19
Aboard the Amelix beetle
Gregor Kessler stared straight ahead. The collective rat mind had now figured out the various human roles aboard the structure and had ratcheted down tighter control. Now his eyes moved where the Rat Gods directed them, just like every other part of him did. He was still able to blink.
One time he had chosen to keep his eyes closed, just to feel the power of being able to do so. They’d let him get away with it for about fifteen seconds, and then stopped his breathing for twice that amount of time.
He’d tried it once more after that, counting, and they’d only let him get to ten seconds. That time they’d stopped his breathing until he passed out. It was clear he wouldn’t survive testing them again.
By design, the Amelix structure’s interior environment never varied. Levels of light and temperature were kept constant at all times, so there was no night or day. The wave manipulations that substituted for sleep were disorienting, as was the constant flow of pleasure the Rat Gods provided. Time had become meaningless.
He found himself looking down at a table which stood at the end of a long row of empty desks. Rats climbed aboard a tray, waiting for him to shuttle them somewhere. His hands grasped the tray and his head turned toward the corridor. Passing over one of the interior bridges, he remembered traveling this way to meet the wave manip guy back in the days when his legs moved on his own command. What had his name been? Tafiq, maybe. Something like that. It didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing mattered anymore.
Kessler changed bridges and angled off in a different direction. The walkway sloped downward and switched back twice before leveling off. Finally, he took a sharp turn onto a wide, steep ramp and proceeded toward the closed double doors at the bottom.
Pitiful moans escaped through the doors, loud enough for him to hear them before he was even halfway down the ramp. He passed through the entrance into a large room full of evenly spaced rectangular tables. The entire area smelled like sex. His captors marched him onward through the dim, humid room. On each of more than twenty tables spread about the room were two couples, naked and in coitus.
The Rat Gods did nothing but that which served their own purposes. Human pleasure was worthless to them. If they allowed human sex, it had to be serving a rat purpose.
This was a breeding program.
He made stops around the room with his tray, lowering the rats to various tables where they took up positions supervising and controlling the process. New rats climbed onto the tray as the others got off.
At the third stop, his attention was drawn to the girl who was pinned down at the edge of the table. She lay motionless while a standing man pounded robotically into her. He could just glimpse her face in his peripheral vision—it was Keiko.
Emotion, or maybe shock, empowered Kessler, and he managed to rip a bit of control away from the rats, turning his eyes by his own volition to meet Keiko’s. Her eyes seemed to have been left under her own control, and together they shared one brief and exquisite moment of connection. The rats clamped down, shutting off his breathing, but he still maintained eye contact with her.
Pulling himself partially free of the rats’ control like this was an unforgiveable sin. They would never let him breathe again. His vision began to fade. He kept his eyes on Keiko’s until it went completely black.
Aboard the Agnes, just outside the old Williams Gypsum mine
Dok finished the last bite of his giant portion of synth steak and rice. As last meals went, it wasn’t bad. Neither he nor Lawrence was an authorized synthesizer user inside this structure, but Andro-Heathcliffe staff had managed to find enough to feed them both. Now, stuffed so full they could hardly bend at the middle, they were being fitted into hazardous materials suits as Peety ran in excited circles at their feet.
It wasn’t actually Dok’s last meal, though it was certainly the last he could expect to consume with utensils from a plate. They were sending him with a backpack full of nutrient tubes, which the suit sterilized and punctured, passing empty tubes out through a special apparatus. There was another apparatus at the other end, which they’d also taught him to use, for passing out his own waste. He could stay alive out there for quite a while.
Lawrence was already suited up, in a white suit instead of the typical orange, since only White equipment came as large as Lawrence’s Unnamed body. He stood waiting with his hands on his hips and the hood still hanging open down his back. The plan was for Lawrence to go through the five-minute process of being ejected from the structure first, and for Dok to go after that.
There were already four other volunteers waiting out there. As far as Dok could tell, the primary role of this yet to be identified team was to watch, and to implicitly threaten, Lawrence and himself.
“Sir,” Li’l Ed said to his boss, NJt994, a Gold whose only distinguishing characteristic was a slightly disapproving scowl. “I think we should consider what these men have suggested about beginning a worldwide network of cooperation. Sett is sole heir to the Williams Gypsum Corporation, and you have autonomy in your direction of this ship, sir. I agree with Sett when he says it’s a good idea to demonstrate that our two entities are capable of a long-term arrangement. It would help other companies see it as a trend they want to be part of as well, sir.”
“I can see you believe that, 547,” NJt994 said. “Sometimes I forget how young and inexperienced you are. Eventually you’ll understand how foolish it is that you’ve let yourself be convinced of this, but for now I’ll just say no.”
“I…Of course I would never question your judgment, sir. But it’s difficult for me to understand. It doesn’t seem we can fight off Amelix alone.”
“We’re not fighting alone. Every corporation not under rat control is fighting with all it has. All corporations exist to concentrate resources into themselves, and each human-controlled corporation will fight like hell to continue doing so in this new environment. However, that same mandate makes cooperation between institutions nearly impossible. Why would any organization trust any other?”
“A merger, then, sir,” 547 said. “Then we’d all be concentrating resources.”
“We don’t have the resources to come out on top in any merger. I’m responsible for every life aboard the Agnes and I’ll be damned if I’m going to surrender that to some other company. It’s disconcerting, 547 to see you suggest this, and especially when you recommend using a shell corporation owned by a former friend.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.” Li’l Ed bowed his head, defeated.
Li’l Ed turned to Lawrence. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Lawrence said.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Li’l Ed said. “Here.” Li’l Ed gave something to Lawrence. “I took this from your table during the raid at Chalk Bar. It’s fascinating stuff. I’ve read it cover-to-cover maybe a hundred times, and now I’m teaching others about it from a digital copy. The wisdom inside this book helps us all to understand our struggle and our place in this new world.”
“Heh,” Lawrence said, holding it up. “Dok, look at this. It’s Eadie’s notebook.” He tossed it to Dok, who found himself surprised at how comforted he was to touch it again, to hold the book that had meant so much to Eadie, even if it had also been used by the Prophet to manipulate her. He didn’t know what to say, so he just held it in his hand, staring at it.
“Since you’re going out there for all of us, I thought you should have it back,” Li’l Ed said.
“You kept it all this time, Dok,” Lawrence said. “You keep it now.”
Dok nodded, watching his hand as it buttoned the tattered notebook into a shirt pocket. His eyes connected briefly with Lawrence’s. “I guess I’ll see you out there,” he said.
“Yeah.” Lawrence took a deep breath and then pulled the hood over his face. Li’l Ed walked him over to the packaging area, where they sealed Lawrence and his white suit inside a pressurized bioplastic ball. He had to walk, in a slightly crouched position, rolling inside the ball, to enter the first of a series of soft tubes that would slowly move him out of the structure. Dok, Li’l Ed, and even NJt994 all stood frozen for a moment, as pressure, vacuum, and biomechanical forces moved him out of sight.
“Okay, Dok,” Li’l Ed said. “Let’s get you into your suit.” He gestured and Dok walked over to the fitting area. Li’l Ed held open the foot area of a suit and helped Dok carefully step in.
“Thanks—” Dok almost said ‘Li’l Ed’ but thought better of it. He lowered his voice, even though NJt994 was some distance away and staring into space as he apparently worked his EI. “So, who is waiting out there for us?”
“Actually, I don’t know. That part of the plan wasn’t disclosed to me until I was bringing you two up here. I was told the identities are need-to-know, and evidently I don’t.”
“Could they be Whites, like you?”
“Doubtful. We’re too valuable.”
They zipped up the suit and sealed its flaps, making it airtight around Dok’s body. Like Lawrence had done, he left the hood off as long as possible. No matter how long he survived out there, this would be the last time he would ever be alive with his head uncovered.
“Okay,” 547 said. “Now we’ll seal you inside a pressurized ball of bioplexi film. You’ll go out like unusable organic waste does. The Agnes is already lowered all the way to the ground so there won’t be a fall. Once outside, you will pull the threads inside the balls, which will open a seam for you to exit them and walk in your HAZMAT suits. Do not pull the threads until you are outside, because without the pressurized ball around you the extraction process would squeeze you so tightly that your lungs wouldn’t be able to expand and you’d suffocate. Let’s seal you up.”
Because he needed cameras and screens to do what others used an EI to do, Dok’s orange hood was significantly larger than Lawrence’s white one. It took two attendants to settle it onto his shoulders. Dok took a deep breath just before it was sealed. A transparent screen began displaying a few numbers at the edges of his vision.
“These screens were designed for scientific purposes, but we can use them to provide you with information as if you had an EI,” Li’l Ed said. “It can read the focal depth of your eyes. If you want to see anything in the screen, start by panning your eyes down and to the left.” Dok did, and a set of four screens came up across the lowest quarter of his vision. Dok pulled his eyes away to focus on Li’l Ed’s face again, and the screens vanished.
“We have lowered the Agnes down into this open pit section of the Williams mine, to get some partial protection from the sides while we wait for you to complete your mission,” Li’l Ed said.
“Sett will go inside the older section of the mine they used for storage and get a vehicle while you’re transitioning out. When you arrive outside you will join with our team, who will be waiting for you.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that. We don’t need a team, Li’l Ed,” Dok said. “It’s a waste of life, even if they’re volunteers. We’d prefer working without them, and they’d get to live.”
“I’m sorry, Dok,” Li’l Ed said. “It’s not just about your preferences. It was determined that the Agnes had an interest in—well, in protecting itself from you.”
“So you found volunteers who’d be willing to kill us if we look at your building sideways?”
“I don’t know who we found. My responsibility was to recruit and manage the two of you.”
He cleared his throat, gesturing toward the packaging area. As they walked, Li’l Ed strapped a black shoulder harness over Dok’s arms. He adjusted it so that the twin guns dug into Dok’s sides. “Has to be snug. Sorry. You’ll get used to it.” The heavy guns pressed against his ribs.
They situated him in position and suspended a truck-sized piece of machinery over him. “Squat down,” the technician said. A loud blast of air shoved the suit against Dok’s skin for a second, and he found himself sealed in a transparent spherical pellet.
Now Li’l Ed’s voice came over speakers as a different technician moved him to the tube and helped him navigate the ball into the opening. “Here’s the plan: We already sent out a ball of weapons and supplies, including chemical bombs.
“Dok, you’ll drive up to the Federal building, while Sett stays here with the rail gun to guard the Agnes. We hope your vehicle will be small enough to go unnoticed by the Amelix beetle, but as we discussed, instead of a truck you’ll be driving some heavy mining machinery that should be better able to hold its own, if it comes to that.
“Once you get inside the building, you’ll drop chemical bombs everywhere. They’ve been formulated to produce a fog that hangs in the air for about ninety minutes. That should buy you some time to explore. Hopefully you can kill any rats nearby and rescue our first team. They’re still being held in the underground room where they were captured. We’ve turned off their lights and cameras for now to save power, but biostats confirm that they’re all still alive, and it’s possible that the rats intend to use them as guards. If you can’t rescue them, you may have to shoot them. Either way, get inside and grab any first-generation heavy weaponry you can find, but remember whatever you get has to have a bracelet to make it work, just like the one squished around Sett’s rail gun grip. It’s highly unlikely you’ll find any, and even less so that you’ll find a bracelet, but we have to at least try.
“Sett, you will stay here, just outside the Agnes, in case Amelix attacks. The rail gun is charged up, but we don’t know much about its number of available projectiles because, as you know, you wouldn’t let go of it for us to figure it out.”
“It’s a bit late for that now, in any case,” Lawrence’s voice said over the speakers in Dok’s hood. “Coming out now. I see daylight. Whoo. Bright after so long.”
“So that means we don’t know how many shots you’ll have with it, if any, which is why we need Dok to find something else at the Federal Building if he can. We’ll keep the Agnes hidden, in the hope that staying still and partially sheltered in the pit will keep Amelix from honing in on us.”
The tube started to move Dok inside. About half his vision was blocked, now. Suddenly Lawrence made a long, shaky gasping sound over the speakers.
“What is it, Lawrence?” Dok asked. He remembered the screens and looked down, then found Lawrence’s face on the screens that came up from that, finally focusing on the picture of daylight. At first it was just four figures in orange suits, but as Lawrence went from one to another and the cameras caught their faces it was clear: There were two girls and a boy, all of high school age, and another girl who was younger than that. Each face was tear-streaked and puffy.
“The children? Why?” Lawrence shouted. “Why would you do this?”
There was a long pause. The tube lurched and squeezed, pulling Dok farther inside. Now more than three quarters of the pressurized ball were inside, and the tube was starting to close around the other end.
“Why did you send out the children, you sick piece of shit?” Lawrence shouted.
“Are you talking to me?” NJt994 asked flatly. “You can’t be talking to me, because even you aren’t stupid enough to speak that way to a man who can detonate a charge in the back of that suit and take off your head.”
“What went through your twisted mind to make you think of this?” Lawrence said. His exhalations were part hiss and part growl.
NJt994 made an irritated little grunt. “I suppose it is your mission and you should at least understand why you got the crew you did. It might somehow prove relevant for tactical reasons. It’s no mystery, anyway. Those four are not reconditioned. They’re useless to the organization the way they are, and there’s never going to be a way to recondition them. Also—and this information is classified—our scientists have confirmed that your conjecture is plausible: The rats may have an easier time capturing and controlling Accepted. Those kids are less likely to be used against us, as is your friend, Dok.”
“You fucking waste!” Lawrence said. “We’re the ones who …”
Dok’s hearing faded, perhaps from shock or horror or fury. His vision darkened until all he could see was NJt994, and then just the man’s throat.
Suddenly everything became clear. Dok no longer needed or cared to think. He drew the gun from the holster under his arm and fired at that bobbing throat. The three-shot burst hit its target but Dok pulled the trigger again and again.
The tube crushed down around him.
Inside the Williams Gypsum mine
Sett steered the bulky yellow continuous mining machine backward in a wide arc across the floor of the cavern that had been used to store equipment. When he’d been a kid, the continuous miner had been his favorite of the family fleet, with its row of spinning jagged disks. Each disk was as tall as he was, even today, and the teeth were as long as his arm, though at the moment he had them turned off. Below the disks was a shovel that funneled the mined material under the machine and up a metal conveyor belt that had dumped the gypsum into trucks. The continuous miner moved slowly and would take a while to reach the Federal building, but slow movement was less likely to attract attention from Amelix, anyway.
The machine was about the length of a standard dump truck, with the disks and shovel at the front and long, flat, chest-high panels covering caterpillar treads on each side. Sett drove from an unpadded seat set into a niche at the back-left corner, where the controls were. He pulled the machine forward and slightly left, toward the opening of the cavern. The space had been dug out enough that a three-story building would fit inside it, and the intensely bright headlights made a blinding white patch from floor to ceiling across the gypsum walls as it turned. Sett killed the lights before he pointed the machine toward the entrance. The afternoon sun was still strong. Hopefully they wouldn’t need the lights at all for this mission.
Sett opened the throttle until the continuous miner reached its maximum speed, which was slightly faster than a jog. He emerged from the mine and out into the valley where the Agnes waited with the rest of his new team.
Dok wasn’t there. Through his EI he reached for Li’l Ed.
“Did you get the machine?” Li’l Ed asked.
“Where’s Dok?”
“There was an incident. Dok shot NJt994.”
“Was he killed?”
“Yes. So as a result I am now acting commander of the Agnes.”
“What? No, Dok. Was Dok killed for shooting your boss?”
“Oh. No. I stopped the biomachinery and extracted him. He was repackaged and he’ll be out soon.”
“Wait. What? You’re in charge of the Agnes now?”
“Yes. I told you a hundred times: I was second in command.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Aboard the continuous mining machine, approaching the Federal Building
Dok sat on the right side of the continuous miner’s conveyor belt as one of the teens, sixteen-year-old Robi, drove. The spinners and other digging parts were turned off. The machine wasn’t made for carrying passengers, so Dok and the other kid, fourteen-year-old Gen-li, had to sit on one of the flat tool boxes beside the conveyor belt, clinging tightly to any handhold they could find. Gen-li sat right beside Dok, with one hand under her arm where an old Unnamed gun was holstered. She took her primary mission seriously, and Dok had no doubt she’d kill him and Lawrence if she decided either was a threat to the Agnes.
She wouldn’t need a gun. Out here she could kill me instantly with a sewing needle.
Thoughts of killing had a sharper edge, now that Dok himself had done it. His lifetime of fighting to save lives had suddenly turned murderous, just a short time ago.
Maybe I should die instantly, just like my victim.
Dok wanted to feel bad, deserved to feel bad, but the guilt and shame he tried to pull up wouldn’t materialize. He had killed a man, yes. But doing so had removed all those lives and that incredibly powerful machine from that corporate maniac’s dangerous control.
On Dok’s lap was a white duffel bag full of chemical bombs. At the Federal Building, he would heave them through every open door and place them outside every vent they passed on the way to the cache of weapons the first team had discovered. Then he was to quickly scan the inventory with his cameras until the Whites saw something that might work against the beetles, then grab it, and run out again. They could figure out how effective it would be once he was back outside.
Considering the circumstances and his age, Robi was doing a pretty good job of driving, following the directions the Whites were providing electronically. The other teen girl, Lora, and her ten year-old sister, Petra, were back with Lawrence guarding the Agnes. Petra, who had been too young for an EI back at the time the world broke, was the only other member of the team without one. They had given her one of the suits like Dok’s, with screens built into the head. The bulky headpiece made her small body seem even tinier.
They were nearing the end of the trek across the desert. The sprawling Federal Building now took up most of the horizon.
“Location data indicate that all surviving members of Team 1 are still together in the underground room,” Li’l Ed said. “You should have visual on the Federal Building any moment now.”
“Whoa! Stop! Stop!” Dok shouted. The machine lurched to a halt. “Lawrence, are you seeing this?”
“Get out of there, Dok!” Lawrence said. “Just turn it around!”
The Federal Building itself was about ten stories tall, stretching off in three directions. Two Amelix structures, each roughly as tall as the Federal Building, crouched outside it.
“Keep your head in that position, Dok,” Li’l Ed cut in. “I’m zooming your camera on that connection between the two of them.”
Robi locked one tread in place and kept the other going at full throttle so that the machine pivoted. He let off the brake and they jerked forward, following the tracks they’d left in the desert grit.
“What is that?” Lawrence asked. Dok tried to find the proper screen to follow along, grateful that he was still too far away to clearly see the feature with his naked eye.
“A bridge of some kind?” 547 speculated.
“What’s going on?” Dok asked. “Where’s my screen for my own view?” He scanned the various images projected in the lower left corner of his visual field, but by the time he found his own camera, the mining machine had moved behind a hill and the Amelix structures were out of sight.
“Dok,” Lawrence said. “There is a translucent, flexible tube running between the two beetles. We could see something moving through it from one structure to another—it might have been people, but hard to say for sure.”
“Team 1 is in motion,” 547 said. “422, find a heading and get the Team 1 cameras back on.”
For a while Dok heard nothing but the throbbing growl of the biocat.
“Team 1 cameras are back on, sir,” 422 said. “Feed is now available. Team 1 has exited the building and appears to be approaching the structures.”
“Dok,” Lawrence said. “Have you found Team 1’s camera views? The structures have disconnected from each other, and one of the structures is starting to walk. It’s slowly stalking away from the Federal building.”
“Toward us?” Dok asked.
“Not clear,” 547 said. “But not directly at you. Team 1 is running, now…right toward the stationary structure. The tube is still hanging down from that one, almost touching the ground. Team 1 appears to be heading for it.”
“Are they trying to enter the structure?” Lawrence asked. “How would they do that?”
“They are entering the tube now, packing shoulder to shoulder,” 547 said. “Looks like they’re seeking hand and foot holds among the ridges and other structural components.”
“Climbing?” Lawrence asked.
“I don’t think so,” 547 said. “They’re just hanging on, bracing themselves.”
“Sett, sir?” Robi cut in. “Can you see the controls through my camera? Is there any way to get more speed, sir?”
“Sorry, kid,” Lawrence said. “That’s the full open throttle position. It can’t go any faster.”
“The tube is lifting. Team 1 is about three meters above the ground,” 547 said. “Both Amelix structures are moving now. This one’s path is apparently a mirror image of the first. They are both arcing in your direction; it’s a pincer maneuver. They are on course to intersect with the mining machine in a few minutes.”
Camera lab aboard Agnes
“Okay, Team 2A,” 547 said. “Be alert. Those things are nimble. We’re going to try and guide you away from them. Make a forty-five degree turn to the right and head for the dry riverbed there. Then just follow it on down. Hopefully the banks will keep you hidden.
“Won’t that take us farther away from you?” Dok asked. “Shouldn’t we be heading back to where Lawrence has the gun?”
“Sorry, Dok. Our first priority has to be keeping those things away from the Agnes, protecting the seven hundred sixty lives still aboard. I think I can help you navigate away from them and hide, though. You should be far enough ahead of the one on that side that you can pass it unseen in the riverbed.”
“Great.”
The various cameras showed the machine’s progress as it crept along, following the winding course of what had apparently once been a substantial river.
“Distance to the Amelix craft with Team 1 is holding steady between four hundred twenty and four hundred fifty meters,” 422 said.
“Wait!” 547 said. “Dok, hold completely still. I saw something move.”
547 changed the main projection from the rear camera to one of Dok’s right side cameras. He scanned over hills, looking for what he assumed would be an edge of the Amelix beetle poking up from behind, but there was nothing there.
“Cock your head to the side for me,” 547 said. “No, other side. Yes, like that.” One camera captured an angle where the movement might have been. 547 manipulated it to zoom in. There, poking out from a little hole in the bank, was a single rat, watching them. Several three-shot bursts fired, impacting all around the animal before a hit broke the rat’s head open.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Gen-li said. “I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t think. I saw the rat there and…I…It made me sick, and I got angrier and angrier, and I had to kill it. I couldn’t think of anything, sir. I only knew that it had to die.”
“Continue on down the riverbed, Team 2A,” 547 said.
The cameras bobbed as the machine lurched and resumed its course down the river.
“Light, sir,” 422 said. “I have full daylight again on Team 1’s cameras. All of the remaining five are outside, sir. Data shows they’re moving quickly, probably running.”
“Switch it now. Give me visual from any forward-facing camera.”
They could see nothing in the camera’s view except empty desert ground, with sand and billows of dust blowing over the barren terrain.
“Are they headed for 2A?”
“Yes, sir.”
“2A, Team 1 is approaching you at a run. They look set to intercept you at the next bend ahead. You don’t have time to turn that thing around, but this would be a good time to put it in reverse.”
Outside the Williams Gypsum mine
“We have to go help my friend,” Sett said. “We’ll get a truck from inside the mine. C’mon.”
“Team 2B has been directed to stay here and guard the Agnes,” the older girl, Lora, said. She drew her gun out of its pouch on the front of her orange suit. “We’re going to stay here and guard the Agnes.”
Great.
Sett made sure the communication link was set for person-to-person rather than broadcast through the White workstation aboard the ship. “Look, Lora. We both know you don’t actually work for Amelix. I’m going to help my friend, and I would like you to come with me. This is an emergency. Don’t screw it all up out of some sense of loyalty to a company that just literally shat you out.”
“I should be loyal to you instead?” Lora asked.
“You always wanted to work for a company someday, right? We all did. It’s all we ever learned to want.” Lawrence pointed up at the hulking Agnes. “That company didn’t want you. You are unemployed. You are Departed.” He paused, letting the word sink in.
He gestured toward the mine. “But this gypsum mine is my company. As sole heir, I’m now offering you and your sister positions within my organization. “Do you accept my offer?”
The dry riverbed
“Oh!” Gen Li said. Her voice sounded panicked.
Dok ducked down behind the mining machine, running hunched over as the first shots fired. All of the mining machine’s devices were now spinning and shuddering as it rumbled backward.
Next to him, Gen-li’s HAZMAT suit crumpled, empty, its former owner obviously succumbing to the Slatewiper long before a bullet in the shoulder would have done her in. The suit, and the gun she’d been holding, disappeared beneath the retreating machine.
Shots rang constantly, though most of them seemed wildly off target.
The mining machine traced its earlier path, leading with its rattling conveyor belt, its massive wheels of teeth whirring threateningly at the other end. The edge of the toolbox Dok had been sitting on was taller than his shoulder, providing some minimal cover as he ran in front of it. The seat from which Robi was driving was sunk low enough as to be partially protected, so there was a good chance he was still alive.
“Robi?” Dok asked over the com-link. “Are you still there?”
“Yes,” the boy said, barely audible over the machinery. Dok had no idea how to turn up the volume in his speakers. “I can’t climb out. Too many shots going just over my head.”
“Can you see them?”
“There’s at least one, maybe two on this side, but they keep disappearing behind the dunes.”
“Listen,” Dok said. “We’re coming up on a bend in the riverbed. Can you see behind you to turn?”
“Yes. There’s a camera.”
“You’re going to need to slow down a lot to navigate that turn. Don’t risk plowing into the riverbank and getting stuck. When you slow, Team 1 will catch up. Just stay where you are, okay? Concentrate on making the turn. It’s okay to slow down for it.” Dok unzipped the white duffel bag and removed some of the chemical bombs, lining them up on top of the machine for easy access. The machine’s movement over the smooth dry sediment was slow enough that they didn’t even wobble. “At about twenty meters, I can start throwing the bombs and take out the rats, and hopefully free Team 1. Just stay down as much as you can.”
“Okay.”
Lawrence’s voice came over the link. “Dok? Can you hear me? I’m coming to help you. Just hold on.”
“Yes, I can hear you. That is most welcome news. Thanks, Lawrence.”
Dok set the bomb and grabbed the duffel bag, moving off to the side for a better angle. He lobbed the bomb as far as he could, but because it was quite heavy and he was still spindly and weak, it landed just beyond the machine’s treads as they rolled backward away from it.
The machine’s pace had seemed so slow when he’d been riding, but now he struggled to stay ahead of it. He was short of breath and felt a stitch in his gut. He tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry. The dizziness and exhaustion he was experiencing would have made carrying the heavy bag feel impossible even at half the speed. He reached up to one of the bombs he’d set on the machine, arming and setting it. It went off, spraying deadly toxins through little openings that aimed in every direction, with enough force that it blew a clean spot in the gypsum dust on the conveyor belt housing. There was a pretty strong wind coming from behind him that would move the stuff twenty meters pretty fast.
“Hang in there, Robi,” Dok said, his labored breathing making it difficult to get the words out. “Hopefully the range of these chemical bombs is wider than the range of the rats’ effectiveness. If so, Team 1 should soon be released, armed and ready to fight for the humans again.”
Dok jumped up and clung on to the back edge of the machine so he could look between its shovel and spinning disks to where Team 1 was approaching the chemical bomb. His arms quaked but he held tight, watching, sheltered under the conveyor belt track.
“All right!” Dok said. “Team 1, prepare to be rescued!”
The members of Team 1 turned toward each other and fired their weapons. Five suits collapsed to the clay.
Dok’s fingers lost their hold and he dropped back to the ground. He turned, but before he could take a step the mining machine hit him, knocking him to his knees. The underside of the vehicle shoved against him as it rumbled onward, his HAZMAT suit scraping against the roughened surface between the treads as the machine’s weight pressed him into the dusty sediment. The material of his suit wouldn’t withstand much of this, but the machine was moving too fast for him to do anything but crouch and hope.
A shadow fell across the ground as insectile jaws rose above the riverbank. They tilted down at a sharp angle from the Amelix craft and seized the mining vehicle, untouched by its wheels of spinning teeth. Robi screamed. The jaws angled upward again and squeezed tightly together, crushing the machine and silencing Robi. Dok was left exposed, knees still embedded in the dirt. As he struggled to stand, the Amelix craft’s jaws opened, dropping the wreckage to the dry riverbed, where its impact caused a tremor that nearly knocked him down again. An even stronger shockwave shook the ground as the Amelix structure brought one of its feet down to crush what was left.
The Amelix craft stopped. For a moment, the only sound was the wind ruffling the HAZMAT suit and whipping dust against it.
Then the giant beetle shifted. Dok gasped and stumbled backward as it raised an enormous leg above his head. He fought to suppress his panic and summon a rational thought.
Don’t just stand here and let it kill you. Overcome the anxiety. Be someone else again! Kel. What would Kel do? Be Kel.
Dok imagined it was Kel in this situation instead of himself, overriding his instinct to run away. As the enormous foot shot down toward him, Dok ran forward at the beetle as fast as he could. The beetle tried to compensate but could not bend enough to catch him. Its foot sank deep into the dusty sediment as Dok darted beneath the structure and out again. He raised both middle fingers at the machine. “Bitch!” he said.
Dok smiled to himself. Imagining he was Kel was a lot more fun than imagining he was the Prophet. By resurrecting his old associates, he could understand and adapt to circumstances to which he was ill suited on his own. Through him, they lived again, if only in his mind.
The riverbed was the only hiding place in many square kilometers of desert. Dok ran for a bend as the structure turned again. Its leg movements were startlingly quick and agile, while the hull remained balanced and stable. Dok dove around the curving sandy bank, clenching his teeth as the suit scraped across the grit.
In seconds, the machine was above him again, straddling the riverbed and angling its jaws toward him.
Dok’s own personality had retreated in terror and now even Kel was inaccessible. He stood staring up at the beetle, paralyzed and insensible.
But the beetle was no longer moving. A man-sized piece of the machine fell off and disappeared behind the riverbank, out of Dok’s line of sight. He heard it crash to the ground.
Lawrence’s voice came through the speakers. “Dok, I’ll be right there. The other beetle is retreating and we’re chasing it now. At least that one won’t be giving you any more trouble, huh?”
The rail gun had opened a small entry hole several stories above the ground, which now looked to be dripping something. As Dok watched, a tiny speck became slightly bigger and then impacted the dry riverbed a few meters in front of him. More and more specks appeared, like droplets in a building thunderstorm.
They were too big to be droplets.
Rats!
The dropping things were rats, leaping from the hole five stories above and falling onto a growing pile. The first ones to fall remained there, either dead or badly injured, but soon some of them began to crawl off the pile and limp toward him.
He took one of the chemical bombs out of the white duffel bag he still carried and armed it, watching as the pile grew bigger and rats that survived the fall approached him in greater numbers.
The newest ones bounced from the pile and ran at him full force. Dok triggered the bomb and threw it, running backwards until he reached the bank. He triggered another and tossed it halfway across, filling the riverbed with haze. Careful to avoid scraping the suit any more than necessary, he gingerly climbed up the bank, watching behind him for any rats that might have gotten through. He prepared another chemical bomb, keeping his eyes on the pile and the drifting mist of the bomb he’d lobbed at the descending rats. The wind was blowing toward the dead structure so the cloud had moved in that direction, now looking like a tornado on its side as it jetted out and expanded. Every rat landed in the same spot and immediately rolled upwind, in exactly the same way.
Dok felt suddenly, irrationally furious, dizzy, and sick. He reeled, then tripped over something. Several wild rats had come up from behind. They had already made contact with the suit but not punctured it yet. Even earlier today when he’d finally been angered enough to kill a man, he’d not felt anything like the utter compulsion he had to destroy these animals. He activated the bomb he was holding and kept it in his hand as he stomped, twisted, and jumped, being careful to stay within the toxic cloud.
“Lawrence?” Dok said. “Where are you now?”
“Probably about ten kilometers away, Dok,” Lawrence said. “The other beetle’s doing a good job of hiding. I only see it in flashes, and it keeps vanishing behind the hills again before I can pull the trigger.”
“Rats are pouring out of the Amelix craft, Lawrence. More all the time. The chemical bombs drift in the wind. I have this one and one more after that, but they don’t last long out in the open like this. I can’t hold them much longer.”
“I’ll be right there.”
The wind was pushing on the HAZMAT suit, rippling and folding it against him, feeling very much like the rats had as they’d climbed. Dok set the chemical bomb on the ground upwind of him and put both his feet together so that the stream of chemicals was blasting his ankles. It impacted the suit and dissipated, expanding up and around him. As long as he stayed still, the rats couldn’t make contact with the suit.
A few meters farther upwind, a rat stood on its hind legs, watching him. Another joined it, and another. Soon there were between twenty and thirty of them.
The dead Amelix beetle
“Dok? I’m here!” Sett said.
Dok was easy to spot, at the tip of a plume of white chemical fog. Upwind of him was a mass of rats, running away at top speed.
Dok ran up, carrying the still spewing bomb. “Look at that!” he said, pointing at the rats. “They weren’t afraid of chemical bombs or leaping to their deaths, but your truck terrified them!” He placed the chemical bomb into a little tool compartment on the truck’s exterior and climbed into the passenger area.
“Maybe that’s a weakness we can exploit,” Sett said.
Aboard the Agnes, site of the dead Amelix beetle
547 watched as the Agnes extended saws and other tools to break up the dead beetle. The advanced Amelix technology was lost, but at least the Agnes was claiming most of its organic recyclables. A long tube carried the various pieces up to where they were smashed, broken down with acid, and processed for use and storage.
Together, Dok, Sett, and the two sisters had returned to the Williams mine to collect its two best trucks. 547’s most recent contact with them had been a few brief words of encouragement through Sett’s EI as he’d taught the others to drive. Now, two to a truck, the surviving members of Team 2 were trailing the Agnes.
A pleasant chime alerted him to a request for intercom communication. As commander of the ship, 547 had opted to change his settings back to less intrusive forms of communication than he’d endured as an underling. A text notification appeared at the edge of his vision:
“Proceed,” he said aloud.
“Hello, sir,” Bashar said. “The video you asked me to compile is now complete.”
“Great. I’ll watch it and let you know what I think.”
“Yes, sir.”
547 terminated the connection and opened the file. It was only about a minute long, assembled from camera footage of the two missions.
First there were shots from different cameras outside the mine, showing an edited and dialogue-free version of the driving lesson Sett had given the girls. In this context and at the front of the compilation, it appeared to be the beginning phase of a mission. Footage from Dok’s camera showed the two linked Amelix beetles outside the Federal Building as he approached. The next shot was from Team 1 when it discovered the weapons underground, giving the impression that a single, small team had infiltrated the Federal Building right underneath the Amelix beetles. The scenes shifted quickly after that. Dok swatted and stomped rats and then appeared next to a huge pile of dead ones. Sett gave chase, with the Amelix beetle skittering over hills and eluding him, then the Amelix beetle dead, felled by a single shot. Finally there was a still shot of Sett’s face framed by the white HAZMAT suit. White letters appeared over it, slightly difficult to read at first but becoming clearer as the picture faded to black, with an announcer reading the words: “Andro-Heathcliffe humbly thanks the heroic Williams Gypsum Corporation, through whose sacrifice we fight on.”
This would work well.
547 opened communication with Sett.
“Hey, 547,” his old friend said.
“It’s ready,” 547 said. “Take a look. If you agree, we’ll send it out around the world. Once there’s enough chatter about your heroism, we’ll announce the merger of our firms, to be managed under your company’s leadership.”
“Heh,” Sett said. “As it should be.”
Outside the Williams Gypsum mine
“Five minutes, Sett,” Li’l Ed’s voice said, over the speakers in Dok’s HAZMAT hood.
“Thanks, Ed,” Lawrence said. He was speaking faster than normal and breathing shallowly.
“Hey, Lawrence,” Dok said. “How are you doing?”
Lawrence nodded at Dok from inside his white suit, but the nod was as quick as his breathing.
Dok made sure the communication setting was private just between them. “Nervous, huh?”
“I’m addressing the whole world in five minutes, Dok. Yeah, I’m a bit nervous.”
“I can help if you want.”
“Sure.”
“All right. We’re going to let you imagine someone else is facing this for you. It’ll be your face and your words, but you can pretend that another person is actually doing it. Now I want you to take a deep breath and hold it. Close your eyes. Now let out that breath, and feel your whole body just relax completely. Now do it again. Hold it, now exhale and relax, sinking down. Again. Now, this time when you exhale, I want you to count down slowly from ten to one, all the way down with one strong breath.”
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”
“Good. Again. Hold it, then exhale. We’re going to keep doing this until you’re deeply relaxed. Then I want you to think of someone with charisma, someone with the power and presence to address the whole world in a live broadcast. We’re going to relax you completely, and then I want you to adopt that other persona, that magnetism, as your own. Let that person live in you, let that person play your role in the broadcast.”
Lawrence followed along and did as Dok instructed.
“Have you identified that person?” Dok asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you adopted that persona to play you in this broadcast?”
“Yes.”
“Then open your eyes and prepare to address the world.”
Dok smiled. “I recognize the steel in those eyes,” he said. “Hello, Eadie.”
Every human-controlled EI in the world
The face and body were sealed inside a white HAZMAT suit, but the person speaking commanded attention like no one else alive.
“This is Lawrence Williams the Seventh, Chairman of the reinstated Williams Gypsum Corporation, addressing you, the world’s remaining free corporations. We are seeking merger partners. Williams Gypsum has a plan for the future of human-controlled humanity, and we want you to join us. Here in the former Des Moines area we were able to slay an Amelix beetle and chase another one away. We can show you how to do the same.
“As the world’s final surviving terrestrial corporation, and as the one who has sacrificed itself to save all of you, Williams Gypsum hereby claims title to all land area on this planet. Those not participating in our offer of merger will be trespassing.
“The mergers have already begun. Andro-Heathcliffe is our latest partner in our mutual struggle against Amelix. At this time, we are seeking to merge with any and all other free corporations. Individual organizations will maintain control over all their existing assets, subject to Williams Gypsum authority for combat, coordination, and resolution of any disputes with other merged firms. My company and everyone in it have made the ultimate sacrifice to benefit our merger partners; I must demand that those partners submit to our direction in these matters.
“If you feel that your firm is worthy of this merger, contact me before it’s too late.”
A northbound Williams Gypsum truck, towed with three others behind the Agnes
The calls were stacked one after the other, and Sett had already been talking for hours. Still, each of these mergers had to be done right, or at least as rightly as they could manage, under these circumstances. He ended one conversation and left the others holding for a moment, needing to talk about something else—anything else but the same merger stuff again—even if just for a minute.
“Thanks for teaching me that trick, Dok,” he said, turning to make eye contact through the two plastic hoods. “Looks like my alter ego might have saved the world.”
“You did it, Lawrence,” Dok said. “She lived again only in your mind. It was really you speaking, and you leading.”
“You and I both know I’m just a figurehead. What can I do, really? And for how long?”
“You’re Chairman of the world’s second-largest corporation,” Dok said. “That’s something, anyway.”
“I suppose. Okay, back to absorbing the world’s surviving industries.” Sett opened the channel to the next caller. “Hello, this is Lawrence Williams the Seventh, of Williams Gypsum.”
“Mr. Williams, sir?” It was the voice of a young woman. “This is W-6e80xh of the Odette, outside Toulouse, France. We would like to accept your offer of merger, for the purpose of defending against Amelix.”
“Good,” Sett said. “And you understand that while you’ll maintain your own assets, my firm is bringing you in as a subsidiary, subject to my firm’s final discretion in terms of combat, coordination, and dispute resolution?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Sett said. “We’ll store a copy of this conversation as proof of our binding arrangement. Odette, here’s the information you need and the plan you’ll be following:
“The Amelix ships are afraid of trucks. We shot one from a truck, and now we are able to chase Amelix from trucks, without firing a shot. It’s likely that your best chance at survival is to find volunteer drivers and send them out as soon as possible. We have no idea how long this pattern of behavior will last. While it does, we need to come together as much as possible, in the safest place possible. Head north, and meet others as close as you can get to the Arctic Circle.”
“Very good, sir. And if I may ask, sir, what is our long-term goal after gathering there?”
“I think the area is small enough to be defendable. Through this merger we’ve learned there are a few structures that can navigate on the ocean, so hopefully they can keep us all in contact. It’s unlikely there are many Amelix beetles that far north as of yet, so I’m hoping we can form and hold a perimeter at the sixty-six degree, thirty-three minute mark. I’m going to transfer you to a staff member aboard the Andro-Heathcliffe Agnes who can work with you to coordinate your approach. We hope to connect you with others making the journey so you can all watch each other’s backs. Welcome to Williams Gypsum, Odette. We’ll see you at the top of the world.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s an honor to be part of such an heroic organization, sir.”
Sett terminated the conversation and answered another call.
Another voice responded. “This is the May Wah, of Nanjing, China.”
Sett formed the merger and gave the same instructions.
“This is La Línea, of Buenos Aires,” said another voice.
Sett formed the merger and gave the same instructions. He did it sixteen more times, merging each new corporation into the fold, from places like Pakistan and Cameroon. Some, like the Dryandra and the Morlina, both of Australia, had to receive different instructions since they’d never crawl to the Arctic Circle from there. Instead, they coordinated moves to a suitably defendable edge of their own continent.
A text appeared in the lower left corner of his vision.
It was 547, wondering how the merger was going. Sett replied.
547 answered right away.
The Agnes slowly lumbered north.