Exodus

by Alex Lamb

  ‘What is dream? Dream is mystery!’ a Will with a unicorn horn proclaimed. He wiggled a finger at the sky. ‘Through dream, we necessarily encounter our implicit core dialectic: the prism through which all self-narratives are refracted …’

  ‘At the dawn of the Fifth Great Photurian Assault, the enemy pretended to be humans from the IPSO organisation,’ another droned. ‘There were those who took this as evidence that The History reflected fact. What hubris …’

  ‘How do we distinguish between history and fantasy? Perhaps we should not. Memory is bound to be imperfect. So instead, I propose the notion of the radical now …’

  ‘What is this place?’ said Will.

  Moneko walked ahead of him, translucent as a ghost in her Venetian stealthware.

  ‘An axiom-appreciation site,’ she said. ‘This one’s for “The Mystery of Imperfect Self-Knowledge”. In other words, a temple to not understanding ourselves, and therefore never being ready to leave. It’s no coincidence that there are a bunch of belief-hacks parked behind it – I doubt the place could sustain its own ego otherwise.’

  She took him to a particularly dull exhibit full of written accounts of unusual dreams from his youth and opened an invisible door in the back wall.

  ‘This is one of our best finds from last year,’ she said. ‘It leads straight into the associated Underlayer memory cluster. It won’t surprise you to learn that subconscious memory bubbles tend to map closely to soft-space sites with the same themes.’

  On the far side of the doorway lay an examination hall from Will’s childhood where he’d taken tests in industrial cognition. Just seeing it made him feel anxious.

  ‘Look around for anchors,’ she said. ‘Hopefully you’ll find several – they’re usually hidden in the walls or floor.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Will.

  ‘Touching things should be fine,’ she told him. ‘Balance can’t have all the sites booby-trapped. But be careful anyway. When you get the hang of it, try moving a few of the hacks about. And this time, if you need to exit, don’t hesitate, okay?’ She tucked her handkerchief in his doublet like last time.

  ‘What about smart-cell powers?’ said Will.

  ‘I’m way ahead of you,’ she said.

  She reached behind her back and pulled out a large heart-shaped box of chocolates that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  ‘Your toolkit,’ she said. ‘You’ll find the flavours on the lid. Try the hack-mapping function first.’

  Will stared at them. ‘Why chocolates?’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you like them? I think it’s a cute metaphor. And besides, this way you can hold all the icons in one hand.’ Her expression turned sad. ‘I used to try offering you chocolates in return for dives,’ she said. ‘That was a shitty idea. This time, I’m making a gesture of trust. I’m still sorry about last time and how bad it must have felt. I’m doing my best. And please don’t eat them all at once. Really.’

  She blew him a little kiss. The door closed.

  Will stood in the echoing exam hall and examined his gift. On the lid, along with little pictures of each icon-morsel, was a written description of what it did: smart-cell activation, thread analytics and so on. He picked out the mapping tool she’d recommended – a bland-looking white chocolate swirl – and swallowed it.

  He immediately felt the familiar sensation of a software system opening in his mind. The download was a full SAP – a warped copy of one of his own subminds with the ability to semantically index anchor sites. He couldn’t help smiling. He felt like a roboteer again. A quick sampling of the box also yielded a sensory-mapped heuristic hack-finder and a substrate introspection and analysis probe. With the programs running in his mind, it felt like old times.

  He wandered around the edges of the exam room and easily found a couple of anchors. He could smell them now. They stank of ozone. Prising away a few of the wall-panels revealed small plastic suntap replicas hiding there like spy cameras.

  He pulled one out to look it over. The thing was running passively, his new mods told him. There was no free information pouring in from elsewhere, just a steady stream of dumb packets being emitted into the surrounding matrix. Moneko had been right. These things were merely lo-fi replicas of the circuit he’d originally discovered.

  He logged their positions and took a doorway to a related memory – one that looked like a mall of upscale boutiques he’d visited on Mars once while hopelessly searching for a gift for his wife. Buried in the floor of a jewellery shop, he found three more. Will experimentally tried moving them to nearby memories, as Moneko suggested. Nothing happened. He kept mapping, but as the minutes turned to hours, his satisfaction waned. He was struck by the futility of the process. There were too many of the damned things.

  He paused in a horrible bar on Triton he’d once visited after an argument with Rachel and sat down to think. Was he really going to do this for the next few years? Just mapping anchors rather than doing something about them? He’d go mad.

  But the options seemed stark: ignore Moneko’s advice and face the near-instantaneous wrath of Balance, or follow it and live in stultifying, uncomfortable safety. Neither path felt likely to get him out.

  ‘Had enough yet?’ said a voice from behind him.

  Will leapt to his feet and spun to face the figure that had appeared. The clone who stood before him wore a Surplus Age business suit and fedora. Will recognised the man from his last dive. He held his breath, turned and bolted. He lunged for the nearest portal, but the clone moved and suddenly stood right in front of him. Will skidded to a halt. How was this happening? Wasn’t he supposed to be invisible?

  ‘Tell me, are you enjoying your new role?’ said the clone. ‘Convinced by their patter? If so, go ahead and boot out of here. But maybe you’d prefer it if someone told you what’s really going on.’

  Will doubled back but the clone moved again, this time appearing at the bar, a martini glass in hand.

  ‘I’m not here to hurt you, Will. I won’t even touch you.’

  Will stumbled to a halt and glared at the newcomer. He exhaled two seconds before his exit was due to hit, his curiosity reluctantly piqued despite his better judgement.

  ‘What do you want?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Relax, Will,’ said the clone, taking a sip. ‘I’m just you with a little more experience. Actually you. Not a fucking copy – a Glitch. And your nick is Cuthbert.’

  Will stood rooted to the spot. There were other Glitches? Will had assumed they were all dead.

  The dapper clone leaned up against the bar and smiled humourlessly.

  ‘Before you vanish, why don’t you listen to what I have to say? Then, if you don’t like it, I’ll leave you alone. How does that sound?’

  ‘Talk, then,’ Will growled. ‘Get on with it.’

  The clone smiled lazily. ‘God, do you remember this place?’ he said, taking in the ugly diamond-mirror walls and greasy tomato-red lighting. ‘I hated Triton. But what I wouldn’t give to be there now.’ He sipped at his cocktail. ‘Right now, I expect you’re confused. The Underground are helping you. They’ve given you a job and a place to sleep. They’ve told you a story about how this world works. Which has to be a start, right? Except it sucks here, and you know it. Right now you’re telling yourself that’s better than being chased down by Balance. And you’re coping. But what if I told you that you’re being used?’ The clone paused expectantly. ‘But first, some basics. Yes, I can see you, but only because I’ve had practice. No, I’m not some kind of Balance trick, so you don’t risk anything by listening to me. And we have plenty of time, so why not sit down and have a drink?’

  He clicked his fingers and a second martini appeared on the diamond-coated table next to Will. He regarded it suspiciously.

  ‘You can call me Smiley, by the way,’ said the clone.

  Will caught the reference along with the irony. The clone didn’t look particularly smiley; in fact, he radiated bitterness. When h
e quietly scanned the memory context around the visitor, his new subminds informed him confidently that the person he was looking at wasn’t there.

  ‘Go ahead, scan me,’ said Smiley with a laugh. ‘I’ll show up as blank. I’m just another knot in the fabric of the planetary subconscious, same as you. But I’ve been around longer, Cuthbert. I’ve seen more.’

  Will shifted uneasily. Smiley had deftly tapped Will’s nagging suspicions about the Underground, but he wasn’t sure he trusted this new figure, either. His appearance had been too abrupt – too clandestine.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he said.

  ‘To help,’ said Smiley. ‘You’re another of my kind, finding your way. After I spotted you, it only seemed right to lend a hand.’

  ‘What makes you think I need help?’

  Smiley snorted. He leaned forward, his expression darkening. ‘Let’s take it from the top, shall we? You’ve seen copies of yourself that are no more than animals. Mutant clones so deformed that they drink out of a bowl and shit on the street. Is that okay? But you’ve seen worse. You’ve seen Truists. How does that make you feel? And always, the message is the same: don’t worry, it’s normal. Keep calm and carry on. Well, tell me, Will, does it feel normal? And then there are these things,’ he said, sneering and pointing at one of the exposed suntap replicas Will had located. ‘They want you to find them. But oh, from time to time, they propose that you experimentally move them about. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Why would they ask you to do that?’

  How was it that, on a planet filled entirely with copies of himself, Will didn’t feel like trusting anyone? What did that say about him?

  ‘Let me remind you what those things are,’ said Smiley. ‘They’re belief stiffeners.’ He gestured at the walls. ‘When you move the stiffeners, you change what the clones upstairs believe.’

  ‘I know that,’ Will snapped.

  ‘So what do they want to change?’ said Smiley. ‘You’re living in a favour economy, Will, one where attitudes about what kinds of thread are allowed can make people a lot of money. You make a variant everyone thinks is sketchy while there’s no competition. Then you change the social norms and invent a market. Voilà, copy requests.’

  ‘The Underground isn’t about money.’

  ‘Are you sure? You don’t care about that, but what of the people you’re working with? You don’t want to drink out of a bowl, either. How do you think all this happened, Will? You changed. These … clones – they’re not you. They’re mutilations of you. Tell me, why don’t they just try to get rid of the damned anchors altogether?’

  ‘You know why,’ said Will. ‘There are too many. That’s obvious.’

  ‘So why shouldn’t Glitches coordinate to get rid of them?’ said Smiley. ‘Why don’t they bring a bunch of us together?’ He waited for a response.

  Will blushed. He’d assumed that Glitches were a rare enough occurrence that there weren’t multiple copies of him on the planet at the same time.

  ‘I’ll tell you why,’ said Smiley. ‘Because they don’t want the anchors gone. They can’t want it because the anchors don’t let them. So they keep us scared and isolated instead. Have you taken a look at an anchor’s code yet?’

  Will shook his head.

  ‘It’s Snakepit software, Will,’ Smiley growled. ‘Just like all the other shit this planet runs on. Those hacks are adapted Protocol enforcers. Crappy ones, admittedly, but they run on the same principle as the original circuit. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?’ He jabbed a finger at the sky. ‘It means one mistake up there and those Photurian bastards have a way into this planet’s systems. Your people have been told that,’ Smiley assured him. ‘They just don’t believe it. Which means you’re dealing with an organisation that can’t assess the risks of their own operation. So, I ask you again. If it’s not about money, and it’s not really about escape, what do they want? With your help, they have the power to change Balance, just like a Cancer does, but without the risk. What are they using it for?’

  Will’s patience started to fray. Smiley’s remarks threatened to drag him into a whirlpool of paranoia.

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Who can say?’ said Smiley with a cryptic smile. ‘Power, maybe?’

  ‘What’s the point of power?’ said Will. ‘It’s a planet of fucking clones.’

  ‘If we ever get out of here, they’ll own the galaxy.’

  ‘But that’s not going to happen, is it? Not by your logic. Because of the anchors, we can’t leave.’

  Smiley frowned. ‘Not until we get rid of the Transcended master circuit, no. There’s still a poison splinter in our mind somewhere, screwing us over.’

  ‘So why aren’t you out looking for it?’ Will demanded. ‘Why stand here pissing all over the Underground when you could shut down their games just by finding the damned switch?’

  Smiley looked hurt. ‘I’ve tried,’ he said. ‘Believe me. Maybe you’ll be the one who finds it. But I’ll tell you this: for most of us – the ones who live, anyway – there’s a turning point. It’s when you realise that what you’re trying to escape to is a memory, Will, not a place. Even if you get home, everyone you knew will be forty years older and Rachel will still be dead. You don’t want freedom. You want the past. So most of us stop trying to get out after a while and start trying to make a difference instead.’

  ‘My, that’s optimistic.’

  ‘It sounds bleak because you haven’t got there yet. If you’re lucky, you will.’

  Will snorted. ‘You call that lucky?’

  Smiley cracked a broken smile. ‘Okay, maybe more like desperate. Look, I know this is weird for you. I remember how it felt. And I know you don’t trust me yet. Frankly, I didn’t trust me the first time this happened, either. So I’m not going to try to win you over or tell you what I think is happening. You’ll have to figure out what to believe for yourself. But I will give you a tip about how you can do that.’

  He held up an index finger and paused to sip. ‘That clone who runs the outfit you just joined: John Brown?’ Smiley shook his head. ‘Weird choice of face, by the way, don’t you think? Anyway, my proposal is that you use the stealthware you’ve been given to go watch him for a bit. See what he does. How trustworthy is he? You could, for instance, go and hang out at the Underground’s mesh site and wait for him there.’

  Will felt his face stiffen. The Underground had a mesh site?

  Smiley feigned surprise. ‘Oh! What? They didn’t tell you about that? Did they have you cycling up and down to the station every day when there’s a hidden entry point right under the Old Slam Bar?’

  Smiley shook his head slowly. ‘Gosh, that sounds like a bunch of work. Still, never mind. Now you know. I wonder why they didn’t tell you? But in any case, it’s easy to find. Its soft-space address is about two hundred metres into the mesh outside the Mettaburg Station, on the left. A grey pavilion with a logo that says Artistic Temperaments R Us. It’s set a little back from the walkway, but once you know what you’re looking for, you can’t miss it. If you don’t believe me, go and take a look. Who knows, you might see John there!’ Smiley gave him a crocodile smirk.

  ‘Thanks for the tip,’ said Will darkly. ‘Very helpful, I’m sure.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Smiley. ‘Glad we had the chance to chat. I hope we cross paths again. Somehow I feel certain it’s going to happen.’

  Smiley downed the rest of his imaginary drink, tipped his fedora and turned to go.

  ‘Be seeing you,’ he said and winked out, leaving his empty glass on the counter.

  Will stared at the abandoned olive sitting there, and thought hard.

  10.5: NADA

  In the hours after the escape of the Dantes, Nada’s fleet regrouped. Through her ship’s eyes, she stared down at the freshly damaged world with pain twisting her insides like burning talons. Nothing in her existence as a Photurian had prepared her for that moment. She needed to know what had happened in this system. How did the sad, woun
ded home even exist in the first place? Just looking at it filled her with sickness and doubt. It threatened to unravel her entire world view.

  As she watched the rings of toxic storm cloud ricochet back and forth through the planet’s tortured atmosphere, she felt another emotion crackling through her – a very human one. It was the sort of reaction she’d have considered beneath her before their mission started. She felt loathing.

  She’d realised during her unpleasant dialogue with Mark Ruiz, the notorious Thief of Souls, that it was him she actually detested most, not Ludik the Abomination. That had baffled her initially as Ruiz had played a far less significant role in her life. He was very much the lesser villain in the pantheon of human malefactors and so consistently erratic that he warranted little interest during most high-level strategy fugues.

  What had occurred to her after that debate was that the feeling didn’t originate from her own mind. It had entered with the Yunus’s edits. It had not taken her long after that to figure out that the loathing couldn’t have had its origins in the Yunus’s experiences as primary strategic unit for the Utopia. There was no room for such nonsense in that role. It must have been informed by his human life before that. If she needed evidence that the Yunus’s edits had not come from a wholly rational place, she had it now.

  That knowledge, unfortunately, left her questioning herself all the more deeply. With so much of her rational potential caught up in pointless emotional feedback, Nada reluctantly called for a consultation with her two primary reports. In order to gain clarity, she would have to resort to the leaden unpleasantness of peer-wise dialogue.

  Leng and Zilch pressed their way into the leadership vesicle and waited silently for her to speak. She examined them both. Leng looked ill. He was still processing the unforgivable acts perpetrated by the humans. One of his eyes appeared to have been damaged during recent events. A louse sat patiently over that part of his face, knitting new tissue together. Zilch, in contrast, had never looked stronger or more alert. His boxy physique quivered with intent.