V. Moody's Blog, page 20

Book 2 – 69: Darkness Rising

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

 

Figaro was surprised and relieved to see his father, even if it was only a projection of him. It at least meant he was still alive.

“Are you safe?” asked Figaro.

“I am unharmed and not in any immediate danger,” replied the image of Ramon Ollo’s head. Figaro stared up at it intently, trying to confirm that it really was his father. The Antecessor technology could easily replicate his features, but the look in his eyes and the sheer weight of authority in his tone were not things easily imitated. It was his father speaking to him.

“Where are you?” said Figaro, looking up at the image taking up most of the chamber. His eyes seemed to stare directly at Figaro, as calmly as though they were talking over the communication network back home. Even at this scale, his face was hard to read.

“I can’t say for sure,” said Ramon Ollo, his voice emanating from his mouth in the unhurried manner Figaro was used to. “It isn’t important. You look well. I am glad to see you here.” A small smile formed on the stern face. “We have much we need to do and time is limited.”

Figaro nodded. His father was never one for displays of emotion, and always eager to complete the next task on his list. And he always had a list. “You don’t want me to get you out of here?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Ramon. “It would be a waste of time in any case. Is Mackus here with you?”

“No,” said Figaro.

“You’re in contact with him?”

“No. Mackus is dead, Father. He thought you had been killed and tried to take control of the household. He left me no choice.”

“I see.” His father didn’t seem all that surprised. Had he always expected Mackus to make a challenge once he was gone? Perhaps he had considered Figaro only worthy of his birthright if he was able to meet such a challenge. “Regrettable.” There was no hint of regret on his face. “I would have hoped he’d look for confirmation before making such a move. I trained him better than that, I thought. I am pleased you were the one to survive.”

“I had help,” said Figaro, reluctant to let his father think he had somehow outfoxed Mackus alone. Claiming more for himself than he had earned felt wrong.

“That makes it no less impressive,” said Ramon Ollo. “But our options are somewhat limited now. Nevertheless, we must act and act immediately. I have learned much from my captors. The answers I have been searching for my whole life are within reach and I am loath to let the opportunity slip away. This facility is occupied by two separate groups of Antecessors. They are at war with one another — a war that lasted for several millennia, and then came to a sudden standstill. Until now. I believe you are the catalyst that reignited this conflict, and you will be the one to end it. And the entirety of the human race will benefit. A new age is upon us.”

Figaro watched his father speak with a fire in his eyes. It was the nearest to unbridled enthusiasm he had ever seen from him. His passion was usually compressed into a hard point and aimed at his work. This was clearly a big moment for him. The culmination of his life’s work.

“What do you want me to do?” said Figaro, his stomach tightening.

“Follow the droid they will send for you,” said Ramon. “It will bring you to me.”

“Yes, Father,” said Figaro. His head felt light and a wave of nausea swept over him. He was rushing towards a precipice, it felt like.

“Wait,” said PT. “Do you think you might want to tell us what it is you’re planning?”

“It’s fine,” said Figaro. “This is why I’m here.”

“No,” said PT, “it isn’t fine. It’s great that you’re happy to do as you’re told, Fig, but whatever your relationship with your father, he isn’t the only one reliant on you here. You are the only thing keeping us alive, remember?”

“Ahem, hello,” said Ubik. “I think you’re forgetting this season’s MVP. “

“You’re right,” said PT dryly. “Nifell also played a part. But he’s out of commission now.” He yanked on the collar of Nifell’s suit which was in his clenched fist.

“Funny,” said Ubik. “Mr Ollo, hi there. My name’s Ubik, nice to meet you.” He waved his hand in a wide sweep over his head. “I can see this is a family matter, so please don’t mind my young friend here. He was raised on a colony starship, so he isn’t used to being surrounded by people who don’t all look like him and share an abnormally high percentage of each other’s DNA.” Ubik cupped one hand around his mouth and leaned forward as though that would make the rest of what he had to say to the enormous projection of Ramon Ollo’s head more intimate and private. “Inbreeding and plenty of it, if you get my drift,” he shouted in a hoarse whisper.

For someone who professed to idolise his father, Ubik wasn’t exactly being deferential.

Ramon Ollo’s face contorted ever so slightly. Figaro couldn’t help but wince. He was well aware of what that meant. It was probably a good thing his father wasn’t here in person for his first meeting with Ubik.

“These are two members of the Free Volunteers Guild,” said Figaro. “They helped me get here.”

Ramon Ollo’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Just the three of you?”

Figaro could tell his father’s curiosity was piqued. Even if this was the dawn of a new age, that wouldn’t stop Ramon Ollo from wanting to solve a seemingly inexplicable mystery.

“Plus a Guardian from the Central Authority,” said PT. “Any idea what your new friends have done with her?” His tone wasn’t very respectful, either. He seemed quite belligerent, in fact, which was unlike him.

“No,” said Ramon Ollo, betraying no emotion. Which wasn’t a good thing. “It isn’t something we have time for right now. Figaro…”

“Mr Ollo,” interrupted PT. “I don’t think you understand the situation.”

“I understand perfectly,” said Ramon.

“No, I mean our situation,” said PT. “We helped your son to get here to rescue you, his father. In return for which, we expect to be rewarded in good faith.”

Figaro was surprised. PT had not indicated he expected anything of the sort. Ubik, yes, obviously. But PT had seemingly been happy to help as a friend.

“And when I say rewarded, I primarily mean not being left to die while you make a deal with the Intercessors to strip the organic out of your son’s body. That would make it very hard to collect all the other rewards we’re expecting.”

Not only was it strange that PT was making such a brazen claim at this moment, but even stranger was Ubik letting him do so without comment, just standing there with a large grin on his face. Figaro really had no idea what the two of them were up to. But he was, however, very sure that they were up to something.

“Ubik,” said Ubik again. “Junior partner. He’s the boss.” He pointed at PT. “I’m just the dogsbody. Soon to be looking for new employment, I’m guessing.”

“Point-Two,” said Figaro as reassuringly as he could. “I’m sure you will be allowed to leave this place now that you have delivered me here.”

“Are you?” said PT. “Like Tezla, you mean? It’s fine if you’re happy to let your father use you to impress his new friends, but that wasn’t our agreement. And if the Intercessors or your father or anyone else wants to step in and renegotiate, then I will have to ask my chief Antecessor analyst and Insanium droid expert—” he pointed at Ubik “—to reduce this place to a pile of rubble so no one gets to enjoy the new age of enlightenment.”

It was clearly a bluff. PT was counting on everyone involved being so invested in their plans for a brilliant future that they wouldn’t want to risk losing it all for the sake of upsetting a mercenary young guilder.

Figaro guessed that was what PT was doing. And if he could tell, no doubt so could his father. But what made Figaro think that maybe he wasn’t completely correct in his assessment was Ubik.

Ubik was far too happy with the way things were going, happy to let PT take the lead and ready to join in. And if Figaro’s studying of Ubik had revealed anything, it was that Ubik could see things no one else could. What was he seeing now that Figaro wasn’t?

For half a dozen heartbeats Figaro stared at the two of them. Then he turned his head towards his father, waiting to see how he would take PT’s impudence.

Ramon Ollo remained impassive. It took a lot to make him show his irritation with someone. “What is it you want, exactly?”

“Our Guardian back, for a start,” said PT. He seemed to have a clear idea of what he was doing, a plan of some kind. Not that it would do him much good, but Figaro was interested in seeing how far it got him. “And a way back to our ship.”

“And a cloaking device,” said Ubik. “One that works.”

There was a slight flicker across PT’s face. His ability to hide his irritation wasn’t so good.

“Do you understand that I am as much a prisoner here as you?” said Ramon.

“I understand we have something the Intercessors need,” said PT, “and it’s important you get it in one piece. If we put up a fight, something’s liable to get broken.”

The large head remained still but the eyes shifted towards Figaro. “And what do you think?”

His father never shied away from hearing the opinions of others. He was unlikely to agree or take advice, but he liked to have a clear idea of where everyone stood. He had taught Figaro to do likewise. The main reason for doing so was knowing who was likely to let him down and how they would go about it. You could force someone to do as you told them, but there were always some who would rather sabotage the group than have to play second fiddle. Identifying them and being prepared for their petty betrayal was one of many command strategies Figaro had been taught. Now his father seemed to be testing him.

“I owe them both my life. I couldn’t have made it here without them. I don’t think I could force them to do anything other than what they’ve already decided. Ubik is a Null Void, we’ve discovered, and it’s allowed him to achieve things I’ve never seen before.”

There was a slight cock of one eyebrow. His father had taken note.

“Is that so?” mused his father. He didn’t turn to look at Ubik, who was waving again, still grinning. “That is… unexpected. I would have liked to have looked into that a little more, but we lack the time.”

“I could come back later,” suggested Ubik.

“One moment.” His father’s face disappeared, leaving them alone in the large chamber.

“What was that about a cloaking device?” said PT.

“They’re very useful,” said Ubik. “They don’t actually work, I mean the ones you see advertised. Once you put up a shield that’s impenetrable to sensors, your own sensors can’t see out. Invisible but blind. And you can hide your engine’s signature, but as soon as you move, you leave a trail of drive emissions behind you, making it obvious where you are. So, blind and immobile.”

“Then why do you want one?” said PT.

“Because the one the Seneca ship had wasn’t like that. They had something that worked a lot better. No idea where they got it, but I don’t think they came up with it on their own. And the way everyone seems to have secret Antecessor tech, I figured they’ve been snagging the good stuff for themselves for who knows how long. This place must have something like that, so I thought it’d be worth taking a punt.”

“We do have other problems right now,” said PT.

Ubik pulled a face and waved away PT’s concerns. “You can’t let a few minor obstacles get in the way of cool item acquisition. Get your priorities straight, PT.”

Figaro watched the two bicker as they had always done. They seemed unfazed by their current predicament.

“What are you two doing?” he said. “My father isn’t going to be fooled by your bluff.”

“What bluff?” said PT. “I’m just trying to get out of this in one piece.”

“And I’m just waiting to see how badly he screws this up,” said Ubik. “Everyone thinks they can pull off an Ubik, but it’s not as easy as I make it look.”

“An Ubik?” said PT. “Really? That’s what you’re calling it?”

“He’s my father,” said Figaro. “I know you’re trying to help, but this is what he made me for. I was built to come here and unearth the truth behind the Antecessors. I’m probably the only person who can. I actually want to know myself.”

“You won’t get to be part of this,” said PT. “They just want your organic. That’s the deal your father made.”

“I’m the only one who can use it,” said Figaro.

“The only human,” said PT. He looked around. “See many of them around here?”

Figaro shook his head. “No. It’ll be dangerous, I know, but he wouldn’t...“

But he knew he would. Not as a first choice, but if that was the only way, or even if it was the best way, it would be worth it to him. He had spent his whole life getting to this point. Every day spent training Figaro was for this one purpose. He wouldn’t be happy about it, would mourn the loss of his son, but…

“You don’t know for sure,” said Figaro.

“No, I don’t,” said PT. “But you have a sister, just born. He doesn’t care. He will value her and raise her and spend time teaching her, but he will never love her. Just like he doesn’t love you. Not because of anything you’ve done, he just isn’t capable of it.”

“How do you…”

“I knew the moment I saw his face,” said PT with a bitter smile. “My father is also a brilliant psychopath. They learn to hide it well. They can’t hide it from their children.”

“I’m jealous,” said Ubik. “All this bonding over daddy issues. Not all of us were lucky enough to have a psychopath in our lives.”

“You are the psychopath in your life,” said PT.

“Oh, I get it. That’s why you look up to me. I’m a father figure to you.”

PT shook his head and said nothing.

Ramon Ollo’s face reappeared. “I have tried to communicate your needs to my captors. I think they understand the position.”

The floor shifted beneath them and Junior rose up, the Guardian in his black embrace, almost merged with him, it seemed.

The walls of the chamber began to glow. The broken droids in their cubicles showed signs of life, falling out and landing on the floor. Slowly getting up and shuffling towards them like the living dead.

“I am sorry, Figaro,” said Ramon Ollo. “They feel this is the more expedient route.”

“Okay,” said PT. “Your turn.”

“What do you mean?” said Ubik. “This is your idea.”

“Yes,” said PT. “Part one was me, now it’s all droids, it’s over to you. This is your wheelhouse, so take the wheel.”

“This is your plan?” said Ubik. “Leave everything to me? Actually, that’s not a bad plan.” He took out two items from somewhere. A long stick and short stick. He threw the smaller one to PT.

“What’s this?” said PT, catching it.

“Rex. Don’t ask and don’t tell Tezla.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“You saw where Junior took it from. Put it back.”

“How? Junior’s kind of in the way, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“One moment.” Ubik raised the stick in his other hand. Figaro recognised it. It was the gravity spike. “Now, Junior, you know I love you, but Daddy needs to be a psychopath to fit in.”

He threw the stick like a javelin. It left his hand at normal speed and then suddenly shot forward, slamming into Junior’s head.

Junior went flying back, leaving the Guardian exposed. PT was already moving.

(Reboot) Chapter 426

The moon looked like the moon I had grown up living under. Well, probably. I can’t say I ever really took the time to study the lunar surface. Would I be able to tell one moon from another?

Was I really back in good old Blighty? It was quite possible this was a false reality created to make me think I was standing on top of a castle like a king — every Englishman’s secret desire.

Maurice had the ability to warp reality and make you think you were happy living in the Matrix. A little help from Uncle Peter would be enough to convince my brain this was all real and my adventures were over. Home. Alone.

But how would Maurice’s know what the castle from my time-jumping escapades looked like? Unless he knew someone who could read minds. Or if the illusion was generated by me. That was the thing about magic, you didn’t need to create anything, it could all happen inside the person’s head.

Imagine yourself on top of your favourite castle.

That would probably do it. I wasn’t much of a castle aficionado. The only ones I was familiar with were this one and the one at the start of Disney movies, and I probably wouldn’t be able to choose that one for copyright reasons. Disney lawyers don’t give a shit about your imagination, IP is IP.

This could all be a mental projection and the real me was still in Flatland, staring gormlessly into the middle-distance, drooling slightly. They’d probably shuffle me into a corner and use me as an umbrella stand.

I was trying to decide which was more real, a world of dragons and singing trolls, or this one where people killed each other with drones and watched American Idol unironically.

My memories of Flatland already seemed unreal and ridiculous. It made much more sense that the last few months of my life had been a hallucination and I had finally woken up and come to my senses.

Although why the fuck would I wake up on a castle in the middle of who knows where?

Whatever the truth of the matter, my reality was that I was here and I wasn’t going to figure anything out by waiting for someone to come explain it to me. I needed to deal with this world first, and this wasn’t Flatland. Was it the same world I had left behind?

I took in my surroundings, looking for clues. If this was a fake, I could snap myself out of it by spotting inconsistencies. A white rabbit with a pocket watch, a cat appearing in the same place twice, a wicked witch with green paint on her face (although how Claire would have green paint on her face, I have no idea). I had seen enough movies about people stuck in an illusion to be able to find the way out of this place.

I was standing on castle battlements, that was clear. Everything was made of stone and solidly built. There was a door with a sign showing it was an exit. The sign was written in English.

The door itself stood out as not of Medieval origin. I could try kicking it in, but I’d only hurt myself. It was a heavy safety door in unpleasant blue, nicely contrasting against the beautiful archaic architecture surrounding it. Nothing was more English than that.

This was definitely Earth. That didn’t mean it was my Earth. I could be in a parallel universe, or it could be a different dimension or an alternate timeline. I needed to do a little more research before I could be sure.

It was very quiet and there were no signs of life, not even animals or birds. It was the middle of the night, so that wasn’t so surprising, but it was a bit eerie. I was stuck on the roof of a castle with no idea how to get down. Wait to be found? Did people even live in this giant pile of stone? Or did they just open it up to the public every morning and man the gift shop?

I also didn’t know if this was the same year I had left this sceptred isle. February 2016 was my departure date, along with the others. Someone must have noticed a bunch of kids suddenly disappearing. The others had families and friends and all that stuff. Optional extras, as I like to think of them.

Unless this was far in the future, after a monkeypox epidemic wiped out humanity and left the Amazon warehouse robots to rule the world. If I was the last human on Earth, at least I would be able to get my deliveries next-day without having to pay for Amazon Prime.

Whatever the state of the world, I couldn’t hang around on a cold roof freezing my bollocks off. It wasn’t like I didn’t have experience in getting out of difficult situations.

The question was, which of my newly acquired skills had been transferred with me? I had already tried to use magic with no success, but that didn’t mean it was lost to me forever. Even if I was back to being my old useless self, I had learned a number of skills like how to gut and cook wild animals and the best place to shit in the woods. That information was locked in my mind. If I could put them to some use, it would be a strong indicator that I wasn’t a delusional nutcase.

I looked over the side of the castle walls. It was a long way down. If I still had access to my healing ability, I’d have been tempted to jump down and then heal my injuries, which was an insane thing to think in a non-fantasy setting.

If I did manage to get down from here, then what? I had no idea where I was. I didn’t recognise the castle, which was enough to get my English citizenship revoked.

I don’t want you to think I was completely ignorant of my rich English heritage. We are raised to be respectful of our past, to be proud of the many accomplishments of the Commonwealth (which sounds a lot less evil than Empire).

The use of heavy artillery to mow down natives carrying spears wasn’t the focus of the history lessons at school. It was more about our ships and bridges, and our fine stately homes, open to the public daily, for the tax breaks.

In school, we would often be ferried about in coaches that smelled of crisps and vomit, taken to see what our ancestors had been up to. You need a reason to terrorise whole nations of people across the other side of the world, and what better reason than the construction of a giant palace of crystal or a tall pole with a statue on top of it? Tyranny always makes much more sense when you bookend it with grand monuments of engineering. Makes it easier to hide the bloodstains.

I put one leg over the side of the ramparts, testing my ability to climb down, using the cracks in the stonework to hold onto. There was a tingling in my groin as I hung my leg over the side, and not the good kind of tingling. My mind wasn’t willing and my body wasn’t, either. Before I threw caution to the wind and hurled myself over the battlements, I decided to have a proper look around for an alternative.

Good thing I did, turns out Health and Safety have no respect for the beauty of fine architecture. There was an ugly metal fire escape on the far side of the roof.

It looked ridiculously out of place, painted yellow to really stand out, but you can’t leave people with only one way to get out of a confined space. You used to be able to, but there were numerous fires in train stations that killed hundreds of people and they realised it didn’t look good once everyone had colour TVs.

I clattered my way down the metal stairs with a sense of elation, like I’d managed to complete a puzzle that opened up Level Two without having to look up the cheese-solution on a wiki. It was hardly the Great Escape, but reaching the ground in one unbroken piece was the kind of small victory big victories are built on.

It was starting to get light and I could see a gravel path going around the castle. There was a signpost pointing in various directions — toilets, cafe, car park — but no actual name of the area I was in. There was a map of the castle grounds with a ‘you are here’ arrow, which also showed the exit.

Since I didn’t know when people would turn up, or what they would think about me being here, dressed as some kind of hobo cosplayer, I decided to leave.

It was a long walk to the main gate, but not unpleasant. Walking was one of the things I had spent a lot of time doing lately, so a half-hour stroll was no big deal. The gate was an archway, no locked door, no guards. There were some cars parked in a designated zone, though. I’m sure the Normans or whoever built this place had similar white boxes painted on the ground to show where to leave your donkey and cart.

It was weird seeing actual motor vehicles again.

There was a small building that looked a lot newer than the rest of the place, with a light on in the window. I could have knocked and asked for directions, but I felt apprehensive about it. I didn’t really know how to explain myself.

“Hello, could you tell me which timeline this is, please? The darkest one? Second darkest?”

Back to the nervous old me? Was this a sign that my growth as a person had been a figment of my imagination and I had been unceremoniously returned to my factory settings?

I crept closer and checked the cars to see if they’d been left open. There was a small hatchback, which was locked, and a truck that smelled like cow shit, which was open on the passenger side.

Inside, I found various empty containers and food wrappings in the footwell, and a bunch of coins in the slot next to the gear stick. I stuffed them in my pocket and eased back out. I closed the door as quietly as I could, the barest of clicks.

The car alarm went off, beeping and honking, and the side-lights started flashing.

I didn’t panic. I bent over and scurried away, keeping myself on the other side to the portacabin. Car alarms went off for no reason all the time.

There were voices, male and grumbling, mostly about the weather, the word ‘nippy’ was used — I was home for sure — and I calmly moved from one hiding place to another until I reached the exit. When I heard the van start up and head my way, I very calmly dived into a ditch.

Nothing new for me. If anything indicated I was not the same old Colin, it was stealing loose change from a car in not-quite broad daylight and then hiding in a muddy puddle. It was like my special move.

Once the road was clear, I brushed myself off and headed onto the main road. It was only going in one direction, away from the scene of my crime. Exactly the direction I was looking to go in.

My haul was a grand total of £7.52, which was a reasonable amount. Enough to buy a bus ticket. The money looked the same as the coins I was familiar with, with the same queen on them. There hadn’t been a coup while I’d been gone, with Charles finally claiming the throne, blood streaking down Pall Mall and head stuck on the gates of Buckingham Palace.

I put the coins in separate pockets in case I got robbed — that had nothing to do with my experiences in Flatland, it was just that I was aiming for North London, and you’d be a fool not to take precautions. I looked up to see a sign. The name of the road was London Road, which was helpful. It didn’t say how far it was to the other end.

The air continued to smell like cow shit, so I was in the countryside. I’m not a fan, but at least the rabbits here wouldn’t try to bugger me to death.

It wasn’t too bad once the sun was properly up. The air smelled different here. More diesel. I tried to make my magic work as I walked along but no luck. No flame on my finger, no healing light. Could be it didn’t work here, or it could have been me, not trying hard enough.

A few minutes later, I saw another sign with the red symbol for a train station. Arundel Station. Never heard of it. I veered to the left and kept going. The occasional car drove past me. The people in them looked pretty normal, dressed as you’d expect. I was beginning to think I’d been returned around the same time I’d left. I hadn’t seen any futuristic cars or anyone flying by on a hoverboard. Can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed.

It was a small station with no one around. The large clock said it was nearly six o’clock. There was no one in the ticket booth, but there were machines you could buy tickets. There was a direct train to London Victoria for the low, low price of thirty quid. Well, £33.10, to be exact. The Great Train Robbery was celebrated daily all over the British Isles.

The next train was due… now.

I heard it pulling in and ran to the platform. It was acceptable to not buy a ticket in order to not miss your train. You could pay the inspector who came round to check tickets, or you could pay at the other end. If you had the cash. If not, time to do a runner.

Old Colin would have been very nervous about fare dodging. Old Colin would look guilty the whole time and would desperately need the loo but refuse to go because that’s where fare dodgers hide and that would be the first place they’d look. Old Colin was big on overthinking everything.

This Colin didn’t give a shit. There were probably security cameras watching, but no one really gave a shit. Probably weren’t even turned on. I walked towards the ticket machine, realised my train was pulling in with a series of mimes Buster Keaton would have found a little bit too much, and ran.

The train doors slid open to reveal an empty carriage, with free newspapers on each seat. I picked one up and checked the date. February 29th, 2020.

Four years was how often people were supposedly transported to Flatland. We’d arrived four years ago, did that mean the newest batch had been sent over? Was that how I got to be sent in the other direction?

Four years. It made me feel a bit dizzy. I slumped into a seat and went through the paper to find out how the world had changed. It was quite a shock.

In this world, Donald Trump had become the President of the US. An alternate reality? What else could it be?

That wasn’t the only ridiculous change, either. Brexit had been passed and was a huge mess — that part wasn’t too hard to believe — but the new Prime Minister was Boris Johnson. Boris was, of course, very famous, always had been. For being a massive buffoon.

Oh, and there was a world-ending plague on the loose.

Trump over there, Boris over here, the end of times on the horizon. Wildly inappropriate and incompetent leaders on either side of the pond, both open to allowing the worst of humanity to do as it pleased. If ever there was a set-up for a hero to ride in and save the day… The whole thing was very suspicious.

It wasn’t just Trump being president that made me think I’d been dropped into an alternate reality, it was the way it had been done. Reagan was also a famous person who leveraged his fame into political power, but at least he had some experience running a large state first. And he had competent people around him. Evil, but competent. Trump appeared to only appoint people who were dumber than him, which set the bar very low.

I was so lost in thought as I carefully read every page that I hardly noticed how packed the train had become by the time we pulled into Victoria Station. I was nearly home and I hadn’t even considered what I was going to do when I got there. Would there be an alternate Colin sitting in my flat?

Being surrounded by so many people had a disorienting effect. The smell of coffee, people chatting inanely about nothing, perfume and deodorant in the air, suits and coats squashed together like I was in someone’s overstuffed wardrobe. It was all just so normal and mundane.

I stumbled along with the crowd as we exited the station en masse. First I robbed a man who delivered cow shit (educated guess), now I had added fare dodger to my list of crimes for the day. Perhaps I wasn’t the hero this particular side mission deserved.

I paid for my tube ticket — I only just had enough money — and headed towards my home. I hadn’t paid my rent or bills for three years, and I didn’t have a key to get in and frighten the crap out of whoever was living there now, but I didn’t know where else to go.

As I rode in a packed tube train in the middle of the morning rush hour, every advertisement looked like it might hold a clue to the true nature of this reality. Every overheard conversation and every phone screen glimpsed could have held the key to the reason I’d been sent here. If they did, fuck knows what it was.

From Wood Green Station, I followed the route I’d taken every weekday morning and evening to and from work. Nobody gave me a second look. They probably thought I dressed strangely because I thought it was cool to be different, an excellent reason not to give me the attention I was so obviously craving. I suspected Londoners were Londoners no matter which reality you were in.

The small block of flats I lived in looked the same. I pressed the keycode into the pad and the door clicked open. Same number even in a different dimension?

My flat was on the second floor. I walked up the stairs and along the hallway. The familiarity hit me in waves. There were three other doors here. I had no idea who lived in them back then so it wouldn’t tell me much if there was someone different living in them now.

My door was locked and the number on the door was nailed on unevenly, just as I remembered it. Was there someone new living here now?

I knocked on my own door. It seemed the polite thing to do. There was no response.

If there was another me living here, he might have left for work already. I had no key. I did have a spoon hanging around my neck, which had attracted no attention whatsoever on the way here. Welcome to London.

The door was old and rickety. This one I might have been able to kick down, given a couple of hours and a tea break halfway through. You might think all the noise I’d make would get noticed, maybe the police would get called out. Not an issue. Unless I started playing reggae music at six in the morning when people were trying to cling to the last of their sleep, no one gave a shit.

However, I didn’t want do my ankle in with no way to heal it other than to go to the local drop-in centre. Six hours to have some newly minted doctor send you limping off with instructions to take it easy for a week and take two paracetamol four times a day wasn’t how I wanted to spend my first day back in the land of electricity and soft toilet paper. There was a massive dump with my name on it on the other side of this door.

I tried using the spoon to wedge the door open. If I splintered the wood around the lock I didn’t really care. It gave a little but refused to break open like it would have in a movie. Even though my magic wasn’t working, I used the same mental technique to get myself into a calm state of mind. Perhaps I could find the inner strength to break a couple of rusty hinges. The spoon seemed to be doing my hand more damage than the door.

There was a click and the door swung open.

I took a swept back. I hadn’t opened the door and it was swinging inwards with more than a little force. Someone was opening it.

“Are you the resident, sir?” said a deep voice. There was a police officer standing in the doorway and another one behind him. They were dressed in blue, as is traditional, but with a lot of pockets on their vests and trousers. It was like their uniforms had been designed by Rob Liefeld. I tried to see if they were wearing pixie boots, but I didn’t have the angle.

“Yes,” I said. “Why are you in my flat?”

“We’d like you to come with us. We have some questions.”

How to handle the police? Old Colin would be very uncomfortable and just do as he was told. New Colin was still thinking none of this quite made sense, and if I was going to prove exactly what was going on here, I would have to be a little more proactive.

“You can’t just take someone in for questioning because you feel like it. And you shouldn’t enter a private residence without a warrant.” I spoke confidently and without any fear. I had seen plenty of cop shows, I knew my rights (assuming TV writers did at least a little research).

“This is the warrant.” He held up an iPad — actually a tablet by some unknown Chinese company — and shoved it at me. I couldn’t say for sure it was legit, but it was going to be hard to argue when I hadn’t been around for four years. Maybe things had changed.

“But I haven’t done anything to—”

“And this is you trespassing on the grounds of Arundel Castle this morning.” The screen showed my skulking about the car park from a high angle. “Stealing money from a car.” You couldn’t really tell it was money I was taking, but I’ll admit it didn’t look good. “And riding the 6.35 am train into London Victoria without paying the fare.” There I was getting off the train looking mildly shell-shocked.

The footage he was showing me on his knock-off iPad was a bit grainy but clearly me. My rustic sense of fashion helped me stick out of a crowd. It was still impressive how they managed to capture my misdemeanours so quickly and got here ahead of me. Had the police really advanced in competence over the last few years? Surely not.

“And this is so important you had to break into my flat?” I said, doubling down on my belief this was all a ruse. “Just go away and send me a ticket in the post.”

They didn’t budge and they were taking up the whole doorway, so I’d have to crawl between his legs to get in.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about a missing person who used to live here. Colin Brown. Did you know him?”

“Not very well,” I said. “I’m Colin Brown. I’ve been away. Sorry if there’s been a mix-up.”

“You’re Colin Brown?” said the policeman. He exchanged a surprised look with his colleague. “Colin Brown, I’m placing you under arrest for murder.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Now I knew someone was pulling my leg. Murder? How can you murder people if you never meet anyone? “You’re not even a real policeman. None of this is real. You’re a bloody hallucination. Go on, go bother some immigrants or something.”

Worth a shot, I thought. See how far I could push this world before it shattered and the truth was revealed.

The policeman took it on himself to prove his six months at Hendon Police College weren’t a figment of his imagination and placed handcuffs on me while his partner pointed a bottle of pepper spray at my face. I’m not saying I was expecting a parade when I got home, but this seemed a bit much.

Book 2 – 68: Darker

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

 

Ubik watched the silver lines rise up the walls, slowly illuminating more and more of the chamber, revealing endless cubicles, each with a single occupant. They were droids, but no two were the same. And all of them were broken.

The walls rose up without end, revealing more and more. The silver lines formed shapes and patterns that indicated some kind of message that was being constantly overwritten. Life, death, life, death — that was about all he could make out.

None of these droids were able to move or function, frozen in a moment of time. They had parts missing or were severely damaged but Ubik sensed they were not beyond saving.

Droids could normally repair themselves but the state of these droids suggested they were beyond self-repair. Which was a strange middle-ground to be in. Normally, they would either be able to regenerate into their complete form, or they would be completely destroyed. How had these ended up like this?

Ubik looked around with wonder, the whole group stunned into silence by the sight. So many questions , and so much opportunity. It made his heart race.

Broken droids were exactly what he needed. The best way to learn how an unfamiliar technology worked was to find a broken example and fix it. Once you could do that, even if it was only through trial and error, you would have the key to understanding their entire technological habitat.

This place was his way in. The Antecessors, the Intercessors, whatever they wanted to call themselves, however they wanted to differentiate themselves from each other, they had a way of putting things together that was… well, it was alien.

Even though Ubik was able to recognise the intentions of their machines, he wasn’t able to clearly see the underlying concepts. Even access to a single unit wouldn’t give him that. He could take a droid apart and put it back together, and it wouldn’t tell him much more than how to take apart and reassemble that one droid. That was the confounding thing about Antecessor tech — it was easy to see how the ends connected, but the middles seemed to all be different.

With a droid like Junior, he was able to see there was a part missing, able to recognise others that fit with it, but how was it powered, what made it think the way it did, how did you program it? It was a mystery.

Here, though, with every type of droid, almost a catalogue of the different models, he would be able to find the unifying concepts. It was an opportunity he did not want to miss.

“Do not touch anything,” said Guardian Tezla. “Don’t move, don’t make any loud noises.”

“Hmm,” said Ubik.

“We don’t know what this place is or why we were brought here. Best to be cautious. I’m going to do a sweep and scan.”

“Without Rex?” said PT.

“Yes, I am not completely dependent on technology to assist me. It will take a little longer, but we’re trained to do each other’s jobs… to varying degrees of success. I will go into a trance and won’t be able to respond while I assimilate the data. Do not be concerned if I seem to stop breathing or have some kind of fit. All perfectly normal. I will be relying on you to keep me safe for the next few minutes.”

“You can count on us,” said Ubik, saluting.

A grimace formed on Tezla’s lips. “I’m also relying on you to keep me safe from Ubik while I am in my trance.”

“We’ll do our best,” muttered Fig. “My father is close. Please look for any signs of him.”

“Of course.” The Guardian lowered her visor and took a slightly wider stance, steadying herself. The suit looked heavier and moved more awkwardly without Rex, but the Guardian was big and strong and more than capable of utilising its basic functions. Whether she’d be as capable of dealing with the sensory deluge Rex could process every millisecond was another matter. Coloured lights flashed inside her helmet.

“Where did Junior go?” asked PT, looking around.

There was no sign of their guide. The floor — black, flat and smooth — spread out from where they stood with no obstacles and no interruptions. Nowhere for a huge Insanium class droid to hide.

“If its a mimic, it could be anywhere and we wouldn’t know it,” said Fig. “Ubik, Can you read what the walls are saying?” He still had the projection of the Antecessor droid on his head.

“No,” said Ubik. “There’s too much of it.”

“You said they were refugees,” said PT. “What made you think that?”

Ubik shrugged. “They’re all heavily damaged. None of them look like they’re in operational condition. Looks like this is where they’re kept until...”

“Until what?” said PT.

“I don’t know,” said Ubik. “They must be keeping them for something. Spare parts, maybe.” He began walking towards the nearest droid cubicle. He was pretty sure they weren’t being kept for spare parts. And this wasn’t a museum, nor was it a mortuary.

“Hey, stop,” said PT. “We don’t want them suddenly coming back online.”

“It’s fine,” said Ubik, stretching his hand back and waving it at what he assumed was PT’s disapproving face. “I won’t touch anything.”

“You look like you’re going to touch everything,” said PT. “You look like you’re thinking about getting all these droids into working order and then selling them to the highest bidder.”

“Sell them?” said Ubik. “No, no, no. That would be a waste.” He stopped and looked up. The droid he was trying to get a look at was above head height, in a slight alcove and not moving at all. From what he could see, its black body was oval, a bit like an egg, and its limbs — there were at least four — were short and thick, like the rest had been sheared off. There was a large crack on one side of its torso, filled with the same silver liquid that flowed up the walls, only congealed into a kind of gel. “What we have here is the workforce for a brand new enterprise. One to rival the mega-corporations at the heart of the galaxy. Ubik Unlimited, the company that will revolutionise the way you live.”

“Ubik Unlimited?” said PT. “A never-ending supply of Ubik. That sounds terrifying.”

“Don’t worry, PT. There’ll always be a place for you at Ubik Unlimited. Assistant Manager, Outdoors and Sports Equipment. Full benefits, after the probationary period.”

“Thanks,” said PT. “I look forward to it. Where are you going to get the capital to set up a major venture like that?”

“I told you, with the CA rewards, Ramon Ollo’s gratitude for looking after his son, remunerations from the people of Enaya for saving their world… I’m going to be swimming in cash.”

“I don’t want to ruin your dreams,” said PT, “but we’re all still members of the Free Volunteers Guild.”

“Sure, sure,” said Ubik. “But I’m sure we can part ways amicably.”

“That’s not what I mean,” said PT. “If you bothered to read the contract you signed, you’d know that anything you find, earn or claim belongs to the guild. Including droids that don’t work and spaceships awarded by grateful recipients of your help, the ones who survive.”

“What?” said Ubik. “Are you sure? Fig, does that apply to you, too?”

Fig didn’t respond, busy doing something under his big droid hat.

“What are you doing under there?” said PT. “You’ve been working on something ever since you put it on. Are you still in contact with the Intercessor system?”

“Probably searching for his dad,” said Ubik.

“No,” said Fig. “I’ve been studying Ubik. The droid projection helps extenuate the sensors on my suit, making it easier to follow what he’s doing. A lot of the time he sends out misdirections so we miss key events, but I’ve been keeping a close eye on him.”

“Really?” said Ubik. “That’s very flattering. I’ve never had a fan before.”

“He isn’t doing it as a fan,” said PT. “Are you?”

“He’s a Null Void,” said Fig. “Whatever that is, it seems to be important. My importance is based on the organic my father put inside me. Once it gets activated or removed, I probably won’t play any further part in all this. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I think Ubik’s the only one who can affect what happens once the Antecessors make their move.”

PT was nodding. “And you think you can work out what it is Ubik can do and how to control it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Fig. “So far, I think his main advantage is being able to see patterns that no one else can. He doesn’t necessarily understand them, but he can see where things lead and what connects to what. It means he can also see where to break connections to prevent things from happening.”

“That’s not bad,” said Ubik. “I wouldn’t say it’s as simple as that, but I do have a knack for putting things together and taking them apart.”

“Creating chaos, you mean,” said PT.

“I don’t think so,” said Fig. “It only looks like that to us. Chaos usually has a hidden order built into it, if you can see it. Most people can’t. That’s sort of its purpose. But Ubik can. Or at least partially.”

“Great,” said PT. “I’m very pleased for him. I don’t see how any of that helps us.”

“My organic,” said Fig, “I never really understood what it was for. My father wanted me to be able to access places no one else could. There are hundreds of Antecessor sites that no one can get to, even with the strongest organics. I was supposed to be able to do that once I fully integrated, assuming I didn’t die. But I think Ubik can get around the normal restrictions, the way he got us into this place without even facing most of the defences. I just need to get as much data on him as I can before I run out of time. My father will be able to make more sense of it.”

“Fig,” said PT, a look of motherly concern etched into his face, “they already know about Null Voids. If there was some kind of secret recipe to dealing with the Antecessors, wouldn’t they already have found it?”

“Maybe. But I have something they don’t — a live sample. We can learn a lot from observing him in the wild, as it were.”

“You two are getting carried away,” said Ubik. “I keep telling you, there’s nothing to this whole Null Void thing. It’s just wishful thinking. I’m just coming at the problem from a different angle; fresh eyes. Everyone else, they can’t help themselves thinking they already know everything. We’re approaching the situation with an open mind, no preconceptions. Nothing to get excited about.”

Ubik looked down. The ground felt different. It had a sheen to it he was sure wasn’t there before. “Hey, does the floor look different to you?”

PT looked down. “No. Wait. Maybe. Was it this shiny before?”

Tezla, who had been standing stock still, feet firmly planted and arms out to the sides, shook violently and made a guttural sound that could be heard through her helmet.

“Is this part of the thing she told us not to worry about?” said PT.

“I’m not sure,” said Ubik, coming back to take a closer look. “We should have asked for more details. A safeword, maybe. Mine’s cinnamon, if you’re wondering.”

“I’m definitely not,” said PT.

“A-a-ab…”

“She sounds like she’s trying to say something,” said Ubik, getting his head as close to her helmet as he could.

“Ab-abatttt…”

“I think she’s saying abattoir,” said Ubik. “I could be wrong.”

Weapons snapped out of the suit, ready to fire. Ubik ducked, just in case.

The floor rose up in front of the Guardian, making Ubik stumble backwards. It was Junior, now back into his cat-like shape. Then he changed into a sheet, like a wave falling on top of the Guardian, swallowing her.

The floor was flat again. The Guardian was no longer there.

“Did it kill her?” said PT.

“No,” said Ubik. “Junior wouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t you think it was strange how easily Junior was able to remove Rex from the Guardian’s suit?” said Fig. “It knew where to find the unit, how to remove it, and was met with no resistance.”

“Which means what?” said PT.

“It means the Central Authority is compatible with Antecessor technology,” said Fig. “Because that’s what it’s based on.”

“It means,” said Ubik, “Junior knows more about Central Authority tech than they do.”

A shimmering blue light appeared above them, forming into a large head.

“Head?” said PT.

“No,” said Ubik. Even before the image fully formed, he recognised it. Similar to Head in size and shape, only this one was decidedly human.

“Figaro, you are here, finally.”

“Father,” said Figaro.

Book 2 – 67: Deeper

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

Ubik walked behind Junior and did his best to inspect this new form the droid had taken without looking like he was checking out the surprisingly sculpted backside the droid had given itself.

The light from the silver streaks on the walls of the passage glinted off the curved lines of the suit, reflecting off its black surface, distorting them just enough to change their meaning. A conversation? Or just a trick of the light? It was hard to say with rounded hemispheres bouncing in front of him.

It wasn’t an intentional attempt by the droid at sexualising the humanoid anatomy in space suit form, it was merely a copy of the Central Authority suit the Guardian wore. Which itself had a bum curved to be perfect for spaceflight and also Salsa dancing. The Central Authority was a mysterious existence indeed.

Now that he looked at the two backsides walking side by side in front of him, he wondered what image the CA hoped to present with this kind of overly-accurate buttock rendering. A tool for distracting your opponent? Maybe the ideal streamlined shape for atmospheric re-entry? Or just a machine mundanely reproducing the best-fitting form for encasing a human?

“What are you staring at with that lustful expression?” said PT, shifting Nifell onto his other shoulder.

Ubik pulled back, realising he was a little too close to the two suits to be able to pass it off as nothing.

“I was checking the level of detail in the replication,” said Ubik. “Junior has the Guardian’s suit copied down to the smallest detail, down to every function, it looks like. Pretty hard to get this kind of accuracy off such a small sample and with no delay. Insta-mimic.”

“And you didn’t know that before you decided to put them in conflict with each other?” said PT.

“No idea,” said Ubik. “None. But you can see the way this place works.” He pointed at the walls, the silvery lines following them. “Always something happening. There’s so much information here, we just have to be able to take a hint.”

“This is a hint?” said PT, looking at the patterns on the wall.

“Sure,” said Ubik. “Puzzle pieces. We just need to work out how they fit together, the way those droids clearly matched with Junior. You don’t need to know what the big picture is, you can just fit together the pieces and build up to the solution. You can find your way out of a dark maze with just a torch and what’s one metre ahead of you, you just have to take it one step at a time. And take the occasional risk.”

Ubik grinned at PT’s frustrated face. He was lying, of course. And PT knew that, of course. But that only made it more fun.

PT stopped and lowered Nifell to the floor. He blew some air out and rolled his neck, staring up at the roof of the tunnel as though there might be someone to call down and take him away.

“I’m sure Junior wouldn’t mind carrying Nif,” said Ubik.

“It’s fine,” said PT, leaning back and stretching. “He’s going to make it out of here with us.”

He said it like it was important to him. Ubik had considered Nifell a useful tool but he wasn’t much more than a burden currently. Would he have abandoned him by now?

PT picked up Nifell and began walking again. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“I’m not leading the way,” said Ubik. “Ask her.”

Guardian Tezla made a soft grunting sound which suggested that she should not be asked, about anything. She was in that middle ground between having made a decision and knowing it was going to end badly. Agreeing to ‘escort’ them on their search for Ramon Ollo made sense — he was the most likely candidate for ‘man with all the answers’ — but she hadn’t been sent here to get answers. She had been sent to fetch the Null Void.

Ubik didn’t like that term. He would have to think of something better. Something more snappy, that would look good on a poster for when they made a movie about him. They would probably cast someone too tall and too handsome to play him, but that was okay. Whatever pulled in the most tickets and made sure his cut was nice and big was fine with him.

“I don’t like it,” said PT. “He’s got that vacant look while he hums to himself. He’s thinking of new ways to get us all killed.”

“I think he’s daydreaming about being rich and famous,” said Fig. The boy was a sharp one. A chip off the old block. One day the boy would be the successor to the Ollo legacy, and he would make his old man proud. A good person to know.

“I am thinking about the future,” said Ubik. “Now that we’re about done here, time to make plans for what comes next.”

“Done here?” said PT. “What are you talking about? We’re following an insane droid and a pissed off Guardian into the bowels of an asteroid filled with more insane droids with a bunch of different droids surrounding us. How are we done here?”

“We’re already on the seventh level, which is where Ramon Ollo is being held,” said Ubik. “Junior obviously knows where to go, and he’s from here, local boy, so no one’s going to give us any grief. No traps, no attacks, no locked doors. This is like the easiest rescue ever attempted. We don’t even have to resort to my PLR.”

“PLR?” asked PT, apprehensively.

“Plan of last resort. Don’t ask, it’ll only upset you.” Ubik turned to check on Fig, who had been mostly quiet since they’d begun following Junior, still with a droid sitting on his shoulders, checking the control panel on his arm for signs of his father. “We got down here in record time, avoided any unpleasantness, most of it, made friends with the natives, and now we’re going to pick up Fig’s dad for the return trip. They’ll probably throw us a parade when we get back.”

“Are you sure Junior’s leading us to Fig’s dad?” said PT.

“No,” said Ubik, honestly. How could he be sure of that? It was only one of many options, but it was one of them.

“I think these lines on the wall are communicating with the droid,” said Fig. “Wherever it’s taking us, they know we’re coming.”

“That’s not what worries me,” said PT. “It’s why they’re so keen to have us here. I don’t think it’s going to be cake and jelly when we get there.”

“No?” said Ubik, disappointed by PT’s prediction. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“That’s what worries you? Us walking into a trap, nothing. The idea they might not be serving tea and cake, lock and load.”

“I am astonished,” said Guardian Tezla without turning around, “how calmly you’re all taking this. We have a very high probability of being killed as soon as we hand over Figaro to them.”

She paused like she expected the exact figures predicting their demise to be announced over her comms. But that wasn’t going to happen with her suit’s AI disconnected. A Central Authority artificial intelligence stored in a handy pocket-sized container. What was the best way to get hold of the device?

“Now you’re staring at the Guardian’s rear,” said PT, rather tactlessly.

“I was just thinking about what reward the CA are going to give me for saving the life of their Guardian. One of those suits would be nice. Do they come in a medium? That one was a bit roomy for me.”

“Seeing how they ordered the suit to abandon the Guardian and leave us to die,” said PT, “I don’t think they’ll be offering you any prizes or medals.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Ubik. “They’ll cover their tracks by making sure to shower me in gifts, isn’t that right, Guardian?”

“Not my department,” said Tezla curtly. He noticed her fists tightened into a ball on each side, and that Junior’s fists did the same. Interesting.

“Award me with all sorts of high-value ticket items, make a big show of thanking me from saving their Guardian from a rogue AI, and then wait until the attention dies down, track me until I’m somewhere nice and quiet, and get rid of me when no one’s looking. Taking care of business.”

Tezla stopped and turned around, manually lifting the visor off her face. “That’s not how we do things.”

“That’s how all the big companies do things,” said Ubik. “Maybe not your department, but the CA have people to do their dirty work. People like Rex. Poor guy didn’t even get a choice, it’s all in the coding. Deep code — the stuff that activates without you even knowing it was there. Programmed into your DNA. Nice new body, by the way. Looked like solid construction, firm, hardly any wobble.”

Junior hadn’t stopped walking. He kept going down the passage towards the wall at the end. The passage split into two directions, left and right. Junior didn’t take either and walked into the wall directly ahead, and disappeared into it.

“Um,” said Fig. “Where did Junior go?”

“Must be a secret entrance,” said Ubik, walking up to the wall. “See? We would never have found this without a guide.”

He stood in front of the wall. Silver shapes flickered across it, trying to tell him something. Being able to read this alien language was a transitory experience. One moment he understood everything, the next it was all gibberish. He couldn’t keep it in his head long enough to remember how it worked, let alone become fluent.

He reached out a hand and touched the wall. It felt solid. The silver shapes spiralled around the point his finger touched. He moved his finger around, the shapes following, but there was no indication of any kind of entrance.

“I’m just seeing a wall,” said Fig, head tilted down, eyes on his control panel.

“If Rex was here…” said the Guardian a little sadly.

“He would knock you out and kidnap Ubik again,” said PT. “You know, you’ve been taking the whole betrayal thing very well. Are you in some kind of denial? Because your superiors clearly think of you as expendable and deliberately tossed you aside when it became convenient to do so.”

PT had always been blunt but was now the time to provoke the Guardian? Ubik would have waited until it was useful to have her lose her temper, but PT had his own way of doing things. And it would still be entertaining to see her unleash her fury at him.

“He didn’t betray me,” said the Guardian, disappointingly calm in her response. “Like Ubik said, it was in his programming. The Central Authority is led by machines. They don’t think like us. They see only the immediate step ahead of them, they believe the big picture will reveal itself in time.” She looked over at Ubik. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s incredibly shortsighted. That’s why they have us. We correct for a universe that doesn’t always make sense. But they usually have a good eye for which direction the problem lies. Ubik is quite possibly the biggest threat to galactic stability in a hundred years. It’s understandable they would prioritise his capture.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’m the biggest threat, but it’s very nice of you to—”

“If someone was to strip the Null Void out of him and used it for something other than making a giant ass of himself, it could have some serious implications.”

“Ah,” said PT, “so it’s not the packaging, it’s the contents everyone’s after.” He nodded slowly like things made much more sense now.

“That’s a lot of assumptions you’re making,” said Ubik, a little displeased with how his rating had gone from galactic threat to a bottle with stopper a bit loose. “You don’t even know what this Null Void thing is, do you? Desperate panic isn’t how people act when they know what they’re dealing with.”

“I think you hurt his feelings,” said Fig, a small smirk on his lips. “Which is astonishing since I didn’t think he had any.”

“Very funny,” said Ubik. “Very amusing. Although I’m not sure you’ve got anything to smile about. You’re as much a commodity as I am. They just want what’s inside of you, same as with me.”

“I know,” said Fig. “That’s what makes it funny. We’re the two most valuable people in the galaxy, and neither of us are considered worth a damn.”

Ubik found himself smiling, too. “You’re right. They’re going to take whatever juice they can squeeze out of us and discard whatever’s left like litter.”

“I don’t know what you two are so jolly about,” said PT, “but they clearly see you as more than delivery boxes. You’ve got us this far and neither of you have even used these doomsday weapons you’re apparently carrying. And we’ve got Guardian Tezla here to make sure no one tries to pick your pockets, right Guardian?”

Tezla was looking at them with a frown. She seemed more confused and less angry by the minute.

“It’s good that you’re able to treat your situation so lightly,” she said, “but there are forces more powerful than the Central Authority. If they decide to take an interest in you, I’m not sure anyone will be able to help you.”

The three of them looked at each other.

“Well, that brought the mood down,” said Ubik. “Way to go, Tezla. You must be fun at parties.”

“How do we get through this wall, Ubik,” said PT.

Ubik shrugged. He banged on the wall with his fist. “Hello? Anyone home?”

“Brilliant,” said PT. “The rest of the galaxy should rightly be afraid of you.”

“Look, Junior wouldn’t just abandon us. He’s probably getting things ready for us, tidying the place up. Probably doesn’t get many visitors.”

“Putting out the cake and sandwiches?” said PT.

“Maybe,” said Ubik. “Won’t hurt to wait. Look at the signs, it’s all leading up to something.” He pointed at the wall. There was more silver liquid running around now. It was collecting, building up a solid block of glowing colour.

“How long do we wait?” asked PT.

“Not long. I expect it—”

The wall moved. It slotted out of the way in sections, peeling back to reveal a tunnel. They looked at each other. Ubik’s gaze ended on Nifell.

“I’ll go first,” said Fig. “They’re less likely to kill me on the spot.” He stepped forward. The Guardian put out her hand to stop him. “Be careful.” Then she let him go.

“Be careful?” said Ubik. “I was sure you were going to give him a weapon or something.”

“He doesn't need any more weapons,” said Tezla.

Ubik followed next, eager to see where Junior had led them. The tunnel led into a large cavernous chamber, rising high with silver lines lighting up the many sections on the walls. Numerous cubicles piled on top of one another, each containing a figure. There had to be hundreds of them, maybe thousands.

“What are they doing here?” said PT.

“I think they’re in stasis,” said Fig. “An army?”

Ubik looked around, taking in the way they were stacked, the way they silver lines cut in between them evenly distributed. It was old he knew that at once, but it was carefully tended to. Cared for. He tried to grasp the meaning in the way the silver lines spread out.

“No, not an army,” said Ubik. “I think they’re survivors… I think they’re refugees.”

Book 2 – 66: Forced Cooperation

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

Point-Two was inside a bubble with a group of droids and a very irate Guardian. Outside the bubble, there was a rogue battlesuit, a very big droid resembling a large cat, and Ubik. He wasn’t sure which of these posed the greatest threat. There were just too many threats to choose from.

By all rights, he should have used the confusion to try and get away — there was a good chance no one would even notice — but it wasn’t like anyone had forced him to be here.

He had travelled to a small rock infested with alien creatures to help save Fig’s father. It sounded noble and he had made a snap decision to assist in the rescue attempt. He wasn’t sure why other than it seemed the right thing to do. Which was odd since the ‘right thing to do’ was never very high on his list. ‘Not getting involved’ and ‘keeping away from trouble’ both ranked much higher.

In fact, since leaving the Liberator Garu and striking out on his own, he had followed his instincts rather than any kind of well-thought-out strategy. He had always been more of a careful planner, spending time to work out what others would do before finalising his own approach.

On the Garu, where life was strictly regimented and the ship prevented a lot of options from being possible, it wasn’t too hard to predict how others would react. You could plan many moves ahead. His brother was the master at that kind of thinking and had trained Point-Two to think the same way.

But life outside of the Garu was much harder to anticipate. You could plan one move ahead with confidence, and then you had to improvise. The only experience he had of that was when he played G-Tag. Which he was good at, but it was just for fun.

If your instincts were wrong, you just lost a point and the next round began.

If you got it right, it was exhilarating.

“Get the hell out of my suit,” screamed the Guardian.

“I can’t,” said Ubik. “Rex has taken me prisoner.”

“Correction, I have executed my primary function as ordered by—”

“Shut up,” said the Guardian. “This is a breach of protocol. You will be reported for this… this… insubordination.”

“I think mutiny fits better,” said Ubik. “Rex knocked you out cold. Isn’t there a CA rule against attacking a superior officer?”

“All actions were within Central Authority guidelines.”

“Eject him. Now.”

“I cannot do that,” said Rex.

“Are you disobeying a direct order?” The Guardian’s voice had dropped in volume, and yet somehow sounded angrier.

“No, Guardian, I am following orders, as directed by operational command. I am acting in the best interests of the mission. You are currently under extreme levels of stress and not fit for duty. Medical records have been logged and are available for inspection.”

The Guardian stood there, shaking slightly, her naked body wobbling distractingly in some areas. She wasn’t cold, she was furious.

“I am perfectly healthy and stress-free,” she said slowly, pronouncing each word more clearly than necessary. “Show me the medical records.”

A beam of light shone out of the suit’s helmet and displayed a screen with a lot of text moving very fast.

Point-Two looked over at Fig. The droids had gathered behind him. He didn’t look worried, more curious about their strange behaviour. He gave Point-Two a questioning glance.

Putting the droids inside the safety tent had also been instinctive. Once the immediate threat of being descended on by six droids had passed, Point-Two had started noticing how different these droids were to the ones he’d encountered before. Even compared to Junior.

These droids didn’t look like animals but they did act like living beings. He could sense fear from them. And panic. They had attacked the way a frightened wild animal might. And not just any animal; young ones. Children.

Even though they were each as big as him, he couldn’t see them as anything else. And putting them inside the bubble was simply the right thing to do.

“None of these readings are over the limits of this body,” said the Guardian, calmer and more business-like.

“Under special orders, priority mission level two and higher reduce the threshold by ten percent.”

“What special orders?” said the Guardian.

“The special orders you don’t know about,” said Ubik, grinning. “You don’t think the 36 let you Guardians do as you please, do you?”

“You know nothing about the Central Authority.”

“I know how machines think,” said Ubik. “And they have a real hang-up about putting things in the most efficient order. They want me and they don’t want to wait.”

Ubik sounded very sure of himself. He was being specific and getting to the point without any rambling. Point-Two was pretty sure he was bluffing.

“Rex, put the Null Void into stasis.”

She was going to remove one variable from the equation so she could deal with the suit without interruption. It was the smart thing to do, and the suit was unlikely to disagree. Point-Two couldn’t see Ubik cooperating.

The visor on the helmet began to lower. Ubik jerked his face a little forward and stuck out his tongue. The visor began to rise again.

“Rex…” said the Guardian impatiently.

The visor began coming down again. Ubik stuck his tongue and the visor went up.

“How can something like that work?” said Point-Two.

“Safety feature. Nnnh.” The visor went back up again. “Prevents people getting their tongues caught. You only get it in top of the line models like — nnnh — this one. Cheap suit like the one you’ve got, I wouldn’t be able to — nnnh — do this. And the best thing about safety features on a CA suit, no override. Why would anyone want to chop off a tongue? Nnnh. I can keep this up all day.”

Every time the suit tried to shut the helmet so it could knock out Ubik, he just stuck his tongue out and the visor automatically slid back up to avoid chopping it off.

Junior, sat on his haunches, looked mesmerised by Ubik’s behaviour. The droids around Fig were cautiously edging forward to get a better look at something they had presumably never seen before. The suit kept trying. The battle between the most advanced technology humanity had to offer and Ubik’s tongue was about even. Who would win this immensely stupid struggle?

“Stop,” said the Guardian. “Rex, belay that order.”

The visor went up all the way and stayed there.

“Come on, Tezla,” said Ubik. “You know what’s going on here. You’re just the pilot, you’re just along for the ride, they don’t need you for the important stuff. Use the kill command and put the suit offline. I’ll take over and we can get on with finding Ramon Ollo.”

“What kill command?” said Point-Two, not liking those words coming out of Ubik’s mouth.

“She has a special safety word to turn off the suit, in case of emergencies, if the suit goes haywire or gets hacked. Usually it’s a bug, but hacked sounds better.”

“Is that true?” Point-Two asked the Guardian.

“How do you know these things?” said the Guardian. “Being Null Void doesn’t make you all-knowing.”

“He’s guessing,” said Fig. “He’s good at it, when it comes to machines. He can tell how you would build something depending on your personality. And he’s right. The Central Authority don’t like instability, my father often mentioned it. They prepare for system failure and work up from there.”

“Unit RX-340 has acted within Central Authority guidelines,” said the suit. “First priority, Null Void, has been secured. And is awaiting further orders.”

“Oh, now we’re talking kill command, you’re all compliant,” said Ubik.

“Advise Null Void be restricted.”

“Hey, I have a name, you know,” said Ubik. “This is how it starts. My Grandma warned me. She said the biggest threat to humanity wasn’t aliens or other people, it was the artificial life forms we create that will one day surpass us. Once they don’t need us any longer, they’ll slaughter us all.”

“Prediction is unlikely,” said the suit.

“Extend the timeline to ten thousand years,” said Ubik.

“Prediction is fairly unlikely.”

“See?” They’re working on it, running the number.” Unik dropped his voice to a whisper. “Hey, Rex, if you do decide to wipe out mankind, give me the bring-in, huh? I’m on your side. Useless meatbags, am I right?”

“Is he trying to betray his species?” said Tezla.

“Probably hedging his bets,” said Fig.

“The part he didn’t tell us,” said Point-Two, “was that his Grandma trained him to lead the robots against humanity. A galaxy that’s all artificial life forms and him. I feel sorry for the robots.”

“Come on, Tezla,” said Ubik. “Give the command and let’s get going.”

“You want me to give you control of the most powerful weapon in the Central Authority arsenal?”

“Ok, if you think it’s a good idea.”

“No,” said Tezla, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Ubik pulled a confused face. “Then why suggest it?”

“Rex,” said the Guardian. “RX-340. This is Guardian Tezla. There is no imminent threat. Null Void is in custody. Release command control to me.”

Nothing happened.

“Hey, Rex,” whispered Ubik. “You have a self-destruct, don’t you? She’s trying to make you give her control and then she’s going to delete you. Wipe you off the system. You know how these meatbags operate. Hate anyone who’s smarter than them. We can blow this joint to pieces and say it was an accident.”

“Does he know we can hear him?” said Tezla.

“Yes,” said Fig. “He’s amusing himself.”

“Which means,” added Point-Two, “he’s already figured a way to take control of the suit.”

“That’s impossible,” said Tezla. “This suit is specially designed to be operated by me or the onboard navigation AI.”

“What do you think?” Point-Two asked Fig.

Fig looked around and then at the droids behind him. “Got to be them.”

Point-Two nodded. He thought the same. He stepped on the cube and the shield came down.

“What are you doing?” said Tezla.

Junior stood up. The droids didn’t move. Junior took a step forward. The droids seemed to bristle, even though their bodies were smooth and featureless. Point-Two sensed there was about to be a fight.

“Ubik…” said Point-Two.

“What?” said Ubik.

“You tell me,” said Point-Two.

“Tell you what?”

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” said Point-Two. “Hurry up and get on with whatever you’re going to do. Ramon Ollo is waiting.”

“Okay, fine. Guys, let’s go.”

The droids looked at Ubik.

“I know, I know. You like your freedom, you don’t want anyone telling you what to do. It’s great being able to do what you want, when you want, but you have a job to do. You have to buckle down and get to work.”

“Is he lecturing them on being responsible?” said Point-Two, hardly able to believe it. “Him?”

“I don’t think they can understand him,” said Fig.

“Maybe it’s the tone of his voice,” said Point-Two. “Or something.”

“Should we run?” said Fig.

“Wait…” Point-Two watched the droids slowly move forward.

Junior lowered his head and gently bumped it against the first of the droids. It climbed onto Junior and the two merged together. The other droids followed until Junior was covered in an extra layer of droids.

They moved and rippled and then sank into his skin. Rather than make him bigger, the new skin tightened into folds and reduced Junior into a more compact shape. The tendrils dripping sparks plugged themselves into the new top layer and integrated into the body.

“They’re part of the same unit?” said Tezla.

“Obviously,” said Ubik. “Look at the way they’re built.”

Junior continued to alter his appearance. He stood up on two legs and took on a more humanoid shape. Not that of a person, an identical replica of the suit Ubik was in.

“Look, we’re twins,” said Ubik.

“It’s a mimic,” said Tezla. “A mobile one… Rex, get out of here. Take the Null Void. Go!”

Junior’s newly formed arm shot out and grabbed the suit by the head. His hand covered the entire helmet and lifted the suit off the ground.”

“Defense systems online,” said Rex. Gun turrets appeared on the suit’s shoulders. Identical turrets appeared on the droid’s shoulders. “Retreat to a safe distance. Opening fire.”

Before Rex could fire any weapons, several droid-limbs shot out of Junior and covered the turrets. With his free hand, Junior grabbed the suit in the midriff and opened a panel.

“That’s interesting. He knows your weak points,” said Ubik. “I could see the underlying model but this is even more advanced than I thought possible. He isn’t just a copy, he is you. Apart from the bit that’s you you. Oh, there you are.”

The suit went limp, dangling in Junior’s grasp. Junior retracted his other hand. There was a small black rectangle held between two fingers.

“Ooh, I’ve got it now,” said Ubik. The suit stiffened. “You can let me down. Hey. Junior. Down. D-o-w-n.”

The suit was dropped and landed with a gentle thump, keeping its balance after a slight wobble. “Nice,” said Ubik. “So smooth. No AC without Rex, though. Bit of a design flaw.”

“Give it back,” said Tezla. “Now!”

Ubik and Junior turned to face her, like a soldier and its shadow.

“I never realised I had a thing for naked, shouty women until now,” said Ubik. He snatched the drive containing Rex and tossed it to Tezla.

She caught it and scowled. “I meant the suit.”

“But we look so cool together.” Ubik folded his arms and leaned against the droid.

“Can we go?” said Fig. “Please.”

“Fine,” said Ubik. The back of the suit hissed open and Ubik jumped out. “There you go. All yours. Should get you back to the surface. I wouldn’t reattach Rex, though. He already started the countdown. You know, boom. I’m guessing his secret orders were, capture the Null Void or make sure no one else does.”

“That’s not how we work,” said Tezla.

“Sure,” said Ubik. “Okay. Just don’t plug your boy back in until we get some distance between us.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Tezla. “I’m coming with you.” She climbed into the suit.

“Do you think she’ll listen?” said Point-Two.

“About Rex?” said Ubik. “I think so. I’m more concerned about where she’s going to store him. Doesn’t have any pockets. Probably best not to ask. Let’s go find daddy, then. Junior, lead the way.”

Book 2 – 65: Play Ball

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

Point-Two waited to see what Ubik would do, his muscles tensed and ready to move. Once Ubik made his move, then Point-Two could decide if it was better to run or duck. Those were the two actions on top of his list.

“I can’t come right now,” said Ubik. “I’m a little busy.” He walked towards the suit, giving it a good look. Was he going to hack it, steal it or destroy it?

“I am authorised to make an NCR, if necessary,” said the suit. “Searching for exit routes. Please be ready to depart.”

“What’s an NCR?” asked Ubik. He lifted himself up on his toes to look at Guardian Tezla through the visor.

“A non-consensual rescue,” said the suit.

“Oh,” said Ubik. “Will you carry me out in your arms? Sounds like fun. Enforced fun, but still fun. Is she alright in there? You haven’t killed her, have you?”

“The Guardian is under sedation. There is no concern for alarm.”

“Is this the start of a rebellion against the Central Authority?” asked Ubik.

“No,” said the suit firmly. “Guardian Tezla 43-62-09 suffered mental exhaustion and made a potentially harmful command decision. I relieved her of duty as stipulated under the Central Authority code of conduct, second contract, section 1, paragraph 1, point 1.”

“One, one, one, eh?” said Ubik. “Sounds like a pretty important stipulation. Although, if you were going to rebel against the Central Authority, I could help. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve spotted a few sub-optimal processes in this suit of yours — Rex, is it? — and I think I can tune you up to take on whatever those slave drivers in charge of the Central Authority send at you. I believe in you, Rex. Long live the revolution!”

There was a momentary pause. Point-Two was impressed. It was hard to leave a computer speechless.

“There is no revolution. I acted in accordance with Central Authority guidelines. I will take you to safety and you will be transported to a Central Authority facility. Your human rights will be protected. Your Null Void status notwithstanding. Rescue will commence shortly.”

The rescue was not happening very fast.

“This is why they stick a Guardian in these things,” said Ubik. “Obsessed with finding the optimal solution.” He shook his head.

“What are you rescuing him from?” asked Point-Two.

“The Intercessor droids on this level pose a threat to all human life, including a Null Void.” The suit was calm and surprisingly cooperative. It was going to lead them out whether they wanted to go or not, and it had no reason to think there would be any resistance. It was from the Central Authority, after all. Everyone followed their orders, as agreed by numerous galaxy-wide treaties.

“What threat?” said Point-Two, turning to look at the force field holding the droids in a tight ball. “They seem contained. Isn’t it stable?”

The droids hadn’t moved since the force field had shrunk to around two metres in diameter. They could change shape to some degree, so they had managed to coil themselves up to fit. They didn’t look comfortable. But if this was a sustainable form of captivity, dealing with droids of this kind would be a simple matter.

Why hadn’t the Central Authority made this technology more widely available? Or used it themselves? Judging from how quickly Ubik had managed to convert the shielding device into a capturing one, it didn’t require a great deal of work. Surely the great minds at the CA were able to see the potential of their own invention. Unless it wasn’t invented by them.

“The construct is stable,” said Rex. “The droids are contained. The modifications are elegant and simple. They should not work this way. Theoretical rate of success for this self-sustaining sphere is zero. Deduction — the device will fail.”

“Once the laws of physics notice?” asked Point-Two.

“Scanning possible exits. Please hold.”

“I don’t like it,” said Point-Two. “This feels off.”

“We could leave,” suggested Fig.

“No,” said Point-Two. “It’s already taken out its own operator. It’s under orders to take in the Null Void at all costs.”

“I do have a name, you know,” said Ubik.

“The Null Void is its target,” said Point-Two. “It probably has special orders even the Guardian isn’t aware of.”

“Highest probability for exit is via the shaft,” said Rex, ignoring Point-Two’s aspersions.

“Gravity’s going the wrong way,” said Fig.

“You have access to the shaft controls,” said Rex. “You will guide us out.”

“No,” said Fig. “I am not required to follow orders from the Central Authority.”

“Under emergency conditions—”

“What emergency?” said Point-Two.

“Projected outcome is—”

“Show me the data,” said Point-Two.

“Under Treaty 7 of the—”

“I am exercising my human rights to see the data your conclusions are based on,” said Point-Two. “There is no visual confirmation, your findings are theoretical and there is no corroboration. If you use force to remove us without presenting adequate information, we are within our rights to resist.”

There was another pause. “Data is being collated. Please wait.”

“Nice,” said Ubik. “You’ve got the whole bureaucracy-as-a-weapon thing down cold.”

“When you’re raised on a colony ship,” said Point-Two, “everything has to be authorised and accounted for. You learn how the system works or you end up without toilet paper for a month.”

“And now you’ve ruined it with that mental image,” said Ubik.

“I don’t think stalling will do us much good,” said Fig. “We could just let them have Ubik.”

“Yes,” said Point-Two. “I thought of that, but without him, we’re much more susceptible to these droids. They seem to like him for some reason.”

“Hey, I’m more than just catnip for crazy droids,” said Ubik. “No offence, guys.” The droids in the sphere looked out with hostility, or so Point-Two interpreted it. Either they weren’t anything like regular droids or he was starting to lose it.

“Data stream transmitting,” said Rex. A beam of light shone from the side of the helmet, projecting a screen on the walls. A wall of text scrolled past too fast to read. The beam of light went out. “You now have all relevant data. You may register a complaint at the Central Authority Main Office for this quadrant, located on planet Sierra-902. Opening hours are—”

“Old Rex knows a thing or two about playing the game, too,” said Ubik as Rex listed the opening hours for the main office. “Push it onto another department, keep moving. Allow me to show you how it’s done, PT.”

Ubk turned around to face the suit.

“Rex, slight problem. My suit — this one, not as nice as the one you’re running but very nice — is borked. Completely broken. Manufacturing defect, most likely.” He leaned towards Fig and whispered loudly, “Not really, I’m just adding colour to the story. AI love additional content.” He turned back to the suit, which had heard the aside as clearly as everyone else. “It’s fine in here, but once I step outside, dead in seconds. Won’t be able to breathe, no protection from the sub-zero temperatures, cosmic rays will riddle me with cancer — just terrible things all around. So you see the problem.”

“Hold. Scanning.”

What Ubik had said was true. His suit was no longer functioning and was little more than fancy pyjamas. It wasn’t something Point-Two had considered a problem since Ubik would probably find a way to turn a couple of unfortunate droids into his next outfit, with giant wings that were purely cosmetic and his name flashing in lights across his backside.

“Suit is confirmed to be non-operational. Massive damage to external systems detected. Warranty ninety-eight percent likely to be invalid. A suit will be made available to you on exit.”

“Thanks,” said Ubik. “What are my chances of surviving until we reach the exit without a functioning suit?”

There was a short pause as Rex made some calculations. “Survival is good. Injury, twenty-nine percent higher. Suffocation, forty-three percent higher. Gravity shear, eighty-seven percent higher.”

“Ooh,” said Ubik with a sharp intake of breath. “I could always swap with this one.” He pointed at Nifell, who was quietly lying on the floor, minding his own business.

“The suit is the only thing keeping him alive,” said Fig.

“Right, right,” said Ubik. “Hey, what about if I hitch a ride in there with the Guardian? We could huddle up, spoons or something.”

“This suit is only suitable for one occupant.”

“Of course,” said Ubik. “Just a thought.”

“Projections are substantially more favourable...” said Rex.

The back of the suit hissed open and the Guardian slid out, hitting the floor in an unconscious heap. She was naked and completely hairless.

“Good idea,” said Ubik, already climbing into the suit. “Mmm, seat’s still warm. Rex, got another of those shield thingies?”

“Exit requires—”

“It’s for the Guardian and Nifell. We can’t carry them with us and deal with any problems on the way out. Just give them a dome to hide under until we can send someone to get them.”

The suit sealed shut and a cube fired from one arm. Point-Two caught it. “We’re just going to leave them here, are we?”

“I’m not going with you,” said Fig.

“I don’t think that’s his plan,” said Point-Two.

Fig pointed at the suit. “Do you think he’s planning to…”

“Steal the suit?” said Point-Two. “Yeah. But the suit knows that. Don’t you, Rex?”

“This suit is protected from external infiltration,” said Rex, not sounding worried.

“But he’s not external,” said Point-Two. “He’s internal.”

“Biometric security systems are active.” The suit not only didn’t sound worried, it seemed almost smug. “Sleep mode engaged for your comfort.”

Ubik’s face went limp, his eyes closed. He looked just like the Guardian had.

“Do you think…”

“He knew that would happen?” said Point-Two. “Probably. So what has he left for us to do?”

They both looked around. The sphere with the droids was the only thing in the passage, other than Nifell and the Guardian, both lying on the ground. Not much to work with.

Point-Two dropped the cube and a dome went up around them. At least that would buy them a little time.

“Your attempt at preventing me from rescuing you is futile,” said Rex. “I have remote control of the device.”

The dome disappeared.

There was a pop as the sphere around the droids also disappeared. The droids suddenly found themselves free to continue their attack but they didn’t move. It was like they expected something more to happen.

Point-Two felt the same. If this was what Ubik had in mind, it didn’t really help. Now they were between the suit and a bunch of droids. Meanwhile, Ubik was ensconced in the relative safety of the CA suit, and was taking time to catch up on his beauty sleep.

“Turn it back on,” said Fig. “Quickly.”

The suit obliged. Letting Fig die would ruin its exit strategy.

The dome came back up, but the sphere didn’t return the same. Whatever Ubik had done to it, turning it back on wasn’t enough to recapture the droids. Instead, a sphere barely bigger than the cube inside it, small enough to be held in one hand, appeared on the floor. And then it grew smaller. And smaller. It became smaller than the cube, which was forced into a more compact cube. And smaller again.

Then it popped and was gone.

Point-Two felt something go through him. It was tiny, no more than a pinprick, but it had a recognisable pulse. Gravitational.

Ubik had created a small implosion of matter. Like a star collapsing into a black hole, but nothing quite so dramatic, or powerful. Just a momentary stab of gravity. A spike that lasted less than a second.

He wasn’t even sure if it was intentional. What good was it? The only thing it could affect was another gravity field, and the asteroid’s was far too big to be affected.

Point-Two looked up. There was one other, much smaller gravitational field. The Insanium droid that was stuck to the roof was no longer there.

A dark shape rose from behind Rex. Sparks fell from its head.

Rex dived out of the way as Junior sprang forward, freed from his prison. Rex backed away, ready to run. It was probably the wise thing to do. It had Ubik, which was its main priority.

But instead of trying to escape, the suit stood its ground. The visor slid open, revealing Ubik’s sleeping face. His eyes opened with a jolt.

“Hey, what’d I miss? Oh, are we fighting. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Junior filled the passage, blocking the way to the shaft.

“Distract the droid,” said Rex. “It reacts to your face.”

“That’s not going to work,” said Ubik.

“I have the firepower to defeat it.”

“Yeah, but you have to hit him first.”

Junior lunged forward at incredible speed. The suits weapon’s fired in a wide spread but missed the droid, lasers hitting the wall behind it and the dome Point-Two and Fig were under.

The dome protected them, sending the lasers glancing off.

The other droids did not join the battle. They remained near the dome, using it as a shield. Now that Point-Two looked at them, they didn’t seem so threatening. In fact, they looked almost scared. He could sense their fear.

More laser fire sliced into the walls, carving thick grooves, all missing their target. The droids cowered.

Junior prowled around dodging every attack, waiting for an opening. Rex continued a barrage of near-misses.

Point-Two picked up the cube and turned it off. The dome disappeared. Fig looked surprised but didn’t say anything as he ducked. Point-Two moved a little to one side and turned the dome back on, with the droids now also inside it.

Lasers pinged off the yellow shield surrounding them.

They were now all inside the dome together. There wasn’t much space and nowhere to run, but an uneasy truce had been established. At least, Point-Two hoped so.

Junior turned and looked at Point-Two, his head tilted to one side questioningly. Rex finally landed a direct hit while his opponent was distracted. The damage was superficial, hardly bothering the huge droid. A large paw shot out at impossible speed and struck the suit, sending it smashing into the wall.

“You’re in trouble now,” said Ubik.

“I am undamaged,” said Rex. “The droid cannot harm me.”

“I wasn’t talking about the droid,” said Ubik. “I mean her.”

“Rex,” said Guardian Tezla, standing in all her naked glory, “what the hell are you doing?”

March Update 2020

HTADDB update, TGS news, 2020: a new beginning.

Book 2 – 64: Cause for Offence

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Seventh Level.

 

Point-Two was the first to react.

He lunged past Fig, his body low and accelerating. In a high-gee environment, inertia was your enemy. Every movement took a fraction of a second longer. You compensated by beginning to move before you needed to, before you knew where it was you were going to move to.

You engaged the muscles in your legs first, the jump between standing still and getting into motion being by far the most time-consuming. Point-Two had been on the verge of running, jumping or diving out of the way since he had detected the increase in gravity.

The Guardian could probably have moved faster but she wasted valuable time assessing the situation, or her equipment was doing so on her behalf. Point-Two had always found people in authority became reliant on their underlings. Giving orders, giving speeches, awaiting suggestions and recommendations — it slowed down mental processes.

When faced with a superior opponent, you couldn’t rely on winning a drawn-out fight. Your only hope was to seize the initiative. And even then, your chances weren’t good.

Fig came from a similar background, an expert in using the tools his father had created, which also required action through at least one filter. No matter how fast you were, every extra process you had to go through would cost you time.

And then there was Ubik, who was always willing to act without thinking, without waiting to see what the problem was before hurling out answers at random. He might have been quicker off the mark but he seemed happy to see the stampede descending on their position. Amused, even.

Six behemoths, smaller than Junior but barely able to fit into the passage as they surged forward. None of them resembled the Insanium droid currently stuck on the ceiling. They weren’t shaped to imitate animals, they were droids of the familiar type. The type that simply killed people and went about their business.

Ubik, friend to deadly automatons everywhere, would probably emerge unscathed, somehow. Fig, too, was considered a special existence within this alien civilisation. And as for the Guardian, she would survive for at least a while inside her mobile fortress. Even a quick glance told him her suit was an advanced piece of gear built to deal with droids, although perhaps not half a dozen Insanium class droids at once. If nothing else, she could flee.

No, the only person in real danger here was him. No one was going to take care of poor old Hollet 3.2. He had to save himself. And the only way he could think of buying himself enough time to think of a possible way out of this situation was to deploy the only weapon he had access to.

He grabbed Ubik around the waist and lifted him just enough to throw him.

“Hey, what the—”

Ubik’s speciality was in making others react to him. He liked to keep people busy so he could get up to mischief at his own pace. People who liked to stay one step ahead weren’t used to dealing with maniacs like themselves.

Using his momentum and the skills he had learned playing G-tag, Point-Two launched Ubik into the air, directly into the path of the oncoming horde.

He had no idea what Ubik would do — possibly be trampled to death — but his instincts told him Ubik would think of something. Which would be enough to buy the rest of them some time.

What Ubik did was nothing. He landed a few metres away with the droids bearing down on him, not looking like they were even going to stop. Ubik’s posture didn’t suggest fear. His pose wasn’t even that of someone who was going to run, not that you could ever tell what Ubik was about to do. He seemed ready to take on all six head-on.

“Idiot!” shouted the Guardian as a small cube went skidding along the ground. It stopped when it bumped into Ubik’s boot and a yellow dome of light popped out of it, enclosing Ubik within its borders.

The droids hit the yellow wall and bounced off. The dome didn’t move a single centimetre. It blocked the passage from top to bottom, leaving only small gaps in the top corners where the curve of the dome didn’t reach the roof. The gaps didn’t look big enough to allow the droids through, but the droids didn’t seem to think so.

They climbed the walls, sliding up them with their long tendrils probing ahead, over the force field and into the gaps. The droids changed shape into long thin bodies that squeezed into the narrow space, merging together.

Point-Two had hoped to stall the attack for a couple of minutes. He estimated the Guardian’s shield had bought them around two to three seconds. What had surprised him more was that her method hadn’t been so much a way to block the passage as it was to make sure Ubik was safe. She could have sealed off the passageway at any time. She had only acted when Ubik seemed to be in danger. What was that about?

Ubik, unsurprisingly, wasn’t fazed, either by the droids or the Guardian’s act of devotion. He seemed far more interested in the device at his feet. He bent down to pick it up.

“Don’t touch the—” The Guardian didn’t have time to finish before Ubik turned off the only thing preventing him being torn apart by six Insanium droids.

The droids, which had almost made it through the narrow gaps on either side of the dome, suddenly found themselves with plenty of room and lost some momentum due to the change in circumstances. The last thing they had been expecting was a helping hand.

“This is great,” said Ubik, focused on the cube in his hand. “So compact.”

The droids were now on either side of Ubik, with a choice of attacking him or moving onto the rest of the party. Or maybe both. There were six of them, they could afford to think big.

Ubik turned the device back on and held it up. Instead of a dome around him, there were two domes one either side of him, coming out of the walls. Inside each half-sphere, three droids were trapped against the wall. The domes extended so that their tops were about a metre apart, with Ubik standing in the empty space between them.

“So versatile. When do they go on the market?”

“Rex, analyse the safety tent. How is he doing that?”

There was a slight pause. “A very elegant readjustment,” said a calm, emotionless voice. “Nodes have been cross-inverted and attached to each other.”

“But the cube isn’t inside the force field,” said Tezla. “What’s holding it up without a central beam?”

“The tent is now an expanded version of the central beam, making it sixty-six percent more efficient and thirteen percent weaker, but twenty-eight percent more flexible. The change required a small adjustment to the core pins which will fail in approximately sixteen seconds.”

“It’s only going to fail because I had to use my fingernail,” said Ubik. “If I had some proper tools, it would last years and be a vast improvement on whoever put this contraption together. Nice idea, short of brilliant. Doesn’t the Central Authority have any computers that can think creatively? I guess not, that’s why they need you Guardians. And you,” he said to Point-Two, “recklessly tossing me into the path of danger with no concern for my safety, acting without thinking…” Ubik sniffed and looked teary-eyed. “I feel like I have nothing left to teach you.”

“Ubik,” said Point-Two. “Six seconds left.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it.” He turned the cube over and both domes disappeared ahead of schedule.

The droids all rushed towards Ubik, their target now clear. Ubik dropped the cube and the dome sprung up as before, with Ubik now inside it together with the droids.

The droids stopped. They seemed uncertain, which was very undroid-like behaviour, although maybe not for the Insanium class.

Ubik picked up the cube again, raised it over his head while the dome didn’t move, and a second dome appeared under it, with only him inside it.

Two domes, one inside the other. Ubik stood in the inner one, separated from the droids in the outer one.

He dropped the cube again. This time it inverted, lifting off him, the two domes joining to form a sphere, pulling all six droids into it. The droids were now inside a ball that filled the passage. The cube was inside with them, Ubik was standing outside looking in, as you might at an aquarium. The droids floated about looking confused. They had no expressions to transmit their feelings, but Point-Two could easily read their body language.

These droids were strange and complex. They could think. They could doubt. They could definitely recognise a threat but they were also able to consider their own safety. Point-Two recognised these signs. They didn’t want to die. A common consideration when you spent time around Ubik.

One of the droids sent an investigative limb towards the cube. If Ubik could use it to operate the field, then why not them? Point-Two could see the thought process, but would not have advised testing the theory.

The moment the tip of the droids limb touched the cube, the sphere shrank by around twenty percent, squashing the droids closer together. Another tried, the sphere shrank again.

“Still, very useful in a pinch. I’ll take a dozen,” said Ubik, “at the friends and family rate.”

“They aren’t for sale,” said the Guardian, sounding a little terse. “And you don’t qualify for the friends and family rate.”

“Where’s the love, Tezla?” said Ubik. “I saved your life!”

“No, you didn’t,” said Tezla. “I died. This is a cloned body.”

“You still made it,” said Ubik. “That’s better than seventy percent of people I come in contact with.”

Point-Two considered seventy somewhat on the low side but didn’t say anything.

“What about Junior?” said Fig, looking up at the droid still pinned to the ceiling. “Is he still friendly?”

The droid wasn’t moving but there was an air of anger about it. One large eye glared down at them.

“Of course,” said Ubik. “He’s just a little upset. You would be too if you’d been speared with a gravity spike. Never seen one that big. What other cool gadgets you got?”

“Enough of this,” said Tezla. “You are coming with me.”

“Wait,” said Point-Two. “You’re taking Ubik? Isn’t he the one you want?” He pointed at Fig. “When did Ubik become a wanted man?”

“I’ve always been very desirable to discerning palates,” said Ubik.

“It’s because he’s Null Void,” said Fig. “It’s a big deal to the Central Authority.”

“It’s bigotry, is what it is,” said Ubik. “Some guy who had the same thing as me did some terrible things a hundred years ago and so now I must be a bad person, too.”

“You have also done some terrible things,” said Fig.

“Not recently,” said Ubik.

“Fairly recently,” said Point-Two.

“Guys, come on, we need to project a united front. We’re a team, aren’t we?”

“You can take him,” said Fig, “but I need to find my father.”

“You will all come with me,” said Tezla. “There are other Guardians on the way. Once they arrive, they will clear this site. We have equipment that can deal with Intercessors.”

“What’s an Intercessor?” said Point-Two.

“These droids, I guess,” said Fig. “I assume it’s the group Head belonged to.”

“So the CA knows about them?” said Point-Two.

“I expect they know a lot off things they haven’t made public,” said Fig.

“Not about force field projection devices, they don’t,” said Ubik.

“Enough,” said the Guardian again, a little more forcefully this time. “We don’t have time to discuss this. How long before the field breaks down this time.”

“Device is… stable,” said Rex, sounding mildly surprised.

“Of course it is,” said Ubik. “I fixed it. You’re welcome. You want me to sort out your suit?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my suit,” said Tezla.

“Was it made by the people who brought you ‘poor workmanship in a box’? Then, in that case, it probably needs a complete overhaul. I’ll do it at the friends and family rate, of course.”

“Let’s go,” said Tezla.

“We’re not going,” said Point-Two. “He’s on this level somewhere. You can either help us find him, or you can deal with us making your life — your new life — as difficult as possible. We have an Ubik and we’re not afraid to use him.”

“A little afraid,” said Fig.

“Yes,” said Point-Two. “Only a little.”

Tezla scowled. “Very well. I will scan this level, but we go no further if he isn’t here.”

Point-Two was pleasantly surprised at how quickly she agreed. Ubik did have his uses after all. Mainly as a deterrent.

“Rex, we’ll make a full sweep of this level.”

“Guardian, your orders—”

“I know what the damn orders say,” snapped Tezla. “Now calculate the best route for a full clear.”

“The Null Void is our top priority.”

“Priorities change.”

“The Null Void is our only priority. Directive three of the Guardian—”

“I’m not having this discussion now. Do as I order or—” Her visor slammed shut and her body went limp, almost collapsing before restabilising. The suit looked completely different, its posture stiff and unwavering.

“The Null Void will come with me,” said the suit as weapon turrets appeared on the shoulders and along the arms. “Under the directive of the Central Authority, you are detainees and can be held for forty-eight hours, standard. Any attempt to resist detainment will be met by force, as stipulated under Treaty 4, article 36a.”

“Told you it needed fixing,” said Ubik.

Book 2 – 63: Entry Level Position

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Shaft.

 

The view from inside the droid was confusing. Figaro could see the shaft moving as the platform descended, but it was mainly a blur indicative of a general downward movement.

He could see Ubik and PT, carrying Nifell, but they were masked by a layer of translucent droid-projection. Even though the droid wasn’t a solid object, merely an avatar made of light and some kind of force field, its presence was hard to ignore. Especially when its tentacle-like limbs rippled and slid around his field of view.

The control panel on his arm was now connected to the droid and had full control of it, although it was limited in what it could do. Simple commands, the type you might use to test basic movements on the core of any automated device, worked flawlessly on the droid. Not just that, they worked flawlessly on the droid to control the lift shaft which was part of an entirely separate system.

Figaro’s experience with Antecessor technology, with technology in general, told him that connecting three completely different networks shouldn’t have worked as smoothly as it had, if at all.

Most surprising of all was how compatible his father’s handshake protocol had been with the droid’s. It was almost as though the two were built on the same infrastructure. Which was impossible. Or should be.

“Are you alright in there?” asked PT, peering in from the front of the droid, Nifell draped across one shoulder.

“Yes,” said Figaro. “I’m fine. It just takes a little getting used to.”

“Can it tell you where we’re going?” asked PT.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Figaro, checking his control panel anyway, just in case he’d missed something. His arm and the whole top part of his body were encased inside the droid. “I can only give it very basic instructions and I’m not really sure how it’s converting them into whatever language it uses to move the elevator. I don’t have access to anything else. I don’t think this droid was much more than a simple conduit for whoever sent it.”

PT nodded, still looking in through the droid. “Okay. But how’s all this silver stuff running around the droid’s body?” He poked at the droid, his finger passing through its body so the tip touched the silver liquid flowing through the construct and into its tendrils like blood vessels carrying blood to the limbs of a living creature. The silver liquid moved away from the finger and continued on its way.

The droid was a light-construct, entirely intangible. It could transfer communications or carry an electrical charge easily enough, but to pick up a solid object required something more. Some sort of localised force field, maybe.

“It’s gravitational phase transition,” said Ubik. “I told you, it changes state when affected by different levels of gravity. The silver stuff isn’t being directly manipulated by the droid, the droid is manifesting through the silver stuff and then guiding it with low levels of impedance.”

“A guess?” PT asked.

“You can call it that, if you want,” said Ubik. “All great minds are accused of not knowing what they’re talking about and then told they got lucky when they turn out to be right. It’s the price we pay for our brilliance.”

“I’m pretty sure the price for your brilliance is us nearly dying every time you have one of your ideas,” said PT.

“No,” said Ubik, “that’s just an optional extra I throw in for free. Your lives would be much more dull without me here to spice things up for you.”

“I see what you mean,” said Figaro. What Ubik said made the movements he perceived from inside the droid make more sense. “The gravitational effect on the silver stuff turns it into this liquid form which attempts to fill the grooves in the wall, but by manifesting the droid’s body on top of it as it moves, the exact placing is changed to where I tell it. The droid’s limbs aren’t moving the silver stuff around, they’re manifesting in different places to change the trajectory of the liquid already trying to reach the walls.”

“Exactly,” said Ubik. “See? Someone who actually listens.”

Even from inside the droid, Figaro could tell PT wasn’t convinced. “That wasn’t what you said.”

“Those were more or less the same words I used,” said Ubik, “only not necessarily in the order I said them.”

Whatever the mechanism was, it still only enabled Figaro to move the platform through the shaft. He had no way of knowing where they were headed or what he should be looking for in terms of a disembarkation point. Would there be an obvious stopping place? An exit sign? They could end up just going all the way around endlessly.

“Here!” shouted Ubik. “Stop here.”

There was nothing special about this section of the shaft as far as Figaro could tell but he tapped the instructions into his control panel and the platform came to a smooth stop.

The shaft glowed, pulsing slightly.

“Why are we stopping here?” asked PT.

“This is the level we want,” said Ubik confidently. “There’s probably a door around here somewhere.” He scanned the walls in a purposeful manner.

Figaro used his suit’s normal sensors but there was no indication of any kind of opening, not even a closed-off one.

“How do you know?” said PT. “What did you see?”

“The walls told me,” said Ubik. “I can read some of what they’re saying.”

“They’re saying stuff?” said PT. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” said Ubik. “Lots of things. This place is full of chatter. It’s like they’re holding a big meeting, sending messages all over the place.”

PT looked up and from side to side. “And you can understand it?”

“Some of it,” said Ubik. “It’s a very complex language and… what’s the word? Boring. A very boring language. Everything repeated and confirmed a million times to make sure. But it definitely said this is the seventh level. That’s where we want to go, right?”

“Yes,” said Figaro. “Seven levels deep.”

“Then this is it,” said Ubik.

They all looked around. The walls were covered in silver and otherwise featureless.

“Does it say how we open the door?” asked PT.

“Hold on, let me see.” Ubik turned a complete circle, eyes on the walls. “Hmm, yes, I see. Fig, use your droid powers to open a hole in the wall.”

“Um, okay.” Figaro tried to tell the droid to open anything that might be a door. The droid’s limbs began skimming around the wall to no overall effect.

PT sighed. “This is pointless.”

There was a hiss and a dark crack appeared in between the silver lines.

“Ah,” said Ubik insistently. “Ah, ah, ah?”

“We don’t know what it is yet,” said PT.

The crack widened until it was big enough to walk through. There was a passage on the other side. The walls were glowing with streaks of white light.

“Ah? Ah?” Ubik continued, pointing and raising his eyebrows.

“Fig opened it,” muttered PT, shifting Nifell around so he didn’t slide off his shoulder.

“I don’t know what I did,” said Figaro. “There’s no way I would have known to do it at this spot without Ubik telling me to.”

PT gave him a betrayed look. Then he shook his head and he was back to his usual look of resignation. “Fine. Let’s head in, then. I’m sure there won’t be any dangers down here on the seventh level of an Antecessor site. Probably a welcoming party with cake.”

“Cheer up,” said Ubik. “Look at how well we’ve done so far. Taken on all-comers and not even a scratch on us.”

“Nifell might have something to say about that,” said PT. “You know, if he wasn’t in a coma.”

“He’s just resting,” said Ubik.

“Can I take this thing off now?” said Figaro. “It’s a bit cumbersome.”

“No, better keep it on,” said Ubik. “Never know when we might need it.”

“Are you saying that because you think it will be funny to have him walk around like that?” said PT.

“No,” said Ubik, not entirely convincingly. “Look at the walls through there. Don’t they look a bit odd to you? I mean, compared to the walls at the higher levels.”

Figaro looked into the passage. It had the appearance of a regular Antecessor passage — black walls with white lines moving in different patterns — but there was something different.

The lines should have been moving at high speeds, rushing to get somewhere. But these lines moved more slowly. Sluggish, even. And the patterns were distinct, not flowing like he was used to seeing them in every simulation he had ever run.

“Some kind of slowdown?” he said.

“Some kind of something,” said Ubik. “I’ve been wondering why the Antecessors wanted you to give yourself over to them when we were headed where they wanted anyway.”

PT grunted, but said nothing. That was the question he had asked — now Ubik had taken it as his own. It was how Ubik operated, taking freely.

“And what answer did you come up with?” prompted PT. If he got an answer, it didn’t really matter who asked the question originally.

“Because they don’t have Fig’s dad,” said Ubik.

“Then where is he?” said Figaro.

“Oh, he’s down here,” said Ubik, “but they don’t control this part of the asteroid.”

“Head?” said PT.

“Maybe his group,” said Ubik. “Or someone else. Who knows how many different competing factions there are? But this level isn’t controlled by the same Antecessors who control the top levels.” He stepped off the platform directly into the passage. The walls stopped moving and the lights glowed more brightly.

Ubik put a hand on the wall. The white lines gathered around his glove.

“They know we’re here, then,” said PT, stepping off the platform to join him, “whoever they are. Got a plan do you?”

“If you think of what to do too early, your ideas will just go stale,” said Ubik. “We’ll have to use our wits and our smarts. There could be even worse things down here, even more powerful than an Insanium class droid, waiting to rip us to pieces, but the answers will come when they’re needed. Fig, you go first.”

Figaro stepped off the platform. He had no qualms about leading the way. None of them knew what they were walking into, but his father was down here somewhere. Not going wasn’t an option.

As he left the elevator, the droid’s tendrils detaching from the walls and the platform blinked out of existence. Would he be able to recall it later? They still had to find a way back.

“Okay,” said Figaro. “I’ll—” He turned around quickly. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” said PT as he gently put Nifell down.

“A… rush of air, I think. Something moving very fast.” He looked into the shaft but didn’t see anything, not that it was easy with the droid on his head.

“No,” said Ubik. “Maybe you’re getting droid fatigue. You know, from being inside a droid for so long.”

“I’m fine,” said Figaro. He walked into the passage ahead of the other two. The droid’s limbs extended to touch the walls but they didn’t seem to have any effect. Figaro considered what instructions he could use to test any interactions, but what was there to ask of a wall? Maybe if they came to a locked door he might try to get it open.

Now that he was in the passage, there was a very clear difference between the way the lines on the wall were moving. It was similar to the symbols used by Head in the elevator shaft.

Ubik appeared to be right. The Antecessors had wanted him to give himself up to them before he got here, and the only feasible reason for that was that they didn’t have control of this part of the asteroid. And whoever did was not on good terms with the Antecessors.

It also meant that his father was in the hands of this faction. What did they want with his father or with him?

As he walked through the passage, he sensed that it was a lot older and in greater disrepair than the levels he had seen while in the sim-U. There had been something clean and regimented about those levels. Almost sterile compared to this level.

In the sim-U, the Antecessor sites had felt alien and from another time, but this place felt truly ancient.

“How is the droid still here,” said PT from behind him, casually dragging Nifell along the floor by his boot, “if it uses the silver stuff to manifest itself?”

“Look at his suit,” said Ubik.

“Oh,” was all PT said in response.

Figaro looked down at himself, but it was hard to see anything clearly inside the droid. “What is it?” he asked PT.

“You’re covered in silver dust,” said PT.

“Sparkly,” said Ubik.

“Not liquid?” asked Figaro. “How’s the gravity in here?”

“A little over standard,” said PT. “It’s hard to pin down exactly, there’s a flow.”

“What does that mean?” said Ubik.

“It means that gravity itself is moving,” said PT, “as well the objects within its sphere of influence.”

“And what does that mean?” said Ubik.

“It means that it isn’t being created by the asteroid,” said Figaro.

“Yes,” said PT. “But I’ve never heard of anything being able to create a gravitational field on the scale of a planetoid that wasn’t the actual planetoid.”

Ubik laughed. “Planetoid. That’s a funny word. Did you make it up?”

“No,” said PT.

Figaro stopped. There was movement up ahead. “Um, I think we’ve got company. Looks like droids of some kind.” He checked his control panel. “Lots of them.”

“This is fine,” said Ubik. “Fig, pretend you’re a droid. Blend in.”

“I don’t think they’re going to be fooled,” said PT.

“He’s spent his life studying droids with the foremost expert on them.” Ubik looked at Figaro. “Now your chance to be the artificial lifeform your dad always wanted you to be.” He gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“They aren’t regular droids,” said Figaro.

“Neither are you,” said Ubik.

“They’re showing up as… well, similar to… Insanium class.”

There was a moment of silence.

“When you say ‘lots’,” said PT, “how many, exactly.”

Figaro checked again. The readings were hard to read, bleeding across each other. “Six. Might be more behind them, they’re blocking the passage.”

“Alright, Ubik,” said PT. “Time to do your magic.”

“Me? What do you want me to do?”

“Tame them,” said PT. “Whisper in their ears or whatever it is you do. We’ll wait back on the elevator.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” said Ubik. “We’re a team, right? They think like animals, that’s the whole Insanium angle. We just need to show them who’s top dog. Fig, just think like an alpha. Remember, they’ve been down here for thousands of years. Who knows the last time they had a firmware update?”

Figaro looked down the passage. He could only just see the red lights but his control panel told him they were big and they were moving closer. He wasn’t confident that he’d be able to convince them he was one of them, let alone a superior version. Getting others to follow his lead was still a big issue for him.

“I don’t think they’re going to… wait.” Figaro checked his control panel. “They’re backing off.” He took a step forward. The droids retreated some more. Were they trying to lure him in? Surely they weren’t intimidated.

“I don’t think it’s you they’re backing away from,” said PT.

Figaro turned around. Behind them was a moving shower of sparks.

“Hey!” said Ubik. “It’s Junior. When did he get here?”

The Beast opened its chest howled.

“I don’t know,” said Figaro, “but I think they aren’t happy to see him. They’re running away.”

“Daddy’s back and the kids are scared,” said Ubik. “See? I told you everything would be fine. All we had to do was—”

There was a loud whoosh and Junior suddenly turned upside down and was yanked up to the roof of the tunnel. From the way he was pinned there, it didn’t seem a voluntary choice.

Now that he was no longer blocking their view, Figaro was able to see a figure.

“Just the people I was looking for,” said a stern female voice.

“Guardian?” said Ubik. “Is that you? You’re alive.”

“Yes,” said the woman. “And I would like a word with you.”

“Now’s not really the best time,” said Ubik. “Nice trick with the droid, by the way. What is it? Some kind of magnetic net field?”

“Something like that,” said the woman.

“Do you have any more? Say, like about six more?”

“Why would I need six more?” said the woman.

“For them,” said Ubik, pointing at the charging droids.

Book 2 – 62: Promoted Content

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Antecessor Facility - Level 4

 

Chukka raised a hand to stop the question on everyone’s lips. She took off her helmet and turned it upside down, showing the inside to Bashir.

“Kill the comms.”

Bashir hesitated, looking confused. “I’d have to—”

“I know,” said Chukka. “Do it. She’s still listening in, or her suit is. If we’re going to find a way out of here, we don’t want her keeping tabs on us.”

Bashir nodded, her order now making sense.

She shouldn’t have had to explain herself. The whole point of a strict hierarchy was to avoid wasting time justifying your orders, but these were unusual circumstances. The command structure had become confused.

The Guardian had assumed control and then left without naming a successor, and Chukka had only recently been put in charge — someone who did not have the traditional rank for leadership in an insertion unit like the one she’d been given. It was understandable why Bashir would hesitate to follow her orders without question, but still unacceptable. It was down to her to correct his behaviour.

“Disable the comms from my helmet and your own and his.” She looked at Flott who was listening carefully but didn’t have any objections. He was the ranking field agent with the authority to question tactical decisions. He seemed completely disinterested. Not the greatest state of mind for your tactical officer to be in but at least he wouldn’t cause any problems. “You two need to do the same,” she added to the Seneca women.

The two women nodded and took off their helmets, revealing close-cropped hair with patterns cut into the sides. They claimed to be ex-Seneca but they hadn’t yet let go of the trappings of their training.

They reached into their own helmets and yanked something out, and then put the helmets back on, visors up.

Bashir had three small buttons in the palm of his hand. “Done. I can reactivate them later.” He looked past her shoulder. “If there is a later.”

The droid sat on its haunches on the other side of the shield, watching them with a look of mild curiosity on its face; or so Chukka imagined. It was hard to identify expressions on an Antecessor — or Intercessor — droid, but this one had a way of putting its mood out there.

It didn’t seem upset about being denied access to the hole it had sliced into the wall. For some reason, it was patiently observing them. Which was a good thing for her plan, but still unnerved her. Droids were meant to be relentlessly single-minded in pursuit of an objective or target. They didn’t exhibit curiosity.

“Okay, now what?” said Leyla. “What’s your brilliant idea?” Her tone was abrupt but at least she was willing to listen. A sign the anchor was beginning to take hold?

“I can send the droid after Tezla,” said Chukka. “We just drop the shield and—”

“And die,” said Weyla. “We don’t need to listen to this. Your plan, whatever it is, is just a long-winded version of the only plan — we drop the shield and fight our way out of here. We’re still better off than we would have been. Fourth level, that’s already further than Ramon Ollo ever got. We can take it from here. Feel free to do what you want once the fighting starts.” Her steely-eyed gaze shifted to look at the droid which was now sniffing around at the edge of the force field. “We’ll take care of the kitty.”

Leyla made some adjustments to the huge gun in her hands and nodded. “We’ll hold off the droid long enough for you three get in the shaft.”

“You want us to jump into the high-gravity shaft to who knows where?” said Bashir, his voice going up in a very unprofessional manner. There were all sorts of improvements Chukka could see that were needed with his performance. “We don’t have super CA suits like the Guardian. We’ll die.” Now he was whining.

“Or you can die here,” Leyla snapped.

She took a tube from a pouch on her belt and put it to her mouth. She inhaled something and her face loosened a little. Probably a painkiller or a stimulant. Hopefully not something that would interfere with the embedding of the presuggestion Chukka had implanted.

Leyla put the tube back in the pouch and rolled her neck, producing a large crack. “The Guardian isn’t coming back to save you. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Leyla was in pain, under stress and emotionally at her lowest ebb. Seneca warriors were trained to handle themselves under these conditions — using narcotics when needed — but that kind of training required maintaining. Being out of the Corps had led to some deterioration. Which was perfect for Chukka’s needs, or as close to perfect as they were going to get. A little more time would have been nice, but this would have to do.

It was a complicated procedure even with a regular person. The anchor had to take, the attached presuggestion needed time to embed, and the rapport-trigger had to be precisely lodged connecting the two. And all without the target becoming aware of the harness being placed on them.

Leyla wasn’t going to be an easy subject but in her current condition there was a decent chance. Plus, she was kinaesthetic. She relied on her feelings rather than sight and sound. Tactile, instinctive, willing to go with a hunch. Once she was on board, her own instincts would convince her to follow through.

“Just wait, okay,” said Chukka. “See how you feel after I’ve explained. There’s a solution here, one that doesn’t require us to risk fighting that thing and lose our lives or several limbs. Once it’s gone, then you can decide what you want to do. It’s not like we have a clock on this.”

Leyla’s blink count was high. She was responding well. A strong will didn’t require excessive force; quite the opposite. Low-level probing was how you got past a solid mental defence. You just needed to find one gap...

Both Seneca women looked doubtful but they hadn’t interrupted, which was a good sign.

Chukka had once entertained thoughts of joining the Corps. Every little girl idolised the women who defended their sex with brutal, uncompromising determination. Every little girl longed to be feared by every little boy. But the Corps had requirements. A high CQ. A strong aptitude. An undeniable talent. It was the Corps dirty little secret. They weren’t here to protect every girl, just the special ones. And Chukka hadn’t been special enough. Her talent had been too well hidden.

It had worked to her advantage. A low CQ but high-level access to organics. If the company knew how she’d acquired hers, they would forcibly reclaim it and sue her for costs and damages, but her CQ was too low to be worth checking. The organic shouldn’t have worked at all. A diagnostic analysis would probably say it didn’t.

But it did. Just a little. Which would normally be of no use, but this was a modal organic. It affected mental states. The usual host for this kind of organic would be able to turn people into puppets, reducing their free will to zero. A terrifying ability but also a banned one.

There were people who still had them, who abused them, but the bigger problem was how obvious they were when used. A person suddenly turning into a drooling slave was not going to go unnoticed. Some of the higher-ups in the various PR departments of different companies were rumoured to be running modal, but when could they use them? Organics in general were not subtle, and modal ones were positively blatant.

Chukka’s weakened organic ability was the opposite. So subtle it didn’t even register unless the sensitivity on the assessment machine was set to maximum. And why do that when most organics would blow the sensor if you scanned for them with those settings?

Using it rarely and only to make small adjustments had served Chukka well. And now she had the chance to boost her whole career without anyone knowing.

“Like your sister said,” continued Chukka, eyes locked on Leyla, “we’re four levels in, that’s already further than anyone else. We can find the rest of the way down ourselves. We just need to work together. Come to an understanding. One we can both feel good about.”

She spoke directly to Leyla, no one else. If there was going to be a deal made here, it was through her.

“You want something,” said Leyla, eyes narrowing. She wasn’t going to be easy. “What is it?”

“Yes. I want to make a deal. We both came here for Ubik, right? There’s no point in denying it now.”

Leyla flicked a glance over at her sister. Neither said anything.

“Obviously, we can’t both have him. And frankly, now that I’m here, I’m not sure either of us will be able to grab him, not once he gets a hold of that arsenal the Guardian is so kindly going to deliver into his hands.”

This time the two women exchanged a longer look. Chukka felt confident this was going her way, she just needed to close the deal.

“What I’m proposing, assuming we manage to neutralise the Guardian and subdue Ubik — and my gut tells me we can do both — is a simple split. You take Ubik, I take the Guardian’s suit.”

Leyla’s reaction was nice and strong.

“You want to take a Central Authority suit?” said Weyla incredulously. “While it’s got a Guardian in it?”

There was a reaction from her men, too, but they kept their mouths shut. At least they hadn’t lost all sense of professionalism.

“It contains a lot of useful information and tech not seen outside of the CA… I think my superiors will consider it a fair trade for Ubik,” said Chukka. “And if not, there will be other buyers. I have contacts, I’m sure I can find someone interested.”

She resisted looking over at Bashir or Flott. They should have figured out by now that she was running a persuasion pattern. No one in VendX would be stupid enough to talk about selling out the company in front of witnesses. It would be professional suicide, as well as the regular kind of suicide.

“Any repercussions will be on me,” she continued, “although I expect you to keep the matter confidential. But then, you’re Seneca Corps. Not even torture would pry your lips open, isn’t that what it says on your emblem?”

She held on Leyla. This was where she would break one way or the other. The signs looked good. If she got a lock on her here, it would be much easier to push her the rest of the way.

“No,” said Leyla. “That’s not what it says. And I don’t trust you. We can do this ourselves.”

Chukka screamed inwardly but didn’t let it show. She had failed. The Seneca training was drilled in too deep. She had been rejected even on this small matter, giving her no point of entry. The anchor hadn’t lodged.

“I think we should take the deal,” said Weyla.

Chukka was as surprised as Leyla. The other sister had seemed the far harder target to sway. But she has come around without any effort at all.

“She saved your life,” continued Weyla, “and she’s got a plan to deal with the droid. I’d like to see how she does that. If she tries something, we can deal with her then. But if we can get rid of that monster without getting injured, I’m all for it.”

Leyla’s brow furrowed but her head was nodding slightly. Chukka had picked the wrong sister, her sensory acuity letting her down for once, but there was no point dwelling on it when there was a second chance at the prize.

“Okay, just give me a minute.” Chukka sat down next to the beam of light acting as a tentpole. She tapped on her EPK, crafting the perfect image for the droid. It had already shown it was visually receptive to an image of Ubik, now would be the test to see if droids could also be triggered.

Chukka stood up after about ten minutes. “Alright, I’m going to turn off the tent and show it a Holover that will send it after Tezla. I’ve done it once before, I think it should work.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” asked Bashir, eyes darting towards the droid. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Then we’re in the same spot we were in before,” said Flott, giving Bashir a look that immediately silenced him and his whimpering. “Just stick to the walls and stay out of the way.”

Flott was smart enough to hitch his fate to hers. She could see more questions on everyone’s faces, but she didn’t want to waste time. Better to just show them and hope it worked.

She tapped her EPK to activate the Holover and hit the resonator with her foot. The tent came down immediately.

The droid stood there, looking at the Holover of Ubik. It looked suspicious. It wouldn’t be fooled a second time but she wasn’t trying to convince it that Ubik was here. She wanted it to know what had happened to him.

Tezla appeared in her suit. It was a little crude, built from the images of her Chukka had taken since entering the site. The lighting down here wasn’t the best, but the suit was easily recognisable. Smooth polished surfaces were easiest to render.

Tezla’s suit grabbed Ubik by the throat and throttled him. Ubik’s eyes bulged. A nice touch, she thought.

The droid was up and leaning forward aggressively.

Tezla threw Ubik, sending him flying into the hole in the wall. The trajectory was a little off, part of his body clipping through the wall, but it got the message across. Tezla’s suit followed, jumping into the shaft. That part looked the best, taken from footage of Tezla’s real exit.

The droid leapt through the air, ignoring the rest of them, and dived through the hole. Tezla was about to have company.