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I pray as I feel the streaming heat of spreading flames.
I pray as I close my eyes to a flash so bright it burns through my eyelids, thin as onion skin, as paper.
I pray as I fall into the silence.
Pick a god—
I don’t know a god. Just a girl.
So I squeeze her hand as the Chopper hits the ground in a ball of fire.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH:
EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Sirs:
I have, after great expense and effort, located and infiltrated the secure archives of Paulo Fortissimo. I believe their relevance to the disastrous recent situation in the Colonies will be instructive, or, at least, illuminating. It is to this effect that I offer my services, in the name of our dear mutual friend, the good Dr. Yang.
Now commencing decryption of files. Will immediately send all relevant materials as they are unpacked and decoded, in chronological order.
Following, you will find transcripts, beginning with initial contact with Lords (done via AI/virtual), research notes, personal journal entries, etc.
We can discuss compensation in due time. Recommend destroying all files immediately after review, Physical Humans being as swayed by emotion as they are. The final decision is, of course, at your discretion.
Yours,
Jasmine3k
Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA
Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang
1 WRECKED (#u882b55ea-af9b-5be6-b001-71061c612a53)
I am lying facedown in the dirt. I taste it. Dirt and blood and teeth as loose as old corn. Every bone in my body aches, but I am alive. Death would hurt less.
I feel hands rolling me over, pressing against my arms, my legs. “No, don’t move her. She’s in shock.” Fortis.
A blur of dirty blond hair comes into view in the darkness, and I feel the familiar warmth surge into my cheeks as a hand touches my face. “Dol? Can you hear me?”
Lucas. I move my lips, trying to make a word. At the moment, I think, it’s harder than I remember. “Tima—” I finally croak.
He smiles down at me. “Tima’s fine. She’s still out, but she’ll be fine.”
I roll my head to the side and I see her lying in the dirt next to me. Tima, her scrawny dog, cactuses, and stars. Not much else.
Brutus whimpers, licking Tima’s tattooed arm, which looks like it’s bleeding.
“Fine? You don’t know that,” says a voice in the night. Ro. I see that he’s just on the other side of Lucas, tossing dead tumbleweeds onto a makeshift fire. Ro doesn’t feel just warm—not to me. He’s smoldering. I could feel him anywhere.
Lucas rubs my hands between his. “I do know that, actually.” He looks over his shoulder. “Because if Tima wasn’t okay, we’d all be dead right now. Who do you think broke our fall?”
Tima. It must have worked. She must have done it.
I remember now the bright blue light expanding outward from Tima just as we hit. The muted, violent shock as we landed, the heat of the exploding Chopper—then nothing.
I sit up, weakly. I don’t know how we got here, but we’re clear of the wreckage, which is still burning black smoke in the distance. I can smell it from here.
I cough it out of my mouth.
Lucas pulls me up until I am leaning against the side of a rock. Ro is there a second later, forcing a canteen to my lips. The cold water chokes my throat as it goes down.
I can’t take my eyes off the burning Chopper. The burning metal carcass that was our only chance to escape the Sympas and get to safety is going up in flames, like everything else. Then—
POPPOPPOPPOP
A string of rapid noises catches me off guard. It sounds like gunfire, but it can’t be. Not out here. “What was that?”
Fortis sighs from the darkness nearby. “Fireworks, love. That’s our live ammo, burning up with the bird.” He disappears toward the fire.
POPPOPPOPPOP
There it all goes, I think. Our dreams of living another day, popping like bubbles. Like a pan of hot corn set in Bigger’s fire.
POPPOPPOP
Gone, gone, gone, I think. Our chances of success in our impossible mission to rid the world of twelve more Icons.
POPPOP
Our shot at making it to the next Icon—let alone coming up with a plan of destroying it.
POP
I try not to think anymore. It’s all too bleak. I only watch. The flames would be higher than a tree—if there were any trees around here. But all I see in the firelight, aside from the five of us, is a flickering blanket of desert floor that rises and falls into a sheet of continuous cliffs and rocks and mountains. An uneven expanse of unkempt scrub and shale.
Nothing like life—as if we’ve landed in the Earth’s own graveyard.
I shiver as Fortis returns from the glowing wreckage, dragging two charred backpacks with him. His ripped jacket flaps and drags behind him, like some kind of maimed animal.
“Where are we?” I ask.
Ro flops down next to me. “Don’t know. Don’t care. Doc?”
Lucas sighs. “Offline. Still. Ever since we took off.”
“What do we have?” Ro calls out, and Fortis shakes his head, dumping the packs next to us.
“Not much that didn’t burn in the fire. A piss pot an’ a pea pod. No real rations. Less water. I’d say we have enough to last two days, three tops.” Fortis taps on his cuff, but all I hear is a flash of static.
Lucas tosses a branch into the fire. “All right, then. A couple days. There has to be something around here. Someone, anyway.”
“Who knows if we even have that long?” I look up at him. “We barely escaped the ambush at Nellis—and now this? The Sympas will have us back in the Pen before we have the luxury of starving to death.”
“Maybe there’s a Grass camp nearby?” Ro says it, but we’re all thinking the same thing.
There isn’t.
There’s nothing out here. We knew that when we left Nellis Base—when the Sympas attacked and we didn’t care where we ended up. But we should have, because now here we are.
Stuck.
Ro tries again. “We can’t just sit here waiting to die. Not after what we did to the Icon in the Hole. We gave those people a chance—we gave ourselves a chance. If we don’t take it, who will? What then?”
We all know the answer to that. The Lords will destroy our people while the Sympas laugh.
Ro turns to Fortis. “There has to be a way out of here. A Merk outpost? Geo station? Anything?” Ro is relentless. Inspiring, almost.
And absolutely crazy.
“There’s your fightin’ spirit,” Fortis says, clapping him on the back. “An’ here’s my fightin’ spirits.” He pulls out his flask, slumping down to the desert floor next to me. And that’s his real answer, I think.
“Ro’s right. We can’t give up.” I look at him. “Not now. Not after everything.”
Not after the Embassy. The Hole. The Icon. The Desert. Nellis.
Fortis pats my leg, and I wince. “Give up, Grassgirl? We’re only just gettin’ started. Don’t send me off to an early grave yet, love. I’m too young and too pretty to die.”
The fire throws shadows on his face, hiding his eyes, grossly exaggerating his stubbled, bone-tight features. At this particular moment, he looks like some kind of evil puppet from a child’s nightmare.
Barely human.
“You know, you’re not all that pretty,” I say, my throat still full of dust.
He laughs, more like a bark, pocketing his flask. “That’s what my mum said.” As he draws his arm around me I can only shiver.
Then Tima groans awake, clutching her arm, and I forget about everything but staying and being alive.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH:
EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
As promised.
Below are excerpted records of communication between Fortissimo (“FORTIS”) and his AI (HAL2040—the early iteration of the somewhat rudimentary Virtual Human we know as “Doc”). These are initial attempts by Fortissimo and his AI to contact the foreign object first thought to be an asteroid, and thus labeled Perses, proving early awareness of potential threat.
Note: Fortissimo’s use of “hello world” (in this case, done in multiple languages) is an ancient programming trope. Displaying the phrase “hello world” indicates success in getting a new machine to connect to its network, to communicate, or show some intelligence. By human standards. (Note: Physical Humans, that is. Virtual Human standards are by nature much higher.)
Yours,
Jasmine3k
Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA
Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang
HAL2040 ==> FORTIS
Transcript - ComLog 04.13.2042
HAL::PERSES
//lognote: {PERSES communication attempt #413};
sendfile: ascii.tab;
sendfile: dict.glob.lang;
//lognote: as before, sending files with dictionaries/text protocols;
sendline: hello world;
return: . . . . . no response;
sendline: 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 0100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100;
return: . . . . . no response;
sendline: 48:65:6c:6c:6f:20:57:6f:72:6c:64;
return: . . . . . . no response;
