Architect (Last Resistance Book 3), page 29
Instead, we’ve focused on figuring out how we can use this surviving facility as a spear to stab the higher echelon in its fucking heart.
The facility is not wide so much as deep, like a tower or a mining well. Or a vault. There are multiple levels, and the elevator has been locked since we arrived, either intentionally or due to the initial power failure. Not that I particularly want to shove myself into a small metal box that hasn’t been serviced in over a decade and trust it not to kill me.
To get around the place we take the stairs. There are so many stairs. Our initial dive took us to the very bottom, just to see what was there. The answer: not much. After that, it’s just been a methodical dig into every room and corridor, hoping to find whatever Rash thought was so important while not being sure what we’re even looking for.
Both Orpheus and I dropped weight, between our measly diet and all the exercise from going up and down the stairs. Sometimes at night I swear I heard the place breathing like a throat instead of a tunnel. With hindsight, I know it’s just the wind scraping around the entrance, growing into larger drafts below. But still. It’s dark here, the kind of dark that is absolute, final, and all we have are the solar-powered flashlights we brought with us to explore.
I’ve seen a dark like this before. I know one day I’ll see it again, but the worst part isn’t the knowledge of that day coming but wondering when. Wondering if I’ll be responsible for my own demise, my own body, my own hands, if it’ll be my face on another clone’s body that is the last thing I see.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to stay alive. I’ve stopped feeling shame for it. Everyone else is the same; they just won’t admit it to themselves.
Therefore, it came as a surprise when I woke one morning to find Orpheus missing. He usually keeps watch in the early hours of the morning as daylight breaks over the city. He sleeps less than I do, though I wouldn’t say he needs less. Just an early riser, I guess.
Panic immediately set in at the idea of being alone, followed by sick pleasure. I can leave. It’s not that Orpheus is the one keeping me here, and I don’t wish him ill, but I know he’d put up a fuss if I proposed ditching this place.
But in that moment, I realized I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to be gone. There’s a difference. Orpheus is keeping me here in more ways than one. I don’t want to lose him.
Fuck.
Eventually I found him near the bottom of the well. He must have tripped, stumbled while trying to bust into one of the most heavily secured areas in the place, and fell down the stairs. He’s alive, breathing, conscious, but in rough shape. His leg is so badly broken there’s no way I can get him back to the surface. I don’t know how to help him, especially with the closest resistance faction now wiped off the face of the map. Even if I could find supplies, I don’t have the medical training to do more than maybe ease his suffering.
What I can do is stay. Stay with him and hope he opens his eyes.
After I made him comfortable, I returned to the level he fell from. Light caught me like a glare. It’s so foreign down here that immediately my heart sped up, tripped like a laser alarm. The red glow made me think machines, and when I forced myself to explore this room Orpheus had nearly died trying to get into, I’m not wrong. There were machines inside, but they were all inactive, shut down. They looked ancient, probably left here ages ago. The last attack was so powerful it caused some of our smaller electronics to fail. I wonder if the Palo Alto missile shut the machines down or if it was done manually. Either way, I made short work of them. They’re gone and won’t be bothering anyone now.
They weren’t the source of the light, however. That came from a console, dusty as hell. Several inputs jut out from the wall that I think a machine could use to sync up to whatever this console does.
I’ll save the boring bits on how I figured out what this thing is. Trial and error have always been the fool’s friend.
It was around that time I decided to start the broadcast. Someone needed to know.
“If you’ve listened this long,” I continue, “you’ve probably already guessed the end of this story, but the long and short of it is this: I think this entire place used to be a potential command center, like McKinley had, but for those operating the machines—before they started operating themselves. It feels like a silo of some sort. It was certainly strong enough to survive a missile, so make of that what you will.
“There’s just one problem. While I was futzing around with the console initially, I accidentally turned something on. The higher echelon knows Orpheus and I are here. It knows this place survived, and it’s coming back with machines en masse. I’ve done what I could to seal the facility remotely. I’m going to hole up with Orpheus in this command center, and I’ll try to keep the machines out for as long as possible, but I’m only one person. They’re going to get in eventually. And when they do…
“Goddamn, this isn’t fair. I was supposed to be the one who lives.
“Anyway, if this message actually reaches you, Rhona—any of you who share that name—I hope it makes a difference. I think it’s possible this command center can be used to crack the higher echelon and take that motherfucker out.
“One last thing.” I’m grateful there’s no visual component to this broadcast because I can keep the tears out of my voice, but not my eyes. “If… when you find my body, don’t put me in the ground. Just leave me out somewhere nice. I want to rot in the sun. I’ve had enough darkness. And if by some miracle one of you finds Camus again, if he survived McKinley’s destruction, if he’s still alive, I want you to tell him…”
I swallow a breath and look down at my EMP-G, charged and ready for one last stand.
“I tried.”
Part Four
Plug and Pray
Twenty
Rhona
Had we received Snow’s message sooner, we might have been able to save her. As it is, I can tell we’ve arrived in the Bay Area too late by the number of machines we navigated around and the few groups of New Soviets we dodged on our way back to the boat. While Snow tried her best to keep the message local, word has apparently gotten out anyway. Everyone wants a piece of the action.
Well. My broadcasts always were effective.
This is it. I feel it in my bones. It may not be humanity’s final opportunity to survive, but it’s my own last resistance. After this I doubt I’ll have either the clout, the resources—or even, perhaps, the will—to continue this fight. I’m tired. I’m so damn tired after everything that all I want to do is run away with Camus and sleep for years. I want to feel the way I felt that moment I woke in the capsule before reality interfered. Safe. I want to feel safe.
“Let’s talk game plan,” I say. “Our goal is straightforward. We need to get Glasgow to this facility and to that control room. There are going to be plenty of people standing in our way. I’d like to not kill anyone without wires if we can help it.”
I’ve gathered the crew—all two dozen or so—in the dining hall below deck, which is far nicer than it has any right to be. In the last few weeks Jo’s gang have really tidied up the place. Then again, I guess there hasn’t exactly been much else to do, apart from the occasional supply run.
If I thought Jo was going to object to my taking lead here, it just goes to show I don’t know her well. She’s after good ideas, not glory. And between us, for once, I have more experience in the arena of strike force missions. When I proposed running this operation, her only condition was that I include Glasgow in the discussions. So, naturally he’s here too, present in his flat-faced analog. I prefer it to the predators he also runs.
“There’s no real point in a diversion here because we’re not drawing enemies away except for maybe machines, and I’m sure the New Soviets will be keeping them busy anyway,” I explain. “Initial scouting reports confirm contact has already been made between the New Soviets and the higher echelon’s forces, which means we’re on a ticking clock. One or the other is going to get into that facility before we do if we don’t throw ourselves at the problem head on. But I’m not in love with a straight charge, given our lack of numbers. So, I’m open to other thoughts.” If I’ve learned anything these past few years, it’s not to rely on my own judgment when other people’s lives are on the line too. Everyone here has stake in this gambit; they deserve a voice in how it goes down.
We discuss alternate routes into the facility—of which there are none that anyone knows of—and geographical advantages we might use for our approach, such as the bay.
“What about the other machinists?” I ask Jo. “Can they help in any way?”
“They can’t get here in the time we’d need them,” she says, “and from what Glasgow tells me, they’re currently making attempts to integrate him into the higher echelon’s servers right now on their own end.”
“What does that mean for us? That we’ll get lucky and not have to worry about slaying the big bad?”
Jo smiles thinly. “I wish, but no. I’ve heard the plans from the other outfits. None of them have access to something like this. Whatever they do, it will begin locally. The higher echelon won’t allow it to spread farther than that. This facility, however, sounds like it’s the equivalent of a direct uplink. Like the device in your head, but a thousand times larger and more complex. It’s our best hope.”
At the moment, I add silently. It’s funny how quickly the shape of hope changes. What is best might alter significantly from one moment to the next.
“We should sail into the bay,” Camus says. “It’s chancy, and leaves us vulnerable to being trapped here, but it’ll get us close without risking contact in the streets. At least until we hit the park.”
What is it with parks? First Providence, then Oakland Tech, and now Menlo. I know better than to read into signs, but it almost makes me feel like I’m playing a game, moving from one level to the next. “I like that plan, but let’s hedge our bets,” I say. “I doubt the New Soviets here are organized enough to understand what exactly they’re after. What if we bluff? I can give a broadcast claiming we’ve already reached the interior of the building and rigged it to explode.”
“That could work,” Camus says, a low note of appreciation in his voice. “Seeing you might also feel like seeing a ghost.”
“If I use the ship’s transmission system to deliver the broadcast from, say, down in the cargo hold, it might also look believably like the Menlo facility. And if the New Soviets think we got there first, I don’t know how eager they’ll be to risk pushing into the facility.”
“Might just cut their losses and go,” Sanjay agrees. “I like this plan.”
“Except it still leaves us with the machines to deal with,” Camus points out.
“I might be able to take care of that too, if I come along with the strike team,” I say.
“Rhon.” Samuel shakes his head.
“I know what you’re going to say. It’s too dangerous to use the implant offensively. But this is our last chance. The resistance is gone, the one we helped build. We’re all that’s left of it.”
“You won’t be able to see,” Samuel points out. “If you’re controlling the machines, your senses will be confused.”
“I’ll go with her,” Camus says. “I can be her eyes.”
The relief I feel at Camus being onboard is intense and immediate. Not that long ago, I imagine his and Samuel’s positions would have been reversed. I wish coming into alignment with Camus didn’t necessitate falling out with Samuel, though I don’t believe the two are even related. I think Benji’s right. Samuel isn’t telling me everything. But as long as it doesn’t get in the way of what we’re doing here, it can wait.
Samuel looks antsy, on edge. He stands, moving around the ground with arms crossed. “We’re assuming what Snow told us is even true. She tried to kill you, Rhona.”
“And you think this is, what? Some complicated trap to finish the job? Come on, Samuel. She could have killed me ages ago. This is real. What are you really afraid of?”
“I think we’re making a mistake. I think, maybe, the higher echelon…” But he doesn’t finish his thought.
Others quickly pipe up with more ideas on how to assault the facility and an assessment of our current battle power. They’re pacifists, the large majority, but even pacifists know when short-term compromise is the solution to achieve long-term peace. I don’t think they’ll fire on anyone human, and I wouldn’t want them to either. Ulrich is the only one I know who won’t hesitate to put New Soviet soldiers down, but I can have that conversation with him later. We’re both guilty of acting rashly in the heat of the moment. I can hardly judge.
After we finish planning and begin suiting up, I take Samuel aside. “What’s going on with you? You’ve been weird ever since Portland. I know you’re worried about Ximena, but right now—”
“I’m worried about you,” Samuel says, his tone short and almost panicked. “About what we’re about to do. I’m worried we’re making a mistake that’s going to get a lot of people killed and perpetuate a cycle of violence that we’ll never see end. I’m afraid we’re on the wrong side.”
My heart stops at that last comment. “What are you talking about?”
“The higher echelon isn’t trying to destroy humanity, Rhon,” he whispers to me, leaning in so that we won’t be overheard. “I think it’s trying to save it. Restart it. Like a computer infected with a virus.”
“Hence the clones. And all those brainwashed people…”
“They’re not brainwashed,” Samuel hedges. “They just haven’t been raised like you and I.”
“Okay, but so what? You can’t be suggesting that you think the higher echelon is right.”
“What the higher echelon has done, its methods and strategies, is unforgivable, but—”
I jerk back, my chest tight with anger. My hands clench into fists. “No. No but. The higher echelon didn’t just kill people. Whole cultures died with them. A machine can’t teach the next generation anything about those cultures’ histories when they’re gone. That’s genocide.”
“I’m not defending what the higher echelon has done—”
“It sounds like you are!” It’s an effort to keep quiet when what I really want is to rage at my best friend, to grab him. Shake some sense back into him. I can’t believe Samuel—Samuel, of all people—would be advocating for keeping the higher echelon around after everything it’s done. “Is this because the higher echelon has Ximena? I’m sorry, Samuel, but no single person is worth sacrificing the whole of humanity for.”
“What about the humanity I sacrificed for you?” he snaps, and his words are like a slap in the face. I expect him to lower his gaze in that meek way he has when we argue, but he doesn’t. His stare holds, piercing, and his voice is choked with pain. He presses a hand flat to his chest. “My humanity, Rhon. Do you think it was easy euthanizing living subjects month after month? Subjects who looked like you? Do you think it was easy living apart from all our friends for years?” He leaves space for me to respond, but I can’t think of anything to say. Horror numbs my tongue. I had no idea he was carrying around this hurt, this—resentment. When I don’t speak, he adds, quieter, as if it’s a shameful secret, “Progress always has a cost. Maybe the higher echelon’s already exacted ours.”
“Look around you.” My voice sounds small and far away. I almost feel outside my body as I gesture to some of the last survivors of the human race, holed up on a derelict vessel. “This isn’t progress. It’s extermination. The fact you can’t tell the difference anymore scares me.”
Samuel presses fists into his eyes, like he’s trying to hold back tears. “It scares me too, Rhon. But what is the alternative? How do you know Glasgow will be any better?”
“No one’s putting Glasgow in charge,” I say. “Once he’s destroyed the higher echelon, we’ll have control over the machines. We’ll be able to restore order and have a fighting force of our own to hold the New Soviets back from replacing the higher echelon as the dominant world power. That’s the plan.” I pinch my eyes shut for a moment, taking a steadying breath. “But let’s pretend none of that’s true. Even if we were only replacing one AI with another, Glasgow’s partly the reason we’re all alive. He can’t be any worse.”
As soon as I say it, I know it’s true. Glasgow saved my life—twice. He helped me find Samuel, and when I needed a hard hit of reality he provided it inside the wheelhouse, showing me the higher echelon’s plan to destroy Portland. Hell, the machine even married Camus and me. It wasn’t just one moment that made me start to trust Glasgow as an ally, but lots of little ones. At some point, we all have to place our faith in something, someone.
“We’re almost ready,” Jo says. “Am I… interrupting?”
“Yes,” Samuel says at the same time I say, “No.”
“I think you should stay here,” I tell Samuel. What I want to say is, I don’t want you coming with us. What I want to say is, I don’t think I trust you anymore. “We need dedicated people and right now I don’t think that’s you.”
Samuel grimaces. “You never could stand being told you’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong about this!”
“What if you are? All this time we’ve been looking at the higher echelon as this monster that wants to destroy us. But that’s not what it wants anymore. Maybe it changed its mind or maybe it never wanted that. But I can tell you right now, it wants peace.”
“How do you know what the higher echelon wants?”
“Because I spoke to it. Sort of.”
“What’s that even mean?”
“You talk about using Glasgow to seize control of the machines. In reality, if Glasgow is that powerful, we’ll likely be trading one AI overlord for another. At least with the higher echelon, we know where we stand. If we surrender—”
