18

White dining area aboard the Agnes

“Tell these guys, 547,” 636 said. He had brought 547 over to another table of Whites from where they’d been sitting. “Tell them what you told me.”

Back in his student days at McGuillian, before he’d become White or even donned Unnamed black, being called upon this way would have produced anxiety and uncertainty. Most such responses had now been completely trained out of him, and any residual feelings on the matter were successfully tweaked away by the glasses. Now anything worth saying was worth telling all of his kind.

“I have a book,” 547 said. “Old. Real paper. Written by hand, by an Amelix employee. If you have ever doubted the evil that is our most hated enemy, it will restore your faith. I made an electronic copy and added notes to guide anyone reading it.”

“You’ll want to follow the link, brothers and sisters,” 636 said. “It shows how wicked and dangerous Amelix has always been. The notes 547 made bring it all into focus and show how the culture there ended up destroying the world.”

636 began looking around the table, locking eyes with the others to share the link.

Dr. Chelsea’s lab aboard the Amelix beetle

It was one collective mind that had claimed Chelsea. Any individual rat was like a single cell in a massive brain, yet she always thought of them as a plurality, as the Rat Gods. It seemed gentler to have been captured by multiple little animals than by the single, worldwide consciousness that was actually consuming the rats and humans in similar ways.

In the weeks since the Rat Gods had taken control, they had carefully and relentlessly monitored Chelsea’s thoughts and movements, administering rewards or punishments to hone her behavior. She had quickly learned to direct her thinking to please them. It worked in much the same way as the corporate reconditioning process, though in this case there was no filter inside her head, no way to excuse her own actions and make peace with them. The rats dealt with any errant idea swiftly and mercilessly.

The Thrall’s pleasure was powerful enough to completely wash away the waves of terror and suffocating claustrophobia with which the Amelix Medical Doctor had seen fit to punish Chelsea, but only for brief periods of time. Now those dreadful feelings were welling up again, threatening to explode into her psyche and cripple her. Her mind swam with desperate thoughts which she fought to suppress, but one idea managed to penetrate her cerebral prophylactic:

I have enough scientific skill to fix this! I could fix all kinds of issues for everyone onboard this structure, even company-wide, if only I had authority to second-guess a Medical Doctor!

Chelsea would have gasped, but such behavior was no longer under her control. She was thinking independently and the rats would punish her! The thought became the sole focal point of her consciousness, blocking everything else as pathway amplification took over and intensified her fear into crippling dread. Her mind spiraled downward under the staggering weight of the sensation.

How had she dared to think that she, herself, could synthesize her own compounds and cure her own physical issues, simply because she had advanced scientific expertise? It was legally, ethically and morally prohibited for anyone but a Medical Doctor to alter the chemical composition of human tissue!

Chelsea struggled to bring her emotions back under control.

I am not one to reallocate Amelix resources or create physiologically active substances! I cannot step outside my assigned—

Suddenly, her fear and anxiety began to diminish. She could still feel the chemically induced icy black pool deep inside, from which the trepidation would undoubtedly rise again. But the rat in the pocket of her lab coat was helping, this time, dosing her with so much euphoria that the terror subsided.

They like the idea!

So many people had been killed by suffocation already that Chelsea had suspected that the rats were preparing to eliminate her species entirely. Then the air had become toxic, the beetles had become operational, and the rats had found a use for humans after all, as integral parts of the Amelix structures, the world’s most powerful and important biomachines. Perhaps, as the undisputed new masters of Amelix and the planet, the Rat Gods would let Chelsea assume the most important and prestigious role aboard the vessel, which was by default the most important and prestigious role anywhere in the world.

But was there truly a way around the protocols that had stood at Amelix for so long, that everyone aboard every ship was programmed to obey without question? The rats undoubtedly had power, but Chelsea could only function along defined lines. If she pushed too far against her reconditioning, her mind would shatter and leave her useless. As it stood now, what she was considering was not simply against policy; it would require her to tread upon the most dubious legal and moral ground possible.

Reallocating Amelix resources for a private purpose would be the same as stealing from the company, and her reconditioned mind would ensure she’d die before she did that. The only hope was to redefine what she was hoping to accomplish. She needed to restate her goal in a way that pathway amplification wouldn’t seize upon.

She needed Gregor Kessler.

Control room in one of the science labs aboard the Agnes

“This is it, 547,” NJt994 said, “The most important operation of the post-Event world. Glad to have you as my official second in command on this mission.”

“It’s thrilling, sir,” 547 said. “I hope we’re successful. There has to be something there we can use to fend off Amelix.”

This lab had originally been set up to monitor activities within living organisms via nanocameras, but it had been modified in order to follow the activities of the excursion crew that was now descending into the empty Federal Building. 547 stood with NJt994 in the center of the darkened room, with all the views from the lead crewmember’s cameras currently assembled into a full-circle projection on the walls. The other crewmembers’ front camera feeds were displayed through the Whites’ EIs at the bottom of their visual fields and could be pulled up for the 360-degree view as needed.

The six people they were watching were wearing bright orange HAZMAT suits. Tubes integrated into the tops of their suits at the crown emitted rings of greenish light that collectively did a decent job of illuminating the space around them. They had reached a windowless office room a few floors below ground without major incident, but it had become apparent that the team leader, Nanci, was stupid and clumsy.

“Okay, Nanci,” NJt994 said to the crew leader. “Place the putty over the lock and stand far back. We’re going to blow it. Remember that even a tiny puncture in your suit will be disastrous, so go way back to the other side of the room when we detonate so no little particles hit you.

“Yes, sir,” the woman said. The camera showed her fumbling with the lock, her orange-gloved hands shaking as she tried to make the putty stick to the surface.

547 ensured his voice link with the excursion crew was off and turned to NJt994. “Please educate me as to how you chose this one to lead, sir. She seems the least capable of the six.”

“We’re so understaffed in this structure that it’s hard to justify ejecting anyone like this,” NJt994 said. “But certain specialties became irrelevant when we sealed. We no longer need tax people, for example. Most of the newly obsolete have managed to find functions aboard Agnes that make them useful, like the techs from this lab did, for example, reworking the equipment to show feed from the expedition cameras instead of their research projects. The six out there in the excursion crew were found to be in a low tier of importance.”

“But they’ve not been told they’re Departing, sir.”

“Oh, no, technically they’re not Departing. If they were to Depart, they wouldn’t be employees anymore. They would have no duty to obey orders. In this case, we need them to do exactly as they’re told out there. We didn’t Depart them; they were Selected. They’re still fully employed and their compliance training and reconditioning remain intact.”
“But they can’t come back in here, sir. When we’re under seal, the only entry is through the front port where everything is ground to bits and soaked in acid. Nothing gets through but sterile minerals and aminos. Even mechanical devices couldn’t survive it.” 547 wanted to turn his head and make eye contact but he was tasked with looking behind the crew via the panoramic display.

“Of course they’re not coming back,” NJt994 said. “My guess is they know that. In answer to your question, though, you remember that four kids were aboard Agnes when we sealed? One of them, Gen-li, also happened to have a parent on board. I put Nanci in charge because she’s that one parent; her daughter is still inside. Nobody will be as dedicated to this mission as Nanci is.”

“Brilliant, sir,” 547 said.

“Give me vocal to Nanci again,” NJt994 said. “Nanci? Keep backing up, now. Here we go.”

NJt994 activated the detonation with his EI and the putty exploded. The excursion crew slid open the splintered bioplexi door and entered a low-ceilinged room, divided by bioplexi walls into storage rooms lined up along a hallway. Behind the transparent walls were weapons, including the latest model of the famed Gloria sidearm only Federal Agents could carry. However, the new structures like the Agnes and the Amelix beetles were built to withstand bombs; even Gloria firepower would be useless against them.

Only constant monitoring and fleeing at the earliest sight of the Amelix craft had kept them from another physical confrontation. The Organization’s remaining scientists were analyzing information from footage of every encounter, no matter how brief, but an Amelix weakness had not yet been discovered.

“Look for something big,” NJt994 said to the excursion crew. “Rockets, land mines, that kind of thing. We don’t need to destroy the structure, just poke a hole in one of those eyes, but even that’s going to take something incredibly powerful.”

547 doubted any of the weapons down there could take down an Amelix beetle. Even if a rocket could puncture the armored but hopefully more vulnerable eye surface, it would first have to connect. The Amelix tech was significantly more advanced than anything they had aboard the Agnes, and the Agnes could sense rats (the only living animals they had detected so far, other than the Amelix beetle) to the horizon in every direction. How would they even get close enough to deploy whatever weapon they discovered?

Obviously the Organization would have had a better chance with something from one of the hangars above, like a heliodrone, an anti-aircraft rocket battery, or a tank, but databases of Federal acts and regulations showed that fully one hundred percent of such weapons had been retrofitted for EI control by specific Federal agents. Even Whites, with Federal authority inside the new structures, couldn’t make them work. Digging around down inside the Federal Building like this was the best plan they’d come up with, largely based on hope and speculation that perhaps the Feds hadn’t gotten around to changing over every piece of smaller ordinance.

Two glowing dots appeared in the bottom of the doorway behind the excursion crew.

“Rat behind you!” 547 said. He calmed his voice and started again. “You two on the wings, turn and take care of that rat like we told you. Do it now.”

The two turned and fired the old Unnamed guns with which they’d been equipped. The rat disappeared. “You two keep watching that door,” 547 said. “We don’t want another one showing up without us knowing. Shoot them on sight; don’t wait for me to tell you.”

“Yes, sir,” a male voice said.

“Yes, sir,” a female voice said.

“Everyone else, keep searching those storage rooms. Look for old stuff that looks like it hasn’t been touched in a long time, and big.”

“How about these, sir?” one of the others, a male voice, asked. “Would these work?”

It was a rack of small missiles that could be fired by a team of two or three people.

“Show me some serial numbers,” NJt994 said. Orange gloves turned one of the missiles until a number was visible.

Stand by,” 547 said. There was a pause as NJt994 checked Federal files.

The glowing eyes appeared again in the doorway. “Rat’s back,” 547 said. “Hit it this time, please.”

“Yes, sir,” both said together, and another barrage shredded the doorway and floor. They kept pulling their triggers, wasting far too many three-shot bursts, but at least the glow disappeared again.

“Not those,” NJt994 said. “Records show they’re retrofitted. Look for anything stored with the metal bracelets Federal Agents used to wear. How about the ones in the corner, there, the launchers, the tubes on the third shelf up? Are there bracelets I see in the plastic packet attached to the front? Show me a number from those.”

Hands fumbled with the tubes.

“Yessir.”

“You two on the wings,” 547 said. “Advance on that hallway where the rat was. I want to see its body, or at least a smear of blood or something. Sir, I’d like to switch one of their cameras to our three-sixty holo for a while, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah,” NJt994 grunted. “I’ll scan the numbers through my EI.” 547 switched over.
“Okay, keep those guns up,” 547 said. The camera advanced a little farther toward the door, and the expanding circle of light there revealed a second dead rat, or at least red lumpy pulp that had once been a rat. “There it is! Keep the guns up, I said.” This crew was pathetically unskilled for this kind of work, but apparently even office workers could shoot a rat with a machine gun. At close range, anyway.

“You killed both,” 547 said. “Nice job. Now advance to the hallway. Let’s make sure there aren’t any more out there. Remember, we don’t know how close they have to be to take over your mind. If you see a rat, shoot it.”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said.

“Spread out. Each of you take one side of the door and lean against the frame, looking down the hallway past each other. No, don’t lean in through the door. Look down the other way—there you go.” Now each was aiming down the hallway, gun barrels pointed across each other’s direction.

“Okay, now lean through just enough to put the barrels of the guns past the frame and get more light into that hall.”

NJt994 was still conversing with the crewmember who was helping to identify the missile launchers. “Right there,” he said. “Hold it steady so I can load the number. Wait. I said hold it, not carry it around. Why are you—”

The panoramic view from 547’s rat hunters rotated as they turned back to face the room. “No, wait! Don’t go back in!” 547 said.

Both re-entered the room from the hall. Through their cameras, 547 saw the others lined up against one of the transparent walls. The rat hunters approached the rest of the crew, but did not line up next to them. Instead, the two began clawing at a vent set in the wall just above their heads, apparently trying to rip the grate away.

“What are you doing?” 547 said. “You’ll puncture the suits! Stop!” One corner of the thin bioplexi of the grate broke off, and still they kept pawing at it.

Then came a shocked, gurgling inhalation.

“What’s happening there?” NJt994 shouted, though they already knew.

The one from whom the noise had come collapsed, the air inside his suit shifting and blowing traces of foam against the face shield. The other kept digging furiously at the wall until the rest of the grate clattered to the floor. Rats poured out and climbed up the orange suits, settling on heads and shoulders.

Executive auditorium, Des Moines Amelix movable structure

Gregor Kessler breathed in as deeply as he liked, gazing up from the podium as the twenty other ranking Amelix officers settled into seats. He had never realized how wonderful it felt to be in control of such a simple thing as breathing until that control had been taken away.

“Hello, everyone,” he began. He concentrated on faces instead of looking around the space; the walls and ceiling were too close, here. Only the pleasure the rats provided made existence inside the structure bearable.

“I would like to start by offering a word of warning,” he said. “The Rat Gods have given me some leeway over the last several days as I prepared for this meeting. I was able to breathe easily and have relative freedom of movement. At one point, it crossed my mind that I could perhaps stall this process and buy myself a little more of that independence. I thought about it for maybe fifteen or twenty seconds, and the rats didn’t like that. I’m sure you’ve all figured out by now that they know what we’re thinking. Did you also know they have the ability to stop your heart? Not just suffocate you, but actually stop your heart. I could feel the muscle writhing inside my chest with the impulse to beat, but my vision slowly went out of focus and then all black. I wouldn’t wish that on you so I’ll tell you now: Just do what we’re supposed to do. You cannot think your way out of this.

“And so, on to business.”

He scrolled through the notes he had open in his EI, finding his first slide:

Need for Medical Doctor

“Right now, there are no Medical Doctors, so there is no way to change the synthesizer settings regarding medication. If you were being treated for a cold on the day of the Event, you will be treated for that cold for the rest of your life, unless something changes.

No New Medical Doctor

“In the world as it is, there is no way to credential a new MD. The schools, mentors, licensing boards, and all the other steps, are gone. The credentialing process is ironclad, and so complex that only eight hundred eighteen people in the world held the coveted MD title on the day we sealed. I’ve spent my entire career reading and interpreting regulations, and I’ve always prided myself in finding ways to achieve goals in full compliance. In the case of credentialing for MDs, the language is ironclad, and I could find no alternative interpretation. There will never again be a Medical Doctor.

The Preconditioning Czar

“As I informed you all prior to this meeting, you have been nominated as the acting emergency board of trustees, pursuant to Amelix Emergency Protocol 16A107 (a). You also received my detailed argument, spelled out over twenty-three pages, as to why the emergency board has the ability to designate a Preconditioning Czar and endow that position with the power to alter synthesizer settings regarding medication. Recall that under section two-thirty, subsection q, it was found that while Medical Doctors had total authority over every human body, they shared that authority with the board when it came to power over individual minds.

“By extension, I argue that as the new Board we do have authority to reprogram the synthesizers. While we’re absolutely prohibited from changing them to manage physical health, my interpretation of the regs is that we can alter physical health as a means to control mental states. The Medical Doctor retains exclusive power over the physical world forever, even though she’s now dead.

“As such, the proposal before us is this: We will leave the current Medical Doctor as the name of record, and the synthesizers will continue to record and send out billing data to that office forever. As synthesizers wear out, that name will be installed also into successive generations, in order to ensure proper functioning. Our highest-ranking civilian, Dr. Chelsea, will take over the role that used to be performed by the Medical Doctor’s processing computer, authorizing the changes recommended by the diagnosing synthesizers here in the flesh. She will be the designated Preconditioning Czar.”

Vote

“What’s left now is to vote. Please think carefully about all I’ve said here today. You must accept it in its entirety in order to vote yes, so please give me an opportunity to address any doubts you may have. Consider all the parameters and—”

Ten people crumpled in their seats, dead. The rats must have disapproved of how they’d been planning to vote.

Vote

Kessler blinked his eyes hard a few times before realizing he had control of his hands. He had been rubbing them together. “We …”

No stalling.

“There still remains the matter of the vote,” Kessler said.

“All in favor of establishing the position of Preconditioning Czar to serve as conduit between the synthesizer and the Medical Doctor, for the purpose of directly and indirectly influencing mental states under section two-thirty, subsection q, of the one hundred fourteenth version of the Amelix regulatory code, say ‘aye.’”

Kessler said “Aye,” as did everyone else still alive in the room.

“Motion passes. All in favor of promoting Dr. Zabeth Chelsea to serve in the new position of Preconditioning Czar, with power to adjust synthesizers for the purpose of regulating individual minds, say ‘aye.’”

Everyone did.

Sublevel two

Dok sat gently scratching between the little dog’s ears, feeling the coarse fur beneath his fingertips. Since the little animal now spent his days trying to urinate on as many areas as possible of the structure’s biomachinery, they’d begun calling him Peety.

Lawrence was sitting across from Dok, both of them leaning up against biomachines with their eyes half closed. Since they were constantly on watch there was no opportunity for true sleep anymore, but they sat together and took turns dozing. These lower floors had no interior walls other than the hulking equipment, and they were dimly lit. The combination gave Dok the feeling he was perpetually sleepwalking.

Better than the sewers, in any case.

A voice called out from the stairway. “Sett? Sett, it’s IAi547. You once knew me by another name.”

Dok hadn’t seen him move, but Lawrence was now standing, partially crouched behind machinery with his handgun drawn.

“Sett, I’m here alone. I need to talk to you.”

It was Lawrence’s former friend, the one Lawrence had called Li’l Ed. Lawrence looked at Dok. Dok shrugged.

“This ship, the Agnes, is in danger,” Li’l Ed said. “I have footage to share with you. I am the recognized and de facto second in command aboard the Agnes, and I have authority to talk with you. We need your help, and I’m willing to make a deal.”

Lawrence holstered his handgun and took the rail gun from over his shoulder. He held it with his finger next to the trigger but not touching, his other fingers separated to allow for the metal bracelet that had been crushed around the grip. “I’ll meet him,” Lawrence whispered. “You circle around us to make sure he’s really alone. Yell out to me at the first sign of a trap.” He moved off cautiously in the direction of the stairs.

Dok chose a path roughly ninety degrees from the direction Lawrence had gone. There were few of the classic clanks and rattles of machinery here, but the biomachines did produce a lot of ambient noise. Things tensed, sounding like apartment-sized sponges being squeezed, and relaxed, producing low, slow bowstring groans. If he concentrated, Dok could also hear the subtle rhythmic pumping of liquid common on every floor down here in the sublevels. He tried to tune those sounds out as he listened for some indication of where Lawrence and Li’l Ed might be.

Finally he heard the murmur of two voices and made his way toward them. When he drew close enough to be relatively certain of their location, he turned off to the side, circling all the way around the voices, inspecting under, above, and behind every piece of equipment. There were no signs of any deception or trap.

“You can join us, Dok,” Lawrence called out. “I’d like to know what you think of this.”

Dok crept toward them, finding the two giants facing each other in a relatively open area. Lawrence nodded but said nothing as he approached. Dok halted several meters away from them, still peering through doorways and around corners, looking for signs of deception as Lawrence and his former friend talked, one in crisp white and the other in tattered black.

“Dok,” Lawrence said. “That struggle we’d heard was an attack from another structure like this, one owned by Amelix Integrations. This one we’re on is called the Agnes, and it’s owned by Andro-Heathcliffe, which is another biotech firm. It’s an amazing feat of bioengineering but nothing like the Amelix ones. They’re fast and aggressive, and they’re stalking the Agnes, apparently planning to attack again. Li’l Ed is asking for our help.”

“Our help?” Dok asked. Nobody spoke for a moment and then Li’l Ed began to explain.

“We tried to set up a rendezvous with another structure—not our Organization’s—that had been out past Cheyenne when we’d made contact with it,” Li’l Ed said. “Safety in numbers, you know. We headed west toward it and it came east. We know this region and our sensors indicated little Amelix activity around here at that moment, so we determined it was in our best interest to slow our pace, increasing the likelihood that the other company would encounter and engage Amelix first, weakening it for us. We misjudged the scope and speed of that encounter. The last transmission we had from the other structure showed three Amelix beetles surrounding it. The communication feed was still on as they attacked. First, we heard the clamping and tearing noises, sounding just like what we’d experienced here. There was a rift that they were able to seal at one of the legs, but then one of the Amelix beetles managed to crack the hull.”

Li’l Ed’s face slackened for a moment, but then he recovered. “They were assessing damages, reporting to us on video. They dissolved as we were speaking to them.”

“How many Amelix beetles are there in total?” Lawrence asked.

“Since we’ve seen three together in one place, it’s likely there are many more,” Li’l Ed said. “It seems most of the materials in them were Grown rather than built. Once the genetic engineering work was done, it would have just been a matter of letting the structures produce themselves, providing them with raw nutrients to keep the process going. Assuming they put the same DNA into production near only their biggest facilities, they’d have twenty-eight of them around the globe. If they had Grown one at each of their locations worldwide, there could be as many as four hundred of those things. Even now they could still be Growing them, if they had a way to populate the new ones.”

“I guess you’ve got a real problem to solve, Li’l Ed,” Lawrence said.

“Look, Sett,” Li’l Ed said. “The next time we encounter Amelix, it might not be just one beetle. We have no defense.”

“I have faith that you’ll figure something out,” Lawrence said. “Or maybe I should say I have more faith that you’ll save your own asses than I do that you’ll honor any deal you make with me. Anyway, all the Feds are dead now. There’s a whole building full of weapons over there.”

“There was a mission already. Six brave employees went out in HAZMAT suits, down into the Federal building to look for weapons we could use. Rats took control of the entire group. There are five remaining, but as they are, they’re completely useless to us. We’re planning the next team with savvier personnel.”

“Rats will take the next ones, too.”

“We have some ideas. But it probably doesn’t matter, anyway. Every weapon there is new-issue or retrofitted Fed tech with user-specific coding to a particular Agent. Even if we could get them into a lab and try to reconfigure them, it’s close to hopeless. The security upgrade is classified Federal tech. Still, we have to try something.”

“You can’t send another team!” Dok blurted out. “The rats will take them, for sure. Only non-reconditioned people are capable of resisting the rats. Every company in the world was already a hundred percent Accepted when you sealed this thing, so the rats will take them all.”

Li’l Ed stayed silent a moment. “How certain are you that non-reconditioned workers can resist the rats?”

“Pretty certain. One hundred percent of those I saw taken by rats were reconditioned, and one hundred percent of the ones I saw resist them were not.”

“I’m just going to say what we all know,” Li’l Ed said. “If only non-reconditioned workers can face the rats, my organization’s employees can’t do it. There are currently seven hundred seventy-three people onboard. That’s a lot of lives at stake, Sett.”

“But whoever goes out can’t come back again, right?” Dok asked.

“That’s true,” Li’l Ed said.

Lawrence cocked his head slightly. “Are you asking me to throw my life away by jumping into someone else’s fight?”

“You are the last Williams and heir to the Williams Gypsum Corporation,” Li’l Ed said. “What I’m doing now is negotiating with the chairman of a sovereign corporation. I’m asking your firm to work out a deal with us. We’re out of time, Sett. We need the best shot we can take, and there are no other weapons available. We need your first-generation Trident, and we need you.”

Lawrence said nothing.

“There’s something else,” Li’l Ed said. He locked eyes with Lawrence, who apparently opened some flagged page or file. Lawrence’s nose and upper lip curled in disgust.
“What is this?”

“A workroom inside an Amelix beetle near Mumbai, India. For whatever reason, this single camera is capturing and relaying this feed; it seems nobody knows it’s on. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that nobody can know—or do—anything there anymore.”

“Dok, the image I’m looking at is just people sitting or standing,” Lawrence said. “I wish I could share it with you. It’s the creepiest thing I have ever seen. Maybe a hundred people, standing stock-still. The room is dimly lit, but you can see maybe twenty or thirty rats milling around on tables and consoles. Every once in a while, one rat breaks off and a person carries it away, which looks kind of like cowboys leading horses in old movies. Is there a sound feed, Li’l Ed?”

“547,” Li’l Ed said.

“Is there a sound feed?” Lawrence asked again.

“You’re listening to it. Another structure shared this link with our Whites several days ago, and not one human voice has been heard. We’ve also observed that the same employees stay at their posts for days, apparently entering trance…or, maybe I should say a deeper trance…for a few hours every so often in lieu of sleep. They literally do nothing but work.”

“Dok, I wish you could see this. There doesn’t seem to be any human consciousness, or really, anything human about these people at all.”

“This is what we’re fighting, Sett,” Li’l Ed said. “It’s us and a few other companies, against a worldwide army of those things, populated with what you just saw there. Of the non-Amelix companies that made it into structures, five have now started behaving like Amelix, attacking nearby corporations, refusing all communication, and so on. We suspect they had rats caged in their labs that somehow communicated with the Amelix rats.” He rubbed his eyes. “The Cheyenne structure is gone, now. The closest surviving human-controlled structure we know of is outside Mexico City.” He lowered his voice. “Sett, this is much bigger than you and me. It’s about everyone. Every last person on the planet.”

Lawrence’s expression changed and his eyes lost some of their glassiness as he let go of the page. “It’s about everyone, Li’l Ed? Tell me, is this the same everyone who shunned me for standing up for someone who was helpless back at the diner? The same everyone who chased me with the Feds and ruined my life and made me live in a sewer?”

“So you’re just going to let the whole world die? Or worse, let everyone exist like you just saw on the Amelix ship?”

“Instead I should just give up the tiny shred of security I do have, trusting you to protect me? You don’t have a great history of standing by my side in times of conflict, you know.”

Li’l Ed and Lawrence both stood straighter and took a step toward each other.

Finally Lawrence turned to Dok. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m tired, Lawrence. I think I’ve had enough of hiding, of doing nothing. If there’s even the smallest chance of doing some good, of helping what’s left of humankind, that sounds better to me than cowering in the depths of someone else’s structure, waiting for the end,” Dok said. “I’ll do it.”

Lawrence stayed quiet.

“Good,” Li’l Ed said. “Thank you.”

“Lawrence, you should come with me,” Dok said.

“He can’t,” Li’l Ed said. “All Unnamed are reconditioned.”

Lawrence shifted his feet a bit.

“Oh,” Li’l Ed said. “Maybe that’s not true when your daddy owns the company.”

“We don’t belong here, Lawrence,” Dok said. “This isn’t a life, sneaking around down here in the dark, living on what we can suck out of the biomachinery with my needles and tubes. We’ve done this already with the Subjects, and I don’t want to do it anymore. Do you?”

Lawrence’s face was stern as he nodded once at Li’l Ed. “We’ll do it.”

Dr. Chelsea’s lab aboard the Amelix beetle

Chelsea shot forward down the hall. Lately she was walking less stiffly under Rat God control than she had been initially. The rats were learning how control a human gait so that it almost seemed natural now. They’d never had her move this fast before, though. Wherever she was headed was clearly important to them.

She left the lab, pumping her arms and legs in a good rhythm, heading across one of the footbridges she’d never before crossed, toward the structure’s childcare and education facilities.

Weeks ago, part of her might still have wondered what could be over there they might want to involve her in, but after so long in Thrall she didn’t wonder much of anything anymore. She did as they willed, always. The pleasure was always there, too, though she had grown accustomed to it. She had been forced to accept the fact that she was little more than an observer of her own life, that every aspect of her existence was subject to the rats’ control. The human race consisted almost exclusively of spectators, now, and Chelsea, the Preconditioning Czar and de facto most powerful human on Earth, was merely a mechanical component, functioning only to maintain the other mindlessly obedient mechanical components.

Her chemically induced claustrophobia was gone. That was the first adjustment she had made once the teams had converted the synthesizers to accept her authority. Now she worked daily on change orders the synthesizers had recommended but not initiated, pending approval of the Medical Doctor. As Preconditioning Czar, she exercised the same authority to approve or reject such actions as a computer in a Medical Doctor’s office would have had. It was a heady experience, even considering her situation. That was what she’d been doing when the rats had suddenly sent her marching out into the passageway on some new mission.

Months ago she would have found herself impressed that the rats, the undisputed rulers of the world, had approved of her taking such a huge and important position. Now she realized that pride, like any other emotion, had no use. It was pointless to think in such terms, judging herself better or worse for her ability to please the rats. There was no reason to feel one way or another about the rats’ approval of her. If she lost their approval, she would cease to exist. There was no responsibility to manage or plan; she had only to do what she was made to do.

This was the area of the structure that had been designed for children, though none had actually boarded before it had sealed. There were broad rooms designed as areas for study on computers that mimicked EIs, though even EIs were already old technology, now. The new wave manip interfaces were free and available to everyone, so even children who hadn’t proven their corporate worth could have functioned in the same way as those already known to be on the executive track.

The areas to which the upper grades would have been assigned consisted of nothing but empty seats and bare walls. Upper-grade education was all done electronically. She passed a few rooms like that and then stopped at one in the middle grades area, which contained a few more physical materials.

She approached a tall cabinet within the room, which was full of scientific learning aids. As she opened it, her eyes were drawn to the second shelf. She moved aside some racks of glassware and a track with little balls that were meant to demonstrate some physics principles. From the rear of the cabinet she pulled a half-sized model of a woman’s body that was comprised of removable plastic organs. Chelsea was surprised to find her hands pulling the various parts away, finally removing and holding up a little uterus and fetus that had been inside.

“Why am I here?” She tried to speak the question aloud, but found the animal controlling her hadn’t allowed her enough mobility in her mouth and jaw. Instead she only thought it, which was really the same thing.

What am I supposed to do with this?

Suddenly she was back at the door, running out with the plastic fetus still in her hand, through passages and back across the walkway, where she encountered a young woman who had been steered into Chelsea’s path by her own rat. As they came together, the woman was made to lie on the floor and spread her legs, and Chelsea’s hand placed the little plastic fetus between them.

Babies! You want me to change the birth control settings for this woman!

Waves of warmth and pleasure flooded through her.