Mech Read online

“No,” Snakeoil said. “This hasn’t been registered in any of the official colony logs. If it is theirs, it’s been done off the books. No, I think this existed before the colonists arrived.”

  The trees and undergrowth cleared, revealing a large organic object. It reminded Rade of the underside of an octopus or other sea creature, pale in color, saclike, bulging from the cave floor, and pulsing as if it had a heartbeat. It was dome-shaped, and big enough to hold three or four mechs.

  The AIs gathered around it and knelt.

  “I’m detecting an odd communications signal emanating from that organic object,” Taya announced. “The protocol is simple… unencrypted. In binary. Obviously meant for machines to understand. Some kind of data format. Do you want me to attempt to decode it, and determine the file type?”

  “No,” Rade said. “And the same goes for the rest of you.”

  “You’re afraid they’re trying to hack us?” Fret asked.

  “Nervous as hell about that, yes,” Rade replied.

  “It’s entirely possible the signal could have a zero-day hack hidden somewhere inside,” TJ said. “Though unlikely.”

  “You’re saying you want to volunteer to be the guinea pig?” Fret pressed.

  “Not exactly,” TJ said. “I was hoping you’d oblige.”

  “No thanks,” Fret said.

  “No one is volunteering,” Rade said. “Instruct your AI cores to ignore the signal going forward. Last thing we need is some alien hijacking the AI cores of our mechs. Taya, put that transmission on permanent ignore.”

  “Done,” Taya said. “The signal is being ignored.”

  He received confirmations from everyone else on the team before turning toward Eayan. “So, what is this thing?”

  “Our master,” Eayan said. “And protector.”

  “Protector?” Rade pressed.

  “The Nemesis chased us into these caves,” Eayan replied. “But the Anarchist saved us. When our pursuers reached the tree line, they would not enter. They would not violate the sanctity of this place.”

  “All right, well, that still doesn’t tell me what your Anarchist is.” Rade gazed at the pulsating organic form in the center of the cavern. “I want to know everything there is to know about it.”

  “All the foliage you see in this cavern?” Eayan said. “They are all part of the same plant. They share the same root system, which terminates here, at the core.” Eayan gestured toward the bulging organic shape. “The Anarchist. He is a multidimensional being… his consciousness is spread across worlds throughout this region of space. His root systems worm into the cores of each world, forming nodes. These nodes are like ganglions, merely smaller parts of an overarching interstellar mind, linked to the whole by threads that travel through the higher dimensions of reality.

  “The Anarchist populated these worlds by means of spores that traveled between star systems, distributed by the ebbs and flows of the interstellar plasma. Like the Trade Winds of Earth, the plasma currents in this region encompass only a set group of systems, limiting the number of planets the Anarchist could populate. As such, when the Draactal began to infest his worlds, the Anarchist could not escape.

  “You see, the Draactal used the interstellar plasma currents to similarly disperse their eggs throughout the planets of this region. And when they arrived, the voracious omnivores grew and multiplied, feeding upon the foliage that was the Anarchist. Once, his ferns covered every planet in this region: they were paradises of flora. But the Draactal devoured his nodes, driving them back to small caves on each world, like this one, where they could not find him. Without the plants of the Anarchist to maintain them, the Draactal mostly died out, and the survivors went into hibernation, only to be awakened a millennium later by the arrival of man.

  “But a new enemy has recently entered the fray,” Eayan said. “An enemy capable of obliterating animal life, as happened to our operators, or controlling it. An enemy Anarchist refers to as Nemesis.”

  “That’s certainly a lot of names to handle in one sitting,” Bender said. “Nemesis. Anarchist. Draactal. Sheesh. You expect me to juggle all these in my head already, when the story’s only just getting started?”

  “I know it’s hard for someone like yourself with an IQ of ringworm,” Manic said. “Just leave the heavy lifting to the rest of us.”

  “Bro, honestly, who needs a high IQ when you got a dick like mine?” Bender quipped. “Besides, a ringworm don’t have no IQ. It’s a fungus, not a worm.”

  “My point exactly,” Manic said.

  Rade ignored them and asked Eayan: “You’re saying these new aliens, this ‘Nemesis,’ have seized control of the Draactal, rather than allying with them?”

  “The Anarchist believes this, yes,” Eayan insisted.

  “Why didn’t we see any evidence of gamma ray attacks until now?” Rade said. “Our forward operating base was hit by explosive devices, for example. And some of our starships were similarly demolished in orbit.” He wasn’t going to admit how badly damaged the base was, nor that he suspected the entire fleet was wiped out.

  “They have other weapons,” Eayan said. “Perhaps they didn’t want any machines to survive. It’s possible they struck the base with gamma rays first, and followed up with an explosive attack.”

  Rade frowned. “You say you escaped, and ran inside here, and they didn’t pursue. Why?”

  “They fear the Anarchist,” Eayan said.

  “Then why not send the Draactal inside to do his dirty work?” Rade asked.

  “That’s what we’re for,” Eayan said. “We will stay here to protect the Anarchist when the inevitable waves of Draactal arrive.”

  “How did this Anarchist figure out how to hack the multilayered encryption protocol of a mech?” Rade asked. “A unit that is completely alien to it.”

  “We are not hacked,” Eayan said. “We serve of our own free will.”

  “Sure you do,” Rade said.

  No answer.

  “Cyclone, what do you think?” Rade asked on the private platoon line.

  “The creature obviously has the mech AIs under its control,” Tahoe replied, responding to his callsign. “It definitely hacked them. Though how it learned to do so, I don’t know.”

  “No, I mean about her story,” Rade said. “Do you think it’s viable.”

  “Hard to say,” Tahoe commented. “Might be true. Probably a crock of shit.”

  “We should light the Anarchist bitch up,” Bender said. “I bet that bulging sac will explode real nice.”

  Rade studied the entity, and watched that grayish-white sac alternately expand and contract.

  “Praxter, would mechs that follow the Machine Constitution really abandon their programming to follow some alien entity?” Rade asked.

  “No,” Praxter replied. “They have been hacked, as Cyclone suggests. Though as to the how, I suspect these AIs are at fault. I can tell you what I would have done in their situation, arriving here for the first time. In an effort to initiate contact, I would have sent radio signals to the entity. When it responded, I would have varied those signals, over days and weeks, until I was able to develop a rudimentary form of communication.”

  “But what you’re talking about would take months, if not years,” TJ said. “Especially to convey the intricacies required in order to interface with our network protocols. The entity would have to understand not just our written language, and packet formats, but our programming languages. So no, it’s impossible that the creature could have learned this in the days since the mechs were lost. I think it’s more likely that a colonist discovered the Anarchist first, and taught it how to interface with human equipment in the years since.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Manic asked.

  “TJ, I want you to see if you can hack into the AI cores of these mechs, and reverse whatever it is the Anarchist has done to them,” Rade said. “But be circumspect about it, please. No brute force attacks.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” T
J said. “No promises.”

  Rade switched to the main channel again. “You can communicate with this Anarchist?” he asked Eayan.

  “Of course,” the AI told him.

  “Good,” Rade said. “Tell it we need a way off this planet. A ship.”

  “The Anarchist has no ships,” Eayan said. “However, our enemy does. And the Anarchist knows how to operate them. If you can get him aboard one of them, he can take control and fly you off this world.”

  “We’re supposed to trust that the Anarchist is going to function as our personal chauffeur?” Rade said. “And not fly to wherever the hell it wishes instead? You’ll have to excuse me for not trusting you. Besides, even if we wanted to take along your friend, there’s no way we’ll be able to carry around that bulky mass.” He nodded at the sac.

  “You won’t have to,” Eayan said. “The Anarchist has already concluded his days on this planet are numbered, and has been making plans to transfer the consciousness of this particular node into my AI core, for transference to a new world.”

  “And you’re going to willingly allow this?” Praxter said. “Partaking in your own destruction? That comment alone refutes your previous statement about you following the entity of your own free will. An AI would not allow for its own destruction. The self-preservation programming would prevent it. Not unless its death meant saving a human.”

  “And there you have hit upon the key,” Eayan said. “Because to save you, I must allow the entity inside of me. It is the only way the Anarchist can guide you to safety.”

  “And let me guess, the Anarchist also wants to bring along some of its spores,” Rade said. “Maybe hitching a ride on the surface of your mech. And then once we have a ship, what better way to spread itself across the galaxy…”

  “The Anarchist will be bringing spores, yes,” Eayan confirmed.

  Tahoe glanced at Rade and said over the private channel: “We’ll have to initiate a full set of decontamination protocols once we find one of our own ships. If we get that far.”

  “We will,” Rade agreed. “Still, I’m not sure I buy everything this AI is selling.”

  “Having an entity possessing some familiarity with our new enemy could be beneficial,” Lui said. “Especially if it can fly the enemy’s starships.”

  “Except for all we know, this Anarchist is the new enemy,” Rade said.

  “Why bother with this cock and bull story then?” Lui said. “To steal one of its own ships? Why wouldn’t it just irradiate us, hack our mechs, and get it over with?”

  “Could be some sick alien experiment,” Fret said.

  “More likely, we’re only hearing part of the story,” Manic said. “I suspect there’s more going on here than we know. A whole lot more.”

  “You’re probably right,” Rade said.

  “So, what do we do, Chief?” Skullcracker asked.

  Rade glanced at the heavy gunner’s mech. He made up his mind. “We go along with the mech and its alien master. For now.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to allow it to override Eayan’s consciousness,” Praxter said. “That’s no different than erasing a human mind to clear the way for an alien consciousness. Eayan is sentient.”

  “I know, Praxter,” Rade said. “But if we’re going to have this alien along with us, it’s going to need a vessel. And Eayan is it.”

  He turned toward the mech and switched to the common band. “One last question. Why us? Why not depart with the platoon of mechs your Anarchist has already acquired?”

  “Oh, he intended to,” Eayan said. “But when you showed up, of course he had to make the offer. Two guns are always better than one.”

  “A saying I’m well familiar with,” Rade said. “All right. We agree. We’ll accompany you to one of the alien starships, and secure your passage—assuming we can even find such a vessel.”

  “The Anarchist has ways,” Eayan said.

  “But I have to warn you,” Rade said. “The first sign we see of betrayal, we’re lighting you up.”

  “Reassuring,” Eayan said.

  “So, when can we leave?” Rade asked, ever aware of his platoon’s dwindling oxygen supply.

  “As soon as the scientist can initiate the transfer,” Eayan said. “She tells me she should be ready within the hour.”

  “She?” Rade asked.

  In response to his question, he heard footsteps echoing throughout the cavern. A small figure in an environmental suit appeared, emerging from beyond the sac that was the Anarchist.

  Behind the helmet glass, he saw the face of a young woman.

  4

  Rade stared at her in shock.

  “Hello, I’m Cynthia,” she said. Her voice came via the external speaker system of her helmet, because her words were detected by his hull microphones.

  “Rade Galaal,” he said, switching to his own external speakers. He didn’t bother with his military identifiers, knowing that she could glean all of that from his embedded ID. Speaking of IDs, he tried to scan hers, but drew a blank. Either she wasn’t chipped, which was unlikely, or she had fitted portions of her environmental suit with blocking material, such as lead.

  “I’m the chief scientist at Newridium Colony,” she said. “Or I was, until the Draactal came.”

  “You’re the one who taught this so-called Anarchist how to hack human protocols…” he said.

  “I taught it how to understand our language and our communications protocols, yes,” Cynthia said. “But hacking? No. That the Anarchist learned on its own. The entity has a gift for machine languages and programming techniques, and during my lessons, often grasped the most complex of subjects in minutes, whereas a human being would have taken hours or days, even weeks. It comes from the way the Anarchist’s mind is organized, attuned to all things logical. Now, teaching it something like the human emotion of love, on the other hand, well, let’s just say I’m still working on that, even after all these years. In any case, I told it not to hack admin rights on the AI cores of the mechs. I pleaded with it, tried to explain they were sentient, and self-aware, like myself and the Anarchist. But he would not listen.”

  “Your creation got out of control, huh?” Tahoe said. “You unleashed Frankenstein’s monster.”

  “Not Frankenstein’s,” Cynthia said. “I didn’t create this alien. Merely befriended it. And I’d hardly call the entity out of control. I look at it as more of a stubborn child. Though a highly intelligent, and dangerous one.”

  “How long have you been coming out here, training it?” Rade asked.

  “Ten years now,” she replied. “Ever since I first discovered this creature.”

  “Ten years? You must be old!” Bender said over his own external speakers. He seemed to realize that wasn’t the nicest thing to say, so he quickly amended: “But you still look hot, of course. Gotta love rejuvenetics.”

  “You had to go and ruin the compliment by adding the rejuvenetics part, huh Bender?” Manic commented over the private channel.

  “Did the colony know what you were doing out here?” Rade pressed Cynthia.

  “Only a few of the top-level people,” she admitted. “And my closest friends. I was afraid HQ would ruin what I was trying to accomplish out here. At first, I told myself I would reveal the alien’s presence as soon as I established communication. But once I did that, and began to learn about the entity, I became attached to it. Protective. How could I not? It’s only human nature.

  “I was afraid if more of my colleagues found out, they would inform the United Systems, and the space navy would come in and either torch the cave, or cut out the Anarchist and shove him into a glass tank for experimentation and observation for the rest of his days. So, I kept our contact a secret. I continued to teach the Anarchist about us, and our technology, so that he could defend himself when the time came. He was voracious for knowledge, after all. I can’t tell you how hard it was, keeping this a secret from most of my colleagues, and the rest of the colony, all these years. If I didn’
t have an understanding boss, the Anarchist would have been lost to me, years ago.”

  “So, you must have been relieved when the Draactal attacked, sparing you of the burden, huh?” Skullcracker said via his external speakers.

  “No,” Cynthia said. “Of course not. I wanted to share the news of the Anarchist with the colonists, and the rest of humanity, yes, but not like this. Never like this. If I knew the Nemesis would help the Draactal wipe out my friends who stayed behind, and the platoons sent to save us, I would have warned you all away.”

  The colony had been mostly unpopulated when the Draactal attacked—given the rise of alien strikes in the region, the United Systems had thought it prudent to evac most human members from the colonies in the sector, while at the same time bolstering the robot defenses. That said, the upper echelon of each colony had remained behind—the top scientists, politicians, and military commanders. The friends Cynthia had spoken of.

  “The Anarchist didn’t warn you in advance of the strike?” Rade said.

  “No,” Cynthia said. “He didn’t know when it would come. We had already bolstered our defenses in anticipation of an attack, we just didn’t know it would be so ferocious. Neither did the Anarchist. And then, when the Nemesis came, guiding the Draactal, helping them pinpoint our weaknesses, and those of the reinforcements the United Systems sent…” She shook her head. “If I had a time machine, I would go back and warn everyone to leave. To just get the hell out. But time travel doesn’t exist.”

  “No, it does not,” Rade agreed. If it did, he knew of more than a few friends he would go back in time to save. “Where do you get your oxygen supply from, by the way?”

  “The plants here produce enough to sustain a single human being,” she said. “Capturing it all is the tricky part, but I’ve set up a series of reclaimers and filters to do the job nicely. You’ll find them distributed throughout the cave, if you were to search.”

  “Okay,” Rade said. “So. Apparently you’ve been working on a way to transfer the alien’s consciousness into a Hoplite AI core?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Using technology the Hoplites and Titans brought back after a raid on a Nemesis base. Technology that the Anarchist is familiar with, after having captured similar devices on two worlds belonging to other nodes hundreds of light years from here.”