“And how would you know, Warlord? You’re most familiar with one side of her—the officer, the caretaker.” The figure turns slightly, enough for her to see that it is featureless. Marble-smooth, from end to end. “Still, any version of her can be reproduced. Any dream you have may be brought to life. You could live the rest of your days in bliss. What does the world without have to do with you, after all?”
“If that is what I am after, there’s a multitude of ways to have it. Drugs. Virtuality. Or indeed a small army of AIs shaped to my liking, coded to my bidding.”
The mannequin regards her, its blank face putting on an impressionist smile. “But?”
“This is not my dream, either.” She keeps her eyes on the mannequin as she backs out of the room, but it does not follow or stop her.
The corridor terminates. A final door and a final test. Or a fatal one, to amuse the connected Deratchans. But she must play the part. This far on, no other option has appeared and she’s already deployed her secret. As long as she survives and is able to keep moving, an opening will present itself. Even now she still believes that, the guiding principle that has informed her life and which has allowed her to continue. No such thing as a true dead end. The Deratchan she suborned does not come with her.
She enters an expanse that goes on without end, in all directions. Pewter floor, a strange sky. Amidst all of this, two pieces of furniture: a modest nightstand and a bed to accompany it. Someone sleeps there, hidden beneath the sheets. Ovuha tries to make the figure out, but at this distance—and under that much cover—she can’t even tell if it is humanoid. Perhaps this time she will find a clone of herself, dead and decomposing, or animated with killing intent. To spring upon her, asphyxiate her with her own hands.
She approaches, still armed. She can contest a Deratchan proxy. They are not so fast as all that, or at least have been built so that they cannot outrace human reflexes.
Nothing leaps out at her. She is now close enough to see that the body is humanoid, the head turned away from her, with long undyed hair. Glossy, well-cared for. She waits a moment, though already she knows, before she touches the figure’s shoulder. Not a faceless mannequin, this time.
The Suzhen clone stirs and turns to her, rubbing its eyes. “Ovuha?”
“Yes.” Ovuha takes one step back, for good measure, one hand behind her and around the grip of a pistol. “Is that it then, I’m supposed to kill you and then I can go?”
The proxy glances at the exit, which has blended seamlessly into the wall. “You’re supposed to—what?”
“Yes,” Ovuha says again and waits, for some biting question, some honeyed temptation. But the creature only touches its face and shoves the blanket aside, then looks at her.
Suzhen’s replica exhales and shakes its head. “We have to get out of this place. How were you brought in? I came by shuttle.”
She looks down at the jasmines grown thick over her entire arm, a sleeve of holy ghosts. “This seems a convoluted script. Are you asking if I want to leave? Of course I would say yes, and then what? Punish me for it, stage for me an escape only to throw me back into my cell? Even for you—or Samsara—that seems more tedious than amusing.” The suborned Deratchan may address her as Architect but that may not mean anything. By now ze may have already been recalibrated by zer siblings, synchronized and reabsorbed. What ze’s done for her, the nodes on Anatta, may escape zer siblings’ attention—there is that, at least.
Still it continues its script, frowning up at her. “You’re acting odd. I’m glad you are alive, I thought…” It reaches out, tentative, then lets its hand fall. Quickly it pushes itself out of the bed, one hand brushing over its loose robe. “There’s so much I didn’t get to say to you. That I thought I never would get to. But that’ll have to wait.”
Ovuha doesn’t move. She feels, abruptly, stricken. But that must be the intended effect: to see whether she can shoot this one, a proxy that doesn’t just approximate but perfectly replicates. To test the tensile resilience of her attachment to Suzhen: whether Ovuha is a weapon forged by Mahakala or merely human. Ovuha pinches her eyes shut. She has been more susceptible than she thought, vulnerable to the AIs’ game. One way to subvert it, to break the script.
She reveals her gun; she points it at herself.
The proxy lunges at her, tackling her to the ground. Its breathing is harsh as it pins her down: not with any real strength, she could throw it off with ease. Even the gun is knocked out of her hand more from surprise than actual force. Something gives her pause, in the way it whispers, “No.” It sucks in air, guttural. “I didn’t come this far to let you kill yourself.”
“Suzhen?” This comes out of Ovuha, involuntary as a reflex.
“In all the universe, who else can I possibly be?” The voice is acrimonious, edged with adrenaline. “Were you hoping for the Warlord of the Mirror? A lieutenant of yours? I’m sure any one of them could have been of more help, but they’re all gone. There’s just me.”
Ovuha doesn’t try to throw the clone off. The gun has not fallen far. “Please let me up.” It is supremely unlikely, and yet what an odd thing to say—the Warlord of the Mirror—for a Deratchan mouthpiece. “I won’t try for the gun. I promise.”
The creature—Suzhen—moves off her and grabs the pistol, quick but not so quick as to be inhuman. It—she—glances sideways, brows furrowed in concentration, as if looking at something only she can see. “I need to find Taheen. We don’t have much time, but I’m not leaving without them.”
“Taheen Sahl? Why would they be here?”
“A long story.”
It is odd to be led, and she may well be playing into Deratchan’s hand, whatever the AIs’ fathomless objectives. But she follows, and Suzhen strides with purpose, soon breaks into a run. She navigates the corridors as though she holds in her head a miniature of it, a schematic to the making of this place. She finds doors where none are evident, passages that cut through mazelike obfuscations.
“You mentioned the Warlord of the Mirror.”
A glance at her, over the shoulder. “Yes. I wasn’t born on Anatta.”
Ovuha opens her mouth, then quickly shuts it. A sense of unreality descends.
Suzhen touches a section of wall that turns into a narrow door. Inside, a figure lies prone on the ground, impeccably dressed. Something about seeing Taheen Sahl unconscious finally jolts a memory—Ovuha knows, now, where she has seen them before. Well before Anatta, sealed into a stasis box and loaded onto a ship bound for a distant star.
“Ovuha, can you carry them?” Suzhen touches the side of Taheen’s neck, checking for a pulse. A harsh exhalation when she finds it. “Please?”
She doesn’t ask. Taheen’s height presents logistical difficulties, but in the end she’s able to maneuver them into her arms—a shoulder carry would risk head injury to them.
They emerge into a docking bay. There is only one shuttle, a compact vehicle with a hull whose glaze hints at chameleon coating. Suzhen boards, gesturing Ovuha up after her. The shuttle seals around them; the docking gate parts.
Ovuha lays the couturier down across one of the seats. It is not until they are safely out—though never truly safe, as long as they are within Samsara’s sphere of influence—and into the defensive labyrinth around the moon that Ovuha finally says, “How did you pull this off?”
“She had help. But she did do very well.” A voice, melodious and choral. At the other end of the shuttle sits a projection, four-armed and indigo-skinned. “I wasn’t able to take over the base entirely, but for now we’re safe. Once you land in my forest, we’ll be able to strategize, buy the two of you some time. I must say, you’ve done something… interesting back in there. For that feat, I have been waiting to meet you face to face.”