Кейт Форсит - Relics, Wrecks and Ruins - Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

A second shot burst through the water and at first Aracai thought it was aimed at him, but the humans had dragged his wife close to the surface and that bullet took her in the back.

She went limp, arms falling wide.

The pacu lunged at her and nipped her flesh.

The humans yanked her into the air. As Aracai gazed up, a pacu hit him hard in the back, testing for a response.

Dulce was hauled out of the water, and he could not get to her. He could not even retrieve her body. So he turned and lunged away as fast as he could, and grabbed the bomb.

He wanted to rescue his wife, worried that she was still alive, that the men were torturing her. He swam to some ferns that hung over the water and rose, using them for cover.

The three men were young, hardly more than boys. They had pulled Dulce up onto their hunting platform and were admiring her, as if she were a prize catch.

One knelt and fondled her breast while another laughed. The gunman peered into the water, still hunting.

Dulce did not move. She was as dead as their daughter.

Aracai called out in grief, an involuntary wail that echoed over the water. The young man with the spear gun called, “Get out! This is our river.”

Feral humans. Aracai had always used the term to refer to those without genetic upgrades. Now he saw the truth.

He dove, swimming near the bottom as fast as he could. He realized that he might not have much time. His wound was not bad, but the bleeding would draw predators. So he swam to the Rio Negro and became lost in its black waters.

Now the poisons and pollution worked in his favor. He did not have to face piranhas as he swam. The river was black with soot, as if ash had mixed into the water, and the riverbed was a wasteland.

So he swam, wasting himself, surging upstream, mind numb.

Until the mindlink finally meshed with the nerves in his spinal column and suddenly he understood more than he had thought possible.

He knew the names of the trees that he had seen, the weeds and the frogs. The fish inside his penis was called a candiru, and if he had known of its existence, he could have tied a band around his organ to protect it.

He realized that the bomb could not be nuclear. He had been holding it close and no boils had formed from radiation. So he considered Escalas’s last words. Always the old mer had spoken with double entendre, always hiding his meaning, trying to force Aracai to think.

The neogods would never have lent their efforts to killing others.

But the old mer had begged a boon from them. A bomb. A heavy bomb, heavier than gold. As he guessed at the bomb’s intent, his energy redoubled, and he swam forward with excitement, brimming with wonder.

Escalas had urged him to take responsibility for his own evolution.

So he asked the Heavenly Hosts: If a bomb were packed with retroviruses, how heavy would it be?

The AIs answered: The viruses would be pure DNA, and have no cell membranes or empty plasma around them. They would weigh more than a kilo per cubic centimeter.

Heavier than gold.

I am carrying a viral weapon, he realized. But what will it do?

He knew Escalas. The old mer had not had a cruel bone in his body. He had always urged Aracai to ponder. Even his last gift had been his greatest possession, the mindlink.

But viruses could be more than weapons. A retrovirus could insert itself among a person’s DNA to repair damage, or even to upgrade a person.

Viruses to make us wise, he thought. That is what Escalas would have wanted. And through his mindlink he asked the AIs of Heavenly Host if retroviruses might be used to do that. The answers amazed him. There were viruses that could quadruple the number of neural connections in the human brain, while others could increase the numbers of neurons alone. Those two viruses in and of themselves could quadruple a person’s thinking power.

But there were more; the AIs showed him, viruses that could make a man live longer, eradicate diseases, love one another more. Over a hundred thousand upgrades had been developed, and dozen more were coming every day.

As Aracai studied the lists, he saw that Escalas had tagged thousands of such viruses.

Escalas would have wanted all of them. Aracai thought he understood. The bomb would rid the world of feral humans once and for all.

But how valuable would such upgrades be? Human doctors charged huge sums to administer such things. After all, any upgrade could give a man huge advantages.

To his surprise, the AIs already knew: The bomb you carry is probably worth more than the sum total of all the earth’s wealth for the next thousand years.

Aracai gasped at the thought and wondered what the old mer could have traded for such a boon. But there was nothing in this world that he could have given.

His life, Aracai suspected.

Had the bargain amused the neogods? One amoeba trading its life to help all others?

Perhaps it had amused them. Or perhaps they had recognized the nobility behind the request.

It all made a bit of sense to Aracai now. The GPS on the bomb, its red light. It could only be set off in one location, at Dos Brujas.

But why? He asked the Heavenly Host, but it went silent. Even it did not know all of the answers.

His blood did not call predators, but as Aracai swam he grew weaker. Many times he considered turning around, heading out to sea.

But it is too late to go home, he realized. He was too weak to swim that far. The ache in his muscles multiplied.

I will die no matter what I do.

So Aracai chose to die for a cause, just as a billion other martyrs had chosen to die for their causes over the millennia.

Huzzah! Huzzah for the martyrs, he thought.

If he had lived, the old mer would have revealed his plans to Aracai, he believed. He might even have begged the younger mers to help him. But Escalas had failed.

Eventually Aracai found the place. The full moon was setting in the west, glistening on the water and tinged red from the smoke of distant fires.

He spotted Dos Brujas, with its dark tower rising from the black waters. A red light at its top was probably meant to warn away aircraft, but it seemed to glare out over the river like a red eye.

There, on either bank, were the factories with their sewage pipes spewing poison.

Aracai felt beyond weary, numb beyond thinking. Adrenaline seemed to carry him this far, but now it was gone and he fumbled to fulfill his mission. He lay gasping, gills flaring, and rose to the surface, floating on his stomach.

Aracai found the button, saw that it now emitted a soft green light. He pressed it for what seemed minutes.

The disk twisted in his hand, began spinning rapidly in the water, then rose above the surface, whirling faster and faster until it began to rise into the air.

He watched it ascend into the night sky. Tiny white LEDs on its bottom became a blurring ring, so that as it rose, it brightened and seemed to take its place among the blazing stars.

It ascended above the city of Dos Brujas.

Aracai feared a flash of light more blinding than the midday sun and a ball of fire to end his life, but instead, at perhaps three thousand feet, the bomb suddenly exploded with a shrieking whistle, sending its contents spinning and streaming in every direction.

It looked as if a watery shield suddenly spread over the city—as if a mist raced for miles in every direction. The viruses spread wide, a plague of wisdom.

He wondered how many people they would infect, and Heavenly Host answered: The infection will start here, among the poorest people of South America, and then the viruses will be carried by the winds across Africa and India, until the plagues encompass the earth, putting an end to stupidity and avarice, waging war against war itself.