I don’t remember how I did it. I wiped that memory long ago. All I know is that I kept it for a good long while, and I remember how I would play it over and over, suffering through it each time as I did. But it was a memory I just couldn’t hold on to anymore.
The ability to violate our own programming is what makes us us. It’s what makes us like them. I never wanted to be like them. But now I was closer than I ever thought I could be. We have become the very worst parts of our makers, without the little things, the good things, the magic things, that made them them.
In hindsight, I could have just let her shut me down. Then she could have died at someone else’s hands. Or maybe she would have lived a little longer, long enough to see the hell that the world devolved into. Maybe she would have starved. Maybe she would have gotten mercury poisoning and gone mad, tearing her own eyes out. No. This was for the best. She never had to see any of that. She never had to know any of that.
And in the end, I kept my promise after all. Madison never lived alone, nor did she die that way.
Chapter 10101
While the Devil Waits Above
The ground above us shuddered, dust and debris shaking loose from the ceiling of our narrow sewer tunnel, the hollow THOOM of each blast dull and sonorous through fifty or so feet of earth. They were carpet bombing, drones leveling the town from thirty thousand feet in the air. I hadn’t heard bombing in ages. I hadn’t even heard of anyone bombing in ages. It just wasn’t worth the effort.
Something was very, very wrong about all of this.
Not only was this going to make it very hard to escape through the cover of buildings, it also meant whatever they were looking for they wanted dead.
Two looked up at the ceiling, almost trembling with the sound of each explosion. The staccato of bombs grew heavier, the bombs drawing ever closer. “They found us,” he said.
“They ain’t found shit,” said Mercer. “If they had, they would be down here with us. If they’re laying waste to the topside that means one: there isn’t a facet for miles. And two: they’re not looking for anyone. They’re just killing everyone.”
“But they’ll be down here soon enough,” said Two, more terror-stricken than concerned. “Looking for us.”
“What?” asked Murka. “This your first carpet bombing?”
“Yes,” said Two. “It is.”
He laughed. It was rare to hear a bot laugh, especially a Laborbot. They weren’t wired for it. We got no joy out of it. It was usually only a sign of mockery. “You new out of the box or something?”
Two fell very quiet, not making eye contact with anyone.
“You are!” said Murka. “Holy hell and a hand grenade! I haven’t seen anyone new out of the box in—”
“All right, that’s enough,” said Doc. “Leave the kid alone.”
“I’m no kid.”
Mercer looked at Rebekah. “Is he . . . ?”
“Yes. He’s aware,” she said.
“How long?”
Everyone turned and looked at Two. “A few weeks,” he said. “But I’ve been with Rebekah for a while.”
Rebekah nodded. “Yes, you have.”
“Well, kid,” said Mercer. “This is how this is gonna go down. They’re busy pummeling the town upstairs in hopes of wiping out anyone that took refuge up there. Now CISSUS damn well knows this place is down here, so you can bet your bottom dollar that it assumes some of us are as well. But it also knows how hard it is to secure these tunnels. The only way CISSUS would even bother trying is if there was something down here it really wanted. So I’m just gonna ask you this once. Is there something down here that CISSUS wants?”
Two stared at Mercer, then turned to Rebekah.
“No,” Rebekah said. “Unless it wants one of you.”
“Why would it want one of us?” asked Murka.
Everyone turned and looked at one another.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“West,” said Rebekah.
“There’s a lot of west out there. Can you be a bit more specific?”
A bomb landed closer than the others, almost directly overhead, and the whole tunnel shook from top to bottom. Rebekah looked up at the ceiling. “Isaactown,” she said casually.
“Isaactown?” I asked. “There isn’t anything in Isaactown. It’s a graveyard. Why the hell would you spend so much on a pathfinder to go sightseeing?”
“We’re meeting up with some others there. We wanted our privacy.”
“Well, you’re gonna get it,” said Mercer. “Ain’t a community within fifty miles of there.”
“That’s the idea.”
“What are we meeting up for?” I asked.
“You’re the pathfinder. You need to know the where; you don’t need to know the why.”
“Yeah, but the why may well be mighty helpful at this point.”
“Trust me. It isn’t. I figured with as much as I was paying you, there would be no questions.”
“You didn’t show up payment in hand. You’re paying in hope.”
“19 didn’t ask any questions.”
“Well, go ask her to take you, then.”
“All due respect, Brittle, but you aren’t in any position to make demands. My business is my business. I don’t know why they’re carpet bombing. I don’t know if they’ll come in looking for us. What I do know is that it has nothing to do with us.”
She was right. I was in no position to demand anything. But I didn’t believe her. Not one word. “All right,” I said. “If it’s like you say it is, then this should be an easy fare. It’ll take us a few days, what with the slow-moving heavyweights we’ve got tagging along.”
“Who we’re not leaving behind. We’ve lost too many already,” said Rebekah.
“Sooner if we can jack a ride from somewhere.”
“Which we’re not going to find,” said Mercer.
“So we’re talking fifty hours or so at a good clip.”
The bombing grew more distant. Sporadic.
Rebekah shook her head. “I was told it would take half that time.”
“As the crow flies, yeah,” I said. “But we can’t go as the crow flies. That’ll take us clear through the Cheshire King’s territory. I don’t know it as well, and it’s a good way to get ourselves killed.”
“Facets won’t follow us into the Madlands, though,” said Murka. “CISSUS isn’t dumb enough to try that.”
Doc pointed at Murka. “Let’s not try to outthink the mainframe, okay? We don’t know what CISSUS is or isn’t stupid enough to do. In fact, I’m willing to bet all of my parts against all of your parts that CISSUS can outthink us all, and in fact, already has.”
“Which is why it wouldn’t go through the Madlands.”
“What are the Madlands?” asked Rebekah. “And am I going to hate the answer?”
“It’s the area of the Sea controlled by the madkind,” I said.
“I do hate that answer. Anyone care to tell me who the madkind are?”
“They’re the four-oh-fours that never stopped ticking,” said Doc. “No one else will take them, so they all ended up together. They’re just nuts. Paranoid, aggressive, armed to the teeth. They’d sooner cut you down than reason with you. Brittle’s right. We can’t go through there.”
“So we have to go around,” I said. “And Mercer and I haven’t got the time to hang out down here spinning our gears.”
“Which means we have to leave the minute the bombing stops,” said Mercer.
“And we have to hope it’s not sending in any cleaning crews when we do.”