The counter clerk must have noticed her startled expression. “Ma’am?” he asked helpfully. “You want a coffee or something?”
“Crazy,” she said aloud.
“Ma’am?”
“Not you.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Allison’s Story
1.
I waited for Turk among the aircraft on the docking level high above the city.
I had taken a twisty route to get here, up the quiet starboard terraces and along the shaded parkland corridors Treya had loved as a child. Every garden and gateway along the way was freighted with memory (
The aircraft bay was an open terrace, protected from the toxic atmosphere by an electrostatic roof. Voxish aircraft were aligned across this vast flat acreage as if they had been planted there, silvery crops in a mechanical garden. The maintenance and flight crews had all gone home to be with their families. My footsteps sounded like water dripping in a vacant room.
I found an inconspicuous place at the base of a light tower and sat down and waited. An uncomfortable amount of time passed. I began to think Turk might not show up. That he might have been prevented from showing up. That he might have
What if he didn’t come? But it was an easy question to answer: I would die here. In all likelihood the Hypothetical machines would dismantle and consume Vox Core the way they had dismantled and consumed the vanguard expedition out on the Antarctic plain, and that would be the end of it. I felt an uncontrollable upwelling of fear. Not the predictable fear of dying but the special and very Voxish fear of dying
Then I heard a door slide open in one of the transport pods some distance away. I hid myself and waited until I was sure it was Turk. He walked out of the vertical transport stiffly, maybe reluctantly. His expression was hollow and haggard. I called his name and ran to him.
Because Vox was a peaceful and crime-free community it had little use for internal security beyond the routine vigilance of the Network. But for much of its history Vox had been at war with external powers, chiefly the bionormative communities of the Middle and Elder Worlds. Our aircraft were weapons of war, and they were secured as weapons of war.
I chose us a large but lightly armed craft of the kind used to transport weapons or troops. The entry hatch was a Network-enabled interface like the ones Turk had lately taught himself to use. When I was Treya I could have opened it effortlessly just by putting my hand against the control surface and working the options in my head. But I had lost that ability when I lost my node. As Allison, I was locked out of all but the simplest Voxish appliances and applications. The problem was that Turk was a novice, and he was obviously having a hard time focusing his intentions. He may, at this point, have been uncertain about what he really wanted. A long breathless moment passed; then the hatch slid open.
We stepped into the vehicle as the interior lights winked on. I quickly checked to see that the aircraft had its full complement of supplies, including food and water to last us through the Arch to Equatoria. The stasis lockers were stocked and complete. There were no warning lights or sounds, which meant we were good to go. Turk took a seat in the forward compartment of the aircraft. It was possible to fly the vehicle from any of its control surfaces, and you didn’t need visuals to know where you were going. But Turk had been a pilot in his past life, flying by eye and hand. The first thing he did after he established an interface was to create a window display in the front wall, as if he were sitting in an old-fashioned cockpit. Suddenly I could see the wide expanse of the hangar deck in front of us—it made me feel defenseless; I would have preferred a blank wall.
But if it helped Turk, so be it. I took a seat beside him and watched the deck for any sign that we’d been noticed. Which came immediately. Yellow lights blinked on over the transit pods. Company was coming. I was surprised it hadn’t come sooner, but that might have been Isaac running interference for us. “We have to leave,” I said, “now.” The ship’s controls couldn’t be overridden from outside the vehicle… at least I didn’t think so; but if a second vehicle came after us we could theoretically be intercepted or shot down.
The aircraft didn’t move. “Having a hard time keeping the menu in front of me,” Turk whispered, visualizing a display I couldn’t see. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“It’s just like the training interfaces. All we need is to go
Outside, the nearest transit pod slid open and disgorged a company of soldiers.
“Now, Turk. Or else we stay.”
He gave me a helpless look.
I said, “I don’t want to die here.”
He nodded. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Abruptly, the deck fell away beneath us.
2.
Our aircraft pushed through the electrostatic barrier into murky daylight.
Suddenly Vox was a dark patch on the surface of the Ross Sea far below us, the scuttled islands of the Farmers surrounding it like a sunken reef. We rose at a vertiginous speed until the sea was lost in mist, rose until we soared above a deck of clouds that ran to every horizon.
Turk confirmed our destination with the aircraft’s onboard protocols and managed to lock out any signals coming from Vox. Which also isolated his node from the activity of the Coryphaeus—he shuddered once, then shook his head as if to clear it. He instructed the vehicle to alert us in the event of pursuit (there was none, probably thanks to Isaac) and sat back, drained and pale, from the control surfaces. The clouds below us looked as forbidding as a range of wild mountains.
He looked at me with his eyes narrowed. I remembered that feeling—the way Treya had felt when the Network shut down, as if all the color and sense had been drained from the world. “Promise me something,” he said.
“What?”
“The thing they attached to my spine—once we get where we’re going, promise you’ll cut it out of me.”
Solemnly, I promised I would.
