Singularity's Ring

by Paul Melko

  “Get them!” Muckle cries.

  The alley is dark and heaped with debris, impenetrable in the dark though we had passed through it that afternoon in light. Manuel pulls Eliud into his arms, staggers, and then carries him to the left.

  The drug is a soporific, and we struggle to stay focused. Moira, who drank little, coaxes us, yells and kicks. The door slams open behind us as we emerge from the alley onto a wider street.

  Downhill.

  It is easier to stagger that way.

  Strom trips and Moira pulls him up, helping him run.

  We jog left, turning toward the river. Strom slumps against a wall. Meda supports his right arm, while Moira is on his left.

  Muckle’s crew is hard behind us. Manuel risks a look, and sees them about twenty meters behind and gaining. We need to lose them and recover from whatever Muckle spiked our drinks with.

  Find a populated area, Strom sends.

  But the warehouse abuts the docks, and the place is deserted at this hour.

  We round a corner, and Manuel shoves Eliud into a doorway.

  “Stay here,” he commands. “Don’t move.” Eliud nods, and we’re running again.

  Behind us Muckle’s crew doesn’t notice Eliud in his hiding spot.

  Strom collapses onto the cobbles, unable to stand.

  Leave me, he sends. Regroup later.

  We all veto that.

  The crew is on us in seconds. They use plastic cuffs to bind our hands. It is hard to share thoughts that way, the consensus weak and unstable. Strom falls in and out of consciousness.

  They drag us back to the warehouse. We are not surprised to see Malcolm Leto there.

  EIGHT

  Apollo

  Leto has learned from his mistakes. We all awake in separate prison cells, alone. We don’t know this now. It is only later after we integrate these separate, warped, and spotty parallel memories, that we will know these things. Until then, we are all alone in our cells, slow, sluggish, stupid.

  Terror. I awake alone and in terror. The last thing I remember is the sight of Malcolm Leto smiling and the smell of something in my nostrils, some drug to bring unconsciousness.

  When we took this job, I knew that we would come face-to-face with this man. I knew that I would face the man who raped me in numerous ways. Yet now that it has happened there is no catharsis.

  I am scared. Utterly afraid.

  Alone, I realize it is only the pod that keeps the darkness away.

  I am strength, and I am alone. Strength alone is weakness. Yet, I know this is false.

  There is no smell of my pod anywhere. The air must be filtered. Leto is taking no chance. Damn him.

  I pound at the door. It vibrates under my fists, but does not budge. My strength is useless.

  I slump against the door and wait. What more can I do?

  In the hall, I hear footsteps, boots, I imagine, two pairs. I stand in the center of the room, considering how to attack if they open my door.

  “This one?” someone asks, outside the door.

  “No. He wants the girl first.”

  They move past and I hear nothing else.

  I check for a transom, but there is none. Nor are there any high points that I can scramble up to launch a surprise attack. The room is smooth-walled and devoid of anything, save the cot, sink, and pail. I move the cot to the wall where the vent forces air into the cell.

  If I stretch, I can touch the flow with my fingers. No chemical thoughts touch my wrists. No pheromones at all.

  I take off my shoes. Perhaps if someone comes and it is only one, I can overpower him with my four opposable thumbs. I make four fists. Perhaps not.

  The walls are stones, blocks fitted with mortar roughly squirted between. I use the pail to pound on the wall and listen for an echo. There is nothing. I listen at the door. I try the knob again.

  Listless, I model the forces on the door, on the door frame. I calculate the force on the bottom row of stones. I determine how hard I would have to kick and across what angle to shatter the stones. Futile effort and futile calculations.

  I follow the mortar lines around the room, tracing the line above the door, around the corners. I find a path that does not overlap, but touches every line of mortar. It is soothing to do this, though I know it means nothing. Later, I know I will think this again, but right now, there is nothing else to do.

  I end the path of mortar. I start over.

  On the third time through, I hear a scuffle in the hallway beyond my cell. A muffled scream, shoes pounding the floor. I stop my line, my finger holding my place, then when silence returns, I finish the path.

  I am awakened from nightmares to a deep sound, a vibrating rumble.

  The room is still lit, and I have been sleeping with the blanket over my head. The skin around the jack itches.

  I put my hand against the door.

  Thunder? I wonder.

  I hear another rumble. I get my shoes and put them on.

  Something is coming. Something strong. Stronger than I am.

  My body is tense from the waiting, from the boredom.

  I ready myself.

  The sound comes again. I am standing on the doorknob, balancing so that my ear touches the crack at the top of the door. Here the door is looser in the frame. The crack between door and frame is enough for me to see the row of fluorescent lights and to hear sounds in the hall.

  The sound is that of stone blocks falling. In the silence that follows the rumble, I hear something else.

  I am counting the seconds of my captivity. Forty thousand three hundred and twelve.

  Someone is coming. I will be able to stop counting very soon.

  I recognize the sound of the arborobot’s hydrogen-burning engine. Someone is clumsily ramming against the walls of our prison. My mind sees the force its instruments can apply to stone. The tensile strength of titanium is a dance before me.

  In my bones, I feel that the titanium will hold. I know that even if a pile of rubble lands on the tractor, it will have enough power to pull free, unless the weight is more than forty-five tons. Even then the mass will have to come directly down on the tractor, and the wheels will have to have no purchase.

  Whoever designed the arborobot never guessed it would be so suited for demolition.

  Forty thousand three hundred and thirteen.

  As Eliud opens each door, our awareness grows. We step into the ruined hall, take each other’s hands. One, two, three, four. Four!

  Where is Moira?

  There are five doors on this hall. Five doors are open, and only four of us stand here.

  We run to the fifth cell, and there is Moira, unconscious on her cot. Meda is next to her in seconds, and through her we see the raw flesh at the back of her neck.

  Meda cries out, her fears tearing through us.

  “He did this to her!” she yells, hysterical.

  Strom takes Meda in his arms and leaves the cell, while the rest of us take Moira.

  Without her we are an unbalanced quartet and we want nothing more than to regroup, to consolidate our thoughts, to come to consensus.

  Eliud has crashed through two walls to reach us. We climb up into the cabin and pull the door closed. With six, we are crammed tight in the cab. We make room for Quant to drive the tractor out of the building.

  She puts it in lowest gear and presses the accelerator. The tractor’s engine roars and we rock back and forth. Manuel sees three guards come around the corner.

  Quant pops the tractor in and out of first and reverse, rocking it, a bit farther each time. The guards shout and start climbing toward the cab.

  Suddenly the arborobot breaks free from the rubble. Its momentum carries it through the outer wall into a courtyard of fruit trees and statuary. Quant follows Eliud’s path of destruction, driving over flattened trees and broken marble. Leto’s headquarters look like a college building.

  We have shed the guards as we jerked over the rubble. There is no one between us and the stre
et. Quant guns the tractor.

  And stops suddenly.

  The building is located on the busiest street in Hinterland. We are forced to crawl as the crowd flattens away from us, but not fast enough.

  Strom and Manuel scan the street behind us. They see the wave of people emerge from the courtyard. Leto’s army of jacked soldiers.

  Quant leans on the horn and the crowd parts, angry.

  Careful, Strom sends.

  Quant responds with anger pheromone, overpowering in the cramped cabin. Strom opens a small vent window, jacks the air conditioner to the max.

  Where to?

  Police?

  No.

  Get out, get out. This is Meda, still on the edge of hysteria. It reeks in the cabin, and we all feel the need to run far and away. All of us, except for Eliud.

  But we do need a place to regroup, to compile what we have been through, to heal Moira. Meda sweeps her fingers over her twin’s neck. A new wave of fear hits us.

  She sends, Leto can’t enter the Ring.

  But we can.

  Why? Manuel stares out at the Ring, rising up above us to the ceiling of the sky. The elevator on the horizon seems very near.

  Quant checks the hydrogen tanks.

  We can make it, she sends.

  Go there! Meda shouts at us.

  Agreed.

  The consensus is rushed and angry, but we all agree. Perhaps Moira would have cautioned us, or she would have agreed. We don’t know. But we need to go somewhere.

  Quant turns and we are off the main road again, moving faster, fifteen kilometers an hour. In minutes we are at the river, crossing to the south side and onto the road leading northeast and toward the Ring elevator, a twinkle on the horizon.

  “Eliud, you saved us,” Strom says. Meda is too shaken to speak for us. She holds her sister’s hand.

  “Yeah, I did.” He smiles. “I did it. Did you see me drive the tractor?”

  “We didn’t see it, but we heard it. How did you find us?”

  He scowls. “They didn’t even see me. They ran right by me. I followed them to the big building. It was that easy.”

  “No one notices a child.”

  “They really screwed that up. Anyway. I found the building, but it was so big I didn’t know where you were. So I had to find that out.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I walked in.”

  Strom laughs. “You just walked in?”

  “Yeah. There were so many people there, and they all had things in the back of their necks, but they didn’t notice me at all. Some of them were sitting in the big rooms just staring off. They all had wires going into their necks. There were wires everywhere.”

  “That was very brave.”

  “It wasn’t. I was scared.”

  “I understand,” Meda says.

  “I found my mom. It took me a while, but no one stopped me. It was like no one had told them to look for me, so they didn’t. But I found my mom. She was sitting on a couch with a wire in her neck, her eyes closed. I tried to wake her up. I tried for a while, but she wouldn’t open her eyes. I got mad and I pulled the wire from her neck. That woke her up. She was mad then.”

  Tears rose in Eliud’s eyes.

  “She didn’t know who I was. I kept telling her, ‘It’s me, Eliud. It’s me, Eliud.’ Finally, she sorta sees who I am, and says, ‘Eliud, did you come to get your interface?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, maybe, but can you show me around?’ and she smiles like she never did before and shows me around.

  “We walked and walked, and we walked down the hallway where the cells are and I ask who is here, and she says, ‘Subversives.’ So I knew that was where they were keeping you.

  “I told my mom—though I’m pretty sure she isn’t my mom anymore—that I’d come back and get my interface and that made her happy. But I came back with the tractor instead. That part wasn’t easy.”

  “You did a good job, Eliud,” Strom says. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve got you guys.”

  “You got to drive,” Strom says.

  “I told you I could.”

  “You did, indeed.”

  Leto is using the interface jack to brainwash his masses.

  We are past the city now, among fields and baby forests. A cart coming toward us runs off the side of the road. We are stopping for no one. Not until we get somewhere safe.

  It is easy to catch someone in flatland, Quant observes.

  We understand what she means. The entire CDS is linear. There is only forward and backward. If Leto wants to catch us, he can do so by calling ahead and having the road blocked.

  “Did you happen to grab the satellite phone?” Strom asks Eliud.

  “The what?”

  “Never mind.”

  We need to get off the road, Manuel sends.

  Is the elevator to the north or the south of the river?

  The old Congo followed a path southwest to the ocean. It passed the equator near Mbandaka.

  It could be on either side.

  Quant nods and turns the tractor into an access road. She drives slowly, trying to leave the gravel undisturbed. If Leto doesn’t know where we have left the road, it will make it more difficult for him to find us.

  The tractor crests the hill and we face endless desert. Quant stops it here and sends, We need to relieve it of all excess weight. We’ll travel faster.

  We climb out and dump the tiller, the fertilizer bin, the bacteria containers onto the sand. Before we climb back in, we fill the tanks with water from the nearest pump and pick fruit from the orchards until we can fit no more on the arborobot. Then Manuel pilots the tractor into the sand and we fly through the open desert, a plume rising behind us.

  Moira awakes hours later. The sun is setting and we are considering whether to drive on or to sleep. At her sigh, we rush to consense, but we are stymied. Her eyes open, but she is not there. No chemical thoughts emerge from her wrists. She stares at us as if she can’t quite understand who we are.

  “I must commune,” she says, and then looks around.

  Moira! Meda yells. The panic that has slowly eased away is back in her mind. Manuel slows the tractor, overwhelmed.

  “Moira,” Strom says. “Can’t you join with us?”

  She cocks her head, thinking. “No. Return me to the Community, please. The current situation is beyond parameters.”

  Oh, no!

  The tractor stops beside an outcropping of stone. We are passing through a region of mesas, once jungle-covered hills and now empty rock. Even at sunset, the heat overwhelms the air conditioner, which strains to keep all six of us cool.

  Leto’s brainwashed her!

  “Moira! You’re not part of the Community. You’re part of us. Try to consense. Please try,” Meda says.

  “No. We must return to the Community. Leto needs us to open the Ring.”

  “What?”

  “Leto can’t open the Ring without us.” She focuses on Meda. “Without you.”

  “He came from the Ring. Why does he need us?”

  “The Ring is closed to him. It will not open. He has tried many things. He knows the Ring will open for you.”

  “Why us?”

  “We reactivated the Ring AI when we came down from Columbus Station.”

  The four of us are dazed. The Ring had been empty, devoid of anything save machinery. It had responded to us when we first arrived at the GEO Ring Elevator, but we had assumed that the response was automatic. There had been no other response, no indication of anything but an empty shell.

  “The Ring AI is … with us?”

  “The Ring AI is nascent. It is weak without human incorporation. Thought is linear and circumscribed. Human thought augments AI thought.”

  It is why Leto is adding so many people to his cult. It will enhance his own AI.

  “Leto has his own AI?”

  “Of course. I need to return to it to commune.”

  “Where did he get his AI?�
�

  “He brought it with him when he left the Ring. It has been nascent until recently. Return me to the Community.”

  “We will not. You belong to us,” Meda says.

  “Not anymore.”

  At the Ring base elevator, there will be tools for us to link, Quant sends.

  We can attempt to free Moira from within.

  Strom opens the first-aid kit and finds the sedative. He injects Moira quickly, before she can see what he is holding, and she passes out.

  It is better not to have to listen to her.

  We decide to stop for the night. The terrain has become too rocky, too steep in places. We pass deep cuts in the dirt, eroded gullies from flash floods. If we fall into one of those, we will not be able to get the tractor out.

  The desert is cold after the sun sets. Quant sets the tractor to idle and we huddle near the exhaust. It is like a hot, wet breath. But when we step away, the water vapor that has collected in our clothes sucks the heat from our bodies.

  Even so, Moira, who has awakened but said little, walks a little ways into the desert. Meda watches her, then follows. Later we collect her conversation with Moira.

  “You realize he’s done something to your brain.”

  Moira nods. “Perhaps that’s so. But I feel valid now. My existence seems correct.”

  Meda stumbles for words, something she never does when she is with us. “You’re programmed to feel that way.”

  “You’re programmed to feel the way you do too.”

  “This is a silly argument. It doesn’t change the fact that you were my sister and now you’re some automaton.”

  “It’s all about you, isn’t it.” It sounds just like the old Moira. Meda pauses.

  “Yeah, it’s about the pod. It’s about Apollo. I want you back.”

  “You were in the Community. You know how it feels.”

  Meda remembers she and Leto building a castle, making love. There was power inside the box. She realizes then that the box was the AI. She had assumed it was just some device to allow interaction.