Glassing the Orgachine

by David Marusek

  “On your third day in Tokyo, which will be this coming Saturday, return to Sumida Park. Stroll along the same riverbank. Bring bread or something to feed the ducks. One of the ducks will contact you.”

  “Okay, but what does that mean? How does a duck contact me?”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll know it when you see it. When the duck contacts you, drop the pellet on the ground along with the bread, and leave. Mission accomplished. Return home to Alaska or stay on for a pan-Asia vacation. Relax. See the wonders of ancient empires.”

  “That’s all you want me to do?”

  Scrappy interrupted. Boss, there’s an entity at your door.

  Jace sprang to his feet. “What kind of entity?” He was primed to sprint to the bedroom for the shotgun.

  A raven, apparently, though it has no mental profile whatsoever.

  Jace said to the alien, “One of your strivers?”

  “Yes.”

  Jace went to the front door and opened it. There on his porch sat a raven with a shiny gold bead in its beak. It sat there unmoving, looking up at him with unblinking black eyes. When he stepped back, making way, the bird strolled past him into the living room and hopped on the coffee table. Its full attention was focused on Jace; the alien’s presence received not a glance.

  “That for me?” Jace said. The raven was a large specimen of the jet-black, heavily built scavenger species, a big bruiser. A big bruiser with a dagger beak. “Just drop it and leave,” Jace said, feeling a sudden twinge of fear.

  The raven leaned over and opened its beak. The golden pellet dropped out and slammed the wooden tabletop like a hammer blow.

  “Come on,” Jace complained to Missing One. “That must weigh more than the one at HAARP. How’m I supposed to carry it? I’ll never get it through TSA. I’ll have to put it in checked baggage, and that can’t be good.”

  “You’re right; it would be best to keep it on you at all times.”

  Wary of the striver on the tabletop, Jace tried lifting the pellet. “Oh, yeah, pretty damned heavy all right. I could maybe put it in my carry-on, but they’ll X-ray it. Can it be X-rayed?”

  “This one doesn’t want to find out. But don’t worry; you have a very able assistant with ample expertise in the covert transport of non-ordinary materials. Why don’t you ask it? In the meantime, this one has other affairs to attend to. Time check: One hour and forty minutes.”

  While they were talking, the bird raised a wing and pecked at its own plumage, pulling out a small, downy feather, which it dropped next to the pellet. Then the bird cawed, more like screeched, and sprang into the air, landing at the door.

  Jace went over to open the door for it. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Come again; bring the missus.”

  WHEN JACE RETURNED to the couch, Missing One was gone. On the coffee table lay the golden pellet, the raven feather, and Scrappy.

  “All right, how do you suggest I transport these things.”

  Start by unfolding me flat and placing them on top of me.

  Jace did so. He didn’t lift the pellet but rolled it on top of the paper.

  Now crumple me up.

  “Crumple you up?”

  Yes, make me into a wad of paper with the objects inside.

  Jace did as instructed.

  Now pick me up.

  Jace grabbed the paper wad and braced himself to lift it, but it was not heavy. It weighed no more than a normal sheet of paper. Which suggested to Jace that the pellet had traveled through it, like the one at HAARP that passed through his wallet and the countertop. He knelt down and examined the undersurface of the coffee table.

  “So where did it go?”

  Nowhere. I still contain it. Smooth me out.

  When Jace did so, the paper once again lay flat and unwrinkled. The surface of one side was now gold foil, and there was what looked like a photo of a feather printed on it.

  “Nice.”

  You may now fold me and carry me in your wallet without anyone the wiser. But first, tear off one of the corners.

  Jace tore off a corner. The paper immediately regrew the corner to look exactly as it had before.

  Now wad up the tiny scrap and swallow it.

  “You’re kidding. Why would I want to swallow it?”

  Think about it, boss. You and I may be separated, and if we are, you lose contact with both me and Missing One’s pellet. This tiny corner piece is my subagent. It contains a complete copy of myself and all my data. If you swallow it, we can’t be separated.

  “But won’t you just pass through my, uh, canal?”

  Not until you instruct me to pass it.

  Jace thought it over and said, “No thanks. I’ll take my chances.”

  In that case, let’s increase our chances of staying together.

  Scrappy instructed Jace to drop the wadded corner scrap on top of the main piece of paper. It quickly melted into it without a trace. Then an intricate diagram of lines appeared on the gold surface. These, Scrappy informed Jace, were fold lines for an origami pinky ring. Jace set about folding and pressing the piece of paper this way and that until he had created a golden ring. It weighed no more than a ring should. He slipped it on his finger and admired it.

  “You still there?”

  Always, boss.

  BD2 1.0

  DEUTERONOMY WAS DREAMING that she was wading through a cold marsh with wet feet when she heard a horn, far off in the distance, like a trumpet announcing the arrival of the King. It made her wonder if she were dreaming this. The trumpet sounded again — a call to arms!

  The cold and wet seeped up from Deut’s feet, through her long bones, to lodge in her breast where it opened its arctic mouth and blew ice crystals like a fountain at her heart.

  It woke her up.

  She pulled her grandmother’s cross by its chain from its warm nest and wrapped her hand around it. It didn’t feel like ice exactly, but cold enough.

  “Yes, yes,” she said in a sleep-croaky voice. “I’m listening.”

  The little cross spoke, Excuse the intrusion.

  “Gabriel?”

  Verily, it is I. I hasten to awaken you in my role as heavenly messenger. Prepare yourself, Deuteronomy Prophecy, to receive an urgent message from our Lord Jesus the Christ. Are you ready?

  Deut sat up in bed. The small, chilled room lay around her in starlight. She held the cross to her mouth like a microphone.

  “I’m ready. What’s the message.”

  Wake up! He’s getting away.

  “Who’s getting away?”

  Your driver.

  BD3 1.0

  JACE HAD NEVER traveled much of anywhere outside the U.S. except for a few weekend trips to Canada during high school and one memorable spring break in Tijuana during college. Truth be told, he’d never had much of a desire to visit Japan, though it seemed like a perfectly lovely place. Visiting Australia or New Zealand was more his style, if he could choose his own destination. But, apparently, there were a couple of nuclear reactor cores spilling their radioactive guts into the environment that could be put to better use in planetary defense. So Japan it was.

  It killed Jace to have to miss brunch. For the life of him, he couldn’t decide which was the more improbable event: having a meal with Deuteronomy Prophecy or being called away to save the planet Earth from a killer robot. To have them both happen on the same day was too weird.

  Walking to the airstrip, with a half hour to spare, Jace made a short detour to Barbara Jean’s house on Main Street where he intended to leave a note asking to be excused. The house was dark and silent as he approached it. He climbed the porch step and tucked the note between door and frame. But as he turned to leave, there was a bump inside the house. The door opened, and she stood in the threshold in a flowing white flannel nightgown like a lovely ghost.

  “Good morning, ranger,” she said brightly. “It’s a little early for brunch, don’t you think?”

  “I, uh, hey, good morning to you too, Deuteronomy. I didn’t see a
ny lights on or I would’a knocked. I just wanted to tell you I have to leave town suddenly and can’t make it to brunch today. I explained it in a note.” The note had fallen when she opened the door, and he picked it up and handed it to her.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I understand. We’ll just reschedule when you get back, okay? Hang on a sec.”

  Deut stepped back inside and closed the door a moment. When she reappeared, she was wearing a parka over her pajamas and a hat and boots. She came out to the porch and said, “Before you go, I wonder if you could answer a vexing question for me. You’re a smart guy who pays attention to things, right?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Good. So tell me, how many planets are there in the sky?”

  “What?” It wasn’t any question he would have expected.

  “How many planets are there?” she repeated.

  “In our solar system? Uh, eight, I think. Why?”

  “Only eight?”

  If it was anyone else asking, he might have said, Why are you asking me? Google it. But he took a stab at getting the facts right and explained, “Well, there used to be nine, officially, but Pluto got demoted to planetoid status, so yeah, eight.”

  “And you’re sure about that?”

  “Eight, final answer. Why do you ask?”

  She didn’t say, only smiled again and went back inside. “Have a safe and successful trip, ranger, and stop by when you get back.”

  THAT WAS ODD — counting planets. Jace used a shortcut to the airstrip that bypassed the Sulzer place. It went through the overgrown yard of a McHardy resident who hadn’t visited the town since the 1990s. The house itself, or what was left of it, was obscured behind a screen of exuberant willow brush. Jace dropped his duffel in the snow next to the runway and sat on it. He hardly noticed the snow, the dark woods, the sliver of moon, or for that matter, the cold. All his brain could contain at that moment was the memory of her smile when she told him to stop by again. Asian vacation? No way. The moment he handed the pellet off to the confrontational duck, he was on the next plane home. Because he was a smart guy who paid attention to things.

  Excuse me, boss, but you have a call from Missing One.

  He looked at his shiny new pinky ring and said, “Go ahead.”

  Hello again, ranger. It looks like this one got you out of bed for nothing. This one has canceled your charter flight. You won’t be going to Tokyo today; there’s been a new development.

  “Yes?”

  An object of concern has entered your solar system.

  “What does that mean? What is an object of concern?”

  In this case it means that a large mass of ordinary matter has materialized out of nowhere at a point in space beyond Neptune.

  “Like a starship?”

  Much larger. As massive as the Earth itself.

  “You mean like a planet.”

  Possibly. This one has used Hubble to try to look at it, but nothing is visible.

  “Wait, they let you use Hubble?”

  Not wittingly. The important take-away from this is that Machine’s attack has commenced.

  Jace’s empty belly clenched like a fist. “Maybe it’s roadside assistance,” he said.

  It’s not. It’s several orders of magnitude too massive.

  “If you can’t see it with Hubble, how do you know anything about it?”

  This one can perceive in channels unavailable to you. One of these is the ability to sense gravitational waves in real time. Ask your communicator to project an overlay this one is sending. Then watch the western sky.

  Jace did so.

  Here’s Neptune.

  A speck of light in the sky briefly flared above the horizon, standing out from the background of stars.

  And here’s what gravity felt like at the arrival of the cloaked mass. Greatly enhanced and slowed down for your benefit.

  The western sky rippled like water in a pond, emanating from a spot near Neptune and spreading out until it enveloped the entire dome of stars. Then Jace felt, rather than heard, a faint, quick pulsing beat in his ears. The sensation tapered off as the pond surface of the solar system lay flat and calm again.

  It was sorta cool.

  “So what are you telling me? Big Machine is already here?”

  No, but its weapon is. Recall what this one said about Machine’s attack options. It would seem it has decided on an extreme kinetic attack. Instead of a barrage of killer asteroids, it appears there will be one bolide, a mass as large as Earth itself.

  Jace picked up his duffel and began to walk home. “So, what do we do now?”

  Tapping the fission energy of Fukushima-Daiichi was part of a strategic plan for monitoring GOM while healing this one’s innards. This one proposed taking actions that would cause no disruption to life on Earth while at the same time mitigating the disastrous effects of a human-caused radioactive catastrophe.

  However, now that Machine has made its entrance on the stage and declared its mode of attack, a new plan with a focused defense strategy can be advanced.

  The new plan, however it shakes out, will surely require many more resources than one damaged power plant. And it will most certainly require human cooperation and engagement.

  Go home, ranger, while this one studies the situation and prepares options for you to consider.

  None of that sounded cool.

  “Options for me to consider, why? I feel honored to be a part of this and all, but don’t you think it’s time you dealt directly with our professional military? You just said you’ll need human engagement. Engage with the military; it’s their job to protect us; I’m only just a park ranger.”

  Ranger to ranger, this one has found you to be the ideal human associate in all this strange business.

  Well, that was flattering.

  “Thanks, but my authority only extends to the park boundaries. Hell, I’m off-contract at the moment which means I have no authority at all. The Army and Air Force, on the other hand, have bombs and missiles and fighter jets, and anything else you’ll need. I’m sure they’d make better partners for you than me.”

  This one will eventually deal directly with the myriad of Earth authorities, but this crisis won’t wait and must be addressed now if your planet is to have any hope of survival. This one has no choice but to begin laying the groundwork for planetary defense now.

  Unless you’ve changed your mind? If you no longer require this one’s assistance, it will gladly turn its attention to remembering how to achieve space flight in order to flee this planet as soon as it is able.

  “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Okay, I’ll go home and wait. No sushi for me today.” (But maybe brunch?)

  One last thing. With the new development, it is safe to assume that this one’s status has changed. You may now refer to this one as Found One.

  BD4 1.0

  ON JACE’S SECOND visit to Barbara Jean’s that morning, this time to inform them he wasn’t traveling today after all, the house was awake and jumping. Already halfway down the block the irresistible odors of cinnamon buns, bacon, and coffee perfumed the arctic air. The lights were on in the windows, and woodsmoke rose from the chimney. Jace knocked, but he had to knock again louder to be heard over the 1970s era rock and roll blaring from an iPod dock.

  “Nothing doing,” Deut said when he told her they could reschedule brunch. “Brunch is happening right now, so you can come in and join us.”

  It was the happy outcome he’d been hoping for.

  Barbara Jean’s house had an arctic entry with coat hooks, a boot rack, and a little bench for sitting. Although built to the same plan as his own house during the same boomtown week in July 1910, hers was bigger, with an extra bedroom and a walled-off kitchen. Much nicer too, and better kept, with mahogany wainscoting and sculpted crown moulding in the living room.

  Deut led him to the kitchen, where the bay window and breakfast nook were another nice touch his house lacked (not to mention the kitchen cur
tains).

  The table was set for three. Deut urged Jace to sit and poured him a cup of coffee. “So,” she said matter of factly, “your trip was canceled?”

  He felt like she already knew the answer. “Yes, a last-minute hiccup.”

  There were so many subjects to tackle, Jace didn’t know where to start. His trip’s purpose was as good as any. “I’m curious, Deut, why did you ask me about planets this morning?”

  She was ferrying cinnamon rolls and a bowl of canned pears to the table, and she paused to consider her answer.

  “Someone told me to.”

  “Who? Barbara Jean?”

  “No,” she said with a laugh. “Not BJ.”

  “Then who?”

  Before she could reply, Barbara Jean appeared in the doorway.

  “Sit,” Deut told her. “Everything’s ready.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Barbara Jean said, “but please get started without me. I have a quick errand to run.”

  “This early? But I . . .”

  Barbara Jean touched Deut’s arm. “I’m sure you two will find plenty to talk about without my help.” She turned to Jace. “How’s the family in Colorado?”

  “Good. Everyone’s good.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  After she’d left, Deut said, “It looks like it’s just the two of us.”

  It was true. Just the two of them, alone together. Nice.

  WHEN DEUT SAT at the table opposite Jace, she bowed her head and reached out her hand for his. But she jerked it back at once and blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t even know if you say grace.”

  “Not usually,” he admitted, offering his own hand across the table, “but I could make an exception.”

  She considered his outstretched hand but did not take it. She closed her eyes instead and said a silent grace, adding a desperate plea not to mess things up. “Amen,” she said.