I ran the cold water and rinsed out my mouth. I was shivering so hard my teeth chattered, and my legs would barely support me. I sank to the bathroom floor and curled up on my side. I didn't dare go back to bed because I could sense that it was all going to happen again, and it did. I went through the same cycle three times, until I was so weak that I could hardly move and my whole body ached from the effort of vomiting my stomach empty. My butt felt like I'd had an enema with battery acid. Nebbie watched me curiously jumping up on the bathtub and meowing until I turned on the tap at a drip for her.
I crawled onto the bath mat and listened to her purring echoing in the bathtub as she washed her paws and face in the dripping water.
Imus in the morning woke me up. It took me a while to figure out where I was: I could hear faint strains of the Thompson Twins coming from the radio as the traffic report finished. I sat up. I felt terrible.
I thought about everything that had happened last time at karate, and then being sick, and the fact that I hadn't eaten, and I wondered if I should stay home and see a doctor.
Then I remembered Gossamer. I dragged myself up.
a good untarnished fact
Serge is climbing through the structured Grid with relative ease. Inside her helmet she is listening to an archives report by Dr. Arla Gonzalez, recorded at the time of Gonzalez's appointment as commander of the N-Ridge mine. Dante is beaming the statement to Serge via Gossamer. That means you get to hear it, too. Gonzalez has a low, softly modulated voice whose beauty can't be ruined even by its distinct Bronx twang.
It might be tempting to assume that because I'm coming to this post as the former director of the X medical center, I'm not a likely choice to supervise a mining operation. But nothing could be farther from the truth. I enlisted because I felt compelled to contribute to the understanding of the Grid, and I still feel that way. On the medical side of my career, I saw the realities of survival in the Grid on a daily basis. And on the research side, I have consistently sought to increase our chances of gaining and maintaining a profitable foothold here. The way to do this, as I see it, is to understand the Grid. And the logic mines are the key to that.
Put simply, we don't know what the Grid is. We don't know if it's a substance, an organism, a species, or some kind of created structure. It doesn't behave like anything we've ever seen before. We might be tempted to say that it's an organism with different organs and systems: the foundation, the well, the branches, the pollen, the fliers . . . but it would then be an organism which comprises the entire environment, which is a contradiction in terms. So we could accord to it the properties of an ecosystem, but the members of this system exchange places according to processes we can't detect.
For example, knowing what happens when a body goes into the well and returns ninefold as golems is a little like trying to trace the decay of a corpse and the transfer of its molecules into other organisms, without having so much as a microscope to explain what is happening. There is a large element of guesswork and a reliance on concepts that are extrinsic to the Grid itself – on analogy.
We do know that the logic bullets seem to be the key to this organization. With the right interfaces, we can get our machines to mimic the behavior of the Grid, through the use of the Grid-logic templates embedded in the logic bullets. Naturally the initial applications are going to be military, and even the word we use to identify these objects In derived from war: but the products of the logic mines aren't really bullets. And they aren't really mined, they're harvested. Logic bullets are discrete, densly organized structures that are found within the Grid's substrate, usually below the level of the foundation: hence the use of the word ‘mine’ to describe the access points.
We retrieve them using conventional excavation equipment, beginning with large-scale machines and progressing down to finer and finer tools including computer imaging of various types. The logic bullets are non-identical and therefore the more of them that we can collect, the broader our scope of understanding will be.
It is through the logic bullets that the prosthetics used in Fliers have been developed, as well as the golem-detection sensors used in X and other defensive systems. The initial design of the Third Wave machines is based on logic-bullet analysis and, once primed with new and subtly different logic bullets, we anticipate that these devices will be fully equipped to take over all control of the Grid, leaving personnel safely at removes from golem warfare and other environmental hazards.
And that, finally, is where my interests lie. I'm here to save lives.
It's almost too easy, as if Dr. Gonzalez is looking for Serge just as Serge is looking for her. The signal from her helmet beacon comes through with no interference, and then later you see the woman herself, hanging from a strand of Grid like a subway passenger. She's looking up at you, smiling like you're the mailman bringing her tax refund.
Arla Gonzalez is petite, wide-hipped and a little plump, with small feet and hands. Her hair is plastered to her head in shiny dark ringlets so that she looks like she just stepped out of the shower. Her smile is wide and white, and she's obviously unconcerned with the fact that she's holding her helmet under her left arm and her goggles are flipped up on her forehead.
Serge is panting from her exertions in climbing and fiddling with her helmet to clear the sweat and fog from its faceplate. At first she doesn't have the breath to speak.
'You don't recognize me,’ Gonzalez says to Serge as if they've just met at the bus stop. ’l know who you are, though, Bonny. We'll talk about that later. For now I'm just glad to see another person out here. Where is the convoy? We're off the main route, aren't we?’
If you were Serge, you'd be put right off your stride by Gonzalez's welcome-to-my-parlor manner. Serge doesn't bat an eyelash. She adopts her rules-and-regs tone.
‘I'm Captain Serge, Major Gonzalez, and by authority of Machine Front I have to issue you a direct order to put your helmet on immediately and activate your goggles to setting zero point nine one. Please.’
The last word is thrown out there so uncharacteristically that you decide to come in a little closer to get a better sniff of Gonzalez. Serge never uses polite extras, even with people she respects.
But there's nothing in the air to explain the quirk in behavior. Besides, Serge is using her suit to full capacity. She isn't taking any chances with the Grid, and you can see why. It's unnerving to see Gonzalez standing there bare-headed without a care in the world. You zoom in on Gonzalez's eyes and see that they are yellowed. Her nail tips are turning a little blue, too. She's being poisoned by the Grid, no doubt about it.
Gonzalez shrugs and puts on the helmet.
‘Does it really matter?’ she says. ’l guess it does. I took it off the other day after your flier went over and didn't even pause. I guess because I was giving up hope of being found. I wouldn't want to die like a coward.’
‘There's nothing cowardly about wearing your helmet,’ Serge says in that same fire-safety-lecture tone.’And we wouldn't let you perish out here. It was only a matter of time before we tracked you down. Now, I need to ask you some security questions. Have you seen any golems?’
Arla's brow furrows with concentration. She looks earnest, like an old lady who has just witnessed a crime and wants to help the police, but neither thinks nor speaks very rapidly anymore.
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Several times.’
‘Start with the most recent’
‘About ten minutes ago.’
Serge's eyes flash and for a second you think she's going to jump straight in the air like people sometimes do with Gridshock. She hails you.
‘What's this all about, Goss? You didn't report no golems in this area just now.’
‘They went in the well before your flier appeared,’ Gonzalez says helpfully, squinting up at Gossamer.
‘Were you threatened? Have any of these encounters come to blows?’
‘No to both questions.’ Gonzalez grins, like she'
s warming to the game.
‘Did you witness any deaths? Were you out here alone the whole time?’
‘I just told you I haven't been alone. The only deaths I witnessed were within the mine perimeter, during the raid. Before the attempted missile strike.’
Serge only looks angry for a second. Then she masters herself.
‘I'm going to escort you back to the position of my team, and then we can examine you for damage and discuss this further. Are you injured?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Come on, then.This way.’
But Gonzalez doesn't move. She stands there like a horse, totally impassive.
‘I'm so happy to be alive,’ she says.
Serge closes her eyes. ’Dante, I got me a problem,’ she says to her wrist.
Arla reaches out and snaps the Swatch shut before Serge can jerk her arm away. She leans in close to Serge, who is much taller than she is, and says:
‘I'll tell you why I'm here, Captain. And then if you know what's good for you, you'll follow your own scent path back where you came from, and you'll say you can't find me.’
Serge looks at her for a long moment, and you wonder how she's taking the facts that a) Arla's not respecting her authority and b) Arla just touched her and Serge couldn't do anything about it. Arla starts to smile, thinking she has the upper hand. But after a little while Serge whispers, 'You got a lot of explaining to do, kitten, but you don't got to do it to me. Come on back with me, quiet-like, and I'll be real appreciative.’
Arla isn't listening to Serge. This, you feel, has got to be a mistake. Serge had a rattlesnake look in her eye.
But Arla says, 'It started before the problems at the mines began. I was out taking some air samples and I saw the children.’
‘Ah, not this again. They're not children. They're golems.’
‘I saw them, Captain Serge.’
‘Then you're stupid. Dr. G. You know the rules are there for your own protection. You had no authorization to leave the mine perimeter.’
Arla smiles tolerantly.
‘How do you think the Grid is making children, Serge? How could it do that? It needs dead bodies to make golems, doesn't it? One dead body and it can produce hundreds of golems, but there are no children here. So how is this possible?’
‘If they exist – and I doubt they do – it's really not my problem,’ Serge says. 'I'm going to come over there and take your arm, and I'm looking for some cooperation or I'll have to use force.’
Arla shows no sign that she has heard this. She frowns and continues, 'I thought maybe they could regress the bodies of the dead somehow. It seemed logical. But then I saw them up close and personal, Serge, and something strange struck me. After a while, I managed to piece together what had happened.’
‘That's real interesting, Doc.'
Serge tries to take her arm and Arla neatly avoids her, slipping to another loop of Grid with more agility than she ought to possess. Serge stumbles and has to stop herself falling.
Something is stirring in the well below.
‘Major Gonzalez, you been out here on your own too long,’ says Serge. She moves as she speaks, creeping from branch to branch, delivering her words slowly and deliberately like a trainer approaching a rank stallion. 'You been hallucinating and you been going around with no helmet. That means that, inside-your-head-wise, pretty much anything goes.’
You are trying to get Serge's attention through MF, but she ignores the flashing on her Swatch. Below Serge, heads are rising in the well: white-helmeted, with the cusps of fists spread out to either side of each one, as if each golem is Superman flying up through the murk of the well.
Arla continues to retreat, but Serge has recovered her concentration and she keeps moving to stall Gonzalez's escape.
Serge says: 'Now you got to focus on the pertinent facts. My orders are to rescue you, Major. I'd like to do that. I'm risking guys’ lives up here to try to do that. But if you resist me, I'll torch you. That's my job. I don't know how you survived the raid on the mines, but you won't survive me if you make me hunt you down. That there's a good . . . untarnished . . .fact.’
She says the last three words individually, and in between each one she makes a swift move towards Gonzalez, so that on the word ‘fact’ she has shot a stickyweb from her Swatch and trapped Gonzalez in the crux of two Grid branches. The stickyweb starts turning colors as it reacts to the surface of the Grid. Simultaneously, Serge notices her Swatch flashing: it's the warning signal from you routed through MF.
She springs back just as heads and fists break the surface of the well and the children come shooting out like frogs.
It occurs to you, watching, that you've never seen Serge really scared before.
Making this a first.
‘This is impossible,’ she splutters, flailing the spiderwhip around her head defensively. 'It's a headf#*k. It's an illusion.’
But she's stumbling over her own feet going backwards. For their part, the children slide out of the water in their Mad Max ensembles and swing into the branches of the trees without coming properly into focus. There's something odd about the visual effect that they have on Gossamer. They aren't easy to see when they're moving.
Arla smiles. 'lt's not a head#*k. It's just a good untarnished fact. I'm not ready to come back to X yet.’
Serge toggles helmet visual settings rapidly. Evidently she's having the same focal problems that you are. Soon the children are all but invisible in the branches of the Grid. But there are strange sounds coming now from the webbing and the spaces between it: sounds of water and electricity; racing heartbeats; protolingual cries.
‘You better come with me, Doc, because I don't think you want to get your butt incinerated.’
But Serge's threat is empty: that's obvious to everyone. Apart from that, you spot golems moving towards her through the Grid. You send a warning again to the Swatch. Arla says:
‘I'll come with you after you've seen the things that the Grid needs you to see. Captain Serge.’
Serge shakes her head, releases a spurt of angry laughter. ‘What the Grid needs me to see? This is worse than talking to Jehovah's Witnesses.’
She turns to her right and raises her spiderwhip just as a golem comes within her range. The whip goes away from her with a wailing cry and catches the golem around the neck; a jerk of Serge's wrist and the golem is dragged to its knees, clutching its throat. Serge gives a movement as practiced and near-invisible as a fencer's parry and a shining violet thread wraps around the golem and ties it to the Grid in several places. It struggles but cannot escape; meanwhile Serge is doing some fancy footwork on the branch to set herself up to meet the next opponent.
Arla takes the opportunity to exit. It's as if she knows the Grid intimately, because she makes for the deepest, densest area she can, where you can't track her. Soon she has vanished.
Serge dispatches a few more golems and then retreats, laughing coldly.
‘You're playing hopscotch on the wrong sidewalk, Doc!’ she calls. 'You got Dinty Moore beef stew for brains if you think you can get the better of me.’
Serge is still flushed when she reaches the camp.
Klaski leaps to her feet. 'There they are! They were following you, ma'am. Look! Right over there! I just saw a whole bunch of those little girls – look, ma'am, I'm not joking. Oh, crap, they've disappeared again.’
Serge fixes her with a hateful eye. You can see the bruising of sleeplessness in the hollows above her cheekbones, the crusts on the tear ducts, and the ubiquitous pucker between her eyebrows solidifying itself into a wrinkle.
‘Let's have some grub,’ she says, as if Klaski hasn't even spoken. ‘Hendricks, you're cooking.’
Lewis charges Gossamer in the usual way. She's humming a tune that you eventually recognize as ‘If Ever I Should Leave You’ from Camelot. The usual meal preparations get under way, but everyone is on edge after the events of the shift. Serge is actually physically twitchy. You know her well
enough to figure she's questioning her own sanity right about now.
You know how she feels. You're thinking about getting out for a break, even if it means risking continuity.
‘Hey,’ says Serge suddenly. 'You ever hear the one about the Japanese chef who surprised a burglar? He wokked him on the head, hahaha, get it, he wokked him? What's the matter Klaski, you look like you ate a bad snail.’
Klaski seems to cringe. 'It's just. . . my boyfriend back home, he's from Japan. I was wondering if he's cheating on me yet.’
Serge snorts. 'l should of guessed.’
Klaski twists some hair around her finger.
‘Ma'am, didn't you ever get your heart broken?’
Lewis's eyes show white as she restrains herself from gasping at Klaski's audacity. Serge is equable, though.
‘Not as such, no.’
‘Never? Really? Not even ever?’
‘Ah,’ says Serge. ‘Well, I guess there was this one guy. Six Fingers Mike. I was assigned to his team during Second Wave changeover, you know, when the guys got sent home. He showed me the ropes. That guy broke a lotta hearts – not mine, of course. We was just buddies who . . .you know!’ She looks into the depths of her Lipton mug and grins, and you could swear she was blushing even though her complexion doesn't lend itself to it. No one says anything, but amazed glances are exchanged. ‘And he was a gifted mechanic,’ gushes Serge. 'You should have seen him reconfigure a commando rig.’
She sighs, remembering. Hendricks elbows Klaski and you can hear the hiss of her breath in Klaski's ear. 'You don't have a Japanese boyfriend!’
Klaski elbows her right back and in a high voice says, 'Did the extra finger, like – was it—?’
Serge scowls. 'Klaski, don't be crude. And don't be such a wimp. Don't you know that people get assigned to worlds where you got to recycle your own piss, ‘cos there's no water? Or them places where you got to study for years just to learn the aliens’ language and then you get there and find out your contacts just lost a war and you're speaking the language of the oppressed underclass, good luck getting out of there without a slave collar permanently welded on your neck. No, I'll take the Grid any day. Get your procedures worked out, pay attention, don't let it freak you and you're basically OK.’
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