gaze shifted to Celeste. She stared at those eyes.

  The same eyes.

  Wintry, pale, starlike irises in a four-pointed diamond shape around black pupils.

  She could feel her blood draining away. Her fingers tapped in her pockets, drawing up a comlink tab to Gethin. Subvocally, she whispered, “Gethin. Are you sure this is Colonel Leon Tanner?”

  Gethin heard the terror in her transmission.

  As subtley as he could manage, he queried Ego.

  the Familiar replied.

  “Scan for wetware.”

  The response was instantaneous:

  Absurd! Tanner was an IPC colonel; he needed a sensorium to conduct business and Cave conferences, to stay connected with the Fleet and his own staff!

  “Mr. Bryce!”

  Gethin looked at the colonel. “Of course, sir. I’ll take the airship. But I want it on record that I object to this order. Just like I objected to the way you pulled me off the Ecuador inquiry.”

  Tanner’s glower bored into him. “It is so noted, Bryce.”

  “Good. Then perhaps you’ll grant me the favor of Celeste Segarra’s expertise on advanced AI systems. I want her with me.”

  “What expertise?”

  He told him about Celeste’s ship. He hadn’t seen it for himself, but had pried information from Keiko and Jack. It was advanced, unusual, and represented an unknown element in the topography of AI systems.

  “Therefore Ms. Segarra,” Gethin said, “is an important resource right now. She worked for years with an advanced mechanical intelligence. She may spot something familiar in the Lunar signal. Either way, she’ll be a lot more helpful than that fool analyst you sent with me to Mars.”

  Tanner could barely hide his impatience. “Fine. If you feel she is useful in a professional capacity, then by all means take her. Move out.”

  * * *

  Earth is mostly an ocean world.

  Born from a fusion of necessity and hubris, Earth Republic had gazed at the rolling blue waters of their planet and, with sweet irony, began to build upon them. Here was the watery cauldron which life had crawled from, flopping and gasping, to escape the competition of the deeps. Five hundred million years later the descendants of those early pioneers were returning with newfound strength and sovereignty over Poseidon himself.

  The Republic funded the creation of vast sampan villages. Like their namesakes, they were comprised of individual vessels, nodes, habitats, and pods, which linked together as a kind of mechanical Portuguese man o’ war. In the event of typhoons they could break apart and submerge. The inhabitants sea-farmed, drew resources from the ocean, and soaked limitless energy through photovoltaic sails.

  The sampan city of Effendi took its foundational cues from another maritime city: Venice. The ancient Italian province had originally been constructed in a marsh to escape barbarians; so too had the founders of Effendi taken to the ocean to escape the depredations of the Warlord Century, until the trilobed Republic ended the wars and brought Effendi into civilization’s fold.

  In the same hour that Colonel Leon Tanner was dismissing Bryce and his companions, Effendi floated seven hundred miles off the coast of Vladivostok, indifferent to global politics.

  The sun was setting behind it. Several families ate dinner on the outer decks to appreciate the surreal crimsons and deep indigos blending heaven and sea. Some of the children were preparing a music recital of flutes, harps, and lyres.

  There was no warning, screech of missile, or pulse of laser fire. As the recital was beginning, Effendi exploded with such force that it gouged a hole in the ocean a half mile down and scattered debris over a thousand miles. The energy signature was visible to IPC battleships in space.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Airship

  “Please select delivery method,” the postal kiosk told him.

  Gethin touched OVERNIGHT DELIVERY on the screen. He reviewed the order to Dion Bellamy, confirmed the man’s last known address in the Bahamas, and pressed his fingertip against the payment pad.

  “Please insert letter.”

  Gethin dropped the envelope he’d purchased from the kiosk into the mail-slot. Inside was a hard copy of everything Keiko’s magpie had culled from the golems. Probably not very much. The IPC sweep team would comb the corpses down to the electron, but Keiko was right: if you didn’t get your sample fast, you were wasting your time. Top-line golems were like flash-paper. When they died your window of opportunity closed in microseconds.

  Under ordinary circumstances Gethin would have sent his hard copy to an IPC lab for trace analysis…but not now. He knew he needed someone as far outside IPC influence as possible. Someone he could trust. And he didn’t want it sent over the web, where a tapeworm could intercept it.

  “Thank you for using Republic Post,” the kiosk intoned. “Have a terrific day.”

  Gethin returned to his compatriots. They stood by the elevator with their luggage like tenderfoot tourists, having returned to their rooms to hastily pack and check out. Gethin sighed, reminded yet again of what few belongings he had to his name.

  “All set,” he announced. He noted Celeste’s pleading gaze and ignored it. Hopefully she would get the message: no more communications. Their hands brushed in the elevator and he interlaced his fingers with hers.

  The floor numbers ticked off. The carriage ascended to the shuttleport with a placid hum.

  Gethin reviewed what he knew of where Tanner was sending them. An orbital station locked in geosynchronous orbit over Avalon, the famous AI city. An observant eye on Earth’s only known nonhuman metropolis. Access was harshly limited. No way in.

  Or out.

  Tanner was imprisoning them.

  The elevator slowed and stopped.

  “Air Terminal Five,” the lift’s honey-warm voice informed them.

  They fanned out onto the arcology rooftop. The airship hovered directly above, its massive zeppelin shape pewter-gray against the overcast afternoon. Terminal Five was the zenith of the arcology, reserved for the largest aircraft. The wind raggedly assailed them. Gethin shivered.

  “So what now?” Celeste asked neutrally.

  Keiko thought the question was directed at her, and so sh
e started talking about IPC battleships that could bombard Avalon from orbit. The Prometheus war wing would happily assist, sending Enforcers to scorch the metal cancer from lower altitude. Republic troops would then comb through the rubble and make sure every circuit was melted, while Luna would mobilize for the decimation of Camelot. The AIs would be a grim footnote in history.

  Celeste interrupted her. “Gethin? What do we do?”

  He stared at the airship. “We get onboard.”

  “But—”

  “Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm.

  Keiko hesitated. “Is there a problem?”

  Gethin shook his head. The guards herded them up the embarkation platform.

  It was heavily air-conditioned inside the ship. Everything padded for optimal luxury: blue pashmina chairs and foldout desktops equipped with wetports and chargers. The cloud-diffused afternoon burned coldly through oval windows. The high ceiling was a bramble of nanosteel I-beams. A grand stairway connected all three floors: upper deck for crew cabin and dignitary seating; middle deck for general passengers; lower deck for cargo and luggage.

  Gethin swallowed, agitated by his uncertainty. He could see no options. Mechanically, he queried Ego for the passenger manifest. It flashed instantly:

  GETHIN BRYCE

  JACK SAYLOR

  CELESTE SEGARRA

  KEIKO YAMANAKA

  Not that the deserted middle floor left much doubt as to the company they would have. Gethin seated himself at a windowside table, puzzling over this fact. An airship for four passengers?

  Why is Tanner imprisoning me? Have I somehow gotten too close to the truth? It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. Since death, I’ve been captured at a hospital, met with a university colleague, been propositioned by a Wastelander, and then nearly beaten to death by corporate-grade golems. That was a lot for a two-day-old human being…and I still don’t know what the hell’s going on.

  To Ego, he muttered, “Identify surveillance fields around us.”

 

  *They can be electronically jammed, Gethin,* suggested Id.

  “Yes, but that will tip them off.”