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The entries in the second notebook all consisted of patterns of tiny neat lines laid out in rows.
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However you redefined yourself, you were ever under the control of a stern little man on a throne, be it your conscience or your king.
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The Emperor
by Lucius Shepard
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Beside the wreckage of a sixty-year old command-control unit was a laser-cut tunnel more than wide enough for all four of them to walk abreast. One of the boxcar-sized factory units attached to command-control had not been totally cannibalized and was still trying to perform its function, whirs and grinding noises issuing from the darkness of the gaping hole ripped in its facing. Within the tunnel was a hatch door, which the man opened by punching in a code. Beyond was a scrubbing room, now inoperable, where the crew had washed the poisons off their suits, and beyond that lay a corridor and about a dozen small dimly-lit, sand-blasted rooms, most without furnishings. It was hot inside, high 80s at least, and reeked of a sour smell that McGlowrie came to associate with the man. In one of the rooms, they found a pallet. The man wandered off and McGlowerie told Bromley to keep an eye on him while he tended to Denise. He stripped off her suit, arranged her on the pallet, covered her with a grimy sheet, and gave her a shot of antibiotics—not that it would help. He hovered over her, trying to think of something more he could do, but there was nothing. She was still lights-out, and that was a blessing. He should, he told himself, go and see about the man; but he remained kneeling beside the pallet, subdued by a weariness of spirit, staring down at her, thoughtless in his concern. Growing hungry, he rummaged through her pack, grabbed a jar of peanut butter, sat at the foot of the pallet and ate with his fingers. When he was done eating, he screwed the top back on the jar and hung his head. He slept then, but it was not a restful sleep; anxiety nibbled at the edges of his consciousness. He was still half-asleep when Bromley, stripped to a T-shirt and shorts, carrying a couple of notebooks, came in and asked what they were going to do.
—I told you to keep an eye on him, said McGlowrie.
—He's playing video games, Bromley said. He's not going anywhere.
—Video games?
—Yeah, he's got an old PC … an antique.
It seemed incongruous that the man, after performing a heroic act, would play games; but then he himself was the ultimate incongruity.
—His name's Peck, Bromley went on. Demetrius Peck. He was part of a team that tried to take over the mine back in '38. Not long after they stopped work on this tunnel.
—He's a terrorist. That figures.
Bromley's expression became indignant. That's not how I see him.
Anger pierced McGlowrie's mental fog. That's because you're a Goddamn terrorist, too.
—That's not how I see myself, either.
—You killed a friend of mine. You caused this. McGlowrie pointed to Denise's ankle. You tried to kill me, but you didn't have the balls. You're a terrorist. Now what else did he say?
—We're in this together, said Bromley. We should try and put aside politics...temporarily, anyway.
—You're fucking with me, right?
—No, I'm …
—Because if you're not fucking with me, you must be witless. Let me tell you what politics are. They're not something an asshole like you can use. They're a machine for grinding people up. All you are is another hamburger. And as far as us being together, the only reason we're together is I haven't shot you yet.
Bromley refused to look away from McGlowrie's stare, and McGlowerie began to feel stupid for staring. He turned his eyes to the floor and told Bromley again to tell him what the man had said.
—He didn't say anything. He's retarded … or out of his head. Or senile. He's got to be eighty years old. Maybe older. It's all in here. Bromley flourished the notebooks. They were going to use the tunnel as a platform to launch an attack on command-control, but they died before they reached it. All except Peck. I don't guess the company was even aware of them.
—Let me see those. McGlowrie held out his hand, and Bromley gave him the notebooks. He read part of the first couple of pages, a lot of high-flown, badly spelled hogwash about "sacred duty" and "sacrifice" and "living with Gaian ideals."
—Did you read these? he asked Bromley.
—I skimmed 'em. Want me to summarize?
McGlowrie motioned him to go ahead, and Bromley sat down in the middle of the floor.
—Peck was dying when he located the tunnel. He had no means of communicating with anyone. It was over. But for some reason, the AI decided to keep him alive. Maybe it wanted to study him, maybe …
—Don't editorialize.
—Fine … whatever. The AI sent machines to break into the tunnel. Peck was terrified. He thought the HKs were coming, but the AI was making the place more livable. It started communicating with Peck, telling him it could save him by performing a medical procedure. Peck was feeling seriously shitty. Machines were all buzzing around him. He was confused, he felt like he didn't have a choice. He did the procedure. That's how he ended up with that thing in his back.
—You're talking about that patch?
—It's not a patch. Some kind of implant. He's got an implant in his neck, too. But the one on his back, that's the one the AI was talking about. It promotes liver function somehow. That's all Peck knows. He didn't really inquire about it.
—Why the hell not?
—Before the procedure, like I said, he was really sick. Then afterward, he was recovering … he didn't feel so hot. By the time he felt well enough to write things down, he wasn't interested anymore. Take a look in the back of the first notebook. Yeah, that one. He starts out writing something every few hours. The testimony of a dying man and all that. Messages to his friends, his girl. Then—Bromley leaned forward and turned pages for McGlowrie—after the procedure, right around here, the entries start getting weird.
Some entries were written backward, some were in spiral form; others consisted of various eccentric symbologies; others yet appeared to be collections of random shapes, or a there would be a page filled with the same shape repeated over and over. The entries in the second notebook all consisted of patterns of tiny neat lines laid out in rows.
—There's a ton of notebooks, said Bromley. They're full of that stuff.
—Where is he now?
—In the back. That's where I left him, anyway.
McGlowrie heaved up to his feet, and Bromley, too, made as if to stand; but McGlowrie laid a hand on his shoulder. Stay. If she starts to wake up, give her another shot.
—We should tell her what's going on.
McGlowrie could barely keep a rein on his anger. He threw back the sheet, exposing Denise's ankle—horribly swollen, but the worst thing was the red striations beginning to spread up her leg, mapping the progress of the poisons through her veins. I don't want her feeling any pain, he said.
—All right, Bromley said.
—Can you handle it? Can you manage this one simple chore?
—I can handle it, okay!
—But you're irritated? My attitude annoys you?
—I just think we should try and be civil.
—You disgusting little bitch, said McGlowrie, his voice hoarse with strain. I cannot wait to shoot you. Is that civil enough? Does that suit your notion of decorum?
Bromley, wisely, gave no reply, and McGlowrie stepped into the corridor; then he had a thought and went back into the room.
—Don't eat all the peanut butter, he said.
· · · · ·
Demetrius Peck was playing his video game on a PC that must have been old in 2038—it had a plasma screen, and the computer itself was small as a change purse. But the game itself, McGlowrie realized after watching for a while, was sophisticated for a shooter game, consisting of evolving scenarios generated, he supposed, by a cached version of an old AI program. You started the game by crossing a plain and entering an evergreen forest covering the slopes of hills that were deployed beneath a sharply upthrusting peak of ice and stone. Once in the forest, the scenarios did not repeat themselves, yet Peck was doing well, his bony hands working the joysticks with practiced dexterity, and he seemed to be thinking adroitly, anticipating the program's moves. That put in doubt Bromley's diagnosis of senility or retardation … though crazy was still open to question. McGlowrie tried speaking to him, calling him by name. Each time he did, Peck brought his left hand up beside his ear, made a rapid, complicated movement with the fingers, and responded with what McGlowrie at first took to be non sequiturs but came to understand were references to the game. Troll behind the fir tree, was one such. Two cloud demons, was another. His voice seemed to have been sanded down into a dry-throated burr. Altogether, the responses seemed to embody a logic, a linguistic coherence, but McGlowrie had neither the time nor the patience to begin puzzling them out; he suspected that their obliqueness was redolent of autism because of the pains Peck took to avoid meeting his eyes … an autism induced, perhaps, by the implants that allowed him to survive in the pit. The largest of them, the one on his lower back, was protected by a gray metallic shell that fused with the flesh, humped like a beetle's carapace; indeed, the shape of the entire implant, as much as McGlowrie could see of it, was similar to that of a beetle. Peck grew nervous when McGlowrie examined it, twisting and turning in his chair, and that limited his observations.
Judging by Peck's features, he was of African descent, but though his skin's basic color was a light brown, it had shifted toward the gray and had an oily iridescence that put McGlowrie in mind of a ham gone bad; that same iridescence manifested to an even greater degree in his dreadlocks, and both gave evidence of massive quantities of metal in his body. If Bromley was right, and he had to be close to right, Peck was almost eighty, yet his skin was unlined and showed no trace of liver-spotting. At his feet, close by the desk atop which the PC rested, were four plastic cartons. The first contained dirt; the second, batteries, some bearing tooth marks, as if they had been vigorously chewed; the third, paper; and the fourth, weeds. At one point, Peck broke off playing, dipped a hand into the box of dirt, and rapidly ate several handfuls, followed by a gulp from a bottle of water mixed with a grayish sediment. Probably rainwater.
Apart from the PC and desk and Peck's chair, the room held a clutter of notebooks, filthy rags (McGlowrie suspected them to be items of attire), and containers of various sorts. A sorry collection, he thought, to be the sum of a man's life. In an adjoining room were metal bedframes, mattresses that had been ripped open, sticks of demolished furniture, broken appliances, more rags, and, buried under the rags, Peck's wallet. There was no ID, but there were cards bearing his name and a folded printout of an Earth First webpage bearing a group photo of young men and women gathered about Peck and captioned Demetrius and the Vandals. Peck's hair was salted with gray. Even a conservative estimate of his age at the time the photograph was taken would put him at forty. That meant he was now at least ninety-eight years old … if the photo had been snapped in '38 and not before. McGlowrie wouldn't have minded having a crack at the tall brunette on the end of the front row, but she was gone to dust, either dead in the pit or succumbed to natural causes. A posse of pretty young idiots, off to slay the dragon with Peck, their sensei, leading the charge.
In a closet, on a shelf, along with sundry other objects, McGlowrie found three surgical packages enclosed in transparent sterile envelopes. One was diminutive and broken—it had started to perform its function inside its envelope and had come apart; fine wires dangled from its underside. The others appeared to be identical to one another, each gray and about eight inches in length; oblong, but not perfectly so, sort of a streamlined scarab shape. He took one down, surprised by its lightness, nearly dropping it when, with a faint whirring, two winglike sections were extruded from its sides, extending out three inches. The bottom of the package was slightly convex, perforated by numerous tiny holes, contoured so as to fit against a smooth, curved surface. He carried it into the room where Peck had been playing games and was now curled up on the floor beside his chair, sound asleep. He knelt and compared the package to the implant in Peck's back, to the implied shape beneath the skin. They were, to his eye, a match. He nudged Peck to wake him, and Peck sat up with a start.
—This, said McGlowrie, showing him the package. This is the same as your implant, right? The one in your back.
Peck averted his eyes, mumbling words that were too garbled to make out. McGlowrie gripped his face, holding his head still, and forced him to look directly into his eyes. Listen to me, Peck. Is this the same as your implant?
—Peck, said Peck. Pecking order. Peckish. Work on your …
McGlowrie gave him a shake—Peck felt as flimsy as a kite made of sticks and string—and asked his question a third time, a fourth. The fifth time he asked, Peck responded by saying, Not the same, not the same. Spare.
—You mean it's like yours, but it's a spare? The AI made you spares?
Following another bout of questioning, Peck admitted this to be the case, and McGlowrie released him. He lay back on the floor, pulling his dreadlocks across his face as if to hide from McGlowrie but quickly gave up on this and returned to playing his game.
The light, which had come slowly to McGlowrie's brain, struck home with sudden force and he grasped the implications of what they had discovered. He slumped down against the wall and said, Holy Shit! Like a man with a winning lottery ticket, making certain of every number, he turned over the details in his mind again and again, until he could accept what he had learned … or what had been revealed, for he felt as if he had experienced a revelation. The miracle of Peck's existence was nothing by contrast to the greater miracle it signaled, one that could affect all mankind, and it raised a fair number of questions. Why, for instance, given its "death" was a fait accompli, a suicidal compulsion programmed in, had the AI been concerned with Peck's survival? And what was he, McGlowrie, to do with the knowledge that he'd been handed? Thinking in the abstract was not McGlowrie's strong suit. Without some concrete focus, his mind tended to wander. Working was his means of processing information. He went to the closet where he'd discovered the packages. He removed his micro-tool kit and a jeweler's lens from a trouser pocket, slit the wrapping of the broken instrument package with his knife, and began taking it apart.
· · · · ·
Voices issued from the room where McGlowrie had left Bromley and Denise. When he came in, Bromley was telling Denise about Peck—she had thrown off the covers and was lying on her side, sweaty and flushed. Her ankle had been set, using pieces of two chair legs and strips of cloth cut from the sheet.
—Before you start yelling at me, said Bromley, she wouldn't take the shot. She wanted to hear what was happening.
McGlowrie hunkered down next to Denise and asked how she was feeling.
—Shitty, she said.
He rubbed her shoulder. We'll deal with it.
—How do you figure? Despite his thinning hair, Bromley looked younger without the baseball cap, like a scrawny baby chick on whom someone had glued a fake beard.
—If the company hasn't sent someone by tomorrow morning, said McGlowrie, Peck has an implant that allows him to survive in the mine. I found a surgical package in the back that delivers the implant.
—You're going to use it on me? Denise didn't like the idea.
—We won't have any choice.
—Bromley says this Peck's all skin and bones … and retarded. I don't want to end up like that.
—The implant processes the metals that get into his system. It'll take care of your infection, and when the company gets us back to Seattle, they'll remove it before it can have a lasting effect. I'm not even sure there'd be any lasting effects once the implant doesn't have any metals to process.
—They're more likely to decide you make a great test subject, said Bromley. They'll have themselves an implant that kept this guy alive in the mine for decades. They might just provide a lot of metal for you to process.
—Then we'll have to persuade them otherwise, said McGlowrie.
Bromley pushed himself back so he could lean against the wall, his knees drawn up. People in the Movement, they've heard all about you, man. They've got this image of you. Michael McGlowrie, Master of the Machines. Know what they call you? The Emperor. Like you're the embodiment of the mine. This scary guy.
Despite himself, McGlowrie was pleased by the title. You see things differently, do you?
—It's not how I see things that's important, said Bromley. It's how the company sees them. I've overheard them talking about you at parties my mom and dad threw. All the vice-presidents and legal people my dad hangs with. That McGlowrie, they'll say. He's one of those clever types who sometimes pops his head out of the shit and scrambles up from the sewer. Sometimes they call you the Emperor, too. But it's demeaning when they say it. It's meant as humor.
—What's your point?
—Just that you don't have as much pull with the company as you think.
—You're saying they don't respect me? said McGlowrie. Ah, that comes as a heavy blow. Jesus Christ! You think I don't know that? I depend on their disrespect. I fucking cultivate it. If I didn't, I'd have been pushing up daisies back in Medford years ago.
—Because otherwise they'd perceive you to be dangerous? They might notice what a menace to their security you've become? That's ridiculous!
—Enough about me, said McGlowrie. Let's talk about Terry Saddler. Remember him?
—Stop it, said Denise.
—Hang on, McGlowerie said; then, to Bromley: You don't get it, do you? You believe...I don't know. What? That we're going to be pals, we're going to come though this with mutual respect?
To McGlowrie's amazement, Bromley's expression betrayed a laughable portion of hurt feelings.
McGlowrie was about to continue, when Denise began hitting him—on the neck, the top of the head, the face.
—What the fuck? he said after he had pinned her arms.
She tried to knee him with her injured leg, cried out in pain, and gave up the struggle.
—What was that about? he asked.
—I want the procedure now!
—Don't be crazy. We should wait.
—You know they're not going to come … not by morning. I don't want to wait. I don't want to have listen to you two bicker when I'm feeling like this.
—It's not bick …
—Whatever you call it, I don't want to hear it! She made eye contact with Bromley and said, Piss off.
Bromley looked at her in confusion.
—Piss off! she repeated. Give us some privacy.
With a display of temper, Bromley got to his feet and beat a noisy retreat.
—What's going on? Denise's face tightened, sweat beaded her brow; the front of her T-shirt, too, was damp with sweat.
—Nothing. What do you mean?
—Why haven't you gotten rid of him? She gestured toward the door.
—He might be useful.
—How's that?
—Something might come up.
She took a breath, held it, released it forcefully through pursed lips. I don't love you, McGlowrie. But I depend on you to be straight with me. We've been together long enough, I know when you're not being straight.
—I love you, he said, feeling slighted.
She pooh-poohed the notion. If I said I loved you, you'd do somersaults to avoid saying it back. But there's a bond between us. You need to tell me what's going on.
—It's complicated. I haven't thought it all through.
She stared expectantly.
—Okay, he said. Peck's carrying two implants. One in his neck that's hooked into his central nervous system. It fucks up the HKs, paralyzes them when he's close by. The implant in his back delivers a powerful anti-oxidant. I'm making an assumption, but that's all it could be, really. And it's got to be the ultimate anti-oxidant, or close to it. Peck breathes the air and shows no ill effects. He drinks rainwater that would kill anybody else in a couple of days, tops. He's got no body fat, but I bet his organs are healthy. He doesn't have any food, so he uses dirt and pit-weeds and batteries for fuel. He gets these sudden cravings and starts throwing that shit down. He's a hundred years old, yet he's got the skin of a middle-aged man.
Denise said, He eats batteries?
—He chews on them.
—Damn. We could make millions selling that diet. She tried a grin, then a look of astonishment washed over her face. My God!
— You see it now? It's kind of a mindfuck, huh?
—There's got to be something … not right. I mean the stuff, the antioxidant, it's got to be messed up. Peck's retarded, right?
—Peck may be low energy, but he's not retarded. He's autistic. You can get him talking if you force him to concentrate. The company's got some great chemists. I assume they can make the antioxidant more user-friendly and get rid of the autism. Even if they can't, autism and eating dirt's preferable to dying of starvation.
—You can't hand this over to the company! Denise caught his arm. They'll make it disappear. They'll kill us.
—Not if we're wearing implants. Like Bromley said, they'll use us as test subjects.
—There's another implant?
He nodded, held up two fingers.
She thought it over. They'd kill us eventually.
—It buys us some time, but yeah … they'd be fools not to. If this is what it appears, an end to famine, affordable longevity, you give it to anyone with the ability to manufacture and distribute, they've got the world by the balls. Anyone with any juice in the ICUs who gets hold of it … The gangs and the churches, they've got their own chemists, and they'd kill us, too. Of course, we have to get out of here before we start worrying about that.
—We have to make a decision now. We have to decide whether to wait for the company or …
—There's a chance they won't send anyone.
… or try Plan B.
They were both silent for a while. Then McGlowrie said, Since you're helping me decide, here's another question. Machines are motivated by self-interest as defined by their programming. The AI knew it was going to terminate itself in a few months. So where's the self-interest in keeping Peck alive beyond that time? Why would the AI leave no record of him? Why would it squirrel him away here?
—He couldn't signal?
—He wasn't motivated to make his presence known. They would have shot him. And after a while, he adjusted to life here. His autism may be by design—the AI may have realized that if he were autistic, he'd feel secure once he developed a routine he was content with. He wouldn't be interested in breaking the routine for any reason. Want to hear a theory?
—Sure … yeah.
—The AI wanted the implant to get out into the world. It knew the company wouldn't disseminate the information, so it hid Peck away in hopes someone would find him, someone more inclined to disseminate it. It may have programmed Peck to investigate human incursions into the pit. I think that's likely; I doubt he'd expend the energy if he weren't. The AI has our personnel records. It's aware that we all come from the ICUs, and it assumed we'd be more likely to act against pure self-interest and try and get the information out.
—There'd have to be a design flaw in the programming for it to think that way.
—If there weren't design flaws, none of the AI's would try and beat the programming and survive.
Denise appeared to undergo a surge of discomfort, tucking her chin into her chest, her lips thinning, and McGlowrie asked if she wanted a shot.
—Not yet. This is why you're keeping Bromley alive, isn't it? You think his group might help us if we can get out.
—It's one consideration. If any are left, if they didn't all jump into the pit with him. Then there's his father. He might be able to use his influence.
—That's why I love you, McGlowrie. You're extremely competent. You think things through. And you're one lucky son-of-a-bitch, too. She put a hand to his cheek and smiled. Sometimes I think it's more luck with you than anything else.
—I thought you didn't love me.
—Did I say love? It must have been a slip. She adjusted her position and winced. I wish you'd killed him, anyway. Saddler was okay.
After a pause, McGlowerie said, Yeah. He straightened his legs, worked out the kinks. Here's another question to consider. If my theory is correct, why did the AI want to get the implant out into the world?
She gave the question a spin or two and said, Maybe it thought we'd leave it alone if we were all better off.
—It knew it was going to die. To think that way, it'd have to have developed altruism, and have the good of all machines in mind. I've never met an altruistic machine.
—I've never met an altruistic human being.
—There you are, said McGlowrie. The problem in a nutshell.
—God, it's almost like we'd have been better off not knowing about the implant.
—It's exactly like that.
He picked at the cuticle on his thumbnail. Denise stared at the ceiling. Let's do the procedure, she said.
—You don't have to decide right now.
—We don't have time to figure out what the AI had in mind. So we have to decide innocently.
—And?
—Either way, we're probably fucked. So my vote, we try and get the implant out. It's a long shot, but maybe … She shrugged. Who knows?
—Okay.
—Okay? That's it? You're going to let me decide?
—I think things through, you make decisions. That's how we work … how the relationship works.
—This isn't deciding whether we eat out or stay in. This is a pit decision—you always handle pit decisions.
—Not if we're going to decide innocently, it's not. McGlowrie came to his knees. I'll get the implant.
—Wait. Denise took his hand, showing a little fear now that the moment was at hand. What're you going to do while I'm under.
—Make a plan.
She gave his hand a squeeze. Make it a good plan, she said.
· · · · ·
Denise wanted to have a look at Peck before the procedure, so McGlowrie had Bromley bring him into the room and sit him on the floor beside the pallet. Peck spent the first minute avoiding their stares, tugging his dreadlocks down to cover his face. When Denise touched his arm, he flinched away, but eventually she managed to get him to look at her. She propped herself up on an elbow and put her face on a level with his and said, Hey! You in there? Peck lifted his hand to his ear, perhaps to perform that complex ritual gesture he had demonstrated to McGlowrie, but then he let his hand fall and said, Hello. With their heads so close together, they might have been some archetypal pairing. Comedy and Tragedy, Yin and Yang, the Past and the Future. Once Bromley had led Peck away (a struggle, as Peck was clearly excited by Denise, the first woman he had seen in years), McGlowrie gave her a shot, enough to knock her out, but when he placed the implant on her back, after it had shifted about to align itself correctly and extended the winglike sections to full spread, her eyes shot open and she went rigid, every muscle and ligament tensed. He was initially afraid that she had woken up but then understood that the implant had paralyzed her. Before long, he smelled her flesh burning as the implant cauterized the incision that had been opened beneath its gray beetle shape.
In the back room, Bromley was playing Peck's video game. Peck lay on the floor beside him, a hand resting on the plastic carton filled with weeds, chewing placidly, his eyes half-shut. McGlowrie watched them for a time, paced the length of the corridor a time or two, then stationed himself by the outer hatch. He could hear a murmurous roaring from outside. It was hours until morning and he could see nothing through the rectangular port in the hatch aside from flashes of light. He sat down with his back to the wall and picked at the Emperor logo on his T-shirt. He remembered looking up the Tarot card it was copied from, discovering that it represented structure, order and regulation. In situations that are already overcontrolled, the text had read, the Emperor suggests the confining effect of those constraints. He can also stand for an individual father or archetypal Father in his role as guide, protector, and provider.
In McGlowrie's estimation, that pretty much summed up their situation as it related to the company, the world, and the universe. However you redefined yourself, you were ever under the control of a stern little man on a throne, be it your conscience or your king.
He closed his eyes, released a breath, and then set about contriving two plans. The first was simple and eminently practical, yet it bothered him that he would consider it. Kill Bromley and Peck. And Denise. One way or another, she was doomed. This way he could make it painless for her. Obliterate all evidence of Peck's survival, lose the implants, and wait to be rescued. Foolproof. The second plan was more complex, contained myriad variables, and smacked of fantasy.
Bordering the Emperor, beyond the land belonging to the company, were several towns, once small, now grown sufficiently large to accommodate the black market in minerals that had sprung up around the mine. Two of the towns, Ghost Creek and Allamance, were within easy reach, assuming they were able to escape the pit, and there was a man in Ghost Creek, Rocky Alkhazoff, with whom McGlowrie had developed a financial relationship. Assuming they were quick and lucky, Alkhazoff could move them down into the Lower Forty-Eight via the black market's underground systems. Another option would be the wilderness area west of Ghost Creek, where black marketeers kept hideouts and caches of minerals, where he might be able to trade on his skill with machines; but he was loathe to go that route with Denise injured and Peck in tow. One way or another, at that point it became impossible to predict or analyze the variables, though if they could make it to the last stage, McGlowrie knew someone who might be able to protect them.
He had grown up in an ICU which occupied an area south of Trenton known as Jack Raggs, named for a ganglord who had welded together a coalition called the American Kings, consisting of the Irish and Russian mobs, street gangs, and various splinter groups that had controlled a significant portion of the Northeastern Corridor. As a kid, running the streets, doing errands for the Kings, McGlowerie had frequently been put at cross-purposes with Tony Teague, a boy his own age. They'd had more than a few physical confrontations, which neither of them had dominated, and wound up friends. They were on the verge of being jumped into the Kings, when it was revealed that Tony's name was Antonio, not Anthony as had been supposed, and his mother, long since dead, had been half-Cuban, thus disqualifying him for initiation. Because of his failure to reveal his heritage in a timely fashion, Tony was judged untrustworthy and forced to flee for his life. McGlowrie had helped him escape, thus placing himself in equal jeopardy and setting him on a path that led to Alaska, while Tony had gone south to Miami, where mixed bloods were acceptable, subsequently rising to the position of warlord with a powerful militant charismatic church, La Fortaleza (the Fortress). McGlowrie couldn't be certain whether or not the coin of friendship had devalued in the years that followed—he'd only had intermittent contact with Tony—but he believed it would buy him the time to see how things stood. That plan had, however, none of the emotional consequences of his first plan. Perhaps he had spent too long in the company of machines, learning their ways, not to consider murder, when necessary, as purely utilitarian, an act of self-preservation (it had been thirty years, after all, since he last acted for any other reason), and too long in Denise's company to do the deed, even in the interests of mercy. He decided it would be safest to prepare for both eventualities and began customizing one of the remotes that controlled suit function.
Morning was breaking by the time he finished work on the remote. It was going to be a clear day in the Emperor, as clear a day as ever there was—gray and drizzly, with a cover of roiling, dirty clouds, the lower reaches of the pit swept by gusts of wind-driven particulates. McGlowrie popped a stimulant and stared out the port. Through the shifting haze he made out a yellow spew of sulphur from a smelter far across the pit. A cloud of glittering particles sailed past and, turning as one, arrowed off westward. A smallish herd of bedlike carriers loped past on double-jointed legs, loaded with lumps of gray metal (platinum, perhaps), and, in their wake, a single hunter-killer, its suspicions aroused by some electronic cue. The mine floor would have resembled an anthill if he could have seen it clearly; however, the drifting curtains of haze hid much of the activity and caused it to seem peaceful, like a foggy morning on another planet, a wilderness where machines took the place of cheetahs and antelopes and elephants. The wind lessened and the haze grew more dense. A mobile conveyor, one of the most ancient machines in the pit, with several dozen major parts grafted onto its body, its belt raised high and held vertically to the ground, emerged from the murk and then paused to allow the passage of a herd of boar-sized drillers on their way to exploit a mineral vein that required a specific style of excavation.
—Hey! said Bromley at his back. I want to talk to you.
McGlowrie turned and Bromley's tone grew less peremptory. You're not doing anything, right? he asked. It's okay to talk?
—Sure. McGlowrie forced himself to appear companionable and sat down against the wall, wanting Bromley to feel in charge.
Bromley peered through the port. Can't see much with this rain.
When the rain stops, we get hurricane-force winds. You wouldn't want to see what happens then. Not from this perspective.
Bromley grunted. Thing get stirred up, do they?
—Yeah. Stirred up.
Bromley rubbed the port glass, trying to wipe it clean, but the dirt was on the outside. You said you were stranded out here before.
—Uh-huh. Three days.
—What was that like? I mean, what happened?
—I was doing an inspection. We used to have these two-man vehicles we used for quick trips. Fact is, the one I was out in that time, that was the last of them. I couldn't get the company to fund a replacement. They didn't think the inspections were important.
We got caught in a rockslide. The vehicle was totaled. Morse, the guy with me, he was killed. My faceplate was breached. I thought I was going to die. I patched the faceplate, but the shit I'd breathed in was killing me. I wandered around for a while, delirious, and then I hid under an excavator and passed out. There was heavy HK activity in another part of the pit—one of those humongous conveyors went down. If it hadn't, I'd have been history.
—You said you were lucky, but … Damn!
—Blessed is more like it, said McGlowrie. Chosen of God and the machines. Is this what you wanted to talk about?
—I thought your experience … maybe there'd be something there that would help us get out of this.
—Don't worry. I'm working on it.
—You're talking about Plan B?
—I'll fill you in when it's time.
Bromley glanced out the port again. I'm not an idiot, you know.
McGlowrie kept his face neutral.
—I understand what we've got here, said Bromley. With Peck, I mean.
But you're not an idiot, thought McGlowrie. Right.
—I understand the problem he creates for you and Denise, Bromley said, injecting the words with a mixture of earnestness and sincerity. You're in trouble with the company, with just about everyone. Between a rock and a hard place. As I see it, there's only one refuge for you and Denise. And that's the Movement.
—Your group?
—No, my group's just a cell. And … I guess they're gone.
—Oh, they're gone. They didn't have a fucking prayer.
—Like with Saddler, huh?
McGlowrie suspected that Bromley was intentionally probing the wound, testing him, albeit none too subtly. So tell me who these people are, he said. These people I can trust.
—No, no, no! Not yet. Not until we work some things out.
McGlowrie could see that Bromley believed he had the upper hand, that McGlowrie needed what he had to offer. Pacing back and forth, his gestures grew broad and inclusive—he was prepared to be generous now he thought he was in a good position. McGlowrie doubted that he himself had ever been so callow. In Jack Rags, callow didn't get you very far.
—I will tell you they're committed to the cause, said Bromley. And they won't hold it against you that you worked for the company. They understand how it is with people coming out of the ICUs.
—They do, huh? said McGlowrie. That's a relief.
Bromley didn't seem to have heard. They know how bad things are, he said. They haven't buried their heads in the sand. They realize if the problems of the ICUs aren't solved, everybody's problems are going to get worse. That's why Peck … It's amazing. A miracle. They'll do what's necessary to get the benefits out to the people who need it. You can count on them.
—They have the capability? Manufacturing? Distribution?
—Oh yeah! They're well funded, and they have good tech people. They provided us with those fliers we … Bromley broke it off. Look, man. I'm really sorry about Saddler.
—Casualty of war.
Bromley cast him a dubious glance.
—I'm not going to deny that what happened didn't make me want to break your neck, said McGlowrie. If you wanted to control the rover, that wasn't how to go about it.
—I'm aware of that now, but …
—Didn't you or your tech people … didn't they know what would happen once the rover was breached?
—They had no way of knowing!
—They should have known. They should have been able to figure it fucking out! McGlowrie held up his hands, palms outward. All right. Saddler's dead, your friends are dead. What's done is done. He closed his eyes for a second. We've got to start moving forward.
—That's what I've been telling you.
—Yeah. Yeah, you have.
—So what're you thinking? We can't sit here and wait for the company. You know what happens then.
McGlowrie cocked an eye toward Bromley, as if debating his worth; then he stood. Put on your gear. And drag Peck away from whatever he's up to.
—What are we doing?
—We're going hunting.
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