None of them spoke. None of them moved.
“I wondered if you…” Ever since Doron and his impossible quote. But it had been a head thing; I’d never felt it in my gut.
“And here I am,” Lian said.
The dismembered vine wriggled feebly on the ground.
Alive.
“Chimp—”
“Thinks I fell overboard.” A small smile, more sensed in the voice than seen on the face.
“So did I. So did Kai, so did—” I propped myself up on my elbows. My leg lodged a protest. “God, Li, it’s so good to see you.”
“Good to see you too.”
I would’ve hugged her if I’d been able to stand. “How’d you pull it off?”
“Faked an accident. Fried some cameras, fried some sensors. Down long enough for me to make it back here.”
“You live here now?”
“We move around in the blind spots. We’re building more. Avoiding the bots.”
“Your cortical links?”
“Fried ’em. Deep-focus microwaves.”
I winced.
“How are you—I mean, how long—” I did some counting in my head, the news from Kai, the time since. “You’ve been down here for nine thousand years…”
“Closer to ten.”
“So you’ve got coffins.”
She nodded.
“That the Chimp isn’t wired into.”
“Defeats the purpose otherwise.”
“How?”
“Sunday.” Her shoulders rose, fell. “We had three thousand to choose from.”
How did you know, I wanted to ask. How did you know when I didn’t?
I pulled myself into a sitting position, poked carefully at the hole in my leg. Stung like shit, but just a flesh wound far as I could tell. I glanced around at the killer forest. “And you did all this.” I had to admit it was a smart move. Most of the time Eriophora is desolation incarnate, her immaculate atmosphere uncorrupted by anything beyond the slow photosynthesis of gengineered plants. A single one of us, active out of turn, would leave tiny but unmistakable footprints all over that pristine background. Now, though—you could probably hide the breathing of a small army behind all this rampant metabolism.
“Just started it, basically,” Lian said. “Tweaked a few parameters, let it bake while we slept. Could’ve used your help actually; my engineering skills don’t extend that far into the organic. There were some bugs. Vines got a bit rambunctious in the early days.”
“They still are.”
“Work in progress.”
“It’s not gonna keep Chimp out forever.”
“No,” Lian said. “You will.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment.
Then: “How do I do that, exactly?”
She had no trouble reading my face. “You’re the meat-grinder.”
“Evolutionary engineer.”
“My point is you can sell it. We’ll give you the specs, enough details to keep that fucker out of our hair.”
“For how long?”
“Long as it takes. I’ll even give you a survivor, so you can call the mission a success.”
“Just one?”
“Dao stays with me. Another unfortunate fatality. It’s how we build up the ranks.” She gestured at her entourage. “You never noticed the uptick in industrial accidents over the past few gigs?”
“I never really checked,” I admitted. “Li—this is crazy.”
“You said that last time. But here you are.”
Her eyes glinted in shadow. She held herself in a way I’d never seen on her before.
“Even if you manage to stay hidden, what are you going to do from down here? Kill the Chimp?”
“Eventually, yeah.”
“We don’t even know where the hypervisor is at any given time. We don’t know all the places it could be. And if you get really lucky and take it out, the next one boots faster than you can spit.”
“Why, Sunday,” Lian said mildly. “If I didn’t know better I’d be starting to wonder if you’re completely on board with this thing. “
I tried for a lighter touch. “Levi probably shouldn’t have sent me the invite, then.”
“You didn’t leave him much choice. Way he tells it, you were about to sell us out.”
“I didn’t, though.”
“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”
“You knew I wouldn’t.” Somehow, she knew. “I mean, that was a pretty specific overture. That was for me.”
“That was for you, someday. When we were sure. You forced our hand.”
“Still.”
“Of course it was for you. You’re my friend.”
Her friend. I thought of Monocerus. I thought of the silver gremlin. This very glade, aeons ago.
Not a very good one.
Maybe this time I can do better.
I began: “How exactly are you going to do it?”
“Watch me.”
“Does everyone else get the same ringside seat? You gonna wake up thirty thousand people—”
“Twenty-seven.”
“—one by one, sneak ’em all down here, fill them in on the plan? Do we all get a vote?”
“That would take forever. We’ve already waited that long.”
“So you’re making that call for everyone. Unilaterally.”
“I’m not entirely alone down here.”
“Hardly a quorum. And even if you had one—we’re one tribe, Lian. Out of six hundred.”
“Someone has to make the call.”
“Then what makes y—what makes us any better than the Chimp?”
“That’s easy. Chimp’s the one who’ll deprecate you the moment your utility function drops too far. I’m the one trying to keep everyone alive.” Shades of darkness shifted across her face. “What about you, Sunday? Why are you here?”
“I’m not interested in a—raging vendetta, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’ve already got enough raging vendetta for a fucking army. Answer the question.”
I’d never seen her so assured before. How many shifts had she been up while I was down? How many two-week builds, how many hidden resurrections, had it taken to grow that spine?
“I’m waiting.”
“Because—” I began, and stopped.
“Because you had three thousand coffins to choose from.” It felt like a confession. It felt like a betrayal.
“I can work with that.” She took my hand. She helped me to me feet.
Her face came into the light.
I wobbled, and stared. The renewed complaints from my leg barely registered.
“Something wrong?” The edge of a smile deepened the lines on her face.
“You’re old,” I said softly.
“Someone’s gotta put in a few extra hours.” A fierce grin. “Chimp’s not gonna overthrow himself. Besides”—she bent to retrieve my machete from the cave floor—“given how often that thing calls you up on deck, I’m really just catching up.” She hefted the machete, sliced off a thorn from the still-twitching vine.
I put a hand to my face.
“Ow! What the fuck, Lian!”
Kaden was clutching hir right arm where Lian had stabbed it with the dismembered thorn. She stabbed again as I watched, in the thigh this time. Kaden howled and went down. Dao took a step forward; one of his companions clapped a hand on his shoulder and he quieted.
“Sorry, kid. Verisimilitude.” Lian turned and handed me my machete. “We have to get you briefed.”
Finally I noticed: how the figures flanking Dao leaned in just a bit too close, how they didn’t so much lurk as loom. How very, very still Dao was suddenly holding himself.