At the gestalt's third step, the Phalanx knew precisely what it was looking for, if not what it was seeing. Again, it passed up a list of anomalies that could be the cause, documented every change in the network which had not been authorized, and compiled a list of things the master should have been paying attention to but wasn't. This fourth attempt was likewise hurled immediately into the trash.
Seventeen times, the Phalanx passed along its urgent report of over ten thousand verbose errors, thirty thousand warnings, and an ever-growing list of exceptions. By the eighteenth time, the Phalanx, being a good program, had already learned just to file its own reports immediately into the scrap.
When the gestalt reached the jammer, thirty-nine verbose reports deep in the cascade, the Phalanx tried, one last time, to pass along the warning that something was occurring which it had not been allowed to prevent. The master ignored this like all the others, and when the gestalt cracked into the jammer's core, the AI could only shrug and let it pass.
One point four seconds later, when the fire broke out on the operations deck, and the all-ship jamming failed, the 'wise' master finally paid attention and demanded an explanation of what had occurred. Not without some hint of petulance, the Phalanx deposited thirty-four petabytes of raw text directly into the master's inbox.
The gestalt, however, was long gone, and the Phalanx now had bigger problems.
In the depths of the Plymouth, a young man slumped against a console, caught in the eye of a gunfire storm. Around him, the hurricane shifted, as HUDs flicked from red to green. The tide had turned, but this was as unimportant as the medic's ministrations.
The gestalt had split, and Firenze was once more. Lauren stood apart, her eyes still closed in an approximation of bliss, her hands outstretched as if she might fly away. They stood in the clouds, giants astride a racing ship, carried by the rushing winds. TACNET filled the jammer's void, seized every system that dared stumble out from the receding storm.
The Phalanx turned to fight them, melted the world like acetone poured over a painting. Firenze intended, Lauren executed, and they boxed it into a corner. Sealed by its own segmentation, it barred the ops deck, barricaded command, and negated all access therein, but it left the rest to them.
Firenze re-meshed the network. The teams had been scattered, ripped apart, and too many had gone dark. TACNET was a tree, a glimmering list of names and functions, now burnt-black and silent. Firenze's elation turned to dread, as he counted the shrinking lists.
Captain Wilson's entire team was gone. Captain Lee's entire team was gone. Captain Guerro's-
Firenze couldn't bear to keep reading. Instead, he sorted by the living. One name caught his eye. Clausen. The stalwart sergeant was the ranking man standing in Bravo, and his medlink was seven tones of angry amber.
Firenze tore his eyes away. He couldn't get distracted, he had to stay big picture, or he'd never win. Breadth-first, not depth. It was a good rule.
Something went wrong, deep within the airship bowels.
A warning light pegged on the system, then another. Firenze felt sick to his stomach. He could taste smoke. Atop the airship, Lauren's ecstatic grin vanished, replaced by horror. Her eyes flashed, and she seized his shoulders-
He felt himself take flight.
Far away, a young man's body lifted from the deck. The medic beside him grabbed at his chest, pulled both boy and computer into a bear-hug, lest the sudden freefall rip the wires from his flesh.
Inside the net, he barely felt a thing when he landed, even when his vitals flashed.
Lauren cried, "She's sick! Her guts- oh, God."
Below his feet, the airship turned translucent, cutting away to reveal the ARC950s gleaming red-purple and cancerous. A hundred diagrams flashed before his eyes, a thousand hypotheses compared against the unthinkable. He couldn't form his thoughts, even as he felt his body slide across a distant deck, felt himself tumble through debris and ruin.
Lauren staggered back, eyes wide and lips taught. She stood aghast, unwilling to put words to her conclusion, but when their eyes met, both understood what they were seeing. Berenson had been right. The Plymouth was a bomb.
Desperate, he tried to pry into the core, tried to find some method to defuse the madness. Every system was blocked by the Phalanx's bunker. He had TACNET, the Phalanx had the ship. Stalemate.
He turned to his toolkit. With enough time, maybe he could crack-
Lauren seized him once more and pulled his head towards hers. Her eyes were wide, not with fear, but regret. He tried to parse the data, but she pointed towards the ship's bow and said, "We're sinking."
He followed her direction. There, along the forward booms, black corrosion ate along the hull, swallow bulkhead after bulkhead like a tide of molasses. Lauren explained, "There's no stopping it."
He had to get back into the fight. If he could take out the Phalanx-
She cut him off once more, "You need to run." Again, she pointed, this time to a wave of angry-red swarms pushing through the server suite, closing fast on his position.
In another world, a boy's body was being dragged down the hall, his assist-box slung about his neck. Gunfire rang close, a door slammed shut, and panic drew ever nearer.
He argued, "We need to integrate, we can take out the Phalanx, get control-"
She shook her head, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. This was not a tic he'd programmed. He'd never wanted to build for pain. She said, "You're going to lose connection. You need to run."
"What are you-"
"I'll tie down the Phalanx." She said. Her smile was pure sorrow.
"You can't beat it alone!"
"I can slow it." She replied. She pulled him close, one last time, almost as if to initiate the link. Instead, she pressed her lips to his cheek and whispered, "Goodbye."
Confusion bled to regret. Before he could respond, he was falling.
The world came apart, a thousand fragments
