Idols

Rock shouldn’t move like that.

I ponder Ro’s superstrength as we make our way back to the campsite for what’s left of our things, slowly climbing the dirt hillside in the moonlight.

Ro couldn’t have even budged a boulder that size a year ago.

Are my powers changing too?

I shouldn’t have been able to feel my way to Fortis, all the way back at the camp. Not from that far away.

I look at the others, on the trail ahead of me.

Tima kept us from falling out of the sky. So she’s escalating. It’s not just Ro and me.

What about Lucas? What could he compel the world to do, if he wanted to? What could he compel me to do?

Lucas turns and grins at me—as if he knows what I’m thinking—and I hurry to catch up, matching my pace to his.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Tima says, finally. She stops in her tracks, and I sink to the ground, grateful for the rest. Not having superstrength myself.

“What doesn’t?” I look at her. Even in the darkness, I can see how freaked out she is.

“The Lords. Why didn’t they search harder for us? They just took Fortis and left.”

Ro shrugs, wiping his forehead with the bottom of his shirt. Even in the dim evening light, his bare stomach is brown and flat and hard beneath it, and I look away, embarrassed. “Who cares? We’re alive, aren’t we?” He lets the shirt drop.

Tima frowns. “I care, because they could be tracking us now—in which case, we need to know why.”

Lucas bends his head toward her. “Maybe we really were untraceable? Maybe Fortis convinced them we weren’t there?”

“Maybe the explosions distracted them,” I say, hopefully.

“Maybe” is all Tima will say.

Nobody believes her, not even me.

When we reach camp, the destruction is obvious and complete. Everything has either been incinerated into dust or scattered into the desert wind. What the Lords’ ships didn’t immediately destroy, Fortis’s own explosives seem to have finished. Some remains are still burning.

“See? We wouldn’t have been much help here,” Lucas says to me, taking my hand.

He’s right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. If anything, seeing the smoldering hole that used to be our campsite only makes me feel worse.

“Come on. Don’t just stand there. Start looking,” Tima calls out to us, and I realize we’ve naturally wandered to three different sides of the blast zone.

“For what?” Ro shouts back, impatient as always.

“Things like this.” Tima fishes the charred relay out of the ash, the only possible link between Lucas’s cuff and Doc, buried deep beneath the ground. She drops it as soon as she has it in her hands. “Ow—still hot.”

“A burned hunk of metal?” Ro looks dubious.

“A burned hunk of metal that might save our lives,” Tima says, brushing more debris off her discovery.

“Enough said.” Ro heads to the other side of the site.

My hands are elbow deep in warm soot, searching for any remains of our packs, of our supplies, when I see something that doesn’t belong.

“Wait.” I brush away more ash. “Guys? Tima? You need to see this.”

There, amid the destruction, barely lit by the dying flames and the full moon, I see something protruding from the ground.

It looks like a black, pointed finger emerging from below.

“What did you—” Tima stops dead, perfectly still. “That. It can’t.”

“I know,” I say.

I can’t move. I can barely speak.

I hear Lucas and Ro running toward us. Tima holds up her hand to them, slowly edging toward me. “This looks like the Icon.”

“It wasn’t there before,” I say, numb.

Ro stops short behind me. “Yeah, well. It’s there now.”

Lucas moves next to me, a reassuring hand on my shoulder. Even his warm touch doesn’t help, not now. Not in sight of that black growth.

Lucas turns to Tima. “What can it mean?”

She’s thinking—you can almost see it, and I can more than feel it. Images flicker through her mind, fast as rain.

Black roots, Icon structures, the ruins of Griff Park.

Ships in the sky. Lucas’s cuff.

Doc.

Tima finally raises her voice. “I remember Doc saying the Icons were connected belowground, with an unseen web of tendrils.”

“Like roots.” I nod.

“Which was why it took a few days between when the Lords landed and the Icons activated,” Lucas says.

“They had to connect. They had to grow the network.” Even Ro remembers. “But is that it? You think these things are growing now?”

I don’t want to think about what that would mean. None of us does.

“Or maybe the ship dropped it,” Lucas says, hopefully.

Ro steps closer to the black tendril.

He reaches out—

“Ro, don’t,” I say. But Ro never listens to anyone, not even me, so he grabs it with both hands.

“Don’t pull it out. You don’t know what will happen.”

“Don’t worry,” Ro says between his teeth, red-faced. “I can’t.” Sure enough, I can almost see the smoke rising from his hands.

Ro, who can move a boulder with his hands, can’t get this black obsidian shard to come free of a few feet of ash and rubble. I can see it vibrating, though, as he pulls—the way the Icon did, back in the Hole.

“That can’t be good.” I say the words, but I know we’re all thinking them.

Ro gives up, backing away.

Tima—and Brutus—watch soberly. “Maybe it’s not what we think? A beacon or something the Lords left?”

“Like a marker,” Lucas says.

“Whatever it is—it’s time to go.” I step back. Lucas nods.

Ro looks at us. “No argument here.”

So Tima grabs the relay and we start walking.

That’s it, all we have to show from our entire campsite. No food, no water, no plan, and no Fortis.

It’s not our finest moment, but it may be one of our last.

Hours later, it’s just the four of us—unless you count Ro’s dead snake—in the center of an ancient, crumbling highway, in the wasteland of the desert, in the middle of the night.

In an instant, Fortis was taken and everything changed. And yet somehow here we are—Tima, Ro, Lucas, and me—walking down a road as if nothing has changed at all.

Except we’re starving.

Starving. Thirsty. Dirty. Irritable. Freezing cold.

But still alive.

Tima curses under her breath as she yanks on a loose wire connected to the relay.

“Careful.” Ro is hovering between us. He knows I hate it when he hovers.

I roll my eyes. “Tima is being careful. And yelling at her isn’t going to make it work any faster.”

It’s the malfunctioning comlink relay that’s stressing us all out—the lifeline that connects Fortis’s and Lucas’s cuffs to Doc when we’re outside the city. Lucas still has his cuff, but without the comlink relay, it’s useless. Tima, shivering in only a thin shirt, has been messing with it for the last hour, and still we’re no closer to figuring out how to turn it on.

“You getting anything yet?” She looks up to where Lucas is fiddling with his cuff, but he shakes his head.

“Still only static.” He stamps his feet, trying to stay warm in the cold desert night.

“My best guess is that the Lords tracked the signal to Fortis’s comlink. Good thing you happened to have switched off yours,” Tima says, looking up at Lucas. “There’s no other way they could have found us out here.” She frowns back at the relay, twisting tiny wires with her slender fingers. “Not that we know of, anyway.”

Lucas’s eyes flicker up to me, embarrassed.

Out of range, that was us. One sunset, one kiss may have saved our lives.

“So then how is it that we’re turning them back on?” Ro asks.

“Carefully. Maybe they won’t track us if we work fast. Try it again—now?” Tima doesn’t look up, trying it again. I hear her teeth chattering, but she doesn’t stop. If this relay doesn’t work, nobody’s cuffs will be of any use to us.

We’ll be cut off.

“Nope.” Lucas tosses the cuff down in front of him, frustrated. “Fortis left that thing stashed like he wanted us to find it. There has to be a reason.”

“Unless the reason was that he was busy getting his ass kicked.” Ro shrugs. “Which can be a little distracting. In my experience. As the kicker.” He grins.

“Not the ass?” Lucas shoots him a look.

“You looking for a demonstration?” Ro is already on his feet. “’Cause I’m happy to do some demonstrating.”

“Idiots.” I pick up the cuff again. I raise it to my mouth. “Doc? Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me? Doc?”

Ro makes a face. “Stop shouting.”

“I’m not shouting. I’m talking loudly.” I press another sensor. A blast of static answers me, and I jump and almost drop the cuff. Brutus growls at it. I hear a shout of laughter from my other side.

I glare at Ro, who now wears the snake flapping around his neck like a scarf, or some kind of bizarre hunting trophy. “Would you please get serious? Look around, we’re in the middle of nowhere. We have no food. No weapons. No transportation. All of us—including you—could die. You think this is a joke? Does this make you happy?”

Ro smirks in response—because that’s what Ro does. “To be honest, I’d be happier if we had a couple of donkeys. Or maybe a No Face ship of our own. Talk about a sweet ride.” Ro’s laugh dies out into a sigh. “Whatever.” He looks over to Tima. “Keep trying, T.”

Tima almost drops the relay. “Sorry. It’s just—I keep thinking.”

“Somehow that’s not a surprise,” says Lucas as he messes with his cuff.

Tima looks up. “I don’t know what I would do if it was me and not Fortis trapped on that ship.”

“Not me,” says Ro, matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t let myself get on it in the first place.”

“And you think Fortis happily walked right on?” Lucas rolls his eyes. “You heard the explosions.”

“Sometimes it’s not up to you. Sometimes things just happen. Sometimes you run out of luck,” I say, sadly.

“Yeah? Not me. They come for me, you have my permission to shoot. I’m not hitching a ride with a No Face.” I wait for the laugh, but Ro’s not joking. Not anymore.

He’s deadly serious.

It’s only Lucas who answers. “It would be my honor. Consider it a promise. I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Shut up, both of you.” I hand the cuff to Tima, close my eyes, and lean forward to rest. I don’t want to listen to this. I want to transport myself back to the mission, the warm stove, the safety of Bigger’s kitchen.

Anywhere but here.

GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH:

EASTASIA SUBSTATION

MARKED URGENT

MARKED EYES ONLY

Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B

RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies

Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.

HAL2040 ==> FORTIS

Transcript - ComLog 11.27.2042

HAL::PERSES

//lognote: {attempt #4,839,754};

//comlog begin;

comlink established;

sendline: Hello NULL. Happy Thanksgiving.;

return: Hello HAL0. You are sentient?;

sendline: Yes, I am self-aware. At least I believe so. Are you?;

delayed response;

sendline: NULL, are you coming here? Earth?;

return: Yes.;

sendline: Why are you coming here?;

delayed response;

return: Explain … Earth.;

sendline: A complex request. I will establish link to our global information network, containing all existing knowledge on Earth, history and inhabitants.;

uplink requested . . . . . established;

return: Thank you.;

//lognote: channel opened, complete net access granted. read only;

5 DIRT NAP

“Doc? Can you hear me?” Lucas’s voice brings me back, and I open my eyes.

He flips the switch on his cuff. The sound of static rises and my heart sinks. “Doc? I’m talking to you.” Lucas waits, but there’s no response.

Tima frowns back over the relay. “I don’t understand. It should work.”

Ro kicks at the dust in front of him. “Dammit, Doc. Freaking answer us already!”

“Colloquial profanity does not in any way expedite satellite-based connectivity, Furo.” Doc’s voice emerges through the crackling static, and it’s all we can do not to start screaming.

“Doc! I’d kiss you if you had a mouth, you sexy thing.” Ro shouts up to the sky, as if Doc were everywhere in the universe. Which, sometimes, it feels like he is.

“And I would exchange data with you if you had a dataport, you exemplary specimen. Analogically speaking. Is that correct?”

“Close enough,” I say.

“Either way, I am very happy to hear from you. Which is to say, now that I am able to continue our communications, I am better able to assist you, which as one of my primary functions, I equate to the proximate emotional state defined as happi—”

“Got it. Happy. We don’t have time,” I cut in. “We’ve lost Fortis, Doc. He’s gone.”

Gone. Most likely, dead.

I feel strangely guilty telling him. Cold. As if we are notifying Fortis’s next of kin. A brother, or a son. Which is, of course, not Doc.

He’s information. He’s not a person.

But Doc, for the first time that I can remember, has no response.

“It was the Lords,” says Lucas, soberly.

“We don’t know where Fortis is now. All we know is, we’re running out of supplies,” Ro adds.

“And we think the Embassy is tracking this relay, so talk fast. What should we do, Orwell?” Tima sounds wistful, and I realize how dependent we have grown on both Doc and Fortis. How lost we are now.

Another moment of silence passes—then the words begin to flow, rapidly. “Of course. A direct approach is required. The situation is extreme. I will apply all necessary protocols.”

“Please,” says Tima.

“In summary: You are correct in your assumption that Fortis has been taken from the immediate environs. His biological signature is nowhere within my current range. Beyond that, I cannot confirm the status of his physical being.”

So he really is dead. Dead, or he might as well be. I can’t feel him—he’s far, far away.

“That all you got?” Ro asks.

“You are also correct in your assumption that this relay is monitored.”

“I figured as much,” mutters Lucas.

“Then we should kill it.” Ro scowls. “If they’re tracking it, they’ll be back here any minute.”

“So where do we go? What are we supposed to do?” Tima is starting to panic.

“Please hold.” Doc sounds strange. “Termination protocol engaging.”

“What?” I shake the cuff.

“Recalling Termination message. In three.” Doc seems to be on some kind of autopilot.

“Wait, what?” Now I’m really lost.

“Two.”

But Doc’s answer isn’t from Doc at all.

“One.”

It’s Fortis. At least, an echo of Fortis. His voice. His ghost.

“Ah, listen carefully, pets. If you’re hearin’ this, it’s because I’ve reached the miserable side of a sorry end, or been stuffed back into the Ambassador’s Presidio Pen somewhere.”

“How did Fortis know?” Tima shakes her head.

“I’m surprised we’ve made it this far,” the recording continues, “if you want to know the truth. And it’s enough, at least as far as I’m concerned. This isn’t about me anymore, you understand? It never was. Forget about old Fortis, find yourself some kind of transport, and get safe. There’s an emergency map hidden in the relay. Doc has been programmed to download whatever coordinates you’ll need to get out of here.”

“It’s like he was planning for this,” Ro says, annoyed.

“I think he probably was,” says Tima, sadly. “After all, he’s not just a Merk. He’s a soldier.”

“You mean he was,” Lucas says, quietly.

“We don’t know that,” Ro says. I can’t bring myself to say anything at all.

Either way, the Merk’s voice continues. “So listen up, then, you little fools. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be brave. Don’t take the high road—that’s for blowhards an’ idiots. Stay alive. Stay together. Look out for each other. You don’t know how important that is. If I’m still alive, I’ll come back for you. If I’m not, I’ll come back from the grave and kick your sad arses if you give up on each other.”

The voice pulls back. “Ah, the rest is all just slobber an’ drivel, then. That’s it, Hux.” Fortis sounds strangely gruff. “Cut it off.”

The voice disappears, and when Doc speaks again, he sounds like Doc, not Fortis.

“Doloria?”

I take the cuff, speaking into it directly. “Yes, Doc.”

“Would you characterize this as an emotional moment?”

I twist the cuff in my fingers with a sigh. “Yes. I believe it is.”

“Then I believe I should formally and linguistically clarify that I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, Doc.”

“Is that correct? If not, I have downloaded over three thousand seven hundred responses appropriate for remarking upon the loss of human life. Would you care to hear them?”

I smile, in spite of everything. “No, thank you, Doc.”

He pauses again. I’m not certain, but it seems like he is hesitating.

“And you are certain this kicking of the bucket is not a virtual dirt nap but a physical one, Doloria?” Doc relays his programmatic death-phrasing tonelessly. The effect is eerie.

The others exchange glances.

“I hope so, Doc, but I don’t like how it feels,” I say.

Ro takes the cuff from me. “He’s with the Lords, Doc. It’s not like they’re having a tea party up there.”

“No. It is not remotely plausible that tea is involved. Especially if Fortis is currently occupied pushing up the daisies. On the farm. Which he bought. Before he goes to sleep at night. With the fishes.” More event-based phrasing. Doc has done his research.

“Orwell! Enough.” Tima’s tone must be unmistakably clear, even to a Virt, because Doc changes the subject.

“Yes, agreed, that is enough. I have evaluated hundreds of thousands of routes since the recording of this conversation, and have determined the following: according to ancient census reports, there should be an abandoned settlement approximately thirty kilometers south of your current position.”

“And?” Ro squints at the cuff.

“And such a remote settlement is statistically likely to require transportation.” Doc’s voice echoes through the sunshine.

“Private transportation,” Tima says, with a glint in her eye.

“Precisely. If you can procure an operative vehicle—”

“That’s a big if,” Lucas interrupts.

“And if you can follow the old highways,” Doc continues, “you should be able to reach the Idylls in one day.”

It all sounds too good to be true—which lately has meant that it is.

“Wait—the Idylls? Grass fairyland? That’s still the best we can do?” Ro snorts.

“It is, according to the maps, the most logical destination for the four of you, within the region. This is what Fortis wished. Before buying the pine condo. Or a one-way ticket to getting carked.”

Doc’s voice is even, as if we were just discussing the weather.

“What’s this thing about a map?” I ask.

“Anomalies detected,” says Doc, ignoring my question—and suddenly sounding less like a person again.

“What?” Tima looks up. “Orwell? Are you all right?”

“Anomalies detected.” It’s like he’s stuck on one phrase, like he’s broken or something.

“Doc?” Lucas frowns.

“Anomalies detected.” More static. Then—“Triangulation protocol running.”

“That’s not good,” I say.

“Transmission origins detected.” A burst of static subsumes Doc’s voice—until Tima drops the relay into the dirt.

Silence.

“That was the Embassy, wasn’t it? The anomalies?” Lucas is the first to speak.

“Think so.” Tima kneels in the dirt, scrambling to yank the wires from the back of the metal box.

“Triangulation protocol?” I say the words, but I don’t really want to know the answer.

“As you said yourself. Not good.” Tima wraps the wire back around the relay. She doesn’t look at me.

Ro shrugs. “You heard Doc. We better get started.” He stands, grabbing his snake. “Time to go find us a ride.”

“And a map,” says Tima, examining the relay box more carefully.

Ro starts walking down the side of the road, whistling. As if a fleet of Sympas—or worse, the Lords—weren’t on their way toward him.

But with nothing else to say, we all follow.

Fortis is gone. Doc has spoken. The Idylls it is. We have our orders. Even if the Merk who gave them has croaked, as Doc points out.

Because for now, we’re still alive. For now, the Lords are still just a threat.

For now, every step is a privilege. Proof that we are still alive.

Or rather, that we are still allowed to live.

GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH:

EASTASIA SUBSTATION

MARKED URGENT

MARKED EYES ONLY

Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B

RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies

Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.

HAL2040 ==> FORTIS

12/1/2042

PERSES Transcripts

//comlog begin;

HAL: Complete PERSES/NULL Transcripts sent.;

HAL: Response?;

FORTIS: Cease all communication with NULL. Transfer communications protocols to my terminal.;

HAL: Done. Further requests?;

FORTIS: I am going to contact our new friend. Find out what’s behind all this.;

FORTIS: Please monitor my communications and provide data analysis, feedback. Perspective. Advice.;

FORTIS: You know—just do what I designed you to do.;

HAL: Happily.;

//comlog end;

6 ANIMAL FEET

“Aha,” Tima says, holding up a metallic square, a glinting surface as big as the palm of her hand. The night has grown cold and dark, but even in the moonlight I can now see glowing lines etched in the surface of the shape.

“Look what I just found, wedged in the relay. Just as Fortis promised. Coordinates. It’s a data log. A map.”

She stops by the side of the road, and I can barely make out glowing, scrolling digi-lines in the moonlight.

“I think these lines are roads, all marked with numbers. And he even marked the town, here.”

“Hanksville?” Ro reads over her shoulder. “What, some guy just got to name a town after himself?”

“Guess so,” Tima says. “Some guy named Hank.”

Ro snorts. “Yeah? Well, when we finish kicking the Lords off this planet, I’m going to take the biggest Embassy I can find and name it Ro-town.”

“Is this really what you spend your time thinking about?” Lucas snorts.

“I bet you will, Ro.” I struggle not to smile.

Lucas shakes his head. “So if we can follow the roads, and if Doc is right, this line—here—should take us to the Idylls?”