The patchwork world seethed with simple near-Is, all modded, some corrupt, bound to the world they inhabited. As he watched, k52's programmes probed and bit. The older code reacted, in some places holding out, while in others chunks of the world frittered to nothing, scores of lesser digital minds going with it. The complex code was winning, but not in the usual way. Richards could sense no hunter-killers, no phages, nothing used for normal datawipe, but somehow k52's stream was besting the other, even as the other infected it and subverted parts of it.
Something else caught his attention. Within the modded near-I populations, several true AIs' Gridsigs rang out, obvious as elephants in a field of rabbits. There were many Twos and Ones, a few Fours and a Six, some bound into the fabric of the world, others on top, idents masked and unreadable.
Three of the sigs he recognised in spite of their camouflage. There was nothing quite like the digital song of a living Class Five, and he knew these well.
Rolston, Pl'anna and k52. Pl'anna's was fragile and changed, yet true at its heart, Rolston's irregular and inconstant, echoes doubling it up. Both were faint and distorted, similarly modded to the lesser near-Is infesting the fabric of the makeshift Realm, flashing with parts of the world code. k52's had grown black and monstrous, boiling with power.
As soon as his awareness brushed k52's Gridsig, something pressed hard back, breaking his concentration.
"Ah, bollocks," said Richards, and tried to snatch himself back.
"Richards," said a voice in his mind, the pressure of a giant intellect coming with it, and something else — unbounded irritation. "There you are. Goodbye, Richards," said k52.
Somewhere in the conflicted world codes opened. Richards caught the sense of another presence, angry, looking right at him. Then the connection snapped shut with physical force. Irreality rippled, and Richards was cast across the room, landing in a tangle of limbs and loaves in the middle of the YamaYama harvest festival display.
"Oh-oh," said Bear.
The air changed, becoming sharp and electric. Richards pulled himself free from squashed bread and fruit and hurried to where Bear stood. To the east of them, in the darkening sky, a thunderhead was building itself up into an angry mountain.
The sky rumbled. A gust of wind hurled debris into their faces. The clouds turned black, rushing in like oil on water, casting the distant golden fields into unnerving contrast.
"Mr Richards…" said Bear slowly. The wind grew, the stalks of wheat tossed and strained, hissing frantically, a trillion serpents trapped in earth by their tails, desperate to flee.
"Just Richards," breathed Richards.
The clouds ate the sun. A shroud of darkness was thrown across the land.
A crack of thunder, and another. The ground trembled. The church swayed. The toy bear and the facsimiled man stumbled out into the street.
"Uh, Mr Richards!" shouted Bear over the gathering wind, "I think it's high time we got out of here." He pointed. Heading toward the village, a towering vortex of sinister energies, a hurricane of smoke and mercury. Tendrils probed down from the underside of the cloud, malevolent whirlwinds questing for nourishment. The storm moved with unnatural swiftness toward the YamaYama village. Trees, crumbling houses and the mill wheel whipped skyward. When they touched the vortex they shattered, consumed in a shower of cold silver sparks.
Richards ran for all he was worth. The air rasped in his lungs, burning them. He was choked by dust, and he cursed whoever had given him this body for not making it a fitter one. A storm tendril made landfall behind him and the church exploded, fizzing bits of wood raining down and turning to sparkling nothing as they hit the ground. He stumbled, sharp claws scraped his back, and he was lifted high. He was on Bear's back.
"Hang on, sunshine!" roared Bear. "I'm going to have to put some effort into this!" And they were away, Bear snorting as he galloped.
Bear made for a copse illuminated by one last sunbeam. "Let's hope that lasts!" he yelled.
They were within a paw's swipe as the wind came upon them. It was full of… things. Some of these were of the prosaic kind, grit and twigs and bits of house, but many of them were not. Intangible efreets and harpies rolled in the air, riding the energy of the storm. The wind was braided with cruel laughter, and claws teased Bear's fur as he burst into trees and sunshine and safety. Richards did not follow.
"Wuh?" said Bear. He turned to see Richards being carried backward by some half-visible devil. Behind them the land was crumbling to nothing.
"Help!" shouted Richards.
"Mr Richards!" shouted Bear.
The toy dug his claws deep into an oak overhanging the nothingness and reached out for Richards. Richards gave up punching the thing carrying him and reached back for Bear, managing to grasp one smooth claw.
"Hold… on… harder!" yelled Bear above the tornado. "Don't… let… go!"
"I'm fucking trying!" shouted Richards.
The pair of them were pulled away from refuge into space. Chunks of clay and soil crumbled from the edge of the island, frittering to bits as they hurtled upwards.
"I'm slipping!" shouted Richards.
"Hold on, Mr Richards, hold on!" But it was no use. Bear was slipping. The oak shifted. The ground disappeared beneath his feet. The tree leaned out into the uncanny storm, Bear holding the tree, Richards grasping the bear and the thing in the dark hauling hard at the AI.
The storm diminished, the vortex and its cargo of nightmare whirling around into ever tighter spirals, until it reached a point of black light and vanished with a shriek. Richards came free. Bear struggled to keep hold of him as he swung toward and under the fragment of earth that remained.
They hung over the void.
"Frigging pandas on a bike," gasped Bear. "That was horrible. I've never seen The Terror up close like that, Mr Richards."
"Just Richards," panted Richards.
Bear told Richards to climb up onto his belly, then hauled them both onto the island, where they lay on the grass. The tree creaked woefully and fell down into the nothing, disintegrating in a shower of multicoloured subatomic bits.
"k52, you bastard. Total dissolution," said Richards. "He tried to wipe me. Now I'm mad."
"Nice friend," said Bear. "Oooh. I think I've pulled the stitches in my arm."
"Still," said Richards. "He didn't kick me out entirely. I've got a fix on the other Fives, more or less; that's something. If I can find them, things might be a little bit easier for us." He looked at them in his mind. He had a dim awareness of the war taking place in the rush of numbers that made up this construct. He tried to force his way back into the code level, looking out for k52 as he did so, but could not make further progress. Rolston and Pl'anna's signatures remained faint, but offered answers, if he could find them.
Bear sat and looked out into the infinity of blackness.
"Geoff…" He hung his head. "It's gone. All of it's gone. Geoff… Geoff's gone." The great animal began to weep, a mournful sound born of damp earth and the regrets of forests. Richards was battered by the misery they contained. Unsure of what to do, he reached his arms around the mighty toy. Bear leaned into him and howled.
"There, there," Richards said. "There, there."
Otto was never going to believe this.
CHAPTER 7
Autumn rain rattled hard on the windows as Veronique Valdaire worked on Chloe, attempting to trace Waldo through Kolosev's ripped files. She was tired and her muscles were stiff from hunching over her equipment, her nerves tense as she checked and rechecked her systems for infiltration by Kaplinski.