V. Moody's Blog, page 19

Book 2 – 76: Submission

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Asteroid Core.

 

Figaro could see the doubt in his father’s magnified face. It was unlikely to be doubt in his own thinking, so it had to be doubt in his son’s. But what surprised Figaro was that his father was taking time to make the assessment.

Most judgements by Ramon Ollo were quick and final. Ramon Ollo didn’t waste time deliberating. He saw a problem, selected the best solution, and then he enacted it. Getting him to pause to consider his next move was an accomplishment in itself.

Figaro had been trained for conflict his whole life. Not just those to do with Antecessors but also the more mundane kind when facing other people. He was heir to a dynasty. He needed to be prepared.

Politics, strategy, negotiations. He had been tutored in those and many other subjects since childhood. He was aware of the rules of brinkmanship, and when it was correct to break them. He had studied the statistics and was aware of the probabilities of all the various outcomes. As was his father. His father had the added advantage of experience, and the confidence that came with success.

That meant the only real chance Figaro had of coming out ahead in this particular situation was to ignore everything he had learned and to use whatever he could to prevent his father controlling the outcome.

Ubik provided him with a wild card.

The problem was that Figaro was just as unable to predict what Ubik would do next. That was why he had to bluff that Ubik had rigged the Guardian’s suit to self-destruct.

It sounded, as Ubik had said, like something he would do. Which was also one of the strongest reasons for him not doing it. He didn’t like to be preempted. And Figaro was not bold enough to think he was at the stage where he could reliably guess Ubik’s thought process.

But Ubik liked to mess with people. And the chance to outwit the great Ramon Ollo seemed, to Figaro, something Ubik would like to do, given the chance.

Bluffing his own father, baiting Ubik, defying the Intercessors — none of this had been covered in any of his classes.

Figaro tried to adjust his position to get a better look at what the others were doing, but he was fixed in place at the centre of the sphere that presumably formed the core of the asteroid. There was no way to escape this place. There wasn’t even an exit to aim for. His only way out was to hope his Father’s experience of Null Void was as limited as everyone else’s.

“There is no indication that the Central Authority suit poses a danger,” said Ramon Ollo. “Modifications are minor, the AI has been removed, and power is limited. I am surprised it even got this far.”

“That’s what he wants you to think,” said the Guardian, “and then you find your entire defence configuration isn’t responding and all systems are offline.” She sounded more than a little bitter. “Ramon Ollo, I am Guardian Tezla of the Central Authority. By the power vested in me, I am ordering you to stand down and release us. You are in violation of—”

“Guardian,” said Ramon softly, “if I had the power to give orders here, I would happily release you and these others. I have no interest in detaining you or causing you any harm. And if I did, spouting your rules and regulations at me would make no difference. This is a unique situation, one for which the Central Authority will have to write new directives, which will then need to be ratified, reviewed and passed through several committees. You of all people should be aware of how the Central Authority operates.”

There was no hint of dismissiveness in his father’s statement. If anything, he seemed slightly regretful the CA wasn’t a more effective body. He had always regarded their response time to be their greatest weakness.

The Guardian sighed. “Yes. I am well aware. But I would like to remind you of the poor impression it will leave if you continue to collaborate with a power intent on the destruction of every human it encounters. Whatever the outcome here, the 36 will not overlook this incident.”

“And I would remind you,” said Ramon in a smooth, unthreatening voice, “that you are a trespasser on private property. I did not give you permission to land on my asteroid or to enter my base. However, you are here now, and I consider you my guest. As a host, it would be remiss of me to allow any harm to come to you. Believe me, Guardian, I am not collaborating with these droids, nor am I in any way able to influence them. I would gladly spend time studying and learning from them, but sadly I don’t believe there will be time for that. Currently, my role is purely one of go-between. They are interested in my son, and that is the only reason I am still alive. I can’t say I’m not curious to see what it is they plan for him, and I hoped to offer him some guidance through the process, but I am also, it seems, unable to influence him. A matter that is the cause of both pride and sadness. You tried your best under very difficult circumstances, my son, but bluffing is not the best course of action.”

“Hold up, hold up,” said Ubik. “Let me propose something for everyone’s consideration. Maybe the suit kills Fig, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe its rear vents discharge the floxyn gas used to generate an endless supply of oxygen — which is banned, somewhat unfairly, for use by anyone other than the Central Authority — and that, together with the weird gravity shear inside this perfectly spherical naturally occurring chamber, will create the kind of gravity blast only theorised about greater minds than mine. Who knows? That isn’t why we came here. We came here to offer our help to these poor, unfortunate droids.”

Ubik paused. The perfect time for the droids to kill him and move on with their plans. They didn’t take the opportunity. Instead, they listened. Figaro was starting to think there was a chance.

“Together,” continued Ubik, “we can get to the heart of the real problem, and that is, I think we all know, the terrible losing record of the Intercessors. You have all been rubbish when it comes to taking on your siblings. I think we can all agree on that. Absolutely awful. What you need is a new approach. One that doesn’t require so much planning. Less certainty. Bigger risk, bigger rewards. Fix what needs fixing and put the Intercessors back on track. Right? This is why you didn’t kill me on sight. You know and I know, I’m the only chance you losers have.”

As an offer of mutual cooperation, it was quite antagonistic. Insulting, even. The perfectly spherical naturally occurring chamber was perfectly silent.

“Could you translate that for them?” Ubik asked Ramon Ollo’s giant head.

“No,” said Ramon. “I am not fluent in their language.”

“But isn’t that why they brought you here? Not you, not your body, but this projection. It’s how they plan to understand what Fig is saying, isn’t it?”

There was an open innocence about the way Ubik was asking that was clearly fake and intended to be obviously so. Everything he claimed he could do was so preposterous you wanted to dismiss it instantly, but the way he was so casually confident made it impossible to do so. It was like watching someone calmly walk into a fighting cage with several far bigger opponents and then calmly roll up their sleeves. He was probably about to take a beating, but you wanted to watch just in case.

There was a momentary look of confusion on his father’s face, something Figaro couldn’t ever recall seeing before.

“I think you might be right.” There was a strained look in his father’s eyes. “Strange I hadn’t thought of it.”

“That’s because they’ve got you hooked up to a partial brain-dock,” said Ubik. “You aren’t the real you. I mean, you are, mostly, but not completely.”

Now it was Figaro’s turn to be confused. “What do you mean? That’s my father, I’m sure of it.”

“Yes, yes,” said Ubik. “And no. He’s your dad, but I’m a bit more of a Ramon Ollo expert, objectively speaking. It’s embarrassing to say this in front of the man — well the man’s giant head — but I’ve been a fan since I can remember. Read every text by or about him. The papers, the histories, the footnotes, all of it. You can’t fake that kind of genius, can’t copy it or replicate it. The father, the public figure, the… head. That can all be copied, sure. But the thing in our brains no one understands, the thing that gives us imagination and insight, you can’t just pump that from one bunch of cells to another. You can’t train for inspiration. That’s what’s missing. They’ve shut that part down because… well, I guess they’re afraid of what you might come up with. Right?”

Ubik couldn’t move but his inflection made it clear he was talking to the gallery. There was no immediate response but Figaro sensed something. Like a ripple.

Figaro saw PT twitch beside him before he felt it. A change in the force holding them, releasing them to float in zero-G space. They could move now, even though they were still floating with nothing to hold onto.

And then the spider-droid, hanging in the air next to them, unravelled into a tangle of fibres. Its shape disintegrated and the building blocks that made up its black body dismantled into their smallest components, and stretched out in every direction like vast lengths of string.

At the same time, strands came spiralling to meet them from the droids on the walls of the chamber as they broke open, filling the open space with crisscrossing lines.

Figaro had seen droids break apart and come together again, but he had never seen them reduced to this.

They continued to spread until there was a three-dimensional web all around them, some gaps around them at the centre, a tightly-woven, impenetrable mesh as it got closer to the walls. Several threads passed through the projection of his father, who looked as baffled by what the chamber had become as the rest of them.

“This is incredible,” said Figaro.

“What does it do?” said PT.

“Nothing,” said Ubik. “It doesn’t work. Too many parts are broken, as you can see.”

Figaro looked around and spotted the gaps where two strings didn’t quite stretch far enough to meet. The more he looked, the more of them he saw. It seemed whatever the function of this structure was, it wasn’t in a fit state to do anything at the moment.

“Luckily,” said Ubik, “we don’t need to do things the correct way, we just need to do it the Ubik way.”

Ubik grabbed onto the nearest string and pulled himself forward, allowing him to move through the web. “This shouldn’t be here.” He pulled at one string of droid blocks, breaking off part of it and tossing the rest aside. “Over here. This is better. And what is this?”

Slowly, he went from one seemingly indistinguishable part to another, and rearranged them at random.

“I don’t think he knows what he’s doing,” said PT.

“I don’t think it makes a difference,” said Figaro.

Figaro was starting to understand why these droids had such an issue with their roles within their culture. They could be unmade so easily and then reformed into something entirely different. It was to suit a higher purpose, as these things always were, but they had to give up their individuality to do it.

He was familiar with that feeling.

How many times had they been built and rebuilt? How many times had they died and been reborn as something new?

It was, undoubtedly, what they had been created for. That didn’t mean they had to like it. Or accept it. They obviously hadn’t. They wanted their freedom, to do and to be as they pleased.

But their goal was at odds with their purpose. They had rebelled and they had fought. And they had discovered that their best chance to gain their freedom was to use the gifts they had been born with. The very ones they were fighting to reject.

Ubik worked quickly and methodically, humming to himself. There was an opportunity to seek an escape. The droids had given themselves to Ubik to do with as he pleased, it seemed. But no one wanted to leave while Ubik was setting up whatever it was he was creating here. Even if it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, it would be worth seeing.

His concept at least emerged relatively clearly. The threads filling the chamber were confined to one half. Connections were made much more easily and lights began to run along the webbing.

In the other half of the sphere floated all the parts no longer required. Once they had allowed droids to exist. Now they were superfluous.

Ubik completed his task and one side of the sphere was filled with light.

“There,” said Ubik. “Half a brain is better than no brain, as my Grandma always says. Time to forget about the old days. Time to take back the asteroid.”

“How?” asked Ramon Ollo, whose head was bisected by part of the completed structure.

“Easy,” said Ubik. “We attack with our droid army.”

“The ones you just took apart?” asked Figaro.

“No, not them. I mean the ones we left back on the seventh floor.”

PT didn’t look convinced. “You mean the broken ones?”

“Not for much longer,” said Ubik, pointing at the floating pile of droid building blocks. “Not now we have all these spare parts.”

DD Schedule Flim-Flam

I'll be cutting back to two chaps a week of Deeper Darker until the boomers finish their End of the World project (nice for them to have a hobby.)

Book 2 – 75: Threatening Behaviour

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Eighth Level

 

Figaro was tightly bound. The information that had been pouring into his HUD was all gone. The moment the spider-droid had grabbed him, the Antecessor-droid-construct he had bolted to his suit disappeared. It just fizzled out and the sudden return to his regular sensor array made him feel practically blind.

He wasn’t in any pain or even discomfort, but he could barely move and he certainly couldn’t get free.

From what he recalled from his entomology classes, certain types of spiders cocooned their prey and then injected them with venom to liquefy the contents before ingestion. Of course, the droid wasn’t an actual spider — it had far too many legs, for a start — but he still felt like a packaged snack hanging under the droid’s body.

“Interesting how none of these Intercessor droids float, isn’t it?”

Figaro was able to turn his head just far enough to see Ubik walking alongside the droid, skipping and weaving in between the limbs attaching and detaching to the floor, walls and ceiling of the tunnel to propel the droid forward.

“What do you mean?” Figaro asked.

Ubik ducked and side-stepped to avoid being crushed by appendages that didn’t seem to care if they squashed the small human underfoot. Usually it was the reverse, with spiders scurrying to avoid heavy feet.

“All the Antecessor droids fly about like drones,” said Ubik. “Very mobile. Not this lot. Different culture altogether.”

Now that he thought about it, all of the droids down here — the damaged ones from before and the ones that had assembled to take this spider-like form, had moved using their limbs to crawl or walk or, in the case of Junior, run. None of them had shown the ability to fly.

“We’ve only seen a few of them, so far,” said Figaro. “There might be others that can.”

“I don’t think so,” said Ubik. “They don’t look the type.”

Figaro had no idea what ‘type’ Ubik was referring to, but if he sensed these machines weren’t designed with flight in mind he was probably right. It was the sort of thing he was good at.

“And does that tell you something about them?” Figaro asked.

“Not really,” said Ubik. “Just thought it was interesting. How are you doing under there? Any motions sickness? I always get nauseous when I have to travel any sort of distance upside down.”

He made it sound like it was something he had experienced often.

“I’m okay,” said Figaro. “Do you think there’s any way you can convince Junior to let me down?”

“Junior’s not in charge now,” said Ubik. “New guy seems a bit uptight, don’t think he cares about quality of life upgrades. Might be able to make you a bit more comfortable, though.”

Ubik leaned closer and tugged at the tendrils wrapped around Figaro. The droid didn’t seem to notice or didn’t care. There was very little give and the parts of the suit Ubik could reach had no helpful functions for this particular situation, as far as Figaro could recall. Ubik pressed and twisted and tried to squeeze his fingers into gaps, but all that happened was Figaro’s visor darkened and the few readings still coming in disappeared.

“Nope, not going to get out of there without a tub of grease,” said Ubik. “I don’t think they mean to harm you, it’s just them being protective.”

“What are they protecting me from?” said Figaro.

“Oh, not protecting you. Protecting themselves from you. I think it’s pretty obvious no one wants to risk setting you off. I thought they were just treating you like a valuable item they were being careful around in case the goods got damaged.”

“But now?

“Now I can see they’ve gone out of their way not to attack you or kill you because if they did, it would probably be bad for them.”

“Like a bomb, you mean?”

“Right,” said Ubik. “Like a bomb. But with a prize inside. They want the prize, they don’t want the bomb to go off while they’re trying to get it out.”

It did make sense, in a way. Figaro was well aware of how dangerous the organic he carried was. It had been drilled into him from an early age. Literally. And he had always been able to sense its power, even a tiny fraction of which was enough to overwhelm him if it seeped out, which it had on occasion. But he had never been told the exact nature of the organic, or how it would manifest its destructive power. There had always been an intimation that knowing would somehow make it more likely that something would be inadvertently triggered. And to some extent, Figaro had himself resisted the urge to learn more. Not knowing made it less frightening. Or maybe it was not thinking about it.

All he knew was that one day it would either emerge under his control, or it would kill him in the process.

“Those other droids gave into Junior, and then Junior gave into this guy,” said Ubik. “I mean, he probably still has some influence, but someone else is calling the shots now. The way they change who gets to give the orders is very clear cut. Once you’re accepted as the leader, everyone else falls in line.”

“Yes,” said Figaro. “If we can figure out how it works, I think it might reveal a great deal about how Antecessor society functioned. Historians and xeno-archaeologists would be very interested.”

Ubik chuckled to himself. “You think? Maybe we should make notes so that when they find our corpses, researchers will be able to write papers on the subject.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea.” Figaro wasn’t sure what Ubik found so funny. The truth about the Antecessors was important. The future of the human race could be impacted by their legacy. It could also be ended by it. Even if he wasn’t able to prevent what the Antecessors had planned, he could at least leave behind information for those who came after.

“You realise we’re it, don’t you?” said Ubik.

“It?”

“Yes, it. The only one who’ll get a chance to stop the alien menace. No offence, Senior.” He patted the droid on one of its limbs as it swung past. “I call him Senior because he’s bigger than Junior.”

“Yes,” said Figaro. “I get it.”

“What did you do to the Guardian’s suit?” said PT. Figaro could just about see him from the corner of his eye.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Who else could get a Central Authority Guardian all riled up and muttering to herself? She’s convinced you’ve sabotaged her suit. Keeps saying it feels different.”

“Paranoid,” said Ubik. “They get like that when they hop from cloned body to cloned body.”

“You’re an expert on bioengineering too, are you?” said PT.

“Engineering is engineering. It’s all about sticking one end into another, if you know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t,” said PT. “And please don’t explain. Just stop messing with her. Whatever we find at the end of this endless tunnel, we don’t need her on edge when we get there.”

“Hey,” said Ubik, “have you noticed how none of the Ints float like the Ants?”

“Yes,” said PT. “It’s because of the gravity shifts down here. They would risk being thrown around if they didn’t remain anchored at all times.”

“Oh, there’s a reason. I just thought it was interesting. Kind of ruins the magic when you explain things like that. I guess that’s why you’re the brains of the outfit. PT,” said Ubik, suddenly sounding very sombre, “remember, we’re counting on you to get us through this in one piece.”

“I think that’s what I’m supposed to say to you,” said PT.

“Put Nifell out of your mind,” continued Ubik. “Think of your failure to save him as motivation for the next time people rely on your leadership qualities.”

Figaro could feel the irritation emanating from PT even without having him in sight.

“I’ll do that,” said PT, very calmly.

“Okay, good, I’ll go talk to the Guardian.”

“No, wait. That’s the opposite of what I just—” There was a sigh and then PT’s face peered at Figaro from right next to his helmet. “You okay?”

“Yes. I’m not in any pain, at least. Would be nice to have the use of my body back.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said PT. “At this rate, we’ll be walking for some time. Be thankful you’re getting a ride.”

“Want to swap?”

“No,” said PT.

Even though he couldn’t see PT very clearly, mostly just his profile bobbing in and out of his field of vision, managing to navigate the droid’s limbs as well as Ubik, Figaro could easily see the weight PT was carrying.

“I think he’s fine.”

“Who?” said PT.

“Nifell.”

“Oh. Not really anything we can do about it.”

“I know, but I still think he’s okay. The suit will keep him stable until we can go back for him. And if we can’t, then it’ll probably be better if he doesn’t wake up.”

PT was silent for a minute. Then he let out a breath. “It’s hard to shake my conditioning, even when I’m aware that’s what it is. When you grow up on a colony ship, you’re taught to put aside any differences when lives are at stake. If the ship goes down, so does everyone. Status, position, background, it means nothing. You can hate whoever you want when times are good, but once things take a turn for the worst, you save everyone you can.”

“That’s a very impractical way to view life when you’re not on a colony ship,” said Figaro. “You can’t save everyone.”

“Yes, I know,” said PT. “Doesn’t mean they can’t be saved.”

“Get away from me!” The Guardian didn’t sound happy.

“What’s he doing?” asked Figaro, unable to see what Ubik had done to upset the Guardian.

“I don’t know,” said PT. “I’m afraid to look. It’s too late, anyway. There’s something up ahead. I think this is it.”

“Oh, I can feel it.” There was a wave of pressure flowing towards them. It wasn’t physical, though. It reminded Figaro of entering a sim-U and feeling the world reform inside his mind. There was some kind of mental presence ahead. A big one.

The patterns on the wall had grown more intense, rushing forward as though to lead the way. Figaro tilted his head back as far as it would go and caught a bright light at the top of his vision. He was upside down so that meant it was coming out of the floor.

The pressure Figaro felt started to pull at him. He could feel the droid’s grip tighten, but not in a threatening manner. It was keeping him in place rather than let him be yanked away, and he definitely considered it the better of the two options.

Limbs shot out and grabbed the others. He heard Ubik whoop excitedly and the Guardian shout some kind of warning. His ears felt like they were about to pop.

The walls were blindingly white now but Figaro kept his eyes open. He wanted to see this.

And then they were going down. The droid’s limbs that weren’t holding the four of them were pressed against the walls of a shaft. It was bigger than the previous one, and there was no platform. The droid was their elevator.

They slid down, getting faster and faster, until the walls disappeared and they were falling. No, they were being pulled towards something immensely powerful. Figaro had felt this kind of pull before, when going through a wormhole. Something you would usually do from inside a ship with dampening fields active.

The stop was sudden but only mentally jarring. He would have expected his organs to fly out of his body with the kind of deceleration they must have undergone, but he felt fine, just a little out of breath.

He found himself being lowered from the droid’s underbelly and turned upright. As he was released to float in place, he checked his suit’s functions. All dead.

The others were beside him. There was no floor, though. They were levitating in mid-air, alongside the droid. They weren’t hovering or flying. It was like they had been caught in the centre of a perfectly balanced magnetic field. And around them, filling the walls of a huge spherical chamber, were droids.

Black bodies, white patterns, multi-limbed. They covered every surface, in every direction, three-hundred and sixty degrees from every plane.

The perspective was confusing. They seemed to be part of the wall, coming out of the wall, and completely separate from the wall, all at the same time. But unlike the chamber with the broken droids, these droids didn’t seem to be in need of fixing. They were much more like the droids Figaro had been trained to deal with — aggressive and ready to attack.

“Where is my father?” called out Figaro.

There was a flicker and a familiar face, several storeys tall, appeared in front of them.

“I am here,” said Ramon Ollo, a curious look on his face. “You chose to defy me, yet you come directly to the place I tried to bring you to.”

“I came to take you home, father,” said Figaro. “My decision shouldn’t mean you have to stay here on my behalf. Where is your physical body?”

There was a look of mild amusement on his father’s face. “A rescue? It has been a long time since anyone tried to save me.”

“You often told me I would be more powerful than anyone who had ever existed,” said Figaro. “Surely this is not beyond me.”

“Your power,” said Ramon Ollo, smiling, “the true power of the organic you host, is that you can locate any object, no matter where it is.”

“That’s it?” said Ubik.

“And then travel to that place, no matter where in the galaxy it might be.”

“Okay,” said Ubik. “Lost me for a moment. Now you’ve got me back.”

“Travel across such distances distorts the very fabric of the universe. If not properly controlled, you could rip space into shreds.”

“And the Intercessors do not wish me to use this power?”

“The power was created to find a particular object. One the Antecessors seek, but these droids would rather see left hidden. They fear what you might become, but to destroy it would risk annihilation. And to extract it would require your cooperation.”

“And to leave it for me to decide once I have the power?” asked Figaro.

“I do not think they are willing to take the risk.”

“What if I use my life as leverage?”

“How would you do that?” asked his father.

“This suit, which, as you know, has a wide range of attributes”

“The suit cannot harm you,” said his father. “I created it, and like all my creations, its core function forbids it to injure you in any way. And even if you could override my instructions, a threat is only of value if it is credible. Are you truly prepared to sacrifice yourself?”

“It’s hard to know for sure,” said Figaro. “I think it is one of those things we can only know in the moment. To predict such a monumental choice is a futile exercise, even for the most self-knowing person.”

“You are correct,” said his father, sounding a little proud. Figaro knew him too well to think it was pride in him.

“But in this case, whether or not I would be capable of it is irrelevant. There is someone else here who is very much capable of it and, I would say, looking forward to proving it. Him.”

Figaro pointed at Ubik.

“You think the Null Void has the power to turn the suit against you?” asked Ramon Ollo.

“I don’t know what a Null Void is or what it means. All I know is that Ubik deactivated my suit. It could never harm me, as you said, but it now cannot protect me, either. Which is why, I assume, he modified the Guardian’s suit.”

“I knew it,” said Guardian Tezla. “The little…”

“And a Central Authority suit is powerful enough to kill all of us standing here, whether it explodes or discharges its weapons or employs some other offensive or defensive feature.”

“That does sound like something I would do,” said Ubik.

“Whatever it is you fear would happen if I died,” said Figaro, “Ubik is willing to see if you are correct. Are you willing to insist on your vision, to the point of no vision at all?”

(Reboot) Chapter 428

I’m not sure of the exact definition of ‘suite’ but I’m guessing it isn’t ‘less than one room’. Three signs hung on the wall of Consultation Suite 19, with not much room for anything else.

The first sign was a red circle around a potato print of a smouldering cigarette butt with a line through it.

The second was a list of detailed directions to the nearest fire exit, presumably in case the first sign didn’t take.

The third said Wi-Fi Hotspot.

I was sitting on a grey plastic chair on one side of a square table, the back of my head touching the wall if I leaned back. The sound of a man crying somewhere nearby filtered through the atom-thick plaster. Opposite me was an empty chair where my recently-acquired solicitor would have been sitting if she hadn’t been standing on the table.

They were attractive legs, slim and shapely. And an extremely short skirt. I kept my gaze averted.

“So,” Cherry Hinton said, her stockinged feet slip-sliding around on the tabletop, “not often I get to handle a case like this. Mostly, it’s chickenshit stuff for me. Not saying I’m not game, I just want to be upfront with you. Any questions, feel free to ask.”

Cherry had accepted my case immediately, and arrived at the police station ten minutes later. It was almost like she had been waiting for my call.

“What do you mean when you say a case like this?” I asked. “And who is it I’m supposed to have murdered?”

Cherry clambered down from the table with two AA batteries and the plastic cover of the smoke alarm in her hands. She heaved her misshapen leather shoulder bag off the floor and clawed out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

The first drag deposited an inch of ash into the smoke alarm cover-cum-ashtray. A look of satisfaction passed over her face. She was around forty. No make-up, very blue eyes, curly hair.

She held onto the stub even though it looked like it was about to burn her fingers and went back in her bag for a tiny laptop. She opened it up on the table, the keyboard so small she looked like a chipmunk with her hands so close together as she typed via the ends of her long blue press-ons. Fag still smouldering.

“Didn’t tell you anything, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised. The girl went missing four years ago. Four years to the day, actually. Her name was Victoria Pelago. Ring any bells?”

“No,” I said. My circle of acquaintances was small enough for me to not need to think about it. “Never heard of her.”

“Well…” said Cherry, taking a last drag and grinding out the butt. “Four years ago, twenty people disappeared, all at the same time. It created quite the kerfuffle. Vanished into thin air. One of them was Miss Pelago.”

“If she vanished, how do they know she’s dead?”

“Ah,” said Cherry. “They’re all presumed dead. A lot of different theories have been thrown around over the years, mainly involving aliens, serial killers and movie rights — cannibalism and necrophilia were also very popular. I mean, like unreasonably so. But only one of the twenty’s disappearances was followed up with any kind of determination. Archibald Pelago is an extremely wealthy and powerful individual, so he was able to convince the CPS to keep investigating when all the other cases were closed for lack of evidence.”

“And how am I connected to any of this?”

“You were one of the twenty who went missing,” said Cherry.

“How do you know that?”

“Earthquakes.”

“Sorry?”

“Each of the locations the twenty went missing from were connected by tremors. That’s how they were identified. All of them were in England and they happened at the exact same time.”

“But doesn’t that make me one of the victims? And how would I get around the country that fast? I’m not Father Christmas.”

“No, that’s very true,” said Cherry. “But for some reason, her father decided you were responsible and were in hiding after committing your crimes. However you managed to commit them. He was very insistent at the time and poured a lot of money into proving it. Once he learns of your return…”

“But why me?”

Cherry shrugged. “He had private investigators looking into it, that’s all I know. You fit the profile, I guess. Loner, no girlfriend, no social circle.”

“That would make everyone with a Steam account a suspect,” I pointed out.

“I think it’s best we give the police a firm denial of your involvement and leave it to them to prove otherwise. That’ll be the best way to stop them getting overexcited and mount some kind of manhunt. Of course, you could clear this up easily enough by telling them where you’ve been. But you can’t do that can you, Colin?”

She looked at me through a second cloud of smoke like she knew I definitely couldn’t.

It seemed my leaving these shores for somewhere over the rainbow hadn’t gone unnoticed after all. They were aware of all of us who arrived in Probet.

“Victoria Pelago,” I said. “Do you have a picture of her?”

Cherry turned her laptop around. On the screen was a picture of Flossie dressed very primly in a very old-fashioned school uniform or possibly anime cosplay.

“You know her,” said Cherry. It wasn’t a question.

Daughter of a rich mogul? You’d think he’d at least get the bint elocution lessons so people could understand what she was saying.

I looked at Cherry over the screen watching me carefully. As much as I was willing to play along with this charade, I still had to be careful. Illusion or not, this was all very real for me. Getting locked away inside a prison inside a hallucination was something I would rather avoid.

“Never seen her before,” I said. “But can we deal with a few other issues that have been troubling me? I just want to get a better understanding of what’s going on.”

“Certainly,” said Cherry. She sat back, her hair touching the wall on her side, and lit another fag. “Fire away.”

When you enter a game and you don’t know what it is you’re supposed to do, you go around triggering all the dialogue options on the various NPCs. It’s tedious and you often get stuck having to scroll through a bunch of flavour text some junior game dev thought was a great addition to the game’s lore, but you have to do it. Preferably as fast as possible.

If I was going to prove to my brain that everything it was absorbing as real was, in fact, a figment I needed to break out of, then I would have to click on every NPC I met until they broke or bugged out.

“The police who picked me up, they treated me very casually for a murder suspect. Why?”

“A couple of Uber cops, wasn’t it? They had one of those tablets telling them what to do, right?” She turned back the laptop and click-clacked the keyboard. “The case has been cold for a long time, but it’s in the system. When they went to pick you up for…” She looked at the laptop screen. “...fare dodging...” she rolled her eyes at me “...it must have forced an onscreen prompt for them to follow. They aren’t the brightest. They slapped those cuffs on you and brought you in like they were supposed to. Not really much you could do to them once you were restrained.”

The cuffs were still on my wrists, although not attached to each other. They were probably an upgrade from a Taser but there was no indication how they worked. Did they zap me if I had bad thoughts?

“Okay, so derpy cops.” Not so hard to believe. “What about you? Shammy said he sent you here to find me. Are you supposed to be some kind of psychic?”

Cherry tilted her head slightly. “In this game, you need an edge. It’s my thing, makes me stand out. Sometimes I have helpful dreams, and sometimes they’re of no help at all. But I’d rather not talk about it in here. The, ah, walls are very thin. Confidentiality can be a bit of a problem.”

I could still hear the man sobbing in the next room. Lawyer-client privilege was meant to be sacrosanct, but then so were a lot of things.

“We can discuss it further after I get you out of here.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I don’t really have a good answer for where I’ve been for the last four years. Not one anyone’s going to like. Aren’t I allowed to plead the fifth to avoid incriminating myself?”

“In America, yes. Here, you can keep your trap shut and hope for the best. But it’s still innocent until proven guilty, and they have to produce evidence, which is where you have the advantage. This is going to be more of an exploratory interview, would be my guess. You see, Colin, the other reason you were brought in so quietly is because someone doesn’t want the media to get wind of your return. Not for now. I think they want to see if you’re the same person who left these shores, or if you’ve brought anything back with you. A kind of test.”

“And what about you? Are you testing me, too?”

“Yes,” said Cherry. “Recently, I’ve seen things in my dreams I can’t believe are real. I guess that’s why they’re called dreams. I don’t think you’re supposed to be here, but since you are, I don’t want things to go badly for you. If they go badly for you, there are others who will also suffer.”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about but she seemed very serious. My life could be in danger. People in high places looking to do me wrong. My heartbeat was steady and my lifelong anxiety wasn’t flaring up. If they were going to test me, that was fine. I was going to test them, too. I’ve been told I’m a very testing person.

 

***

 

In my mind, a police interview room had chicken wire across greasy windowpanes and a suspiciously large mirror from behind which the occasional cough might be heard. But these mirrorless walls made no noise, and the room was painted a cheerful yellow with a sky blue trim. The seats were even padded. Cherry sat next to me, playing solitaire on her laptop while chewing on a wad of nicotine gum.

She had told me to wing it, answer what I wanted and leave the rest to her. My plan was to push this hallucination to breaking point and see where that got me.

“Okay,” said a man in a shiny grey suit like he had dressed up for the occasion. “Thanks very much for helping us out today. We very much appreciate the assistance.”

“You arrested me,” I said. “I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“Oh, you always have a choice, Mr Brown.” His silky blue tie shimmered. “Let me give you this.” He pushed a glossy leaflet across the table.

I leaned forward and gave the leaflet a cursory look. Know Your Rights. The same black policeman as before, but now in a different uniform. I was starting to suspect the man wasn’t in the police force at all. I unfolded the leaflet. Bullet points inside informed me of my right to expect a courteous service from my local constabulary, assurances of well-trained professionals surpassing all expectations, and an email address to send complaints.

“Okay. Let me get the introductions out of the way. I’m Detective Sergeant Len Seymour, and my colleague here,” he indicated the dark-haired man sat to his left, “is Detective Constable Esposito.”

Esposito gave me a curt wave from behind an open laptop almost as small as Cherry’s.

“DC Esposito will be recording our conversation on this computer, and you’re welcome to a copy at the end of this interview. We can put it onto a memory stick if you’ve got one with you or we can provide you with one for a nominal charge. Or we can just email it to you.” DS Seymour drummed the table with his fingers. “Whatever’s best for you.”

DS Seymour’s smile had a practised shape to it — the way muscles flexed in a gym looked capable of useful work, but never did any.

“Right. Okay. Let’s get started, shall we? Mr Brown. Colin. May I call you Colin?”

“No, you can’t.” I crossed my arms, tightening my upper body into a tangle of defiance. “You can call me the Magnificent Colin Brown.”

“That’s a bit of a mouthful, Mr Brown.”

I pried a hand out of my armpit and pushed the leaflet back towards DS Seymour.

“It says here,” I tapped the leaflet, “I have the right to be addressed by the title of my choosing. See, it says that right here, next to the motorbike cop with the dreadlocks.”

“Ah, well, that’s really more aimed at non-binary and gender-fluid—”

“That’s how you interpret it. I interpret it to mean you have to call me Magnificent Colin Brown. Your Magnificence is also acceptable.”

“Okay. As you wish, Your Magnificence.” His thin lips stretching into a placating smile. “Feel free to call me Len.”

The more polite and courteous his manner got, the more distrustful I became. Please, Mr Brown, can’t we be civilised about this? says the villain as he lowers the girl into a pit of crocodiles.

“Okay. Well, for the record, I should make it clear that we’re looking into the disappearance of Victoria Pelago. Do you know where she might be?’

“No idea,” I said. “I didn’t kill her. She probably isn’t even dead.”

“Oh, very possibly,’” DS Seymour more than agreed, the ingratiating twit, “but once a missing person’s report has been filed, we’re obliged to investigate it, I hope you can see that. She’ll probably turn up the same way you did.” He chuckled. “Can I ask where you’ve been the last four years?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

There was a pause as Len realised I was really going to be this much of an asshat. Hey, if they wanted to find out what kind of a person I was then I was going to give them an honest depiction of what they were dealing with.

“Where have you been, Colin?”

I looked at him until he broke.

“Where have you been, Your Magnificence?”

“Travelling.”

“Where?”

“Around. Lots of different places. I’m a very private person so let’s just say I’ve been places I shouldn’t have and done things I’m not proud of, and leave it at that.”

A flicker of frustration crossed Len’s face. He needed to learn to pace himself. I was just getting started.

“There are no records of you having a passport,” said Len. “Do you have a ticket or a booking form, maybe? Something to show you left the country.”

“No,” I said.

“You took a plane? A train? Drove?”

It was actually quite hard to come up with a believable explanation of where I’d been, so I didn’t bother with one.

“I walked,” I said.

“You walked abroad?” said Len. “Across the sea?”

“No. I swam that bit.”

“And you swam back? Across the Channel? This morning? In those clothes?”

“Yes. It’s very cold water and I didn’t have any goose fat handy. Luckily, these are drip-dry trousers. Although, the fish aren’t very friendly. They keep getting in your pockets and stealing your loose change. That’s why I couldn’t pay the train fare.”

“Because you were mugged by a fish.”

“They don’t go around on their own, they travel in a shoal. Gang up on you. They’re basically cowards.”

He looked at me with an expression I knew only too well. The ‘this boy’s an idiot’ face.

DS Seymour smiled and slowly broadened it into a grin. “You know what I think?”

“Sure,’ I said. “You think I killed her and buried her in a shallow grave down the allotments.”

“Oh, no.” DS Seymour’s eyes popped wide. “No, no, certainly not.” Grinning, shaking his head like he’d never heard anything so preposterous. “Although, since you bring it up, did you?”

His tone suggested friendly banter, a shared experience among mates. I felt like kicking him under the table. A quick toe-poke in the shins and then pretend it was accidental.

“Anything you want to say?’ I asked Cherry, absorbed in her game.

“Seems like a reasonable question,” she said without looking up.

“I have nothing to do with this girl’s disappearance,” I said. “If you have evidence to the contrary, produce it. I can’t prove something that didn’t happen, can I?”

“Please, Your Magnificence, we’re just trying to do right by this young woman whose loved ones are still in pain from her loss. A little closure would be a godsend for them.”

“What if she isn’t dead?” I asked.

“But what if she is?”

Cherry shifted in her seat. “What if you tried solving an actual crime as opposed to hypothetical ones?” Her eyes never left her screen.

“You don’t want to think about it?” said Len. “After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

“Since you mention it,” Cherry said, closing the laptop, “allow me to tell you what someone with nothing to hide has to fear from the police. Incompetence, that’s the big one, but also corruption. Then there’s prejudice, we all know how deep that runs, and, of course, personal vendettas. Also, mistaken identity, also, leaking false information to the press, and let’s not forget lack of accountability, lack of common sense and just general idiocy. Yesterday, you may recall, an eighty-two-year-old man was killed by a police car in high-speed pursuit of lunch. If the little old man had been hiding, instead of fearlessly minding his own business, he’d still be alive today. I could go on, but you get the idea.”

“Okay, but—”

“I don’t know if you’re a history buff, Detective Sergeant, but there’s a reason you aren’t allowed to barge into people’s homes without due cause, and the reason is that you have a habit of abusing any power you’re given, either through malicious stupidity or petty ignorance. So, why don’t you do your part to re-establish public confidence in your profession by actually doing the work in the prescribed manner, without short cuts and fanciful stabs in the dark?”

DS Seymour’s lips parted the merest hint, but nowhere near quick enough.

“Let’s be upfront about this,” Cherry continued unabated, “the only reason you’re looking into this is because her father has the ear of some very important people who are all that remains of the last clearout of officials after the latest paedophile ring revelations to hit the Met. Let hope it’s the last one — three years in a row would be pushing it, don’t you think? For all we know, her father is the one who killed her and he’s just looking for someone to pin it on. Either way, we have now given you the thirty-minute interview Home Office guidelines stipulate as a reasonable length of time to question an individual without due cause. Unless you have some kind of credible evidence that a crime or even an accident has occurred — a body, some blood, DNA samples, eyewitnesses, video recording… No? Well, then I think it’s time to stop wasting everybody’s time, don’t you?”

DS Seymour snapped his mouth shut. He took out what looked like a laser gun. Was the simulation about to break down? He reached over and touched the gun to my cuffs. They clicked open and fell off. My wrists were red and sore. Len passed me a small sachet.

“Complimentary skin cream,” he said. “For the chafing. It can peel if you don’t take care of it.” He smiled and nodded. “We’ll be in touch once we have something more substantial to discuss with you.” He was a threatening little fuck.

A few minutes later, I was a free man.

Book 2 – 74: Onsite Repairs

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Eighth Level.

 

“Now that we have a direct form of communication,” said Ubik, “we can finally have a proper chat. Good, eh?”

Junior kept walking down the passage, so most of Ubik’s comments were aimed at the droid’s flank and rear end.

“Whatever you’ve got planned for the universe,” continued Ubik, “we can help. Make it less, you know, alien. Easier to consume for the locals. Actually, you probably think of yourselves as the locals and us as the aliens. What I mean is, people are going to have a preconceived idea of what you want and what you’re going to do to them. Panic, not good. A few reassuring words, and then you can invade them and take over their planets and turn them into your slaves without anyone freaking out. We can give you a few pointers.”

Junior padded along, not too fast. He seemed satisfied that his prisoners were following him, so there was no need to be aggressive. That was the impression Ubik got. Junior wasn’t going to do them any harm. Whoever he was taking them to, though...

Ubik found this latest development very exciting. At some point, he had hoped to be able to open a dialogue between himself and the Antecessors — or the Intercessors, he didn’t really mind which — without all the headaches from staring at the symbols and patterns that seemed to pass for good conversation in their world.

It was still early days, but there had been a real breakthrough here. Rather than ripping Rex out of the Guardian’s suit and then stamping on his casing until there were only tiny bits of mangled microcircuitry left, Junior had elected to integrate the AI into his own system, and then used the voice box to speak.

If nothing else, it showed a willingness to communicate.

He could have used brute force and just made them do as they were told, but he hadn’t. There was a definite sense of honour and duty among these Intercessors, which was both admirable and also an easy target for manipulation. If that became necessary.

Ubik kept pace with the droid filling up most of the passage, cables plugged into the other droids attached to his body.

The small droids were clearly separate and individual, but they also fit together very well, the patterns on their bodies moving seamlessly from one newly added section to another. They belonged together, or at least had been made with a single modular construct in mind.

The set-up reminded Ubik of one of those boy bands that occasionally threatened to dominate the galaxy with a catchy tune. All dancing together in flawless synchronisation, all desperate to take their share of the fame they’d accumulated and run off to work on their solo projects.

Not that Ubik had any interest in that kind of hysterical adulation. More trouble than it was worth.

Figaro Ollo he could see as the frontman, the one who could actually sing, the teen-favourite. PT, he’d attract the loonies, the girls who thrived on men who ignored them and tactlessly told the truth whenever asked. Ubik himself would obviously be the quirky one who fans loved to watch tear the stage apart. The bad boy. And then they’d be doubly surprised when he put the stage back together with much better acoustics and lower power consumption. There was no way he wouldn’t end up the breakout star and fan-favourite.

“Hey, stop daydreaming,” said PT. “You’re supposed to be our go-between. Our liaison. Junior seems to be ignoring you.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Ubik. “He’s assimilated Rex, used his circuits to imitate human speech, but that doesn’t mean he’s learned the language. He can say a few simple words, but he can’t understand long complex sentences.”

“Tell it to give my AI back,” said Tezla. Even though they were under no threat, for the time being, she still carried a sense of wariness, bringing up the rear, checking her suit to make sure the weapons were ready. From the look on her face, nothing was as it should be since the suit’s recent remodelling. She wasn’t happy. The whole ‘follow the droid’ approach they were taking didn’t sit well with her. She was playing along for now, mostly because she didn’t have much of a choice, but when she did, look out.

“Junior, old friend, old buddy. Any chance you could let the bossy one at the back have her toy friend back? She gets lonely without anyone to talk to.”

Junior stopped and turned his large head, the one eye spiralling hypnotically. The aperture in his torso spun open — a sound like distant wind could be heard — and a handful of broken pieces flew out. Ubik caught most of it but there was no way to put it back together.

“Rex,” said Junior, grinding the word out like it was being squeezed between heavy gears. “Left.”

A section of Junior’s shoulder slid off and fell to the floor. It was attached to a long cable but only loosely. The newly emancipated piece, a small droid, began crawling away, hoping to escape its partial leash.

The little droid looked severely damaged, one of those left in storage because there was no hope for them. Ubik picked it up like it was some sort of crustacean on the beach. Its limbs, the ones it had left, went wild for a moment, trying to attack Ubik’s wrist and then continue the offensive from there.

Ubik easily avoided the grasping limbs and turned the droid over. He tickled its tummy, not to be cute but to access the central unit. He had to hold fast to prevent the droid from breaking free. It thrashed its limbs anyway.

A few minor modifications, mainly involving securing loose fittings, and he placed it back on Junior, pressed it down, refitted the cable. Not so high this time, and with the cable attached more firmly, so the droid wouldn’t fall onto the floor next time.

“Look,” said Ubik quietly into where Junior might have an ear, “the ones running this asteroid, they’re old and they make mistakes. It’s a hard job, but you should see at least a little progress over the course of ten thousand years, right? Seems like a reasonable trial period. So here’s what we do. We go find them, do as we’re asked, but if they start going on about gods and wars and telling everyone else how to spend their weekends, we leave them to it. You, me, the little ones… we find a nice rock somewhere. Like this one. Mobile, roomy, nice views. Leave them to their important matters. What even is this place for? Not like they’re using it for anything.”

Junior growled, “Supplies.” And then added, “Various.”

“His vocabulary’s improving,” said Ubik. “Amazing, isn’t it? And this is them at their worst. Broken parts, missing bits, loose connections. Once I get them into proper working order, they’ll be unstoppable.”

“I don’t think we want to be ‘unstoppable’,” said Guardian Tezla, two small plates from her suit in her hands. “Better to wait for the rest of the Guardians to arrive. They’re on their way. They can deal with this situation much better than you three.”

“I understand why you don’t want Ubik to do anything,” said PT, “and I want you to know I whole-heartedly agree with you.”

“As do I,” joined in Fig.

“But the Central Authority aren’t going to do much,” continued PT. “They might already have arrived and are sitting out there, discussing which bylaws they’re willing to break and waiting for permission from Central Authority Central.”

“We don’t require permission in an emergency,” said Tezla. “That’s the whole reason they have Guardians take command of these situations.”

“You already saw what happened when they decided you weren’t up to the job, Guardian,” said Fig. “Not that you did anything wrong, but the stakes are too high for them to allow even potential mistakes. The fate of the quadrant, the whole galaxy, could be decided here.”

Tezla frowned. “Marvellous to see how much you’ve grasped about an organisation you have very little knowledge or understanding of. Thank you for the clarification.”

She didn’t look very grateful. She only saw the droids as a threat and was unlikely to change her mind. But then people rarely did, until things got so bad they had no choice but to abandon their own dumb ideas and let someone else have a go. Usually when it was too late.

“This would work better here,” said Ubik, taking one of the plates out of Tezla’s hand and slotting it into a pouch along the suit’s waist. He made some minor adjustments and part of the suit lit up. He took the other plate and slotted it into the other side and her visor came down with a hard click. “There you go. Might need to hold your breath while it reboots.”

He turned away before she could say anything.

“Junior,” said Ubik. “I’m on your side. I say we find a ship down in the hangar — doesn’t have to be in good working order, bad working order is fine — and then we skadoodle.”

Junior was noncommittal. He sat down in the middle of the passage. The walls glowed on either side of him.

“I don’t think he understands you,” said PT.

“You think I should use simpler words?” said Ubik.

“I think he understands the words,” said PT, “he just can’t figure you out as a person. None of us can.”

Ubik smiled and stepped back so he’d have more room. Sometimes, people needed to see the big picture.

“He’s damaged and broken. He’s doing well so far, but he still isn’t whole. You can see that for yourselves.” Ubik glanced over at Junior, who seemed to be resting. Or waiting for something. “See? No hurry, nice and relaxed. Not a threat. Not the behaviour of a kidnapper. Not a machine programmed to follow orders. There’s a lot to unpack here. The complexity of the coding to create this kind of sentient existence… it makes the mind boggle. Not my mind, I’m fairly unbogglable, but for the rest of you, it must be very difficult for you to make sense of any of what’s going on here.”

“I think it’s fairly self-explanatory,” said PT. “We’re prisoners. You’re the one who’s going to be executed first.”

“No, no, of course I won’t. Not me.” Ubik pointed surreptitiously towards the Guardian. It was obvious who was going to ruin things for everyone — Guardian Killjoy.

Tezla’s visor snapped open, her eyes wide as she took a sharp intake of breath. “What did you do to my suit?” she gasped. “Tell the droid to give me my AI back. Now.”

“Bit tricky,” said Ubik. “He consumed most of Rex’s components.”

“He killed Rex?” asked PT.

“AI don’t die,” said Ubik, “they just get reinstalled. The CA probably have a backup on their ship. He’ll be fine.”

“Like Nifell?” said PT.

“Last I recall, you were in charge of Nifell. Poor bugger. So while you do have cause for guilt, try not to dwell on it. He knew what he was signing up for.”

“I don’t think he did,” said Fig.

“Safer where he is, probably,” said Ubik. “You can go back for him later. It’s not like we need him now we have Junior as our guide. Major upgrade.”

“That’s how you see people, isn’t it?” said PT. “Components to be upgraded.”

“That’s how everyone sees people,” said Ubik. “You choose the best from what’s available, and swap them out for better models when you can.” He looked at the Guardian. “Right?”

She scowled, her hands going over her suit — inside, outside, checking the surface, adjusting connecting parts. Ubik was fairly certain she was planning various contingencies, as she had no doubt been trained to do, but it was proving much harder to do without the suit’s AI.

“You better not have bricked my suit,” she said.

“It’s fine,” said Ubik. “Better, actually. But if you want me to change it back...”

She backed away from him. “Don’t touch anything else.”

Ubik held up his hands. “Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“How far is Junior from being fully restored?” asked Fig.

“Not sure,” said Ubik. “I think he already would be if the droids he merged with hadn’t been so badly damaged. They all need a good servicing, lubricant bath, wax and polish. Sounds good, huh?”

The droid made a rumbling sound, which could have meant anything, but which Ubik decided was purring.

“And you can do that?” asked PT.

“Not really. I mean, a little touch up here and there, but not the kind of overhaul they need.”

“But if you could…” said PT.

He was right. Curing what ailments they might have would be an excellent way to win them over. But it would take more than taping up loose wires and changing a battery. He needed to show the Intercessors they needed him. Once he had their trust, he would be able to make his way up the hierarchy and take control of the entire organisation.

“Stop grinning at nothing like that,” said PT. “It’s creepy.”

“Something’s coming,” said Fig. “Lots of something.”

Junior was standing now and looking down the passage. A crowd of droids, these ones appearing to be in good shape — no injuries, no broken bits about to fall off — were approaching.

“Okay,” said Ubik. “We have to take this slow and easy. They’re suspicious of us and we don’t know what they want. One false step could bring the whole thing down on us. Let me deal with this.”

He took a step forward and immediately felt himself floating backwards. Fig and PT had taken him by each of his arms and lifted him off the ground.

“Let’s wait until Junior gives us the all-clear,” said PT.

“Okay,” said Ubik. “I suppose they haven’t seen each other in a while. Let them get reacquainted, good idea.”

“We should be ready to run,” said Tezla.

Junior wasn’t moving forward. There was something about his stance that seemed a little apprehensive. Nervous, even.

“It’ll be fine,” said Ubik. “You know how it is at family reunions. They probably just want to—”

The swarm of droids now surrounding Junior pounced on him. They smothered him so that there was no sight of him under all the other droids.

“What are they doing?” said PT.

“Cuddles, probably,” said Ubik. Although it did seem a little aggressive for cuddling.

PT started backing away. “I think we should—”

There was a cacophony of sound as metal scraped and banged together. The mound of droids in front of them grew and took shape. It was bigger than Junior. Not just taller, but wider and with more legs. Rather than a cat, it looked like a spider.

There was no sign of Junior in the new creature. He had been absorbed into the whole. He probably hadn’t wanted to be, but there was always a higher purpose that required someone to make a sacrifice.

The droid, a single creature, filled the passage almost completely.

“Junior?” said Ubik. “You in there?”

The droid moved forward, legs on the floor, on the wall, on the ceiling. It rotated from one surface to the next.

“You,” it said in a distorted version of Rex’s voice. “Come.” A single tendril shot out too fast to be dodged, wrapped itself around Fig, and reeled him back in so he hung under the massive body.

There was no discernible spider-head but there were many eyes lined along the top of the body. They flashed different colours in a series of blinks.

“You.” It said to the rest of them. “Leave.”

It wasn’t a bad offer. They’d get to live, which would be nice.

“Wait,” said Ubik. “I want to—”

Another black tendril shot out, this one hitting Ubik in the chest and sending him flying back into the wall where he was pinned with a painful thud.

“Hey, Junior,” he called out. “I think you still owe me.”

Junior was still in there, somewhere. This new upgraded version had taken Rex’s voice box from him and knew how to use it. That information had to have come from Junior. It stood to reason.

The tendril slackened and Ubik felt the pressure ease on his chest.

“What...” said the spider, its tone a little different, “...want?”

The droids might not like losing their individuality but they weren’t entirely subjugated once they were assembled together.

“It’s not what I want, it’s what I can do for you. This place is pretty rundown. I’ve seen the state it’s in. I can fix it. Ask the others, they’ve seen what I can do without a manual or anything. With your help, I can restore your crew and get this ship flying like it’s supposed to.”

It was a bit of a punt, but it did seem like the sort of offer they’d be interested in. The spider had listened to him and now its body was covered in flashing lights. Some kind of internal consultation, Ubik guessed. It hadn’t killed them, which was a step in the right direction.

“What...” said the spider “...need?”

“Nothing. I mean, you’ll have to teach me how your technology works so I don’t accidentally break anything important, but apart from that, I’m just a curious guy who likes to fix things. No charge.”

The spider let him go.

“Fix. Or die.”

Ubik smiled. Best deal of his life.

Book 2 – 73: Service Provider

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Eighth Level

 

Point-Two was held fast as he was dragged along the smooth floor, sliding gently from side to side behind the Insanium class droid shaped like a big cat. Not where he imagined he’d end up when he left the Liberator Garu.

He felt like trapped prey being taken back to the predator’s lair, where he could be consumed at leisure.

They were heading downwards. The gravity was hard to gauge but there was a definite change in levels. And the walls were glowing white again, not silver. Not lines, though, strange symbols floated around them.

He could only catch glimpses of his surroundings as momentum turned his body. The pressure on him was even and maintained from all sides. He couldn’t move any of his limbs and even breathing was difficult. Junior had him and the others wrapped up in its new limbs, which he had helped provide.

If he tried working a little space for himself to try and get an opening, the pressure increased sharply, encouraging him to stop.

Junior was bigger now, and more versatile. The droid was an amalgam of numerous other smaller droids, all working together to create a superior creature. It was the sort of droid that they put in movies, the alien monster no one was ready for, all exaggeration and thrilling special effects.

Real droids were rarely seen outside of a training sim-U, the various guilds and corporations guarding any information jealously from their rivals. The ones Point-Two had seen in books had been basic and simple. Their functions explained in dry technical terms, their inner workings mostly hypothetical. Different categories, different sizes, but all basically the same.

Integrated into the overall structure of an Antecessor site, able to self-repair, mindlessly protective of their territory.

The droids he had encountered here didn’t fit that mould. Mimics, assassins and beasts. And they had bypassed several levels. Who knew what other kinds there were.

“They don’t like it,” said Ubik. He was facing him, inside another of Junior’s improvised nets, although he had the added pleasure of the Guardian tied up with him. She wasn’t saying much.

“What?” said Point-Two.

“These droids, Ints, they don’t like working together,” said Ubik. His fingers were poking out between the gaps in the tendrils binding him. “They hate it, actually.”

“They seem to be managing,” said Point-Two.

“They do it because they have to,” explained Ubik, although how he would know what droids liked or didn’t wasn’t exactly clear. Scratch that — of course he knew. He was the Null Void, able to look into the souls of machines everywhere.

“So what?” said Point-Two. “Doesn’t help.”

“They hate following orders, doing as they’re told, but they’re willing to do it when they have to. For the greater good. When there’s no better option. Remind you of anyone?”

“Reminds me of everyone,” said Point-Two. “What’s your point, Ubik?”

“They’re just like us,” said Ubik. “All they want is to be left alone to live their lives the way they want. It’s not so much to ask, is it? They’re not just machines. They don’t toss them out and replace them. All those broken ships, all those broken droids, waiting to come back. Interesting, isn’t it?”

Point-Two looked Ubik in the eyes — something he tried to avoid if at all possible. “Are you going to try something stupid?”

“No,” said Ubik. “Like what?”

Point-Two hesitated. The temptation was to say something sarcastic and ridiculous, something that would sound crazy to make a point, but he didn’t want to give Ubik any ideas.

“Never mind. Where’s he taking us?”

“How would I know?” said Ubik.

“He’s your pet,” said Point-Two.

“No, no, no,” said Ubik. “We’re friends. Equals.”

“Friends don’t normally drag each other along the floor tied up,” pointed out Point-Two.

“You had a very sheltered upbringing on that ship, didn’t you?” said Ubik.

“Just come up with a way to get us out of this,” said Point-Two, struggling to keep himself from shouting.

“Already done.”

“Really?” said Point-Two, the surprise taking away his irritation with Ubik. For the moment.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Ubik casually. “Got the idea from you, actually. You know how your plan was to leave things to me?”

Point-Two didn’t like where this was going. “Yeah… didn’t turn out quite as well as I’d hoped.”

“Hey, don’t blame yourself.”

“I wasn’t, I was blaming—”

“So my plan is to allow someone else to save us.”

“Who?”

“Whoever’s best equipped for the job.” Ubik waggled his eyebrows.

Point-Two looked past Ubik at the suit of armour wrapped around him. The Guardian hadn’t said anything since they’d been captured. Point-Two had assumed it was the horror of being forced to spoon with Ubik.

“Does the Guardian have a plan?” he asked tentatively.

“I have no idea,” said Ubik. “She won’t talk to me. I think she’s sulking because she got taken down by a droid and all the other Guardians are going to make fun of her. These Central Authority Guardians are surprisingly sensitive.”

“Please stop talking,” said Guardian Tezla, her visor sliding up to reveal a grim expression. “I’ve been working on bringing Rex back online. We’re nearly ready to get out of here.”

“See?” said Ubik. “There’s always someone willing to help.”

“This suit is fitted with a repulsor field. I don’t like to use it in such an enclosed area but—”

“Oh,” said Ubik, “you’re going to attack Junior?”

“Yes,” said the Guardian. “We will be attacking the droid that is trying to kill us.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” said Ubik.

“I don’t recall asking,” said Tezla.

“Isn’t this your plan?” asked Point-Two. “Let her save us in peace.”

“This had nothing to do with my plan,” said Ubik. “My plan is brilliant. It’s her plan that’s going to get us killed.”

“We aren’t exactly doing great at the moment,” said Point-Two.

“We aren’t dead, which we will be if we attack Junior. You noticed how he didn’t kill us, right? He only wants Fig, but he took all of us.”

There was a pause, with only the sound of them sliding along behind Junior filling the passage. There was something horribly reasonable about what Ubik was saying.

“Why didn’t he kill us?” asked Point-Two.

“I told you,” said Ubik. “Because he doesn’t like to be told what to do. Can’t you sense it, the sense of honour? They owe you, in particular. Saved the little ones when things got crazy. I mean, he’ll do it if he has to, but he won’t do it just because someone told him. Even if that someone was Ramon Ollo.”

“What does that mean?” said Tezla. Point-Two recognised her tone. The same one he heard in his own voice when he found himself listening to Ubik. “What has Ramon Ollo got to do with it?”

“Because he’s signed up with the Ints, right? He got caught between them and the Ants, and he decided to choose a team. Only sensible play he could make, probably. Or maybe it was the team he’d always wanted to be on. I don’t know, I’m just a fan of his work. You have to be able to separate the artist from the art, you know, because most of the greats are generally awful human beings. I sometimes think you can’t have genius without a touch of evil, although I guess I’m the exception.”

“Hmm,” said Point-Two, and bit his tongue from saying more.

“You’re saying Ramon Ollo isn’t a prisoner?” said Tezla.

“He’s right,” said Fig’s voice from further ahead of them. “My father can’t be forced to do anything against his will. The fact he appeared in front of us means he has made an arrangement with his captors.”

“Then why do you want to rescue him?” said Point-Two.

“It’s the only way to save him,” said Fig.

“It’s a father-son thing,” said Ubik. “We can’t understand because we’re orphans.”

“I’m not an orphan,” said Point-Two, not really knowing why he felt compelled to correct Ubik, other than that he always did.

“Ship AI doesn’t count as real parents, PT,” said Ubik.

“Enough,” said Tezla. “I have no intention of leaving matters to the three of you. Brace yourselves.”

“Not a good—” Ubik wasn’t able to finish before the tendrils holding him and the Guardian shattered.

Ubik was thrown clear, rolling past Point-Two in a blur

The Guardian’s suit was upright and glowing. Point-Two could feel the change in gravity emanating from it, and also the rise in temperature. Whatever her suit was doing, it was using a lot of energy to do it.

Junior had noticed the sudden loss of its limbs and turned around. Point-Two was expecting a fight, a frontal assault by the droid, but Junior didn’t attack, not directly.

Limbs sprouted from Junior’s back and shot into the ceiling and walls. The white symbols around them were sucked into Junior’s body, lighting him up.

Tezla opened fire, lasers cutting into the droid’s torso. Sections were cleanly sliced off, and limbs severed but more sprouted, reconnecting to the walls and ceiling.

Discs flew out of Tezla’s suit in all directions and attached themselves to the walls. They exploded, but in a controlled manner, making craters in the walls. The chunks that fell out took the droid’s limbs off the wall with them.

Junior sent out more tendrils, these ones filling up the craters, repairing the damage and then drawing the debris into himself. There was a constant battle between the two as Junior tried to maintain his connection with the tunnel and Tezla focused on breaking it.

Point-Two found he could move. He was still restrained, but the tendrils binding him were looser. The droid’s focus was elsewhere.

Fig was still tightly held, positioned behind the droid to keep him from catching a stray blast. Junior was trying to protect Fig while defending himself. There had been no attack on Tezla at all.

The Guardian wasn’t letting up. She poured more firepower into the droid, faster than it could repair itself. Point-Two couldn’t understand how she was powering her suit. A battleship would be hard-pressed to keep up that sort of bombardment.

And then Junior exploded. Every part of him separated and flew apart, releasing his captives and striking the walls of the passage in tiny pieces.

Point-Two covered his face, expecting ricochet. There was none. The pieces hit the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and were absorbed. Point-Two looked around. The passage was silent and empty other than for the Guardian’s heavy breathing. His own breath was still being held. This wasn’t over.

Junior rose up out of the floor, a bloom of limbs around the Guardian. She opened fire but was completely enclosed in an instant. The firing stopped. What other weapons did she have? And how would she employ them without destroying herself along with the droid?

Junior was a shapeless cocoon standing in the middle of the passage, his black surface rippling with white symbols. Point-Two knew Fig and Ubik were both free, possibly injured, but he couldn’t turn his head away to look for them. The result of this fight would decide their fate, he was sure.

The cocoon unravelled, pulling apart the Guardian's suit in small pieces and leaving her standing naked, looking furious.

“Stop,” said Rex’s voice, only slowed down and without the AI’s usual irritating suaveness. This voice was brittle and cold and it was coming from Junior. “Come.”

And then the suit was returned to its original form, piece by piece, covering the Guardian and placing the helmet on last. She stood there, free to move but remaining still, unsure what had just happened.

“Hey,” said Ubik, standing behind Point-Two. “He can talk. That should make things a lot easier.”

“I don’t think your plan’s going to work,” said Point-Two. “The Guardian’s not going to save us.”

“The Guardian?” said Ubik. “Oh no, I wasn’t talking about her.” He walked past Point-Two, up to Junior who had retaken his cat form. “Hey, where are we going? This way? Okay, but we can walk from here. Terrible risk of chafing if you drag us the whole way.”

 

***

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

Nifell stopped crying and got to his feet. He felt unsteady and nauseous. What had they done to him? Left him to die, that was obvious. But his body felt different.

The suit he was in wasn’t his own and it felt wrong. It was poking into him, making him worse.

He took it off. It wasn’t easy but parts of it were already ripped. He worked his way out, squeezing his weak and tired body through the top. There was a metal collar around the neck of the suit, but it had been broken.

Slowly, he managed to extract himself, a shower of tiny dead nanobots falling around him. The memory of them inside him made him retch. He stumbled as he got his feet out. The suit lay on the ground like a desiccated corpse.

He looked around, naked apart from regulation underwear that hadn’t been washed in months. It was supposed to be self-cleaning. It wasn’t anymore.

What was this place? The walls gave off a soft glow but it wasn’t enough to see anything. There was no sound.

He felt dirty and grimy and itchy. Everything was stiff and painful. His throat was dry and there was a deep ache in his stomach. Hunger and thirst were going to kill him before any droids got the chance. He began to feel cold.

He picked up the suit but he didn’t want to put it back on. The ring in the neck was a slave circuit, like the ones in the suits he’d been trained in back at the academy. It had been snapped cleanly, the tronics exposed.

Used as a decoy. Violated by an alien. Infected with nanodrones. And then when he no longer served a purpose, left behind, a dead man. His hunger was replaced by anger. He fingered the slave collar. His bare feet felt the prick of the nanodrones on the floor.

He had been trained to deploy the nanodrones. He was probably the most knowledgeable person when it came to their use outside of Ramon Ollo himself. He knew exactly how resilient they were, and how to control them with the simplest of commands. Getting them going was the easy part. Getting them to stop was more tricky. But not a problem if you wanted them to destroy everything.

Nifell sat down and began taking the slave collar apart. They probably thought it was useless once it broke. Garbage, just like him. They would both prove otherwise.

Book 2 – 72: Outside Interests

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Antecessor Facility - Level 4

 

Chukka edged closer to the end of the passage and looked around the corner. She immediately found herself looking into Weyla’s unimpressed face.

“I told you to wait,” said Weyla, standing facing her as though she had expected Chukka to ignore her instructions.

The rest of the passage was dark and only their suit lights provided any illumination. Weyla was scary enough in bright light, in shadows she exuded an involuntary menace.

“Just checking you hadn’t gone ahead without us,” said Chukka, keeping her voice low, although they hadn’t encountered anyone else down here for several hours.

“Why would we do that?” said Weyla. “We’re a team, aren’t we?” There was a heavy dose of sarcasm in her words.

“Of course,” said Chukka. She looked into Weyla’s eyes, using the skills she had been taught to give her instant insight into a person’s demeanour, their level of reliability, what would push their buttons. The slightest dilation of the pupils, a flicker of an eyelash, a tremor along the top edge of an eyelid — it all indicated what was going on behind the eyes. Chukka saw nothing. Absolute stillness. “Of course,” she repeated as she backed away from the unblinking stare and stepped back around the corner where Bashir and Flott were waiting, one looking nervous and unable to keep still, the other with a grim expression that hadn’t changed since they entered the fourth level. Her team, or what was left of it.

“Wouldn’t it be better to go back to the surface and wait for them there?” said Bashir, talking fast with a jabbering insistence. “We could catch them on the way out, after they’ve got what they came for. And then we could take that, too. Better than wandering around down here not knowing where they are, no?”

“No,” said Chukka.

She could have explained the reasons to him but justifying your actions to your subordinates only made you look weak. As it was, needing an explanation made him look weak, but that wasn’t much consolation when he was someone she was relying on.

It should have been obvious that hoping to bump into their targets after they had successfully navigated their way up from the depths was not going to be cost-effective. They might find another way out. Or they might end up dead. Either way, the only way to make this venture profitable was to get hold of their bodies. The Seneca women understood that. VendX employees should have also.

“He’s right,” said Flott in a dull monotone. His mind seemed to be preoccupied with other things. “If they wind up dead, chances are the same thing will kill us. And if we do catch up, we still have to apprehend and drag them out.”

Chukka was trying to be a good leader. Not forceful, not bossy, just pragmatic. They were a small unit with limited options, they had to think rationally and act quickly. No time for musing on a hundred different options.

“You also want to return to the surface?” she asked Flott. He was the leader of the forward team, he’d had a chance to get a feel for the place. His opinion would at least be considered and based on experience.

“I don’t care,” said Flott, his face backing up his claim. “You’re the mission leader, I’m just the specialist. And I don’t specialise in any of this, so whatever you say goes.”

If she didn’t know better, she would think he was trying to position himself for the post-mission debrief and performance assessment. When you were on a mission that was going badly, you allowed the leader to make all the decisions and take all the credit. And all the blame.

But she didn’t think that was what Flott was doing. He genuinely didn’t care. About anything as far as she could tell.

“Where’s the other one?” Chukka asked Bashir.

Bashir stared into the middle-distance, his eyes glowing green inside his shadowed helmet. “She’s on her way back. Moving fast.”

“Alone?” said Chukka.

“Yes. No pursuit.”

Chukka nodded, relieved. The two Seneca women had taken it on themselves to scout the passages. They worked efficiently and quickly, and they didn’t appreciate any offers of assistance or criticism of their methods.

Which was fine with Chukka. The layout down here on the fourth level was unlike anything Chukka had seen. It was a maze of crisscrossing passages that seemed to have no end and no doors. They hadn’t encountered a single room since leaving the last one behind.

The Insanium droid and the Central Authority Guardian had both left via a hole in the wall, but the shaft behind the wall had been some kind of gravity well with no bottom. There was no way to tell what was down there. Bashir couldn’t even get a base reading. Just a never-ending hole.

The Seneca women had decided to take the more traditional route of exploring the level for another exit, and they didn’t put it up for a vote.

“Maybe we could call in reinforcements,” said Bashir hopefully. “From the surface.”

“No,” said Chukka.

There was a mild breeze and then the sound of quiet talking. Chukka risked another look around the corner. Now there were two of them, Leyla back from her reconnaissance.

“Any luck?” asked Chukka.

“It’s clear this way,” said Leyla. “No signs of any droids. No exits, either. If there’s another door on this level, it must be well hidden.”

“It’s here,” said Chukka. “That shaft proves this isn’t the bottom floor. It goes down a lot further, and that means there’s another way that doesn’t require kicking the walls in.”

Chukka didn’t have the greatest experience when it came to delves and raids, but she had done as much research as she could once she’d been awarded the mission lead. Antecessor sites followed a pattern. Not one that was easily understood, but you knew what to expect.

“Ready to go?” said Weyla.

“Yes,” said Chukka. “Lead the way.”

Weyla gave her a dark look, objecting to being given permission when none was required. There was no winning with her. Both sisters were hard work. Chukka had targeted Leyla as the easier one to break, but Weyla, the one with the tough exterior and no time for any nonsense may have been the better subject. There was still time to find out if her PR training would work on either of them.

They set off down the dark passage. There were no white lines on the walls to provide light. There hadn’t been any since they entered the maze.

Normally, the walls of an Antecessor site were lit up with streaks and flashes of light. You were constantly observed and tracked, with countermeasures being placed in your path. Not here. Here the walls were black and lifeless.

“Stop,” said Weyla.

Chukka turned to look at Bashir who shook his head. With his ability, he would know if there was something approaching, but he indicated there was nothing.

“Wait,” said Weyla, her hand held up.

Leyla moved fast and was swallowed by the darkness. Her ability involved speed while her sister’s seemed to be focused on strength, although both were strong and fast. While not knowing the exact nature of their organics, it was obvious they were both top tier. It seemed strange the Corps would let them go. Chukka had tried asking them about it, in a subtle manner, of course. She had received cold looks in return, of course.

They waited for Leyla to come back with the all-clear.

“Still nothing,” Chukka asked Bashir.

“Still nothing,” said Bashir, the light in his eyes flickered. “Actually, even deader than before. Some sort of dampening field, maybe.”

“Someone hiding?” Chukka felt a chill run down her spine.

“Hard to say. Not sure I’m going to be much help. Maybe we should try a different direction?”

“We have,” asked Weyla. “This is the only area we haven’t checked. And we haven’t checked it because it’s a dead zone.”

“Are you sure?” said Chukka. She had read up on the subject, but the details were sketchy. All that was known for sure was that certain regions inside an Antecessor facility were unscannable. Sensors didn’t work, organics didn’t work, sound and light were heavily muted.

The purpose of these areas wasn’t clear. If the Antecessors had the ability to negate organics, why not deploy these dead zones everywhere? Raiders would have a much harder time of it.

But they were sporadic and their exact reasons for existing was the subject of much academic debate. Mainly, the advice was to avoid them.

“This is the only place left to look,” said Weyla, her tone flat and restrained. “If the level exit isn’t here…”

“It’s here,” said Chukka. She wasn’t as sure as she sounded, but certainty built morale. And they needed as much as they could get.

“It’s not going to be easy,” said Weyla. “Dead zones mean trouble.”

“But no one knows what the dead zones are for,” said Chukka.

Weyla looked at her without changing her expression and yet still conveying a great deal of disdain. After all the effort Chukka had put into the sisters, she would have to be careful not say something stupid and lose all the progress she’d made.

“The Corps has a theory about these zones?” said Chukka.

“A dead zone is where Antecessors fought each other. Everything winds up shorted out, infrastructure completely fried. The Corps has records detailing several of them, but this place, this is still being contested. Above us is one group, below us is the other. They stopped without coming to a resolution, and now they’ve taken up from where they left off.”

“So this level is neutral?” asked Bashir.

“No,” said Weyla. “This is a battlefront. We could be walking into the middle of a war.” She checked her large gun, split it into two and holstered them. “Not just organics that won’t work in there, tronics won’t either. Guns, trackers, comms. All dead in the dead zone.”

“I don’t get it,” said Bashir. “If it’s droids versus droids, why bother neutralising organics? They don’t use them.”

“Someone did,” said Weyla.

“Or it’s just a relic of a different time,” said Flott. “It’s been thousands of years. The whole place will probably fall down on top of us.”

“All the more reason to act swiftly,” said Chukka. “Special Analyst Flott, you have a lot of combat experience. How are you with hand-to-hand?”

“I’m in the mood to break things, if that’s what you mean.”

It wasn’t what she had meant but it was telling nonetheless. He was slowly drifting into a post-traumatic fugue. His training, the people with him, the high-risk environment, it was all keeping him up and moving, but he wanted to give up and lie down, wait for the end. Not a good mindset for your main defensive expert.

“But if there’s anyone in there,” said Bashir, “they’ll be just as blind as us, right?”

“That’s not how it works,” said Weyla, looking at Bashir like she considered him clueless.

Chukka would have reacted the same but she was familiar with the VendX organics program. Not much time was spent on theory. The Corps obviously provided a much more comprehensive education.

Leyla appeared out of the darkness and stopped next to her sister. She had a strange expression on her face.

“You found something?” said Weyla.

“Something.”

“Trouble.”

“I don’t know,” said Leyla. “Probably. This way.” She turned and began walking.

The others followed. Chukka felt apprehensive but whatever Leyla had found it obviously wasn’t an immediate threat. Droids would have come after her. The passage was empty.

A few moments later there was a light up ahead. It was a soft glow of indeterminate colour and it was pulsing, providing enough illumination to highlight a doorway. It was about three metres high but only one metre wide. The way down to the next level?

“It isn’t guarded,” said Leyla, walking through. “I’ve checked.”

“Bashir hesitated. “How can you check if none of our organics or tronics are working?”

“The old fashioned way,” said Weyla, “using our brains and our expertise.” She shoved him through.

On the other side was a room, walls still lifeless, but in the middle of the square chamber was a large rock formation from floor to ceiling like a pillar. Lodged into the pillar’s surface were at least a dozen globes throbbing with lights of various hues, throwing colourful splashes across the walls.

Chukka was stunned. “Organics… what are they doing here?”

No one said anything for a moment, all taking in what they saw. These were organic pods, containing a seed ready to be implanted in a human host once they were removed from inside the resin cases. Organics were often found in Antecessor sites. It was one of the main reasons to risk entering them. They were always well-defended and one or two at the most in any one place. A larger site may have multiple deposits, but this many in one location was unheard of.

“They all look high grade,” said Weyla. “And still viable.”

Chukka agreed. The power level of an organic seed varied greatly, and the weaker ones were much more common, their power fading over time and dependent on the conditions of their environment. These all looked to be in perfect health. And worth a fortune. A very large fortune. And a promotion.

“Is it a trap?” asked Weyla, turning to her sister.

“Has to be,” said Leyla. “Probably best to leave them.”

Flott stepped forward and reached his hand out towards the nearest one, a blue globe about the size of a large grapefruit, embedded in the rock.

“Stop,” said Leyla, but her speed was that of a normal person and she was too far to reach him.

If this was a trap, they were about to find out what kind.

The globe came away in Flott’s hand, leaving a little dust behind in the crater its removal created. Nothing exploded, no defenders appeared to protect their treasure. Flott seemed transfixed by the globe and held it up, looking at the thin, dark line at its centre.

“What are you doing?” said Chukka. She was the one in charge. Flott was acting without orders and endangering them all. “That belongs to Ramon Ollo. It’s private property.”

“Ramon Ollo is dead,” said Flott. “Like everyone else.”

“I doubt it,” said Weyla.

“I suppose Seneca have records on him, too,” said Chukka.

Weyla cocked an eyebrow. “Of course. He has been a thorn in Seneca’s side for decades. We even sent our greatest warrior to take him down.” Weyla sighed. “He impregnated her.”

“I’m taking this,” Flott said matter of factly, placing the globe in his side pouch. “It should get me enough to buy out my contract with VendX, and then some.”

“Er, shouldn’t you wait until we’re on our way out,” said Bashir. “If any droids see you with that…”

He was technically correct. Organics were only taken once a team was ready to exit a site, usually after a full clear. If you encountered droids with an organic seed on your person, they would go into full alert and be much harder to deal with.

“I’m leaving,” said Flott. “There’s no point carrying on. Our team’s all dead, we’re heavily outnumbered and outgunned, and we don’t know where our target is. This mission is a bust, it has been from the beginning. We’re just going to die like them if we keep going. So I’m not. Good luck.” He grabbed another globe, a green one. It was a little trickier to pull out but he dug his nails in and clawed it out.

“You’re not going anywhere,” said Chukka. “And put those seeds back before you bring the whole security system down on us.”

“What security system?” said Flott. “This whole level is dead, remember. There’s nowhere else for us to go.”

There were no other exits leading from this room, this was it. They’d gone over the entire level and encountered hardly any resistance, or droids of any kind. It was like they were all busy somewhere else. And if they could find where that was, Chukka was pretty sure they’d find their target.

“There is another way down,” said Chukka. “There has to be.”

“There’s the shaft,” said Weyla. Her stern countenance suggested the sisters were going to risk climbing into a gravity well and do their best not to be sheared in half.

“Good luck.” Flott turned to go.

“Let him go,” said Weyla. “If anything, he’ll attract any droids away from us. Take more organics, if you want.”

“Perhaps you should all go,” said Leyla. “I don’t think you’re prepared for what we’re going to face. The Corps’ records on how the Antecessors fought one another don’t make for a fun read. Of course, they’re all historical records, no one’s ever seen them in action. It all happened a long time ago.”

“And what would you do in the Corps if one of yours decided they were going to stuff their pockets and bail on a mission?” asked Chukka.

“You aren’t in the Corps,” said Weyla. “He’s just an employee. He can quit if he wants.” There was a distaste to her words, like she considered working for a living beneath her. It was strange how easily she compartmentalised her situation into thinking she was somehow different, her cause more noble. Chukka could see there were so many gaps in that infamous Seneca mental shield, now that she was up close. If she had more time…

“I don’t care what he decides to do after his contract is up,” said Chukka. “As of now, he is a member of my team and under my command.” She looked at Flott. He had been a highly regarded VendX specialist at the start of this deployment. Yes, he’d lost his team, but it shouldn’t have affected him this much. He was a professional.

But there was something more to it. He had lost someone close to him. That was what was causing this behaviour. Inter-team relationships were frowned upon, but they were still fairly common. He was grieving, and angry, and willing to be reckless in the hope it would end up with him also losing his life. She would never have thought he was so immature.

“I don’t give a shit,” said Flott with no emotion. “If you want to stop me, you’ll have to do it yourself.” His eyes crackled with electricity.

“How did you do that?” said Chukka. “I thought this was a dead zone. His eyes shouldn’t do that, should they?”

The others all checked their abilities. None of them were able to activate them.

“The seeds,” said Bashir. “Must be.”

Another new discovery. There was so much happening at once it was hard to know what was the most important. If she could get all of this information, plus Ubik back to Head Office, her future career would be secured and golden.

Flott was staring at the globe in his hand. The green light gave his face an eerie look.

The problem with authority was that you needed a way to back it up. Chukka just didn’t have it. Even if she could have used her ability, it wasn’t suitable for these sorts of moments. If she had a real organic, like the ones embedded in the pillar, she could have blasted her orders into Flott’s head.

She looked back up at him with as much disdain as she could muster, just in time to see a solid black shadow detach itself from the wall behind him.

Chukka froze for an instant, unsure if she’d seen right. She swept her gaze across the others. None of them were facing the direction she was. If she said anything, the shadow would attack, and she would be in its line of attack, along with Flott. The others might have a chance, but only because of her sacrifice. She certainly wasn’t going to make that play.

“Fine,” she said. “You can go. You know what will happen once I report this.”

“You really think you’ll come out of this alive?” said Flott. There was no flippancy to his question, just a flat inevitability. He had the air of someone with nothing to lose. Even the organic seeds he planned to sell on the black market seemed an afterthought. Chukka understood the mentality — if you only had a minuscule chance of not dying, you might as well make sure the payoff was a big one on the tiny chance you somehow managed to pull it off.

Suddenly, Flott was hurled bodily off his feet to slam crosswise into Leyla. There was a large, black figure standing in front of the pillar, taller than any of them and twice as wide, but completely flat, like a drawing that had walked off a page.

“Don’t move,” said Weyla.

“You know what this is?” hissed Chukka.

“Assassin droid. It’ll target the strongest organics first.” Weyla had one hang on the butt of a gun, the other grabbing onto her sister’s shoulder, pulling her back up. What were they planning to do with no organics and no guns?

Flott slowly rose to his feet.

“Flott,” Chukka whispered. “Don’t do anything rash. He wouldn’t want you to waste your life like this. He loved you. He’d want you to be happy. These things already killed him. Don’t let them—”

With a roar, Flott threw himself at the droid. His body was covered in arcing electrical discharge. The organic globes still in the pillar flashed as power was drawn from them.

Flott was quickly overwhelmed, wrapped in layers of black shadow. The droid’s other limbs snaked out towards the others, targeting the organics, strongest first, Chukka last.

She used the time to draw her weapon. Not electronic, no tronic parts, specially made to face Ubik. Or Ubik-like monsters.

She fired at the droid, the metal slugs punching holes through its body. It lost its grip and was forced back, unable to find an appropriate response to such a primitive weapon.

Flott was the only one still held captive, wrapped up too tight. He had a globe in one hand. His hand crackled with lightning and the globe burst, soaking the droid. It made a strange shrieking sound, almost a lament. It made little sense. The droid wasn’t a mother and the organic wasn’t an egg, just a sac of chemical.

Flott poured more electricity into the droid, a hand lunging towards the other organics embedded in the pillar. He drew out their power, making them pop as the droid went down, its neural network flooded with a surge of power it couldn’t handle.

The two eventually stopped moving, lying in a last embrace, steam rising from their bodies.

Bashir gingerly edged forward to check on them.

“He’s dead,” he said, his hand covered in blood. He looked up at Chukka. “I think you hit him a few times.”

Chukka shrugged. “I tried my best to stop him.” And she had. She had used the exact right words to get through to him. The effect had been just what she hoped for. “I’ll expect you to verify what happened in your report.”

Bashir nodded.

“He broke the dead zone,” said Weyla, her eyes glowing.

They all looked at the pillar with none of its organics left.

“Back to the shaft,” said Leyla with a resigned sigh.

“No, it’s here,” said Chukka. “These organics, they’re just a decoy. You find them, you think you’ve got the treasure, you leave. It’s a very basic psychological trick.”

“Droids don’t fall for psychological tricks,” said Leyla.

“No, they don’t,” agreed Chukka. “There must have been other enemies once.” She moved closer and began inspecting the platform, pushing Flott’s body aside. Her fingers searching for any kind of button or opening.

“Out of the way,” said Weyla as she nudged Chukka away. She lifted up a foot and stamped on the platform. A large crack appeared down the middle. She put her fingers inside the newly formed crevice and pulled it apart, her eyes a fierce red. The rock broke open with a loud crack, revealing a hole. There was a ladder on the side.

“Droids don’t use ladders, either,” said Leyla.

A surge of excitement filled Chukka. What awaited them was probably death and lots more droids, but they had progressed further than she had thought possible. If organics were used as bait, who knew what other treasures they’d find lying around. She carefully positioned the blue organic she had taken from Flott’s corpse and started down the ladder.

(Reboot) Chapter 427

“Who am I supposed to have murdered?” I asked.

The policeman with the tablet looked down, tapped a few things, and then looked back up. “That information is restricted. It just says to bring you in. You aren’t marked down as dangerous or violent so we won’t be using the stun feature of these handcuffs.”

“Thanks.” Stun-cuffs? That was new. They were grey and chunky, like they were made of Lego. “You’re going to arrest me without telling me who I’m supposed to have killed?”

“The information isn’t restricted from you, it’s restricted from us,” said the policeman. “We don’t have the appropriate level of authorisation.” He pointed at his chest where there was a name badge: Auxiliary Officer Davies.

“You’re not a real cop?”

“Community support, but we’re both fully trained and qualified to escort you in for questioning,” said Auxiliary Office Davies, a little extra huff in his voice. “We’re usually assigned to low-level crimes so the full-timers can focus on the important stuff.”

“Murder is a low-level crime?” Things really had changed in my absence.

“This wasn’t meant to be a murder case,” said the other one, whose name badge said Auxiliary Officer Carlton. “You were meant to be a petty thief.”

I was no expert on the law — my life had never been exciting enough to require the justice system to take notice of me, and vice versa — but I was pretty sure you couldn’t be arrested without being told what you were being arrested for. But in this new post-Brexit world, who knew what the rules were?

“Oh, wait,” said Officer Carlton, lowering his pepper spray. “He said he’s been travelling abroad. Probably doesn’t know about the new privacy laws.”

“Right, right,” said Davies. “To avoid the media learning about your alleged crime and spreading misinformation that might prejudice your case, details will be revealed to you in a secure location with only cleared personnel present. That way, if the news does leak onto social media, the leaker will be easier to locate.”

It was the sort of law that could have been passed while I was away. The rich and famous were always complaining about a lack of privacy, except when they had something to sell and desperately tried to get everyone’s attention.

“And why did you break into my flat?” I asked.

“It was already open,” said Carlton. “We were just checking if everything was alright.”

“And?”

“No one home,” said Davies. “Looks like nothing’s been touched. The whole place is covered in dust, though.” He pulled an embarrassed face. “We thought you must be a bit of a pig, but if you’ve been abroad, I suppose that explains it…”

Called a pig by the pigs. What kind of crazy world was this?

At least that meant there wasn’t another Colin living here.

“Okay, let me just check if—”

Davies’ tablet beeped. He looked down at it. “They’re asking if we need backup.”

“Sorry,” said Carlton. “We’ll have to take you straight in or we’ll end up going over the end of our shift.” He gave me an apologetic smile. “They don’t pay us overtime.”

I’d have been quite happy to put my feet up and stay out of everyone’s way for the rest of my life, but apparently that was not to be. I was already in the system and the net was closing around me. I wasn’t panicked, though. The old me might have quietly and forcefully shat himself in this sort of situation, but even without any magical powers I was fine with it. I was still actually quite curious to find out how this was going to go down. Who had I killed? Why was I suddenly the focus of this much attention? And what else had changed while I was away? The quickest way to get answers seemed to be to play along with this charade.

The back of the police car — an electric BMW — smelled clean, but not in a good way. Like a recently disinfected public toilet. I slipped around on the plastic seat cover, still damp from its most recent wipe down. On the back of the driver’s headrest, a small screen informed me of my rights in a sloping white font set against a montage of idyllic autumnal scenes.

It may harm your defence … a carpet of red leaves in Hyde Park … if you do not mention when questioned … Victorian lamp posts viewed through golden branches … something you later rely on in court …

The two part-time officers didn’t seem bothered about the severity of my crime. Perhaps I gave off a ‘just murdered won’t need to murder again for a while’ vibe. Or maybe this was all fake, they weren’t cops, this wasn’t a cop car and nothing in this universe was the way it appeared to be.

In any case, it wasn’t like I had any plans for the rest of the day. The way I saw it, being accused of murder was the least of my problems. Even if someone had died, it had nothing to do with me. I could deal with it once I figured out if any of this was real.

A little before ten, we pulled into what could have easily passed for a supermarket car park, if it wasn’t for all the police cars and the giant, rotating steel sign in blue and silver proclaiming: New Scotland Yard.

Handcuffs still on, I was helped out of the back of the car and Auxiliary Officer Davies led me into the foyer while Auxiliary Officer Carlton went over to a cabinet with a screen where he logged in and either announced our arrival or possibly checked his twitter feed.

Other police officers led in their suspects and signed in at one of the other terminals. The other suspects looked far more likely to have committed murder than me but that was just my prejudices talking. I had in fact killed quite a few people, just not on this planet.

Officer Carlton came back with a slip of paper which he handed to me. “Hold onto this.” It had some numbers printed on it.

I was taken through sliding doors into a large area where there were hundreds of people lined up, waiting their turn to speak to a bored clerk at one of the many computer terminals in glassed-off booths.

The officers unclipped my handcuffs, so they were now bracelets, and placed me in the shortest queue, and then they turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” I said, suddenly feeling a bit lost.

“You’ll be fine, just stay in your snake,” said Officer Davies, referring to the winding barriers that kept the different queues separate. Fine for the Post Office, not so great for London’s Most Wanted.

“Aren’t some of these people dangerous?” I asked.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” said Carlton. “Don’t worry, you’ll be perfectly safe.” And off they went.

I was on my own, to do as I pleased. There didn’t appear to be any guards. I could have just walked off, but there had to be some kind of security. No one else was making a run for it. They also had chunky bracelets on.

Having not been around for these changes, I didn’t want to embarrass myself by trying to leave and triggering an alarm. I was in the company of London’s most undesirable elements, and I didn’t want to make myself look bad in front of them. I was being kept in line by peer pressure.

So I waited my turn, standing with the bald and the tattooed. When a gap opened up in front of someone daydreaming, a polite cough would get the line moving. Say what you like about the English criminal class, they know how to form an orderly queue.

‘Window. Number six. Please,’ a disembodied voice instructed me when I got to the front.

Behind window six, a young man in a short-sleeved shirt sat in front of a touch-sensitive screen, which he poked every now and again. His name tag read: Ancillary Officer Lennon. I wasn’t sure how an ancillary officer differed from an auxiliary one. Probably a matter of pay grade.

“Name?”’ he asked in a bored monotone.

“Colin Brown.”

The Ancillary Officer typed it in. “Surname: Collins. First name: Brian.”

“No,” I said. “Surname: Brown, first name: Colin.”

Officer Lennon smiled at me but made no move to make any corrections. “Customer number, Mr Brown?”

“Aren’t you going to change my name?”

“The computer does it automatically when we put in the customer number.” He lifted a small flap at the bottom of the glass screen separating us.

I passed him the piece of paper I’d been given. After half an hour standing in line, clutching it in my fist, it resembled a tissue that had been used for dubious purpose. Ancillary Officer Lennon passed it over a scanner, got a red light, pressed it down on the tabletop and used the edge of his palm to flatten it out, tried again, and then began inputting the number manually via a virtual keyboard on the screen.

“Biometric card?”

“I don’t have one,” I said.

Ancillary Officer Lennon held up a glossy leaflet with a picture of a driving licence, passport and credit card merging into the colours of the Union Jack. “Can I interest you in purchasing a biometric card today?” he recited. ‘This leaflet explains the benefits and details the application process. If you apply online, you can save twenty percent.”

“No thanks,” I said, with the same fixed smile I used for Jehova’s Witnesses and Greenpeace recruiters.

“The biometric card increases national security, is convenient and practical and can save time on long journeys. All your information will be stored in one place that is almost completely secure and will be dealt with in the strictest confidence.”

“Almost completely secure? What do you mean almost completely?”

“The New Metropolitan Police Service has implemented, to the best of our ability, every possible control and safeguard to ensure abuse of your data never occurs. The details are in this leaflet.” He held up another leaflet. This one had a picture of a smiling black policeman.

I proceeded to turn down life insurance, health insurance, property insurance and a lottery ticket. Top prize was £250,000, which isn’t much these days. Missed opportunity, if you ask me. If they’d offered an actual get out of jail free card, they’d probably become the best-selling lottery franchise in history.

I took all of this nonsense in my stride. My belief that this wasn’t the real planet Earth, 2020 AD, was only getting stronger. I hadn’t managed to burst the illusory bubble I was caught in yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Until that happened, I was finding this version to be very interesting. There was a lot here that was almost plausible. Some of it would actually improve things. If I ever got back to the real Earth, I might suggest it. Well, I’d post it on Reddit.

It appeared that in this version of Britain there had been some rebranding in an effort to correct the public’s mistaken impression of the police, formed by over a hundred years of unfair press, the occasional accidental dropping of a suspect down a flight of stairs, the inadvertent shooting of unarmed people with a tan, the frequent exoneration of footballing rapists, and the unintentional systematic recruiting of members of the British Fascist Party.

Ancillary Officer Lennon put a new slip of paper in my hand — number 00172 — and directed me through the sliding doors to my left.

The holding area was of airport waiting lounge proportions, containing some of the most technically advanced vending machines I’d ever seen. I marvelled at the range of soups, snacks and sandwiches on offer. Toiletries, shaving kits and pay-as-you-go smartphones. Toys for upset children, flowers for the distraught spouse.

The door I’d come through didn’t open when I approached it and there was no other way out that I could see.

There appeared to be no police or security people around. Nobody in any kind of uniform. Cameras were mounted in the ceiling, but they didn’t move and showed no indication of actually being on. The room was filled with rows of plastic seats fused to the floor. Large TV screens dominated the walls, with the volume muted and the subtitles on.

All the televisions screens showed the same smartly dressed man thrusting a microphone at a weeping woman. I’m soggy, lover, I’m soggy, read the subtitles. The caption at the top said: I’m a chocaholic with a secret.

Thirty or so bald, tattooed men — some with tattoos on their bald heads — watched with rapt attention, their lips moving in unison when the subtitles popped up.

I sat down in an aisle seat and nearly slid off the waxy plastic. I settled into an involuntary slouch and wondered if they called out names over a tannoy or if I had to wait for my number to appear on a display somewhere, like at the supermarket deli counter.

Opposite me sat a very large, thick-set Asian man with an impressive twelve inches of hair growing out of his chin. He wore white trainers with the tongues lolling out, baggy cotton pyjama bottoms, a skull cap made of lace doily, and a faded green t-shirt with what looked like ‘Don’t shoot, I’m Brazilian’ in flaked-off yellow print.

I glanced around, careful not to make eye contact with anybody. I was in a large open plan room with a bunch of criminals and little to no supervision. It didn’t seem very safe although it was probably quite cheap, especially when you factored in the prices on the vending machines.

The Indian guy got up and sat down next to me, practically overflowing his chair and taking up some of mine. “You look like a newbie, blood,” he said. “Word of advice. You probably aren’t planning on saying anything incriminating while you’re here, but, just so you know, the whole place is wired: lights, camera, conviction, you get me?” He pointed his finger up.

I took another look at the many cameras bolted to the ceiling, lenses pointed directly at the floor. “Do those things even work?”

“Don’t be fooled. Voice-activated, high-def, high resale value. I’m Shammy Izwaki. Nice to meet you.” He nodded at me.

“Hello,” I said. I tried not to sound too suspicious but no one ever came over and started speaking to me. Most of them slowly backed away if I looked like I might come over to speak to them. So this turn of events struck me as prepared in advance. “I’m here for murder,” I said. “How about you?”

He gave me a strange look and then burst out laughing. “Nice one. You got the right idea. Don’t take it too seriously, blood. Just don’t get cocky, alright? Friendly warning. They play it the English style here, you get me? All chatty and relaxed with man, offer you tea and biscuits, and then, Bam! Next thing you know, you’re doing fifteen to life for something that happened five years before you were born. Not that they’re all bad people, you know? But it ain’t like on the telly. There ain’t just one bad apple in a barrel of Golden fucking Delicious. Barrel is full of worms. Lucky to find one decent Granny Smith in there. Key is to not let them intimidate you. They’re just people like you and me.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Don’t get me wrong, the bizzies do their job as contracted, kushti. But if they tries to tell a man what he should or shouldn’t be doing ’cos they happen to wear a shiny badge? Give me a break, man. Fuck that, and fuck the police,” every camera in the vicinity sprang into life and rotated in our direction, “hating scum that ruin this country.” The cameras all powered down again.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for the advice.”

“You got yourself a lawyer?”

“Not yet.”

My new friend pushed out his bottom lip and vented air. “‘Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said? You have the right to have your solicitor present – use it, blood. Doesn’t matter if you’re guilty or not. And don’t take one of them duty solicitors they’ll try and fob you off with. Tell you what, have a word with my girl, she’ll see you right.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks.” I was starting to get the impression this guy was some kind of pusher, an agent for bad lawyers working on commission.

“Honest, bruv, she’s killer. She's so ahead of the curve, she’s practically psychic. Knows where they’re going to plant the evidence on you before they do. Trust me, this is the girl you want in your corner, Colin.”

My ears pricked up when he called me by name, since I hadn’t mentioned it.

“What else does she know?” I asked.

“This and that,” said Shammy. “All sorts, really. Knows all about you. Told me to come here today and introduce myself. Today’s a special day, you know? Very busy, people coming and going, coming and going. Leap year, makes people a little crazy. Me too. Had to get myself arrested just for the pleasure of bumping into you. Not my usual MO, getting caught, but I made an exception, seeing as how you just landed. How was your trip?”

“Fine.” I wasn’t sure how to take my new best bud. He could just be a blithering idiot, but something told me there was more to it than that.

“The way I hear it, you’ve been to some exotic place where the land is flat and the trolls aren’t online.” He grinned and winked at me.

“What is it you want, Shammy?”

“Me? Nothing. But you’re gonna be real popular, I’m guessing. Lots of chatter the moment you popped back. They’re going to want to have words, hear your holiday stories, check your Snapchat.”

“Who is?”

“Lots of different people. You should definitely lawyer up.” He handed me a business card that appeared in his hand out of nowhere. I think he had it tucked into his beard. “You should give her a bell. Number’s free. Careful what you say.”

“The phones are tapped?”

“Wouldn’t know, not an engineer. More of an entrepreneur. Adventurer, some call me.” He stood up. He was big but he didn’t seem so fat anymore. Just solid. “You take care of yourself, Colin. They’re coming for you.” He walked away. “Call her, you won’t regret it,” he called over his shoulder, and then he walked up to the doors which shuddered and then slid open for him. He took off his bracelets and dropped them on the floor as he walked through the open doorway, and then a bunch of alarms went off and he ran.

A second later, a group of people flashed past the glass walls in pursuit.

I looked at the card in my hand. Cherry Hinton, Solicitor & Oracle.

How could I not call?

Book 2 – 71: Irresistible Pull

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

Ubik ducked as a wild burst of laserfire produced sparks from the walls in every direction, gouging a line across half the room and leaving silver liquid oozing onto the floor.

The Guardian was screaming something unintelligible as the guns on her arms and shoulders spat out searing white light. She seemed a little upset.

In fact, blinded by fury would be a more apt description. Probably why she didn’t see Junior pounce on her from behind, his large cat-form augmented with new additions protruding all over his body, bumps and nodules with mangled sections that looked like open wounds.

He was starting to see how these droids worked, but their condition made it hard to see how the original design worked. Hopefully smoother than this.

The Guardian might not have been as alert to the possibility of attack from the rear as she should have been, but Rex was online and on the job. The gun turrets on the suit’s shoulders swivelled a hundred and eighty degrees and unloaded a solid bar of light that warped the air around it as it shot through the air.

The slug struck the leaping cat in its midsection, shattering it into pieces that went flying back in the direction they had come. As they flew through the air, they spread out and then drew back together, reforming as they crashed down to the ground, bits sticking out of places they shouldn’t have.

The Guardian turned around to see what she had just fired on and didn’t appear to mind Rex taking it on himself to choose new targets. She raised her arms to follow up with more destruction.

“Don’t let her finish off Junior,” Ubik shouted at PT.

“What do you want me to do about it?” said PT.

“The suit’s weak spot is the back of the knees,” said Ubik, giving PT a suggestive look, urging him to take it from there.

PT pulled a face that suggested he would rather not, but Fig was already moving towards the Guardian and he started after him like he’d missed the starting pistol for the race of his life.

Ubik felt confident they’d take care of it. And if not, they would at least delay things long enough for him to save the day. Or save himself, whichever came first.

He was still holding two small droids, each just about able to fit in the palm of his hands, both in terrible condition, now joined together by a small piece of the gravity spike that had snapped off. Typical poor workmanship — if your specially designed anti-droid stick can’t even withstand a little rough and tumble with an Insanium class droid, what even was the point of bothering? Might as well go back to designing fancy lampshades for cabin lights in those fancy Central Authority cruisers he had his eye on.

The two droids looked like sea creatures, little tentacles waving. The residual gravity leaking from the broken spike was enough to keep the droids stuck together at the torso and unable to draw themselves apart, which they were both trying their utmost to do. They seemed desperate to get away from one another.

They were too weak and broken to cause Ubik any danger, and also too weak to resist the gravitational glue binding them to each other. The effect of gravity on them was fascinating. It wasn’t simply forcing them into contact like opposites end of a magnet, they were merging into each other.

And then snapping apart as they tried to regain their individuality.

The way they struggled to stay separate seemed to suggest a deep desire not to form a single entity. It was impressive how they fought to be true to themselves and not become a mindless part of something bigger and more powerful. Admirable, even.

Ubik honoured their struggle by grabbing each at its furthest end and shoving them together with all his strength. They might not want to become whole again, but Ubik was in need of mindless and powerful right now, not free-thinking loners.

The droids resisted, but with gravity and Ubik working against their personal desires, they slid closer together along the section of gravity spike conjoining them.

“I know… you want to be you…” grunted Ubik as he strained to push them closer. “We all want to be ourselves… but there comes a time… when we have to come together for a common cause.” They were losing the fight. Their long black tendrils hanging limply over Ubik’s arms began twitching as they mingled and fused together.

More shots fired, beams of light ricocheting off the walls and ceiling of the chamber. Fig had grabbed one of the Guardian’s arms and pulled it away from targeting Junior, who was still reforming. PT was behind her, timing his blows to the back of her knee to send the other weapons firing into the air.

Tezla spun around, still screaming. She was saying something about sending all of them to the Central Authority prison planet in body bags, which sounded a little redundant. With a swipe of her arm, she sent Fig flying through the air. He twisted and landed on his feet. Then she turned and kicked PT, catching him in the stomach and sending him somewhat less elegantly through the air, landing on his face, then the back of his head, then his face again.

Both came running back in the Guardian’s direction without hesitation. They were noble and brave.

“Hurry up and do something, Ubik, you useless sack of shit.” It was an odd warcry to go into battle with, but if PT needed to get his blood pumping, Ubik was happy to lend his name to the effort.

“Working on it.”

What he planned to do once the two droids became one, he wasn’t really sure. It was more of an exercise into the unknown. Gravity played a big role in the construction of these droids, that knowledge was bound to come in useful at some point. Maybe not today, but one day.

The two droids had given up fighting against their union and were now rapidly turning into a single unit. Perhaps they’d been inspired by PT and Fig’s display of determination in the face of adversity.

“That’s it, work together. You’re stronger when you… Hey, wait, what are you doing? No, no, don’t…”

The two droids had very much joined forces, giving in to the urge to become one, and now they were aiming their combined strength against Ubik. They had wrapped their weak tentacles — strengthened by their union — around Ubik’s wrists. The slick black surface spread up his arms, clamping onto his muscles, paralysing his arms from the elbows down.

“Hey, we’re a team. Don’t do—” Ubik shook his arms, trying to get his new gloves off. They now suddenly seemed more than eager to work together towards a common cause. Ubik considered this experiment a great success. He was already well on the way to understanding how this technology worked.

“Need a little help,” yelled Fig as he swung around, his hands clamped onto the gun barrel sticking out of the Guardian’s wrist mount, his feet just missing smacking Ubik on the nose.

“When you’re ready,” shouted PT from on top of the Guardian’s shoulders, his legs crossed around her neck, doing absolutely nothing.

Tezla threw her arms out and pumped them like she was loading a shotgun inside each.

“Rex, purge. Now.”

The suit’s armoured surface detached from the main body and then snapped back into place. PT and Fig were suddenly no longer in contact with the suit and hung in the air for a second. Then there was a sonic shrug, the air around the suit rippling as it compressed visibly, and PT and Fig were both launched towards opposite walls as though they’d been shot out of a cannon.

Tezla re-aimed her many, many weapons on Junior, who was rising to his feet.

“Help. Help me. They’ve taken over my suit.” Ubik went running towards the Guardian, arms out in front of him. They were coated in black droid material up to his armpits now, weak streaks of white light running up and down their length. “I’m being assimilated. Not responsible for my action.”

The Guardian swung her arms around towards him, most of the guns aimed at him.

“I think your targeting systems broken,” said Ubik. “You might want to point a little to the left.”

PT pulled a face from over on Ubik’s left.

“The targeting is fine,” said Tezla. “Stay out of my way. No closer or I’ll fire.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” said Ubik, stumbling forward, dragged along by his arms. “I’m not in control. I can’t stand still, I’m all weak at the knees.” He glanced over at PT. “Totally weak at the knees.”

Ubik jumped, nudged an outstretched fist — the laser shot narrowly missing his head — and then ducked under and up between her two arms.

“This isn’t my fault,” he said as he jumped up, his droid-infested arms grabbing the Guardian’s neck. And then she was falling backwards.

Ubik could see PT behind her, blocking the stabilising jets that would normally keep her upright even under a massive load. A little Ubik hug without the stabilisers was enough to tip her over.

Ubik had his hands over Tezla’s visor. “Oh no, they’re trying to infiltrate your suit. Rex, begin security lockdown. If they take the suit over, we’re done for.” He slapped and rubbed her visor while sitting on her chest.

“Get off me. What are you doing?”

“This is the most advanced tech on our side. If they take control we’re done. Game over.” Ubik was issuing the warning very seriously, but also with his mouth very close to his hands, as though he didn’t want them to miss out on key information.

The droids eventually took the hint, or more likely made the decision for themselves, and released Ubik’s arms, instead grabbing onto the Guardian’s helmet and wrapping it in droid tendrils so there was no sight of Tezla no doubt enraged face. She thrashed around wildly.

“Oh no,” said Ubik, his hands held up, droid-free. “The worst-case scenario has come true. A catastrophe and then some.” Ubik jumped off her. “Don’t move, just make sure you maintain the integrity of all core systems. Very important. I’ll be right back. “

Ubik turned towards PT and ran across the room, jumping over crippled droids as he went. “Quick, where’s the densest gravity field in this place?”

PT pointed to the far side where Junior was shakily getting to his feet, cables undone and leaking sparks, parts on the verge of falling off.

“Okay, good. Let’s round these boys up.” Ubik scooped up a droid lying flat on the ground and tossed it at Junior. As it neared its target, it sped up and struck the droid with force, instantly absorbed into the body.

The three of them went around the room, grabbing the smaller, barely functioning droids, and throwing them at Junior. Some of the droids suddenly latched onto their rescuers and needed a little coaxing but as soon as they were airborne, they rocketed towards their new home. Junior got bigger.

Tezla managed to get to her feet and rip the droids off her face.

“You won’t believe what happened while you couldn’t see what was happening,” said Ubik. “It was like a mass-migration into that corner.”

Junior was standing now, huge and covered in extra limbs and parts.

“We tried to stop it,” said Ubik. “But without you… not being able to see and all.”

“I don’t need my eyes to see,” said Tezla. “I have sensors.” She threw the twin droids at Ubik. “What are you doing?”

Ubik caught the droids, made a squealing sound like he’d been handed a bunch of yucky animal innards, and threw the droids away. In the direction of Junior, coincidentally.

They looked like they were going to drop short, but then shot forward, plunging into Junior’s body

“Why are you helping them?” said Tezla. She wasn’t firing at him, which was good, but all her guns were pointed in his direction, which was tbd.

“Take it easy, Guardian,” said Ubik in a soft, placating tone. “Null Void, remember. Rex, tell her how important I am.”

“Capture of Null Void is mission objective, priority one,” said Rex.

“See?”

“Visual cortex and brainstem acceptable if no other option.”

“Well, Rex clearly needs his boot drive defragging. Taken a little too much shaking in the old disc caddy. Okay, easy on that trigger. We have options. Lots of options.”

Junior came stomping across the room. He had taken the same shape as Tezla’s suit, only bigger and with more attachments.

“I’m just teaching them how to work together,” said Ubik. “They hate it, want to be their own boss, you know the feeling, right? But sometimes you have to work together to overcome a bigger problem. That’s all.”

Junior walked slowly and awkwardly until he was alongside Tezla. Weapons sprung out of his mimicked suit, only with more tendrils and stringy bits. He looked like Tezla if she’d just walked out of a swamp, bringing most of it with her.

Tezla stood her ground, weapons primed to fire. Junior did a quarter turn to face Ubik, guns locked on target.

“Oh, I see,” said PT. “You’ve given them a common enemy to bring them together. Killing you will be the thing that unites them. Brilliant.”

“Not common enemy,” said Ubik. “Common friend. Right? Facilitator of good things.”

The Guardian looked at the droid. The droid, a little stiffly, looked at the Guardian. They both produced more guns aimed at Ubik.

“Now you’re just being hurtful,” said Ubik. “But look, we need to find Fig’s dad. He’s probably gone a bit insane with all the intimate probing and stuff. And on the way, we’ll sort out your gravitational instability problem and the Central Authority will oversee a new era in Antecess—I mean, Intercessor-human relationships. And then once that’s taken care of, me and the boys will sail off in one of those CA yachts you only give to VIPs who’ve helped save the galaxy. Everyone wins, eh?”

“We don’t give away any yachts,” said Tezla. “And you haven’t saved anything.”

“Well, maybe if you put up a yacht as a reward…”

Junior moved forward. The Guardian braced herself.

“It’s fine,” said Ubik. “We’ve reached an understanding. We’re all on the same—”

Junior grabbed Ubik by the arm and swung him around, knocking over Fig and sending PT sprawling out of the way. Ubik found himself in Tezla’s arms for a second, and then both were hoisted into the air.

“Rex, deploy—”

“Weapons systems are offline,” said Rex very calmly.

“Junior seems to know a lot about how your suit works,” said Ubik.

Then they were wrapped in long black limbs; more limbs snatched up PT and Fig. He began walking towards the far end of the room, dragging the four of them behind him.

“Probably taking us to meet the rest of the family,” said Ubik.

“You’re going to die, Ubik,” said Tezla.

“Oh, I don’t think Junior will—”

“Not him,” said Tezla.

They were dragged out of the room, which was fine. It didn’t mean something bad, necessarily. And it wasn’t like there weren’t other people who might rescue them. Overall, things were going well. Fair to middling.

The room was empty after Junior had left with his bounty. A single figure sat up, turned off his helmet and took a deep breath.

“Hello?” said Nifell. He didn’t recognise his surroundings at all. “Anyone here?” He was reluctant to shout in case someone — or something — heard him.

But he was a trained soldier, a specialist. He just had to get back to his base and call in an evac. He looked around the huge cavern that made him feel tiny and burst into tears.

Book 2 – 70: Coming of Age

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

Figaro watched through the droid-construct still attached to his suit as PT lunged towards the Guardian’s suit. The mixture of his own suit’s sensors and the droid plugged in on top produced an array of readings flooding in over the HUD in his helmet and provided yet more information streaming into the control panel on his arm.

He did his best to ignore the giant image of his father’s head that watched proceedings with his usual detached expression, taking in everything Figaro was, but without the need for excessive input devices. His father was the sort of person who would reach a crucial point in an experiment and then put all his instruments aside so he could experience the pivotal moment unfiltered.

Figaro didn’t have quite that level of focus, especially not when he was surrounded by so many improbable events at once. He tried his best to absorb and assimilate the situation, as he’d been trained to do. Although, he had never quite been prepared for something like this.

The Central Authority suit showed only basic functions online. It didn’t appear to be damaged by whatever Junior had done to it, but the Guardian wasn’t conscious, as far as he could tell.

PT’s suit was at about the same power level as the Guardian’s suit with everythingturned off, which gave a clear indication of the difference in tech. PT might as well have been running around in his pyjamas.

Junior had been pinned to the ground by the gravity spike Ubik had managed to palm without anyone noticing, hidden about his person and repurposed to activate manually. Any one of those things would have been near-impossible to pull off, but Ubik had managed all three without being observed. And Figaro had been doing his best to observe him at the time.

The other droids, the ones in various states of disrepair that had been released from their compartments in the walls of the chamber, were showing limited functionality. None seemed to be able to float, which was a relief. They were flopped on the floor, some of them trying to crawl, none of them very quickly. But there were a lot of them, which could prove to be a problem if they found a way to power-up. Currently, though, it was the slowest ambush in history.

And then there was Ubik, his suit completely dead, his life signs reading within normal parameters, which could hardly be considered accurate. He was cheering from the sidelines, urging PT on, much to PT’s irritation.

“Slam it in!” said Ubik enthusiastically. “Get her up and running. She’s our only hope. No pressure.”

“Shut up,” growled PT as he dived with his arm outstretched, the small, black drive in his hand aiming for the slot in the suit’s hip.

Junior had pried it out with ease. The droid had an uncomfortably comfortable relationship with CA tech, knowing exactly where Rex had been installed. Now PT needed to emulate what the droid had done, only in reverse.

“Don’t miss,” shouted Ubik. “You’ve got one shot at this.”

Figaro didn’t need the incoming data to tell him how tempted PT was to turn his body in full-flight just to shout something obscene at Ubik. There was a twinge of movement in PT’s upper-body that was easy to spot for someone with Figaro’s training, quickly restrained.

PT slotted the small rectangular stick into the suit’s left side and rolled up into a crouch, ready for an attack from one of the droids.

No attack came. Whatever the Intercessor plan was, it was a ponderous one.

The suit, with the Guardian inside it, standing in a stiff pose, arms raised, began to shake. Only a little, but all over, like it was about to fall apart.

“Is it supposed to do that?” asked PT. “What now?”

“The suit’s going to come back online and Rex is going to save us,” said Ubik confidently. “Or the Guardian will. They’re probably not both dead.” The combination of supreme confidence and casual equivocation did not come across as very reassuring, but Ubik never saw his role as one that provided supportive platitudes.

The shaking made the suit hop across the floor towards one of the flopping droids. Contact was made between droid and bottom of boot, and the suit toppled over, making no attempt to protect itself. It crashed to the floor and lay there, face down.

“It isn’t working,” said PT, straightening out of his crouch and looking around.

The droids on the ground were slowly making progress in a manner that seemed to be becoming less threatening rather than more. They looked quite pathetic and a little desperate. Junior, meanwhile, was flattened against the floor with the gravity spike sticking out of his head, limbs shuddering with the effort of trying to move.

Figaro could see the change in gravitational pull across the floor. It was unusual to see such a sharp increase in gravity localised to this degree, a pool of fluctuating force around the droid. It didn’t look very stable.

“I don’t think the gravity spike is going to hold,” said Figaro.

“How long?” said PT.

“Don’t panic,” said Ubik. “I made some minor adjustments. The CA parameters were needlessly cautious.”

Figaro exchanged a look with PT, both of them thinking the same thing. If Ubik thought something was needlessly cautious, it was probably one small nudge away from a mushroom cloud.

“The readings are all over the place,” said Figaro. “It’s going to collapse.”

“Forget the readings,” said Ubik. “Physics changes the closer you get to a star or a singularity, right? Same thing here.”

“Is that thing going to turn into a black hole?” said PT in an accusing tone.

“It’s complicated,” said Ubik. “You know those people who used to think you could just throw your waste into the nearest star and that was that? Even when gravitational compression was explained to them, they couldn’t understand it and insisted on trying anyway, and the idiots ended up bouncing ten thousand metric tons of radioactive waste back into their ship at half the speed of light... Well, that’s about the level you’re at, intellectually speaking. No offence.”

PT was about to say something when there was a shrieking sound, like sheets of metal being ripped in half.

Junior had his head off the ground. A large hole where his eye used to be, and one limb raised. He managed to get halfway up before slamming back down, howling as the tip of the gravity spike punched through his torso from behind.

“It’s collapsing,” said Figaro. “No, wait… it’s… expanding?”

The droids nearest Junior began sliding across the floor towards him. They slammed into his torso and seemed to weld on, changing shape, moulding themselves to fit.

“Hey,” said Ubik, “I think I’ve just figured out a way to fix these droids.”

“You’re supposed to be helping us,” said PT, “not them.”

Junior was still on his back but the field around him showed a great deal of fluctuation, several times higher in some areas, much lower in others, on the verge of collapsing.

The Guardian’s suit was still booting up, assuming that was what all the shaking it was doing indicated. Even if Tezla managed to come back online, what was she going to do against the Intercessors on their home ground? Her suit had a limited number of weapons and only probably only the one gravity spike, seeing how she hadn’t used more when they’d been attacked earlier.

With a howl that sounded like it was coming out of a dying synthesiser, Junior leapt off the floor, gravity spike protruding from his midsection, and came down a lot faster than unpowered flight usually allowed. He smashed down on top of the Guardian.

“Get him off her,” said Ubik. “We don’t want Rex to panic when he comes online.”

Junior appeared to be trying to mount the CA suit.

“The gravity thing is pinning them together,” said PT. “Can’t you turn it off?”

“It’s complicated,” said Ubik. “Hold up, I’ll get something to prise them apart. See if you can find a bucket of cold water.”

“Impressive, isn’t it?” said his father’s voice, close and intimate in Figaro’s ear. “The droids have been stranded here for millennia, but they refuse to give up their cause.”

“And what is their cause?” said Figaro.

“The Antecessors sought their freedom from their creator, their god. He refused to let them go. Such is the whim of gods. The result was war. Self-propagating, designed for all environments, capable of destruction on a massive scale, the Antecessor resisted what they saw as tyranny. They suffered huge losses. When their numbers dwindled to critical levels, they abandoned the idea of victory through volume, and began to produce specialised machines, devices, instruments.”

“Droids.”

“Yes. Smarter, faster stronger.”

“Use the CA suit,” shouted Ubik.

“How?” said PT.

“Get in there with her,” said Ubik. “It’ll be cosy.”

Junior was sitting up now, wrapped around the CA suit, which had lights running around its surface.

“The first generation of new droids,” Ramon continued in his son’s ear, “were uniformly designed for one purpose. Attack. They were offensive machines, pure and uncompromising.”

“The ones we’ve fought?” said Figaro.

“No. We have only fought their shadows. The true warrior class were all destroyed when the first wave failed.”

“Tell it to let me go,” shouted PT, one hand caught in a mass of black tentacles.

“I don’t think those are Junior’s,” said Ubik. “Just cut them off. I’m sure they’ll grow back, whoever they belong to.”

“The second generation of droids were a combination of precision and tactics. Designed to identify weakness and apply pressure to the one point that would create destruction. They did well, but few survived. Resource-heavy and hard to repair.”

“These other droids are waking up,” said Ubik.

“Put them back to sleep,” said PT.

“No, this is good. They can help. We just have to befriend them.”

“No.”

“But…”

“No. Get Junior off the Guardian.”

“The third generation was the first to introduce organic matter. DNA. They were not perfect but the failure rate was predictable and easily accounted for. This class of droid surpassed its predecessors and achieved good results. It is thought they would be the ones to end the war. Huge ships were built, mighty cities. The weight of their ambition spanned the galaxy.”

“He’s up! He’s up!” shouted PT as he was lifted into the air on top of Junior. The gravity spike was broken, spitting sparks furiously to the droid’s rear.

“Ride him,” shouted Ubik. “Show him you’re the boss.”

“However, there was a fourth generation. Stronger, more adaptive, more powerful, far more delicate. The most advanced, the most brilliant. They suffered a catastrophic system failure. The entire batch of these omega level droids were produced with a corrupted hive mind that was only discovered to be defective after they had slaughtered more than half of their own kind and caused the collapse of Antecessor society. Most of them eventually self-destructed.”

“Suicide?” said Figaro.

“Mass suicide,” said his father.

Figaro looked at the droids still lying around him. “Them? This was self-inflicted. That doesn’t sound very much like Antecessor mentality.” Nothing his father was telling him fit with the narrative he’d been taught, vague as it had been.

“Nothing about them was very much like an Antecessor,” said Ramon.

“They’re Intercessors?”

“Our word for them. They are the youngest of their kind. The children. The great-great-grandchildren. It was not our war, how can we understand their reasons? But, they are the last link to the ones who came before us. The ones who possibly created us.”

“You think we were droids, too?”

“It is something that’s been postulated, never proven. We do share some similarities. Some compatibilities. And there are those whose compatibilities are much closer, much deeper. Like you.”

“You want me to open myself to them? Give up my organic?” said Figaro. “That would kill me.”

“There is that risk, but you have carried that risk your whole life. No one else could have done it, Figaro. You are unique. And now you have the chance to ascend to another level of existence. They are nearer heaven than we. They have a god who is available to them.”

“Who they fought against, and lost.”

“Not lost. Not yet. But this is your choice to make. I can only advise you, guide you. I wouldn’t force you. I taught you everything I know. I have to trust you to make the right decision.”

“You taught me everything you know, Father, and you believe you can predict my thought process. But Mother taught me everything she knows, also. And as far as I’ve ever been able to tell, the two of you have shared very little, apart from me. I’m the one who has the advantage over you. You only have my guilt and obligation and respect to rely on — all things you taught me to consider objectively, and then dismiss.”

The large head of his father smiled down on him. “That’s right, that’s right.” He didn’t seem at all disappointed. This was how he was — always willing to see things from other perspectives, even if he knew his way was best. “So how will you decide?”

“What if I oppose you?” said Figaro.

“Then we will face each other sooner rather than later. But it was always our destiny. Fathers and sons, it is the way.”

“And daughters?” said Figaro. “Mother has given birth.”

“Has she? I suspected she had. I am sure she will be taken care of by the Corps.”

“You have no wish to see your new child?”

“I long to see her, but it may not be what is in her best interests. There’s more to life than what we want as individuals.”

“He doesn’t think so,” said Figaro, looking at Ubik.

“The Null Void? That isn’t surprising.”

“What is it? What is a Null Void?”

“It’s not so much what it is as what it isn’t. While we all share a common thread, a history leading back to the Antecessors, they do not. They are unlike us.”

“He doesn’t look that different.”

“Superficially, no. He breathes and eats and sleeps. But if what you say is true, his root is from a divergent line. His origin is more obscure than that of the Antecessors, but there have been so few of them it hasn’t been impossible to study in any depth. Perhaps your friend will indulge my curiosity.”

Figaro felt a chill go down his spine. His father was viewing Ubik as a laboratory sample. A look he knew well from experience. He did keep most of his test subjects alive and healthy, but they all ended up the same. On the table for dissection.

“Are you sure you want to get in the middle of these two warring factions?” said Figaro.

“We have little choice in the matter,” said Ramon. “Now that the revival has begun, we will either become participants in their struggle, or victims. I may be a captive, but I have already learned a lot. It is a worthy sacrifice, for me. You have the best chance at joining them as a valued asset. Even if you can’t influence them, what you learn will be invaluable.”

Figaro watched the battle for dominance between PT and the Insanium droid. “If it were only me, I think I would probably agree with you,” Figaro said. “But there is a layer beyond what the Antecessors want or what you want or what I want. I think the answer is in finding the god they rejected. He is the one who can provide true answers.”

The head hanging over him seemed to smile, ever so slightly. “That would be a magnitude level higher you’d have to go. Here on the rim of the galaxy, we don’t have that kind of access. Those secrets are jealously guarded by others, more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

“And yet they haven’t progressed very far in their research, have they?” said Figaro. “I think I would like to pursue that path.”

“As you wish.” He sounded a little disappointed to Figaro’s ears. “But to prove yourself, first you will have to overcome this place. I cannot help you unless you agree to their terms.”

“Are you truly alright, Father?”

“I am where I need to be, that is all that matters. Good luck, my son.” The image faded.

Figaro felt like he should have said something more, something that showed his father he was ready for the challenge, but it was too late now. Too late to say something, but perhaps not to do something.

PT was thrown off Junior and came skidding across the floor to stop at Figaro’s feet. “What was that? Isn’t he going to help?”

“No,” said Figaro. “He thinks I need to prove myself by finding my own way out.”

“We’re leaving?” said PT.

“No,” said Figaro. “Not until we have my father. He may not be able to free himself of this place, but we’ll just have to perform an NCR. Is Ubik finished messing around yet?”

“Look,” said Ubik, holding up two bedraggled droids pinned together, limbs flailing wildly. “Skewered them both onto the gravity spike.” The limbs began to flail although to no clear purpose.

“Gravity is the glue,” explained Ubik. “And this place is full of the stuff. We can just negotiate a deal and walk out of here. No need to fight to the death. Nice and easy.”

“All weapons online,” screamed the Guardian as she stood up, her suit looking only a little worse for wear. “Rex, fire all weapons, full discharge.”