by T. K. Malone
For a moment, Teah hesitated, but she could tell Trip was busting to say something. “Well, go on then, Trip; what did you feel?” Which set his tongue free.
“What did I feel? It felt like every muscle in me was working together, contracting and relaxing just at the right time, throwing them shells in without thinking. It was all automatic—an’ I’d never done it before in my life.”
“But what was it like, Trip?” Byron insisted.
“What d’ya mean?”
“What did Sable feel like: her intent, her mind?”
Trip scratched his head. “That? I guess I didn’t think about that. Let me… Yeah, I think I know what you mean. She felt sad, real sad.”
“Sad?” and the ends of Byron’s mouth twitched up into an expectant smile.
“Yeah, sad, like she didn’t like what she was doing.”
Byron cast an eye at Teah. “And you? What did you feel?”
Teah bit her lip, trying to find the right words, painfully aware that part of the AI was still within her. “At first, an immense familiarity, and then, as quick as you like, a sense of mutual learning, as if two strangers were swapping really interesting stories, then, after that and for the longest time, pure joy.”
“Yes, yes, but did the AI enjoy the killing?”
Teah knew what he wanted to hear, that she felt pain at the suffering she was inflicting, that she was trying to think of a better way, that the AI was striving for peace but knew none could be found. But she knew the word he’d just used was true, that that had been what she’d felt: rapture; an unbelievable sense of happiness and power. Yes, she’d been driving the tank, rotating the turret and angling its barrel, all of those things, but it was the pure joy of being complete that had trumped everything else.
“She despised the killing,” Teah lied.
“I knew it,” said Byron Tuttle, now grinning from ear to ear.
“Not the first time you’ve washed my stuff,” Teah pointed out, dressed once more in Kelly’s long shirt.
Clay was sitting by the fire, feeding it twig after twig, branch after branch, until the cabin felt roasting hot. It was well into the night. Hannah and Saggers had taken the next cabin along. Connor, Byron and Trip had borrowed another, elsewhere, and even Max was on this side of the ridge. Apparently, he’d been manning one of the artillery guns that Briscoe had placed up there. He reckoned The Free World army were in for a few more surprises yet, and although he’d said no more, a glint had remained in his eye. It hadn’t lasted long, though, not once Teah told him he was coming with them. Then, it had turned into a full-blown twinkle.
“I can’t work you out,” Kelly said, having draped all Teah’s gear over a drying rack. “I didn’t think you’d be right in the head till you lost the cattleman, but then you went out in just an HUD and a suit of battle armor and you go all psycho again. So there goes my theory, I suppose. Always thought it was the ghost of Lester in his hat.”
“You thought I was haunted?”
“Well, how’d you explain it yourself?”
“Explain what?”
Kelly came and sat in the chair opposite Teah, Clay still on the floor and now between them. She reached down and picked up a bottle, pouring two glasses. “Nearly out,” she said, “but it’ll do.” She lit a smoke, studying Teah carefully. “Your death wish, of course. You’ve got Clay here, yet you still willingly square up to death like you desire it.”
Teah took a glass off her and lit her own smoke. “Guess I do,” she muttered, gazing at the boy. “What if I told you something’s been living inside me since just before Clay was born? What if I told you I think this thing has been driving me? Pushing me along a path. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a path I’d probably have taken, anyway.”
“What, rushing toward danger?”
Teah nodded. “Embracing it. Embracing it because I was bulletproof.”
“Bulletproof?”
Teah took a long drag on her smoke. “I was neutered as a child, ‘cept that clearly wasn’t the case in the end. Did you know, if you were born a woman on the grid, not sired by a man and woman, that your body was sterile before you were even born? The old way, the tying of the tubes, removing the eggs, that wasn’t sure-fired enough for them. So, once they had a gazillion eggs in storage, they came up with a better way: birth the women sterile. So, you see, Kelly, no way could I have ever got pregnant.”
“Then, how did you?”
“Simple. An AI named Sable invaded my body. It took root there, healed what it thought was wrong with me, and bingo: that’s how I got pregnant.”
“And Byron told you this?”
“I suspected something was up, and my memories told me that something happened that night in the sewers. I healed, Kelly, healed so fast that when they tortured me, they couldn’t keep up. They had to drug me in the end just to slow me down.”
Kelly nodded, clearly trying to digest what Teah was telling her. “And all this is leading to you and Connor seedin’ the AI into the world’s computers. What a mind fuck.”
“Are you scared?”
“What of?”
“Of us being successful.”
“Hell, you knew what was in you last time you was here, and I’ve had what? Two days to come to terms with it? Am I scared of an AI takin’ over the world? Does it mean I get to live and hunt up here in peace, without some suit in some city or silo fuckin’ up my day cos he fell out with another prick two thousand miles away? If it does, I’ll take my chances.”
Tears began to course down Teah’s cheek. “You called me psycho earlier. Asked me why I had a death wish. And I answered right—right fer yesterday. Today, though… Well, tonight, I’d have to give you another answer.”
Kelly had shuffled forward to the edge of her seat. “And that is?”
“I’d go to the ends of the earth to feel what I felt today. I’d swim across a larval lake, fight a bear, endure anything to protect the AI named Sable. And do you know what the funny thing is? I’ve only got a fraction of her inside me—just an infinitesimal amount—and even from that I understand her potential.”
“What was it like?”
“When she woke? When she paired with Connor? It was like being a god. I just had to think something and it was done. Something I had no clue how to do just happened. Imagine it, Kelly; imagine it used for something other than destruction.”
“And you trust it?”
Teah hesitated. “Yes.”
“Why the hesitation?”
“Because I’m scared. I’m scared by how great our lives could be.”
Teah woke. Clay had already gone, more than likely to search out Saggers and Hannah. She pushed herself out of Kelly’s rocker and wondered how long it had been since she’d slept in a bed. Her neck ached, her back ached, her ass ached. She started counting the things that didn’t, then briefly wondered why her AI could heal a bruise, a broken rib, even make her fertile again, but seemed to leave her to get old and accumulate these aches and pains without the slightest intervention.
Connor had told her that Sable was more like a companion to him, constantly chatting in his mind, scolding him, cajoling and helping. She wondered if Connor wasn’t a little bit mad, if he’d not made that bit up, like kids have imaginary friends. That made her laugh a little. A niggling doubt that she shouldn’t find it funny made her wonder again, wonder whether it wasn’t the AI talking. Then she began to doubt that everything she’d just thought was hers. How could she tell? How could she truly know? It was about then that Teah wondered where the hooch was.
She walked out of the back door, pulling off the long shirt before bathing in the stream. A strange sense of euphoria returned to her, a feeling that she could do anything. Her journey of over ten years was now coming to an end; she understood that. A day, maybe two, that was all that was left. And the plan itself seemed simple: go to the beast, kill it and set free the cure. Except "The beast" was two men called Irving and Walter; two anonymous men she’d never prev
iously heard of. Certainly not Josiah Charm, nor Oster Prime; not the faces of the evil but rather the puppet masters behind them.
She ducked her head under the water and immediately surfaced, the pinch of the cold on her skull making her gasp. It had cleared her head of the last of the hooch, though, and relieved her bones of the last of sleep’s aches.
Rising from the water, she saw Kelly leaning on the porch door. “Ya know, if you holler, I could fetch you a towel, save you using the shirt.”
“Don’t like to impose.”
“No imposition.”
“Am I holdin’ everyone up?”
“They’re all out front, and Clay’s got a darned good fire going. Battle’s startin’ up in the valley and Max is scoutin’ the trail, makin’ sure everythin’s cool out there.”
Teah picked up the long shirt and pulled it on. “Never did get to say goodbye to Cornelius.”
“Why? You think he’s going to die?”
She shrugged. “Got a funny feeling I ain’t going to see him again. All that talk of not needin’ remorse is just smoke and mirrors, I’m sure of that. In a funny way, I think he’s looking fer it down there.”
“Saggers, Hannah and Clay are gonna stay in Christmas. An old fella’s going to take ‘em up there. Max figured it’d be safer if Clay was in hidin’, just in case the preppers' compound falls.”
“You mean just in case me and Connor fall.”
Hannah gave her that kind of smile someone makes when they stutter on a half truth.
“I miss something?” Teah pressed.
Running her fingers through her hair, Kelly looked straight at Teah, her eyes pools of sadness. “Byron says he can’t be sure, but if all else fails, there may be some of Sable in Clay, something they can maybe salvage if it all goes to…”
“To shit?” Teah ventured. “You mean, if I don’t get this done, Clay might get dragged into it?”
Kelly bit her lip. “That’s what they were saying.”
Teah smiled, walked up to Kelly and grabbed her hand. “Then we better make damn sure we get it right first time.”
A little while later, she emerged from Kelly’s hut, wearing Lester’s old coat and the cattleman tipped low.
16
Teah’s Story
Strike time: plus 15 days
Location: Preppers' Compound
Martha put the kettle on while Gerald went out back to show Clay their dog. They’d made Sendro Verde in time for lunch, and Martha wouldn’t hear of them moving out on an empty stomach. She and Gerald were going to take Saggers, Hannah and Clay up to Christmas. Yet again, Teah thought, Clay was being taken from her. She didn’t blame Oster Prime, or Josiah Charm; she didn’t know who to blame, not anymore. Perhaps God? Yet not for one moment did she think of running from her duty, for duty was what she saw it as. No, with her new memories came a clarity of purpose, a need to do the right thing.
“You’re gonna kill ‘em all,” stated Martha. “You wanna bit of sugar? Had some shipped down before it all went…”
“Please,” Teah said, flicking Kelly a glance. As usual, Kelly’s mere presence silently reassured her.
“She’s got a list,” Trip said.
“Are me and Gerald on it?” Martha asked.
“No. Why should you be?”
Martha passed the teas out. “Oh, I might have tricked Zac into meeting his old man.”
“Met him, too. He’s one complicated man.”
Martha raised an eyebrow to that. “Wonder what he thought about you? Spent a lot of time talking about you, ‘bout how you’d rescued Connor, how you’d hooked up with Zac. Mighty proud of you, he was.”
“He knew a lot for some guy in lockup.”
Martha slowly nodded. “That he did, but then, he did have a lot of fancy visitors; Josiah Charm, that odd fella Jake—”
“Jake?”
“Yeah, around the time Lester died, and on a bit. Always talking about you, according to Wesley.”
Teah took a deep breath. “Why?”
Kelly grabbed one of Teah’s hands, but Martha shrugged. “Cornelius didn’t have much of a life. Much to keep him occupied. Zac didn’t do a lot, ‘cept what was expected of him. As for Connor, well, he was a DJ. Maybe all they had to talk about was you. Even those odd English folk, they always wanted to know what you were up to.”
Teah felt her hand being squeezed when she tensed. “Walter and Irving?”
Martha pointed at her. “That’s the ones. Odd, odd folk. Wouldn’t trust ‘em as far as Gerald could throw ‘em, and that ain’t that far, trust me. I heard tell that them and Josiah had a very shaky relationship. Heard that, I did. Gerald,” she called. “Those old Englishmen?”
“What’s that?” Gerald shouted from outside.
“Them old Brits, the one in the wheelchair and the other one with starch up his ass.”
“Them, eh? Hardly old, not like me. Well, one of ‘em weren’t. What…” He cleared his throat. “What… What about ‘em, eh?”
“Up to no good?”
Gerald poked his head through the door. “Eh? No good, Martha. Nope, no good at all, those two. Heard them and Charm really fell out when he laid the law down.”
“Who?” Kelly asked, and Gerald shot her a look.
“You Teah, then?” he asked.
“No,” Kelly said. “I’m a prepper; we’ve met before.”
“Met a lot of folk, I have, none as queer as those two Brits, though. Did you know he threw his wife out, the young ‘un? Threw her out cos she wouldn’t do what he said. She liked a drink, his missis did. Liked a drink, ‘n when she drank, her tongue wagged.”
“About what?” Kelly pressed.
Teah lit a smoke, getting the evil eye from Martha, although she slid an ashtray her way. “You might need it,” Martha said, by way of explanation.
“Tongue wagged about a lot of things,” Gerald went on to say, his beady eyes falling on the smokes.
Teah tossed him the pack.
“Mostly about those two Brits,” he said, “being stuck-up pricks; she was from ‘round here, you see. Mostly ‘bout how they didn’t know nothing ‘bout science, and a lot about how the Meyers had fell out with Charm, and how it’d only be a matter of time till Charm fell foul of them. She was right about that.”
“They fell out?”
Gerald nodded. “Fell out hard, they did. Charm bombed the Meyers' HQ six ways till Sunday—they had an old underground railroad station, right near Black City. Ran all their operations from it.”
Teah felt the blood drain from her face.
They left after they’d eaten Martha’s hearty soup. Even though partly confused and partly stunned by Gerald’s revelations, Teah had still managed to clean her plate. Another piece of the puzzle had clicked into place. She remembered Roy and Kin’ell had escaped Charm’s bombardment of the underground complex, where she’d been tortured, and that they’d headed to the Meyers' retreat. It all made sense now.
At the time, she’d just had to let them go, but then she had been in a car that had just careered off the ridge trail and halfway down a mountainside. She’d been half out of her mind on shine and banged around to within an inch of her life, and at the time had also had a woman called Marge’s decapitated head staring down at her. That aside, she still rued that missed opportunity to kill them.
What she couldn’t work out was how two Brits could possibly hold such power, but then again, she wasn’t naïve enough not to suspect money was the root of it. Still, as the orchestrators of her torture, they had, at the very least, just made it onto her list.
It was shortly after dark when they made The Angel Bay Hotel. There were six of them: Teah, Kelly, Trip, Max, Connor, and Byron. On the road down, they’d all been quiet. Teah couldn’t shake the distinct feeling that Byron already knew most of what Gerald had told her. There was something about the man that told her he was playing more sides than just hers. It was as though he was waiting on outcomes, and that the one that concerned him
most was just what exactly Charm was up to.
They’d driven their wagon into the underground parking lot; Zac had told Connor how he’d holed up there during the apocalypse. Teah wasn’t at all surprised when she found a temporary bar, seemingly knocked together to idle away a couple of days, but there were rooms off of it, adequate for the night, and a huge iroko-wood table in another room. And so they scavenged up some tinned food and liquor and sat around it.
“I can’t help but think,” Byron said, “that we’re walking into the wolf’s lair, our necks enticingly stretched out and ready for a swift mauling. It can’t just all come down to this.” He banged the table.
All eyes fell on Teah. She rubbed her chin, regarding the old man. At first, he returned her gaze, but then his eyes began to dart around, searching for something to settle on, which gave away that he was hiding something. Something he didn’t want her to know, of that she was sure.
“So,” she said, “you gotta plan, old man?” She bit back the accusations she wanted to level at him. Wringing the truth out of him could come later, and to be honest with herself, she didn’t know where to start.
“No,” he said, still without meeting her stare. “I just know it’s what we have to do.”
Teah took a swig from the bottle of whiskey in front of her. It was a hard swallow, one that summoned up steel from hidden depths. “Thing is, Byron, I don’t know that I can have you along. It’s gonna be hard enough breaking into their place and doing what we gotta do to infect their computer systems.”
And then he did hold her stare, returning his own. “Infect? Sable will not infect anything. Connor will tell you; he’ll tell you what it’s—”
“You forget, I know what it’s like. Trip knows what it’s like. I used ‘infect’ purely because others have. I use ‘infect’ because she just took over my body. Yes…that’s it, 'infect,' Byron; that’s what she does. What I want to know is this: if she can do that over a HUD, why do we even have to go there? Can’t we just…just… Can’t we just… I don’t know; plug ourselves into something and be done with it?”