by Tim Pratt
Callie closed her eyes. She did not want to come to the attention of the Axiom. She just wanted to find the control room, push a button marked “deactivate swarm,” and get out of this hellish place. What do we do now?
Get somewhere safe where we won’t be bothered, and let me read these help files. There might be some kind of local intranet, too – surely there’s some way of organizing these skirmishes, and leaderboards or rankings? The Axiom like to gloat – I can’t imagine they devised a system of competition that doesn’t have a forum for the winners to lord it over the losers.
Callie was ashamed of how happy she was to crawl back into the filthy hole under the tree. She settled down among the wriggling verminous things – something told her she could eat them, and that they’d even taste good, but she refrained – and stared at meaningless glyphs streaming by in her vision, stirring only to open a new set of files for Sebastien when he asked. This would be faster if you let me run the body, he said. What do you think I’ll do, run off and join the monster army?
I’d rather not find out what you would do, thanks. Especially since he had access to information she didn’t, and could keep secrets without her even knowing it. Hurry up and read.
It took hours – or what felt like hours. She wondered if time ran at the same rate in the Dream as it did outside. In the Hypnos time wasn’t malleable that way, but the Dream was a whole other level of technology.
I’m done reading, Sebastien said eventually. Alas, we’re fucked.
Chapter 26
How so? Callie asked.
I was right. The Dream is a game. There are forty-seven players. They each control an entire spacefaring civilization, and they can engage in commerce with one another, command armies, hire mercenaries, commit genocides, and build cities – all in addition to having feasts, torturing defenseless simulations, and pursuing other Axiomatic hobbies. They periodically have battle royale tournaments, where they wage all-out war on one another, and the winner of that tournament gets to be the ultimate emperor, and live in the best palace and enjoy all sorts of extra advantages and pleasures. Although even the player who finishes next-to-last in the rankings gets to live a life of unimaginable luxury and rule over an entire civilization.
What happens to the last-place finisher?
It’s unclear – the notes are written as if everyone already knows the penalty for being the ultimate loser. There’s reference to “suffering slime” and “the torment of millions,” neither of which sounds pleasant. All I can tell for sure is that, if you lose, you stay on the bottom, without a civilization to rule, until the next tournament, and then you get equipped with some lousy basic starter resources and a little time to build them up. It must suck being the suffering slime, or else it gives you a lot of time to think and plan, because the same player rarely loses twice, though they often finish near the bottom – there are whole forums devoted to the inspired stratagems the losers came up with to make sure someone else would finish just a little bit lower. The difference between last and next-to-last is vaster than the difference between first and next-to-last, in terms of quality of simulated life, for sure.
I don’t care about Axiom games. How do we turn off the stupid swarm? Was that in the help file?
That’s what I’m trying to say. Sebastien didn’t even sound exasperated, which exasperated her greatly. The winner of the tournament is in charge of all sorts of high-level elements of the Dream – adding new civilizations, spawning star systems, populating new regions of their imaginary multiverse – they have sole dominion over adding new parts to the simulation. Which, in practical terms, means they can create new things until they run out of processing power, and then they can deploy the swarm to increase the Dream’s capacity. Which the current ruler has done.
Callie nodded, though her body did something else that involved wiggling its horrid tail instead. Does that ruler have a name?
Now there was a hint of exasperation. The Axiom don’t have names the way you mean. Or, it’s more like they have a hundred names. They know who they are. They understand everyone else solely in relation to themselves, so their nomenclature is context-sensitive and ever-changing, and they’re more like titles than names – rival, ally, contemptible servant, brood-mate, exalted murderer, and so on. The emperor is just named “the ruler,” from our point of view. They have a palace in a hollowed-out planet at the center of the Dream’s most populous galaxy. There’s a control center in the middle of that palace that controls the gatherers, and also has the interface used to create new simulated planets, stars, people, engines of war, everything.
So let’s sneak into the palace, Callie said.
Apart from the fact that we would definitely be captured and tortured for eternity if we tried, it wouldn’t help. Only the ruler can activate the controls. See? We’re fucked. We can’t even join the game, because the other players would start asking who we were and where we came from – showing up millennia late to a party is bound to get us noticed. You couldn’t pass for Axiom under close questioning – not even I could.
I thought you said they didn’t care about newcomers?
They care about threats! Sebastien said. Join the game and you become a threat, at least potentially. We need to implement Plan C.
Not yet, Callie said. Maybe we just need a different approach to Plan B.
Callie made a door, and opened her eyes in the pod. Ashok leaned over her. “What’s wrong? Did it not work? Were the sensory inputs incomprehensible?”
Callie lifted off the diadem, then took Sebastien’s arm off her hip and climbed out of the pod as he blinked and came out of the Dream. “No, it worked fine. The sensory input was too comprehensible, if anything.”
“You were only in there for a few minutes, though,” Ashok said. “You didn’t happen to materialize next to a big emergency power shutoff for the swarm, I’m guessing?”
“We were in there for at least several hours,” Sebastien said. “Subjectively.”
“Really? I don’t quite understand how that works,” Ashok said. “You should’ve brought a neurologist. But that’s… Wow. The Dream must have been running for, like, billions of years, then, in terms of subjective time. What are they doing in there?”
“War-gaming,” Sebastien said.
Ashok’s ocular lenses spun; it was the equivalent of Callie widening her eyes. “Oh yeah? Was it cool?”
“They… play games?” Lantern gazed around the room. “All this power, all this potential… and they play games?”
“Games of conquest and subjugation,” Callie said. “Axiom games.” She went through a series of stretches while she talked. Maybe it had only been a few minutes of real-time, but she still felt stiff and uncomfortable, like she’d slept all night in a bathtub… next to an objectionable stranger. “Sebastien pointed out they could have galaxies in there, or even whole universes, so it’s entirely possible they’re doing other, more nefarious shit too, and the games are just what they do to unwind or pass the time. It’s awful, though, even the little bit I glimpsed – simulations who think they’re real and feel pain, dying on a battlefield in a literally pointless war. It’s just fought for points.”
“But the points do buy you power in the real world.” Sebastien explained the ruler’s ability to control the swarm.
“So what do we do?” Ashok said.
Callie grinned. “We find the leader’s pod. We stick a knife in their brain or heart or whatever vital organs the Axiom have, rip the wires out of their head, and plug me in to take their place. Then I stroll through my palace to the control center and switch off the swarm and any other defenses this space station has.”
“I thought that might be your idea,” Sebastien said. “It’s not bad. Except… how do we know which pod is the leader’s?”
They looked up at the galleries rising around them. “There’s no way to tell from out here?”
Sebastien shook his head. “Alas, there’s no game file to access here, no options I can t
oggle to make helpful glowing icons float over the pods and identify their inhabitants. There was nothing in the files or discussion boards inside the game that talked about the location of the pods, either. The Axiom probably haven’t even thought about their pods for billions of years, in their time. The Dream is all that’s real to them now. It has everything they need. They’d be unlikely to give away any information that could be used against them, anyway.”
“There are only forty-seven choices,” Callie said. “Worst case, we do trial and error. How’s the threat analysis going, Shall?”
Shall’s war-drone crouched on the next level of galleries, manipulators doing slow passes over one of the pods. “I’ve only been working on it for five minutes, Callie. There are countermeasures and anti-tampering devices of various sorts in this pod alone. Give me some time.”
Ashok picked up the dangling diadem. “Do you, ah, mind if I have a go?”
Callie thought about it, then shrugged. “Don’t do anything to draw the attention of the actual players in there, but sure. And try to remember, the creatures you encounter… they can experience anguish. They might even have interior lives. They think they’re real, even if they’re not.”
“I’m not a hack-and-slash carnage player, Callie.” Ashok sounded offended. “I specialize in stealthy no-kill runs.” He paused. “Except in games where pacifism isn’t an option. Even then, I lean toward sniping.” Ashok touched one of the metal plates on the back of his head and it slid open. He pulled out a wire, blew on the connector as if it might have gotten dusty in there, and plugged it into Callie’s diadem. Then he settled himself down on the floor and crossed his arms over his chest. “Hello, cruel world.” His glowing ocular lenses went dark.
Callie prodded him. “He looks dead. Did I look dead?”
“This is how it looks when he sleeps,” Lantern said.
“I thought he didn’t sleep, or that he only slept one hemisphere of his brain at a time?”
Lantern fluttered her pseudopods in the affirmative. “He used to do that, but I convinced him to take some aptitude tests and demonstrated that he was less efficient and effective when he operated under those conditions than he would be if he slept completely for five hours in a row, and was fully engaged while conscious. The difference was only a few percentage points, but say what you will about Ashok – he doesn’t sneer at good data.”
Callie said, “You, ah, spend a lot of time around him when he’s sleeping?”
“I sleep even less than he does, so, sometimes.” Lantern appeared entirely oblivious to Callie’s subtext, though it was hard to tell with her: Lantern had been a truth-teller, devoted to honesty, for almost her entire life, and that had required her to develop all sorts of skills of tact and diplomacy, so she could avoid lying while maybe not telling the whole entire truth. Answering exactly what was asked, and ignoring whatever might be implied, was probably a core competency for her sect.
“You two are… close, though?”
“Ashok is my closest friend among the humans,” Lantern said. “We have a great deal in common, and I’ve spent many happy hours in his machine shop. I miss him when I am away on my station.”
They were circling closer to the source of Callie’s curiosity now. “There’s no one else you feel that close to?”
“Elena is a good friend as well. She’s very kind. She is fascinated by the Free – by the idea of sapient alien life in general – and does not hide that fact, but she also doesn’t look at me like I’m a specimen for study. She treats me as a person, whole and complete in myself. When we speak, she truly pays attention.”
“You’re right about that,” Callie said. “We’re lucky to have her in our lives.” She cleared her throat. “So… where do I rank?”
Lantern said, “I have not ranked all the humans of my acquaintance on a scale from closest to least close, so I can’t answer that question precisely. I respect you greatly, Callie, and believe that you respect me too. Your dedication to our mission is inspiring to me, and when I find myself doubting, and wavering, or being overwhelmed by the magnitude of our task, I take comfort in your strength and determination. I don’t think you would argue if I said our relationship is less warm and convivial than some others, but if we were to spend more time together, and discuss our thoughts and feelings in an unguarded moment of peace, that might change. Considering that when we met we were mortal enemies, and that you nearly killed me more than once, I would say we’ve come a long way. I hope to see the trend continue.”
Callie nodded. “I think that’s fair. I respect you, and like you, too. I’ve just never been great at making friends. Ashok and I still mostly bond by making fun of each other. Elena… well, that’s different. When it’s romantic, or love, that sort of thing. You let your guard down more. Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s bad. So far, with Elena, it’s been good.”
“Love,” Lantern fluttered her pseudopods thoughtfully, in slow s-waves. “Humans are interesting. My people aren’t mammalian. We do not huddle together for warmth. We have no hormonal reinforcement for such behavior. Once upon a time, we reproduced sexually, though we were capable of changing our sexes as needed to create the ideal ratio of fertilizers to egg-layers, and most of us spent time as both over the course of our lives. The concept of gender, as it exists in humans, with associated behavioral or social roles, existing independently from but often strangely entwined with sexual roles… frankly, it’s all baffling to us.”
“It’s kind of baffling for us, too. These days, most humans just accept that people can identify as whatever feels right to them, and if they want to go to graduate school or a therapist to dig deep into why a given gender identity or blend of them or absence of them feels right, they’re welcome to do so. People who’ve thought about the subject mostly agree that gender roles don’t have any inherent basis in biology, and that gender is a social construct… but so are borders, laws, and money, and you can get killed for transgressing any of those, too.” Callie cocked her head. “But… you go by ‘she.’”
“Sometimes we choose to use particular pronouns, as I have done, but only for aesthetic reasons, or because it makes dealing with humans easier.”
“Why did you choose feminine pronouns?”
“I find the sound of them more pleasing than the masculine pronouns in your language.”
“That… is as good a reason as any, I guess. If it’s not prying… do you have children? Sorry. Not to jump right into those deeper conversations we talked about.”
“I don’t mind. I have not contributed my genetic material to any offspring yet. Perhaps someday. The truth-tellers tend to reproduce by mechanical means, creating clones or mingling material from two or more elders to encourage diversity. We also take in young ones who’ve been orphaned or otherwise lack support.”
“Romance isn’t such a big thing for your kind, huh?”
“Some of the Free have embraced the concept. Among the truth-tellers, it is harder. We joke that human romance requires a level of deception that we are not permitted to indulge in.”
Callie snorted.
“But we do feel… affinities for others,” Lantern said. Did she glance over at Ashok? It was hard to tell when you were talking to someone with seven eyes: they were always glancing everywhere. “Closeness, and warmth. An ache when they are absent. A longing. A sense of completion when they are near. That feeling is not unknown to us. Is that romance?”
“Sounds like–”
There was a crack and sizzle, and Shall’s war drone fell off the gallery above and crashed to the floor.
Chapter 27
Callie raced over to Shall, but the drone was already levering itself upright on multi-jointed legs. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“I was trying to circumvent some of the countermeasures in that pod. I… failed to circumvent the countermeasures. I’m all right, but if I’d been made of weak human flesh, I’d be cooked right now. That was the fifth pod I examined, and
all of them have different defenses, Callie.”
Sebastien strolled over. “Of course. The Axiom were deeply paranoid, except ‘paranoid’ implies delusion, and they were right to think everyone was out to get them. Just like they were, as individuals, out to get everyone else. They wouldn’t have a single set of universal security measures. They would customize each pod for their own preferences.”
Callie put her hand on Shall’s armored carapace. “Are we screwed? They’re unopenable?”
“Oh, I could open them. I am a one-drone army, after all. The process would destroy whatever was inside, though, and the pod might try to electrocute me or blow me up in return – and doing so might summon the swarm. Just because the swarm stopped at the door doesn’t mean they can’t come in under any circumstances. They’re part of the station’s security system. Right now, they still think we’re penitents requesting an audience, and they’re leaving us alone. If we prove to be a threat, their rules of engagement might change. There’s no way to know. That said… there’s one pod that’s a little different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come up and see?”
Callie sighed. “Fine. Don’t crush me.”
Shall scooped her up in his manipulator arms, and then leapt to the next gallery, then up to the third, and on to the fourth. He deposited her gently next to a closed pod – the only occupied one she could see on this level. “See?”
Callie leaned over, careful not to touch the pod, since one of them had zapped Shall so grievously. This pod was closed, like the other inhabited ones, with a sealed seam running up the middle… but unlike the others, this one wasn’t sealed perfectly. There was a puckered spot where the join wasn’t perfect, a hole barely big enough to stick a couple of fingers in – not that she was about to stick any part of her body in there. It was probably a flaw dating back to when the pod was first closed.