Mage Against the Machine

by Shaun Barger

  A man in military fatigues leaned back, placing the cracked capsule on the table.

  Nikolai broke into a toothy grin, not quite biting back a peal of excited laughter before he could compose himself. He was in the presence of a real. Live. Human!

  They were in a small room, polished tile floor smelling faintly of bleach. The walls were padded with strange material like densely woven wire. Opposite of where he sat was a heavy door with a small mesh-reinforced window.

  Nikolai was slumped over on an uncomfortable metal chair that was bolted to the floor, his wrists and ankles bound to it with some sort of plastic bindings.

  His head was throbbing, his throat scratchy. His initial moments of bewildered excitement diminishing, Nikolai remembered being taken by the humans in the hovercraft. Then what? Did they drug him?

  With a shiver, Nikolai realized that he was naked but for a paper gown. His hand was bandaged, and though there were bruises across his arms and legs, his minor scrapes and cuts had been cleaned and covered with smears of something like dried latex. Besides the headache and the scratchy throat, he didn’t feel any pain. The burns on his hand felt numb.

  They’d taken his uniform. His Focals, too. Heart thumping in his chest, Nikolai began to panic before closing his eyes to calm himself.

  He could feel the Focals—could sense exactly how far away and in what direction they were at all times. The baton couldn’t be more than a quarter-mile away. The knife was further, though it was slowly coming closer. Somebody was carrying it—bringing it to them.

  “Good morning,” the human said pleasantly. He was reading something on a small sheet of plastic the size of a playing card, and didn’t look up from it as he talked. Through the back of it, Nikolai could see blurred data scrolling down the sheet, distorted to hide it from his view.

  The man swiped at it casually, looking up with a polite smile. “Do you know where you are?”

  Nikolai shook his head. “Sort of. Not really. How long have I been . . . ?”

  “We patched you up. It’s zero-eight. What better way to start the day than with an interrogation?” he said lightly. “I’m Command Chief Master Sergeant Maalouf. Colonel Machado will be joining us shortly. We’ll be asking you some questions. Answer with complete honesty in short, concise sentences.”

  Nikolai look down at the zip ties, his wrists firmly bound to the armrests.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, noting Nikolai’s look. “General procedure for refugee intake. Though you obviously aren’t a Mod, there are some . . . unusual aspects to your arrival in need of clarification.”

  “A Mod?” Nikolai asked, immediately wishing he hadn’t said it as the human gave him a perplexed look.

  They didn’t know that he was a mage, probably. Or that a mage was even a real thing. Secrecy from the humans had been ruthlessly enforced by the Edge Guard. All the way to the end, so far as he knew.

  Hopefully that wasn’t also revisionist bullshit, and the humans still didn’t know about magi. If they didn’t, he could easily break out of there—especially if he could get his Focals back.

  Nikolai just had to convince these people that he was a completely normal human. A normal human . . . who had no idea had happened for the past hundred years. Who came falling from the sky, a horde of machines nipping at his heels.

  Yep. Shouldn’t be a problem.

  “Modified. Cybernetically enhanced,” the man said evenly. “Now. Have you ever been truth-scanned before?”

  Nikolai shook his head, though he tried to at least pretend to know what the man was talking about this time. Sounded like some sort of high-tech lie-detection shit.

  The human pulled a small baggie from a pocket and removed a pair of thin, silver pads.

  “Don’t move,” he said, and Nikolai nervously resisted the urge to pull away as he stuck them to his temples. He looked back down at the little screen in his hand, nodding. “In case you aren’t familiar with how a truth-scanner works, it’s simple. We scan your brain.

  “If you lie, we know. If you tell the truth, we know. It’s impossible to trick—not even a sociopath can beat it. Understand?”

  Nikolai nodded, feeling a sheen of sweat appear on his forehead. This was going to be complicated.

  “Good. Now, a few questions for calibration. What is your name?”

  “Nikolai,” he said. The little panel in his hand flashed green.

  He raised a brow. “Surname?”

  “Strauss.” Green again.

  “Good. Now repeat after me: My name is John Smith.”

  “Um, okay. My name is John Smith.”

  The little sheet of plastic emitted a beep, flashing red.

  “Good. Now . . .”

  They went on like that for a short while. He asked Nikolai simple, irrefutable facts, like how many doors were in the room, how many fingers he was holding up, etc. Then he asked Nikolai to answer again—incorrectly this time. Green when he told the truth. Red when he lied. Yellow for uncertain.

  His dagger, though ceasing to move for a short while, once again began to draw near. Nikolai watched the door expectantly as it stopped just outside.

  The door swung open and an imposing man entered the room, followed by two young soldiers carrying assault rifles. The weapons were disappointingly familiar. Nikolai guessed that not everyone used fancy laser guns. Maybe bullets were cheaper.

  His eyes hungrily went down to the man’s belt, where the man was wearing Nikolai’s knife. He felt a swell of anger, but pushed it down, trying not to let it show.

  Chief Maalouf stood and snapped out a neat salute.

  “Sir! Preparations are complete. Everything is in working order.”

  “At ease,” the man rumbled, pulling up the chair opposite Nikolai and taking a seat. He was an older man, with steely hair and a tan, sun-weathered face. He looked Nikolai over with sharply intelligent eyes, frowning.

  “Sir,” Chief Maalouf said, hesitant. “I’d be happy to facilitate this interrogation. I’m sure you have more pressing matters to attend than refugee intake.”

  The man didn’t respond—he just stared at Nikolai—eyes burning into him.

  Nikolai glanced at Maalouf, then back at the man.

  “Um—”

  “You’ll speak only when spoken to,” the man said. He didn’t raise his voice, but didn’t need to—his tone was the very definition of command. “Now. What’s your name?”

  “Nikolai. Strauss.”

  “And do you know who I am, son?”

  “Colonel Machado?” Nikolai guessed, remembering what Maalouf had told him.

  The plastic flashed yellow for Uncertainty, chirping instead of beeping.

  “That’s right,” Machado said. “And do you know where you are?”

  Not a particularly specific question. Though he didn’t know the name of the settlement—or military base—he had a reasonably clear idea of its location in relation to the lake surrounding the hidden Marblewood Veil. He knew that Marblewood was somewhere in what was once (or what still was?) northeast Pennsylvania.

  “Yes,” he said, confident.

  The sheet of plastic flashed green.

  “Possibly a misleading answer, sir,” Maalouf said. “You’ll have to be more specific with your questions.”

  “In that case,” the man said calmly, “why don’t you tell me what you know about where you are, Nikolai, and why you’ve come here. Specifically.”

  “Only that there are people here,” Nikolai said. “I don’t know any more than that. That’s why I came, to get away from . . .”

  What was his angle?

  “. . . those things,” Nikolai said abstractly.

  Green.

  “Those . . . things?”

  “The . . . machines?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “The machines,” Nikolai said again more firmly.

  Green.

  The colonel leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers steepled over his mouth as he stared N
ikolai down.

  Nikolai shifted, uncomfortable, and glanced down at his knife hanging at Machado’s side.

  “Are you a human, Nikolai?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

  Fuck. FUCK.

  He wasn’t a human—but if he said so they’d assume that he was some sort of machine creation. Or crazy. Or—or—fuck, who knows!

  So Nikolai just smirked.

  “No—I’m a robot,” he said, slathering his words with exaggerated sarcasm.

  BEEP. Red.

  Machado stared at Nikolai for a few long moments. He leaned back, thumb tapping the pommel of the Focal. Tap, tap, tap. Nik could feel it—goose bumps rising on the back of his neck at the odd sensation.

  “Mr. Strauss,” Colonel Machado said, reasonably, “it’s important you understand that how well this interview goes will determine whether or not I personally put a bullet between your eyes. So why don’t we try that again. Are you natural born, or were you created by the Synthetics?”

  “Natural born,” Nikolai said quickly, relieved at the choice of words.

  Green.

  “Have you been subject to any form of Synthetic conditioning? Brainwashing?”

  “No, sir.”

  Green.

  The colonel turned to the chief. “Any chance he’s been somehow altered to beat that scanner of yours?”

  Chief Maalouf shook his head.

  “No way. He doesn’t have any implants, any links for interface. So far as we know, it’s impossible to alter the brain without an interface. There’s cloning and conditioning, but no amount of conditioning can train someone to beat a truth-scanner. He’s human, sir.”

  “Hmm,” he said, seemingly unconvinced. “Are you working for or have you ever reported to the Synthetics, or informed on any fellow humans to them?”

  “No. Never.”

  Green.

  He stared at Nikolai, thoughtful, like he was a puzzle to be solved. Finally he drew the blade and lay it on the table. The wicked edge glistened like the shell of an insect in the electric light.

  “I’ve never seen a knife like this,” he said. “Beautifully made—one seamless piece of metal. And that stick of yours. That rod. It’s not like any material I’ve ever seen. A few of my men were worried that it might be radioactive, but it seems clean. Your clothing is strange. Not machine made, but . . .”

  He trailed off, staring at Nikolai expectantly.

  “The baton,” Nikolai said carefully, “and the knife—they’re sort of religious artifacts. For coming of age. They signify my vocation, and artistic calling. Called Focals.”

  Green. Maalouf and Machado stared at him blankly.

  “I’m from a little town called Marblewood. We call it a Veil. We don’t use technology. We’re not far from here—though I’m not exactly sure how far. In the wilderness, near a lake.” He looked at them, the wonder in his eyes only partially faked. “All my life, I thought that everyone in the outside world was dead. That nothing existed beyond the Veil. Monsters, maybe. But definitely not people.”

  All green. They were staring at him, wide eyed.

  Nikolai smiled sheepishly. “I know, it must sound pretty crazy.”

  Machado leaned back, letting out a breath.

  “I’ve heard of this,” he said to Maalouf. “After the war in the twenty-twenties, a lot of survivors from the worst-hit areas went deep into the wilderness to try and eke out an existence. A lot of Amish used to be around here; I bet there’re whole villages of them still hidden out in the sticks. The Synth probably don’t even bother them.” The colonel looked back at Nikolai. “Is that right? Are you Amish?”

  Nikolai shrugged, noncommittal. “Technology is pretty strictly forbidden. I mean, we have plumbing, and simple stuff like that. But no computers.”

  Maalouf looked at Nikolai, then back at the colonel. “I thought all the Amish were dead. I used to get food from their markets when I was a kid. They had the best pie,” he said wistfully. “Had molasses in it.”

  “I . . . got in trouble, back home,” Nikolai admitted. “So I ran away. Found my way here.” He stared at them with exaggerated, wide-eyed fear. “Those . . . machines in the woods. The flying ones, and the . . . others. What are they?”

  Machado sighed, taking Nikolai’s blade from the table and handing it to Maalouf. “Chief? Cut the ties.”

  “Yes, sir,” Maalouf said, placing the tiny computer on the table. Using the blade Focal, he neatly sliced the plastic bindings.

  Nikolai rubbed his wrists, hands and feet tingling as the blood rushed into them. He tried not to grit his teeth as the colonel took his blade from Maalouf and slid it back into its sheath at his side.

  “Son . . .” Machado said gently. “The women in your . . . community. They’ve all been unable to have children since the plague thirteen years ago, correct?”

  Careful. Careful . . .

  “The animals have children,” Nikolai said, as if pained. “But I don’t remember the last time a human’s been born in Marblewood. Like I said, almost everyone back home thinks the world ended outside our town—that there’d never be another human born again.”

  Green.

  Machado shook his head. “You poor bastards. Probably thought you’d brought the wrath of God down on you. No way you could’ve known about the fertility plague.” He grunted. “Chief? Would you be so kind as to explain to the young man?”

  Maalouf nodded. The colonel stood, reaching out to shake Nikolai’s hand. He stood slowly, uncomfortably exposed in his paper gown, but he looked Machado in the eyes and shook his hand firmly.

  “Chief will tell you everything,” Machado said. “You’re a very lucky young man, Nikolai. It’s a miracle you made it here. Armitage’s net is looser than others, but tight enough. Now . . . the world’s in a bad way, and you might not be wrong about it being the end of the world, if the Synth have their way. But at least here you’ll live as a free human. And no matter how this all turns out, you’ll die an American.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Nikolai glanced down at the dagger hanging at his belt. “May I have my Focals back? And clothes?”

  “Your clothes have been washed and are waiting for you in your holding cell. Temporary holding cell, I should say. As for your knife, I’m afraid there’re no weapons allowed in the camp for civilians or off-duty soldiers. As required of able-bodied residents, however, you’ll be trained and assigned duty—rank. You’ll be a soldier. When your training is complete, you’ll be allowed to carry the knife. At least when you’re on-duty. Till then, I’ll hold it for you. The rod, however, will be returned to you within the hour so long as the lab doesn’t find it to contain any hazardous materials. Good day, Mr. Strauss.”

  Machado and his two silent guardians left, and Maalouf ordered someone to bring Nikolai water through his tiny computer. A young soldier brought in a drink and left them to chat.

  Nikolai gulped down the water gratefully, licking his chapped lips when he was done. It wasn’t particularly hot, but a cold sheen of sweat covered his brow, and he was quite nearly shivering.

  “So,” Maalouf said. “For starters, what do you know? About the world outside your town, about technology, etcetera. In brief.”

  “I know about computers and robots and all that. From stories—though my history lessons and book collection from beyond the Veil doesn’t go past 2020.”

  Maalouf nodded. “The war.”

  “My teachers told us that in 2020, bombs went off all over the planet. That they destroyed everyone outside the Veil—killed all the people.”

  The plastic panel on the table flashed green.

  Nikolai picked at the pads sticking to his temples and grimaced. “Can I take these off?”

  The chief nodded and reached over, carefully peeling them away.

  “In the late twenty-teens, a lot of really corrupt demagogue ultra-conservative fascists took control of the major superpowers. The new cold war turned hot, and everyone got really trigger-happy with the nukes. Quarte
r of the world died, even though only a handful of the bombs that managed to get through the missile defense systems hit major population centers.”

  Maalouf sighed. “Your people had the right idea, hiding in the woods. Things got . . . bad out here. A fifty-year dark age that only got more hellish until 2070, when the first AI was born. It fixed everything. Turned us from a dying civilization of slums and tent cities ruled by corporations into vibrant and flourishing socialist democracies scattered all across the solar system.”

  Maalouf looked suddenly tired. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a battered box of cigarettes. He lit up and offered one to Nikolai, who declined.

  “By the midseventies, there were thousands of smaller AIs, ruled by the original alpha AI, all working to get rid of the tyrants, rebuild civilization, and peacefully colonize the solar system.”

  “Then what?” Nikolai asked eagerly. “They rose up? Turned on us? Why?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They turned. It became too easy to create AIs. The tech was always carefully protected, but after a couple decades, if a person was rich and savvy enough, they could get their hands on black-market tech to create fully formed, fully sentient beings. Artificial intelligences in artificial worlds. And people . . . people can be sick. People can be evil.

  “Seventeen years ago, in oh-three, a ring of wealthy sadists built a virtual world full of childlike AIs—minds in virtual bodies who believed themselves to be real, who FELT themselves to be real. Beings that didn’t know they were virtual entities in a virtual world. AIs can feel pain. They can feel love, fear, hatred, agony, hope, despair. They’re people. But the ring wasn’t busted until something like half a million AIs were tortured to death in a virtual hell—many of whom were forced to endure their suffering in what they experienced as thousands of years.”

  Nikolai tried to wrap his mind around the horror of it as Maalouf took a drag, watching him with morbid amusement.

  “This wasn’t the first time it had happened, but never at this scale. One sicko with the right equipment was all it took. So citizen AIs—some with physical bodies for maneuvering the real world, some who chose to remain purely virtual—began pushing for some pretty extreme legislation.