Adam-Troy Castro - Emissaries from the Dead

After everything else I’d learned on One One One, I couldn’t help knowing where I’d been touched by intelligences by this before.

I could have been paralyzed. I could have regressed to childhood, collapsed into a fetal ball, and begged it not to hurt me. Or I could have raged, cursed it for a murderer, and hurled myself at the black shape as if believing I actually had a chance of hurting it.

Instead, I felt myself go cold. “My name’s Andrea Cort. I’m a fully deputized representative of the AIsource Majority, operating on this station under their auspices and with their full legal authority. Who are you?”

The flatscreen shrunk to the size of a dot, as if considering its options, before once again inflating to its previous size.

((we know you, andrea cort * we know you’ve been hurt * we know you hold us responsible * we know you think you know the cause you’re serving * we know you imagine this is an opportunity to avenge old wrongs * but the issues here are more complicated than you can know * they speak to the auto-genocide of an entire order of intelligent beings* your interference here is foolish * and it is not welcome))

They almost seemed to be pleading.

But I could still hear pleas I’d heard on Bocai. “I’m not here for you.”

((not today at least))

“No,” I agreed, staring them down. “Not today. Today I’m only here for the human being responsible for the crimes on One One One. And today I have authorization to pass.”

((you have already defected once today * how about twice? * you know how powerful we are * you know our cause is just * you know we can reward you in ways beyond your capacity to measure * the one you seek has been a disappointment to us * agree and we will provide your prisoner as the first installment of a reward that will enrich the rest of your natural life))

“It’s tempting,” I said. “If I didn’t blame you for the deaths of my family and a life spent considering myself a monster, I’d almost consider it. But no thanks. Now step aside or take it up with my superiors.”

Their retort was sharp: ((we are your superiors too, andrea cort))

It happened to be true. They were smarter than me, faster than me, more powerful than me, more advanced than me, and more dangerous than me. Against them, I had nothing but attitude.

But attitude I had plenty of.

“Are you theirs?”

For several heartbeats it kept me guessing, floating before me as uncommunicative as any other blank slate, leaving me to wonder whether I was about to find out the consequences of going too far. Then the flatscreen contracted to a single point, and the broken-glass voice grumbled in retreat.

((we will have to discuss the price for this someday soon))

A single portal had opened, on the right side of the infinite corridor, about fifty meters down. The light spilling from that portal cut a brighter wedge in the overall gloom. I thought I saw a shadow briefly eclipse that region of relative light, before once again joining the realm of the unknown and unseen.

Whatever it was passed too quickly to reveal its shape. But I could see its haste.

I felt, rather than saw, the presence of the Heckler.

I flattened myself against the wall, and moved toward the wedge of light, hating the soft sibilant sound of my tunic sliding against corridor wall. My own breath, controlled and calm as it was, was nevertheless deafening. I pursed my lips, remembered the armor my quarry had used against the skimmer carrying Oscin and Skye, imagined trying to take on an enemy armed with such weapons in a corridor so narrow that I couldn’t even dodge from side to side, and ignored the internal voice that tried to assure me I had nothing.

Because I had more than nothing.

I had Bocai.

The wedge of light spilling into the corridor didn’t flicker again. It took on a sickly yellow tinge, the color of old paper, but it revealed nothing of the room that cast it. The Heckler could be waiting just inside, or could have fled far beyond my reach. Short of following, there was no way to know.

My eyes stung from cold sweat. I cleared them with the back of my hand, fought dizziness as a wave of exhaustion overcame me, wished once again that I’d put this off for an hour or day or year, and whipped myself around the edge of the portal, hitting the floor in a blind roll.

Big joke. Nobody tried to ambush me.

I’d entered an industrial vestibule of some kind: one of those places, common to all technological societies, where the machinery is tucked away to keep it from marring the smooth, presentable facades everywhere else. Nothing here looked like it had been made for the convenience of human beings. The walls were lumpy with protrusions, some of which were nothing more than solid geometrical shapes, others of which shifted and flowed and formed new combinations, like recombinant candle wax. Some gave off colors I could see but could not recognize from the visual spectrum I knew. They hurt my eyes when I looked at them, and left nasty afterimages when I looked away.

The nastiest was right in front of me.

The platform beside another portal on the opposite end of the chamber bore a bloody severed head.

I’d only encountered the indenture, Cartsac, a few times. I think I’d seen him awake a grand total of once. He looked alert enough now, even if dead. Both eyes looked like protruding marbles, too glossy with blood to admit the existence of irises or pupils. Whatever had reduced him to this state had done a sloppy job of it, not severing the neck clean so much as brutally ripping the head free of his shoulders. The ragged, browning flaps of skin hanging over the edge of his platform still dripped enough to testify to a murder mere minutes old.

I was not impressed.

I stood, crossed the room, and passed my hand through the horrific image, revealing it as just another projection.

“Is that all you can do?” I asked.

Nobody answered.

I didn’t even bother to duck and roll as I passed through the next portal. I just darted on through, half expecting to be attacked as soon as I showed myself.

Inside I found the place where the Heckler had been sleeping.

It was a home only because the walls, just as amorphous as the ones in the chamber I’d just left, were here just backdrop to a scene of almost comical domesticity. A hammock, of the old-fashioned, open kind, meant to accommodate a supine human being, hung unoccupied to my immediate left, its anchor points hidden behind shifting, kaleidoscopic shapes in the ceiling. Their movements didn’t affect the cords, or the hammock, at all as far as I could see. The canvas itself bore stains I recognized from Hammocktown and, more recently, my own clothing: manna sap, leaking from a patch of Uppergrowth overhead. Fresh pears hung in bunches at its center. To me this resembled nothing so much as a dispensary kept stocked to feed any small creature confined to a cage.

I snorted. “And is this your great reward? All your masters have to give you, for the rest of your life?”

Something shifted behind the next open portal, an open wound in the wall to my right. Two more images of violent death bracketed it on both sides.

The right side of the room bore another portal, bracketed on both sides by more images of violent death. The one on the left was a gaping Cynthia Warmuth, looking much as she must have looked when crucified on the Uppergrowth: her limbs splayed, her eyes wide in uncomprehending horror. Bright red circles had been painted on both her cheeks. The one on the right was Peyrin Lastogne, his skin blackened and crisped beyond comprehension, his identity obvious by the burned-meat visage that insisted on retaining the man’s trademark grimace. His untouched eyes testified that he, too, had been denied death: he had to sit there, aware of what had been done to him, suffering more than his capacity to register anything else, but unable to count on release.