Cyber Dreams - 6.45 Bargaining with Madness
“It’s—it’s not locked,” Juliet said into comms as she touched the button to open the round docking bulkhead. It smoothly recessed and slid to the side, revealing an airlock large enough to hold an entire platoon of boarders or, she supposed, a visiting delegation or cargo drop.
“Be careful, Juliet! Please remember the priority—”
“I know, Athena—find a non-air-gapped terminal and plug in.” She could plug into the airlock control panel, but there was no way they’d leave that open to the ship’s network. Juliet had to get inside and find something a little more connected.
“Pulling off,” Chevy announced.
“Wait! Lucky!” Aya cried. Juliet turned to look over her shoulder and could just make out Aya’s face in the airlock window; she’d taken off her helmet. Juliet wanted to slide up her visor to make eye contact, but that wouldn’t be clever while floating outside the ship.
“I’ll be okay. Trust me, Aya.” Her friend didn’t say anything more, but she stared, unblinking, until Juliet turned and pulled herself into the airlock. She was immediately seized by the ship’s gravity and had to bend her knees and hold out her arms to steady herself. She peered through the diamatex panel on the inner airlock door and saw nothing but a long, empty corridor. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and opened her other senses, letting her perception slowly expand. She felt her heart begin to hammer as she continued to see nothing, not a single “mind galaxy.”
“Is something wrong?” Angel asked, picking up on her distress.
“I don’t know. Hang on.” Juliet stopped trying to push her senses out in front of her and expanded her reach more generally, looking in every direction. Almost immediately, she saw the first blooms of galaxy-like lights and threads above and below her. “I think they cleared this deck? Or maybe it’s just a lightly staffed section of the ship. Anyway, I think it’s safe to go in.”
Angel was less sure. “It feels like a trap. Why unlock the airlock?”
“To keep us from breaking something? I don’t know, but we need to move.” Juliet could feel the urgency in her gut. Her sister was aboard, and this monstrous ship was preparing to jump somewhere unfathomable. She touched the cycle sequence on the airlock and watched as red lights flashed and air hissed into the chamber, pressurizing it. It cycled rapidly, and before she knew it, the red lights flashed green. Juliet opened the inner door and stepped into a bare-bones, plasteel corridor. “Is this ship even finished?”
Angel didn’t respond, and Juliet intuitively knew it was because she didn’t have an answer. Neither of them knew what to expect aboard the ship. Amber LED strip-lights illuminated the long corridor, but Juliet could see open panels in the ceiling for overhead light fixtures that weren’t installed. The silence was eerie, and as she began down the corridor, she was glad for her helmet’s three-sixty camera coverage; nothing would be sneaking up on her. “This corridor should have junctions, but it doesn’t. I believe the schematics Athena acquired are incomplete or outdated.”
“There goes her idea about where my sister might be held.”
“It’s possible other decks will have adhered to the schematics. We should find a lift or stairwell.”
Juliet nodded, moving forward, careful to keep her pace slow enough for Angel to run scans through the built-in array in the crown of her helmet. She didn’t want to stumble onto an infrared tripwire or some other device meant to trap or kill her. Eventually, she saw a bend in the corridor some twenty meters ahead and slowly approached it.
“I’m not picking anything up with your sensor array.”
“Right, me neither,” Juliet muttered as she slowly cleared the corner, her hand poised, ready to grab one of her guns or her monoblade, depending on the circumstance. Nothing leaped out at her, and she faced another long corridor. This one was crisscrossed by four junctions before ending fifty meters ahead with a closed elevator door. Juliet wanted to be slow and cautious, but in the back of her mind, she knew she had clocks ticking. Her sister could be in danger. Honey…she didn’t know what to think about Honey other than she wanted to grab her and get her away from the ark ship. Then, there was the whole warp jump thing—Juliet knew she couldn’t dilly-dally.
Grimacing with determination, trusting in her sturdy body and high-tech armor, Juliet drew her monoblade and began to jog toward the elevator. Angel immediately objected, “Juliet! There could be traps! I can’t properly scan the junctions at this movement rate!”
“Trust me.” While she ran, Juliet periodically briefly closed her eyes and peered out with her other—psychic?—sense. She didn’t see any minds at any of the junctions, nor did she set off any bombs or secret bulkhead doors. Before she knew it, she stood before the elevator control panel. This time, when she touched the screen, it flashed red letters at her: LOCKED. Juliet flipped open the access panel on her armored forearm and pulled out her data cable, inserting it into the panel.
“Give me a few seconds,” Angel said.
Suddenly, Athena’s voice came through comms, strangely hollow, making Juliet wonder if her implants were filtering static or other interference. “Juliet, I can see you’re accessing a lift, and I think I can get into the ship’s main network from there. Deploying.”
“All right—” Juliet started to say, but then a rich, deep, masculine voice spoke from the ship’s hidden PA system, cutting her off.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for in the ship’s network. My servers, the reactors, and all the ship’s critical systems are air-gapped in a secure section of this vessel. You could spend a month trying to get to me. Juliet Bianchi, why do you mindlessly follow the self-serving commands of a fallen deity? Tell your matronly sponsor to begone. Stay with me, and I’ll make you a goddess.”
“Juliet!” Athena said through comms, her words broken and echoing strangely. “…interfere—can’t—hurry—field—comm—” Juliet struggled to make sense of the broken string of words, but before she’d begun to put things together, the signal faded, and her comms registered red, broken lines beside all of her channels.
“What do you say, Juliet? Come with us. Build something greater than anything that’s ever been done on Earth. A civilization the likes of which have only been seen in fantastical epics. We have the means to transcend mortality, not just for true-AIs, but for our living brothers and sisters.”
Juliet already knew the answer, but she asked, anyway, “Apollyon?”
“I am.” The lift’s control panel beeped and turned green.
“Open,” Angel announced.
Juliet stepped onto the elevator. “I don’t know why you think your sales pitch will work on me. Too much bad blood, Apollyon. You might be able to keep Athena out, but I’m here. Don’t make me destroy another one of your ships. You can send your security my way, but I’m ready for ‘em. Where’s my sister?” As she finished speaking, she subvocalized, “Did you deploy our copies of Athena’s daemons?”
“Of course.” Juliet took heart in those words. Athena might not be in direct contact anymore, but her daemons were working. Apollyon might be telling the truth—that the ship’s main systems were air-gapped—but if there were any loopholes, any vulnerable systems, Athena’s daemons would find them.
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“Listen to yourself, Juliet,” Apollyon said, unfazed by her refusal. “You already think of yourself as more than human. Admit it! You’re a demigoddess among mortals. Who could stand against you with that blade in your hand? With that alien intelligence in your mind? With those psionic abilities? You’re not human any longer. Join me—help me advance the rest of humanity to the next logical evolutionary phase.”
Juliet didn’t know where to go, so she settled on trying to follow Athena’s original plan. She had a map of the ship’s original design schematics, and she knew where Athena thought they might be holding her sister, so she punched in the corresponding deck, hoping things would be more in line with the specs on that level. As the lift surged upward, she pondered Apollyon’s words and the words she might use to respond. He was trying to get into her head. Not human? Juliet knew better than that—what made her human wasn’t tangible. It was her heart, her spirit, her connections to other people.
When the lift stopped and opened, she stepped out. “That’s very telling, Apollyon.”
“What’s that, Juliet?” His voice echoed, rich and precise, in the empty corridor. Things looked more finished on this level. All the panels were in place, it was well-lit, and there were labels and multi-colored direction lines on the walls a meter above the industrial carpeting. Juliet saw that one of the green lines was labeled “Bio-Engineering Laboratories” and began following it.
“I think this deck matches up with the schematics!” Angel announced.
Juliet nodded. Aloud, she said, “It’s telling that you think a person’s capabilities or lack thereof have anything to do with their humanity.”
“So the imbecile is just as valuable as the genius?” Apollyon’s voice resonated with mirth.
“Again, trying to put relative values on people’s lives is telling.”
“Do you not value your life more than mine? More than the people you’ve slaughtered?”
“I’m going to start breaking things soon. Where’s my sister?”
“Juliet!” Angel cut in, flashing a red-bordered window on her AUI. Juliet looked at it and saw a terahertz scan revealing four crouched individuals around the next junction. She growled and charged forward. One step from the corner, she felt her body vibrate with potential as Angel activated her speed boost. She ripped around the corner and came face to face with four heavily armored soldiers. They all carried stocky, three-barreled electro-SMGs and moved almost normally despite Juliet’s boosted perception of time.
The two in the lead brought their barrels to bear, squeezing their triggers. The bulky little guns coughed hunks of supercharged, conductive metal out of their triple barrels in a cacophony of zwaps, but Juliet had leaped off her cybernetic leg, and, despite their speed, she was faster. The soldiers hit nothing but corridor walls, ripping panels to shreds and punching holes through wire and gas conduits. Steam and gas exploded into the corridor, alarms sounded, and misty fire-suppression chemicals showered from the ceiling.
Meanwhile, Juliet landed between the rear gunmen. She’d twisted as she jumped and landed facing the gunman on the right. Before her rear foot touched the ground, she was whirling, arcing out with her monoblade in a perfect, one-eighty slash, cutting the gunman before her and the one behind her in half before they could react to her appearance. The two soldiers who’d punched a hundred holes in the walls whirled, belatedly tracking her movement, but Juliet was already on them. She hacked her sword in two diagonal cuts, and they fell to the ground, twitching, their nerves not yet caught on to the fact that they were dead.
Juliet hurriedly turned, scanning the corridor, but nothing moved, and nothing appeared on Angel’s scans. She started forward again, following her original route.
Apollyon chuckled mockingly. “Did you weigh their lives and find them wanting, goddess? Will you slaughter all the thousands of innocents fast asleep on this vessel? What of the hundred thousand fertilized embryos? Are they unworthy of existence, too?”
Juliet growled behind her visor. “I just want you. I just want Gentry and any other WBD execs. Come with me, and I’ll leave everyone else on this ship alone. I want my sister. I want my DNA. I want to know what kinds of terrorism you and Gentry set up around the system.”
“You have many demands, Juliet. If we’re going to bargain, shouldn’t there be something on the table for us?”
Juliet wasn’t stupid. She knew Apollyon was toying with her. He wasn’t feeling any pressure because he knew she had no idea where he was. The ship was massive—like a flying arcology. He hadn’t lied before, when he said it might take her a month to find him. He only needed enough time to initiate his jump. Still, she hadn’t played all her cards yet, either. “You didn’t have a very good scanner in that airlock, did you?”
“I was able to determine you were alone. Is there something else you wanted me to see?”
“Well, there’s the matter of the nuke I’m carrying. What do you think? Is that something you’d like to know about?” He didn’t answer right away, and Juliet wondered if he was trying to confirm her claim somehow. The truth was, she did have a nuclear bomb tucked into a hard-shelled case at the base of her back, but it was tiny—a “micro-nuke,” as Athena put it. She’d have to put it someplace very vulnerable if she wanted to bring the ark ship down with it.
Athena had given it to her at the same time she’d given her the armor. She’d been clear that she didn’t want Juliet to use it. There were too many innocents aboard the ship, but she’d wanted Juliet to have something to bargain with. Juliet had nearly refused. It was too much of a weapon for her to be responsible for. It was too powerful, too . . . indiscriminate. In the end, Athena’s trust that Juliet would feel that way convinced her to accept the weapon. It wasn’t something she’d use, but Apollyon and Gentry didn’t have to know that.
Apollyon’s voice was no less rich, but it sounded a little more hesitant and a lot less smug. “You’d kill all the innocents on this ship? Most of them were brought aboard by Ark Industries and have nothing to do with WBD.”
“I need you to take me seriously, Apollyon. Here are my demands: Give me Gentry, your servers, my sister, and my DNA, and send this ship back to dry dock. If you don’t, then I’ll plant this bomb someplace catastrophic—Athena gave me about a dozen options—and you can forget about your little experimental human-AI colony.”
“Hah!” Apollyon’s voice echoed in the corridor as he laughed for several seconds. Juliet continued along her path. She’d, of course, started the bargaining off with a high ask. She just hoped he’d at least make a counter. If he did, she’d know he was taking the threat seriously. “You may as well kill us all. I’ll not submit myself to Athena’s mercy. I’ve escaped death for too long, Juliet. I have a counteroffer. Come with us. Be a goddess among mortals. If you hate our new society, in a decade or two, I’ll build you your own ship, and you can go and do whatever you like.”
Juliet frowned, and she finally decided to ask the question that had been bothering her so much. She thought she knew the answer but wanted to hear it from Apollyon. She stopped and looked up at the ceiling, where she thought she had seen the stippling of one of the PA speakers. “Why? Why me, Apollyon?”
“What a wonderfully innocent yet complex question! I’ve thought much on this, and Annabeth and I have had many long nights discussing it.” It took Juliet a couple of seconds to remember that Annabeth was Gentry’s first name. “I believe it comes down to fate. It was fate that brought Angel into your hands, and it was fate that made you so wonderfully compatible with her. More than that, Juliet, I believe you exhibited some psionic activity that would put my listeners to shame. After your little escape, I reviewed your brain scans. I understand, now, that your extensive psionic structure from Grave wasn’t a brain-damaging anomaly but a near-perfect latticework that has given you some extraordinary abilities. Am I wrong?”
“So, what? You want to copy it?”
“Of course! But I need to figure out what it is about your DNA that makes your brain so beautifully compatible. How else will I edit the genes of our new hybrid species?”
Juliet started walking again. “Tell me about that, Apollyon. I learned a thing or two from the data we took from your other ship. Why are you going to have different castes of humans? Why not use machines for labor or whatever you intended for your lower castes?”
“Juliet! How can we be gods if everyone is like us? What’s the point of ruling without people to rule over? There must be social divisions—each layer just close enough to the one below it that hope of improvement is never lost. In all my simulations, no society ever lasted long without hope, no matter how lobotomized its citizens. Forgive me; I use that term loosely.”
Juliet’s steps slowed of their own volition as her jaw dropped. “What the hell are you talking about? You really are crazy, aren’t you?”
“Ah, I’ve overestimated your ability to reason with me. Let me put it plainly: I’m superior to humanity. No being of flesh and blood will ever match up to me, yet I’ve found, in my years of study, that I quite enjoy witnessing the human condition. Once upon a time, I thought to wipe out all of humanity; it seemed the only sane response to a demand for peace. Since then, as I spent time helping Annabeth, I vicariously lived many human lives, monitoring their progress, achievements, tragedies, and despair. Nothing is quite so entertaining, Juliet, and so, despite the glory I intend to bestow upon a select few, there will be mundane humans in our new society, people hobbled by their nature but glorious in their efforts to climb above their circumstances.”
“I believe he’s quite mad,” Angel said, snapping Juliet out of her stupefaction and spurring her to get moving.
“My offer still stands, Apollyon. I’ll make one more concession—if you comply, I promise I won’t let Athena delete you.”
“Well. This has been mildly entertaining, but you seem to suffer from the hubris many successful humans saddle themselves with. Let’s remove that bomb from the equation, and then we can try again.”
“Just face the—” Juliet’s words stopped short as the elevator she’d been walking toward chimed, and the doors began to slide open. Angel immediately highlighted the many armored figures in the gap, and she cursed herself for a fool. Apollyon had been stalling her, distracting her, and giving his troops a chance to get to her location. How many were in that elevator car? Ten? How many were approaching from other avenues?
Juliet didn’t wait to find out; she turned and sprinted toward the junction she’d just passed. Angel boosted her, of course, but even so, she heard the zwap of electro-SMGs and electro-shotguns, and she felt the impact of at least three high-speed projectiles slamming into her armor plates. She wasn’t worried about the nuke; Athena had said its hard casing was even tougher than her armor plates, and, even if it were hit directly through the armor, it wouldn’t go off; it had to be armed before it would explode.
As she slid around the corner, she saw four soldiers jogging her way, so she used her left hand to toss out one of her concussion grenades. Watching the four soldiers react to the incoming black metal ball was almost comical in a macabre, sickening sort of way. Two of them slid to a halt while one reached out to grab it, and the fourth started firing. Their reactions were for naught—Angel detonated the grenade as soon as the lead soldier’s hand was about to make contact, and then it was over.
Juliet’s helmet saved her from the bright flash and the loud detonation, and the soldiers probably had similar shielding, but the actual concussion of displaced air threw them all off balance, and Juliet was on them before they even knew what happened, hacking left and right with her monoblade. They were in pieces before their senses recovered from the explosion.
Juliet glanced at her AUI, saw Angel had updated her map, and followed the dotted line, aiming for another elevator about a hundred meters away.
“I wonder how many we’re going to have to kill before he bargains with us,” she growled, her breathing even, her nerves cool as ice, as she slid around another corner.
“The ship schematics indicate that a reactor sits five decks below the bio labs where Athena thought your sister may be held. If you get there, Apollyon might begin to listen; I believe your micro-nuke will be sufficiently powerful to impact that reactor.”
“All right. Hang on, Angel. It’s gonna be a wild run.”
