Peter Watts - Maelstrom

The intruder was running straight down the middle of the highway, eyes on the asphalt, dodging or leaping over cracks big enough to grab human feet. If nothing stopped her, she'd run smack into the barrier in about a minute.

Of course, something was going to stop her.

Beeping from the botfly feeds; the intruder had just entered their defensive radius. Boyczuk panned one of the barrier cams skyward. The 'fly closest to the target was breaking ranks, moving to intercept. Programmed flocking behavior dragged the adjacent 'flies forward as well, as though all were strung on an invisible thread. A connect-the-dots pseudopod, reaching for prey.

The runner veered toward the edge of the road, glanced down. Ten meters beneath her, brown boiling water gnawed ravenously at the canyon wall.

"You are approaching a restricted area," the lead botfly scolded. "Please turn back." Red light began pulsing from its belly.

The intruder ran faster. Another glance down at the river.

"What the fuck?" Boyczuk said.

A little patch of pavement exploded in front of the runner: warning shot. She staggered, barely keeping her balance.

"We are authorized to use force," the lead botfly warned. "Please turn back." The two 'flies behind it began flashing.

The runner dodged and zig-zagged, keeping to the west side of the road. She kept looking down …

Boyczuk leaned forward. Wait a second…

Behind the runner, water raged against a brutal jumble of sharp-edged boulders large as houses. Anyone falling in there would be teeth and pulp in about two seconds. Closer to the barrier, though—in the lee of the dam's near, unbroken end—the water might almost be calm enough to—

" Shit. " Boyczuk slapped the ignition. "She's gonna jump. She's gonna jump …"

Turbines behind, whining up to speed. "What are you talking about?" Bridson said.

"She's gonna—ah, shit… "

She stumbled, swerved. Her feet came down on loose gravel. Boyczuk pulled back on the stick. The chopper whup-whup-whupped slowly off the ground, ten measly seconds start-up to lift-off, the envy of fast-response vehicles everywhere and still just barely fast enough to clear the barrier as the woman with the backpack skidded, flailed, launched herself into space, not where she was aiming, not the way she wanted, but no other options left except brief, spectacular flight…

The botflies fired after her as she fell. The river swallowed her like a liquid avalanche.

" Jesus ," Bridson breathed.

"Infra," Boyczuk snapped. "Anything comes up even half a degree above ambient I want to see it."

The Fraser raged endlessly beneath them.

"Come on, boss. She's not coming up. She's a klick downstream by now, or parts of her anyway."

Boyczuk glared. "Just do it, okay?".

Bridson tapped controls. False-color mosaics bloomed from the chopper's ventral cam.

"Want me to bring the botflies along?" Bridson asked.

Boyczuk shook his head. "Can't leave the border unguarded." He wheeled the vehicle, began a westward drift down the canyon.

"Hey, boss?"

"Yeah?"

"What just happened?"

Boyczuk shook his head. "I don't know. I think she was trying to make that backwater, just in front of the dam."

"What for? So she'd have a few seconds to drown or freeze before the current got her?"

"I don't know," he said again.

"Lots of easier ways to commit suicide."

Boyczuk shrugged. "Maybe she was just crazy."

It was 1334 Mountain Standard Time.

The upstream face of the Hell's Gate Dam had never been intended for public display; until recently, most of it had been buried beneath the trapped waters of the Fraser River. Now it was exposed, a fractured and scabrous bone-gray wall, rising from a plain of mud. Just above this substrate, gravity feeds dotted the barrier like a line of gaping mouths. Grills of bolted rebar kept them from ingesting anything big enough to choke a hydroelectric turbine.

As it happened, human beings were a little shy of that threshold.

The turbines were cold and dead anyway, of course. They certainly couldn't have given rise to the sudden heatprint emanating from the easternmost intake. One of the Hell's Gate botflies registered the signature at 1353 Mountain Standard: an object radiating 10 °C above ambient, emerging from the interior of the dam and sliding down into the mud. The botfly moved slightly off-station to get a better view.

The signature's surface temperature was too low for human norms. The botfly was no genius, but it knew wheat from chaff; even when wearing insulated clothing, humans had faces that were hot giveaways. The insulation on the present target was far more uniform, the isotherms less heterogeneous. The phrase "furred mammal" would have been utter gibberish to the botfly, of course. Still, it understood the concept in its own limited way. This was not something worth wasting time on.

The botfly returned to its post and redirected its attention westward, from whence the real threats would come. Right now there was only something big and black and insectile coming back to roost, friendly reassurance cooing from its transponder. The 'fly moved aside to let it pass, floated back into position while the chopper settled down behind the barrier. Humans and machinery stood shoulder to shoulder, on guard for all mankind.

Facing the wrong way. Lenie Clarke had left the Strip.

Registry Assistance.

"Clarke, Indira. Clarke with an 'e'. Apartment 133, CitiCorp 421, Coulson Avenue, Sault-Sainte-Marie."

Clarke, Indira

Apartment 133, CitiCorp 421, Coulson Ave.

Sault-Sainte-Marie ON

Correct?

"Yes."

Failed to match. Do you know Indira Clarke's WestHem ID#?

"Uh, no. The address might not be current, it was fifteen, sixteen years ago."

Current archives are three years deep. Do you know Indira Clarke's middle name?

"No. She fished Maelstrom, though. Freelance, I think."

Failed to match.

"How many Indira Clarkes in Sault-Sainte-Marie?"

5

"How many with an only child, female, born—born in February, uh—"

Failed to match.

"Wait, February—sometime in February, 2018…"

Failed to match.

"…"

Do you have another request?

"How many in all of N'Am, professional affiliation with the Maelstrom fishery, with an only female child born February 2018, named Lenie?"

Failed to match.

"How many in the whole world , then?"

Failed to match.

"That's not possible."

There are several possible reasons why your search has failed. The person you're seeking may be unlisted or deceased. You may have provided incorrect information. Registry archive data may have been corrupted, despite our ongoing efforts to maintain a complete and accurate database.

"That's not fucking pos— "

Disconnect.

Either/or accused him from the main display. Desjardins stared back for as long as he dared, feeling his stomach drop away inside him. Then he broke and ran.

The elevator disgorged him through the lobby into the real world. Canyons of glass and metal leaned overhead on all sides, keeping street-level in twilight; this deep in the bowels of metro-Sud, the sun only touched down for an hour a day.

He descended into Pickering's Pile, looking for familiar faces and finding none. Gwen had left an invitation for him in the Pile's bulletin board, and he almost tripped it—

Hey fellow mammal, I know this isn't exactly what you had in mind but I just need to talk , you know? I found a spot they haven't torched yet, they don't even know it exists but they will, it's big , it's way bigger than it has any right to be and the moment I tell them a few hundred thousand people get turned into ash—