Chapter 7
THE REST OF THE NIGHT, dawn, and most of the morning passes on the digiglass roof before Old Woman appears again.
“No more bombs?” She’s cheerful as she shuffles into the room. Rested and refreshed, minor injuries from last night vanished beneath the medi-gel. Her white hair’s tied back into a ponytail today, only a few wisps loose. It makes her look a lot more composed.
“Not yet.”
“That’s the spirit.” She busies herself in the kitchen. Bacon and eggs again, I think. “Want some?”
“No.”
She shrugs to herself, unfazed, as I continue to study the old sat photos of the house I’ve found on the intranet.
I’ve made good use of the time up until now.
The first hour in particular, I spent Marking the aquarium intake, the door to the Loop, and the main entrance.
I rarely have occasion to use that particular cognitive rev, and the feel of it—the ongoing awareness of those locations, sitting in the back of my mind—is uncomfortable.
But if there are any breaches now, I’ll instantly know.
Judging from both the plans and my own inspection, the rest of the house is as secure as I’d expect for what is essentially a fancy underground bunker.
Everything from the food printer to the air recycler is self-contained, completely offline, and there are advanced contaminate detection systems on everything.
Old Woman’s concerns about bots means they’re not something I have to worry about, either.
I haven’t been able to examine the biosecurity without her present, of course, but everything else is about as tightly put together as I could hope.
What I haven’t found anywhere during my inspection is any clue as to who the hell my client really is.
There’s nothing particularly personal anywhere.
No screens playing memories of family or friends.
Nothing I could access on the intranet that indicated a past of any kind.
I wasn’t able to look in the room where Old Woman was sleeping, but unless she’s keeping all her personalisation in there, she’s done a surprisingly effective job of scrubbing herself from every surface.
Or, I suppose, never added anything of herself to the place to begin with.
“How’s your back?”
“Fine.” To allow for Marking the entrances, I had to drop the rev that lets me ignore pain, but the medi-gel had already done the majority of its work. My leg, on the other hand, is still aching like hell.
“I’m fine too, by the way,” Old Woman says sunnily, after a brief pause in which she was clearly waiting for me to ask.
“Good. As soon as you’re done eating, we need to look at your biosecurity.”
She waves her hand in lazy acknowledgement. A couple of minutes later she’s easing herself into the space across the table from me. I pretend to still be looking through the photos as her plate clinks on the glass.
“What’s your favourite colour, Azure?”
I pause. Brow creasing as I look up. “Pardon?”
“What. Is. Your. Favourite. Colour?” When I look at her with the very real bemusement I feel, she shrugs. “If you’re going to protect me, I want to know who you are.”
“That’s not…” I don’t even know what to say to that. “There are more important things to worry about, right now.”
“Not if you want that file, dear.” She returns my disbelieving look with an absent smile. “It’s a simple question.”
“I don’t know. Blue? Let’s say blue.” First thing that comes to mind. Favourite damned colour. It’s the sort of thing you ask a child, to make sure they know what the different colours are.
“Blue,” Old Woman repeats in a satisfied manner. “See? I suppose I could have guessed that, but still—now I know you a bit better. I feel a little more comfortable around you. And it cost you nothing.”
This entire stupid interaction is costing me seconds of my life I can never get back. “Sure.”
She chews a mouthful of breakfast as she contemplates me. “Favourite memory?”
“Killing a lifer a couple of nights ago. That was a lot of fun.” I rub my chin. “Killing any of them, really. They’re all good times.”
A disapproving look. “You need to be honest, remember?”
“And we need to take a look at your biosecurity if you want to stay alive.”
Old Woman pushes her plate aside. “Let’s go, then. But you’re not off the hook. You’re going to have to answer sooner or later.”
I don’t answer. Can’t help but wonder whether this crazy old lady really does have the information I want in that damned file, or this is all some elaborate scam.
But she knows something, that much is clear.
And I’ve looked for answers about Oceanus for four years.
I can withstand a little irritation for the chance.
We head for the main entrance. My cogs tingle as we climb the stairs and exit, that section of the back of my mind registering our passage as clearly as my eyes. “How big’s your EMP ring?”
“Twenty kilometres to the edge.”
We traipse past the volo pad. I’m silent as I calculate. “Seriously?” That’s large. Really, excessively large.
“Seriously.”
“How many bios do you have?”
She thinks. “A couple of hundred, maybe?”
I don’t say anything. It’s an absurd claim, an outright lie.
Even if they’re all small—and judging from the lion-giant yesterday, they’re not—there aren’t enough tokens in the world to buy that much biosecurity.
Not to mention that no one could hide the provision of it.
No security consultant, no matter how good, would be able to conceal that sort of job from my circles.
“Do you have a list?”
She taps her head. “Up here.”
Of course it is. “How many are Argos-class?” Generally considered to be the most effective killers. An assessment my still-painful leg wouldn’t argue.
She wrinkles her nose. “None. Disgusting creatures. And not smart enough to fend for themselves.”
We’re headed into the woods now, along a thin trail of packed dirt. Into the EMP ring, I’m guessing, though worryingly, there’s no clear delineation. I activate my revs. Even with the owner present, you don’t take chances with these things. “What do you mean, ‘fend for themselves’?”
“I mean you have to feed them. Clean them. They have no agency, no initiative.”
The fact she says it so casually only makes my unease all the deeper. “That’s… that’s how they work. They’re biomachinery. Single-function tools that need to be maintained. Not…pets.”
She smiles blithely at me, then stops as we enter a small clearing and cups her hands to her mouth. “Everyone! I have someone for you to meet!” Just yelling it into the air. No command word. Like she’s calling for friends to come and say hello.
My revs burn with warning.
I freeze. Everything’s still, but the entire sense of the forest has changed in an instant; I can feel things nearing, closing in on all sides. A cacophony of silent pressures in my head.
“Relax,” Old Woman says, evidently seeing me doing the exact opposite of that. “They won’t hurt you.”
The sky darkens, and I do not believe her.
The owllike creatures are first. Black wings three metres across.
Claws and wickedly curved beaks glinting.
Coalescing above us with a papery, scratching flutter before settling into the branches above.
Black eyes in white, masklike faces watching silently.
There are at least a dozen of them. I cannot imagine anything creepier.
Then come the snakes.
They’re huge. Really, upsettingly huge. Slithering not just along the ground but through the branches up above.
Hard to tell how many there are; they’re the colour of the leaves, giving the forest the impression that it’s crawling.
More abruptly poke up from the dirt. Heads the size of my hands clasped together.
They’ve burrowed to get here. Would my revs be able to detect them if they were right underneath my feet? I have no idea.
The bushes around us shake with movement.
I see glimpses of sleek, dark fur and teeth behind the leaves, enormous shadows.
Panthers, maybe? The monstrous lion, Richard, prowls calmly into view, rubbing up against Old Woman before settling at her feet with a rumbling growl-purr. The only one to fully reveal itself.
“What the hell is this?” I keep very still and my voice low.
I would even with standard bios, and these…
these are like nothing I’ve ever seen. Ever heard of.
They’re acting wary, too, hanging back in cover rather than obediently presenting themselves.
Much closer to wildlife, even if they’re still undoubtedly lab-bred.
“A new generation. Self-sufficient and intelligent.” Old Woman strokes Richard’s mane, as if unaware that her hand is one lazy chomp from being gone.
“They’re based on existing animals, which means they start with instincts rather than programming.
And they’re smart enough to work together in a network.
The Heds”—she gestures to the massive owls—“are the sentries. They’ll alert the others if someone comes inside the EMP ring, then trigger an alarm at the house so that I know, too. ”
I lick my lips. Resist the urge to rest my hand on my Ceramic. “They actually interact?”
“They do.” Warmth in Old Woman’s voice. Oddly proud of the fact. “And they can dynamically adjust. These ones here chose to escort us, but they wouldn’t have done that unless their areas were being covered. Their presence here won’t have left any holes in the perimeter.”
I know how biosecurity works, and what she’s saying is absurd. Yet she’s saying it with authority. Real confidence. “How do you tell them I’m not a threat?”
“They already know.” She looks around at our creepy audience. “Don’t you?”
A chorus of hisses and screeches and growls that one hundred percent sound like they want to eat me.
“See?”
My confidence is not improved. “Do they have a control phrase? Something to shut them down?”
“They don’t need one.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“It is here.” Old Woman doesn’t seem fazed by my agitation. “Freedom makes them happier and when they’re happier, they’re more effective. It’s just that most people don’t like the idea of them having any agency.”
Damned straight they don’t. “What if you need to let someone through without being physically here with them?”
“That’s a design flaw, dear, not a feature.” Her look says that I should know that. Which, I suppose, I do. It’s a single point of failure for an entire defensive system, one I’ve used several times before to great effect. Just something that most people would also consider necessary.
I shuffle beneath the eerie stares of the giant creatures I can see, and the imagined ones of those I can’t. Off-balance. “I haven’t seen anything like this before. I… I don’t even know how to begin assessing it for weaknesses.” Or to see whether Old Woman’s wild claims have even a grain of truth.
“Let’s have you run a test, then.” When I look at her blankly, she smiles. “Start from the outside, try your hand at getting through the ring yourself. I’ll tell them not to hurt you. You could give it a whirl this evening.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I think it’s a good idea. I’d also like to see exactly what I’m paying for.”
“You’re paying me for protection. Which I can’t do if I’m out there. Plus, I’m injured.”
Old Woman fixes me with a stern look. “A few hours won’t hurt. And you do want that file, don’t you, Azure?” Beside her, Richard stretches. Shows me his teeth in what feels like a deliberately hungry smile.
“Such a good idea,” I say weakly.