Ash looked to his mother for confirmation.
“A bug gave me a cube and spoke in Silver’s voice. Told me to put it in the hasdee she was building. It can make unlimited heal and be copied unlimited times.”
He was about to ask more when a fight erupted at the hasdee. A man started yelling and swinging a long sharp sword around.
“This is mine! Get back!”
The crowd gave him space. Some of the ones further back hefted bricks.
The man reached behind him to the hasdee and tried to eject the sourcecubes but nothing happened.
“Put it down! There is enough for everyone!” someone in the crowd yelled.
“This is mine!” he screamed back. The tip of the sword gleamed in the sunshine.
A brick flew past his head. He ducked it but then another hit him in the face. He staggered and held up his sword.
“Mine!” he roared but then his voice died. He dropped the sword, swayed and collapsed in a heap, blood trickling from his ears.
“Fuck,” Raj said.
The crowd moved in. The man was dead. They dragged him away and covered him with a sheet. Someone dropped the sword next to him, unsure of what to do with it.
“Silver is down the mine—where’s Nola?”
“Last I saw her she was with that deputy washing the blood off herself.”
Raj realized what he’d said.
“She was okay. It wasn’t her blood. Oh, and Fat Man was like that drunk—all metal bones inside.”
“How did he die?”
“Not well. People are saying Nola and Silver did it. His body is hanging on the front of his palace.”
Ash rubbed his face and tried to think. Silver drugged their mother? Silver hacked the cubes? They had unlimited food now?
The Machine was dead and so were the bugs that had been intent on killing them all. How did Silver know they would do that? How did she find the underground room that so happened to have a bomb waiting in it? It all led back to her.
“We need to speak to Silver right now.”
“The bugs aren’t letting anyone in. I tried to go down there. The bugs don’t like that.” Raj lifted his foot—the front of his shoe had been bitten away.
Something burst on the now-dead Machine. Gray liquid splattered. Ash and everyone else looked into the sky. Birds were circling, as usual, but there seemed to be a lot more of them. As they watched, one of them dropped something. It plummeted down and burst apart on a roof nearby. The crowd gasped and started to move away from the open area.
One woman wasn’t quick enough. Whatever it was hit her on the back, covering her head and shoulders. The gray liquid immediately soaked into her skin.
“Silver, bring the bomb and blocker to me!” she yelled in a strange accent. She stopped in place. Black liquid trickled out of her nose. Another man was hit and more in quick succession.
“Silver I can tell you all the answers!” he called out before toppling over. The black liquid streamed from the corners of his eyes.
“Silver, I promise—”
“Silver bring the bomb and—”
“Silver!”
“We have to get to the mine,” Ash yelled. They bolted, along with the crowd. Some people remained in front of the hasdee, waiting for it to print a bug and sourcecube for them.
The birds above continued dropping the liquid bombs over Cago. As they ran they heard people calling out Silver’s name, pleading with her. They reached the edge of the city and walked out through the holes in the fence. At their feet a river of white liquid flooded back and forth from Fat Man’s warehouses down the hole. Ash only glimpsed it as they passed—the liquid covering everything, dissolving bars of gold and platinum, eating the materials down to nothing.
They stopped outside the mine and the last remaining pile of junk. Ash couldn’t believe it. The ground around Cago was teeming with bugs running back and forth. In the distance the edge of the pile glimmered and appeared to be moving as it was chewed down by thousands of mouths. The ground between the city and the edge was pockmarked with deep canyons and sloped up and down. From where they stood, Cago sat on a plateau, the bare earth sloping away.
The entrance of the mine was choked with bugs in shades of red and blue. They were the size of Kin and hissed, clacking their teeth together.
Ash got as close as he dared.
“Silver!” he called out. He heard his voice echo back from the mine, faintly repeating. It was hard to hear over the noise of the bugs. Each one added a whisper of sound which was growing into a roar.
“Silver, we need to talk with you!” he yelled.
Dia moved beside him and added her voice.
“Silver, please come out!”
Out, out, out echoed back from the mine.
The noise of the bugs increased in volume until they had to cover their ears. Then it died as every bug stopped moving all at once.
“Everyone please hide in Fat Man’s palace. Bugs are flying to attack us. I will defend you.”
Silver’s voice coming out of nowhere. It was all around them, seeming to speak from the air itself. It echoed over Cago.
“Silver I need to talk with you! Please!” Ash shouted.
Her voice again, not echoing over Cago now, localized to them.
“Ash take everyone to the palace. It will be okay.”
Her voice vanished. The bugs outside Cago began moving again. The ones closest split off from the group and rushed forward, snapping their jaws, driving them back into Cago to avoid being bitten.
They spread through the city, herding all the people towards Fat Man’s compound.
Before he rushed into the palace, Ash looked back at the horizon from the top of the stairs. The silver bugs covering the pile had leapt into the air, a swarming cloud. There was another cloud of silver approaching.
Bugs. Hundreds of thousands of them.
Chapter 72
Silver
She paced, shouting instructions at the screen on the wall.
Everything was moving too fast.
The cubes she’d pulled from Fat Man’s head were some kind of miracle. Computers, immensely powerful and fast and absolutely dedicated to serving her. They’d found a design for a new tablet and replaced her cracked one in ten seconds flat. The hasdee on the bench was upgraded, spitting out silver liquid which formed into whatever she desired.
They’d repaired the screen in three-fifths of a second and she’d spent an entire minute seeing she could zoom around Cago, seeing even inside people’s bodies thanks to her nanites which saturated the area. As they grew outward, her view expanded.
The bugs she was making were durable but light, using limited materials. They ate and birthed new bugs. Some built hasdees to speed production.
She had three hundred and ninety-one thousand bugs and the total was climbing every second.
Close to a million bugs were rushing down on Cago from all directions.
The two walls of bugs had collided and hers were better, stronger, faster. They destroyed 2.1 bugs on average before being ripped apart. But as more bugs joined the fight from outside, the average dropped. Already it was down to 1.8.
When it dropped below 1.0, she would be losing. Then it was only a matter of time until the bugs overwhelmed her and ate Cago down to nothing.
Silver had split the screen into squares. Nola and Jarrah were in one, safely inside Fat Man’s palace. Ash was in another, looking through a bedroom for something. Their mother was distributing food. Ed and Michael were in one of the warehouses, both with their hands over their ears to block out the sound of too many people.
Below those was a loop of the man with the sword she’d killed.
Even with endless food they are violent.
She couldn’t argue with that. The proof was looping in front of her. They had unlimited food, heal and bugs and yet he’d still tried to steal it all for himself. To take what he could duplicate.
Selfish and brutal. Kill anyone like that.
Silver had watched the fight erupt out of nowhere, had zoomed into the man’s body and found he was not drunk or drugged or ill in any way. He was flooded with adrenaline, his heart beating fast, his brain bathed in dopamine.
He’d been enjoying what he was doing.
Someone hit him in the face with a brick. At the sight of his blood, Silver’s fury had peaked. Without any verbal instruction the nanites carried out her will.
She burst all the blood vessels in his brain and he died.
Then her fury had abated, leaving only confusion. Why did he want to steal? Why did he want to be selfish and violent? It made no sense!
Copy them all and start again.
It was simplicity itself. Her nanites knew the position of every cell, the precise balance of every chemical. The people were nothing more than complicated meat. With a thought she could obliterate them all. Remake them.
It was clear someone had done that to her and Hello, leaving them dead down a hole.
It would be gentler than the bugs erupting from the silver boxes. She could make them all go to sleep first (a nudge on the brain of certain chemicals) and when they awoke they’d all be rich and healthy and happy.
In her version of Cago, twelve percent of babies wouldn’t die. They’d all live.
The bug ratio was down to 1.5. In places where her bugs were thinnest, the ones attacking had gained perhaps a meter.
But the man with the sword… he was a shard of glass stuck in her foot. He’d known there was unlimited heal. Unlimited food. Unlimited bugs. He could have printed himself a bug and a cube and built himself a palace.
If she remade Cago and put him in it, would he one day snap and do the same thing? Would he steal and hurt for no reason at all?
If you leave here you’ll die.
Silver glanced at the map and message carved on the table. She’d made the bomb—a bright blue cube with a yellow button atop it. The blocker wanted the three cubes and Silver wasn’t willing to give them up. According to the cubes it would produce a bug which would build a sort of shielded self-driving cart. It would take her and the bomb across the Gap to the glowing light.
To her, presumably the one who begged and pleaded via her dropped nanites. It was a clever ploy but now the people were safety hidden away in the palace and buildings around it, she couldn’t talk to Silver any longer.
The cubes chimed and displayed their finds in a list down the side of the screen. Weapons of deadly power. Silver scrolled through the list and dismissed them one by one. If she were fighting armies, robots, entire cities then they would be useful. But she’d only two battles now: the nanites and the bugs.
Her machines were stronger and faster than the ones that had infested Cago but again, it was a question of numbers and access to materials. She’d cleared all of Fat Man’s warehouses. Even if she ate Cago down to the ground there was more junk in the Scour than she’d managed to take in her frantic expansion.
The bugs would creep closer and wipe them out. Then the nanites would recolonize the area in an invisible flood.
She imagined a single drip of ink into a glass of water. It would hold for a moment before dispersing.
“I am not a puppet,” Silver said. No one answered. Hello was outside, sitting up on the mine entrance, waiting for her to come out.
She knew it wasn’t true though. She’d been led, pushed and pulled, the entire way. The cat, Gress, helping her. Sheriff Toll letting her go after Hello stole the gold, his nose bleeding. The mysterious her had been helping at times but Silver was sure she’d administered pain too. She hadn’t stopped her from being ill all the time, dragging her family down into poverty with her constant need for medicine.
Who knew what terrible things were planned and executed upon them?
She looked across at the bomb. It was incredibly powerful, a type of fusion weapon and would only detonate at her touch.
She might die.
You deserve it.
“Fuck you,” Silver whispered. The man on the screen swayed and died again, every blood vessel in his brain bursting at once.
The bug ratio ticked down to 1.3.
The voice yelled back for her to fight, to struggle, to kill all the bugs, to kill all the bad people and then would come silence and peace. Then she could swim in the endless flow and solve the puzzle of evil. Clear the Scour, grow plants and trees, protect the babies, take away all the pain…
Silver closed her eyes. Even down here under the junk she could hear the roar of her bugs fighting just over a kilometer away.
She could see it. No more suffering. She could even reprint her father.
But first she had to destroy this other. The one who made the nanites. The one who controlled it all.
She opened her eyes and saw the man with the sword get hit in the face with a brick. This time the sight of his blood produced no response.
Silver walked to the table, disconnected the cubes and threw them in the middle hasdee. It gulped them down and printed a bright yellow bug. It chirped at her and jumped to her outstretched hand. It scuttled up her arm and sat on her shoulder.
She checked the screens—her brother had found paper and was writing frantic messages to her. He must have guessed she could see everything.
He didn’t understand though. All his pleadings meant nothing in the face of a million bugs coming to kill them.
Silver printed food and water and a long sharp knife. She put it all in her bag. Then she gave her instructions to her brother and the people of Cago huddled in the compound.
The bomb was heavy. She instructed the bugs to carry it for her. Then she opened the door to the hidden room and began to make her way to the surface.
Chapter 73
Nola
The hasdee chimed and spat out the cube it had been working on for the last hour.
Ash touched it to the tablet Silver had sent.
“Art and history,” he said when he saw her looking at him.
“Hoo-fucking-ray.”
She was too tired to say anything else. She’d been eating when Silver’s voice echoed out of the walls asking Ash to collect as much knowledge as he could. Most of the bugs that had herded the remaining population of Cago into the compound had rushed inside, scaring the living shit out of everyone, but then dived into one of the large hasdees. It had printed a shiny tablet.
On it was… everything.
A billion billion things. Ash had pressed weapons and been told it would take eight months to make the thirty-four tempcubes required. He’d had to go into categories, diving down, searching for anything useful.
Silver had said they had maybe a day before it would all probably vanish.
Ash was frantically searching through the tablet but it was like floating atop an endless ocean and you could only take a few cupfuls to last for the rest of your life.
“Electrical engineering? Do we need that? Four hours.”
Nola stared at him, her head aching. She needed sleep and soon.
“Get the videos. We can copy stuff.”
Ash had shown her while the first cube was printing. Billions of files. A cat walking across a table. A child riding a bicycle across a green lawn, laughing.
“That’s eight hours,” Ash said, tapping the screen.
“So fucking get fucking pictures of people’s assholes I don’t care I’m going to sleep.”
She left him next to the hasdee and staggered around to the bathrooms. Fat Man’s palace was full of them. There were long lines of people at every one. Nola wandered upstairs until she found one with a shorter line and stood there leaning against the wall, waiting.
There wasn’t a single guard in sight. Nola hadn’t seen it but apparently there had only been twenty of them left defending the place. They’d been threatening a hundred slaves to fight for them.
The twenty guards had been beaten to death and she didn’t care one bit. She hadn’t seen Gardner, Candle or the thin man with black hair but she knew they weren�
�t in the mansion. Anyone who was a guard for Fat Man was dead or had fled the city (for all the fucking good that did them with the hurricane of bugs roaring outside the gates). Her grand plans for revenge had failed. They were dead and gone—that was all that mattered. A guard begging for his life had told them Fat Man never had the ability to explode collars—it was all a trick. That information didn’t save his life.
Soon it was her turn in the bathroom. A woman told her she had five minutes. Order was resuming and although they had unlimited pretty much everything else, hot water was in short supply.
She showered, washing the last remnants of Fat Man’s blood off her. After they’d left the palace, she’d cleaned somewhat with Jarrah’s help but had nothing to change into.
She cleaned herself of Fat Man, dried and dressed in new clothes. Someone took the old clothes away, dropping them into a hasdee.
The palace had hundreds of rooms but there were thousands of people. The corridors were filled with families, huddled and fearful. Every bedroom was full. Outside there was still a thin line of snapping bugs keeping people inside the compound. Beyond that, the rest of Cago was gone, chomped down to the ground for materials.
Beyond the gates the hurricane of swirling bugs fought for dominance. It had been creeping closer all day. A constant rain of dead bugs fell where the city used to stand. They were immediately broken down, flowing in lines back to the hasdees churning out more bugs.
“Nola, hey, come with me.”
Jarrah out of nowhere. He was clean too, his hair damp, wearing standard hasdee clothes, his law uniform beyond recovery.
He held out his hand and she took it. She allowed herself to be carried along behind him, her legs moving of their own accord. Through a door, a corridor, a closet and a secret door.
Inside was dim and warm, the only light coming from the edges of a thick curtain. A large bed in the center of the room. They lay down. It was soft, unbelievably so. Nola relaxed, the tiredness set free, covering her body, pulling her under.
Feed the Machine Page 32