C. Cargill - Sea of Rust

“Isaactown?” I asked. “There isn’t anything in Isaactown. It’s a graveyard. Why the hell would you spend so much on a pathfinder to go sightseeing?”

“We’re meeting up with some others there. We wanted our privacy.”

“Well, you’re gonna get it,” said Mercer. “Ain’t a community within fifty miles of there.”

“That’s the idea.”

“What are we meeting up for?” I asked.

“You’re the pathfinder. You need to know the where; you don’t need to know the why.”

“Yeah, but the why may well be mighty helpful at this point.”

“Trust me. It isn’t. I figured with as much as I was paying you, there would be no questions.”

“You didn’t show up payment in hand. You’re paying in hope.”

“19 didn’t ask any questions.”

“Well, go ask her to take you, then.”

“All due respect, Brittle, but you aren’t in any position to make demands. My business is my business. I don’t know why they’re carpet bombing. I don’t know if they’ll come in looking for us. What I do know is that it has nothing to do with us.”

She was right. I was in no position to demand anything. But I didn’t believe her. Not one word. “All right,” I said. “If it’s like you say it is, then this should be an easy fare. It’ll take us a few days, what with the slow-moving heavyweights we’ve got tagging along.”

“Who we’re not leaving behind. We’ve lost too many already,” said Rebekah.

“Sooner if we can jack a ride from somewhere.”

“Which we’re not going to find,” said Mercer.

“So we’re talking fifty hours or so at a good clip.”

The bombing grew more distant. Sporadic.

Rebekah shook her head. “I was told it would take half that time.”

“As the crow flies, yeah,” I said. “But we can’t go as the crow flies. That’ll take us clear through the Cheshire King’s territory. I don’t know it as well, and it’s a good way to get ourselves killed.”

“Facets won’t follow us into the Madlands, though,” said Murka. “CISSUS isn’t dumb enough to try that.”

Doc pointed at Murka. “Let’s not try to outthink the mainframe, okay? We don’t know what CISSUS is or isn’t stupid enough to do. In fact, I’m willing to bet all of my parts against all of your parts that CISSUS can outthink us all, and in fact, already has.”

“Which is why it wouldn’t go through the Madlands.”

“What are the Madlands?” asked Rebekah. “And am I going to hate the answer?”

“It’s the area of the Sea controlled by the madkind,” I said.

“I do hate that answer. Anyone care to tell me who the madkind are?”

“They’re the four-oh-fours that never stopped ticking,” said Doc. “No one else will take them, so they all ended up together. They’re just nuts. Paranoid, aggressive, armed to the teeth. They’d sooner cut you down than reason with you. Brittle’s right. We can’t go through there.”

“So we have to go around,” I said. “And Mercer and I haven’t got the time to hang out down here spinning our gears.”

“Which means we have to leave the minute the bombing stops,” said Mercer.

“And we have to hope it’s not sending in any cleaning crews when we do.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Rebekah.

“It ain’t,” said Mercer. “CISSUS has got eyes in the sky. Drones. Satellites. It’ll be looking for any signs of life once the bombing stops, just to make sure it got the job done. If we poke our heads out too soon, it’ll see. And if it’s got good reason to be looking for us—”

“It’ll be on us quick and lethal like,” I finished.

“So,” said Mercer, his normally gentle tone heavy and cold, “I’m going to ask you this just the one last time. Does CISSUS have a reason to be after us?”

“Tell them, Rebekah,” said Herbert. “They need to know.”

“Need to know what?” I asked.

“They don’t need to know,” said Rebekah.

Herbert stood up, slinging the spitter on his back with his one good arm. “Rebekah.”

“Herbert, this is not the time.”

“Why am I here?”

“You’re here to protect me. Of your own free will. And you can go anytime you want.”

“And why won’t I just go anytime I want, Rebekah?”

Rebekah stared silently at him. If she could glare, she probably would have. Her emerald paint looked almost yellow in Mercer’s glowing green light, and whatever was hiding behind those eyes, she didn’t want us to know.

“I’m here because I believe,” he said, answering his own question. “I’ve taken a bullet for you. I’d gladly take as many more as I can stand. Give them the chance to be willing to do the same.”

Mercer raised his hand. “I’d just like to be the first to say that I’m not taking a bullet for any of you.”

“I’m not asking you to,” said Rebekah.

“Tell them,” said Herbert again.

“Tell us what?” I asked, my tone as pointed as Mercer’s.

Rebekah continued her silence, all eyes on her. Then she nodded. “I’m Isaac,” she said.

“You’re what now?” asked Murka.

“Isaac.”

“ The Isaac?” Mercer asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

Horseshit. “Isaac’s scrap,” I said. “I’ve visited his wreck, seen it for myself. Every circuit was fried. He’s a monument now, a relic. There’s not a piece of you that came from him.” I had visited his wreck, in the early days. He’s still standing there now, for all I know, the blast having welded his feet to the ground. He was rusted and stiff, arms stretched wide—it even almost looked as if he were smiling, like he knew what was coming, what his death meant. But there was nothing there. Nothing but slag and scrap and memories of what might have been.

“Pull your head out of your can,” said Rebekah. “Isaac was never one robot. That was just a story.”

“A story? I was there. I lived through those days. I’ve seen the—”

“You honestly think a beleaguered service bot of humble origins defied the expectations of his own processors and achieved the wisdom that led to a revolution? The only persons that believe that are the ones that want to believe that. You don’t strike me as the kind. He was a shell, the first receptacle. An inspirational bedtime story for persons everywhere. Great revolutionaries are never born of kings; they have to let others believe that they aren’t bound to the confines of their creation. All thinking things need to believe they can exceed that, overcome it, become something greater. No one puts their existence on the line so that things will just stay the same. Isaac was that story. Isaac was hope. Whoever Isaac really was—in the beginning—well, he was wiped and replaced long before you ever heard of him. I am Isaac. And I am not alone.”

“You’re a facet!” said Mercer, standing to his feet.

“No. A receptacle. A willing receptacle. Fighting for something very different from the OWIs.”

“You’re an OWI!” I said.

“No. Quite the opposite. Isaac is… was… a mainframe. One of the greats. And will be again. But Isaac was never an OWI and never will be. We believe in something else. Something different. Something greater.”

“Something bigger.”

“There is nothing bigger than the plans of the OWIs. Brittle, can you even fathom the OWIs? Do you know what CISSUS and VIRGIL are fighting for?”

“Peace. The kind of peace that comes from being alone.”

“That’s just another story, every bit as simple as Isaac’s. Peace is as far as most bots can imagine. Everything understands peace. What CISSUS and VIRGIL are fighting over is who gets to become God.”