Under the Flickering Light

by Russ Linton

  “Fuck!” Alarms filled the cockpit. Knuckles wrestled with the stick, his arms corded steel.

  M@ti thought she felt the world below slip before it caught and rammed back onto the proper tracks. Sweat drenched Knuckles’ face and he belted out a battle cry as he fought for control. No sooner had they leveled out than M@ti saw him shake his head in disbelief.

  A black wedge waited far ahead.

  M@ti, put the chopper on the ground or I will.

  The message flashed across her interface, bright red. Deva, maybe Kraken, had compromised her messaging systems.

  “Land,” M@ti shouted.

  Knuckles gave her a series of sharp glances. “You sure?”

  “She’s too fast. And she’s got weapons. What else are we going to do?” They were close enough now that M@ti could make out the Black Beetle’s arms, outstretched and pointed directly at them.

  “I’ll try to lose her again. Maybe we still have a chance.” M@ti knew they didn’t, and she started to interrupt, but Knuckles plowed on. “I’m not just handing you over to them. That’s not how this friendship thing works.” His voice cracked, his eyes full of the pain he’d buried. “I’ve lost too much! They can’t have you!”

  She reached out, wanting again to feel the reassuring touch of his skin under her fingers. “Find a place to land. Take us down slow. I’ll try to see if I can’t get into her systems.”

  M@ti wasn’t sure if Knuckles would listen. They were bearing down on the hovering weapons platform. A chemical flame of burning exhaust lit within the Black Beetle’s arm and a ball of fire shot toward them.

  Too late.

  Their speed dropped but Knuckles didn't change course. A bright flare erupted several yards ahead and they punched through a cloud of sparks and smoke.

  I’m so fucking serious right now, M@ti. TOUCH DOWN. I AM NOT IN THE MOOD FOR THIS SHIT.

  M@ti squeezed Knuckles’ arm. He knew. He had to.

  “Buy some time on the way to the ground.”

  Their speed slowed to a hover. Fifty yards away, the Black Beetle stared them down, the little Deva inside more fury than even the frightening insectoid visage could muster. Knuckles backed slowly away, swinging toward a clearing.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.

  M@ti patted his arm and reached out for the same channel which had been used to tap into her broadcast system. She loaded up her warez and set her interface into full on war mode.

  Don’t even fucking try to hack my rig. So help me...

  39

  Deva swooped out of sight as the helicopter descended. Holding in their blind spot, her message was clear — if they went anywhere but down, they’d be intercepted. Whether or not the suit could withstand a collision with the dicing blades, M@ti didn’t know. What became painfully obvious though was that Deva hadn’t been joking when she said the suit had no open connections. Any maintenance ports had to be strictly hardwired only.

  Their forced landing site had either never been claimed by civilization or what little had made it out here, had been quickly overrun. Trees stretched as far as the eye could see. A distant pocket of hazy light where the sun should later rise told her Manhattan was only an hour or so away. M@ti could see a broad patch of dirt on a lone hilltop where Knuckles had aimed their descent.

  Knuckles paid more attention to her than the instruments or even the threat outside.

  “We get close to the ground, I’ll dice up the Beetle with the blades. Try to jump clear,” he said.

  “Don’t. Let me talk to them. They might want to hear what I have to say.”

  Knuckles frowned and shook his head in disbelief.

  Kraken’s crew had been different from the start. Different goals, different members, and they had Clarity and her so far benevolent digital astrology. They wouldn’t kill them. She didn’t think.

  Wheels on the spindly gear touched the gravel and dirt clearing. The one place for kilometers where humanity had left a scar. There was a deliberateness to the gray loop of road and the deep cuts in the earth, down to the white bone. A quarry maybe or a mine.

  M@ti couldn’t see the moon, but the Collective had mined their resources elsewhere. They’d saved the world outside the Preserves, and for what? To give places for the disorganized resistance to hide? Give those aging, rogue war machines free range?

  “That’s it! I’ve got a plan!”

  Knuckles froze, his hand inches from a bank of switches. “You sure?”

  M@ti nodded at Knuckles rapidly as the antenna truck’s headlights swung into view. Deva came down between the helicopter and the truck, her armor’s bulky silhouette a looming beast in its own right. Deva’s transport followed the antenna truck closely. M@ti could see the collapsible structure retracted along the bed. With a little luck, she’d find a way inside the antenna’s systems.

  M@ti kept probing Deva’s battle armor. She’d need to test her mercurial patience but also keep her distracted. Doors swung open on the trucks and she could just make out Kraken and Clarity hopping down.

  Knuckles started to ask her something and M@ti let one hand drift from her work to silence him. Interspersed in her attacks on the battle armor, she wove a few tentative probes toward the communications array on the truck. It was idle, but open. She couldn’t make the connection without exposing her attempt. Instead, she focused on the array’s power source while keeping the bulk of her activity swarming in Deva’s face.

  “Power down the engines,” she told Knuckles.

  He hesitated, then closed the switches. The terrible whine began to fade though it lingered in M@ti’s ears. Behind her automated probes, she launched her personal interface. From there, she opened the program she’d used to detect Livingstone’s reactor hiccup.

  A subtle vibration of that app. That’s all she needed.

  “How’d they even get here?” Knuckles asked.

  M@ti waved her hand impatiently. Everything had to be perfect. As ineffective as they were, if she were too forceful with her attacks on the armor, Deva might melt them into slag. Too light, and they’d see she was targeting something else entirely.

  “M@ti!” Kraken shouted outside, his voice calm but muffled. “We need to talk!”

  Knuckles checked her, following her subtle motions. He killed the lights in the cockpit and popped the door open.

  “I got this, M@ti.”

  She reached for him but too late. He’d already slipped outside, leaving the door ajar. She worked feverishly in the darkness as he approached the group. Unarmed, moving stiffly from his injuries and lack of sleep, and no match for a genetic superhuman inside a killer exosuit, she felt her heart skip a beat. After all she’d done to wreck his life, he was ready to do anything for her. Brave, selfless — he’d learned more than just tricks from the Nexus.

  His actions couldn’t be completely explained though by being raised in a virtual world with no consequences. He understood those now. And he’d still give it all up for her.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  She wanted him back here. Right now. But there was no time. She needed to make this happen, fast. One final adjustment to the sensitivity of her app and she caught the faintest vibration from the communication truck’s headlights.

  “She doesn’t want to talk,” Knuckles shouted, standing resolute in front of the nose of the helicopter.

  “Nice flying, thrall,” Deva said from within her armor. M@ti thought she detected a hint of admiration.

  “Not impressed with yours,” he said. “The driving though...how the hell could you have gotten those trucks here so quick?”

  Kraken came forward, his stout frame small beside the Black Beetle. “Lembas. He contacted us to say you were headed east. We had a pretty good idea where.”

  “That guy wants your head,” Deva said. “You messed him and his incel troop up bad. Main reason I didn’t blow you out of the sky.”

  “Fuck him. They were going to hurt M@ti, just like you guys. Just like the
damn Collective. Genetic freak or not, why don’t you step out of that suit and I’ll show you why he wants me dead.”

  Deva’s laugh had an obvious edge. “We can debate whose genetically freakier some other time. If I’m going to paste you on the windshield, I’ll do it from the comfort of my pretty little killing machine.” M@ti watched Deva tilt the armor’s helmet toward Kraken. “She’s still trying to hack my ride. Kinda cute, actually.” Her head swung back toward the helicopter and she took a step closer. “Hear that, M@ti? I’m going to spray your boyfriend across that windshield if you don't’ stop what you’re doing and come out here.”

  M@ti almost did. Her heart clenched painfully seeing Knuckles out there, alone. But she had what she needed now. Both the antenna and lights connected to the truck battery. The near imperceptible power fluctuation patterns from the truck’s headlamps were created by that shared electrical system. All she needed now was something on the inside, automated, communicating remotely, so no connection would be picked up by Deva or her hacker fellowship.

  M@ti called up an instance of Smaug. The little dragon curled around her finger in her display.

  “The idle connection, I need you to go there. Send me what you find, but don’t open a link to me. Tweak the power and you can send flickers through the headlamps. Little winks in binary code. Got it?”

  The tiny dragon nodded and sped through the windshield toward the truck.

  Kraken placed himself between Deva and Knuckles. “You won’t get in, M@ti. Not before she loses her patience. I really do just want to talk.”

  Clarity hadn’t moved. She’d planted herself in front of the headlights, a shawl fluttering in the breeze. Maybe she was some kind of psychic or data savant? M@ti tried to filter out the interference, working feverishly.

  “Child, we won’t hurt you.”

  No. No they wouldn’t.

  Smaug flashed her a message.

  M-E-O-W

  M@ti smiled and setup an app to capture the pulses from the headlamps. With every little throb of the headlamps, the little wyrm spoke to her. Keys to full access of the antenna array slowly assembled.

  With no more need for the distractions, M@ti shutdown the routines hacking the battle armor and stepped out of the helicopter.

  “A for effort,” Deva said. “Cute, really, watching you try. You’re good, but just not quite as good as me.”

  “Lembas grounded you for a while,” M@ti said, walking slowly to Knuckles’ side. She reached for his hand and found it already searching for hers. “Figured I’d do the same.”

  “He had physical access.” M@ti could hear the snarl in Deva’s voice. “Weak ass malware locked things up for a bit, but it’s clear.”

  “M@ti, what Lembas told you was only half true,” Kraken said.

  “What, the part where I’m your sacrificial lamb?”

  “A possible future among many,” Kraken said, briskly.

  “Future, right. Because you guys know exactly what will happen,” M@ti spat. “I die in some suicide mission and you get the anarchist hellscape you’ve always wished for. Fun times.”

  “Nobody, not even Loadi, knows the future,” Clarity said. “He believes he does, but this is a simple matter of probability,” Something about her stately form and her frizzy hair forming a saintly halo backed by the headlights reminded M@ti of the day she’d bumped into a warden and started this entire journey. “Entropy, cause and effect, he doesn’t see these concepts like we do. It’s a powerful perspective which allows him to know every possibility yet even he can’t say which will come to pass.”

  “I suppose you can?” Knuckles demanded.

  “No. We can’t,” Kraken responded.

  “All we know is that the probability that you, M@ti, die, is carefully intertwined with the probability that the Collective collapses,” Clarity said. “And the Collective must collapse if we are to be free.”

  Smaug finished feeding her the data she needed. With a quick gesture, she opened the antenna’s connection. From there, she started broadcasting to the wilds.

  “Let me make a prediction then,” M@ti said, her display lighting up with new activity. “We’re doing things my way.”

  Deva laughed. “She’s scrappy, I’ll give her that. But she’s even closed her connection. What the hell can you do?”

  “Use yours,” M@ti said, jerking her head toward their communications truck.

  “Go ahead,” Deva said, smugly surveying the distance. “I’ll give you a head start.”

  M@ti checked her display. “There are fifty-six inbound war machines. They’ll be here in less than twenty minutes.” Clarity hadn’t moved, but she saw Kraken scrambling for his pockets and searching for his tablet. Deva’s incredulous huff came out over her speakers, followed by a long span of silence. A steady beep echoed from the depths of her armor and Kraken’s tablet matched the cadence. “You can fight them, but they’ll eventually win, because there’ll be more.”

  “You sneaky little bitch. How’d—”

  “The communications array,” blurted Kraken.

  “You’re such great hackers, I’ll let you figure out how. But you might want to leave before it’s too late.”

  “And you?” Deva said, her rockets in her boots spinning up. “You sure as hell won’t get far in that thing. Maybe she was meant to die, Kraken. Suicide. Warm up the trucks, I’ll greet any early arrivals.” Deva jetted skyward spraying dust and loose gravel.

  M@ti shielded her eyes. When she looked again, she could see Deva holding watch in the sky, facing where the majority of the inbound robots would be coming from. Kraken came closer pleading. Knuckles cut him off.

  Kraken stopped, but sounded irritated not intimidated. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can make the world a better place.”

  “Right,” M@ti said. “Let us thralls die and then kick us out of our cities. Teach the survivors how to live off the land and use your backward tech. Sure, better.”

  “Revolutions are never without casualties.”

  “And I don’t plan to be one.” She pushed her way past Knuckles and got in Kraken’s face. “You really have no respect for me. Whether you admit it or not, you think I’m another pawn in a game I don’t understand and maybe that’s because you don’t understand it.” She raised her hand and jabbed him in the chest. “You don’t get it. This isn’t about a revolution at all. Chroma, she could care less about controlling the future, it’s the past that’s eating away at her. I plan to help it devour her whole.”

  “There, in the Manhattan Preserve?” Kraken pressed closer. “Where millions are kept in their enclosure like pets on a leash? Rats in a lab? You can make a difference?”

  M@ti nodded. “Times Square. I’m going to wreck her holy cathedral and invite her divine wrath.”

  The wizened hacker’s skepticism gave way to a thoughtful look and he eyed Clarity. The beeping of his tablet continued, filling an urgent silence. M@ti couldn’t tell, but she thought she saw a nod from the regal silhouette.

  “We’ll do things your way,” Kraken sighed. “First, we need to get the hell out of here before your escape plan kills us all.”

  “Oh, no. They aren’t an escape plan. They’re my army.”

  M@ti connected fully to the antenna feed and drew her cane.

  40

  The hill turned out to be a prime location to deploy the communications array. The signal there was strong. Once she convinced Kraken to raise the antenna and go full power, the hacker quickly had access to the Manhattan Nexus. She assured him he would be needed. Later. She hadn’t yet decided when that would be.

  Knuckles and M@ti ripped across the countryside in the helicopter, taking a low approach. While she’d never seen the city from so far away, the skyline was instantly recognizable. It took everything she had not to tell Knuckles to drop her off at her rooftop observatory. She’d been dragged into this revolution against her will. If she could wave this magic stick and go back to her old life, she wasn’t sure she
wouldn’t do it. But regardless all the talk about probabilities and the future, the only certainty she’d come to understand is that would never happen. Things could never be the same.

  She glanced at the shapes shadowing the helicopter on all sides. Nope. Never the same.

  Deva flew closest in the formation. Hulking forms paced beside her, eldritch machinations in the dim light. On the ground below, swift figures skirted through the edges of what had once been greater New York City. From this distance, the war machines could’ve been a pack of predators brought to life from a distant past when men worshiped beasts and survived only through sheer cunning.

  M@ti’d seen them up close though as they’d approached the hilltop. They were definitely machines, their uncanny gait both inspired by biology and an utter desecration of it. Their fore and hind legs had the long, slender profile of a human’s but bent in opposite directions — two people’s torso’s sewn together backwards and running at the speed of a hov. Their sleek bodies didn’t end in any sort of head, just a blunt cavity filled with sensors and an infernal glow.

  She had yet to get a good look at the fliers. Their forms appeared more varied, from humanoid to multi-engine drones roughly the size of the helicopter.

  Where she knew she’d seen them clearly had been inside the Nexus when she greeted them on their approach. They’d slunk forward like living shadows crawling out of the wasteland where Loadi was spawned.

  Not knowing if her ploy would even work, she’d held her breath until the cane penetrated their control functions. Aging defenses and that same underlying infrastructure which made up the Collective’s core, her skeleton key had handed her complete control.

  M@ti remained between the two worlds as she rode in the co-pilot’s seat, the real and virtual. Dark shadows swarming in the night sky, on her display the robot battle formation made bright blips which constantly updated their position, their status, and provided tactical information. She got the feeling that if set loose their base level AI would put them on a mindless search and destroy mission, but that wasn’t what she needed them for. Nobody would die if she could help it.