Exodus

by Alex Lamb

  Will reached out with an invisible hand, grabbed them and pulled. They plucked free in his grasp like dead grass, going instantly limp. He took another step back and found himself drooping in Moneko’s arms. The basement was silent.

  ‘Did I …?’

  ‘Kill them?’ said Moneko. ‘Hell yes. And the Cancerous fucks deserved it. Just please don’t ever do that on a whim, okay?’

  Her eyes held an urgent vulnerability that Will hadn’t expected to see. He nodded and glanced towards the door they’d wedged shut. It had been smashed open. A pile of dead monks blocked the doorway, face down and motionless.

  ‘That’s what a Cancer looks like?’ he said, awed.

  ‘Yes, and you did good. But this is very bad juju,’ said Moneko. ‘Our Balance-shield is now blown – they were generating the unwelcomeness that was keeping us hidden. We need to leave.’

  ‘Hey,’ said a clone in white robes sitting up in the transit-grave. ‘What’s going on here? Who are you? This is a private residence!’

  His eyes went wide as he noticed the heap of bodies. Moneko kicked him in the head.

  ‘Into the grave,’ she said. ‘We’re out of here.’

  They dragged the body out and vacated to the mesh. This time, when Will transitioned, he found himself in one of the convention-hall stands he’d seen on his first walk through soft-space. Moneko seized his hand and led him past some startled clones in High Church robes.

  ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ she told him. ‘We’ve taken a good look but your organisation isn’t a good fit for our diversification needs. Have a nice day!’

  They left the tent, entered the flow of pedestrians and hurried off. Thankfully, their red body-suits had already disappeared. Will was back in shipwear while Moneko was decked out like a dapper executive in a slate-grey formal hoodie and creased black yogas. After the first signpost intersection, she relaxed a little.

  ‘We’re out,’ she said, her pace slowing. She paused to rub her head and breathed deep. ‘Balance can’t track us now. We’re into the next mesh cell, thank Gal, so let’s debrief while we can.’ She fixed him with an earnest, exhausted expression. ‘First, a confession. That suntap housing you saw? It was in a forest clearing, wasn’t it? With glowing trees?’

  Will nodded. ‘I’ve been there before, then.’

  ‘Every time,’ said Moneko. ‘It’s the first thing you always do when we take you to the Underlayer. You’ve never been one for structure, Will. You always push for the first good idea that pops into your head. So these days, we make sure you’ve got good stealthware and an exit strategy. Then we let you visit on your own terms so you can look for yourself. The housing was empty, I’m guessing?’

  Will nodded as a blush spread across his cheeks.

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ she said. ‘It’s instinct. We all have them. Glitches need to see it for themselves. And they don’t like to feel that they’re being pushed into it, either. If that makes you feel predictable, I’m sorry. To date, this has been the best method we’ve found for crossing that hurdle.’

  Will shrugged. He hated feeling like an automaton but wasn’t sure what he could do about it.

  ‘You always want to destroy the suntap,’ said Moneko. ‘But never that badly. And you never leave it that late to quit. Which means that something changed this time. Balance upped his game again. So let’s figure out what went wrong. Tell me how you felt in that forest when you saw the suntap. What was going on in your head?’

  ‘Anger,’ said Will. ‘An anger so pure it left room for nothing else. It was like John said – an undeniable truth. I had to rip it out.’

  ‘Well, here’s lesson number one,’ said Moneko. ‘Emotions in the Underlayer are porous. There’s not a good division between Glitches and those spaces, which is how you’re able to navigate them. But that forest, that’s not part of the Underlayer. It’s a different kind of memory – not something forgotten, but something blocked or artificial, depending on your perspective. In any case, it’s clearly a memory that Balance can tweak, because now he’s figured out how we’re using it and has wired it with emotional triggers. If you’re going to do more diving, you need to watch out for that. You won’t always be able to tell when you’ve left the Underlayer and moved into some other part of the world-mind, so questioning your responses is essential. Always be careful of rage.’

  ‘So I’ve been told,’ said Will tersely.

  ‘Well, now you know what we’re fucking talking about,’ Moneko snapped back.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Will, ‘It’s just I’m hearing it a lot.’

  ‘No problem,’ she replied. ‘This time. You’re out. You learned. We’re still alive. Be thankful that he can’t hack a hard exit. They’re terrible for the planet, but it’ll cope. So now I have a question for you – one I ask all my partners. If that suntap you expected isn’t there in the heart of the world, why is this place still the way it is? How come we have axioms? If there’s a lock on our minds, where is it?’

  Will didn’t have an answer. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘I was sure it had to be there. The Transcended must have moved it.’

  ‘I’ll tell you where you can find it,’ said Moneko. ‘All over the place. Hidden inside every major component of our virtual landscape, anchoring every axiom we have. That’s what we want you for, Will: to help us map all those suntaps. If you feel like ripping them out, that’s your business. Now you know what happens if you try. But unless we can find the whole damned lot of them, this world’s never going to change, and you, my friend, are never going to get out.’

  8.2: MARK

  Once Rachel’s body had been checked over for bioweapons, Mark and Palla shuttled her casket to the Dantes’ quarantine core and began the laborious process of waking her up. First they matched the conditions in the core to those in her casket. Then they opened it and slid her frozen form into the core’s med-crèche where it could start working on her tissues.

  Mark waited in stunned anticipation. That they could simply revive her after all this time felt unreal. It was as easy as rebooting a SAP. All the more reason for him to worry that the thing they were booting wasn’t Rachel.

  ‘I’m seeing some neural burn,’ Palla cautioned as she studied the data coming off the crèche. ‘It’s going to take her a little time after she wakes to get back to who she was. Presuming she’s actually her, that is.’

  ‘Imagine that,’ said Mark. ‘Some convenient ambiguity.’

  ‘I’m rigging a sensory sim for her,’ Palla said. ‘She’ll see a standard recovery space with us in it. Just voice, sight and sound. She won’t be able to move, but I can synthesise facial expressions from cortex data. I can’t add any more detail than that without an invasive procedure.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Mark. ‘A basic interview is all we need right now.’

  ‘I’m also setting up a separate back channel for us to confer,’ she added. ‘I assume our first priority is to ascertain her identity?’

  ‘Damn straight,’ said Mark.

  He had no idea what to do with this moment. When he reached inside himself for the loving excitement he knew he should be feeling, he found nothing lurking there except alarm.

  The ship’s virt dropped them into a bland rendition of a hospital room, with Rachel lying in bed. The high window revealed a benign blue sky and little else. A vase of cheerful yellow flowers sat on a table.

  [Okay,] said Palla over their back channel. [It’s starting. You want to talk?]

  Rachel’s eyelids fluttered open. She glanced up at them. Her eyes locked on Mark. ‘Mark? Is that you?’

  Mark’s throat suddenly felt arid. He swallowed.

  ‘Yes. Hi, Rach. It’s me.’

  She frowned. ‘I can’t feel my body.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You’ve been in cryo for a while – it’ll take a little time to thaw. Do you remember what happened?’

  She peered into the middle distance. ‘I …’ she started. ‘We were … there was a
mission.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mark. ‘Do you remember where?’

  Her expression became surprised. ‘Yes! The Depleted Zone. We … something went wrong.’

  Mark nodded.

  ‘We hit the bulk,’ she said. ‘Oh my God, we hit the bloody bulk.’ She frowned again, this time in fear. ‘How long has it been?’

  Seconds earlier, he’d felt sure he’d meet either an alien puppet or a brain-dead cripple. Now he found himself unable to speak a simple truth because of the pain it would bring her. His subconscious had already made up its mind about who he was talking to. He writhed inside.

  How long?’ she urged. ‘Please.’

  ‘Forty-three years,’ said Palla.

  Mark winced.

  Rachel seemed to notice her properly for the first time. ‘Dear God, why?’ she said. ‘Our overshoot wasn’t that bad! What happened?’

  ‘There’s some uncertainty about that,’ said Palla. ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ Rachel asked her nervously. ‘You look so young.’

  Palla produced a lopsided smile.

  ‘She’s here to help,’ said Mark. ‘Please try to tell us what happened. We can go from there.’

  ‘We … I … led the ship in too fast. We got stuck. We set the autopilot to fly us out. I was upset. Blamed myself. Jago laid in a course …’

  ‘That’s it?’ said Mark. ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Marker drones,’ said Rachel. ‘We decided to lay out markers. I wasn’t sure it was worth it. Where am I? Is this Earth?’ She peered at the blue sky behind them.

  ‘No, it’s not Earth,’ said Mark.

  ‘Why did it take us so long to get back?’ said Rachel. ‘What happened?’

  Mark hesitated again. His unease had sublimed into a terrible empathy.

  ‘You didn’t make it back, I’m afraid,’ said Palla. She slid Mark an impatient glance. ‘There’s no way to hide it, Captain Bock. You’re on the other side of the Flaw.’

  Rachel’s eyes went wide. Warning icons started appearing on the wall behind her bed.

  [Do you want to kill her?] Mark demanded.

  [No,] said Palla. [Do you want to find out who she really is? There’s nothing more honest than a stress response, Mark. You know that.]

  ‘What Palla says is true,’ said Mark. ‘We’re a rescue mission.’ He tried for a winning smile. ‘We came back for you.’

  ‘After forty-three years?’

  Mark prickled with guilt. ‘It’s not been easy,’ he said. ‘And your ship wasn’t where we thought it’d be. You’re orbiting a star about three light-years beyond the far side of the Flaw. An uncharted one.’

  ‘The far side?’ said Rachel in disbelief.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Mark with a limp smile. ‘You were the first through. For what it’s worth, you made history.’

  ‘Where’s my crew?’ Rachel blurted. ‘Are they okay? Who’s awake?’

  ‘I’m afraid they’re all dead,’ said Palla, keeping a close eye on Rachel’s stats. ‘You’re the only survivor.’

  Mark watched horror unfurl on his half-mother’s features and felt it with her.

  ‘Only your casket kept working,’ said Palla. ‘Can you think of any reason why that might be?’

  ‘No!’ said Rachel, appalled. ‘What do you mean? I went cold second out of six. Are you suggesting my crew sabotaged their own caskets to keep me alive?’

  [You’re making a mess of her metabolism,] Mark snapped. [There’s a difference between stress and cruelty, you know.]

  [Mark, have you ever actually interviewed a suspected Phote spy?] she said. [It’s not fun. You want me to do this on my own? Just bad-cop? I can kick you out if you’d prefer.] At the same time, she gave Rachel a mild mood-stabiliser.

  [No,] he said quickly. [But let’s take this slowly, can we? I want to be able to live with myself afterwards.]

  ‘Rach,’ said Mark. ‘It’s okay. We’re just trying to find out what happened. I’m sorry about your crew. It’s a miracle you got through this. Be grateful for that.’

  ‘You want me to be fucking grateful after I’ve lost my crew?’ said Rachel, her eyes shuttling from side to side. ‘After I’ve been dead for half a lifetime?’ Her eyes squeezed shut. ‘This is a nightmare,’ she said. ‘Please tell me this is a nightmare.’ She was sliding into panic.

  ‘Do you want us to come back later?’ said Mark hopelessly.

  ‘No!’ said Rachel. ‘Let’s keep going.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mark gently. ‘Let’s try this. Why don’t you tell us why you left? Why this mission, Rach?’

  He’d wanted to understand this properly for most of his adult life. He’d never expected to know.

  She stared at him, more pain clouding her brow. ‘You know why.’

  ‘Please tell us,’ said Mark. ‘We need to find out how much you remember.’

  ‘Because he was breaking my heart!’ she breathed. ‘That man. Will. Your guardian. I couldn’t stand watching him destroy himself and I couldn’t stop him, either. I had to do something. He was trapped in politics, trying to fight a battle he could never win. Every year the Frontier situation was getting worse. We had to work harder and harder to stop fights from breaking out. I was losing him. I needed to find something for Will – fuck it – for all of us to think about that wasn’t the damned Far Frontier.’

  ‘So it was a distraction,’ said Palla.

  Rachel shook her head. ‘No! Everyone had forgotten why we built interstellar colonies in the first place. If you fight over the resources you can see, everyone loses. We learned that back in the twenty-first century, for crying out loud. Things only get better when you start looking for the advantages beyond plain sight – the disruptive ones. The true innovations. I had to do that because nobody else was bothering. And we had a mystery just sitting there in space, waiting to be explored. How could I not at least try?’

  Mark stared at her anguished face and couldn’t help seeing the parallel with his own situation. Were they both heroes or fools?

  ‘I …’ said Rachel. The wall suddenly flooded with warning markers as her face twisted in anguish.

  ‘Rach,’ said Mark. ‘Calm down. Take it slow.’

  Palla boosted the mood-stabilisers another notch.

  ‘It broke my heart not being able to come clean with you,’ said Rachel. ‘We ruined things for you, Mark. Have you had a good life? You look so young! Can we do that now? Extend life properly?’

  ‘Yes, Rach,’ said Mark with a plastic smile. His innards wouldn’t stop wrenching. ‘A good life. I’m in my sixties now.’

  ‘Amazing,’ said Rachel. ‘Do you have kids?’

  ‘No, no kids,’ he said.

  She looked disappointed.

  ‘Happily married, though,’ he added.

  ‘I feel like such a fool for dashing off,’ she said. ‘I went to the one place I knew he couldn’t follow. Part of me hoped that by the time I got back, he’d have come to his senses. Is Will with you?’

  She glanced around the room, as if looking for him in the background. Mark struggled for words.

  ‘Will’s lost, too,’ said Palla.

  Mark felt the urge to hit her.

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Rachel. ‘He didn’t chase me out here, did he?’

  ‘No,’ said Mark. ‘I did that and got stuck in the bulk for a month or two. Will’s lost in a different way.’

  ‘How?’

  Mark’s mouth worked back and forth.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Mark!’ Rachel yelled. ‘Stop sugar-coating it for me! Tell me what happened while I was asleep!’

  He saw what he was doing: by trying to protect her, he was drawing the pain of adjustment out, like tearing the bandage slowly off a wound. It was driving Rachel further into panic when she dearly wanted to be strong. There had been a kind of backhanded kindness to Palla’s bluntness, he now saw – one that had been lost on him until that moment.

  ‘Will’s lost on an ali
en planet,’ he said simply.

  ‘What, a Fecund site? The Transcended artefact?’

  ‘Neither,’ said Mark. ‘Something worse, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What the fuck is worse than the Transcended?’ Rachel’s eyes implored him.

  [You’d better tell her, Mark,] said Palla heavily. [Tell her or I will. The whole thing. I think she can take it and it’s not going to get any easier for her. At least right now I can tune her meds.]

  Mark shot her a glance of loathing even while he knew she didn’t deserve it. Palla gave him a look back that managed to be wounded and disapproving at the same time.

  ‘There’s been a war of sorts,’ Mark said. ‘A long, slow one.’

  ‘Oh God, no,’ said Rachel. ‘Not Earth again?’

  Mark shook his head. ‘No. Earth is on our side this time.’

  That earned him a wry expression from Palla for his use of present tense. He pressed on.

  ‘There was a conspiracy,’ he said. ‘You saw how things were going with Earth. It was getting bad. The conspiracy tried to fix it. They faked an alien menace using tech from the Frontier. And, well, it wasn’t really fake in the end. Essentially, we made an enemy for ourselves. An infectious one.’

  ‘Infectious?’ said Rachel. ‘Are you talking zombies or something?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Mark. ‘More like a bacterially mediated hive-mind. It’s intelligent and organised.’ He drew a heavy breath. ‘In essence, the human race has become a supply of bodies for it. The reason you’ve been out here so long is that we’ve been … busy.’

  She stared at him, rapt. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘They took New Panama,’ he said. ‘And they attacked Earth. The political tension ended all right, just like the conspiracy hoped. Humanity turned over a new leaf and tried to settle their differences.’