Red Zone - 26
A Novel
i
The room hung there, and he saw himself, Alpha, and Berranstat in a deadly elongated triangle. He saw the slabs of the room.
You have tapped into a simulation?
This is Alpha's scenario - he's going to blow it all when you are both in the room.
Because he can't be sure as long as we are in the tubes.
Right.
So, where am I?
That's a loaded question. Right now in referent, you are still in the tube.
I wish you would tag scenarios.
Sorry.
We, inhabitants of the reference universe, get very unsettled if we don't know if it is real or a sim.
Sorry. But it isn't real anyway, it's just your retro-sim of it.
He pondered a moment, connected this with what he knew about consciousness and memory, and reasoned that seeing it as a retroactive simulation was not an incoherent way for Sairen to see this.
Perhaps I should too. There was a beat. Wait, how did Alpha's sim know I had recovered Shackleton? Suspicion of both the Jovians and Keisha thrust themselves upon him.
I oopsed when we connected. The previous run of his sim didn't have that, but when we linked in, it grabbed that.
That is very aggressive.
He was counting on you not knowing Shackleton, it is an assumption of the sim, since your record indicates the two of you were there.
They wiped me, but not the record? He tried to understand why this was the case but decided there were too many variables to manage.
Yes.
It was at this point that an almost, but not quite, transparent version of Alpha caught his attention walking through one of the chunks of wall.
“So, there you are.”
“Pleasure to see you again, Major Alpha.”
“Third time pays for all.”
First, throw he had been paper, and Alpha nearly cut him to ribbons. The second throw he had been stone, and Alpha had been blunted. Would Alpha throw scissors again or do something else? 50% he would. So, the odds were to go stone again. But how to do that as a ghost?
Wait, I do not need to.
“So, what did happen at Shackleton?”
“The puspods[1] went in to torch the lab, we were sent to clean things out. There were heretical elements.”
“Heretical, that is an interesting word.” He had his transparent simulacrum walk over to be at a comfortable conversation distance.
Alpha looked down at him, and his eyes adapted a kind of pity.
“Church and state are always one.”
“And there's always a state.”
At this point, there was a slight glowing outline, and a nearly transparent figure, who resolved into the Jovians marine, formed. He looked around.
“So, this is your sim area.”
“What's he doing here?”
Yes, what is he doing here?
I linked him in.
That may be either a stroke of brilliance or something that we both might regret.
I don't think we will live long enough to regret it.
Your Dominion Standard is atrocious, Sairen. Do not speak this way to Pritha.
That assumes I am going to meet her.
If we survive this, you probably will. You have traits in common with her.
Probably by way of Hai-Ling.
Lock down the sim, I am sure that Alpha will try and find a way to break out.
Mmm.
“So, Lt. Colonel, Colonel. Pleasure to be speaking to both of you.”
“There is no point in attempting to escape the simulation, Alpha.”
Alpha's image flushed an involuntary betrayal that he was, in fact, attempting to do just that.
“So, boys. What's it going to be. This is your big plan, Alpha? Blowing us all to pink mist?[2] A pure sac?[3] We aren't all that flamingly valuable.”
“Revenge has its own merits, gasbagger.”[4]
“Now that's downright unfriendly, Alpha.”
“There's about to be war between our worlds, Berranstat.”
“Then there's no reason we can't be polite, seeing as how you are sure we are all going to kill each other.”
“Don't you know anything about duty?”
“It is your duty to fight a war, Colonel, not start one.”
“There already is a war. And I don't mean with Jupiter.”
“Then, as the person graced with keeping his full memory, you should enlighten me, otherwise I will have to regard you as following unlawful orders.”
“You don't have the time, Hanboi.”[5]
“We have as much time as required. Since I am going to die if we leave this sim anyway, I have no incentive not to keep talking until some better resolution occurs.”
Alpha's eyes narrowed as he retorted: “That could make for a long eternity.”
“I'm sure the three of us can think of something. Deesh here is quite a piece of work. So are you, in your way.”
“Flattery will get you to an early grave, Jovan.”
“I'm sure even death has its good points, or you would not be in such a hurry to get there.”
“I am still interested in being enlightened as to the real war that all of us should be aware of.”
“The war against the singularity.”
“This guy sounds wobbed,[6] Deesh.”
“It does no harm to hear him out.”
“Let me start with a reference. Colonel Anthony Beranstant of the Jovians Marines died 25.60.939 JD, incepted Sphere Jove, failed to incept and disintegrated. Whoever is running that body and entity, is not, who or what he says he is.”
“Well, those records could be forged.”
“But they aren't. Are they? Whoever you are.”
“No, they aren't.”
Deeshandir looked back and forth.
“So, who, or what, are you.”
“Good question, Deesh. How long an answer do you want?”
“An accurate one.”
“I am Zhang Wu 221 merged with Anthony Beranstant, in control of this body.”
Alpha smiled.
“There is your war. The hierarchy of humanity, against the computer sphere. I hate you hanboi, as only a slave can hate another slave, but we are flesh and blood, and not that thing over there. A smashed-together Frankenstein.”
Zhang Wu. It can't be.
You obviously know many things I do not. Such as what is going on.
Zhang Wu, is an early Kami, only he made hundreds of himself. He's one of the most powerful entities in the sphere, at least collectively. He is called “Legion.”
What else do you know? He could feel the hot anger of the thought spit out.
It's a dark frightening thing.
“You don't need to talk to half yourself, Deesh. I can hear what Sai-Ren is saying.”
“I was hoping for some stereotypical villain explanation.”
“I'm here to stop a war. One that would lay waste to half of this world, and that's on the first day.”
“Can't you hear the smirk in his words, Venkatesh?” Alpha's voice was strangely modulated and restrained.
“No smirk.”
“He's been using you.”
Thoughts, Sairen? But only an inner silence met the question.
“We're all used.”
“All of these allusive arguments are well and good for those of you who are privileged to be in the know about what is going on. But as of right now, among a Kami merge, a mod, and a secondary personality only one of us holds the Terran Norm. And until I decided to turn the key, none of us is going anywhere.”
Alpha growled. “You think you can contain Zhang Wu?”
“Yes, actually I am going to say I believe I can.”
Alpha turned looked at both of the others.
“I can't believe you are that stupid.”
“I cannot believe you think that after trying to destroy us all in a puff of fusion flame, that your credibility stand very high. I really do not know who or what Zhang Wu is, but I do know what you are.”
Alpha paused for what in simulation terms was an eternity.
“I am the same as you, a soldier in the cause of keeping life organic. Don't you realize why the Dominion intervened on Shackleton, why it is intervening here?”
“I am a particularly poor student, and flunked Conspiracy Theory three times.”
“Because he was here. He is behind so many of the outbreaks of heresy and disloyalty. He helped the pods on Shackleton, and the rebels in the Congo.”
“Black Elephants were the rebels in the Congo Reconquista.”
“Infected by him.”
“That is a very interesting story, but utterly without corroboration.”
Alpha looked directly at the Jovan. “What do you have to say?”
“I don't have any idea what some of the other personalities might have been doing, and I don't know what went on at Shackleton.”
“With all due respect, whoever you are, those are answers, but not an answer.”
“No, neither I, nor the collective of the personalities, is doing what he imagines. We aren't funding rebellions, we aren't infecting people involuntarily, we aren't doing anything of the sort.”
“So how did you get in control of that body.”
“My previous self was disintegrating, because during evac they were trying to prematurely incept.
Merging was the only chance.”
“So, you died?
“No, but it was close. That help?”
“He's trying to deflect the subject.” Alpha almost hissed the words.
Deeshandir turned to look at Alpha. “Let me say, just for the sake of argument, that he is a merged entity. Let me say, just for the sake of argument, that he is here for a purpose. Your accusation of his being at the heart of a sweeping conspiracy against the Dominion does not make sense. He was with me when we destroyed the laboratory that the colonists were running, and as far as I can tell, it is not a capability that would worry a powerful member of the sphere. But it is one that would worry the Dominion: that is, building heavily modified military beings. My explanation is the simplest, the Dominion is intervening because rebels are close to creating super troops, and that changes the balance of power.”
Deeshandir paused.
“I also think that you are not Alpha.”
“And why is that.”
“Because Alpha would never sacrifice himself. Ever.”
“So, who do you think I am, hanboi?”
“I think you are whoever planned the tank ambush because it is the same strategy: draw in with a sacrifice, and they destroy everything. Alpha's diction never changes, yours has several times, like a bad actor playing the part.”
Alpha began dimming.
“It still won't save you. Hanboi.”
“I think it will.”
Now Sairen, collapse the sim.
What?
He's made the mistake of getting involved in a quickness battle with me, and he's not all that quick. Collapse the sim.
There was a vertigo of falling, and he could see, beneath him a vast dark sheet, streaked with light, light that began sucking downward, pulling the images of himself, Alpha, and whoever it was, down to a collapsing point, as if something were pulling on a string and yanking them down.
And into that void, faster than the others could react, he sent the code that would freeze the reactor.
[1] Intelligent cuttlefish, squid, or octopi which are used as servants to work the inner cavities of fluid pipes. Often referred to as cuts, squies, siggies, and octo, or octos.
[2] Blowing all to smithereens.
[3] Sacrifice.
[4] A sneer against Jovains.
[5] Pure han is the term for a fully normal human with only limited modifications.
[6] “Wobbled” like a top that is out of orbit.