Crashland

by Sean Williams

  “All of it?”

  “Everything verifiable.”

  Clair did open a chat then, and chose her words carefully. “I want the unverified stuff too. Whatever it is the dupes think I know, Wallace’s PA might know too. Or the Improved. Their statements could be full of clues.”

  “There’s a lot of material.”

  “We have time.”

  “All right. Are you open to being deputized? It’s the easiest way for me to give you access.”

  Clair thought this over for a second. “Does that mean I’m committed to being a PK?”

  “No. Just promising to use the information responsibly.”

  “Of course,” she said. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “I’m happy to vouch for you,” Sargent said after a short pause. That didn’t really answer the question, but it would do.

  “Thanks.” Clair closed the chat, satisfied that this would supply some of her needs, and knowing there was still some way to go.

  “Wake up,” she bumped Devin. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!”

  “Gah. Stop it. What do you want?”

  She opened a new chat. “I’m going to dig around in the information the PKs found when they were hunting for the source of the dupes. Will you help with the technical stuff? I have no idea how networks like these fit together.”

  “Sure.” He sounded sleepy. “Send it on through. Trevin can look at the data if I’m zonked. He sees everything I see, and he hasn’t given up on us yet.”

  “Great, thanks. Glad your big brother’s good for something.”

  “Again,” said Trevin over the chat, “right here—”

  She closed the chat, satisfied that RADICAL could help her on that particular front. It still wasn’t enough, though. There was one more piece of the puzzle she needed help with.

  She used her lenses to find a link to the WHOLE muster and followed the trail from there to Agnessa.

  “I need something from you,” Clair said.

  A chat request came instantly. She accepted it.

  “And what might that be now?” the leader of WHOLE asked.

  Her voice sounded rich and full in Clair’s ears. Clair imagined her drifting invisibly from camera to camera. Even if Agnessa hadn’t been a hard-line Abstainer, the Improvement meme might not have tempted her with full health. What she had now was something like being a ghost, or a god.

  “I don’t think the source of the dupes is going to be in the Air, since no one’s found it yet. It has to be something real, something that can be disconnected from everything else when it needs to be. It’s likely to be hidden, perhaps a long way from civilization. Would you be willing to help me find it?”

  “Lots of room for secrets in a desert,” Agnessa said, “or on the ocean floor. Sure, we’ll help. We’re good at exploring the spaces between. That’s where we live.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be in touch again soon.”

  “Have you spoken to Jesse?”

  “Yes,” she said, and ended the chat, wondering if Agnessa had a camera on her. Her lenses didn’t indicate any kind of physical surveillance, but they were in WHOLE territory now, where a different kind of law was in operation. She would have to remember that, moving forward, and not just for fooling around: here, the watcher could stay hidden from the watched. Here, an unknown god ruled.

  [49]

  * * *

  SLOWLY, A GRAY washed-out light crept under the door and Clair decided it was time to get up. Slipping her arm out from under Jesse without disturbing him and shaking out fiery pins and needles, she pulled on her baggy pants and buttoned up her too-tight shirt over her undersuit. Easing from the room with her breath held, she headed across the common area to the toilet block, where she cleaned her teeth and washed her face and tried to get her hair under control. Maybe it was time to cut it, she thought. A new do for the new Clair: Clair 5.0, who had survived the nightmare and was fighting back.

  She smiled sadly, thinking of Libby. It was easy to imagine that worrying about her hair while the world fell apart was something her best friend might have done—but who knew how Libby would have changed had their roles been reversed? Libby wasn’t a pushover; she was resourceful and strong in her own way, just like Clair had flaws and weaknesses that were entirely her own. Libby wouldn’t be holding her former world at arm’s length while she sorted out the situation with the dupes in private. She would find a way to do it so everyone could see and marvel at her brilliance. Clair had tried doing that, and had only made things worse. Maybe Libby 2.0 would have already saved the world.

  But Clair wasn’t going to give up, and that meant facing certain realities. She couldn’t hide under a rock forever—not least because she had to be prepared if someone lifted the rock and exposed her to the truth. She had to know what it was she was trying to save.

  Sitting on the steps outside their demountable, breathing in the crisp, wintry air and watching the airships bob and sway above her, she opened the icon containing the real world and peered inside.

  The first thing that struck her was that it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. People weren’t starving; most of the fires were out; ways had been found to get people in dire need of medical care to doctors and hospitals, or vice versa. Long-outdated vehicles had been fabbed back into existence, including cars, helicopters, catamarans, and other forms of personal transport. What had once been employed for recreation or out of curiosity was now finding genuine use in a world deprived of the mobility everyone had been accustomed to.

  Tash had attained the edge of the forest and was rehydrating. Ronnie had finally gone out her front door, and was talking to emergency workers in her local town hall. Clair glanced at the first of the messages piled up in her infield. They were as angry as she had feared, but at least her friends were safe. Better alive and angry than the alternative.

  The crashlanders in the cave were all dead, even Xandra Nantakarn, suffocated by a cloud of carbon monoxide that had risen up over them while they slept. There was still no quick and reliable way to travel long distances, as several serious accidents had demonstrated beyond any doubt. Dupe attacks were still occurring, just as randomly as before. The Consensus Court was full of petitions for emergency measures, some of them shockingly extreme in their nature, from locking up people on the slightest evidence they might be dupes to executing anyone who broke the d-mat embargo. LM Kingdon was speechifying again.

  “We must be both calm and resolute in the face of this creeping menace,” she proclaimed. “We must not panic. We must not give in. We must stand together against every abomination, and never shy from what must be done. We must do everything to preserve the human race from those who would destroy us from within.”

  Oz was watching the speech, just like she was, from the town hall in Windham with the other deputies. His angry but silent approval spoke volumes. The dupes had stolen his wife. He wasn’t going to take that lying down.

  This time Kingdon didn’t send Clair a message, maybe because of Clair’s new association with WHOLE. Clair felt uncomfortable watching the latest speech. It wasn’t that she disagreed in principle with the plan to exterminate the dupes, but there was something disturbing about the logic behind the call to arms. In Clair’s mind it wasn’t the human race versus the dupes: it was right versus wrong. There was a difference. Once the lawmakers and peacekeepers started dividing people up into different types, regardless of what they had done, couldn’t people then get away with anything just as long as they belonged to the right type? She hoped that was just rabble-rousing rhetoric, not a return to the ways of the past.

  The disastrous end to the fight on the seastead had probably contributed to Kingdon’s case. The entire vessel had been destroyed by missiles dropped from orbit, thankfully long after the last survivor had escaped. Clair wondered if that was the Cashiles firing on the Linwoods, as someone might insecticide-bomb a nest of ants. Either way, it demonstrated a capacity for extreme violence that some feared might be unleash
ed elsewhere at any moment. That potential for violence only encouraged violence in return.

  “Not really Wallace’s style, is it?” Devin bumped her.

  “What do you mean?” she bumped back, unsurprised that he was watching what she was watching.

  “Taking out the seastead. Too big, too showy. He was a lurking-in-the-shadows kind of guy, because that’s how you get things done. This is more leaping-into-the-spotlight-and-throwing-a-punch after the fight is over. Posturing, you know?”

  She did know.

  “So we’re safe here for now,” she said over a chat. “From him, anyway.”

  “That, and at least one of the factions among the dupes still has access to some serious orbital hardware. I didn’t connect the dots before because I had other things to worry about, but look at what we’ve seen so far. There was Wallace’s space station hideaway to start with, and now the missiles and the powersat Nobody used for his attack on the seastead. Someone’s either got incredible hacking skills . . . or I don’t know what’s going on. An invasion from OneMoon, maybe.”

  The only conclusion Clair could come to was that breakfast was long overdue. And possibly dinner and lunch from the previous day as well.

  “Does it worry RADICAL, losing the seastead?” she asked him. “Do you wish you hadn’t become involved?”

  “Matter we can replace. People we can’t. I have to admit that I’m not regarded as the golden boy I was a couple of days ago, but you know how it is. You’ve got to go with what you believe is right. And more survived than you might think. Our soldiers were testing suits that act as mobile booths when they’re sealed. Take a hit and the armor will . . . uh . . . do what’s needed to keep you alive. The results were encouraging.”

  His hesitation puzzled her until she realized what he was talking about: the d-mat suits weren’t just for moving people around from place to place in the middle of battle—which in itself was pretty amazing—but they could also heal people who had been injured. RADICAL wasn’t ready to make that capacity known just yet.

  Her stomach rumbled.

  “You mentioned breakfast,” she said.

  “I did. Are you game?”

  “Game? I’m so hungry I’d eat anything.”

  “Wait until you try my legendary beetroot and porridge omelet.”

  “Uh . . . maybe not that hungry. I’ll ask Jesse instead.”

  “Just a joke, Joyce. Meet you in the kitchen in sixty. Prepare to be amazed.”

  Half an hour later she was amazingly full of scrambled eggs, fried mushrooms, and two thick slabs of whole-grain toast, dripping with butter and generously dusted with salt. She had wolfed it down, having been made even hungrier by the smells produced during the cooking process—and by the delay. Cooking was almost unbearably slow. She suspected her digestive tract of eating a large part of itself by the time the plate arrived in front of her.

  “You clean up,” said Devin from the seat opposite her. “That’s the deal.”

  His plate had contained less than half of hers, and he did little more than pick at that, obviously not suffering from the same gastronomic crisis she had been. They were the only people in the kitchen, maybe because they were being avoided, or maybe because the members of WHOLE were busy doing whatever it was they did to keep the muster fed, clothed, and safe.

  Clair leaned back in her chair and sipped at a mug of steaming black tea, skimming over a list of untraceable links she had found in the station map. The only coffee available smelled like burnt toast. She felt pleasantly overfull, but wasn’t going to begrudge herself the indulgence. She wasn’t sure how long it would be before she ate again. Only the thought that her mother might not be eating, wherever she was, cast a pall over her momentary contentment.

  “You know what you’ve done?” Devin asked out of nowhere.

  “What?”

  “You’ve assembled Clair’s Bears for real, the complete set: WHOLE, RADICAL, the peacekeepers . . . They’re all jumping at your beck and call. If I was one of the bad guys, I’d be feeling more than a little nervous right now.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was serious or subtly mocking her.

  “I told you not to call us that.”

  “But that’s what we are. We’re all sitting around waiting for you to tell us what to do.”

  She understood then that he was fishing for information. And perhaps sending a message to the dupes at the same time, since the two of them were in a public space. If she was a leader, then Devin had proactively taken on the role of media advisor, and perhaps grand vizier as well.

  “You’ll have to be patient,” she said. “I’ve got a lot to think about.”

  He nodded. “And dishes to do.”

  “Can’t I plead ignorance on that score as well as the actual cooking?”

  “It’s never too late to learn. Come on, I’ll dry.”

  Her mind wandered while she washed the mismatched plates and cups, settling on the question of whether her mother’s kidnappers were watching her right now. She wished she could search the list of people following her, but there were simply too many names now for one person to trawl through. That was something she considered asking for help with, but she decided she was already asking a lot. And if she did isolate someone suspicious among her observers, there was nothing she could do about it, short of locking herself in a Faraday shield, which would make communicating with her partners difficult, not to mention rule out any possibility of finding or—dare she continue to hope?—talking to Q.

  Besides, if Devin was right and the dupes were worried, that was fine with her.

  As they left the kitchen, a trio of young men stepped out of a laneway and put themselves right in her path. One held a broad, powerful-looking dog on a short leash. Its deep-set eyes glared at her as though sizing her up for breakfast. Clair stopped and backed up, alarmed.

  “Where do you think you’re going, zombie?” asked the young man in the middle, a redhead with streaks of black in his hair and odd, dark patches scattered across his skin. “Taking your pet freak for a walk?”

  “Let us through,” said Devin. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Funny way to show it,” said the thug to the redhead’s right. He had long, skinny fingers like the legs of an enormous spider. “You didn’t think to ask what we wanted before you barged in here.”

  “I’m only trying to help,” Clair said. Her heart was hammering, but her voice was steady.

  “You’re only nothing,” said the thug holding the dog. His ears were two lumpy extrusions on the side of his head that his thin hair didn’t quite cover. “Those sounds you’re making, that twitching you’re doing with your mouth . . . You’re dead, and you just don’t know it.”

  “You want to be careful,” said the redhead, “walking around here like you own the place. People might take offense. Anything could happen. Eh, Shiv?”

  The dog growled, low and dangerous. Clair backed up another step.

  “I think you should back off,” said Devin, putting himself between Clair and the trio in a move that only made the situation worse.

  “And I think you should get out of my face, ladyboy,” said the redhead, pushing Devin to the ground. “I’m talking to the zombie.”

  Clair felt her muscles tense in readiness as the trio surrounded her. Her fists came up in front of her. She had no idea what she would do if they did attack her, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. If only she hadn’t lost her pistol on the seastead. . . .

  “Don’t do this,” she said as one of the thugs shoved her shoulder, pushing her closer to the dog. It barked once, a horrible, violent sound. She pushed back and raised her hands to retaliate the next time one of them touched her.

  “We haven’t done anything . . . yet,” said the redhead with a leer.

  “That’s enough, Sandler Jones,” said a voice from behind them. “Leave the girl alone.”

  Heads turned to where Nelly stood on the common area, her broad face radiating a
uthority. Behind her, Forest and Sargent were running from the dormitory, probably called by Devin, who stood nearby, face flushed and furious, shoulder muddy from where he had been thrown down. Jesse brought up the rear, his expression horrified.

  “She’s no girl,” said the thug with the dog. “She’s a thing. Walking meat.”

  “Well, you, meathead, have just earned a week in the sewage treatment plant. Want to make it two weeks?”

  He glared at Nelly, the muscles around his mouth working viciously. The dog growled again.

  “These people are guests of Agnessa,” Nelly said. “Screw with them and you screw with her. I hope that’s understood, Sandler.”

  The redhead opened his mouth as if to argue. Then he glanced at Sargent and Forest, two armed and armored peacekeepers at Devin’s side. Forest’s expression was furious—a masterwork of intimidation that made even Clair worried, even though she knew it was a fake. Or maybe he really was furious. A fake that stood in for something real was no different from the real thing, was it?

  “Agnessa doesn’t speak for all of us,” Sandler said, but he backed away, taking the other two with him. The dog strained at the leash, unwilling to be dragged away too. “Watch your step, zombies. You’re not welcome here.”

  Nelly said nothing as the trio retreated, and when they turned a corner and disappeared from sight Clair allowed herself to breathe again. Her hands dropped back down to her sides. Her palms were sweating. The big breakfast sat like a stone in her stomach.

  “Thank you,” Clair told Nelly sincerely.

  “Thank me by doing what you have to do and going somewhere else,” Nelly said. “And don’t go wandering on your own. Next time I might not be around.”

  She turned and walked away, big hips swaying and hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. Clair understood, now, that Nelly was much more than Agnessa’s nurse. She was probably her second-in-command, and perhaps an enforcer as well, when circumstances demanded.

  “Are you all right?” said Jesse, coming up behind Clair and touching her shoulder.