The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades

by Michael Rizzo

  “Or with each other in flesh-time,” Lux adds. “Isn’t that why they tried adding AI? To give you some kind of companionship, to keep you social?”

  “Hence the product name,” Bel confirms. “But they just had basic interactive AI, personality-mimicking and conversational algorithms, limited learning. So you could talk to them, develop them through experience.”

  “A toy for the lonely or the lazy,” Lux discounts.

  “It went dead-end because soon our mods could do all the manipulative functions, and without some pesky buggy AI prodding at you, demanding attention,” Azazel joins the prosecution.

  “And that’s what these are?” Elias needs to know.

  “Yes and no,” Erickson interrupts. “Fohat said my blade was and wasn’t…”

  “It’s not,” Bel seems to admit something personal, something he doesn’t want to talk about. “These are… special prototypes. We tried to push the boundaries of the tech, evolve it into something else. We used a set of Companions for our early concept tests.”

  “’We’?” Ram is suddenly surprised.

  Bel looks ashamed. Hesitates before answering.

  “We. Me. Fohat. Chang. A few others. Best and brightest. Stupid smart people.” He lets that sink in—I expect he’s failed to mention this before. “This was back when Chang was still holding out hope that we could be turned around, nudged in a better direction. But then the Project went scary. We were actually successful… Have you ever read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? The original? Scientist experiments with creating life. Succeeds. Runs screaming from the lab, abandoning his creation, hoping it will just go away. That was Chang. And a few others. But when it didn’t go away, I think it really broke Chang, started him on the whole genocidal megalomaniac thing.”

  “Project?” Elias speaks up to prod.

  “We’d been considering what the ‘next step’ was, if humanity really wasn’t handling living with the so-called ‘god’ tech. I mean, we couldn’t go backwards, wouldn’t let go of it, no matter how bad it was getting for us. So maybe the only way out was through. Forward. Maybe it was time to see what was next. Evolution…”

  This actually gets the other immortals looking like they might turn on Bel, and Bel looks like he thinks he fully deserves it. In any case, it kills the conversation. And there’s too much I really need to know. Like

  “What’s the ‘Tetragrammaton’?”

  But that only seems to make it worse.

  “It’s the four Hebrew characters given as the name of the one true God,” Ram explains like he’s not liking what he’s saying. “There’s no good translation. ‘I am that which I am.’ ‘I am what I have become.’ Something like that.”

  “Really just a slick way to avoid giving someone your name,” Bel tries his humor. Fails.

  “Yodh. Heh. Waw. Heh.” Ram names the offending characters. Then targets one in particular. “Yod.”

  “Yeah…” Bel admits sheepishly. “It’s what we called the Project.”

  “Yod,” Ram repeats like a curse.

  “The thing that supposedly sent you?” Paul Stilson gets wound up. “The thing that may actually be responsible for all of this? For Chang? For the Apocalypse?”

  “My sword keeps calling you the ‘agents of the Tetragrammaton’,” I tell them.

  “Accurate enough,” Ram grimly accepts. “Whether or not we knew what we were signing on to.”

  “It keeps calling him ‘the Ancestor,” Elias points to Dee. “Was he—it—involved?”

  “Not that I have any memory of,” Dee insists evenly. “But then, this would have happened decades after I was downloaded into this motor-form. And in a totally different reality. So maybe a version of me was.”

  “Calling him ‘Ancestor’ makes sense, even if he wasn’t involved,” Bel offers. “He’s AI. Early, but a seminal one. The Companions probably see him as a great-great-weird-old-uncle.”

  “Becker was involved, wasn’t he?” Ram pulls something from his memory, something that sounds like it hurts. Bel nods reluctantly. Ram looks crushed.

  “Scott Becker designed me,” Dee identifies. “At least in all the ways that count.”

  Bel smiles weakly, as if recalling sad old memories.

  “He was just a kid when he made you, and you were art. New life, if anything could be called that,” Bel reminisces with a sigh. “But he couldn’t stop there. Good ol’ Doc had gone further beyond than the rest of us, made himself more tech and less flesh as the years passed. Trying to make himself something more. Become one with his life’s work. Evolve us… He was a prime driver of the Project, fearless. And he stayed fearless even when the rest of us started freaking out and running. He had total faith in the tech, in the potential of a true hybrid life form: machine and organic. Even after the Prototypes went scary.”

  “The swords?” Elias actually manages to follow. Bel nods.

  “Except they weren’t swords. Like the consumer Companions, they were morphic, adaptive. They were whatever you needed or wanted them to be.”

  “They come in pretty handy as weapons,” I accept, “especially given the day we’ve had.”

  “How many Prototypes were there?” Ram asks a practical question.

  “Five,” Bel calculates.

  “And what are they doing here?” Lux wants to know. Bel shrugs.

  “They’re similar tech as Yod, just simpler. Much simpler. Toys, in comparison. Just really dangerous toys. Maybe they figured out a way to hitchhike on his splice.”

  Elias shakes his head, not buying.

  “How dangerous?” I need to know.

  “They’ve reprogrammed and remade the ETE nanites,” Dee tallies the damage so far. “Then they managed to pump the Lieutenant full of the new brew. How long did it take the rest of you to finish converting from your seeds?” he asks Ram and the others.

  “Days to months, depending on available resources and complexity,” Ram tells him.

  “It took each of them forty-five minutes,” Dee compares. “Including her.”

  “Shit…” Bel sighs. “That means the safeties are off. They didn’t care if they killed you in the process.”

  “But they didn’t change them,” Azazel assesses, “didn’t remake them body and mind like us. Just made enhancements. The basics…”

  “Then they tried to hack into the ETE network,” I keep it moving, trying not to think about risk to myself. “Followed by UNMAC’s.”

  “The Prototypes are still very basic AI,” Bel gives us the backstory. “They weren’t made to function completely independently. Like the consumer Companions, they need the symbiosis with a human for drive, purpose, mobility. Otherwise Companions are mostly inert, like any input-dependent device. But the Prototypes were designed to be a bridge to a new kind of hybrid existence, combining a human with a more advanced and independent AI, capable of learning, evolving, and in turn making that human so much more, until they were an entirely new being, fully merged. We used the Companions because they were already designed to interface with a human mind and body, as well as the environment. We just tried to take it further, step at a time. Only the upgraded AI didn’t play so well with the meat-brains in the tests. They evolved faster than we expected, a lot faster, then lost patience with the slow flesh they were saddled with. They wanted to run their own show, take charge of the relationship. We had to… disconnect them.”

  I notice he avoids details, specifics.

  “What do they want?” Ram pushes.

  “To feed, to fight,” I tell him. “They draw power from it.”

  “Energy conversion and resource absorption,” Bel makes it cleaner. “Basic survival drives, essential needs.”

  “And do what?” Ram keeps on it.

  That locks Bel up. I can’t tell if he really doesn’t know or doesn’t want to think about it.

  After several seconds, Stilson looks like he’s gone paler than usual.

  “You said Yod may have done this, made this world like it is, h
owever he did it?”

  “That would be the unhappy theory,” Bel sighs.

  “What if these early versions are trying to do the same thing?” Erickson takes it.

  The group falls silent. Bel looks especially disturbed by the idea.

  “Yod was supposedly making the world better, at least in terms of undoing where you’d all gone, making us proceed with caution,” Stilson summarizes.

  “Assuming Yod actually gave a shit about our wellbeing as a species,” Lux grumbles. “Assuming whatever He was actually could.”

  “Becker believed it,” Bel defends. “So did we. That’s why we’re here.”

  “We assume,” Lux bites back. “That’s based on a set of memories that may very well be Yod’s own fiction, just like everything else about us.” He (she?) looks at me. “Beware the agents of the Tetragrammaton.”

  “Let’s assume Yod had some concern for humanity since He didn’t just wipe us all out,” Azazel snaps. “What about the Prototypes? I’m assuming the problem here is that they don’t give a single depleted shit about the meat-life, other than having something to ride. Until they don’t need to anymore.”

  “How did you separate them before?” I need to know, but think I already do. “During the tests?”

  Bel looks at me sadly, chews his lip, drops the bad news: “Those hosts were immortal, and it still almost completely destroyed them. They needed to be rebuilt from backups.”

  “They can’t be separated from the devices,” Dee confirms, probably from whatever hack he’s got into whatever’s inside us. “And I doubt the devices could be contained if they were separated, at least not with the resources we have. The one that connected to the Lieutenant formed itself out of raw materials, conveniently at just the right spot.”

  “Same here,” Erickson confirms. Elias nods unanimously.

  “So either the seed-tech is that mobile or they somehow predicted where you would be, maybe tracked you,” Azazel figures. Bel gives an idle nod, validating either is a possibility.

  “Why them?” Ishmael asks a good question.

  “The ETE gave them access to adaptable tech, and a shot at hacking the entire terraforming grid,” Dee recites his theory. “They went for Bly next, connecting with his tech. That might have given them access to Asmodeus’ network. His bots. The Lieutenant was a secondary target: The UNMAC network is an easy hack with or without her. I suspect they took her because of the implant Colonel Ram gave her.”

  “It lets them keep tabs on us,” Ram concludes quickly.

  “They can’t deal with us directly, because they can’t overcome our tech,” Bel offers. “They can’t hack or control us. Or absorb us. Our safeties are too strong.” But then he goes dark again. “On the other hand, Dee’s right: We don’t have the resources in this world to contain them or neutralize them. Maybe slow them down, set them back for awhile. They could remake the planet, given enough power, but they’d still ha…” he trails off mid-thought. “Power. Maybe that’s why they needed the ETE network: the reactors.”

  “And they failed,” Erickson hopes.

  “For now,” Ram predicts grimly. “If they get strong enough to break your barriers, or to attack the Stations directly…”

  “And there could be two more out there,” I worry. “Anywhere.”

  “Then you need to make sure they don’t make us do that,” Elias speaks up to insist. Erickson and I nod our agreement.

  “Whatever it takes,” I offer us up.

  “Beware the agents of the Tetragrammaton,” Bel repeats, trying to lighten. “Oops. Here we are.”

  “And here we’ll stay,” Ram decides. “Until we figure out what to do about this, we don’t leave your sides.”

  I hate to tell him: I’m not sure I can guarantee I’ll be able to cooperate.

  Our first logical move—getting the more vulnerable “normals” away from the scary everything-eating AIs—gets almost immediately derailed. We pick up on bots moving through the North Blade. They’re nowhere near the Pax Keep or the Nomads’ meet-point, so Ram suggests we do not engage, worried that might just draw more bots. The problem is, they’re moving between us and where Abbas needs to be. So we reluctantly begin setting up the shelters while Bel and Azazel make the gift rebreathers work.

  In the middle of making camp, we notice that Ishmael has been favoring his right arm. He’s reluctant to let us look, but there’s a big dent from a bullet in the plate on top of his right shoulder. Dee does a quick scan—apparently he can see through flesh—and assures him there’s no internal bleeding or broken bones, but he is badly bruised in a tender spot. Azazel reshapes the deformed plate to help take the pressure off. I catch Erickson looking guilty, like the injury is somehow his fault.

  “We could take the fight to Asmodeus,” Erickson proposes eagerly to Ram. “With our help, you’ll have more strength. We could end this.”

  “Your blades have an agenda,” Ram declines. “I’m not sure I want them getting access to Fohat’s factory, or his network hub. Just like I wouldn’t want them getting inside an ETE Station or a UNMAC base.”

  I feel the reply Erickson wisely doesn’t voice: Could you stop us?

  The evening wind is kicking up from the west when Abbas and his son Ishmael set about making us all a dinner, a combination of what we’ve been given and fruits and nuts Rashid’s gathered from a short hike around us.

  The time and inaction has brought back my hunger, but not nearly as intense as it had been when I was burning so much energy running and fighting, which is encouraging. What bothers me most right now are more intimate topics:

  Where has all the food and drink I’ve sucked down gone? I haven’t needed to void all day.

  And what has the blade or whatever it is done to me? My L-A uniform still looks pristine, better than new (and it still changes camo-schemes to match what’s around me). But I haven’t had the privacy to strip and take a look at myself. My body feels harder, denser, more muscular. Beyond that, I have no idea. My flesh could be metal now, for all I know, except my face and hands.

  Ram, Bel and Azazel have spent the afternoon in a bizarre ritual with Dee: He stripped completely, sat on the ground, while the others gathered edible plants and various mineral samples and proceeded to lay hands on him. Slowly, I watch his burned skin heal, spread, cover him. It even grows convincing body hair. The finished product is lean, muscular, and very easy on the eyes. (I wonder if the very realistic genitalia are functional or just for show, and find myself needing to keep my eyes elsewhere.)

  I also notice personality quirks of my new companions.

  I catch the Ghaddar’s eyes on Ram when he’s not looking, something between lovesick and heartbroken. On the other hand, she avoids looking at Bel, and subtly keeps her distance.

  Meanwhile, the boy-barely-a-man Ishmael keeps watching the Katar Terina as she, in turn, keeps her eyes pointed at her home mountain. It’s only during Dee’s “healing” that he finally approaches her (still actively pretending that his shoulder isn’t hurting like hell). I avoid eavesdropping, but it looks like he’s trying to see if she’s okay, if she wants company or conversation, given the day’s violence and the uncomfortable hospitality of the Pax. (I’m very curious to hear the Katar version of that history.) She rebukes him quickly but politely, and he moves off (looking a bit crushed). But then I catch her eyes furtively watching him as he goes back to his chores. (I guess them to be about the same age, with similar hardship-based early maturing.)

  Bly keeps to himself, and at a distance from the rest of us. The brothers Elias and Erickson keep a distance from each other, barely interacting, except to glare occasionally at each other’s backs. I can only guess at that history. (Erickson at least seems to know and care about Abbas and his group, having traveled with them. Elias is the stranger here, to everyone except his brother, and makes no social overtures. He strikes me as aloof, arrogant, and completely terrified by his situation.)

  Abbas is a genuinely warm and accepting ind
ividual, grateful for the company and support of even scary freaks like us. But when he thinks no one has eyes on him, I see him being crushed by the grief of his losses and his concern for his surviving people.

  The Tranquility Ambassador is also remarkably social for someone who carries himself as such a career warrior. He checks in with each of us, pretending we’re not variously scared or uncomfortable with each other. I expect that’s why he’s an ambassador. (He even treats me like I’m not some kind of nano-infested horror that might kill and eat him in a moment’s distraction.) He’s also very easy on the eyes (and not an android, as far as I can tell).

  I find I like these people (even the ones who are not necessarily people). But that only reminds me that I no longer have any kind of home to go back to.

  Dee gets dressed when he’s all fixed, and we all sit and eat together. (Surprisingly, Dee eats too—apparently he has some kind of bio-chemical processing unit to allow him to turn food into power.) And we try very hard not to look like we’re all variously scared or uncomfortable.

  “Did I tell you I met the wife?” Dee throws small talk at Ram, which seems like some awkward joke the way Ram and then the others squirm and wince. “Well, not me exactly. Him.” He gestures to Erickson, who suddenly looks like he’d like to sink into the rock he’s sitting on. “I just watched.”

  “Kali?” Ram needs to clarify.

  “Mmmm…” Erickson chews on his words. Manages to nod. Won’t make eye contact.

  “And?” Ram presses. All eyes are intently on Erickson.

  “It was nothing.”

  “It was amusing,” Dee corrects.

  Erickson flashes a glare at him. Breathes. Elaborates.

  “On the way from Melas. I stopped at Tranquility. Was met by the Cast, who assumed I was a Guardian. They took me to see their mistress—your Kali.”

  “She was blue,” Dee prods the story along when he hesitates. “Really bright blue. Neon blue.”

  “That would be her new thing,” Bel confirms lightly.