Echopraxia (Firefall, #2)

by Peter Watts

“WHAT’S RAKSHI GOT against you guys?” The lights were dimmed, the mutants and monsters were off pursuing their alien agendas, and the Glenmorangie was back on the table. Moore grimaced at Brüks, refriended, over the lip of his glass. “Who’s us guys?” “Military,” Brüks said. “Why’s she got such a hate-on for you?” “Not sure. Self-loathing, maybe.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Sengupta’s as much of a soldier as I am. She just doesn’t know it. Not consciously, at least.” “Metaphorically, you mean.” Moore shook his head, took another sip; his cheeks puckered as he swirled the single malt around in his mouth. He swallowed. “WestHem Alliance. Same as me.” “And she doesn’t know.” “Nope.” “What’s her rank?” “Doesn’t work like that.” “Some kind of sleeper agent?” “It’s not like that, either.” “Then what—” Moore raised a hand. Brüks fell silent. “I say army,” Moore told him, “you think boots on the ground. Drones, zombies, battlefield robots. Things you can see. Fact is, if you’ve reached the point where you need that kind of brute force, you’ve already lost.” Visions of the Oregon desert sprang into Brüks’s head. “Brute force seemed to work just fine for those fuckers who attacked the monastery.” “They were trying to stop us. Here we are.” Human bodies, turned to stone. The screams of dying Bicamerals. Not bodies, he reminded himself. Body parts. Here in the dusk of the twenty-first century it was so easy to confuse murder with the amputation of a fingertip. None of the usual d...

Maybe the Singularity already happened and its components just don’t know it yet.

THE CLOTHES HAVE NO EMPEROR. —STEWART ELLIOTT GUTHRIE