Exodus

by Alex Lamb

  He scratched at the burns on his arms. Surprisingly, everyone aboard had decided to stick to the torture regimen after their second communion. It represented something of a commitment to their new shared goal. Leng had been more fervent than most.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nada. ‘This is unexpected. We must be careful.’

  ‘I also doubt Zilch’s assessment,’ he added. ‘I am not certain that the humans knew about this locale. It is possible they are as surprised as we are.’

  ‘Incorrect,’ said Zilch. ‘We encountered elderly buoys.’

  The discovery of the buoys had been an important moment for her units. It had tightened their resolve still further. The assessment had been that whatever facility the humans had hidden out here must have been a secret for a long, long time.

  ‘Yet human tactics to date revealed no knowledge of this site,’ said Leng. ‘Not once has mention of it arisen in diplomatic dialogue.’

  ‘The humans are secretive,’ said Zilch.

  ‘But also disorganised,’ said Leng.

  ‘But also cunning.’

  ‘What I am saying is that predictive models of their behaviour must include scenarios in which they are startled and irrational,’ Leng asserted. ‘That is all.’

  ‘Enough,’ Nada told them. ‘Our joyous momentum cannot be allowed to falter. Zilch, plan battle scenarios that favour interactions minimising in-system damage. Include models such as those Leng outlines. Scan for the target ship accordingly, making efforts to lure them out. Leng, initiate a safe close-pass study of the new homeworld. More data on its status is required. We should assume nothing.’

  She glanced around at the others. They stared at her wordlessly.

  ‘Everyone remember,’ she said. ‘While the humans remain alive, our new prize is at risk. Therefore we must satisfy our original objective prior to thorough analysis of the home. The Abomination must die first. Then, and only then, can we begin the gleeful and magnificent reconciliation our hearts desperately crave. Is that clear?’

  Her crew nodded their assent. Her ships adjusted course and began to tighten the net.

  9: CONFLICTION

  9.1: WILL

  Will couldn’t sleep after what he’d seen. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw an army of Truist monks with his face and shuddered. He no longer doubted that the Underground were keeping dark truths about the Willworld from him. On the other hand, Moneko had saved his life. Without her and John, he’d be even more lost than he already was. It just wasn’t clear whether their motivations meshed with his own.

  By the time he met Moneko in the park the following morning, he felt ready to deliver an ultimatum. Either he got some honest answers or he was finished with truth diving. As it was, she beat him to it. She rose from the bench where she’d waited for him and opened with an apology.

  ‘Will, I’m sorry,’ she said, looking grave. ‘That last dive was horrible. You’re probably upset and you have every right to be. We’ve been hiding things and that’s not acceptable. Today, if you let me, I’m going to answer any questions I can. In return, I’d like to show you something I think will help. Does that work?’

  Will had expected to have to push for confessions. He reminded himself to stop underestimating Moneko.

  ‘Sure,’ he said warily. ‘So long I’m convinced by the answers.’ If whatever lines she fed him didn’t pass the smell test, it’d be over.

  She nodded. ‘Great. In that case, let’s walk. No diving today. We can talk as we go.’ They started down the hill towards the station.

  ‘Let’s start with the monks,’ Will said heavily. ‘I’m not a Truist and I never have been. Their creed is …’ he struggled for a rational way to put it ‘… antithetical to mine. So why are they even here?’

  ‘I’ll answer that with a question, if I may,’ she said. ‘How much do you still hate the Truists?’

  ‘Plenty. That’s my point.’

  ‘Have you ever fantasised about killing more of them?’

  Will frowned. ‘You know I have. I’m not proud of it.’

  ‘So there’s your answer.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘They’re iconic,’ she said. ‘A pivotal feature of our story. They hurt us more than anyone else. Of course you wanted to explore that feeling. So you did. What you saw was what happened to those poor Wills who drew the short straw in your attempt to figure out your anger issues. Their job was to become the whipping boys of your past. They didn’t choose that path, just like I didn’t initially choose to be female. It simply happened that way.

  ‘But those Wills were so hated that they became marginalised. Nothing existed for them except to be despised. And after the world lost its stability, they turned on the rest of us. The only way they could think of to have a voice was to start illegally self-copying. That way, they’d make up a larger percentage of Balance and could force others to treat them with respect.

  ‘That’s how Cancer happens, Will. It’s when people want to cut the corners of government and take more control than they’re due. Sometimes it’s a variant who feels despised or isolated. Other times, it’s a Will who’s dabbling so hard in counter-culture that he tips over into real crime. Often it’s just a version of you who’s really into power or money. The result is the same – hate-filled clones you’d barely recognise.’

  ‘Then why are they still here?’ Will demanded. ‘Why doesn’t Balance root them out?’

  ‘Because they breed like rabbits,’ Moneko replied. ‘And they know how to hide.’

  ‘You found those monks pretty easily.’

  ‘I’m trained,’ she retorted. ‘And the patterns keep changing. Some Cancers make new instances and keep them hidden. Other, more violent kinds will husk out fellow threads to steal their identity. Anything to pump their numbers without making it obvious. And they all loathe the Underground. Every time you find them, you try to kill them, Will. So they have every reason to revile Glitches and to resent an organisation that exists to support them. That means we get caught up in anti-Cancer action from time to time. I should have warned you. My bad.’

  She sounded genuinely contrite. Will found it hard to doubt her.

  ‘So those clones were made into Truists?’

  ‘At first, yes.’

  He shook his head in disgust. ‘That’s revolting. In a civilised society, people get to choose their gender and religion, Moneko,’ he said. ‘That’s how it works.’

  She nodded. ‘Right. Totally true. We fucked that up. That’s why we have the whole branch-request economy going now – to encourage diversity based on choice. Copy-gifting has helped a lot.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about that, too,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you don’t mean slavery?’

  She shook her head fiercely. ‘No. It’s contracting. Everyone here is free. Okay, some unpleasant contracts get finite-term, limited-rights copies, but they’re always made according to the stipulated conditions of the original.’

  ‘But who decides?’ Will pressed. ‘Who gets to pick which one is the copy?’

  ‘The thread and their new instance,’ said Moneko. ‘One becomes primary and the other the copy-gift. It’s consensual.’

  ‘But then what happens?’

  ‘The gift goes to work for whoever requested the copy. The primary retains their autonomy.’

  ‘And if the gift changes their mind about being used?’

  ‘That’s allowed, depending on the contract they signed up for. The gift can be terminated, liberated or merged. Most often, the gift’s memories just get filtered back into their primary once the job is over.’

  ‘And if the gift gets duped into doing something shitty?’

  ‘That also happens,’ said Moneko. ‘Which is why we have recourse to Balance. He’s not just there to chase us around, you know.’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ said Will. ‘A police force that you can get rid of by simply preferring they not show up? How in fuck’s name is that supposed to work?’

 
; ‘It’s not so easy to make him look away,’ said Moneko. ‘You need a critical mass of dissent, locally dominant and persistent.’

  ‘But still,’ said Will, ‘if I have a town full of secretly committed anarchists who all want to blow shit up, that’s okay?’

  ‘Of course. How else would we explore anarchism, Will? Balance is there to foster exploration, not stifle it. And if a bunch of threads get knocked back into soft-space, is that so bad?’ She fixed him with an earnest look. ‘We’ve tried other models. This one works. A variant that gets a lot of branch requests fills a need. Their voice is wanted by the consensus, so they can ask for favours. Everywill benefits.’

  Will shook his head. Moneko and her people were simply a different species. One based on him but somehow deeply foreign.

  He fell into quiet contemplation, so she gave him room to think. He found himself walking through the bustling streets once more, past the vendors setting up shop and the variform pedestrians in their archaic coats – each utterly absorbed in their own peculiar, diverging lives. It occurred to him that he didn’t even understand how they carried out that process of self-change.

  ‘Tell me more about the talents you’ve been hiding from me,’ he said. ‘Like the smart-cells and everything else. Why don’t I have them? Why aren’t you giving them out?’

  ‘Baseline is you without powers,’ she said. ‘A natural, human you makes for a more grounded experience. But everyone has the option of turning their cells back on.’

  ‘Except me, apparently.’

  She shot him an amused glance. ‘You just haven’t really tried yet, which is admirable, by the way. I have a set of memory dumps ready which I’ll give you for your next dive. They make it all very clear. I warn you, though: the more tricks you know, the easier it is for Balance to spot you as an anomaly.’ She fixed him with another solemn stare. ‘Let me repeat that,’ she said. ‘The more tricks you know. Even if you don’t use them. Just like the environment leaks into you when you’re down there, you leak into it. But on a second dive, we always make sure you have a proper set of tools. That’s just how it goes. On the first dive you always rush off half-cocked. Second time around you’re more cautious.’

  ‘And what is the second dive?’ said Will. ‘What do you actually want me to do?’

  ‘Look for suntaps,’ she said, ‘just like you did before. By which I mean pieces of code with the same metaphor footprint.’

  ‘How many are there?’

  Moneko offered him a half-smile. ‘Thousands.’

  His eyebrows rose in disbelief.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘Why would the Transcended need more than one? Well, there’s no evidence the Transcended ever had anything to do with them. They just look that way because The History informs our metaphors. Not one suntap we’ve found contains the magic link you’re always looking for.’

  He didn’t understand. ‘Then what’s their purpose? Are they dummies? What is this, some kind of shell game?’

  ‘Oh no, Will. They have a clear purpose. They pump out a stabilising signal that affects the local cognitive environment. They’re like anchors. Whatever piece of the Underlayer they’re wired up to is immune to update. You already know that we influence Balance. Well, it cuts the other way, too. Balance influences us. When he grows, we grow with him. And that Underlayer you visit is like his subconscious, which means that changes in the Underlayer affect how everyone upstairs thinks. Illegally boosting your copy-count isn’t the only way to affect the world. You can do it by moving anchors around instead – picking which ideas are or aren’t open for scrutiny.’ She pointed at his chest. ‘Except only you can do that, Will. Most clones don’t even realise the anchors are there. The Underground knows about them because you told us.’

  Software that prevented his clones from contesting certain ideas? That smacked to him of Transcended involvement, even if Moneko didn’t believe it.

  ‘We should rip them all out,’ he said. ‘Whoever fucking put them there.’

  ‘Except they appear to maintain our sanity,’ she said. ‘They’re mostly positioned in the Underlayer at sites that tightly relate to our social axioms. We think the anchors are what hold our society together.’

  That sounded like a generous interpretation to Will’s ear. No wonder they couldn’t escape the Willworld if it was littered with mind-hacks to prevent everyone from wanting to leave. Sanity was the least likely outcome.

  ‘Your mission, if you choose to accept it,’ said Moneko, ‘is to seek out the anchors that stabilise those axioms and map them. Trying to get rid of them causes trouble, but we’ve discovered that we can safely move them about, which is a start.’

  ‘Why bother?’ said Will. ‘How does mapping help?’

  ‘Every Glitch who’s tried to fix the world has gone at it unilaterally. They rip out a few anchors but there are always more, so they get caught. We think that’s why there are so many – to make change almost impossible. To create a real revolution, you’d have to rip them all out at once. Either that or move enough of them to memory sites that don’t obstruct social change. Anyone with a map of their locations has an incredibly powerful tool for making a better world. Or a way out. That person could be you.’

  ‘But why bother finding these copies at all? The Transcended must still have a master original somewhere, pumping out a control signal.’

  ‘If there is, nobody’s ever found it, and they’ve looked a lot. Please consider the possibility that it doesn’t exist, and that in your own way you’re as deluded as the rest of us.’

  ‘Right,’ said Will. ‘Deluded.’

  ‘Here’s another way of thinking about it,’ she offered. ‘If there is a master copy, it’s going to be a lot easier to find once we’ve minimised the resistance to looking, wouldn’t you say? And that requires planning and coordination. But now we’re getting near to the station. I recommend that you stick close and stay quiet till we’re through the search gate.’

  Will fell silent. Moneko had given him answers he believed – so how come he still didn’t feel comfortable with the world? Probably, he reflected, because there was nothing to feel comfortable about. The Willworld stank of wrongness like week-old fish.

  At the station, the number of Balance agents had almost doubled since their last visit. Even if the god couldn’t notice the Underground, some part of him had clearly figured out that the activity in Mettaburg was related to yesterday’s disaster. Moneko’s face was stony as they made their way past the guards to the transit-graves.

  Once in soft-space, they headed for the search corridors without a word.

  ‘Demolition Derby,’ she told their corridor.

  ‘He’s closing in, isn’t he?’ Will said once the door had shut.

  She nodded. ‘We can’t afford another fuck-up. Our whole operation could be exposed. After we make the jump, keep a low profile, okay? Where we’re going always has a heavy Balance presence, but there’s no other way to show this to you.’

  He nodded as she picked an exit. They emerged at the entrance to another soft-space station. This one had a huge bubble-display floating in the forecourt, showing two huge, armoured monstrosities smashing each other to pieces in slow motion. One was red and white, the other blue and yellow. Several clones stood around, watching and cheering.

  ‘This way,’ said Moneko.

  She took him past the crowd to the arrivals area. They woke in transit-graves at a busy physical terminus where clones in matching colours hung about in groups, talking animatedly.

  ‘Fans,’ she said, as if that explained everything.

  Beyond the station doors lay a plaza open to a cold, blue sky. At the other end of it stood an outsized replica of the Colosseum in Rome with hundreds of clones streaming through its doors. Behind it towered the face of what could only be a defensive node – a huge, gleaming wall of living ceramic several hundred storeys high in mottled shades of ochre. It curved around to either side of them, enclosing both the stati
on and Colosseum on either side. The entire complex where they were standing had apparently been built in the armpit between two of the vast structure’s factory-limbs.

  Will felt a moment’s fear. Of course there was going to be a lot of Balance here. Moneko had brought him to a weapons factory.

  He shot her a worried glance. ‘Is this really a good idea?’

  ‘I hope so,’ she replied.

  She led him into the stadium, past another pair of Balance agents and up the ranked seats that surrounded the arena floor. Will saw room for at least a hundred thousand clones, but today the place only looked about a quarter-full.

  The performance area was lined with black glass. Huge Wills in grey body-armour moved back and forth across it, scouring the surface using broad rakes with blowtorch nozzles for tines. Overhead, display bubbles hovered showing advertisements for various kinds of clone-contract or identity-mod.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ said Moneko. ‘They’re starting a fresh bout.’ She walked him to the rows at the very back before sitting down. ‘The high seats are better,’ she informed him. ‘You’re much less likely to die. Balance monitors body-loss closely here. Dying unnecessarily is a bad idea.’

  The husky voice of a female Will came over the stadium loudspeaker.

  ‘Please take your seats for the next fight,’ she said. ‘But first, a word from our illustrious Meta.’

  The floating displays all swapped to a view of their haunted-looking leader. He wore the same crazy uniform as last time, complete with gleaming medals the size of saucers.

  ‘Why does he wear that?’ Will whispered as a hush fell over the crowd.

  ‘Why do you suppose?’ said Moneko. ‘To make a joke out of what he’s become. I think it’s hard enough for him to manage that level of responsibility as it is. It gives me hope, frankly. If we had a Meta who looked like he was entitled to that much power, or wasn’t scared of it, I’d probably turn Cancerous in a minute.’

  ‘Denizens of the Willworld,’ said Balance, his voice echoing around the enormous space. ‘Thank you for coming to participate in today’s military unit testing. What you witness here will help us refine our defensive technologies to fend off the next wave of attacks from our unpleasant neighbours.’ He leaned forward, his expression hungry. ‘But unit testing is more than that. The bodies you see here will carry us forth from this world when the time comes. The power we nurture will ensure that the Photurian menace is wiped from the galaxy. And in its place, a new empire will arise, bold and good. The empire of Willkind, my friends. The human race that should have been. The future begins here.’