The corporation wars, p.42
The Corporation Wars, page 42
She looked over at Beauregard, who was watching Nicole like a cat facing a crow. Two utterly ruthless, self-interested intelligent entities, sizing each other up, waiting for a lapse. Nicole put a hand on Shaw’s shoulder. Shaw stood up, and took a deep breath. He and Nicole returned their attention to the screens.
Beauregard stepped towards Taransay, leaned over and spoke quietly.
“I think we’ll leave them to it,” he said.
Taransay nodded.
As soon as they were out of the front door they both let out a long, shaky sigh that turned into an uncertain laugh.
“Something like that had to be true, you know,” Beauregard said. “Why would the sim have gone on running all that time, with just him in it?”
They walked down the path.
“I know,” said Taransay. “It’s been bugging me at the back of my mind ever since—”
She stopped. Shit, she’d nearly—
“Since you and Carlos first talked to the old man of the mountain?”
Might as well admit it. “Uh, yes.”
“I followed you into the hills,” said Beauregard. “Knew you were up to something.”
“Well, Carlos—”
Beauregard laughed. “Forget it,” he said. “Water under the bridge.”
Like he was the one who had something to forgive.
“You’ve got a fucking nerve,” she said.
“Yup,” said Beauregard. “That I have.”
He stopped, and turned his face sharply to her.
“Look, Rizzi,” he said. “I understand and respect your loyalty to the lady. But she has accepted my plan, for want of anything better. And I can’t have you agitating against me among the comrades, or the locals. We all have to stick together. We’re all in the same boat—or the same little flying rock, dodging incoming! We can’t afford mutinies. And if I think you’re trying to raise one, I’ll do whatever is necessary. Got that?”
Taransay felt mutinous herself at that moment. She found herself glowering at the ground, and straightened up abruptly. Beauregard was right. He had won over most of the troops, he had Nicole’s reluctant or devious acquiescence, and there was nothing she could do about any of that. She was along for the ride, like it or not. She might as well enjoy it.
“All right,” she said. “You’re not my sarge or my comrade, but I’m not your enemy.”
“I’ll take that in the spirit it’s given.” Beauregard looked amused. “Fancy some lunch?”
Taransay realised she was starving. “God, yes.”
Beauregard thumped the heel of his hand against the side of his vehicle.
“Feels real enough,” he said. “Hop in.”
On the way down they were delayed by two more packed minibuses returning from the spaceport. These were not the last to come down the road that day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mediation
Carlos swam through warm fresh water and laughed. He’d done all his recent swimming in a salty sea, so the buoyancy was less than he was used to, and he took an unexpected mouthful. It tasted of sulphur and iron. Spluttering, he swung his legs downward so that he stood on the pool’s hot floor of volcanic sand, and splashed his face and shook back his hair. Then he swam to the bank and climbed out, over slick boulders covered with green weed, to a patch of wet grass where he wiped the remaining mud from his feet and between his toes. A faint tang of the minerals clung to his skin.
In the Locke Provisos sim he had lived in previously, casual cleaning and tidying was done by robots. The largest of these ambled about like animated umbrella stands. The smallest looked like ants, and possibly were—Carlos had never bothered to find out. Here, services were more basic. Carlos found his clothing, discarded and filthy half an hour earlier, clean and folded under a bush, from a branch of which hung a freshly laundered towel. A couple of small green-clad, red-skinned humanoid creatures resembling terracotta leprechauns, which he seemed to remember were called “boggarts” in the game environment (and which he devoutly hoped were p-zombies here), stood nearby, hands clasped in front of their groins and grinning obsequiously from ear to pointy ear.
“Thank you,” said Carlos, feeling ridiculously embarrassed.
The two boggarts bowed and withdrew, vanishing in a rustle of leaves. Carlos dried himself off and climbed into his clothes. The underpants and vest were new; the leather jerkin and trews rinsed, wiped, oiled and polished; the moccasins either new from some diminutive cobbler’s workshop or assiduously sponged down and brushed. Not a trace of dungeon filth lay on anything.
Carlos belted his squeaky-clean leathers and raised his head to look around. The portal from which he’d been unceremoniously shoved out of hell was a few paces away, a doorway in the air limned with black fire. He had stumbled out, stripped off his reeking garments and plunged into the warm and highly mineralised pool, which was fed by a waterfall from the rock-cleft above it and a bubbling hot spring beneath the surface.
It was a thing you did, in the game.
The pool’s outflow poured into a stream that passed between wooded banks to plunge into the misty chasm into which he’d fallen on his arrival. Looking along the cliff-sides of that gorge brought his gaze to the walled garden that had been on the other side of the treacherous stone bridge. Now that he was on the same side, and with a higher vantage, he could see that the wall enclosed the broad grounds of a low, sprawling castle surrounded by ornamental orchards and greens. Between him and it lay what looked like untamed woodland. Beyond it, the landscape was spread wide, low hills rising in the middle distance to range upon range of snow-tipped mountains fading into the violet noon sky at an implied horizon far more distant than on Earth or in Locke Provisos’ H-0 sim. Behind him, the ground rose less abruptly to a range of steep, rocky hills to whose sides clung scattered clumps of tall trees among which here and there he could just make out traces of ancient buildings: hermitages or follies, or the ruins thereof.
Carlos shrugged, and plunged into the thickets of scrub between the trees in front of him. If his memories of the game were anything to go by, with any luck he should soon come upon a path to the castle.
Ah, yes. Here it was. Unpaved and cart-wheel-rutted, but that was to be expected. Carlos strode from amid the trees onto the rough stones and gravel, and instantly wished his footwear had thicker soles. He set off towards the castle, walking more slowly and awkwardly than he’d have liked. He soon got into the swing of it. The sun was high, but the tall trees on either side gave shade. The insects were mostly harmless and always colourful. Birds swooped after them, as did small pterodactyls. Now and then poultry-sized, bright-feathered dinosaurs scurried along or across the road. A scent of berries, herbs and pine resin hung heavy but bracing in the cool air.
Carlos walked around a bend in the road. Ten metres ahead, standing in a patch of sunlight in the middle of the path, was Jax. One hand on hip, the other thrown out in welcome, she still wore the same vaguely medieval-style green gown and piled-up braided hair. Behind her was a two-wheeled carriage with a boggart in a broad-brimmed hat sitting in the driving seat, holding the reins of a gracile bipedal crested dinosaur.
Carlos stopped.
“Hi, Carlos,” Jax called, smiling. “Good to see you properly at last.”
“Well, hello again, Jax,” Carlos said. “Or is it ‘Lady Jacqueline’ I should call you here?”
Jax laughed. “We’re peasant rebels living in the palaces of the vanquished aristocracy,” she said. “That’s the conceit, anyway. So come on, let me give you a lift.”
She beckoned. Carlos stood his ground.
“I’m not falling for that again,” he said. “So to speak.”
“Fuck’s sake, man!”
She hitched up her skirts and flounced over. Carlos noted with some amusement that she was wearing black boots with thick soles and bright yellow stitching. Some goblin cobbler must have made a very creditable fake pair of Doc Martens.
Jax stopped in front of him, grinning. She held out a hand, her flared sleeve hanging in a loose cone from her elbow to wrist.
“Come on,” she said. “Don’t be silly.”
Carlos took her hand, small and warm and dry as it had ever been.
“Can give a guy trust issues,” he remarked. “Falling into hell.”
Hand in hand, they walked to the carriage. The dinosaur gave them the once-over with an alert and beady eye. Carlos gave the boggart a wary nod. It looked back at him, impudent in its impassivity, and acknowledged him with a small tip of the hat. The carriage had a step at the side and a wide seat at the back. Jax climbed in. Carlos followed.
The boggart shook the reins. The dinosaur pranced sideways, wheeling the vehicle about, and set off at a fast clip. The carriage swayed alarmingly, but the ride was otherwise smooth.
“Isn’t this romantic?” cried Jax, snuggling up.
Carlos looked down at her upturned face, and the décolletage revealed by her low-cut scoop collar. She was still Jax, just as he remembered. Her skin and features had no doubt been flattered by the subtly idealised rendering characteristic of the game environment; her hair was thicker, and with a glossier black than in life, where for sure she’d never have had it tied up in loose silver mesh with diamond nodes. But it was her all right. His old flame, his comrade and friend. His lost love, intermittent though their love had been. And a hard, bright Axle cadre to the bone. He was still wary of her, and his resentment at his interrogation was far from mollified. And his cheek was still sore, as were his ribs. The swim had cleaned him and soothed his scratches, but hadn’t lessened the deeper aches.
“It’ll help me get over my reception,” Carlos said.
“Oh! I was about to say—we’re all sorry about that. But—” Her free arm waved, the lower sleeve a trailing triangle of green velvet. “I’m sure you understand.”
“Sure, I understand,” said Carlos. “Fucking hell, Jax, I was expecting a grilling, fair dos. Not being knocked down and kicked about by dungeon demons.”
“Oh, you know what they’re like,” Jax said. “P-zombies. Hard to control at the best of times. And these are pretty limited. They went beyond what any of us expected.”
Carlos felt anger rise like bile. He turned to face her full on. He had the impulse to grab her upper arms, and thought better of it—in life she’d had fighting reflexes, trained in and no doubt still easily triggered. His fists clenched, pressing against his thighs as if thrusting in daggers.
“Jax,” he said, “let’s get one thing straight right now. Don’t ever fucking lie to me. And you’re fucking lying now. I know you. I know us. We’re the cadre. The hardliners. The hard core. You and me, yeah, we’ve got history between us. Good times, yeah. But you know and I know what we’re like. So don’t fucking tell me it was down to p-zombies that went off script. And don’t tell me the threats I got afterwards wouldn’t have been carried out. And don’t tell me you didn’t know what was going to happen. You fucking did and I fucking know it.”
“How?” Jax asked.
“I know it,” Carlos said, “because in the same circumstances I’d have done the same to you.”
Jax didn’t smile, and didn’t blush, but one cheek, reddening, twitched. She turned away and looked forward.
“Yes, well,” she said. “That’s me told, I guess.” She sighed, and leaned back against the seat. “We’re all monsters.”
Carlos remembered Nicole telling him the same thing. He wondered if he was still what she’d called him then: a hopeful monster.
“I guess you’ve all been through the same mill yourselves,” he added, in a more understanding tone—though he couldn’t help thinking of those who wouldn’t have made it through. Were their minds even now being tormented to madness in the hell caverns, or had they been mercifully despatched?
Jax looked at him with surprise. “What makes you say that?”
He frowned. “You told me when I first hailed you, back when you were coming up on the shuttle.” It had been a longer time ago for her, he realised. “Arcane’s all Axle, you said. I made an educated guess as to how you could be sure.”
She smiled. “And you still came here, knowing you’d be interrogated? That’s … impressive.” She shook her head. “But no. We have two dozen of us altogether—eighteen outside the sim at the moment. The selection of cadre wasn’t made by us. It was made by Arcane.”
“The agency itself?” He found this hard to believe.
“Yes,” said Jax. “Arcane is Axle the same way Locke is Rax. Maybe more so.”
“I’m not sure I can believe that.”
“Please yourself.” She turned away with a shrug.
At approximately the same moment, out in the real world and tens of thousands of kilometres away on the surface of SH-17, Seba watched the skies.
A few fighters from the fleet that had surged out of the space station had held to their original mission despite the subsequent mêlée. These had been dealt with—except one. It was still on course for one of SH-17’s moonlets: a carbonaceous chondrite about a hundred and fifty metres long, on the surface of which a small fuel plant had been constructed. Still too distant to be an immediate threat, but the combat scooter’s fate was being prepared at greater distances still.
All that was called off in favour of a more urgent task.
The request rapped in from the Arcane Disputes modular complex.
Seba awaited the answer from the Forerunners in their high orbits with more than a trickle of concern. If the freebots followed this request and attacked the Locke module, it would imply—to the best of Seba’s knowledge at that point—a clear taking of sides between the Acceleration and the Reaction. It was the first test of whether the discussion Seba and Rocko had started had reached consensus on neutrality between these human factions.
The answer, summed across the Fifteen and the Forerunners concerned, was straightforward.
There was a pause of seconds. Then Arcane came back:
A bray of discordant communication from Arcane broke across the consensus, sending its participants reeling. Seba found itself looking at its fellows as if jolted out of a long chain of subtle reasoning by an unexpected input. Then, as the robot recovered its mental balance, it noticed the Arcane fighters in the shelter stirring to action. Encrypted comms flickered back and forth on their company channel.
The small glassy humanoid figures suddenly sprang into concerted action. In long, loping leaps they bounded for the ramp. They had no weapons in the shelter—there had never been a thought that weapons might be needed—but several heavy combat frames were racked outside.
There was no time for a more detailed request. A millisecond after sending it, Seba was almost minded to countermand. Pintre was entirely capable of interpreting Seba’s call as one to start blasting with its laser turret.
The chunky mining robot spun around, tracks grating on basalt, and rushed for the ramp. As it went it swung its turret back and forth in swift arcs, swatting fighters with its projector barrel in mid-leap. Others it shouldered aside with sudden swerves, knocking them with its flanks. It reached the top of the ramp alone, and stopped. It rotated its laser turret and swayed the projector this way and that, in slower sweeps that menaced its still tumbling and scattered adversaries.
It added, with greater pertinence, a question:
The rest of the freebots, and the comms processor in the centre of the room, turned their attention as one on Seba and Rocko. These two turned their attention on each other, and shared a common thought:
What indeed?
The carriage passed through a wide, open gateway between ornate, weathered stone pillars and into the castle’s great park. Carlos looked around for the sort of tame fauna he expected from his memories of the game, and duly found them. Here strutted a feathered dinosaur like a swan, but twice as big and with iridescent plumage; there grazed a shaggy elk with a three-metre span of antlers. Flying monkeys with wide webs between their arms and legs chattered and whooped as they glided from tree to tree. Far overhead soared the pterodactyls that skim-fished the rivers and preyed on the hummingbirds that swarmed amid the treetops and shrubbery and troubled the air with a faint buzz.
Up close, the castle looked less impressive than it had from a distance. The ivy-covered walls of one wing had ragged holes punched through, and most of its windows were boarded up. The windows of the other wing were shuttered. As the carriage swung around and halted on the gravel concourse in front of the main door, Carlos remarked on the dilapidated look of the place.
“Met resistance here, did you?”
Jax gave him one of her old cheery grins, breaking a five-minute stretch of introspective gloom.
“Told you, it’s the conceit. We never did actually storm it—it was like that when we found it.”
Carlos had to laugh. “Looks like the Arcane AI knows the tastes of Axle cadre pretty well.”
“That it does,” said Jax. “You’ll see why later.”
They alighted from the carriage—Jax took Carlos’s hand down, without irony or demur—and walked into the castle. The door, like the gate, was both ornate and open: two heavy double doors of carved wood, with elaborate locks and bolts.
Jax led Carlos through a cavernous hallway from which a stairwell ascended into the dim upper levels. The hall’s sides were hung with portraits of imaginary ancestors, the edges of its floors cluttered with dusty chairs and tables. A grandfather clock ticked, the long and short hand almost joined in a vertical at XIII. A door on the left led into a room with a high ceiling, a polished wooden floor and tall French windows facing mirrors on the inner wall. An empty fireplace and stone chimney stack occupied the wall opposite the door.
