by JA Huss
Annun winks and shoots his thumb and finger at the AI, then spurts out a good-natured, "Gotcha," before turning back to gape at the interior of the lobby.
The elevator opens and we all enter together. The biometrics protocol repeats, but this time John Hando does the honors and completes the biological inquisition with a drop of blood for an impromptu DNA scan.
He passes and I figure that's a good sign. And then the doors close and we are ascending the Sagitta Arrow.
Chapter Twelve
We stop long before we get to the top. I look over at Hando, but he ignores me. We exit into a long, slender, dark, corridor. It looks like the power went out and there's nothing lighting up the interior except emergency floodlights. The AI leads the way, and that grotesque face of the female stares at HOUSE as John Hando falls in line, then me, and Annun takes up the rear rifleman position out of habit. I can hear his uneven boot steps as he walks, and this comes off as a watch-your-back strategy most rear soldiers get when the fireteam is on the move.
Not that it matters, because if we get attacked in here, we're fucked. It's nothing but talons and razors because I have no porting power with the vision screen down. It pretty much runs all my gifts.
The AI stops at a door and waves John Hando forward. It surprises me how much access Hando actually has in this building. I don't know a whole lot about it other than it's exclusive, will kill you outright if you try to approach without clearance, and is run by the Duality—but I do know that no random Texican Mafia guy should be this well connected to it.
Which means John Hando's no random Texican Mafia guy.
The AI clears his throat and I direct my attention back to him to find them all waiting on me.
"What you will see is disturbing," the machine says without expression. "Just know that this was the choice of the Engineer."
John Hando doesn't wait for me to answer. He thumbs his genetics one more time and the wall slides up to reveal a large room, easily several stories high, filled with electronics, rows upon rows of processing power. My eyes scan it as quick as possible as we're ushered forward but it's not until I actually enter the room that I see what the AI was referring to.
It's a man.
Or probably not. Used to be a man might be a better description of the thing that sways in a tank of not-quite-clear fluid that looks, and smells, a lot like amniotic storage liquid.
HOUSE starts to choke, from the smell I think, and I have to use every mind trick I have not to bend over and retch.
"What the fuck is that smell?" Leave it to Annun to snap me back with an inappropriate comment.
"That smell is the decomposition of the Engineer," the AI replies. "Of course the preservatives are changed daily, but as you can imagine, it's not enough."
"What the fuck is it?" Annun asks. For once I'm glad he's here because protocol states you shut the fuck up in these types of situations, and I've been trained in protocol for so fucking long I'd never even think to start asking questions.
But Annun could give a shit.
"It's the baseline mind of the AI," Hando says. "Deb and Web are actually extensions of him. When he finally rots, we'll need to replace him. Why? How do you guys run your AI's?"
It takes me back for a moment and by the time I've recovered Annun is already answering.
"Nuclear power. Like the rest of the civilized fucking world."
Hando just shrugs, like he's clueless about how AI's are run and this is normal to him. I look behind me at footsteps. The AI has backed away and left us there. Probably uncomfortable coming face to face with its true form.
"Please tell me this child is not in a tank like that." I look over at Hando. "Or I think I will have to kill someone."
I expect Hando to get an attitude with me, deny it, and then threaten to kill me for threatening to kill him. But he doesn't. Which means HOUSE is in a tank like that.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me?"
"Tier, I did not make her, OK? I've been to her room once. Once. And that was when that Inanna bitch came and said we had to make adjustments if we wanted to save Junco."
I look down at HOUSE. "Is she dying? For real?"
Hando just shrugs and points to the far end of the room. "She's through that wall over there. Are you ready? Because it's a little more disturbing than this and she's looking pretty bad there in your arms, so—"
He lets his words drop.
"Let's go then, asshole. We gotta get in there now!" Annun is already halfway across the room when I give the nod.
We follow Annun.
Hando gives up some blood one more time and the wall slides up. If I thought the smell was bad in the first room, the pungent odor that affronts us now is like legions of bodies two weeks rotten on a summer battlefield.
If the view in front of me wasn't so—shocking—I might lean over and puke. But my eyes are focused on the true form of the girl wasting away in my arms.
Thousands upon thousands of amniotic tanks filled with little Junco clones.
"Holy fucking shit, Hando. What the fuck?" It dawns on me that maybe Gideon and Caleb do know about HOUSE, and maybe they knew that this was what she was, and maybe I am one fucked-up disturbed individual for keeping her around and treating her like a daughter.
"I knew," Hando says, quietly, "that this was wrong when I saw it before, but I had no way to know that she'd turn into this and regardless of what it looks like, I am not in charge here. Inanna is. She owns the building, she runs Deb and Web—I am not in charge of these abominations."
This statement refers not only to Junco clones floating in layer upon layer of tanks filed with cloudy liquid and which stack all the way to the ceiling, because honestly, if that's all that's going on here, I might be able to come to terms with it. But the clones are not even whole anymore. Limbs float in the fluid. Whole legs and arms, heads in some, dismembered from the main body.
They are in pieces.
"She cannot be fixed," I say to no one. "This cannot be fixed. Of all the things I've witnessed in my life, I could never imagine anyone being capable of doing this. Are they conscious?"
"The last time I was here—mind you, they looked a lot better—they were conscious then."
I walk up towards the nearest stack and peer into the cloudy liquid. It's almost opaque with… with what? Filth is the only word that comes to mind. Debris just doesn't cover it.
I walk along the aisle, peering into each one, searching for movement. Any sign that they are alive. It takes many rows of tanks before I find one that still has a recognizable face.
And her mouth is moving.
I watch her lips form the words. Over. And over.
And they say the same thing. Over. And over.
Kill me.
Kill me, they say. I look down at HOUSE and honest to God I want to kill something all right, but it's certainly not her.
"I have a better idea, Tier. If you're interested." John Hando's fingers grip my arm and pull me away from the begging child inside the tank. He pulls me all the way back into the Deb/Web room, seals the room back up, and then directs me to leave.
Annun is already outside, looking pale and spitting on the ground. The wall slides down and the smell evaporates with the filters that have since kicked on.
"There's no hope. She can't be saved."
"No, you're right. I'm going to order Web to cut the power and clean it all up. That is a mess. But there is hope for HOUSE, Tier. The Sagitta is a lot of things, but an office building is not one of them. It's an advanced weapons system, it's a sentient AI, and it's a transmitter."
I barely know what he's talking about, the image of Junco in those tanks is burned into me. "That's why they cloned her?"
Hando seems to want to get past this topic quickly, so he just nods. "Partially, I'd assume. I have no idea who's been up here or how often. If they changed them out or whatever. I could ask Web if you really want to—"
"No," I say. "No, I don't want to know."
/> "Me either, man. Me either. I don't want to know."
"But why? Why do this?" I look over at him and shake my head. "What did they get from it?"
"That's what I'm trying to explain. When Inanna came that time she told me if the tanks should ever fail I was to beam the mind up through the transmitter."
I just stare at him.
He points up. "The transmitter. In the top of the Arrow. She said it would shoot the core AI out into space. Why that's a good idea, I don't know but that's—"
"Wait!" Annun is back in action and we both turn. "Junco's out there, scattered into particles, right? If we shoot HOUSE up there, maybe she'll go back inside Junco? Or maybe she'll pull her back together and Juncs will come back?"
We all look at each other like a bunch of idiots. I've heard dumber things in my time, that's for sure. I've tried dumber things, actually. "OK, let's try that. Can we try it now?"
Hando's already on the move and Annun and I follow, our steps much quicker going back through the dark narrow hallway than they were coming down it.
This time we take the elevator down to the bottom floor, then catch another one that will take us up to the top of the Arrow.
HOUSE coughs in my arms and I lean heavily on the stainless steel wall and let out a sigh. This is not going at all how I planned. I'm not sure what I thought would be here at the Sagitta, but it wasn't what I found. And if ya would've told me a few hours ago that HOUSE would be dead by evening, I probably would've ripped yer face off.
But this is reality. She is dying. I'm not taking her back to Sargassum. Her beach days are over. There will be no more flipflops, no more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and no more half-hearted parenting from me.
It's not fair.
It's not fucking fair that I have to give everything up just as I start to get attached to it. And maybe it's not the best time to be lamenting on things like this, but shit.
The elevator stops and the doors slide open. Annun leads the way out and we follow. It's a very small room made out of glass that opens up to the night sky so that all you see are stars. I can only imagine the delight Junco got from this view. I stop for a moment to appreciate it, then look around me.
My vision screen is still offline, but if it wasn't, I'd bet my life that these windows were made of fused quartz. The floors are covered with a deep red carpet and a spiral staircase winds around the elevator housing and leads up to a platform that is the literal top to the Sagitta.
"Take her up there, I'll go get things ready and then come back."
I nod and then address Annun. "Go with him." He makes to balk about it, but then studies my face, takes a long look at HOUSE in my arms, and changes his mind.
They both get back in the elevator and then we are alone.
"I got ya, HOUSE. Yer gonna be OK, girl. Ya got it?"
She moans.
I climb the steps and walk out onto the platform. The windows are so clear it feels like you're standing on a cloud. I lie down in the middle of the floor and put the little girl on my chest. She coughs and this time a little bit of blood comes out of her mouth.
"Yer gonna go see Junco now, HOUSE, but I'm gonna tell ya a story before ya go, OK? Because Gideon fucked it all up when he told it to her and if she's decided to leave us for good, well, I think she deserves to know the truth about how it ends."
I wait for an acknowledgment, but get silence instead.
So I start on my own.
"When everything was evil, in the time before now, there was a God’s princess. She took the shape of a beautiful swan and she soared in the sky every night, looking for her friends. She knew them all, they were like brothers and sisters to her. But there was a boundary to her world, a great river of stars that cut the galaxy in half. She could often be found sitting next to the river desperately trying to see across it—because she knew there was another bird over there. An eagle. Jupiter's eagle. She'd seen him many times, even called out to him once, but he never responded. Maybe he couldn't hear her, or maybe he was ignoring her, it didn't matter. She wanted to talk to him but it was impossible to get his attention and it was impossible to cross the river of stars.
"Then one day the God’s swan princess was soaring towards the river when she spied a little fox. The swan knew the fox, she was the daughter of a very famous fox, and a cunning little animal who was known for her tricks and antics in the swan princess' realm. So the swan approached the little fox and made a proposition. If the little fox would devise a way to cross the river of stars, she would bestow a gift on her."
"What was the gift?" HOUSE's little voice croaks.
The ache in my heart is so strong I almost can't continue. I squeeze her gently and tuck down the hurt. "Darlin', the swan promised the little fox that if she helped her cross the river she'd make sure that Jupiter's arrow would never find her as its target."
"But Jupiter's arrow always finds its mark," HOUSE mumbles.
She's so smart. I smile because she's so smart. It is so appropriate that Junco's HOUSE knows the myths of the sky. "I know, darlin', that's why the gift was so special. It set up a paradox, just like her father, the Teumessian fox, had with Laelaps the dog."
Silence this time.
"The God’s swan princess caused a big rift in the night sky with this promise. And all the gods and goddesses were afire with anger and unease. They wanted her to take the gift back, but the swan princess tilted her chin high and refused. She wanted to cross the river of stars and meet Jupiter's eagle."
"And," HOUSE adds softly, "she wanted to keep her little fox alive too, right?"
"That's exactly right. She liked the little fox, no—she loved the little fox. And the little fox came up with a trick to help her cross the river. She asked all the birds of the sky to come help make a bridge across the galaxy, but none of the important birds would disobey the other gods and goddesses. Only the trouble-making magpies agreed to the little fox's request. So on the third day of the ninth month, the magpies flew to the river of stars and spread their wings so the God’s swan princess could cross the river on the magpie bridge."
"What happened to the fox?" she asks, barely a whisper.
"Darlin', this is the best part so make sure that when you see Junco up there in the sky ya tell her, OK?"
Silence.
"When Jupiter's eagle saw the God’s swan princess he fell instantly in love with her and when she told him of the trouble she caused just to get to him, the eagle promised to protect the little fox from Jupiter's arrow forever."
I wait for my little fox to respond but her breath is shallow and she's going very pale.
The elevator doors open then and Annun and Hando come out. "Tier?" Annun calls.
"Up here."
I listen to his boots climb the stairs and when he gets to the top he's out of breath and red-faced. "You've got about thirty seconds, then the transmission will start."
I nod and he goes back down, leaving us alone.
"That's not the end, Little Fox. Yer gonna miss the end if ya leave me now."
"How's it end, Tier?" Her words do not even qualify as a whisper but I hear them and force myself to continue.
"It ends with the eagle giving up everything to spend eternity with the God’s swan princess. Not for one night a year, darlin'. Forever."
My heart beats in my chest like it's gonna explode as I wait for her reply, but HOUSE is gone. I feel the coldness sweep through and the life leave her body as her heart stops pumping.
I look up to the infinite depths of space and hope as the transmission manifests as a pure white light.
I let go of the girl and shield my eyes, and when the light is gone—so is my Little Fox.
Chapter Thirteen
I get up and look down at my warrior and John Hando. "Dude, you are so fucking dead," Annun states matter-of-factly. "I sure hope HOUSE went up in the sky, because man, Junco is gonna be one pissed-off little psycho when she gets back and finds out you dissipated her HOUSE!"
> I think I love Annun. I think he's Braun and Isten all twisted together in one obnoxious asshole and I think I love Annun because he believes in me. In us. In himself. In Junco. He's so Goddamned simple and honest.
My wings unfurl and I jump down to the ground. Hando just raises his eyebrows at me and shakes his head. "I think it worked, man. I really do. She disappeared, and I think that's a good sign."
I'm still thinking about this when the elevator doors open and the Web AI exits. "Mr. Hando, there are avian warriors outside demanding to see the Captain and this"—he looks Annun up and down with an obvious disdain—"warrior. They have urgent messages for them."
Hand looks at me. "You done here? Or you want me to go grab the message and bring it to you?"
I look up at the top of the Sagitta building one more time. It's not called the Arrow for nothing. It is the arrow. Jupiter's arrow, the constellation in the sky that sits in front of Aquila the eagle, is called Sagitta.
"No, I'm ready. We did all we could. Caleb says Junco is coming home, and I trust him. He would not lie to me. We did what we could."
We all enter the elevator together and stand in silence as we descend back to earth. Downstairs I can see my warriors even though I can't hear them. The building is soundproof, but there's no denying that what's going on outside is almost out-and-out war.
"Can you give me tech access so I can tell them to stand down?" I address Web, not Hando this time.
The AI stares at me for a second, then nods. "Of course, Captain."
My vision screen comes to life and I have several hundred waiting messages. I clear them all and order a ceasefire.
Most of the battle comes to a halt, and then I notice Web's vacant stare and figure he's called off his rockets or whatever the hell he has out there.
The doors slide open and we all exit together.
Tessen is running up to Annun talking wildly while Pike and Merkar shove her aside and try to take over. I ignore them and look to Arel instead.