"Mantas."
"Maybe. Look up there at that sky."
Dozens and dozens, more, maybe hundreds of self‐propelled kites. Son has never seen so many at one time, never flying so low. They glow a spectrum of subtle colors, pearlescent in the late afternoon sun.
"Mantas?" Dee Zu says.
"Poppy called them kites."
"Some kind of bird?" the guy asks.
"Never got close enough to see for sure."
"More of your ken?"
Son gives him the fuck‐off look. "Usually they stay up high," he says. "They have something to do with the woogly skies. You sometimes see them high over Ahuk Hole. Auntie called them aeolian mantas. Mantas were plankton feeders that used to live in the seas; these things, on the other hand, might feed on atmospheric plankton."
"You don't know whether or not they're birds," the guys says, "but you know all this. How?"
"Partly guesswork, partly Auntie's background in biohistory. Though Poppy said this was plain horseshit, Auntie claimed the woogly skies were organic swarms."
"That's wild." Dee Zu is impressed. Even her friend forgets to look skeptical.
The real question is this: Are these organisms bio‐blurs or, given how insubstantial they appear, purely blur? That notion blows Son's mind.
•
For a few minutes, the sea remains subtly restive. Then it bulges.
"What do we do now?" the guy says.
"Nothing."
"Say again?" Dee Zu also wants to question his judgment.
"Do you know what's going on here?"
"No."
"Neither do I. So, for now, we just watch."
"Watch? Watch what?"
"Watch our asses, for a start. The whole land and most of the critters in it reckon we're on the menu."
"The way you're watching Dee Zu's ass," the guy says, "there could be a menu printed all over it."
But further discussion is brought to a halt.
change of plan
"Okay. So what's happening now?"
His tone says the guy doesn't expect an answer and Son doesn't give him one.
Once again, Son can't help wishing Poppy were here to share this. Amendments to the ken require a quorum. An area about the same diameter as the Bunker's first‐stage secure access pops up and swells; within minutes, an area fifty meters across has risen fifty meters high, a perfect gray dome.
Then the dome pops another swelling, which grows and grows, and the main dome now shrinks as a tower extends higher, toward the atmospheric disturbance above it.
Auntie assumed the roach sea on the plateau was a mating lek. This, on the other hand, suggests a sporating lek. It's like the slime molds Auntie compared to the boogoo watchtowers, but on a much larger scale.
"Are we okay?" Dee Zu says.
"No problem," Son replies. He's pretty sure there's no problem.
"No problem," says the guy, who has no idea.
One stalk rises from the sea of roaches to appear over the edge of Long Lookout's southern extremity, in front of them, like the beanstalk in that story Auntie used to read to him. Son and Poppy never witnessed this part of things. Maybe it's something brand new. Whatever. Outside the aerial assault on Eden or, maybe, his two companions having at it, this is the best watching ever. No question. Was this what the world was like back before the malls, before the Boogoo? Interesting stuff happening all the time?
"And now?" Dee Zu sounds more curious than alarmed, not on Son's case at all. "What's this?"
The roachswarm tower is extruding a ball on top.
"Let's just watch and see."
The ball starts to diffuse, as if it's being dissed, except that, as it disintegrates, an indistinct cloud begins streaming out from it toward the east. The bulb breaks up to release innumerable flying roaches from their collective mantle.
As the column slumps back to the ground, a patch of woogly sky descends after it. Even closer up, its component elements are little more than complex glints, effects of sunlit air. So insubstantial they're barely visible, they swoop and dart, sketchy maws clearing trails through the roach‐clouds.
"Incredible," the guy says.
"Yeah," says Son. Auntie was right. It's hard to tell what's really going on, but whole ecosystems are evolving out here, some of them way more complex than the familiar bio‐blur partnerships.
This is exciting.
Flocks of these things, ones that didn't follow the roachclouds east, flutter slowly, riding the thermals over Ahuk Hole. Ahuk has been the center of interesting changes, these past days.
"It looks like they're feeding," says Dee Zu.
"What do kites eat?" her friend asks.
"No data," Son replies in a monotone.
"Asked the Lode, did you?" says the guy.
"No. But that's what the Lode would say, wouldn't it?"
"No data." Dee Zu chuckles. "I've just confirmed it."
"So much for your ken," Son says to Dee Zu's friend. "If you opened your eyes, you'd see they eat roaches, for one thing."
"Whatever you say." The guy looks distracted. Then he gets antsy. "Let's go," he says. "We're running out of time." So Son isn't the only one infected with Sky's move‐move‐move earworm.
Be that as it may, getting to the borehole suddenly loses its urgency.
•
ACK‐hurgle, HARGLE.
"What in hell is that?" the guy says.
That is a gargantuan gurgling from the direction of Ahuk Hole. And Mr. Me First allows himself to sound alarmed. Maybe he forgets he's immortal. But Son is in his element. "We've got groundwater flooding down into the geothermal kettles," he says.
"Right," says Dee Zu. "So what is it?"
"Rains to the north. They're giving Ahuk bronchitis."
With an almighty bellow and roar, Ahuk Hole belches a hundred‐meter column of steam and water, scattering kites to the four winds, some of them settling back to Earth in all‐but‐invisible tatters.
"So much for Plan A," says Dee Zu.
"Looks that way." The guy isn't all that unhappy at the news.
"Yes." That's Sky's opinion, her voice right up there inside Son's head.
"And Plan B?" Dee Zu asks.
"New plan." It's Sky who answers.
Son forgets to subvocalize. "What the …?" he says.
"You tell us, O Mighty Hunter," Dee Zu tells him.
"Quiet!" Then he subvocalizes: "What the hell?"
Sky is straight to business: "You will instead lead the way three kilometers south to the wadi with the hole in its bottom. Move."
"Wait a minute. Do you mean Greater Little Wadi?"
"Approximately three kilometers from where you stand, the wadi branches off from a much larger wadi. It has a hole in its bottom, two meters in diameter. If you are unfamiliar with it, I will guide you."
"No, no. That's Greater Little Wadi."
"Go now."
"Let me talk to the others."
"Do what I say."
"Why should I?"
"Do as I say now, or Dee Zu will die."
"What? How?"
"It will happen."
"You're threatening me."
"Yes."
"Fuck you."
"No. It is fuck you if you do not do as I say. Listen carefully. Plan B is simple. Cisco goes down the hole in the wadi bottom. Is that clear?"
•
"I have Plan B." Son looks at Dee Zu and then at her friend. "We move south to Greater Little Wadi."
"Yay," says the guy, as usual making no sense at all. "Like a day trip to Disney World."
"And Sky says you should follow me again, because I know the way." Son collects his gear, shakes it free of dust and points himself southward.
"How far?"
"Not far. We'll get there before dark. How well do you know this Sky thing?"
The guy's snort reminds him of Poppy. "Not as well as I thought."
"Move!" says Sky.
despatch from hell ~ rabbi
t is right
"No time, no time."
Rabbit is hysterical. As usual. Which is enough to drive me crazy in itself. Even Sky is sounding more uptight than you want your gods to sound. Especially when the god in question is ostensibly the substrate to which your whole existence is tethered.
But Rabbit is right. We're running out of time.
Emergency, emergency. The time disjunction has collapsed, what with the traffic, the communications between our maximum‐security hideouts. Whoop, whoop. Now we're accelerating toward the point where everything goes wrong. Mildread's deanomalizer will soon expose man and machine alike where we hide in our handy‐dandy, ultra‐high‐tech boltholes plotting our various heinous plots. We will be undone.
Aeolia? No hope in that quarter. Positivity gridlock becomes inevitable. And so ends our stirring saga, all of human history's stumbling approach toward autonomous subjecthood smothered by a Sky experiment gone tits up. No doubt to Mildread's delight.
What does that mean? Well you may ask, dear reader. But I'm too fucked up to clarify it just now.
not bluffing
Cisco scents the freshening northerly breeze. Dee Zu is also looking skywards, as the mid‐afternoon sky darkens. Back in the Worlds, rain never generated this sweet tang of anticipation.
"There's a storm coming," Son tells them. "And it's not far away."
"Sure about that, are you?" Cisco says.
"One hundred percent."
"Mr. Ken."
"That's right."
Dee Zu gives Cisco her lopsided grin, rolls her eyes northwards. Dust or no dust, ken or no ken, a distant line of black cloud flashes lightning. Call it a clue. Overhead, gusts of wind toss ragged scraps this way and that. Mantas, kites, big birds, figments of his imagination—who can say?
"Look there." The boy points to where the drifting dust is leaving dunes along the shoulders of the gorge. "The Boogoo's shrugging up all the way along the gully."
"So?" asks Cisco. Even as he asks this, he sees the dust in question isn't drifting; it's surging up out of the gorge.
"It wants to avoid the floodwaters."
"Not the ones that already charged the geothermal kettles?"
"We've got more big rains upcountry."
Dee Zu says, "You mean in case we don't want to look at the sky?"
"Yeah." Son looks wise some more and asks Cisco, "You still going down that hole?"
"Yeah."
"You've got ten minutes, tops."
"How so?"
"Then the flood arrives."
"Scratch Plan B." Dee Zu sounds happy. "So inconvenient."
Cisco believes she's right, and that's okay with him, but he suspects it's not going to be that easy.
•
"Cisco Smith! Citizen ZEZQ112, formerly of ESUSA Mall."
Right away the bureaucratic tone tells him this won't be good.
"What?" he says.
"It's time."
"You're kidding."
"Go down the hole. Do it now!"
"You can't be serious."
"Go. And take the ball with you. The ball in your catchbag. Do you understand?"
"Cisco?" Dee Zu passes a hand in front of his face. "What's going on?"
"Forget the floods. Sky wants me to go down the hole."
"Go now."
"Hang on …"
"You heard what the boy said. Time is of the essence."
"But …"
"I will count to ten. Then the boy Son dies."
"You wouldn't."
"I will demonstrate. Please recall the incident of the GameBoys and my aerial support. On the count of ten, Son fries. Yes. Dee Zu will be next. Do not forget the ball."
"You're bluffing."
ZAP.
one knievel down the hole sufficient
"God!" Hands up in front of her face, Dee Zu shields her eyes from flashes to come.
Son gags at the metallic reek of cremated Boogoo. He was standing even closer to the godbolt strike. Close enough his skin is blistered. "Jesus Christ!" he says. A prickly stubble is all that remains of his eyebrows, though his vision is okay. It's okay enough he sees Dee Zu's friend checking to see the ball is still there in his catchbag. He also sees the guy sneak a look at Dee Zu, measuring the distance. He does the same for Son.
The Boogoo has shrunk from the strike to collide with more of itself where it shrugged up away from the approaching flood. The pressure of these countervailing impulses gives rise to a sizeable dust berm between the three companions and the wadi.
Meanwhile Son is looking all around for ground cover from godbolts, and there isn't any. "Jesus Christ." He says it again. "If the Boogoo doesn't get us, this god‐thing of yours will."
"Just a warning shot," the guy tells them, like he knows.
"Are you okay?" Son asks Dee Zu.
"Okay."
"Hey," says the guy. "I'm okay too."
"Good." Son's tone is offhand. "That's good."
"What the hell was that?" Dee Zu says.
"Message from Sky," Mr. Immortal replies. "Time to go."
"What?" Dee Zu reaches toward him.
"No time. No choice."
"No. Wait."
The dude hesitates hardly at all. He secures his catchbag and then does a short sprint, jump and forward roll into the bulge of dust. Whatever. He'd been a dead man walking from the get‐go.
•
Son is closer to the guy than Dee Zu is, so she screams "Stop him, for chrissake" even as she lunges toward the breach in the berm, which is closing. Just as too late as she is, Son reaches in the guy's general direction and takes a step toward the ravine. Whatever. Mr. My Balls Are Bigger Than Yours is long gone.
The monster roar hurtles toward them from the north. The wadi shrugs its shoulders higher, two banks running along each side of the watercourse. Then the flood is upon them. An advance barrage of rocks and white water explodes around the bend not fifty meters distant.
Give the knievelly mallster his due. He first hears about the flood only minutes ago, while the shrug‐up is brand‐new to him, not to mention the hole in the wadi bottom. And just like that he pulls it all together in a plan. Never mind his plan resembles a suicide attempt. Be that as it may, and however much of a douche he may be, you have to admire him. As quick on his feet as Poppy ever was, even at his best.
Dee Zu is screaming, "Climb! Get back up here." But the arrival of the flash flood drowns her out and she wouldn't know if he responded.
And now it's Son's turn for messages from on high.
"Stop her."
"Sky?" he says, as though he had doubts.
"Do not let her go after Cisco."
"What made you think I was going to?" he says as he steps closer to Dee Zu.
"Do what I say. Now. Or I will strike her down."
Gran‐Gran's God would smite her, which probably amounts to much the same thing.
Dee Zu is yelling "Goddamn it" and looking set to plow through the dust bank and go over the side herself, when Son slips a charred leg of monkey from his catchbag and whacks her behind the ear with it.
Two knievels down the hole would have been one too many. He wipes the monkey leg off, which is pointless since the downpour has reached them, and, soaking wet, sits on a rock to await Dee Zu's return to consciousness. Never mind how hard the rain pounds on his skin, it's easing Son's burns. Then he remembers his medibots. Could they really work that fast?
He sniffs at the wet monkey leg.
down the hole
Cisco's slide down the gully is painless. The PlagueBot swaddles him in semi‐suspension, smoothes his descent with a furry carpet of blurs. Still, he cups his hands over his parts, probes ahead with his feet, clenches his sphincter against stony intrusions on the funride. Dee Zu is screaming at him, he thinks, but the rush of flood, the bumble and clatter of boulders, drowns all else.
He drops the last few meters, clearing a steep patch of suddenly bare rock to land safely, keeping his balance. The gully b
ottom lies clear of dust, the water‐polished stone both slippery and easy on the feet. The hole in the wadi bottom gapes two meters in diameter. He looks back up the way he came, but can't see Dee Zu, or the boy. Only blur dust banked high on both sides.
The full‐throated rattle and roar from up the ravine is nearly upon him. The PlagueBot, or Boogoo or whatever, shrugs up even higher, the blur shoulders rising like dykes all along either side of the gorge. There's no way he can climb back out, and running downstream would be futile. So it's stay put and get battered to death or drowned, at best transported downstream to places unknown. Or it's go down the hole. The real options diminish as water and boulders explode against the outside wall of the bend in the gully.
His five‐second lead time has shrunk to just two when, body relaxed, knees bent, palms out to protect his head, Cisco drops into the abyss.
•
He lands knee deep in a torrent that nearly knocks him down as it whirls away southwards. Before moving upcurrent, he makes sure the ball is still in his catchbag. Leaning into the stream, away from the overhead leak of daylight, he feels the way ahead with his feet, gingerly shadow‐boxing the dark, probing to front and sides.
The stones are slimy with muck. Every step requires care, tests his balance. Tiny creatures, maybe insects, swarm his legs. Something runs up the inside of his thigh almost to his crotch before he flips it off. The stream deepens to his left, and he sidesteps right. Soon he stands on a pebbled shelf, shifts his weight to give his bruised feet a nice massage. He bangs his head against the back of the cave and staggers, the dark lit with tiny stars.
He could be back in test‐pilot boot camp. Realigning with his inner vertical, he squats on his haunches to review the situation.
First thing, almost nobody got killed in boot camp. Neither is he in any mood to die now, never mind how backed up in Aeolia he might be. And he won't let Dee Zu die before she's ready for ascension. Son remains up there on surface with her, and Cisco tries to believe this is a good thing. It doesn't help. The guy's just a kid, no matter how much ken he commands. Plus the way he looks at Dee Zu pisses Cisco off.
Doesn't matter. He has no choice. He does what Sky tells him, or Dee Zu dies. That's basically the deal, no matter how sweetly Sky puts it. "Trust me," she says. Sure thing. Would she steer him wrong? Of course not.
"Sky?" He subvocalizes it. "Yo, Sky!"
No response.
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