Crashland

by Sean Williams

  “Riots in Windham?” Clair couldn’t imagine it. Windham barely qualified as anywhere. “Tell him to be careful, Mom.”

  “I have. He might be more inclined to if it comes from you. He’s worried about you too.”

  “I’m sorry.” Clair hesitated, caught on the tipping point of saying nothing and saying everything. “I love you, Mom.”

  “And I love you, dearest child of mine. Please be safe.”

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise. And, hey, ditto.”

  “Ditto.” Clair could hear the smile in her mother’s voice, but it was on the surface only. Underneath was all worry.

  Devin bumped her as soon as she closed the chat. “Don’t be under any illusions that the PKs are acting out of the goodness of their hearts. They want something from you. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Are you spying on me?” she sent back.

  “Perfectly legally. I saw you call your mother. I guessed what you would talk about. It wasn’t hard.”

  Clair checked the list of people following her profile, and sure enough, there he was, along with LM Kingdon and all the others. He couldn’t see the content of private conversations at his level of privilege, but he was probably telling the truth about the rest.

  She thought briefly again about taking up the lawmaker’s offer, but decided that she should only get legal advice once she actually had something concrete to talk about on the matter of reactivation. No use tipping her hand too early, in case PK Forest was paying attention.

  Applying a second layer of conditioner to her hair and tying it up in a temporary knot, she ignored the embarrassment of talking in the shower to a boy she hardly knew and opened a chat.

  “So what if the PKs want something from me?” she said. “So do you.”

  “At least I’m being honest about it.”

  “How do you know they haven’t been?”

  “Because I know them. Prove me wrong.”

  She had to admit that he wasn’t. But she didn’t see the harm in what he was suggesting. She wasn’t being entirely honest with the PKs, either. They made her feel safer, but if they stood between her and what she needed to do, she would escape without a moment’s hesitation and get on with it her way.

  “They’re after the same thing as you, aren’t they?” she went on. “It’s all about finding Q, even though they’re pretending it isn’t. That’s what Wallace wanted. That’s what you want.”

  “I don’t want her,” he said. “I want to know what she is, with a view to containing her. And I know you don’t want to hear that, but . . . Look, do you know why we don’t have smart AIs running the world?”

  “Sure, Turner Goldsmith told me. Because—”

  “Because AIs are either too big and spread too thin or too small to be good at more than one thing. Yes? Well, your friend in WHOLE was lying. Real AIs can be anything they want, which is why they’re so dangerous. They’re not impossible at all. We don’t have them because they’re banned.”

  Clair mulled this over for a moment.

  “Q isn’t dangerous,” she said. “She’s just a kid . . . a kid version of an AI, whatever that’s called. She helped me, and she helped everyone harmed by Improvement.”

  “Sure, but how did she do it? By hacking into systems that were supposed to be utterly secure and destroying the oversight capacity of the entire VIA network. She almost wiped VIA HQ right off the surface of the Earth just to get you back. Imagine what she could do when she grows up! Creating something like her and losing control of it was Wallace’s real crime, Clair. You have to understand the gravity of the situation.”

  “Well, she’s not talking to me any longer, so if you think I’m going to betray her or talk her into turning herself in, you can forget it. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “She’s not talking to us, either, and we’ve tried hard to get her attention. Maybe you can help us find her, wherever she’s gone to ground.”

  “Is that what you think she’s done?”

  “Either that or she’s done us all a favor and erased herself for good.”

  Clair gasped. Q had followed her lead on more than one occasion. What if she had done so in the worst possible way?

  Distantly, she heard the sound of Devin’s shower clicking off two cubicles along. The chat stayed open.

  “What was that you said earlier?” he asked. “You could hear something, back in the booth?”

  “Yeah, did you hear it too? Like a private chat bleeding into my feed. Whispering.”

  “No, nothing like that,” he said. “You sure you didn’t get any of that poisoned shrapnel in you?”

  “Whether I did or not, Devin, I was hearing things before that happened.”

  “Ah. Well, then it’s just ordinary everyday hallucinations. Watch out for those. Reality can be such a letdown when it kicks back in.”

  She ended the chat, not liking being made fun of and figuring it was time she got out of the shower too.

  She finished rinsing out the conditioner, wrapped her hair in a towel and reached through the curtain for her new clothes. They were the perfect size, made to the measurements in her profile, and consisted of a sleek black undersuit that looked whisper-thin but was supportive in all the right places, plus a set of shoes, pants, and a hooded top made of blue and white segments that slipped neatly over each other. It was only marginally bulkier than jeans and a sweatshirt, and felt considerably lighter.

  There was a mirror. When she checked herself out, she looked like a young peacekeeper, apart from her hair, which, released from the towel, was already bushing up as it always did. If they’d given her a helmet, she might have worn it just to keep the frizz under control.

  She remembered what Jesse had said about her having potential in this line of work. The figure in the mirror was a glimpse of her possible future, if she wanted it. A zit on her chin emphasized that this future should have been much further away than it seemed right now.

  Her stomach was full of butterflies. There were dupes nearby and they were trying to get to her. As she stepped out of the stall, she bumped her stepfather. Oz was asleep, but her message would be there for him later.

  [9]

  * * *

  FOREST AND SARGENT showed them how to use the hoods of their uniforms. They were soft and pliable when inactive, but turned rigid and skull hugging at a simple command. The PKs wore similar outfits but with pouches and packs—the complete kit, Clair assumed, unlike their stripped-down versions.

  “We should give our squad a name,” said Devin. “Clair’s Bears, perhaps.”

  Clair winced, thinking of Zep’s nickname for her: Clair-bear.

  “This isn’t a game,” said Jesse. He was standing with his wet hair slicked back, looking stern and nervous at the same time. Devin shrugged.

  Forest’s gaze flicked across each of them, as though testing them.

  “All right,” he said. “This way.”

  The Crystal City barracks network connected with her lenses as she walked through its echoing gray corridors and stairwells, offering menus and links to Forest and Sargent and a number of other PKs, several of whom appeared to be actively monitoring drones already. She had access to more than two dozen audiovisual feeds showing the barracks and its surroundings. Some had detailed commentaries. The rest were blank. She guessed that was where she and the others came in. A couple of hours of scoping out the dupes, she hoped, and she would be free to get back to finding Q.

  “Well, so far Washington is a huge disappointment,” said Jesse with a half smile. “Where are the monuments? The museums? The trees?”

  Clair realized only then that, unless his father had physically taken him cross-country from the West Coast and back again, Jesse would never have been to the former U.S. capital before. She had visited twice on school trips and once with her family, all via d-mat. It had been as close to her as any other place in the world, b
efore the crash.

  “Overrated,” she said, matching his attempt at lightheartedness with one of her own. “And we’re a ways off from the interesting bits.”

  She tried not to think about all the school kids and tourists out there, stuck in Washington until d-mat could get them home.

  “Through here.”

  Forest waved them into a darkened suite containing six sleek reclining chairs arranged in a circle, feet-inward.

  “There’s a fabber if you’re hungry or thirsty,” Sargent said. “Order what you want and I’ll bring it to you when it’s ready.”

  Clair chose the chair opposite the door. As she sank back into the black leather, she opened the fabber menu via the barracks network. It wasn’t as if she was hungry—the image of her exploded dupe was still horribly fresh in her mind—but she couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten. Thinking of what her mother would say, she ordered coffee, chocolate, and beef jerky, plus a hair band to bring her thick curls into line.

  Devin waited until Jesse had sat next to Clair and then chose the seat farthest from them, on the opposite side of the circle. Maybe he just didn’t like people, she thought.

  “PK Beck will guide you to your drones,” said Forest.

  Clair made herself physically comfortable and concentrated on navigating the new windows opening in her lenses. There was a quick tutorial, a practice simulator, some FAQs . . .

  “They’re going to a lot of trouble to look after a couple of kids, don’t you think?” bumped Devin.

  “Three kids,” she shot back. “You forgot to count yourself.”

  “I’m here voluntarily. Besides, my relationship with them isn’t in question.”

  “Not with them, maybe. I still don’t understand why they’re letting you tag along.”

  “I’m the closest thing to a specialist anyone has when it comes to Improvement and the dupes. Apart from you, I guess. You blew everyone else up.”

  Clair supposed his explanation made sense, and maybe they thought that she was more likely to trust him because they were roughly the same age. Boy, had they gotten that wrong.

  Sargent folded out a tray from the arm of Clair’s seat and placed her snack next to her. Clair glanced up and said thanks, wondering if Devin had a point. Was Sargent being weirdly servile or just practical? Clair couldn’t decide.

  “You should eat,” said Forest to Jesse. “How long since your last meal?”

  “Uh . . . it’s fine.” Jesse looked up from fiddling with the hood of his armor, which he had flipped forward to provide a HUD to make up for his lack of modern lenses. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You ate nothing in New York.” Forest came around the chairs to stand over him. “I know, you are an Abstainer. I understand. But we have only fabbed food here. If you do not eat that, you will starve.”

  “Then I’ll starve, okay—or are you going to force-feed me?” he snapped. His anger quickly evaporated. “Sorry. I just don’t want anything now, really. Some water. That would be good.”

  Forest nodded.

  Clair reached between their couches to touch the back of Jesse’s hand. He looked down and flipped his hand over. Their fingers tangled in soothing knots.

  “You must think I’m stupid,” he said.

  She shook her head. Not stupid, just different, and stubborn. That was something they had in common. He might have inherited his beliefs from his father, but it was his right to defend them, and no one could take that right away from him. She actually felt proud of him, although worried at the same time.

  “Please don’t starve to death,” she said.

  “That chocolate smells amazing.”

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m totally going to eat it.”

  He smiled. “I would in your shoes.”

  PK Beck issued the virtual equivalent of an “ahem” and began assigning drones. The principle was the same as any eye-in-the-sky drone: they were autonomous but could be overridden by human control at any moment. Anyone in the network could examine the world around the drone through its many senses—in the regular world “anyone” meant literally anyone over eighteen, but around Crystal City it meant only those authorized by PK Beck—in order to guide the drone toward any sites of interest. Oz put in a few hours a week in random places around the world, and Clair had watched over his shoulder a few times. Once they had seen an actual crime, and the way the community of observers had converged on the scene had amazed her. Until backup drones and PKs arrived, there had just been the one drone, “controlled” by Oz and more than a hundred other people in a rapidly evolving consensus that was made possible by the same participatory algorithms that lay behind OneEarth itself. There were no leaders and no followers: everyone found the way together.

  Chewing on a stick of jerky, Clair picked one unsupervised drone at random and accessed its feed. Drone 484117B was cruising at a steady speed over one of Crystal City’s many aboveground buildings, a boxy structure containing offices and data storage, according to the map her visual overlay provided. Visible were several other PK buildings, the old airport site, now a nature reserve, greater Washington and the Potomac River, and to the south a long, gray wall that was the Great Alexandria Barrage, one of the more awesome attempts to keep the ocean in place after the Water Wars. Fifty yards high and more than two miles long, it looked like storm clouds stuck on the horizon, never coming closer and never going away.

  The drone was intuitively easy to direct. Clair experimented with various commands, pitching, yawing, and diving until she was sure she had it all worked out. Then she put the drone back under its own control and concentrated on the feed. There were dupes out there somewhere, trying to get to her. Her job was to stop them, and if she learned more about them into the bargain, all the better.

  “Where are they?” she asked, studying her windows in vain.

  “Stick to the assigned flight path,” said Sargent. “If you notice anything out of order, let us know.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” bumped Devin. “They won’t be giving us any real work.”

  “Stop it,” she said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  But there was a chance he was right. The task was simple and soon became routine. Her mood soured. Every five minutes she was automatically assigned a new drone, to stop her from getting complacent about the view, she assumed. The drones flew over empty rooftops, empty lawns, and empty physical training grounds.

  When not absorbed with this menial task, Clair explored the network of Crystal City and the small insight she had to the wider world of the peacekeepers. It reminded her of the vast complexity of Wallace’s secret network, into which Q had briefly plugged her in the station. That had been epic in scale, spanning the entire world, and this was much the same. There were literally millions of PKs and their new deputies active at that moment, all over the world. She couldn’t tell what they were doing, but she could see their names and where they were. Some came online while she watched and others dropped off. She hoped the latter weren’t dying. Maybe they were using the shadow road to move around.

  Reports about dupes were coming in from all over. That was good, if slightly unnerving, to know.

  A flicker on her drone’s feed brought her out of her observations. The view was alternating between bright white and blackness as though the camera lens was blinking at the sun. She was puzzled for a second until the drone identified it as a laser attack. The drone wasn’t damaged, but its vision was being deliberately obscured.

  Finally, Clair thought, although not without a twinge of nervousness.

  “I think I’ve got something,” she said to PK Beck.

  He slipped smoothly into the drone’s control systems.

  “Great. Let’s give her a touch of rotation . . . like this.”

  The drone—Clair refused to refer to it as a “she”—turned on its gyroscopes and fans, blinking all the way. At a certain point the vision in one camera cleared.

  “The source of the laser is now blocked by t
he body of the drone, see?” PK Beck explained. “That gives us a set of possible angles. All we need is another and we can triangulate, get some countermeasures in place. Let’s take her over here and see what happens.”

  The drone jetted off along a new trajectory, tilting and swaying to define the laser’s path. Clair watched the view through the cameras closely, trying to tease out useful information from the interference. Image-processing algorithms did the same. She saw notifications appear in the corner of the field telling her that Jesse and Devin had joined her feed as well.

  Glimpses of Crystal City’s urban landscape came and went. Clare locked on to one particular frame and zoomed in as far as she could, sweeping her point of view across a stand of bushes next to a park named after the last president of the United States, Caroline J. Oswald.

  “Could that be someone’s arm?” she said, highlighting a particular patch of shadow.

  “Maybe,” said PK Beck. “We’ll check it out. Good work.”

  “That’s not an arm,” Devin bumped her. “Hypervigilance and false positives. The PKs are nervous. I wonder what they’re not showing us.”

  “I thought you said they were doing this just to keep us occupied.”

  “I can’t have it both ways?”

  “That siren is too annoying to be a fake.”

  “True.”

  A flash cut across the PK lens interface, distracting Clair from her task. She blinked and focused on the new notification. It had to be important to rise up out of the morass of other messages.

  When she saw what it was, everything else ceased to matter. A chat request had come through her most private channel. It was from Libby.

  [10]

  * * *

  SEVERAL THOUGHTS COLLIDED in Clair’s mind at once. But Libby was dead! No, she might not be—not if her pattern had been saved in the same place Zep had come from. Should she mention it to someone? There wasn’t time—if she didn’t take the request now it might go away and never come back!