Architect (Last Resistance Book 3), page 27
Here is what actually happens instead:
Ulrich releases me to Camus’s care. As our hands join and I step forward to stand beside the man who is to become my husband, the music quiets, Glasgow begins to speak, and I begin to consider the possibility that somehow, against the odds, everything is going to be okay. And even if it isn’t, today is good. Today, everything is perfect.
CAMUS
Two days after the wedding, Jo calls Camus to a private meeting with news of having finally contacted the other machinist cells. He expects the news to be dire. If it weren’t they would have heard something already, but every channel has been silent. Part of him wonders how much of the wedding planning was Rhona’s attempt to distract herself from thinking too deeply through the possibilities. He can’t blame his wife for focusing on what she can control.
My wife. The newness of that phrase still thrills him, creating a lightness inside him that he hasn’t felt in years. At the same time there is a primitive instinct that makes him wish he could continue to surround their marriage with a protective wall, keeping the world away from them. Nothing good lasts forever. He knows this. Every poet does. It’s the transitory nature of life that gives it meaning, like a bite of sour elevating the sweet.
Perhaps that is why, when Jo breaks the news that McKinley base is gone, he does not immediately react with shock or horror. There is a knowing inside him that recognizes this was always a possible outcome and a quiet resignation of the fact that they were always going to lose the base. That when he left, he was leaving for good.
“Gone?” he finally says. “Are you sure?”
His next thought is immediately of his wife. Rhona will receive this news badly. The extent of the loss still hasn’t quite sunk in, even as he stands here discussing it with Jo.
“Unfortunately,” Jo confirms. “And it isn’t just McKinley. I’m still waiting on the reports from the Eastern division, but it sounds like what happened in Portland was not the isolated incident we hoped. The higher echelon utilized its weaponry against every major resistance base.”
“How did it know where they were?” Camus asks. His stomach rolls despite the calm seas. The amount of lives lost is inconceivable. He thinks he might be sick. “McKinley was an open secret, but the rest?”
“I don’t know,” Jo admits helplessly. “My colleague in Montana seems to believe the higher echelon has known the locations of most bases for years. I suspected the same, that the higher echelon was secretly herding humanity into manageable pockets, but I didn’t know for sure.”
Montana. Hadn’t that been where Rhona sent one of her clones? “You have colleagues in Montana?”
“Yes. And the information regarding McKinley was not the only bomb they dropped. Imagine my surprise when they told me they’d found Rhona Long alive. At first I assumed they’d found one of the higher echelon’s wardens, but by all accounts she speaks and behaves just like our Rhona. The only difference being, apparently, she goes by the name Rash. She claims to be Rhona’s twin, but I think we both know that isn’t the truth.”
Camus stays silent, unsure how much Rhona would want him to share about the existence of her genetic sisters.
“You don’t need to worry,” Jo says before he can summon an appropriate response. “I’m not interested in Rhona’s secrets. We all have some. For what it’s worth, Rash seems to be adapting quite well to the group. They say she’s been a great help to our cause since she stopped trying to blow up them and their machines.”
He almost smiles, as that sounds so much like Rhona. Then he remembers McKinley.
“Who else knows about the widespread damage?” he asks.
“You’re the first I’ve told. I thought you deserved to know.” He finds it curious she didn’t pull Rhona into this meeting. It’s early, and his wife is still asleep back in their quarters, hopefully enjoying her last peaceful dream for the foreseeable future. After she learns about McKinley, he doubts her sleep will be so restful. “And I wanted to get your thoughts on next steps. I don’t want to diminish the tragedy of what’s happened, but our plan remains unchanged. If anything, it should light a fire under us to move matters along.”
Camus nods. Her conclusion, although cold, is not one he can truly argue with. They cannot afford to be halted by grief, or the higher echelon will only give them more to mourn.
“I’m attempting to organize with the other cells. We want to make a coordinated run on the higher echelon’s primary servers. Given this recent escalation, it’s clear that we cannot afford any further delay. As risky as it is, the alternative may mean losing our chance altogether.”
“Does Glasgow agree with this assessment?” Camus asks. It hasn’t escaped his notice that the AI’s physical analogs are not present for once. “I assume he’s run the odds of success.”
“He has,” Jo agrees. “But odds are just numbers. You know as well as I do that they don’t always determine outcome.”
“That bad?”
“We’ve always known this would be an uphill battle. The higher echelon is not going to surrender without a fight.”
“Do you have a timetable?”
“As a matter of fact,” Jo says, “Benji informs me that his boyfriend has been assisting your wife in analyzing a device in her head—an implant, I believe they called it, that allows her to connect to the machine’s network remotely.”
“I… wasn’t aware,” Camus says, frowning. The most generous interpretation of this secret is that Rhona neglected to tell him because she was too busy with planning their wedding. But he knows that isn’t really the reason. More likely she hadn’t wanted to worry him. He wonders if this device has something to do with how her initial memories were downloaded. He’ll have to ask her about it later. “What does this have to do with our strategy?”
“She and Sanjay need more sophisticated technology than we have presently onboard. Oakland has been proposed as a likely candidate to locate the kind of facilities they need. While there, we should be able to meet a local cell and get a better sense of what’s happening ashore.”
“Does Oakland have an access point to the higher echelon?”
“No, though Palo Alto did at one point. Doubtful it survived the missile attack, but it couldn’t hurt to check. Your wife gets to continue her experiment, and we can resupply on our way farther south while finishing organizing our plans with the other cells.”
“A layover,” Camus concludes.
“Exactly.” Jo smiles, but it’s edged with sadness. “Will you tell her? About McKinley?”
It hadn’t occurred to him not to until now. “You’re not going to inform the others?”
“I wasn’t, no.”
“That seems like significant information to keep secret.” Jo has always insisted she is not the leader of this outfit, but that hasn’t been Camus’s experience of her. She’s the one who makes the call at the end of the day, and to be fair, most of those calls have been good ones. But this still gives him pause. “You don’t think they deserve to know?”
“I don’t think they deserve the sorrow or worry,” Jo corrects. “What will knowing do except increase their desperation and unease?”
“Ignorance could also be costly if the crew isn’t aware there is no safety net for our next actions and few allies to help.”
Jo leans back against the console, looking at him oddly. “Is that how you see the resistance? As a safety net?”
Sometimes speaking with Jo is like talking to a therapist. All questions, no answers. “More like a stopgap measure.”
“You’ve been with us for a few months now. I still forget that isn’t long in the grand scheme of things,” Jo laments. “Let me be blunt with you, Camus. There has never been a safety net. That is an illusion created by people desperate to feel safe. We have nothing to fall back onto except new plans, fresh ideas. There is no net; there is only a bridge from one possibility to the next. The resistance was an effort like ours, but it has failed. Can we learn from that failure? Certainly, but right now its sting will only harm, not enlighten. Having been burned, would you then suggest another immediately put their hand on the stove?”
“With respect, Joan,” Camus answers tightly, “your metaphors don’t seem to account for the fact that there are those onboard who will have lost people in these attacks. Ulrich’s partner was at McKinley, not to mention mine and Rhona’s friends.”
“And you think they’ll remain clearheaded after learning the people they love are dead? Anger and grief are distractions, and that’s the last thing we need right now.”
“We have plenty of training with grief, trust me,” Camus says, and he can feel his hands clenching into fists, just as they had when he spoke with Lena Paszek. He wonders if this is the natural progression of all leaders, their humanity slowly eroded by power. The higher echelon may be the best example, but it’s by no means the only one. History is full of the weaknesses of men and women who collapse into blackholes when pressured to become a star.
Jo wrinkles her brow. “You think I’m being callous. And you’re right, of course. I wish I had the luxury to be warm all the time, but fuzzy feelings are not what’s going to save us now. We have to be pragmatic.”
If Rhona could hear her lecturing Camus—of all people—on pragmatism, she would laugh. She might also take a swing at Jo, learning of her plan to keep the McKinlians on board in the dark. Rhona has never liked being left in the dark.
Jo studies him a moment then relents with a small sigh. “I can’t stop you from sharing what you’ve learned, though I caution you to limit who you tell. Information like this does not drip: it runs.”
“I’ll be discreet,” he says, mostly because he isn’t sure whether he will tell his wife or not. Jo is right about one thing: this news will be a cruel blow to Rhona. Everything she is, everything she has sacrificed for, is tied up in McKinley base. He could protect her from that pain, at least for a little while longer…
But what would it say about their relationship if he did keep such a big secret from her? She had once done the same, withholding plans to clone herself, and he hadn’t thanked her for being kept in the dark.
Jo turns away, no doubt expecting him to leave, but Camus lingers. There is a question pressing at the back of his mind, ever since Portland. Ever since he saw what the higher echelon was doing there.
“What do you suppose the higher echelon’s end game is?” he asks. “What’s the point of all of this? If it were simply to destroy every living person, why bother creating more of us?”
“Perhaps it has realized it went too far,” Jo says. “Perhaps it’s changed its mind.”
“Not enough to prevent it from slaughtering thousands as recently as a week ago.”
“Those were the bad ones,” Jo speculates. “The ones who couldn’t be saved. Who won’t be changed. What do you do when you have an infestation?”
“I hope you’re right about Glasgow,” Camus says, feeling the first inklings of doubt in a long time. Just because Glasgow married him and Rhona doesn’t mean it’s incapable of turning on them just like the machine medics during the early years of the war. Good isn’t a permanent state. It’s a choice one makes over and over when it would be easier to do anything else.
“If I’m not,” Jo says with a dimpled smile, “I don’t suppose we’ll have long to regret it.”
Rhona still isn’t awake by the time Camus returns to their cabin. He removes his clothes and crawls into bed beside her, thinking of all the reasons not to wake her. How he might avoid breaking her heart, the one they both share now.
She stirs as he climbs in, and he reaches across the sheets, collecting her to him. Her lips part around a small, satisfied sigh and his throat closes, as if his body is fighting what he must say next.
“Rhona,” he whispers. “Something’s happened.”
She must hear it in his voice: the danger. She rolls over so that they’re facing one another. Grey light from the porthole falls onto her face, causing her to squint a little.
Her fingers pass across his jaw in a gentle probe. They are always finding ways to touch one another, having spent far too long apart. “What is it?”
And so, he tells her the truth.
And he is there, already holding her tightly, when Rhona Long comes apart.
Nineteen
Rhona
Oakland, California – Three Weeks Later
The first thing I notice about our docking site is the cranes. As they slowly appear from the fog I initially mistake them for behemoth machines, like something out of Star Wars. Even knowing we never designed a model that large, some part of my brain thinks, maybe. The higher echelon has proven its not been sleeping these past few years, what with its construction of the satellites and kinetic weapons. Who knows what else it has up its sleeve?
The cranes are lined up along the port, long necks alternately bent and raised, frozen in what almost looks like an active wave, abandoned. The cranes aren’t the only noteworthy structure, just the most eye-catching. Plenty of ships are still docked, though they look in various states of rust and decay. Most of the port has been invaded by the sea so that it looks more like some kind of shipwrecked cove than the entry point to a bustling metropolis.
I’ve never been to Oakland before that I can recall. As the ship pulls into port dark hills come to the foreground, flecked with pale houses and long scars of scorched earth where fire burned through, unimpeded.
In McKinley it was easy to forget—or at least ignore—the devastation happening on the outside. It wasn’t in your face like this. The city of Portland was so well-preserved that it didn’t give off nearly the same effect, while looking back at Juneau feels like studying a smaller diorama of despair compared to this city-wide holocaust.
“Does anyone still live in the city?” I ask.
“Of course,” Jo says. “People survive everywhere.”
My heart clenches again when I think about Detroit. Palo Alto. How many people were still in those cities when the New Soviets launched their missiles?
“Survivors go ignored for the most part by the higher echelon if they’re in small enough groups,” she continues, which is news to me. “If they keep to themselves and don’t attack the machines. And places like this, where the higher echelon doesn’t maintain an active presence, are safer than most. At least there’s no lack of shelter, and a good scavenger can usually find uses out of old salvage.”
“What about food? Clean water?”
“Food is trickier. Obviously people rely on what they can grow. There are plenty of ways to grow indoors, out of sight. Water’s easier. It can be sterilized and made potable through a variety of methods, likely using many of the same methods to provide water at McKinley.” A wry smile quirks the corners of her lips. “You really didn’t get out of that mountain often, did you?”
I choose to ignore that dig, mostly because she’s right. I had no idea what people were going through day to day out here while I never had to wonder, not once, where my next meal was coming from.
“Why abandon the city? What about San Francisco?”
Her expression tells me most of what I need to know. There isn’t a San Francisco anymore.
“It’s a dead island. The machines did most of the damage, but there was an earthquake a few years back that finished the city off. Few people visit now. Oakland is safer. Plenty of places you can go if you need to leave quickly.”
“I thought you said the higher echelon doesn’t bother keeping tabs on the city.”
“It’s not machines you have to worry about here.” I’m grateful she’s so patient with me. I know she doesn’t have to answer all my questions. “Wildfires have become a problem here like in most places across California with how much vegetation is growing unchecked. Certainly you don’t want to get caught up on the hills in summer.”
“I thought you were trapped in Portland. But it sounds like you’ve come here often.”
“One hears things,” Jo says with a soft smile. “We were trapped, not isolated. Communications still got through on occasion.”
It’s hard to see where we might find a safe place to dock, but thankfully Glasgow knows just the spot. We anchor near a crush of ships that have become what looks like permanent landmarks in the harbor, near enough that from above we’ll likely appear as one more maritime victim. This is another advantage the old hydrofoil doubtlessly has and probably the reason its upper deck is not as well-maintained as its insides.
I grab my gear and wait beside one of Glasgow’s analogs as the gangplank is lowered. I’m eager to feel steady ground beneath me again.
We’ve just begun to disembark when a voice sounds out behind me and I turn to find Samuel racing down the boat ramp toward us. He’s dressed for an outing, fit with identical gear to the rest of us, gun included. While Jo objected to EMP-Gs, regular guns were judged necessary. She said the situation here was different from Portland. Machines were less of a threat than humans who might not take to outsiders in their territory. I certainly feel better having the gun on me and, given everything that’s happened, I’m in the mood to shoot something.
“Mind one more joining you?” Samuel asks.
“Sure,” Benji says, exasperated. “Not like we’re trying to be sneaky.”
“I thought you didn’t want anything to do with…” I don’t know how to finish that sentence, so I awkwardly gesture to my head, which I only realize after could be mistaken for suggesting it’s me he no longer wants to associate with.
“I was being short-sighted,” Samuel says. “There may be a way to stop your hallucinations—connections, or whatever they are—and if there is, my expertise might be helpful.”
I don’t want to stop them, I almost say. I want to use them against the higher echelon, the same way I did when I controlled the machines in Portland. But I doubt Samuel would be pleased about that plan, so I keep silent. There might not even be a way to use the device in my head in such a way, so I could be getting ahead of myself. No point in causing needless drama.
