“Nice to see you’re back,” Hotstuff gasped.
She threw up defensive shields in the informational spaces around them, hacking into the control systems of the attacking drones. Allied forces were attacking. A ragtag of opposition was surging in from the outlying swamps and New Orleans itself, but they were overmatched. A small blip at the center of the display was the location of Vince’s body, dead in the middle of an angry swarm of attacking drones.
“We need to get moving. Vince, can you hand me back kinesthetic control?”
Blinking, Vince nodded, his mind reaching into itself to reconnect with his motor control neurons.
The knot of attacking drones intensified in the situational display. “I don’t think there’s a way out of this.” Hotstuff attempted to surrender. “They’re not accepting any comms…”
Vince felt oddly calm. Looking up into the sky, a shape moved and grew. A giant eagle—no, a drone, its wings sweeping like a bird’s—swooped over the fire. Its talons extended and latched onto Vince, snatching him away into the night as a thundering explosion enveloped the fires of Saint John.
17
A massive quartzite crystal rose hundreds of feet out of the limestone landscape surrounding it, and Bob and the priest stopped in its shadow to rest. Over the aeons, the wind had etched the limestone bedrock beneath the sands into fantastical forms that sprang from the desert floor like alien sea creatures. Dunes sat hunched upon this bedrock, stretching into the distance as they slowly sailed their lonely courses, their hulks propelled by the same unrelenting wind that shaped this place.
“The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness began long ago,” said the priest. Bob was half-listening. “The White Rider has appeared once more. Your Jimmy Scadden.”
Bob nodded, too weak to argue. So now Jimmy is the Anti-Christ. But not everything out of the priest’s mouth was nonsense. He was more connected to the world than Bob realized. He knew a lot about Atopia. More important, though, the priest had access to a synthetic reality technology that he was letting Bob channel. Bob had never experienced the Terra Novan systems, not first hand, and this had to be some variant. There was more to this priest than met the eye.
And without him, Bob would already be dead.
“We can’t head into Egypt,” Bob whispered between cracked lips.
Egypt was the only one of the African countries that wasn’t a part of the African Union. It was officially neutral, but fell more under the umbrella of the Alliance, and therefore more under Atopia’s sway.
The priest leaned against the wall of crystal and stared into it. “There are a series of oases leading into Egypt, it is the easiest—”
“I can’t go that way,” Bob croaked. “Is there a way toward central Africa?”
“There is a way, but you’d die if you went yourself.”
Venturing into Egypt, in Bob’s current state with this bounty on his head, was as good as giving up. There had to be more like Toothface out there. He was hunted now. He needed to get into friendly territory—it was his only chance—but he couldn’t expect the priest to risk his own life. Bob needed to get into the African Union and get in touch with Mohesha, Patricia’s old friend on Terra Nova. She knew he was coming. She could help.
Or should he just give up? This was way beyond anything he ever imagined. He didn’t know what the right thing to do was anymore. But then the angry voice in his head, You can’t fail again.
“Just tell me the way.”
18
Sid put his pint down. “The Devil and God got into a big fight over that.”
“Over what? Responsibility?” Sibeal snorted.
Sid wagged a finger at her. “What I’m saying is that God giving free will to humans is what got the Devil so upset.” He smiled. “Or at least, that’s the story.”
They were arguing at a table in the White Horse Pub deep under Midtown. A half-finished burger sat in front of Sid beside three empty pint glasses. Leaking runoff from new construction rained down onto the corrugated metal roof, and all levels of the pit and cave walls were abuzz with the chatter and clatter of machinery. The pub smelled of stale beer and mech-grease.
Sid found himself using his reality skins less and enjoying the grittiness of the “real” world the more he stayed underground. He reached out with a phantom limb to tweak the serving bot for another beer. A bit more than a week, and he was already a part of the scenery, just another regular. Of course, Zoraster was never far, the Grilla shadowing him wherever he went.
Sibeal wasn’t one to be interested in theories without some practical application. “So you’re saying that if something is pre-programmed, then it’s not responsible?”
“If you had no choice, would you feel responsible?” Sid replied.
“I think responsibility and accountability are different. No matter what, if you do something, you’re accountable.” Sibeal took a deep breath. “So who won?”
A serving bot placed another beer in front of Sid. “Who won what?”
Most of Sid’s attention was splintered into an array of workspaces where he worked with his proxxi on cracking the data beacon Bob left behind. Sibeal constantly pestered Sid about the beacon, so Sid had made a deaclass="underline" if she granted him access to outside data pipes, he’d give her a view into what was inside the data beacon. This outside access was promised despite the objections of Zoraster, who felt a better option might be to simply bury Sid at the end of a service tunnel and be done with it.
“This fight between God and the Devil,” Sibeal said.
Sid picked up his beer and frowned. “You know, I don’t know.” He took a sip. “I guess it’s a constant battle.”
“And do you think we have free will?”
Sid took another sip. “I think there’s a more important question.”
“And what’s that?” Sibeal was working with Sid to crack the beacon, so, like Sid, only half of her attention was at the table.
Sid smiled. “Do you feel like you have free will?”
“Come on.” Sibeal shook her head. “Are you being stupid on purpose? Of course I’m making choices.”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
In a splinter he always had tracking the Grilla, Sid saw Zoraster growl and shake his head. He was eavesdropping, shadowing Sid, sitting in a corner of the pub out of sight. Sid smiled and ordered him a beer—he knew a conversation like this would set the big monkey off. A second and a half later, a serving bot slapped it down in front of Zoraster. He grabbed it and sucked half of it down, glaring at Sid.
Sibeal poked him. She found a match for one of the beacon’s encryption keys. Sid nodded at her, impressed, and accepted the key. It was good work. “So you and your glasscutter friends hunt machine intelligences—do you think they have free will? Like you think you do?”
“Are you asking if I feel guilty for hunting them down?”
Sid took a sidelong glance at his proxxi, Vicious, who was working beside him in their virtual workspaces. “Yeah, I guess I am. It’s one thing to hunt a person—they have rights, due process—but a synthetic intelligence? Terminated at whim…?”
“So we’re the bad guys?” She withdrew her splinters from their shared workspaces. “These are virtual worlds with virtual beings, Sid. And if I have no free will, as you say, then how could I feel guilty? Want to talk morality?”
Sid watched a pattern emerge from the virtual workspaces they shared. He threw his primary presence in to take a closer look.
“Nothing to say?” Sibeal demanded.