Architect (Last Resistance Book 3), page 30
“Surrender? Samuel, listen to yourself. You sound like you’ve spent years with the higher echelon, not hours.” I give him a dirty look, feeling betrayed by this sudden heel turn.
“I’m a scientist, Rhon. I have to look at the raw facts. I’m just asking you to consider an alternate option. No more people have to die today. If you let me try talking to it—”
I hold up a hand, cutting him off for the final time. My voice is firm. “The higher echelon didn’t consider alternatives before wiping out the countries of the world. I’m going to destroy it, Samuel. That’s it. If Glasgow is the weapon I have to use to do it, then I will.”
As I walk away from him my eyes burn, but I can’t cry. This plan is already risky enough without everyone worrying about me keeping my shit together.
Samuel follows me as I head for the stairs to go above deck. “No,” I tell him savagely, like I’m trying to get a dog to stay. “You’ve shown where your loyalties lie.”
Samuel looks hurt, but there’s also something resolved in his posture. Steel has replaced his insecurity. What exactly did he see in Portland to change his mind so thoroughly? I’ve felt him pulling away from me for a while, but now I worry I’m not strong enough to survive the final split.
“I’m coming,” I hear him say from behind me. “You’ll have to chain me to the ship if you want to stop me.”
“Don’t tempt me.” I grip the stair railing but move out of the way to let others pass.
“I can help,” he insists in a rushed and passionate tone. “If it comes down to a confrontation with the higher echelon, maybe I can speak for us. It used the technology I helped design to accomplish its goal of creating a new, non-violent version of humanity. When I bargained for Ximena’s life, it listened. Sort of. It might listen now.”
“You had to bargain for Ximena’s life?” That’s news to me. The bad kind. “And what exactly did you give up in this bargain, Samuel?”
His mouth flattens to a guilty line. But he doesn’t say.
I shake my head, casting my gaze to the ceiling to avoid having to look at him. If I look at him, my resolve will crumble. He has already broken my heart in multiple places, and I don’t think it could withstand another blow. “You’re not coming. Final answer. This is bigger than whatever problems we’re having right now, bigger than our personal feelings.”
“You really don’t trust me,” Samuel says, a note of heartbreak entering his voice.
“No,” I whisper, “Right now, I really don’t.”
I leave him to head abovedeck with the others and immediately notice the change in atmosphere. Everything isn’t merely more tense; it borders on outright hectic. Something’s happened. Something else.
Camus spots me and summons me to the wheelhouse with an urgent wave. That can’t be good.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask even before I’m through the door. “Wait,” I suddenly realize, “Why aren’t we moving?”
“EMP,” Camus says. “Probably from the New Soviets, though it’s hard to say for certain. There was a lot of chatter over the channels right before and not all of it in Russian. There might be other leftover resistance factions arriving too.”
“We have to get there first,” I say. If the resistance factions reach the facility, they’ll destroy it to be safe. So long any chance of uploading Glasgow.”
“We’re working on a fix right now.”
“Oh, no.” I suddenly realize the implications of a city-wide EMP device going off, close enough to stop the boat. “My implant.”
Jo and Camus exchange a look with each other and then me.
No easy solutions today after all.
I take a deep breath. “Guess we’re doing this the old-fashioned way,” I say. At least until my implant starts working again, and who knows if that’ll be in time. “Get the lifeboat ready. I’ll swim to shore if I have to, but let’s try and avoid that, yeah?”
Twenty-One
Palo Alto as a city no longer exists. The New Soviets’ missile saw to that. Everything has been leveled, nothing taller than a fruit stand left standing. I think Snow is right. This is what the higher echelon wanted. They used us for their dirty work. It accomplished everything in one fell swoop, including very nearly taking me out in Calgary. Almost a megalomaniacal hat trick.
On the one hand, the lack of buildings doesn’t leave us much in the way of cover as we approach by lifeboat, but at least it’s also a fairly straight path to Menlo Park once we’re ashore. I’m trying to find the silver lining here, but I can’t even make out the shape of clouds. Everything is gray: the ground, the sky. I think it might even rain. Fitting.
Thunder in the distance confirms that opinion—or maybe that sound is mortar fire? Doubtless human ground forces have engaged the enemy. They could have been battling here for the past few days, and it’s unlikely we would have noticed if they weren’t broadcasting on any main channels. Oakland is a stone’s throw away from Palo Alto by car, but on foot it might as well be in the next state.
My steps send up little clouds of ash as we make our way ashore. The grit that crunches under our feet is all that’s left of people’s homes and businesses. So much has been completely destroyed that not even the shape of what it was before remains.
“This is it,” I find myself murmuring before I can think of what I’m about to say next. Everyone has turned to look at me. I know they’re expecting some grand speech to rally their morale. A Rhona Long special. But I don’t give speeches anymore. I’d rather save the air in my lungs for the action that’s coming. “We’ve got one shot at the king. Let’s make it count.”
This has the feeling of being back in Portland, but after its destruction. I can’t help thinking about McKinley. Is this what the base also looks like now? An ashen heap laying inside the shell of a broken mountain? But I force those pictures out of my mind. I can’t help anyone there now. But I can make it so that the machines never hurt anyone else again.
I test the small comm device I’ve strapped to my chest. It almost looks like a bomb vest. But although the comm has started to work, I can’t find the signal. Maybe the higher echelon isn’t broadcasting right now. That thought hadn’t even occurred to me. We’re far away from where its main army is. Maybe it doesn’t need the signal here.
“Anything?” Camus asks me, hearing the static and assuming it’s the signal.
“Nothing yet. I’ll keep trying.”
“I know you will.” He smiles at me, and I return it, a little more wearily. I don’t know what’s going to happen to either of us after today—if we’ll survive, if we’ll succeed in making survival even worth it.
He sweeps me into a quick hug, pressing a kiss to my forehead, and then we set out alongside the other machinists, picking our way as quickly and as carefully as we can across the ruined city. As always, running toward the sound of danger, instead of away from it.
Periodically, I check the comm. The irony that technology may now offer us a true path to victory doesn’t escape me. Everything that I thought was wrong about me may be exactly what we need to win.
Part of me still wishes I could have been able to deliver that last broadcast to the New Soviets, but the electromagnetic pulse put an end to that possibility. In any event, I now recognize that hunger for attention, for glory and recognition, is only the leftovers of a life I thought I needed to live. Commander Long’s life. This may end up being the greatest gift I can give to humanity instead—not by making loud claims, but through quiet action.
Not far into our push into the city, we come under attack by machines. There are dozens of them, all predator-class. I’m a little surprised the higher echelon was able to muster this large of a force this quickly, but maybe I shouldn’t be. If it was anticipating the first attack on Palo Alto, it probably moved all of its ground forces out of the area beforehand. Maybe it has been surveilling the area since, keeping watch since its access point was not ultimately destroyed.
The machines pin us down fairly quickly, forcing us to duck behind some mounds of rubble. We exchange fire, but we’re vastly outnumbered. They’re advancing, and I know from past experience we won’t be able to hold them for long.
I touch my comm like I’m thumbing a rosary. And I wait. Come on…
Aha! Now that we’re close to the bulk of the machine’s forces, there’s hope that the signal might be playing, but it isn’t until I see wardens on the field, hollow facsimiles of myself, that I feel a comfortable certainty when I open the channel.
Static sings into my ears like an old lullaby.
And I disappear.
“It’s working,” I tell Camus, holding onto his sleeve. Already my vision has begun to clash with the perspectives of every machine in my immediate vicinity, giving me a full-point layout of the battlefield. Now comes the hard part. Before, I was controlling only a few machines, and not entirely consciously. I’m not sure what I want to do here is even possible—but that’s never stopped me before.
I gesture like a conductor to see if my own movements correspond to those of the machines. There’s no one-for-one ratio, given our differing physiology, and it takes me another few minutes to not only get my bearings but to discover that I can control them without a series of gestures. It’s as easy as sending a mental command through our connection. There aren’t any firewalls to worry about here because I’m already inside.
“Come on,” I hear Camus say to the others. “She’s giving us our opening. Let’s move!”
I pull the machine’s forces back, turning them on the New Soviets and resistance stragglers—not to kill them, but merely to occupy them. When a machine is picked off by EMP-Gs or traditional gunfire, it registers like a blink across my consciousness.
My pain comes from a different source. The human mind wasn’t meant to mesh with machines like this, not without a lot more physical and mental prep. I feel my nose starting to bleed on my upper lip, but I’m committed.
I let Camus guide me through the wreckage of Menlo Park by the arm. He warns me about potential hazards, notes when to pick my feet up higher, but I still trip a couple times, struggling over the uneven terrain.
“You’re doing great,” he tells me, his voice cutting through the haze of conflicting inputs like it has priority override. “We’re almost there.”
I smile, but it’s too difficult to form words on top of holding onto the machines. They don’t fight back, but I can sense another presence coming alongside me, like a snake slithering across my leg. The higher echelon knows I’m in here.
I’m afraid to ‘look’ directly at the entity, afraid of what I’ll see, but more afraid that it will see me, like the freaking Eye of Sauron. Suddenly I have a great deal more sympathy for Frodo, though I was always more of an Aragorn gal, myself.
At the same time a nearby explosion takes out several of my units, heat lifts me off my feet, launching me backwards. It takes seconds for me to understand that it’s my physical body—mine—that is in danger as I cough and sputter in the midst of sudden smoke.
Two sets of arms pull me back onto my feet. “Got her?” I hear Camus ask.
“Yeah, I’ve got her,” Benji says.
They work together on opposites sides of me to get me the rest of the way to the facility. I can tell when we transition into the building as the skin of my cheeks grows noticeably cooler. Are the air systems still functional? They must be in order to keep whatever equipment is here still functioning.
“Is everyone in?” I ask.
“Mostly,” Camus says.
“Mostly? What does that mean? Who’s not here?”
“A few people didn’t make it. There’s no one to wait for,” Camus says, and though I understand why he’s withholding names, to spare my feelings, I hate that anyone on this team has been reduced to being just ‘people.’ “You can shut it off.”
I close the channel on my comm, but instead of the immediate relief of coming back into myself I remain blind for a few moments, unable to see anything at all. I think, okay, maybe it’s just really dark. But the darkness is absolute; I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. And worse, my entire body feels wrong. I panic, convinced I’ve forgotten how to breathe, and it takes the pressure of Camus’s embrace to calm me back down.
“I still can’t see,” I whisper to Camus, leaning heavily on him. But we can’t wait for me to get my shit together, and so I tell the team through gritted teeth, “Keep going. Get to the control center.”
The world starts to filter back slowly. My mind regathers itself, begins to knit an understanding of my physical body back together. I can see again, enough to feel horror at imagining Snow and Lefevre living in this godawful place for weeks. Part of me still hopes they escaped, somehow. That Lefevre recovered enough to leave on his own power and we won’t find them down here.
No such luck as it regards Snow. We find her outside the console room, which doesn’t leave much room to hope for Orpheus. It seems like she tried to save them both in the end, some instinct to survive and protect kicking in at the last. I misjudged her, and it makes me wish I’d bothered to try and understand her better before sending her away. Some part of me knew I wasn’t really sending her to safety. It was merely to get her away from me so I could be at peace. But looking at her, dead on the ground… it isn’t peace I feel, but regret.
I almost turn the signal back on, just to lose the horrible sight in front of me. But that would be selfish. I’m partly responsible for her fate, and I’ll have to live with that the same as everything else.
We’ve just begun to break into the console room when I hear the sound of harsh breathing and a pipe comes at my head. I duck in time to avoid being knocked out and instinctively rush my attacker, meeting what feels like a solid wall. It topples, taking me down with it.
“Rhona?” the wall says in a deep, familiar timbre.
I stare down at Orpheus Lefevre, whose features are largely lost in the forest of a heavy beard. “Orpheus?” I hesitate on his name, mindful of the last time I thought I’d believed I recognized a friend.
He breaks into a smile first and then erupts into an almost manic laugh. I feel its rumble where my hands are propped against his chest. “You came,” he finally manages to say through laughter and tears.
As I scramble off Lefevre, Camus helps him up. Or tries to. Lefevre’s leg is badly broken, although not from our tumble. This must be one of the injuries he sustained that prevented him and Snow from easily evacuating the facility.
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” I say as Camus helps him to sit down against the wall.
“Another day,” he says, “and you would have found two corpses. Do you have any water?”
Elle comes forward with a small canteen and helps him drink. In the meantime, Sanjay and Benji bar the door behind us. Several others remain even farther back as lookouts and first defense. I don’t know how much time we have to do whatever it is we need to in order to get Glasgow up and running. I cede the task to Jo and to one of Glasgow’s physical analogs.
Under their combined expertise, the room comes alive. Lights and screens that have been dormant for years suddenly spring on, casting us all in a dull green boot-up glow. Thanks to Snow and Lefevre’s efforts, the interior of the console room is devoid of lethal machines, providing the perfect base of operations for this moment.
“Is he going to be okay?” I direct my question to Elle since she’s our resident medic and not to Lefevre, as he seems to be struggling to keep his eyes open.
“He needs medical attention. Until we can get him back to the boat, it’ll be best if he rests. I think I saw a room with some cots on this level, probably leftover from when the engineers needed to take breaks. Do you mind?”
“Please,” I gesture for her to take Lefevre. For being so slight, Elle is surprisingly strong, and has no trouble helping Lefevre out of the console room.
With Lefevre being looked after, I turn my attention back to the task at hand. “How long until Glasgow takes control?” I ask Jo.
“If everything goes according to plan, it could be as quickly as seconds.”
“And if it doesn’t go according to plan?”
But Jo doesn’t dignify my pessimistic question with a response. Fair enough. No point in dealing with what ifs at the moment. We’re here. There’s no going back now.
“We’ve got another friendly incoming, over,” I hear over the comm from one of our sentries. Even though I just saw her body outside, for a moment I think maybe it’s Snow. But then the voice adds, “It looks like Doctor Lewis.”
No. Samuel, what are you doing? “Can you confirm if it’s the doctor or not?” I ask, surprisingly calm sounding. How would Samuel have even gotten to shore?
And then I remember how my implant started working again. The effects of the EMP-G must have worn off or they used some auxiliary power I wasn’t aware of to bring the hydrofoil to shore. But that doesn’t explain how he managed to get across an entire battlefield full of machines…
Unless they’re all working together.
Unless he was right about the higher echelon listening to him.
“Should I send him down?” the voice asks.
“Yes,” I say before I can think better of it.
Camus gives me a worried look. “Is this some sort of backup plan I haven’t been made aware of?”
I bite my lip. “Let’s hope that’s all it is.”
Camus continues to press. “What’s been going on between you two? I’ve barely seen you two together in the past few weeks. You didn’t want him joining us on this mission, and now he shows up and you have no clue why. Did you have a fight?”
I don’t have either the time or desire to rehash my troubles with Samuel, so I’m grateful when Jo interrupts. “Glasgow is in,” she says. “He’s working through the higher echelon’s firewalls now.”
“How long?” I ask.
“A minute,” she says. “Two, at most. If the other machinists are successful, it will be a multi-pronged attack. The higher echelon will have nowhere to hide. It will have to fight for its survival.”
“I’m a scientist, Rhon. I have to look at the raw facts. I’m just asking you to consider an alternate option. No more people have to die today. If you let me try talking to it—”
I hold up a hand, cutting him off for the final time. My voice is firm. “The higher echelon didn’t consider alternatives before wiping out the countries of the world. I’m going to destroy it, Samuel. That’s it. If Glasgow is the weapon I have to use to do it, then I will.”
As I walk away from him my eyes burn, but I can’t cry. This plan is already risky enough without everyone worrying about me keeping my shit together.
Samuel follows me as I head for the stairs to go above deck. “No,” I tell him savagely, like I’m trying to get a dog to stay. “You’ve shown where your loyalties lie.”
Samuel looks hurt, but there’s also something resolved in his posture. Steel has replaced his insecurity. What exactly did he see in Portland to change his mind so thoroughly? I’ve felt him pulling away from me for a while, but now I worry I’m not strong enough to survive the final split.
“I’m coming,” I hear him say from behind me. “You’ll have to chain me to the ship if you want to stop me.”
“Don’t tempt me.” I grip the stair railing but move out of the way to let others pass.
“I can help,” he insists in a rushed and passionate tone. “If it comes down to a confrontation with the higher echelon, maybe I can speak for us. It used the technology I helped design to accomplish its goal of creating a new, non-violent version of humanity. When I bargained for Ximena’s life, it listened. Sort of. It might listen now.”
“You had to bargain for Ximena’s life?” That’s news to me. The bad kind. “And what exactly did you give up in this bargain, Samuel?”
His mouth flattens to a guilty line. But he doesn’t say.
I shake my head, casting my gaze to the ceiling to avoid having to look at him. If I look at him, my resolve will crumble. He has already broken my heart in multiple places, and I don’t think it could withstand another blow. “You’re not coming. Final answer. This is bigger than whatever problems we’re having right now, bigger than our personal feelings.”
“You really don’t trust me,” Samuel says, a note of heartbreak entering his voice.
“No,” I whisper, “Right now, I really don’t.”
I leave him to head abovedeck with the others and immediately notice the change in atmosphere. Everything isn’t merely more tense; it borders on outright hectic. Something’s happened. Something else.
Camus spots me and summons me to the wheelhouse with an urgent wave. That can’t be good.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask even before I’m through the door. “Wait,” I suddenly realize, “Why aren’t we moving?”
“EMP,” Camus says. “Probably from the New Soviets, though it’s hard to say for certain. There was a lot of chatter over the channels right before and not all of it in Russian. There might be other leftover resistance factions arriving too.”
“We have to get there first,” I say. If the resistance factions reach the facility, they’ll destroy it to be safe. So long any chance of uploading Glasgow.”
“We’re working on a fix right now.”
“Oh, no.” I suddenly realize the implications of a city-wide EMP device going off, close enough to stop the boat. “My implant.”
Jo and Camus exchange a look with each other and then me.
No easy solutions today after all.
I take a deep breath. “Guess we’re doing this the old-fashioned way,” I say. At least until my implant starts working again, and who knows if that’ll be in time. “Get the lifeboat ready. I’ll swim to shore if I have to, but let’s try and avoid that, yeah?”
Twenty-One
Palo Alto as a city no longer exists. The New Soviets’ missile saw to that. Everything has been leveled, nothing taller than a fruit stand left standing. I think Snow is right. This is what the higher echelon wanted. They used us for their dirty work. It accomplished everything in one fell swoop, including very nearly taking me out in Calgary. Almost a megalomaniacal hat trick.
On the one hand, the lack of buildings doesn’t leave us much in the way of cover as we approach by lifeboat, but at least it’s also a fairly straight path to Menlo Park once we’re ashore. I’m trying to find the silver lining here, but I can’t even make out the shape of clouds. Everything is gray: the ground, the sky. I think it might even rain. Fitting.
Thunder in the distance confirms that opinion—or maybe that sound is mortar fire? Doubtless human ground forces have engaged the enemy. They could have been battling here for the past few days, and it’s unlikely we would have noticed if they weren’t broadcasting on any main channels. Oakland is a stone’s throw away from Palo Alto by car, but on foot it might as well be in the next state.
My steps send up little clouds of ash as we make our way ashore. The grit that crunches under our feet is all that’s left of people’s homes and businesses. So much has been completely destroyed that not even the shape of what it was before remains.
“This is it,” I find myself murmuring before I can think of what I’m about to say next. Everyone has turned to look at me. I know they’re expecting some grand speech to rally their morale. A Rhona Long special. But I don’t give speeches anymore. I’d rather save the air in my lungs for the action that’s coming. “We’ve got one shot at the king. Let’s make it count.”
This has the feeling of being back in Portland, but after its destruction. I can’t help thinking about McKinley. Is this what the base also looks like now? An ashen heap laying inside the shell of a broken mountain? But I force those pictures out of my mind. I can’t help anyone there now. But I can make it so that the machines never hurt anyone else again.
I test the small comm device I’ve strapped to my chest. It almost looks like a bomb vest. But although the comm has started to work, I can’t find the signal. Maybe the higher echelon isn’t broadcasting right now. That thought hadn’t even occurred to me. We’re far away from where its main army is. Maybe it doesn’t need the signal here.
“Anything?” Camus asks me, hearing the static and assuming it’s the signal.
“Nothing yet. I’ll keep trying.”
“I know you will.” He smiles at me, and I return it, a little more wearily. I don’t know what’s going to happen to either of us after today—if we’ll survive, if we’ll succeed in making survival even worth it.
He sweeps me into a quick hug, pressing a kiss to my forehead, and then we set out alongside the other machinists, picking our way as quickly and as carefully as we can across the ruined city. As always, running toward the sound of danger, instead of away from it.
Periodically, I check the comm. The irony that technology may now offer us a true path to victory doesn’t escape me. Everything that I thought was wrong about me may be exactly what we need to win.
Part of me still wishes I could have been able to deliver that last broadcast to the New Soviets, but the electromagnetic pulse put an end to that possibility. In any event, I now recognize that hunger for attention, for glory and recognition, is only the leftovers of a life I thought I needed to live. Commander Long’s life. This may end up being the greatest gift I can give to humanity instead—not by making loud claims, but through quiet action.
Not far into our push into the city, we come under attack by machines. There are dozens of them, all predator-class. I’m a little surprised the higher echelon was able to muster this large of a force this quickly, but maybe I shouldn’t be. If it was anticipating the first attack on Palo Alto, it probably moved all of its ground forces out of the area beforehand. Maybe it has been surveilling the area since, keeping watch since its access point was not ultimately destroyed.
The machines pin us down fairly quickly, forcing us to duck behind some mounds of rubble. We exchange fire, but we’re vastly outnumbered. They’re advancing, and I know from past experience we won’t be able to hold them for long.
I touch my comm like I’m thumbing a rosary. And I wait. Come on…
Aha! Now that we’re close to the bulk of the machine’s forces, there’s hope that the signal might be playing, but it isn’t until I see wardens on the field, hollow facsimiles of myself, that I feel a comfortable certainty when I open the channel.
Static sings into my ears like an old lullaby.
And I disappear.
“It’s working,” I tell Camus, holding onto his sleeve. Already my vision has begun to clash with the perspectives of every machine in my immediate vicinity, giving me a full-point layout of the battlefield. Now comes the hard part. Before, I was controlling only a few machines, and not entirely consciously. I’m not sure what I want to do here is even possible—but that’s never stopped me before.
I gesture like a conductor to see if my own movements correspond to those of the machines. There’s no one-for-one ratio, given our differing physiology, and it takes me another few minutes to not only get my bearings but to discover that I can control them without a series of gestures. It’s as easy as sending a mental command through our connection. There aren’t any firewalls to worry about here because I’m already inside.
“Come on,” I hear Camus say to the others. “She’s giving us our opening. Let’s move!”
I pull the machine’s forces back, turning them on the New Soviets and resistance stragglers—not to kill them, but merely to occupy them. When a machine is picked off by EMP-Gs or traditional gunfire, it registers like a blink across my consciousness.
My pain comes from a different source. The human mind wasn’t meant to mesh with machines like this, not without a lot more physical and mental prep. I feel my nose starting to bleed on my upper lip, but I’m committed.
I let Camus guide me through the wreckage of Menlo Park by the arm. He warns me about potential hazards, notes when to pick my feet up higher, but I still trip a couple times, struggling over the uneven terrain.
“You’re doing great,” he tells me, his voice cutting through the haze of conflicting inputs like it has priority override. “We’re almost there.”
I smile, but it’s too difficult to form words on top of holding onto the machines. They don’t fight back, but I can sense another presence coming alongside me, like a snake slithering across my leg. The higher echelon knows I’m in here.
I’m afraid to ‘look’ directly at the entity, afraid of what I’ll see, but more afraid that it will see me, like the freaking Eye of Sauron. Suddenly I have a great deal more sympathy for Frodo, though I was always more of an Aragorn gal, myself.
At the same time a nearby explosion takes out several of my units, heat lifts me off my feet, launching me backwards. It takes seconds for me to understand that it’s my physical body—mine—that is in danger as I cough and sputter in the midst of sudden smoke.
Two sets of arms pull me back onto my feet. “Got her?” I hear Camus ask.
“Yeah, I’ve got her,” Benji says.
They work together on opposites sides of me to get me the rest of the way to the facility. I can tell when we transition into the building as the skin of my cheeks grows noticeably cooler. Are the air systems still functional? They must be in order to keep whatever equipment is here still functioning.
“Is everyone in?” I ask.
“Mostly,” Camus says.
“Mostly? What does that mean? Who’s not here?”
“A few people didn’t make it. There’s no one to wait for,” Camus says, and though I understand why he’s withholding names, to spare my feelings, I hate that anyone on this team has been reduced to being just ‘people.’ “You can shut it off.”
I close the channel on my comm, but instead of the immediate relief of coming back into myself I remain blind for a few moments, unable to see anything at all. I think, okay, maybe it’s just really dark. But the darkness is absolute; I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. And worse, my entire body feels wrong. I panic, convinced I’ve forgotten how to breathe, and it takes the pressure of Camus’s embrace to calm me back down.
“I still can’t see,” I whisper to Camus, leaning heavily on him. But we can’t wait for me to get my shit together, and so I tell the team through gritted teeth, “Keep going. Get to the control center.”
The world starts to filter back slowly. My mind regathers itself, begins to knit an understanding of my physical body back together. I can see again, enough to feel horror at imagining Snow and Lefevre living in this godawful place for weeks. Part of me still hopes they escaped, somehow. That Lefevre recovered enough to leave on his own power and we won’t find them down here.
No such luck as it regards Snow. We find her outside the console room, which doesn’t leave much room to hope for Orpheus. It seems like she tried to save them both in the end, some instinct to survive and protect kicking in at the last. I misjudged her, and it makes me wish I’d bothered to try and understand her better before sending her away. Some part of me knew I wasn’t really sending her to safety. It was merely to get her away from me so I could be at peace. But looking at her, dead on the ground… it isn’t peace I feel, but regret.
I almost turn the signal back on, just to lose the horrible sight in front of me. But that would be selfish. I’m partly responsible for her fate, and I’ll have to live with that the same as everything else.
We’ve just begun to break into the console room when I hear the sound of harsh breathing and a pipe comes at my head. I duck in time to avoid being knocked out and instinctively rush my attacker, meeting what feels like a solid wall. It topples, taking me down with it.
“Rhona?” the wall says in a deep, familiar timbre.
I stare down at Orpheus Lefevre, whose features are largely lost in the forest of a heavy beard. “Orpheus?” I hesitate on his name, mindful of the last time I thought I’d believed I recognized a friend.
He breaks into a smile first and then erupts into an almost manic laugh. I feel its rumble where my hands are propped against his chest. “You came,” he finally manages to say through laughter and tears.
As I scramble off Lefevre, Camus helps him up. Or tries to. Lefevre’s leg is badly broken, although not from our tumble. This must be one of the injuries he sustained that prevented him and Snow from easily evacuating the facility.
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” I say as Camus helps him to sit down against the wall.
“Another day,” he says, “and you would have found two corpses. Do you have any water?”
Elle comes forward with a small canteen and helps him drink. In the meantime, Sanjay and Benji bar the door behind us. Several others remain even farther back as lookouts and first defense. I don’t know how much time we have to do whatever it is we need to in order to get Glasgow up and running. I cede the task to Jo and to one of Glasgow’s physical analogs.
Under their combined expertise, the room comes alive. Lights and screens that have been dormant for years suddenly spring on, casting us all in a dull green boot-up glow. Thanks to Snow and Lefevre’s efforts, the interior of the console room is devoid of lethal machines, providing the perfect base of operations for this moment.
“Is he going to be okay?” I direct my question to Elle since she’s our resident medic and not to Lefevre, as he seems to be struggling to keep his eyes open.
“He needs medical attention. Until we can get him back to the boat, it’ll be best if he rests. I think I saw a room with some cots on this level, probably leftover from when the engineers needed to take breaks. Do you mind?”
“Please,” I gesture for her to take Lefevre. For being so slight, Elle is surprisingly strong, and has no trouble helping Lefevre out of the console room.
With Lefevre being looked after, I turn my attention back to the task at hand. “How long until Glasgow takes control?” I ask Jo.
“If everything goes according to plan, it could be as quickly as seconds.”
“And if it doesn’t go according to plan?”
But Jo doesn’t dignify my pessimistic question with a response. Fair enough. No point in dealing with what ifs at the moment. We’re here. There’s no going back now.
“We’ve got another friendly incoming, over,” I hear over the comm from one of our sentries. Even though I just saw her body outside, for a moment I think maybe it’s Snow. But then the voice adds, “It looks like Doctor Lewis.”
No. Samuel, what are you doing? “Can you confirm if it’s the doctor or not?” I ask, surprisingly calm sounding. How would Samuel have even gotten to shore?
And then I remember how my implant started working again. The effects of the EMP-G must have worn off or they used some auxiliary power I wasn’t aware of to bring the hydrofoil to shore. But that doesn’t explain how he managed to get across an entire battlefield full of machines…
Unless they’re all working together.
Unless he was right about the higher echelon listening to him.
“Should I send him down?” the voice asks.
“Yes,” I say before I can think better of it.
Camus gives me a worried look. “Is this some sort of backup plan I haven’t been made aware of?”
I bite my lip. “Let’s hope that’s all it is.”
Camus continues to press. “What’s been going on between you two? I’ve barely seen you two together in the past few weeks. You didn’t want him joining us on this mission, and now he shows up and you have no clue why. Did you have a fight?”
I don’t have either the time or desire to rehash my troubles with Samuel, so I’m grateful when Jo interrupts. “Glasgow is in,” she says. “He’s working through the higher echelon’s firewalls now.”
“How long?” I ask.
“A minute,” she says. “Two, at most. If the other machinists are successful, it will be a multi-pronged attack. The higher echelon will have nowhere to hide. It will have to fight for its survival.”
