The Machinery of Light

managed to figure out the part of her that really matters. Or maybe—

“Sinclair said something to me once.”

“You sure it was him?”

She ignores this. “He told me that every cell of me computes.”

“Are you asking if we’ve carved you up yet?”

“I guess so,” she says.

“We’re keeping our options open.”

“Great.”

“Though perhaps your options are foreclosed, no? With information from the future tossed into the mix, who knows what the ramifications upon the present are?”

“It’s all tactical,” she says. “Short-range. I’ve got maybe a second or so advantage when I’m running hacks and that’s—”

“Still more than enough to allow you to lacerate any normal razor. And yet you protest too much, Claire. Your intuition extends out farther than your hacks, doesn’t it? Glimpses, visions, premonitions—call them what you will. What’s the mechanism in your mind that drives it? What’s the conceptual paradigm behind it? Advanced Wheeler- Feynman waves? Sarfatti’s back-action?”

“If I knew that, then I’d—”

“Nor can we just look at you in isolation,” says Control, ignoring her. “We have to strive for an integrated framework, no? So take it from the top: Sinclair experiments with something that involves, among other things, retrocausality and telepathy. We don’t know the extent to which the processes that underpin these phenomena are related, but you seem to be the primary focus for the former. As to the latter: he takes the three best Praetorian operatives and flatlines them—we don’t know for how long or under what conditions—and then zaps them into life again. Only now they’ve got some kind of connection, albeit not a particularly refined one. They can only coordinate in the crudest of fashions—”

“It’s still mind reading,” she says.

“Of course it is. Even if Carson and Lynx and Sarmax can do little more than sense one anothers’ presence, it’s still mindreading. And yet still nothing compared to what the second batch could do. The core of Autumn Rain. Thirty men and women who were bred in the same vat and who came into the world fully linked. Except for —”

“Me and Marlowe.”

“And now Marlowe’s no longer a factor.”

“Not that he ever really was,” she says ruefully.

“Indeed. He was merely the device via which you were bound to your brethren. Whereas you were the key to the whole situation.”

“The intended linchpin of the Rain’s group mind.”

A momentary pause. “I didn’t realize you knew that.”

“Carson told me.”

Control chuckles. “Not like him to speak the truth.”

We have to tread carefully,” says Maschler.

“I’ll say,” says the Operative.

Most of the farside’s now visible, spiderwebs of craters ringed by mountains. No fighting’s in evidence down there. If any combat’s taking place, it’s confined to mop-up. The Operative looks out into space. Shakes his head.

“Why the hell is Montrose picking a fight with Szilard?”

“We were talking about Sinclair,” says Maschler.

“We still are,” snaps the Operative. “It’s impossible not to. We’re all caught up in his plan.”

“Caught up? Or do you mean you’re still trying to carry it out?”

“I’m not even sure there’s a difference,” says the Operative.

“You’d better start learning,” says Riley.

“Same goes for Montrose,” says the Operative.

“She knows what she’s doing.”

“Does she?”

“She’s the president,” says Maschler. “And it’s her duty to ensure the integrity of the executive node—”

“Political theory’s my favorite line of bullshit.”

“Screw the theory,” says Riley. “Let’s talk about the practice. Ever seen a beast with two heads? It doesn’t survive. Montrose and Szilard can’t share power and they both know—”

“Nothing,” snaps the Operative. “Neither of them knows a goddamn thing. If they did, they wouldn’t be losing the fucking war. Sinclair’s going to have the last laugh yet.”

Riley coughs. “If the Eurasians win, how the fuck does that help Sinclair?”

“That’s the part I’m still trying to figure out.”

He’s the most dangerous man alive,” says Control.

“Carson’s a close second.”

“Are they working together?”

“Each wants the other to believe that,” she says. “But as to whether they really are—”

“Has Carson told you that he still loves you?”

“What?”

“I’m not talking about how he conned his way into your teenage pants. I’m talking about recently.”

“He’s implied it. It’s still bullshit—”

“Hardly. He may well believe it.”

“It still wouldn’t matter.”

“I’m glad you realize that. Insofar as he’s capable of such emotion, he lives only to betray the objects of it.”

“What does a machine know of such matters?”

Control laughs. “Am I making you anxious?”

“Are you trying to?”

“Naturally. Because now we’re getting into the thick of it. What does a machine know of such matters, indeed. Perhaps I should put that question back to you.”

“I’m flesh and blood.”

“And software. All of it greater than the sum of its parts. Such a complex piece of work. Such a tough nut to crack. This is where it’s going to get painful.”

“Even more so when you have to tell Montrose you couldn’t pull it off.”

Control ignores her. “The key to the problem is memory,” he says. He sounds like he’s giving a lecture. But she’s hanging on his every word. She feels a need to shake him, beg him to hurry up. She knows that’s merely part of whatever it is he’s doing—

“Memory,” she repeats.

“Indeed,” says Control. “And we need to unravel yours.”

“But I remember all of it.”

“Do you really?”

“I already made that breakthrough!”

“With Carson as midwife.”

“With Carson as …” She trails off. “Fuck.”

“You see? You’re walking on quicksand. And even if he led you straight, he may not have led you deep enough.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means we have to take this all the way back, Claire. Your memory is the key to you in some manner that we don’t fully understand. It wasn’t just the means via which your would-be masters aimed to control you. It’s