Shall Machines Divide the Earth
Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Copyright © 2021 by Benjanun Sriduangkaew.
Cover art by Rashed AlAkroka.
Print ISBN: 978-1-60701-545-1
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60701-544-4
Prime Books
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For my regalia
Chapter One
Carnage summons me, as ever it does. Septet may be a world perched on the universe’s edge, but even here mass slaughter is remarkable. One can wade into it, this concentration of blood and mucus and lymphatic wet, the slime of ruptured organs. Brains congeal in little gray and pink puddles; intestines curl like ropy necklaces. A cannibal’s feast. Though a cannibal would cook them first. Such viscera are too raw even for them, and I’ve never met one who’d slurp cerebral tissue right from the bowl.
“One of those was my daughter,” the woman beside me says.
“My condolences,” I say automatically, aware I sound sarcastic: my face is of a particular cast, not given to sincerity. Naturally cruel, my wife and later lovers have said, the countenance of someone with knives for a heart. There isn’t much I can do about it, nor have I been inclined to. I like my looks and they occasionally serve me well.
The stranger’s head twitches. Her face is hidden behind a smooth celadon mask. It attaches seamlessly to her, likely filtering out the reek and turning her features into a flat, glazed plane. This is a woman in need of anonymity. “I heard you were a detective.”
I wonder what she thinks that means, whether she believes I possess supernatural perception that would bring logic to these dismembered parts and their sopping asymmetry. “I mentioned it in passing to someone, yes.” Over drinks with a comely woman on the passenger liner that brought us to Septet, an off-worlder who’s here for profit rather than the prize. She deals in arms and information, even something as minor as what she gleans from pillow talk. “But I wouldn’t put much stock in it, if I were you, and I’m not here to hire myself out as an investigator. Like most people, I’m here for the game.”
“I just need to identify who her AI partner was. And which AI killed her. Then I’ll file against the Mandate for treaty breach.”
This woman is wealthy, I judge, socially well-placed where she came from and thus used to getting her way. I don’t bother pointing out that Septet is exempt from that treaty between humanity and the Mandate, the nominal governing collective that AIs answer to. Any human that sets foot on this world tacitly agrees to be slaughtered by machines. “She was here as a participant,” I say, more to draw information out of her than to establish any client relationship. The dead girl was my competitor, technically, even though I haven’t officially entered the game yet. But I mean to. Typically as many as fifty humans participate; the number whittles down fast.
“Yes.” Her mouth, I imagine, is pursing. “Her partner was defeated. I think. But they’re AIs, they aren’t really dead. My daughter . . . ”
She can look at this mess without flinching—interesting. Or else her mask has replaced this view with a more pleasant vision and she is only half present. On my part I don’t look away simply because I’ve seen worse. Not so much the quantity but the manner and the depravity. Human killers can be more meticulous than this, arrange tableaus more disturbing by far. Our sadism runs deeper than any AI’s ever could.
“Did she carry anything that might identify her?” I say, at length. This woman is too squeamish to wade in and I am curious.
A pause. Whatever would identify the daughter will also forfeit this woman’s anonymity. Fortunately for her I’m not interested in who she is. “Our family crest. A red chevron, mostly titanium in content, five by eight centimeters. There should be a void pearl embedded in it, and it should be attached to a black chain.”
I refrain from giving my opinion on the sort of people who feel the need for family crests. Her accent I can’t quite place, and of course I can’t discern either her or her daughter’s ethnicity. Most of the corpses have had their skulls caved in or neatly bisected. Not much of a face left to look at. I blink on one of my sensors, scanning for metals. A lot of that to go around: most of these corpses were armed, several armored, and some could afford military-grade nanite weave, to judge by the density of leftover adaptive material, now inactive. I filter again for certain meteoric compositions and alloys needed to stabilize void jewelry.
This narrows it down to a couple spots. I step around a smattering of severed fingers and bend to fish a thick bracelet out from a handful of mesentery and pancreas. Not the right one, though I keep the bracelet regardless. I locate the chevron in a hand that hangs, barely connected, to its wrist. Clenched tight. I pry it apart and turn the crest over, recording its image, dimensions, and motif. Having an idea of who the dead were will come in handy later when I try to identify their AI partners and, by process of elimination, guess as which AIs are still active.
“This should be it.” I toss the crest to the grieving mother. She scrambles to catch it and recoils when it lands wetly in her palm.
She clutches at the crest. The memento, or at least the proof with which she hopes to sue the Mandate. “Why would anyone consent to this insane tournament?”
Victors are granted any wish, so the machines promise. However avaricious, however unlikely. Rule your own planet. Receive infinite riches. Obtain what is as close to immortality as possible, through anti-agathic treatments normally reserved for the Mandate’s favored. The universe at your fingertips, offered up on a plate. “I’m sure your daughter had her reasons.”
The faceless mask cranes toward me. “What’s yours?”
We are strangers. She doesn’t actually care
