The Machinery Of Light Part 15

"In ten more seconds."

"Which is when-"

"You become the world's most intelligent automaton. A shame you won't be able to let me know how it feels."

"f.u.c.k you to the gates of d.a.m.nation-"

Frigid liquid closes in around her head.

They've entered the domain of gravity. Apparently this is the rotating part of the s.h.i.+p. They cross a bridge, and Linehan can't even see the bottom. Lynx isn't even looking. Linehan can only imagine how much wider of a purview that man must have. He always thought razors were sad, confined creatures who couldn't take the world and lived within themselves. Now he's realizing that they've got the only world worth having. Ayahuasca taught him that. That, and Spencer-who told him that for a razor, it was basically altered consciousness every time they jack in, that all life was just a s.h.i.+mmering of maya anyway-endless pixel fragments scattered down some endless well of dark. He can believe it. He's heard that back on Earth there are tribes that believe that by eating the bodies of their enemies they consume their souls. He feels like maybe that's what happened to his. He follows Lynx as that man leads the way into a vast chamber.

And then he sees what lines the walls.

"Oh dear G.o.d," he says.

"That's what they'll be calling me when this is all over," says Lynx.

One-third of the way to the Moon, Hammer of the Skies Hammer of the Skies is drawing within range of lunar artillery. It's starting to take increasing amounts of fire. It's not bothering to return the favor. is drawing within range of lunar artillery. It's starting to take increasing amounts of fire. It's not bothering to return the favor.

"The whites of their eyes are a long way off," says Sarmax.

But getting closer. The s.h.i.+p is starting to speed up slightly. Spencer feels his magnetic clamps gripping just a little bit tighter against the wall of the shaft they're crawling through. They're getting ever nearer to the hull, approaching a small room set against it, identical rooms set around it. Officer quarters-and Spencer's looking through the cameras at one officer in particular. He wears a major's stripes. He's sitting cross-legged, smiling very faintly. His eyes scare Spencer s.h.i.+tless.

You f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," says the Operative.

"We're just the errand boys," says Riley.

The opaque visor has slid aside. Sightless eyes stare up at him. The face of Claire Haskell is without expression. Her mouth is slightly open. She's breathing slowly.

"It's not her," says the Operative.

"Believe it or not," says Riley, "it is."

She dwelt underwater way too long. But then one day all that sea boiled away in an instant. Leaving only a voice.

That of Matthew Sinclair.

"Claire," he says. "Can you hear me?"

"I can," she replies.

She can feel him, too. His mental presence is very clear, totally unmistakable. Her mind can suddenly see straight through the mainframe in which she's captive, out beyond Montrose's base-out across the Cislunar, all the way to the L5 fleet and the s.h.i.+p that sits at its center. Sinclair's brain burns before her with the intensity of a firestorm, but all she can think of is a single question.

"Is this part of the interrogation, too?"

"A better word is by-product."

What the f.u.c.k is this?" asks Linehan.

"What does it look like?" says Lynx.

"I thought this wasn't a real colony s.h.i.+p."

"Guess it's got all the accessories."

Cryo-bays stretch around them. The sleepers are packed about as tight as possible. Their eyes are open. Their vital signs are checking out. Lynx walks over to one of them, rips a socket out of the wall. One set of vital signs flatlines.

"Let's get on with it," he says.

Thirty seconds," says Spencer. They're pulling themselves through s.p.a.ces barely wide enough to accomodate their armor. They're within the duct-system of the officer quarters now. The man's still sitting there, staring straight ahead. Spencer's hoping that this isn't some image that's been put there for his benefit. Even so, he's got a nasty feeling- "This guy's Autumn Rain," he says.

"You know that for a fact?" says Sarmax.

"I'm asking you you. I think you know-"

"I don't know s.h.i.+t," s.h.i.+t," snarls Sarmax. "Except that we gotta be ready for anything. Are my angles correct?" snarls Sarmax. "Except that we gotta be ready for anything. Are my angles correct?"

He's referring to the laser mounted on his shoulder; it's just swiveled, pointed downward at the wall ahead. But Spencer's the one with the blueprint.

"Burn it," he says, and Sarmax does just that.

What do you mean it's really her?" says the Operative.

"Now we got him excited," says Maschler.

"Now you got me wondering what kind of bulls.h.i.+t you're trying to f.u.c.king pull," pull," mutters the Operative. "There's no way that Montrose is so stupid as to turn the Manilis.h.i.+ over to Szilard." mutters the Operative. "There's no way that Montrose is so stupid as to turn the Manilis.h.i.+ over to Szilard."

"Unless?" asks Riley.

"There's no unless. That's not the Manilis.h.i.+-"

"Hold that thought," says Maschler.

The woman's eyes open.

I don't understand," says Haskell. don't understand," says Haskell.

"You don't have to," says Sinclair.

His face is coming into view now-the one she remembers from four days ago. Its eyes are wide. Its lips are parted. She feels herself being pulled in as though by an undertow-feels like she's already gone under.

"You broke into the InfoCom systems," she says.

"On the contrary," he says. "You broke out out."

Did you just kill that guy?" asks Linehan.

"He didn't feel a thing," says Lynx.

Linehan can believe it. None of the people around him seem to be aware of much. The corridor stretches away, sleepers racked every step of the way. Plastic medbeds, looking disconcertingly like trays, are stacked upon one another, ten per each two meters of corridor.

"Easier to think of them as meat," adds Lynx.

Sarmax vaults into the room; the camera-feed that Spencer's giving him merges seamlessly with what's actually sitting in the room, wearing the uniform of a major in Russian intelligence and the smile of a man who's way ahead of everything. Sarmax brings his guns to bear.

"Don't f.u.c.king move," he says.

"Glad you could make it," says the man.

Carson," says the woman.

The Operative stares at her. She sounds just like Haskell.

"Claire?" he says.

What the h.e.l.l's going on?" says Haskell.

"Exactly what I planned," says Sinclair.

"We're all just your puppets?"

"More like all just part of the pattern."

Meet the Martians," says Lynx, as he starts running jacks into the wires he's ripped from the walls. Linehan keeps an eye on the corridor while he does so, trying not to think about all those staring eyes ...

"What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?" he asks.

"That's where they thought they were going."

"What was the point of having them here on a wars.h.i.+p, then-of lying to them?"

Lynx shrugs. "To make the overall lie that much more convincing?"

Spencer drops from the duct into the room, takes in the scene. There's a buzz as Sarmax opens up the one-on-one.

"Who the f.u.c.k is this this?" he demands. But Spencer says nothing- "You don't recognize me?" asks the man.

"Should I?" asks Sarmax.

"Here's a hint: you killed me once already."

It's very simple," says the woman.

"I'll bet," says the Operative.

"I'm Claire," she says dreamily.

"You're on drugs," says the Operative.

"Are those two things so incompatible?"

"You're a clone," clone," he says. he says.

"Not quite," says Riley.

"You really want to discuss this in front of her?"

"Why not?" says the woman. "I'm at peace with it."

"With what?"

"Being G.o.d," she says.

Anything but that," says Haskell.

Sinclair laughs. "You think you're G.o.d?"

She's starting to wonder. Because all of a sudden her purview is stretching all the way to that shuttle in which Carson and Maschler and Riley are approaching Szilard's lair. The s.h.i.+p that contains the cargo that's made in her own image-the woman whose mind she's now inside. She can't control what that woman's saying. All she can do is watch.

Though she really doesn't want to.

"I think I'm going crazy," she tells Sinclair.

"Crazy enough to believe you're the one to judge the living and the dead?" He chuckles, and it's somehow almost obscene. "You're so much more than that that bulls.h.i.+t." bulls.h.i.+t."

"I just want to be a normal f.u.c.king human being."

"Your flesh is as close as you get to that."

"My flesh flesh is locked into a tank while a bodyless machine goes to town on it-" is locked into a tank while a bodyless machine goes to town on it-"

"Control? Let it keep on flailing away."

"But it's about to enslave me-"

"Again, you've got it backward."

Lynx has ripped out a panel of the wall. Wires link him to the electronics behind it. All the bodies around him are breathing except for one.

"So who was he?" asks Linehan.

"Who?"

"That guy you just killed."

"Luckless."

I'm Alek Jarvin," says the man.