“Could Yod do this on his own?” I have to ask. He shrugs, shakes his head.
“It was His tech, His breakthrough… I have no idea… I never asked…”
He’s questioning his own mind, his own ability to think, and coming to the conclusion that he’s been sabotaged in the most intimate way imaginable. He’s coming apart.
So I try asking something simpler. “Could Yod kill Chang?”
“Yod is Yod down to the molecular level, in every part of Him… He can interface with anything. Anything. He could have absorbed Chang, assimilated him into Himself. Broke him down on an atomic scale.”
Then I make it worse, go ahead and confront what’s breaking him:
“What about his mind, our minds? Could Yod change us, affect the way we think?”
“We’re not even us!” he spits at me. “We just think we are. Our memories are just files, downloads. Yod could have sent anything. We might not even be real! Ever! Our future—the one we think we remember—could be a fiction to motivate us, give us a backstory… As for our brains… Yes, he could tweak them, dull them. Maybe that’s what Chang was talking about—he had to think, force himself to think, just to recognize the fucking obvious! And I didn’t see it at all! I’ve been looking right at it this whole fucking time, and I never once questioned it!”
I let him sizzle for a few seconds in the wind. Our cohorts look variously crushed, reality ripped away from under their feet.
I ask my next question. Gentler:
“What did Yod tell you? What better future did he offer?”
Bel doesn’t answer. Kali does for him:
“The human race—the modified human race—was going to be offered the option of evolving. Dropping the flesh-shell entirely. To become like Yod. Or one with Yod. And everything. The entire universe.”
“Unity and omniscience, omnipresence,” Azazel sums.
Bel chuckles, but doesn’t cool. I wonder how long he can keep this up.
“Maybe we just weren’t ready,” he guesses. “As a race, a species… We weren’t ready for what we had, for what we’d done to ourselves. Maybe He thought Chang was right, or partly right. So He hit the proverbial reset button.”
“But He’s made it so we’ll proceed with caution this time,” Lux says what I’m starting to think, “put the fear in us.”
“Then why are we here at all?” Kali demands. Bel shrugs.
“Object lessons, maybe. ‘Don’t let this happen to you.’”
“Or maybe we’re supposed to protect it, foster it,” Azazel hopes.
“Or slug it out endlessly with Chang so the mortals don’t forget what they’re supposed to be afraid of,” Kali stays dark. “At least He isolated the Big Show here. Safely away from Earth.”
I take a deep breath. Brain altered or not, I’m having another thought, but I decide it’s best not to voice it, not right now:
If I was Yod, I’d want to be here to do the protecting and fostering myself, make sure it went right.
That means Yod isn’t erased. Yod is here.
9 October, 2117:
Before I even open my mouth, I realize I’m about to give the most bizarre pre-battle speech in history.
“Thank you all for being here.”
It’s an exclusive performance, just for my deeply unsettled fellows from a shared reality that may never have existed.
“I know we all have reason to doubt what we are, our memories of our lost world, even how we think and what drives the choices we make. But I’m asking you for an act of faith, to believe that there is something real here, something worth saving. I’m asking you to trust that certain universal values don’t change, and that all human cultures throughout history have adopted those values for good reason. And if you can’t trust your own minds, your own values and motives, then look to the thousands on this planet who value their lives, and the hundreds who stand ready today to fight and perhaps give up their own lives so that others they care for may have theirs. So if we act today by free will or by whatever programming we’ve been given, trust that saving lives, that helping others, is still the best thing we can do today.”
Bel nods his agreement. He’s been quiet these last few days, but this morning he at least looks alive, focused, gathered and reinforced by anger if nothing else. Lux gives me a little smile and nods when I meet his eyes.
“Real or not, I like what I am, I like this life,” she tells us. “Why shouldn’t I think the mortal meat want to keep theirs?”
Azazel puts a gauntleted hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t imagine ever walking away from a good fight,” he says in a convincing semblance of good humor.
But Kali won’t look at me. This existential crisis seems to have hit her the hardest. I can only imagine what faith she had in Yod, what future He’d promised her (even what impression He’d made on her, since I have no memory of Him myself), even if all of it is fiction, part of a false back story to give motivation to a manufactured pawn.
What’s carried me through this is I have my other set of memories—the set that this reality and the people in it support as real—strong and intact. I can compare the new memories and my current personality and behaviors to that person, to the Mike Ram I was and was known as in this world, and have faith that I’m still that man, or at least a pretty good facsimile.
Kali and Bel (and Star) still carry memories—authenticated by this world around us—that they know weren’t theirs, that belonged to those they overwrote. I can’t imagine what that’s like, to suddenly see yourself as an unreal construct that’s replaced someone you have better reason to believe was real. I’ve watched Kali spend more and longer chunks of time acting like Fera, even self-flagellating when Calliope Tostig slips back, like she’s trying to be that real person and shake off what she may believe is a fiction, a copy of a ghost, a technological parasite sent to control a convenient body.
I’m sure she’s not alone in those doubts, but she’s so far rejected all of our attempts to provide whatever comfort we can.
She lingers after the others leave our meeting space to prepare. I stand over her, consider touching her. Decide against it.
“I need you,” I tell her. “As Kali. As Fera. As whatever you decide you are, even if it’s just for today. If you value these people…”
She whips her head up and glares at me. Tears are flooding her eyes, but her mouth is twisting into a snarl. Her claws flex. I don’t know if she’s telling me that I don’t know her, because my memories are probably just as fictitious as hers, or that I should know better: Kali the professional soldier never really cared for people, except the very few she did (and they may have never existed).
I leave her to make her own decisions.
I get one piece of good news as Bly comes to let me know “Your Terraformers are here.”
I meet Paul in the pre-dawn darkness outside the Main Gate. Against the stars, I can make out the shadow-shapes of four ETE transports.
“Your Council came around?” I assume. He shakes his head.
“I fed them everything. My father wouldn’t even speak to me. Not one word.”
Spotlights pour down from the hovering ships, creating circles of blazing light on the ruddy ground. The effect isn’t unlike the Council’s avatar theatrics. But dozens of sealsuits of assorted colors begin dropping out of the ships, easing down smoothly using their tools, forming ranks behind Paul. Paul folds away his mask, and gives me a defiant grin.
“Fuck ‘em.”
Murphy and Two Gun surprise me next, showing up at the main lock as I come back inside. Murphy has two-dozen neat and stoic-looking H-K ranked behind him, all in survival gear and laden with extra ammo. Two Gun has maybe twice that many Cast fighters, armed to the teeth, including Mak.
“We were hoping there would be room on the ETE ships to catch a lift,” Murphy asks assertively. “There isn’t enough room in your Siren’s Song.”
“Our home is in as much danger as anyone else’s,”
Two Gun shuts me down before I can discourage them. “More.”
“We can’t hold the line here,” Murphy goes practical. “We have to stop him now. Before he can use his railgun.”
I nod. Embrace both of them.
My heart soars and almost immediately sinks as I look at them. I’m putting too many vulnerable mortals in a fight they should never have had to face. But I also know I can’t stop them, and shouldn’t try to.
We get loaded up and iced off and spun up, kicking off an hour before sunrise. We’ll come in low so the shadows of the breaking dawn will conceal us as we hit the Stormcloud.
I get the discreet signals I’m expecting, letting me know the Knights and the Nomads are already in place, snuck in carefully in the dark of night, cloaks layered to defeat heat sensors.
I try one last time to get through on the UNMAC bands, even trying the dedicated channel Anton had been using. I get stubborn silence. Hopefully they see what’s coming and decide to be a part of this world, not just another enemy.
Chapter 9: For A Better Tomorrow
I get my first indication of bad trouble in what should be good news:
Lisa comes back online. I see her vision shift—she’d been staring at the steel ceiling of her cell—and lock on Star, opening the shielded hatch. She’s still wearing Chang’s diadem, but she’s alone.
“Move now. They’re coming.” Her voice is quick and urgent. “Only so long I can block Chang convincingly. Your people are in the port bow section, just opposite this one.” She flashes Lisa a deck plan. Then she’s gone, leaving the hatch open.
Lisa looks down at a small piece of technology in her hand, grips it tight, then takes her opening.
But if Star knows we’re moving, so does Chang.
We’re still minutes out. I signal the others to burn faster. The Stormcloud is invisible in the dark, but then it’s a blaze of light: The deck has gone bright, then spotlights lance downwards from the underhull, lighting up the desert beneath it.
In my head, I’m watching Lisa run, careful to check for any of Chang’s bots in her path, taking the corridors like a challenge maze.
In my own vision, I see movement on deck, zoom to get the best look I can from so far away. Bots—Chang’s new crew—are swarming on the upper hull. But I also see movement that looks human.
“You’ve pulled the show-up-early strategy on me before,” I hear Chang in my head, hacking himself into my feed directly. “Fool me twice, shame on you.”
There are explosions from the port flank of his ship, the side facing Melas Two. He’s firing some kind of missile, dozens of them.
“A present for our mutual enemies,” he tells me vaguely. “Presents, actually. Let’s call it an early Christmas.”
“I’ve got a launch detected,” Azazel tells me from the Siren. “Behind us!”
I look back, but get a better view from the Siren’s long-range scanners. It looks like an old-school rocket launch, burning skyward from somewhere far east down Coprates.
“If you ever wondered how I got my Disc drones in space all those years ago, I had them hitch on unsuspecting shuttles,” Chang feels the need to stay informative. “That won’t work this time, of course, so we had to go the direct route.” He sends me his own better view: The rocket’s nose-end is a stack of Discs. He’s sending them after the UN orbital facilities. I flash a warning to Melas Two—the ETE ships are doing the same on the old channels—but we’re still blocked.
The missiles Chang fired from his ship thunk in the sand, maybe five klicks short of the base perimeter, and do nothing.
Lisa’s made it to the indicated section, but runs straight into a squad of the soldier bots. They spin on her, raise weapons, but then freeze. They stay still as statues as she walks through them, starts popping hatches.
“Move!” she tells the people she finds. “Collect the weapons from the robots.” She finds Anton in the third cell. “I need someone to carry him! No time to find your chair…”
But the hostages are in plain shirtsleeves, no armor or survival gear. They won’t last more than a few minutes outside. I make sure my team knows this.
Richards is in the fifth cell with a small group of unfamiliar faces in work suits, probably his scientific team. They all look like they haven’t slept in days, but otherwise intact.
“We’re missing people,” he warns Lisa urgently. “Chang came and took two just a few minutes ago: Major Corso and Captain Thomas.”
I’m getting close enough to see the deck better. The soldier bots have the missing hostages, making them stand at the edge of the portside wing deck, facing outward, facing the base, hands tied. I see Fohat’s white robes.
“Shit…” Lisa tells Richards where to head and where to wait, tells them to start looking for survival gear. Then she’s running.
The sun breaks the horizon behind me. I’ll be there in one minute, full burn. The wind is screaming against my helmet.
“I’ve heard in less-enlightened times that the lives of women were somehow valued above the lives of males,” Chang is pontificating. I can see his walking shadow now, standing behind his victims. He walks casually over to one of his soldiers, takes the ICW from its claws, shoulders it. He holds for a full two seconds, then shoots Thomas in the back of the head. Her body tumbles over the side of the ship.
“NOOOO!!!” Lisa screams. She’s up on deck, but still dozens of meters away. Chang turns to face her, holding the ICW lazily.
“Forgive me, Colonel. I should have thought to invite you properly.”
His soldier bots turn on her as one. Several move to swarm her, but then stop when they get within a few meters, just like the ones guarding the cells. Fohat looks confused. She shows Chang the small module in her hands.
“I took this from one of your toys. Thanks to you, I’ve had days to play with it.”
She sticks the device to her forehead like a third eye, spreads her arms. The bots closest to her go to her, climb on her, wrap themselves around her, form an exoskeleton with at least half-a-dozen free arms, several of them holding guns.
Fohat steps up to face Lisa, looking like he’s trying to get control of his toys back. Through her eyes, I see the tines of his “crown” move, extend, like he’s maximizing his antennae. Lisa keeps control of her stolen machines. Fohat looks like a frustrated child, his face twisting up and turning red.
“I may not be able to kill you,” she tells Chang and Fohat, “but I’ll enjoy hurting you.”
Chang points his gun at Corso, a wordless warning to rethink her plan.
“Lux…” I call discreetly, flashing him what I’m thinking through my rage.
“Done,” she answers.
Then I fly over the port wing, drop myself on the deck a few meters from Chang and Fohat. I haven’t bother to draw a weapon. I pull away my helmet so he can see the look in my eyes.
“You know you can’t stop me before I…” Chang starts to drone the obvious. I draw my pistol in the blink of an eye. And shoot Corso in the back. Her body tumbles off the ship. Out of sight. Lux swoops in and catches her, then spirits her—unconscious and still convulsing from the stunner charge I used—toward friendly lines.
Chang chuckles appreciatively.
“Well played,” he praises, tossing his weapon to the deck. “My move.”
I get feed of the missiles he’d launched—bulbous torpedo-looking things—righting themselves, sprouting spider-like legs from one end, climbing out of their craters. Then the capsule-shaped nose cones pop apart, revealing clusters of rockets. They start launching at Melas Two.
Seconds later, I can see the flashes of explosions in the distance even without enhancements, but Chang lets me see it from the missile-bots’ eyes. They hammer the bunkers, the tubeways, the launch bay blast doors, but far worse: they blow apart the Shinkyo refugee camp. The fabric structures disintegrate like party balloons.
“I get more than one move,” Chang tells me dryly.
“Bug” bots rise up out of
the main deck, six of them.
Bel drops onto the deck near me, followed by Bly.
“The prodigals,” Chang discounts. “Welcome home.”
The railgun starts charging. But he’s not aiming it at Melas Two. Or Tranquility. The Stormcloud is still pointed south-southeast.
“Stop this, Chang,” Bel tries. “If Yod is using you, then stop. Don’t play this role.”
“I’m doing one better. I’m going to make Him show his hand. Even if I have to tear down his better world to do it.”
The railgun fires. Too late, I realize he’s aiming at Green Station, willing to endanger everyone by killing the generators that provide air and water and fuel. The projectile burns across the valley as the ETE channels flash alarms. I hear the word “shield” for whatever good it will do, get feed from their own sentry systems as the cliffside erupts… below the Station. It’s a miss. But then I hear panic and rage on the ETE chatter. Chang hit the feed lines, and worse: he destabilized the supporting rock. He’s learned from the Shinkyo and his own drones: he’s not hammering the ETE shields directly. The gun starts to charge again.
“And in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I’ve had some help with all this,” Chang gets my attention back. “Setting the trap, letting Earth think they shot me down, then setting up this little party. I can’t take credit. I’m a scientist, not a tactician, but you know that. That’s why I brought one.”
“Hello, sexy.”
I know the voice, cutting into my head.
“I believe you two are well-acquainted,” Chang defers sweetly. An access hatch opens in the deck. A figure in red robes climbs out, gold armor like Fohat’s underneath, and what looks like a large dagger in one gauntleted hand, pointed at the deck.
“I’m not sure I like the new look. It’s very… Fabio. Remember Fabio?”
I know the voice. But it’s impossible.
The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are Page 36