Superluminal Read online

  Oh, no. The walls are glowing again. It’s getting hot in here. What have they done to us now ? Aren’t you going to do anything, you fool?

  Sandburg says to wait and see.

  Easy for him to say; he’s not at the complete mercy of—oh my God, he’s firing. We’re firing!

  It seemed as if the whole surface of Cloudship Sandburg lit up and just pumped out a bolt of power! Have a look at that, ladies and gentlemen—out the window there—that DIED ship is damaged. It’s the Samsam .

  We’re glowing in here again. Be careful, will you, you’re going to deplete yourself just like those DIED ships, and then where will you be…

  Oh. It seems that cloudships don’t work the same way as the DIED ships. They can’t get “depleted” nearly as fast. It has something to do with those “effects” I was telling you about earlier, ladies and gentlemen.

  So, we’re going to win?

  Problem. The DIED ships have something called an isotropic coating, which Sandburg doesn’t possess. Makes the fight pretty even. Seems that we’ve got to shoot them a lot more to do the same damage as—

  We’re hit again! We’re hit again! And my goddamn leg just rebroke, and—Sandburg’s rounding on the Mapplethorpe. He’s firing back.

  And another shot at the Samsam. And another. And another.

  Ladies and gentlemen, we’re in the shit!

  Sandburg’s moving in close to the Samsam . Careful, his cannon are up to power, aren’t they? Shouldn’t you—

  I’ve got a mouthful of rocks to spit out, Sandburg says. More than any DIED ship could possibly carry.

  And they’re away! Have a look at that, people. It’s a spew of matter. Some of them must be icy, because they’re trailing streamers…strange, not behind, but to the side—Sandburg tells me its not from the momentum—we’re in space and there’s no drag, after all—it’s from Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Looks like a wind is blowing over them from the side as they—Christ, the Samsam ’s firing her cannon!

  Didn’t hit us. The rocks blocked it! Took out a big chunk of the rocks, but Sandburg says not enough. Not enough for what?

  Oh.

  Oh my.

  Intensify that, ladies and gentlemen. The Samsam ’s hit. She’s hurt badly. Have a look at that glow toward the rear.

  There she goes. The Samsam ’s a fireball. White-hot, antimatter annihilation, out of control, out of control! My God, my God, the destruction. The destruction of it—

  But we’re turning around, we’re rounding, and—

  There’s the Mapplethorpe. Hang on. Moderate intensity, ladies and gentlemen. Especially you children. I think it’s going to—I think it’s going to—

  Shit, oh fuck, I’m going to die, I’m going to die in this godforsaken place, instead of on Ganymede in my nice apartment, and the fuzzy room, my special fuzzy room those assholes took when they invaded, it’s not my fault I was on Callisto covering another one of those Free Grange idiots lecturing us all on collective action, like we don’t know the Met wants our asses in a sling and our tits exposed for milking, hello, we’re not fools, you smug bigots, oh shit, I’m going to die, I’m going to die thinking about Free Granger swineheads instead of Ron’s cock, Ron’s cock, and now he’s with some free-convert bitch, some tagion slut, and I promised myself to go out remembering sex, thinking about Ron’s—oh my God, I can’t remember what his dick felt like inside me anymore!

  You bastard, to break up with me just because…just because I wasn’t a tagion—

  Oh.

  My.

  Ladies and gentlemen, we took quite a hit, but I’m alive. We’re alive, here, I think.

  Oh God. How embarrassing. Sorry about that—my head got banged pretty hard against a bulkhead here and it seems to have taken my consciousness barriers off-line for a moment. Really, I apologize for that, ladies and gentlemen. This is a family show, I realize. Just. Sorry. Anyway, we seem to be alive, and—

  Sandburg says the Mapplethorpe has deployed something…some kind of field of grist…and the percussion from that Samsam explosion is pushing up right toward it, and he can’t course-correct in time, with his power down from that direct hit, and—

  We’re in the grist now, ladies and gentlemen. The military grist deployed by the Mapplethorpe. Not sure what’s going to happen. Everything’s …everything gotten quiet.

  The interior is very quiet now.

  Sandburg says the grist feels like nasty stuff. He says—

  Sandburg?

  Sandburg?

  Are you there, Sandburg?

  That’s strange. The walls are changing color. Normally they’re a pale blue, with a steady glow from the ceiling, but now they’re…they look inflamed, in a way. Like a skin infection. Turning pinkish. Red.

  Veins of purple, like the color of a bruise, running through everything. Through.

  Oh Christ. Through my hand. Up my arm. Christ, what is it? What—

  Ron’s dick. We were so good together. Why did he have to leave me for that convert whore, that—oh, forget it. Oh God. I’m all purple. This is it, I’m—

  Ron’s dick.

  Initiate autodestruction sequence for biologic unit. Code 687. Feed initiated. Answer back, answer back: 32vwLx99. Interrupt 7A7: Quantum broadcast detected. If-then feed worm 98-niner. Feed 989 initiated. ES established. Worm feed:

  “People of the outer system, this is Director Amés speaking to you through your own merci channel. As you see, resistance is futile. You must surrender immediately or face complete destruction. Only in surrender can peace and order be found. I bid you adieu.”

  Feed complete. Connection remains open.

  Code 687 reestablished.

  Feed biologic destruct chain. Prepare to cycle.

  Cycle.

  Destroy.

  Five

  Defend gristlock at all costs. Those were the orders for Carkey’s platoon. Simple, really. Depending on your interpretation of “at all costs.” Carkey had a feeling it was the rigorous meaning that was implied.

  Carkey sneaked a peek around the bulkhead behind which he was sheltering and let off another two-second round from his handgun. He couldn’t stretch his arm all the way out into rifle position, and his fire was inaccurate.

  Nearby, Dowon was bleeding to death. She’d taken a fragment of a grist grenade. Her own pellicle was fighting the effects of the DIED military grist. But all its resources were taken up with this, and the shrapnel itself had dug into her gut and nicked an artery. Her internal repair system couldn’t stanch the flow. If it released its death hold on the grist-mil, she’d be turned to primordial slime immediately. It was pretty much a no-win situation.

  “Hang in there, Dowon,” Carkey called out. “I’m still with you.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Dowon weakly. “Sure. I’m hanging.”

  Carkey let loose an arm rocket down the corridor he was defending. He heard a dull thump, then a cry of pain. Sounded male. There was a flash of light, and the voice was cut off in midscream. He’d never know. It wasn’t his first kill, though. He’d passed that threshold at least ten bodies ago.

  I guess I found something I don’t suck at. I wish I sucked at it. Dear God, I’d rather be good at electrical engineering. Or anything else.

  Then a grenade rolled down the hall, and he knew he was in the shit. He ducked back, grabbed Dowon by the collar of her uniform, and dragged her through an accessway into the gristlock proper. He ordered the door to slam behind him. On the other side, he heard the grenade explode. Shit, how had they gotten so close? He’d thought he was keeping them out of throwing range.

  A thump at the door. Another. They were trying to take the gristlock. Carkey looked around. Dowon had used all her grenades and rockets. She had a few more rounds of ammo. What did he have? A couple remaining grenades. No more arm rockets. Projectile ammunition…low. He stripped what he could from Dowon and reloaded his bracelets. In doing so, he noticed she was dead. No time for…What else to fight with?

  All this gri
st.

  He reached out and felt the edge of it. The command and control center of the entire complex. The virtuality was housed within. All the free converts resided here.

  “Help.”

  Someone was calling him.

  “What?”

  “We can’t get out.”

  It was the free converts inside the grist.

  “Something is blocking the merci outside the Capacitor area. We’re isolated. We can’t flash free. We can’t get out.”

  In all the fighting, Carkey hadn’t once checked to see if the outside world still existed. For the hell of it, he tuned in to one of his old haunts, Beridianne’s Juice Bar, a lowkey virtual bordello found among the porn channels.

  He drew a blank.

  It was unsettling. Hell, it was unprecedented. The merci was always there. The virtuality didn’t disappear. Was the whole world destroyed?

  “They’ve figured out how to jam us,” said the voice inside the gristlock. “It happened on Triton. Now it’s happening here. We can’t copy ourselves out. We’ve retreated as far as we can. If they get in, they’ll be able to do what they want with us.”

  “How many of you are there?” Carkey asked.

  “Ten thousand nine hundred fifty-seven.”

  Eleven thousand people. Shit.

  “Am I the only goddamn Federal Army left?” he said. “Who are you , anyway?”

  “Assistant Mayor Mathaway,” said the free convert. “Most of the Federal Army’s been confined to the east wing, with heavy fighting. DIED has isolated the grist-lock. Somebody knew what they were after.”

  Double shit. He was the only one.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “We’ll help. Give us your remaining grenades. We can merge with them and replicate their instructions to most of the gristlock. We’ll swarm the DIED soldiers when they enter.”

  The gristlock looked like an encrusted carbuncle, a diamond in the rough, standing about ten feet tall and six feet wide in the middle of the chamber. It came to a point at top and bottom, where it connected to the floor and ceiling. Carkey unhitched his remaining grenades and set them at the base of the carbuncle.

  “Should I set them to detonate or something?” he asked.

  “That won’t be necessary. Take cover, though. We’re not sure if this will work…”

  Carkey looked around. Take cover where? The only shield in the room was Dowon’s body. He decided to stand where he was. As he looked on, the grenades dissolved into the side of the gristlock until only slight protrusions remained.

  “Got it,” said Mathaway in his ear. “Replicating.”

  A louder thump at the door. The door was heavily armored. They must be throwing some extremely powerful shit at it.

  A reverberating boom. Shit. Take cover. He threw himself behind the gristlock carbuncle.

  Another explosion. The door shook off its hinges, and fell inward. Three DIED soldiers entered.

  The floor rose up, like an animated fungus, to meet them. It surfed over them, and swallowed them whole.

  Fuck. I’m glad that shit’s on my side. Still, better stay off that side of the room.

  Several grenades came in. They stuck in the undulating floor, were surrounded. Little flashes of physical explosion, and whatever grist they contained was quickly overcome by the immensely more powerful algorithms of the gristlock free converts.

  Bloody carnage in the hall as the grist flooring crested, about five meters out in the hall. And then it withdrew. It took enormous power to animate this much grist directly, and the room had grown many degrees hotter from the sheer mechanical friction overcome. Leaving one DIED trooper.

  Mathaway spoke in Carkey’s ear. “We’ve exhausted our resources. We’ve got the algorithms, but the physical power to move the grist has to be recharged. It will take several minutes, and there are more DIED forces on the way. Many more.”

  “Well, that was pretty good, what you did.”

  “Not enough, I’m afraid. And it cost the life of twenty-five of us.”

  “What should we do?”

  “If they capture us, they’ll take us to Silicon Valley,” said Mathaway.

  It was unverified—the death camp of free converts on Mars. But everyone knew how much Amés hated free converts. Maybe it was true.

  “For us, surrender is not an option,” said Mathaway. “For you, however—we think you should consider it.”

  No way. Should I? Hell no. Fuck that. I’ve been a goof-off all my life. Hell, even in the Army I found ways to do it. Those free converts just laid it on the line for me. I can do the same for them. It was as simple as that. Fuck yeah. Feels good.

  He reached around the carbuncle and fired a couple of rounds at the DIED trooper. The trooper pointed his arm at Carkey, but did not return fire.

  “Fuck,” the man yelled. “Fuck it.”

  He’s out. He’s out of ammo. One more five-round burst and so the fuck am I, though. Got to make it count. My positron pistol’s flat-lined. Nothing but five bullets. And then my bare hands.

  “Tell me when he’s peeking out from cover, so I can shoot him,” Carkey whispered to the grist.

  “All right,” said Mathaway. “We can do that. Stand by. And. There he is!”

  Carkey made a fist and squeezed off his remaining bullets.

  A yelp of pain and he knew he’d hit his target.

  Two deep, quick breaths. Out from cover. Down the hall. The man looks up at him with pain and fear in his eyes. But he’s not dead. Not by a long shot. Just caught him in the leg. Fuck.

  He dived at the man’s throat. Caught hold of it. But hands pulled at his arms. A fist drove into his Adam’s apple, and Carkey fell back, wheezing. With a roar, the other threw himself on Carkey, going for the eyes.

  The two men grappled, rolled on the floor, each seeking a hold, a grip. In the virtual space they shared, their converts were also struggling, skirmishing.

  How do you kill a man? Hit him. Swarm him. Bite him. Cut off his information flow. Choke him. Erase his memory. No holds barred. No mercy. This is life. This is death—

  Six

  Llosa knew he had to kill the man. The pain in his leg would have to wait. He felt the tendrils of the man’s pellicle attempting to invade his own, to wipe his memory. Wipe his family. Wipe his life.

  Everything depended on his killing the man. But the devil squirmed like a serpent. Broke his grip. And, make no mistake, the other wanted to kill him as much as Llosa desired to kill him. His grist was animated by sheer will to triumph.

  He set his teeth. Fought off the pellicular incursion.

  My will is strong, too.

  God, if he only had a knife. Risked a look around. Nothing sharp. But a piece of metal. Part of the rocket launcher. Reached. Fuck. The other pounded him in the chest. Got hold of his throat.

  Reach.

  Got it.

  With all his strength, Llosa slammed the metal rod against his attacker’s skull. The man’s grip slackened. Llosa pulled free, hit the man again and again.

  The other rolled away, lay bleeding, moaning.

  Llosa rose up, the metal rod in his hands. Up on his knees above the other. Brought down a blow, another. God, the blood was streaming from his thigh like a spring. Like a river. Another blow.

  The other looked up. Early twenties. Brown hair, brown skin.

  He looks like me.

  Llosa hit him in the face.

  But, distracted, he felt the other’s grist make another swarm attempt. The fremden was trying for Llosa’s leg. Oh shit. Weakness there. The nerve reporting the leg pain was turned off. Left unguarded. The other could use it…reverse the flow and—

  Stabbing, unspeakable pain in Llosa’s mind. Stabbing knife in his leg. But it wasn’t really in his leg. It was in his skull.

  He dropped the metal rod, reflexively grabbed at his leg.

  So much agony. Can’t think. Isolate that nerve. Destroy it if necessary. Can’t think. Can’t—

  The oth
er had the metal rod. Slowly pulling himself to his feet. Llosa was collapsed, writhing on the corridor floor.

  Got to control. Isolate. Burn.

  With a squeal of sheer agony, he used his own grist to destroy the nerve in his leg. It was the only way. The pain stopped.

  Llosa looked up. The fremden soldier stood over him with the metal rod.

  The two men’s eyes met.

  The other looked like a frightened animal.

  Like me.

  The other brought the rod down. Down like a stake. Plunged it in. Into. Llosa’s chest.

  Into the meat of the heart.

  Warning signals flashed in his peripheral vision.

  He looks up. The man is crying. He’s sobbing.

  Then surprise. Agony.

  Another face in view.

  Sergeant Folsom. Aschenbach beside her.

  Sergeant Folsom pulls a bloody knife from the fremden soldier’s back.

  The fremden soldier falls away.

  Llosa? Llosa, can you hear me?

  He nods. Smiles at her. He can hear, but it’s getting difficult to see.

  The face of the fremden. Right when he died. Llosa knew he’d seen it somewhere before. He knew that face, didn’t he? Oh, yes. Carta Bolsa. Hosetube. The surprise and anguish of his unsuspecting victims when he sprayed them and their living rooms with water.

  Don’t be upset. It’s all a prank. All a prank.

  A game kids play. Then they go home to supper. To the family to—

  Llosa, can you hear me?

  Mama?

  Seven

  THE RAIN AT MOUNT PELE

  We were at Mount Pele when the nail rain fell. We knew the DIED enforcers were coming; we expected invasion. We expected that we would fight and perhaps lose our fight. We thought about what that would mean for our jobs, our standard of living. We expected hard times ahead.