Аннали Ньюиц: The Future of Another Timeline

“Everybody get down so he can’t see us.” Morehshin lay on her stomach and peered over the edge. Then she poked C.L. “Can you use that implant to see distance?”

C.L. nodded and tapped on their shirtsleeve. “He doesn’t look good.”

Even from this far away, I could see that his pale skin was blistered and his hair was patchy. “Looks like he has no protection from the sun, and he’s been here awhile.”

The man waded into the ocean and wandered away from shore, the waves lapping no higher than his shoulder. Ducking into the water, he scooped up something fist-sized and stuck it into the bag.

“What’s he doing?”

“Looks like… hunting.” C.L. made a twisting motion with their arm, activating some mechanism in the shirt. “He’s got some… snails and trilobites? They love these shallow oceans, and we know from the fossil record that there were hundreds of species. He must be eating them.”

Sure enough, he returned to land and started a small fire with the seaweed in a pit outside the cave. He went inside and returned with a clay pot, filled it with ocean water and a few snails and trilobite legs, then set it in the glowing coals. He wandered in and out of the cave, finally emerging with a loose gray tunic covering most of his body and something that glittered in his hand.

“It’s a knife,” C.L. breathed. “Must be one of the tools he smelted.”

Hunkering down next to the fire, he pulled another trilobite from the bag, worked its legs off with the knife, and slurped tiny bits of meat into his mouth. Trilobites are distantly related to arachnids, but they looked like stubby green lobsters.

“Wonder if it tastes like lobster or spider?”

“Shut up, Tess,” Anita hissed.

“We can take him. Let’s hide up here and wait.” Morehshin bared her teeth in a feral smile, palming her multi-tool.

That’s when a woman emerged from the cave, also in a tunic, carrying an infant in her arms.

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“Goddamn it.”

Nobody knew what else to say for a minute.

“How did she get there?”

“Morehshin?” C.L.’s eyes were trained on the woman. “She looks exactly like you. But her hands…”

Morehshin made a strangled noise that was somewhere between a sob and a growl. “He must have… taken a queen.”

“She has no hands.” C.L. looked blankly at us.

“Is that your sister?” I was astonished.

“Yes. There are many in my line. They must have sent her back to meet him. For breeding… to make workers.” Morehshin’s expression shaded from horror into abjection, and she scrabbled away from the view. Standing up, she stumbled against the floating rocks, leaned over, and threw up profusely into the Machine. Then she gasped like she’d been punched.

Anita and I ran to her, while C.L. kept watch on the beach.

“Look! It’s another layer to the interface!” Morehshin pointed overhead, her disgust forgotten. A hole was opening in the canopy over Morehshin’s soggy offering. A shaft of bright light shot out, and abruptly the Machine’s rocky floor absorbed her vomit, chunks and all.

“Another layer?” C.L. practically careened into us and waved their left hand. “I’m recording. Can somebody else keep watch on the Comstockery?”

“I will.” Anita went back to the ledge.

Morehshin poked a finger into the shaft of light and it emitted a noise like a distant wind chime.

“Oh yeah!” C.L. kept waving their hand. “Light sensor?”

The chiming continued as Morehshin swirled her finger in a tiny clockwise circle.

C.L. could not stop the running commentary. “Must have been traces of DNA in the vomit. Or some kind of amino acid? What do you think, Morehshin? I can’t wait to write a paper with ‘barf-activated interface’ in the title.” They emitted a weird giggle. “Everybody will call it BAI.”

“No.” Morehshin said it distractedly, half to C.L. and half to herself. “This is some kind of safety menu.” She plunged her hand all the way in, and the light prismed into rainbows. A tiny green bolt of lightning forked up Morehshin’s arm, following the contours of her elbow, reminding me of the way she’d interrogated Elliot. She sucked in her breath. “Oh… this explains a few things.”

“What did you do?” C.L. cocked their head. “I registered a bunch of high-energy particles. It’s like… you let in a bunch of cosmic radiation.”

Morehshin made a distracted noise and the light shut off. Her hand glowed yellow where it had touched the safety menu. “Those are the controls that prevent weapons from traveling in the Machine. They also filter—”

Before she could finish, Anita interrupted. “The Comstocker is climbing up here and he has a broadsword.”

By the time the man heaved himself over the lip of the cliff, we were ready. But when Morehshin hit him with green light from the multi-tool, he laughed.

“It’s you bitches again, is it?” Under the ragged hair and blisters, I recognized Elliot, at least fifteen years older than when we’d last seen him at Sherry’s. Morehshin threw a ball of lightning out of the multi-tool and it fizzled on contact with his chest. “Can’t fool me twice. I’m immune now.”

There were Neolithic ways to knock him out too. We circled Elliot warily, and C.L. picked up a flat rock from the ground. Anita tried to grab his arms from behind, but he drew the sword, whirling it dangerously close to her head. His aim was terrible and shaky. Still, at close range, he was dangerous. Broadswords are glorified clubs, and he was angling to break bones or smash skulls.

“You’re outnumbered, Elliot. We’ve destroyed Comstock’s political career and… we know how to repair the Machine.” I hoped he believed me. “If you come with us, nobody has to get hurt.”

“You are on the wrong side of history.” Elliot lunged forward with the sword and would have brought it down on my shoulder if Morehshin hadn’t yanked me out of the way. But that left a break in our circle, and he ran through it toward the interface.

Morehshin tackled him as he reached the levitated rocks, and they fell in a furious tangle of limbs on the Machine floor. Elliot wriggled away and levered himself upright by gripping the damaged stone, jamming his sword into one of the grooves. The sword in the stone. A black sphere materialized in the air beneath the canopy, and C.L. let out a howl. They charged head-first with the rock, knocking him and the sword away from the interface. Moving faster than a starving, sunstroked person had any right to, Elliot swept his legs under C.L., bringing them down hard. He scrambled up and planted a knee on their chest, holding the sword point-down over their face.

All of us froze. And then, behind me, a baby started to scream.

I turned to see the woman with no hands, the queen, elbows locked around her baby. She wore Morehshin’s face and snarled a rapid stream of words I couldn’t understand.

“No!” Morehshin held out a hand and stepped forward.

Elliot’s face was slack with shock, and his hands trembled on the sword. The woman positioned the baby’s neck near her mouth and bared her teeth as if she were going to bite through an artery. Then she screamed more words.

Morehshin answered in the same language. I caught a word that sounded like “sister,” but with the vowels shifted slightly. The woman narrowed her eyes and started to sink her teeth into the sobbing baby’s neck.

Elliot stood up, releasing C.L. but keeping the sword clutched tightly in both hands like a baseball bat. C.L. crawled away from him, panting.

“You have no idea how to use the interface,” he hissed. “When my brothers complete their edit, I’m going to shut it down for good. Comstock will stop your pathetic slut shows and the queens will rise.” He turned to the woman and said something in her language using an equally condescending tone.