by P. R. Adams
“Well, when you get done, come to the galley. We’ve cracked an important system.” Rimes quickly dressed. “I’ll meet you there.”
He was halfway to the galley before Imogen answered. Ji was propped on a knobby elbow behind Imogen, angrily glaring over her shoulder. They were staying aboard Ji’s shuttle on a makeshift mattress of their own in the passenger area. “What is it, Colonel?”
“We’ve cracked the last piece of Tymoshenko’s earpiece. Meyers says we’re all going to want to see this. I told him we’d meet in the galley in three minutes.” He slowed as the galley hatchway came into view, not wanting Meyers to hear the call going through so late.
Imogen examined him again, her head tilted and eyes squinted. He half expected her to sniff the air. “Ten minutes. Just like you.” She ended the connection.
Rimes shook his head as he walked, marveling at human and genie nature. They weren’t so different.
Let’s hope we can find strength in our commonality.
33
19 April, 2174. The Drake.
* * *
It hadn’t taken long for Rimes and the rest to leave their mark on the Drake. The stale air and quiet corridors were gone. So were the horror and gore from the metacorporate invasion. Rimes felt it most acutely in the galley, which had seemed homey and bland, but now felt like a gathering area burdened with the wild variety of scents and sounds he associated with community: Kleigshoen’s sandalwood perfume, the polish on his boots, the subtle, almost alien musk of the genies, Barlowe’s earpiece chirping, Meyers’s frustrated sighs.
Credence stood on the main table, fiddling with the overhead display system, struggling to get the image to a meaningful resolution. Rimes fought back a snort. A vessel like the Drake cost in the hundreds of millions, and its labs were decked out with top-of-the-line gear, but he’d seen better displays in barracks break rooms. It was so typical of the metacorporations to cut corners whenever they could, and what amounted to an entertainment system for a couple scientists certainly qualified for that. He doubted bonuses for executives ever came up for consideration. Finally, the image coalesced into something meaningful; text flitted across the display and then resolved into an image of the strange device Credence and her boyfriend had found.
“Good enough,” Barlowe said. He uttered a few commands, and Tymoshenko’s earpiece connected with the display. More fiddling, and the display revealed a workspace. “All right then. We dumped the contents here for now. Once I get past the final layer of security, I’ll transfer this to film and share it with your systems.”
“What are we looking at exactly?” Kleigshoen breathed in the steam from one of the galley mugs, then she took a long, loud sip. She seemed to draw warmth and comfort from the drink, even though she complained about whatever fake coffee blend the Drake was stocked with.
Meyers stepped forward to point at Tymoshenko’s earpiece. “There were a few files we couldn’t crack. Metacorporations talk a good game about security, but they go cheap and use readily available products with a history of vulnerabilities. Nothing’s impervious, obviously, but they just don’t have the willingness to go that extra kilometer and do it up right. These files were an exception, probably something Tymoshenko paid extra for.”
Kleigshoen took another sip. “So, corporate espionage? War plans? Blackmail?”
Meyers nodded at Barlowe, and one of the workspace files opened. Credence climbed down and made her way to the coffee machine, watching the display over her shoulder. Rimes caught Kleigshoen tracking Credence’s every step from the corner of her eye. His gut knotted.
She knows. Somehow, she knows.
Credence settled at the table between Imogen and Kleigshoen, oblivious to Kleigshoen’s glare.
Barlowe flipped through a document on the display. “This is a simple document. If it’s not immediately apparent, it’s a ledger.”
“For?” Rimes asked.
Barlowe stopped at a page that displayed a dense data set. Centered at the page top beneath an intriguing logo that mixed a variety of influences—Asian, European, Arabic—was the name MetaConceptual. “What you’re looking at here is the first known super-metacorporation—a meta-metacorporation?—the inevitable next step of corporate evolution.”
“MetaConceptual?” Rimes looked around the galley. Everyone but Barlowe and Meyers seemed equally at a loss. “Is this new?”
Meyers looked from Barlowe to Rimes, then said, “It’s just an idea at this stage. But what’s important is they’ve gone beyond just talking. ADMP, Cytek, EEC, and Riesigfirma, all combining to become MetaConceptual.”
“Shit.” Rimes blinked, tried to conceive of four metacorporations, each with more economic power than any single government on Earth, combining into one. Together, those four were big enough to rival SunCorps, the largest of the metacorporations. “How would they make it happen? There’s not a trade organization or government that would support it. And what about all the overlap? ADMP and EEC compete. ADMP competes with Riesigfirma. Cytek competes with Riesigfirma. There’s going to be a bloodbath, and I don’t just mean front-line workers being excessed. Managers would see deep cuts. Even executives would be jettisoned. You think they’re up for that?”
Barlowe and Meyers looked at each other and smiled sheepishly.
Barlowe scratched the back of his neck. “It’d be kind of magnificent, wouldn’t it?”
Kleigshoen shook her head. “No way the other metacorporations let this happen. Something that big would either crush them or drag everything down when it implodes. They’ve all been terrified of SunCorps since it pulled off all the acquisitions that made it so powerful.”
“The others will do the same thing,” Imogen said. “From twelve metacorporations, they will go to three, maybe even two, maybe eventually one. They’ll either fail utterly and wipe out all aspects of your economy, or they’ll grow until they snuff out the life of any competing entity.”
Credence winced. “That sounds an awful lot like cancer.”
Rimes felt a headache coming on. He massaged his brow. “There are still the cartels. No way they’d finance this. They signaled years ago that they wouldn’t have anything to do with metacorporate shenanigans, even on a smaller scale, not after all the problems the last round of M&As created. It’s about the only thing they agree with the trade organizations on.”
Meyers rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Stock swap. No real need for anyone’s funding or approval. They’re all headquartered off-planet now, so the UN and the trade organizations have no say. Do a stock swap off some formula and rename to MetaConceptual, and you’re done with it for the most part. And with the concessions the UN was willing to throw their way?” He shrugged, defeated. “No one saw this coming.”
“But SunCorps took the…thing.” Credence looked from face to face. “What does that do to this plan?”
“Maybe it’s their leverage,” Kleigshoen said. “Everyone seems to have known this thing was being looked for. I’d imagine they have to at least be suspicious about something like this? Jack, you said Tymoshenko was just some sort of a VP, right? If a VP gets dragged into something this big, there are sure to be leaks.”
“He was a fast-track guy.” Rimes felt the headache spreading. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, Kwon rumbled and shifted, a caged dragon hoping for the chance to escape. “But, um, yeah. I seriously doubt we’re the only ones aware of this. The Special Security Council didn’t know? Dana, the IB didn’t know?”
“No.”
Rimes turned to Imogen. “The genies?”
“The minutia of corporations and government are not for us to concern ourselves with.” Imogen let show her disgust at the thought of it all. “Once we’ve freed the last of our people, we’ll be free of the madness of your people forever.”
Rimes chuckled. “Don’t delude yourself. You carry our poison in your DNA. It’s inevitable the worst of our traits will rise up at some point, and when that happens, you’ll find yourself stu
ck in your own dramas, sacrificing to your own bloodthirsty gods. We’re wired for self-destruction. You are too. You can guard against it, but denying it could happen to you? It’s a dream that will tear you apart. You want to see your future if you go on believing you’re above this?” He pointed to the overhead display, then took in the galley with a sweep of his arms. “Greed, lust, envy, war…choose your vice. It’s who we are, and that means it’s who you are.”
Imogen glared at him, alternating between seething rage and pained acceptance. “We may suffer some of your flaws, but we have the capacity to think as a society and to embrace what is good for that society. It may not be gone yet, but one day we will root out this self-destructive inclination.”
“I hope you do. Maybe we can live on in you.”
Kleigshoen frowned. “You can’t give up on our entire species, Jack. We’ve had some setbacks. We’ve had some horrible individuals, but there are good people too. Don’t you think those people deserve your help? Don’t you think there are more people like Molly out there? I’m sorry. I know that’s still a fresh wound, but it needs to be said.” She glanced at Credence. “What about Rick? Lieutenant Oswald? Sheila? Deepa? For every Tymoshenko you can find ten people as good and decent as those people. Or you.”
Rimes looked away. “Don’t hold me up to that kind of standard, Dana. Don’t. You can’t compare me to them. Not to them.”
Credence cleared her throat. “So, um, what are you going to do?”
Everyone looked at Rimes. He felt the pressure of their attention and need. It was a force, a gravity that pulled him back from his own self-pity and self-loathing. For a moment, he resisted it, toyed with the idea of cursing at them, telling them to find someone else to lead them.
The moment passed.
Where he had once simply accepted his ability to lead, to operate beyond the instant, he no longer accepted anything. He returned their stares. He looked from one to the other, seeing in them good people, innocent people, even those simply desiring an agent of change. They deserved better than him.
He closed his eyes and waited for the dead to direct him, but they were silent now. Even Kwon was silent. Rimes was left with only his experience, his mind and will, and the remaining strength of a body pushed beyond its limits too many times. He opened his eyes and looked at Credence, momentarily losing himself in the dark green of her eyes.
“We’re going back to Earth,” he said finally. “We’re going to stop them. Whether it’s SunCorps or this MetaConceptual or something worse. We’re going to save our people.”
34
19 May, 2174. The Drake.
* * *
Fires burned as far as the eye could see, climbing high into a sky blackened by smoke. Empty husks that once had touched the sky breathed poisonous plumes of soot and ash. Rimes walked in the shadows cast by the skeletal remnants of skyscrapers.
It was Plymouth all over again—acrid smoke, charred ruins, glass crunching and cracking beneath his boots. All that was missing was the…
He shook his head and leaned forward. The streets turned molten ahead of him, and the air turned into a furnace that pummeled him. He wore a thick protective suit, a heavy rubbery smell in his nostrils. He couldn’t imagine anything surviving the inferno he was looking at, though. In the distance, windows exploded, showering the remaining cement structures, creating a deafening, chiming clatter.
A building loomed out of the flames, somehow untouched by the cataclysm that had wrecked the others. It had a timeless design—marble columns, broad windows, a red brick facade framed by sandstone corners. Rimes’s mind was too traumatized by the destruction to place where he’d seen the building before. Still, he was sure he knew the place.
Laughter echoed in the choking heat. Rimes turned to see its source, and his stomach knotted with dread recognition: Jared and Calvin. They approached along the path Rimes had taken, smiling, wearing outfits he recalled from the last time he’d seen them—shorts and T-shirts with the battalion’s colors.
He fought back tears and ran to them, ignoring the improbable nature of the moment. The heat should have cooked them already, assuming they hadn’t choked on the air. What mattered was that they were alive.
“Dad? Is that you?” Jared reached out to touch Rimes’s visor, same as he did every time Rimes had suited up for a training exercise.
“It’s so good to see you, boys. It’s so good.” Rimes returned Calvin’s hug. “Look at you. Your mother…” Rimes’s voice broke.
“She’s not here,” Calvin said.
“We’re waiting for you.” Jared hugged Rimes tight. “She’s waiting, too. But you have to finish them.”
“Them?”
Muted screams filled the air suddenly, and Rimes turned, brow furrowed. Children wearing school uniforms were pressed against the intact building’s broad windows. They couldn’t have been older than twelve.
“Children?” Rimes blinked, confused.
“Not them.” Jared pointed at the first floor windows. “There are men. In the building. It’s the last one. You destroyed the rest. They have to be in there. The men who killed Mom.”
“No.” Rimes shook his head. “Your mother was killed by—”
“We saw.” Calvin’s face lost any resemblance to Molly, momentarily slipping into a ghoulish, charred, skeletal mockery. As quick as the transformation happened it was gone, and Calvin stood before Rimes again, looking more like Molly than ever before. “They’re in there, Dad.”
“They’re children. Boys, I can’t…”
“We can,” the boys said in unison, and the building exploded.
Flames gushed from every surface. Glass flew through the air, and with it pieces of the children. A face—just a thin sheet of flesh—floated to the ground nearby. Rimes recognized the face of one of the young children looking out the window a moment before. Segments of the roof rained around them, and flames danced where the building had stood.
“Boys, no. You…you couldn’t.”
The front wall was gone, revealing battered bodies lying on the floor. They curled slowly into fetal balls, just like those he’d seen killed by the entity on Sahara. The similarity troubled him. He turned to the boys to protest, to explain how they couldn’t kill innocent people like that, to gain some understanding of what could have possibly turned them into bloodthirsty destroyers.
Rimes woke with a start.
He was on his improvised bed, lying on his side, pressed tight against Credence’s back. They were naked, their scents intermingled. He pulled away, massaging the stabbing pain in his left arm, which had fallen asleep. After a few deep gulps of air, the panic began to recede.
“Jack?” Credence sat up, sleepy eyes squinting, concerned. “What is it?”
“A dream. Just another stupid…” Rimes rubbed at the scar on his temple. That seemed to rouse Kwon from his slumber, and a pressure built behind Rimes’s eyes. “I should be using stims. I thought I was past this.”
Credence leaned against him and pulled him close. “You’re shivering. What was it?” She kissed his shoulder. “Can you tell me about it?”
“My boys—Jared, Calvin. They were…” His voice broke.
“They’re gone.”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “It was one of those dreams where everything was so vivid, so authentic, you felt it had to be real, even when it was impossible. They were…they were…” Murderers. Like me.
“Let it go. You have to let it all go, or it’s going to drive you mad. You’ve been so wound up and intense from the moment I met you.”
Rimes sighed. “I’m getting better. I can feel it. The memories I have now, what I dream of, it’s mostly positive. Thank you.”
She squeezed his face and kissed him, long and passionate. When she let him go she wiped a tear from her eye. “I’ve only done a little. You have to want to heal, or it will never happen. What you’ve done so far has been amazing.”
Rimes’s earpiece chimed from its place at
op the workstation that had become his private research station. He scooped the earpiece up and stood, stretching, working his numb hand. He’d grown so comfortable around Credence that he was no longer concerned with his nakedness. Imogen’s face formed on the earpiece’s display. She was alone in the Drake’s hangar bay, stretching.
“Colonel.” Imogen rubbed her face irritably. “We need to meet. Everyone.”
“Is something wrong?”
“We’re approaching Earth. We need to begin the indoctrination.”
“Indoctrination?” Rimes searched his memories for a moment, came up with nothing. He looked back at Credence, appreciating the curve of her hips as she leaned back on the mattress and smiled mischievously. “I don’t recall—”
“I told you, we cannot simply go down there.” Imogen sounded impatient. Her brow wrinkled, making her look more like a jungle cat than ever before. “If this thing is as we suspect, it will be exerting its influence, and there is no way to know what range it can manage. We must be prepared.”
“Okay. When?”
Imogen sighed. “An hour. Can you contact your people?”
“Of course.”
Imogen disconnected abruptly, leaving Rimes to wonder about the irritability she’d shown.
Stress. We’ve all been under so much.
The closer they came to Earth, the worse it became for everyone. Brozek was little more than a skeletal shadow of himself, a slowly shuffling shell of the young engineer Rimes had befriended. Rimes feared the little man might die before they reached Earth. He made a note to speak to Brozek before then.
They sat in the galley again, this time all gathered together. The room wasn’t meant to hold so many at once, and it was quickly heating up, the air becoming thick, heavy.
Rimes caught the genies’ almost animal scent among the humans’ and glanced toward Ji and Yama. Even after weeks together, everyone split down easy lines—Ji and Yama sat atop the table nearest the hatch; Banh, Dengler, Dunne, Gwambe, and Trang shared the table in front of the genies; Barlowe, Brozek, Kleigshoen, and Meyers sat at the table left of the genies; Credence sat alone at the table in front of Barlowe.