The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are

by Michael Rizzo

  “Scandals. Protests, both live and virtual. A formal investigation by the World Court is underway. Dr. Chandry offered his resignation, but it was refused.”

  “What about Colonel Burns?” I press my suspicions. This gets Cormac’s eyes locked on me. Richards doesn’t seem to care, but gives me the expected answer:

  “Not a subject I’m at liberty to discuss. But I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Trust has to start somewhere, General. I recommend the Cast stew, if you don’t mind spicy.”

  The meal goes better as people get to actually eating.

  Tru and Doc Ryder are impressed with the way the Cast have ensured their soil maintains a rich macrobiotic content, so they don’t have to rely on supplements to keep their digestive tracts healthy with necessary fauna. Two Gun explains they’ve kept cultures carefully preserved from the first colonists. (He doesn’t mention that the dead serve as fertilizer.) Rick and Paul talk about the colony systems, the restoration process. Rios manages to monopolize Murphy, talking about weapons and training and tactics, at least until Two Gun inserts himself (I think I may have mentioned in passing how loyally and impressively Rios fought at my side).

  We get up and mingle between dinner and dessert, and I get a chance to get close to Rick as he’s enjoying the view.

  “You’ve managed to get yourself into some amusing situations over the years, but this…” He chuckles and shakes his head like this is just another one of my legendary misadventures.

  “I think this does top the list,” I agree. “I’m surprised Anton didn’t come.”

  “He’s on the Stormcloud,” he tells me, lowering his voice. I notice Cormac’s eyes still on me—now us—and I flash her a smile that makes her uncomfortable.

  “Doing what, can I ask?”

  “Probably not here. But I think you’ve guessed. Command isn’t stupid—they expect Chang back. We need every weapon we can get.”

  “I’m surprised I haven’t been more aggressively recruited.”

  “Almost every weapon we can get,” he admits nothing sensitive.

  “Well, hopefully this is a step in the right direction.”

  “If it isn’t, I don’t know what is.” But there isn’t a lot of hope in his tone.

  I smile at Cormac again until she averts her gaze.

  “I’ve been hoping to talk to you,” I get to the point of my ambush. “And Anton. About the ETE. I still can’t figure out why they’ve locked down so hard. All Mark Stilson said before he went into intellectual vapor-lock was how unthinkable sending all the sub-atomic seeds would be, and then he rambled into the scale of what had been changed.”

  “Either the event created an alternate timeline—a parallel dimension—which really tosses our view of reality and physics, or it unraveled and re-wove cause-and-effect on a molecular scale.”

  “That’s the one that seemed to break him.”

  “I believe it. I don’t think I’ve had a night’s sleep since you showed up and insisted Chang wasn’t bullshitting us. The best physicists and machines on Earth have been running those calculations. The numbers—they’re just…” He trails off, shakes his head.

  “The last thing Stilson asked me was about the date, when we jumped from. I told him it was less than ten years from now, which makes it about sixty from when Chang popped in.”

  “That’s sixty years worth of human history undone in a flash. On two worlds. You’d think there’d be a mini Big Bang. I mean, when you unravel matter, that’s a lot of energy. It’d be like covering everywhere we’ve had any impact as a species in nukes and setting them off at the same time. Unless it was controlled somehow. Or is happening just ahead of us in time. Or maybe it doesn’t work like that at all. Who the hell knows?”

  “It makes more sense that it is impossible,” I tell him what I’ve had my own sleepless-night discussions about.

  “Well, Stilson was right about the splice, if you want to play numbers,” he goes on. “I mean, a simple drone-builder is nuts enough. But a whole being? We ran those figures. A human DNA chain is twelve billion bits of information. Granted, it’s only a small part of it that makes you you, but you say you have memories, which means it had to pretty much replicate your developed brain. There’s forty-two zeroes in that number. At our best bandwidth and processing speed, it would take several quadrillion years and billions of Watt-Hours just to transmit and replicate as a working model.”

  “And Chang’s saying this was done on a single-particle scale,” I intensify the madness. Even if there were short-cuts…

  “And there’s how many of you here, so far?” he nails the coffin shut.

  “Nine,” I answer him anyway.

  At least he finds some humor in the madness.

  Dessert is fruit and custards and candies and cakes made with Graingrass flour. Tranquility even manages to grow small quantities of cocoa and coffee beans. If nothing else comes of this, this is the first time the Cast and Domers have come together to share food and face a common unknown as one colony. Today may well go down in their history as the equivalent of the legendary American Thankgiving feast.

  And we’re almost acting like friends by the end of it, though it’s clear that tension remains on both sides: Tranquility hasn’t forgotten it has Unmaker guns inside (and outside) its domes. And the UN contingent hasn’t forgotten what happened the first time a recon team stumbled in here. But the UN inspectors have managed to reassure themselves there isn’t a rampant nano-plague here, that the people are impressively healthy despite their hardships, so hopefully the upworld brass will pass along the viability of a diplomatic course.

  Richards says his farewells at the main hatch.

  “Captain Rios was correct to call you ‘sir,’” he lets me know he has keen hearing. “I didn’t have the heart to rescind your commission. You’re still listed as Missing in Action. Colonel.”

  I give him a salute for the risk he’s taking. He returns it. The gesture especially unsettles his own new arrivals (and gets Cormac glaring at us again). Rios looks impressed, and we exchange our own. Rick just gives me a wry smile and a nod.

  “Take care of yourself, sexy,” Tru gives her own farewell. “Too bad you’re too young for me now.”

  4 October, 2117:

  It takes me much too long to realize I’m not just having a vivid dream.

  I’ve had dreams like this before, when I’m someone else, inhabiting their body, seeing and doing from their point of view. But I usually take over that person quickly, act for them, act as I would act. This time, I’m just an observer, helpless. And the body I’m riding this nightmare in is Lisa’s.

  She’s running down dark tight corridors, through a classic nightmare maze. And things keep coming out of the walls—bug-like limbs made of junk that slash and grab at her, becoming bug-like child-sized robots as they pull free of the junk-built walls. She swats them away, kicks them out of her way, rips them apart. She finds bodies in the maze: Troopers and techs, mangled and lying in pools of their own blood.

  She makes it to an airlock, slams it and blows it. I see more blood on the walls and deck. Then I get my only sense of time as she gets outside and I can see the Martian sunrise beginning to tint the sky. She gives me a bigger look around. The location is obvious enough: She’s on the Stormcloud. And then she’s running again. Because the wreck has come alive. Literally.

  The smallish machines are coming out of the structure everywhere at once. They’re like some child’s simple mechanical toy insect—abstract junk sculptures, prying themselves free of the junk-built ship. And attacking anything else that moves.

  I watch troopers go down under flailing hacking stabbing arms that first produce blades, then rudimentary hands that take the guns of the fallen and use them. The few troopers who manage to return fire do some damage—the robots aren’t bullet-proof, but they are resilient and hard to hit, and it’s guns against a swarm.

  “Michael!!” I hear Lisa shout. “I need
you to hear me! I need you NOW!!”

  There are explosions—grenades—as the defending troopers get desperate trying to hold the swarm off, but it’s clear the battle is already lost. I hear someone shouting for General Richards, trying to get him to move, to get to safety. Then there’s a series of much bigger and brighter explosions, and I see an ASV on one of the flight decks go up as its tanks rupture and ignite, its hull crawling with the robots.

  Lisa grabs a weapon and starts shooting back surgically, bursting them apart at the joints, popping their sensor arrays, killing their drive systems center-of-mass, but she quickly winds up having to go hand-to-hand with the skittering machines, smashing and tearing as they slash at her L-As. She changes course, jumps up onto the flight deck and runs past the blazing ASV, swatting away a few damaged ‘bots that try to intercept her.

  “Michael! I need help! This just started! These things are crawling out of everywhere! They were part of the ship! Richards in on board! Michael! Can you hear me?!”

  “Michael!!!” It’s another voice, and hands shaking me awake. Star. She looks like she’s in a panic, horrified. But I can barely see her. The dream keeps playing in my eyes.

  “Michael! Chang is calling me! He’s back!”

  Under my feet—Lisa’s feet—I feel the Stormcloud lurch, roll. Metal groans and screams.

  I have to ground myself. I remember where I am: I was sleeping alone up in my own—Fera’s—apartment. Past Star, I see Bel in the hatchway.

  “Call from the Siren: The Stormcloud just came alive,” he lets me know. “It’s rising.”

  I can already hear the railgun charging.

  I drag myself up, gather my armor, my weapons. I force what Lisa’s sending me to the periphery so I can function.

  “Lisa, we’re on the way,” I call out. “Twenty.”

  “I’ll try to hold…” She rips another ICW away from one of the robots—arm and all—and keeps shooting.

  “I need to go to him,” Star tells me sadly. I squeeze her arm, her hand, nod.

  “Go.” Then I turn to Bel. “We need to get there.”

  “Lux and Azazel have eyes-on from the Siren…” he updates me—it was their turn on long-range watch, keeping our vigil far enough off not to raise the ire of UNMAC. I remember they reported the arrival of an ASV last night—probably the one that just blew—and discreetly hacked chatter about Richards and a fresh team of scientific advisors going aboard the wreck, no explanation. Then Richards and his team got stuck when the ASV had mechanical issues. Richards refused an alternate ride, opting to stay the night, probably as a morale-builder since they’ve had a total of six “accidental” deaths and two disappearances.

  I collide with Kali and Bly out on the balcony. Paul isn’t far behind them.

  “Stormcloud was a trap,” I give Paul and Bly the short version as we move, since they’re not linked directly to what I’m getting. “Chang’s making his move.”

  The fight isn’t going well on the ship. Lisa finds Richards on the starboard “wing” flight deck, probably waiting for an incoming lift, but his contingent is cornered, surrounded. More troopers are going down as the robots advance. She smashes her way through their line, tries to get between the ‘bots and her people to hold them off, buy time for the extraction, but she gets quickly overwhelmed as the swarm targets her. All the robots seem to move as a unit, coordinated, probably networked, possibly run by a single AI.

  We’re out of the dome and running for our flyers, secure in an artfully hidden bay Bel gleefully designed for them. Now I’m getting long-range from AAV cameras—it’s Anton, hacking me in. There’s no voice, but I get closer eyes than the Siren’s to watch the broken fortress lifting, turning. It looks like the structures around the massive hole blown through the hull are self-repairing. Then turret guns open up, firing on the UNMAC patrol ships, sending them into evasive patterns, keeping evac from getting to the people on the Stormcloud. I feel one get hit, damaged. Jackson orders it away. Two more try to stay close, at least to provide eyes, hoping for an opening.

  On the Stormcloud, the swarm is slowing, having taken out most of the UNMAC resistance. The few troopers left get disarmed, hemmed in with the rest on the wing deck. The ones on Lisa have managed to overpower her, do enough damage to weaken her. They drag her down at Richards’ feet, as he tries to face the inhuman enemy with dignity. Then another body gets tossed in with them, battered and bloodied but alive. One of the troopers gets him a mask off one of the dead. He takes the mask but waves away further assistance, then forces himself half-upright on his hands because his legs don’t work. It’s Anton.

  We make it to the flyers, roll back the camouflaged hatch over the bay, spin them up and start cooking the overnight ice off.

  “Do you want us to interdict?” Azazel wants to know in my head.

  “Hold. Wait for us. Keep giving me eyes.”

  “I’d say something cliché about resistance and futility,” I finally hear Chang’s voice, “but then I’d be a poor host. I did invite you here, after all.”

  The black shape forms against the purple sky on the smaller flight deck above the surrounded UN survivors, a perfect silhouette that even absorbs the fire light, a man-shaped hole cut in reality. (The deck he’s standing on had been reduced to twisted shredded scrap by the orbital gun. I can see it reshaping around him, trying to repair.)

  “It’s nice to meet you, General Richards,” Chang continues. “I’ve been listening in on your communications since you first got yourself assigned to this misadventure. You sound like a man of character, as compared to many of your fellows. I hope we can have a constructive dialogue. After some initial necessary violence, for the benefit of those who require such lessons.”

  Through Lisa’s eyes, I see a long and massive section of the ship’s bow tip and elevate independently of the rest of the main hull. The Siren’s long-range optics confirm it’s the centerline railgun, pivoting upwards. Straight upwards. A few bodies and damaged bots go tumbling off of it like so much insignificant debris.

  “Of course I knew about your science-fair space gun,” Chang taunts calmly.

  The gun fires in a blaze of plasma and kinetic-energy friction, a plume of white-hot lancing skyward. I access the hack Anton gave me, get an orbital camera just in time for it to go offline into static when an incoming fireball hits it. It’s Kastl that confirms their satellite gun is down.

  The Stormcloud’s gun begins to charge again, but the “barrel” begins to tilt back down.

  “Obviously, I could do a lot more damage to your orbital resources than that,” Chang states like he actually has any kind of compassion. “But shall we see if mercy has more value than wanton slaughter? I’ll give you a full five minutes to evacuate your Melas Three facility.”

  We kick off, burn for our target. But it will take at least twenty minutes…

  “Do you want us to interdict?” Azazel repeats. I don’t answer.

  Richards hesitates, then gives the evacuation order.

  Chang dissolves, then re-forms in front of Lisa, who’s been pinned to the deck by robots.

  “Colonel Ava. Or do I call you Parvati now?” The robots release her. She stands warily, ready for any opening, her visible wounds healing despite her L-A uniform being in tatters. “Life is so much more convenient like this, isn’t it? Whether we deserve it or not… Please tell your former lover and his odd collection of friends to keep their distance, if they value these fragile lives. I will need to speak with him in due time. General…” The silhouette turns to face Richards. “Please communicate with your people that you will be safe as long as they do not impulsively put you in harm’s way. This also goes for your team of inspectors, and your surviving personal guard. I will see that your injured receive care. As I said, you are my guest.”

  “We’re inbound now,” I try to tell Lisa. “We can get you all off—just stall, hold position…” She answers me by shaking her head: No. Don’t.

  Then she takes the time to
get a detailed look at Chang’s machines for my benefit: Each has anywhere from four to six limbs, standing on three at any given time. The arms and legs appear entirely interchangeable, just like Bug, only much smaller, simpler. And these can operate human weapons, scrounge from the fallen. Each limb has a shield-like piece of the ship’s structure—bulkhead, decking, piping—that allowed it to conceal itself in plain sight, probably completely inert until activated. She shows me others—damaged—repairing themselves by scavenging useable parts from their more-disabled fellows. As long as they have an intact torso-core, a sensor “head” and at least four limbs, they can fight.

  Next she looks over the ship, as much as she can see of it.

  It doesn’t look like Chang has any human minions left, only these automatons (probably Fohat’s work, though he’s staying hidden). I wonder if he’d really intended to sacrifice his entire human crew to set this up, and how long he’d been planning to do so.

  The AAV channels go crazy as the UN aircraft get buzzed by Disc drones—more than a dozen of them. They form a perimeter around the Stormcloud, but don’t fire. Jackson is also maintaining a weapons hold. (I don’t hear Burns.)

  We fly as fast as we can burn despite Lisa’s discouragement.

  Chang’s deadline runs out. He “invites” Richards and Lisa to stand with him on the lead edge of the wing deck for a better view. Through her, I see two aircraft lift and burn away from the Melas Three pads. In the dim light, I think I see people running on the surface for whatever cover they can get to as the Stormcloud comes down on them.

  “Ragnarok…” Azazel tries again.

  “Hold position,” I tell him heavily.

  The big ship turns, aims, and the railgun pivots for elevation, maybe a klick away from the base. Without further heraldry, the bow muzzle blazes. The man-made meteor flashes downward at a shallow angle that sends it almost dead-center to the bunker structure. Reinforced concrete erupts skyward. A visible shockwave radiates out across the desert. I wonder how many didn’t get away, or get far enough away.