too high-tech for cosmo

 

 

 

 

 

There's no time, like the present. Nothing has changed.

You are no longer Flying. All sensation of the air, before so complex and subtle and thrilling, has been covered, dampened – crushed. You are in the snug grip of something which presses you like a flower inside a book. Gravity is beside the point. There's no depth in which gravity might pull. All the ants you ever stepped on return to mind, revenants splayed juicily across two dimensions, their final scent-parcels wafting towards you with the message: 'Now you know how it feels, sucka!'

But you don't really know how it feels. Gossamer's pain receptors have not been wired to you. And if you really were a squashed ant, you'd be dead now. You're still with Goss, so you figure Goss must be alive.

But she can't move. And something funny seems to be happening to her senses, or to the nex at any rate. Because you feel yourself dissolving. You travel down highways of luminous color; you see and feel globules that seem smooth from a distance and then leap at you and show themselves to be spiny, or pockmarked – or even geometrical like crystals – only to retreat, teasing, to join a larger liquid. At the same time you go juddering through a thicket of solid branches that grow in all directions. They cut right through you and yet don't destroy you. You break into fragments that still know each other, even as they drift apart to their separate destinies.

All of this seems to have been going on for an indeterminate time, an Alka-Seltzer effect persisting almost to the point of unin-telligibility. Plop-plop; fizz-fizz: goodbye everything that used to compose you. You are now in so many places at a time that your awareness is a mist of non sequiturs. Your sense of identity hangs there like a kitten in transit, gripped by the scruff of the neck: no choice but to trust Mom.

Then, with a jerk, your senses return to Gossamer's body and you realize that she's been in the well all this time. Now someone's pulling her out like a wet kite.

Major Arla Gonzalez holds Gossamer at arm's length and squints at the wound made by the crossbow bolt.

'Pobrecita,' she croons. 'You'll be OK, Gossamer. But you're not going anywhere near that convoy.'

She shakes the well fluid off Goss and you feel like a mouse in a tumble dryer. Then the sky and the Grid and the ground reassemble themselves and you feel the cool hardness of battle armor against your dorsal side. You are hanging from something and looking at the Grid. Gossamer is limp, helpless. What is carrying you begins to move.

The four-point rhythm of a monkey climbing tells you what's going on. Arla has donned Gossamer like a cloak and she's making her way through the Grid.

Your first impulse is to scream for help from MF. But would they help you? Could they help you? Reassignment and reprogramming sounds suspiciously like graft on a new brain and out you go with the leftovers. And that was the offer on the table while Goss was still in one piece. She might not be worth repairing, according to the calculations of MF. Totaled. Written off.

On the other hand, you know where their MaxFact missile is.

You can verify the existence – and mortality – of the child-golems. Maybe you should call them . . . or maybe not.

Gonzalez has no trouble finding the rest of Serge's team. They have returned to their camp in the altered Grid; it's a logical place to wait for Serge, and also, from their point of view, a safe one. Its lines and forms remind them of home. The Grid seems tamer here. You are not at all sure if this is a good thing.

'I'm not a golem!' Gonzalez yells as soon as she can see them. 'Don't attack me!'

'Dr. Gonzalez!' Klaski cries. Her face is dirty and marred by burn scars, but she's still pretty.

'Sweet Jesus, it's her. Good to see you, dude!'

'Jenny Hendricks?' says Gonzalez. 'What are you doing out here?'

'I got bored doing paperwork at the clinic. Stupid, right?'

'Yeah,' laughs Gonzalez, a little hysterical. 'Give me four beige walls and a coffee machine any day.'

Nobody asks her why she fled. Everybody hugs.

The absence of Serge hangs in the air like an odor.

'I'm sure we'll be able to meet up with your captain soon,'says Gonzalez in that mellow, melting voice. 'She said she was turning her Swatch off temporarily for security reasons. Something to do with golems intercepting signals.'

'Can they do that?' asks Lewis, looking terrified.

'She said to keep you guys together and keep Klaski under control.'

Klaski bursts into tears.

'I let her down, I know I did—'

'Shut up, Klaski,' says Lewis impatiently, turning back to Gonzalez. 'Last we heard, she was under ambush. You saw her get out? How did you get separated?'

'She told me to take the Flier and get out of the area. She said she could take care of herself and I believed her.'

'S*$t,' says Hendricks. 'l hope she's OK.'

Lewis says, 'We'll get Goss airborne again and then we can look for her. I'll see if we can get through to Major Galante. I wonder if she's been in contact with MF.'

Lewis flips open her Swatch and starts making calls.

'Have some water, Arla,' Hendricks says, offering a canteen.

'You better play careful with that,' Arla replies. 'We could be here a while.'

'What happened to Gossamer?' snuffles Klaski, reaching out as if to touch you.

'Golems,' answers Arla. 'I found her in the well. Got her out just in time.'

'Lewis can look at her. Maybe we can repair—'

'Not now,' says Arla crisply. 'That's a job best left to the experts.'

Not what you were hoping to hear. Now the guys are telling Gonzalez about the first ambush and how the golems mysteriously vanished when the girls came. The weird structures in the Grid. How they can't find Galante's convoy.

'Ttt, tttch!' Arla shakes her head. The fact that she is dissembling seems painfully transparent to you, but evidently not to the others.

Cup-a-Soup is broken out like champagne. Crackers are dunked. Everyone is excited.

'OK.guys,' said Arla eventually. 'As you know, l'm a medical officer, so I got nothing to prove when it comes to authority, OK? I'm not a soldier. You guys know that. On the other hand, I've survived out here on my own and I know my way back to N-Ridge, which is the closest outpost to us.'

'What about going back to X?' says Lewis.

'Without machines?'

'We could try and get ours back. Just one transport.'

'Yeah,'says Hendricks,' We'll just take on about a hundred golems in full battle gear. That sounds like a good idea.'

'All I'm saying is what's the good of going on to N-Ridge? If the golems control the roadways, we might get stranded out there.'

Arla shrugs. 'Should we have a democracy? Is that what you want? OK, let's vote. Who wants to go back through sixteen miles of Grid without machine support?'

Klaski sits on her hands. Hendricks looks at Lewis, who flips open her Swatch and says, 'Let's ask Dante.'

'It makes more sense to continue to N-Ridge,' Dante says. 'Major Galante has left a skeleton team there. You might even run into her convoy on the way.'

'Do you have aerials for us? Can you give us any extra information?'

'We lost our aerials when Gossamer took a dive. You're on your own, kids.'

Lewis chews her lip.

'I'd like a chance to repair Gossamer. At least we'd have a scout,' Hendricks says. 'Yeah, let's see if we can get some pictures. We need something to go on. No radio contact with N-Ridge means we got no idea what state they're in up there.'

Lewis says, 'Maybe Major Gonzalez knows something about that'

'I know a lot about that,' purrs Arla. 'lt's a machine camp. It has a defended perimeter to protect the structured-materials mines. It's the most important region of the planet right now, and therefore I figure it's the safest place to be. More so than X, even. The profits we're looking for are going to be derived from what the machines find in the mines. Whatever Machine Front may do, they won't give up N-Ridge.'

'Why have us around at all, then?' says Klaski. 'lf the machines are so great, why can't we just go home?'

'Stop whining,' Lewis said sharply. 'If you didn't want to be here, you never should have signed on.'

'I didn't think it would be like this, 'Klaski retorts. 'l could swear I'm moving, like, two feet sideways every couple seconds, but I never go anywhere. The Grid feels weird under your feet. I didn't expect it to be so . . . physical.'

No one pays any attention to her.

'Major Galante has established control of N-Ridge.' Lewis's manner is slow and thoughtful. 'I think Dr. Gonzalez is right. We were supposed to rendezvous with Major Galante anyway. She's probably looking for us even as we're looking for her. She got sent on our tail because . . .'

Because she couldn't find the logic bullets at N-Ridge. Because Gonzalez is suspected of removing them somehow, at the time of the golem raid. Because only Gonzalez knows what really went down that day. The thoughts track across Lewis's face, all too obvious to you.

Then Dr.Gonzalez turns to face Lewis, and you can only see Klaski, picking her nose and tapping her foot like a rabbit's heartbeat.

'Then we're agreed. We make for N-Ridge.'

Lewis calls Major Galante and informs her, tersely, of their plans.

'Let me speak to Dr. Gonzalez,' says Galante.

Lewis's eyes flick towards Gonzalez, who is bent over Serge's abandoned kit, repacking it for the journey. You can hear the exchange perfectly well, but that doesn't mean Gonzalez can. Lewis is some way away across the floor of the Grid structure, and she's speaking softly.

'Ma'am, I'm sorry but that won't be possible,' said Lewis.

'What do you mean, that won't be—'

'Gotta go, Major Galante.' And Lewis snaps shut her Swatch. Gonzalez doesn't give the impression she's paying any attention. Every so often a ration pack or tampon will go flying through your field of view, tossed over Gonzalez's shoulder as she reorganizes Serge's kit. The air is thick with epinephrine and assorted other Grid-made uppers with unpronounceable names. You taste mint and cotton candy.

You watch Lewis. She rubs her hands on her thighs, smearing the battle armor with Grid pollen. Her close-cropped red hair is greasy and stands up in spikes, making her look like that singer with Eurhythmics, except older and more pinched. Lewis suspects that Gonzalez is up to no good. She knows that Galante, on the receiving end of such a clipped communique, will interpret the message either as an indication that Lewis has gone bonkers or as a distress call. Coupled with Galante's already-urgent need to find Gonzalez, either interpretation will get MF focused on finding them.

You can't understand why Gonzalez has allowed Lewis to call MF at all, though. Why has she bothered to hook up with Serge's guys, and why is she not more overt in her kidnap of them? Because this is effectively what she has done, and eventually they will realize it – or she will be caught by Galante.

You try to pick up a line to MF but there's too much interference. Your coms seem to be working, but your charges are low and you can neither give nor receive a strong signal. You put out an automated SOS anyway, hoping that it will break through if you reach a high point or a quiet patch in the Grid's electrical field.

This is very frustrating. You can't fly. You can only see what Gonzalez's position allows you to see. You've come back to the Grid so that you can finally do something. You've come here to act. And you can't.

You might as well be in New Jersey.

 

Gonzalez doesn't waste any time. They pack their camp, perform the requisite incinerations, and set off through the Grid. You find yourself looking back on the group. Lewis swings herself from limb to limb with smoke hissing from her gloves and boots where they make contact with the Grid. The faceplate of her helmet is smeared with some organic paste, probably a developing slime-mold or half-cooked flywing, but she doesn't wipe it away. Her eyes flick back and forth as she reads the chem-link's transmissions on the interior of her helmet, every so often shouting to Arla to change direction or to climb higher to avoid a dangerous region. Behind her, Hendricks follows doggedly, with less grace but an unflagging energy, bearing most of the equipment burden in a large backpack. Klaski brings up the rear, and sometimes she's so far back that the others have no choice but to stop and wait for her. She is perpetually red-faced and out of breath, and she has the shakes.

'It's my fault,' she keeps saying. 'It's my fault. What am I going to do?'

She shies away from the well whenever the group go near it. 'Her golems are going to come out of there. They'll come after me.'

Hendricks tries to encourage her but Lewis says, 'We don't know where Serge is, so stop talking about golems.'

'But what if she's—'

'Then it is your fault. Now shut up and stop whining. Life isn't all pop tarts.'

'You aren't her, so stop pretending!' Klaski flares.

Softly at first, as if she doesn't even notice the budding argument, Gonzalez starts singing 'You've Got a Friend' in quite a nice contralto.'

She sings with R&B flavor and plenty of vibrato, so that instead of sounding like Kermit the Frog – oops, that is, James Taylor – Carole King's song sounds like soul.

Pretty soon Hendricks and Klaski join in, too. Klaski mumbles the words and adds, 'Yeah, yeah yeah,' but hopelessly out of tune.

Lewis doesn't sing. Possibly she is more sensitive to irony than the others. She keeps looking at her Swatch. You can't see Gonzalez's face, of course.

But you can see several sets of dark eyes appear and disappear in the Grid to either side and above. No one else notices; but your sensitive, Gossamer-enhanced ears can pick up the Grid humming along, a faint and eerie chromatic echo.

 

It's impossible to know which way Gonzalez is leading them, but she seems purposeful about it. She's holding something in her left hand –you glimpse it once, as she hastily hides it in her vest pocket when Hendricks unexpectedly appears to ask her a question. It looks a little like a smooth grenade. You see her consult it surreptitiously and wonder if it's some sort of homing device. None of your orientation points are available to you visually, and the Grid interferes with coms down here. You haven't got a prayer of getting a clear signal until you can get aloft again. And at the moment, that seems unlikely.

After five hours they break because Klaski is ready to drop. Gossamer needs a recharge too or you'll lose hope of boosting a signal to MF. But Lewis doesn't ask Gonzalez to hand over the flier again. She knows Gonzalez isn't giving up the goods.

It looks bad for you.

Lewis says, 'Zero response from the Captain. I got a bad feeling about it.'

They make food. Gonzalez tries to engage Hendricks in a philosophical discussion on the meaning of golems.

'Don't you ever wonder about it, Jenny? If the well can make a dead person's heart beat again, what could it do for a live person? Could it make you immortal? Don't you wonder just a little?'

'Don't want to be immortal, doc. I just want to get back to Missouri. 'She pronounces it 'Mizorah'.

Arla turns to Klaski. 'You're the quiet one,' she says.

Klaski manages a faint, obligatory smile.

'Serge was overdue for leave, guys.' Arla's tone is kindly, her Latin tones purring as they stroke the air. 'She was incredibly dedicated, but she should have taken a break. For her own sake, for everybody's sake. Out here in the Grid, the emotions get to you after a while. You have to get away. Especially if you're the type to deny your emotions anyway.'

She watches Klaski, who is crying silently. Nothing new about that. Arla goes over and puts her arm around Klaski's shoulder, and Klaski collapses into her.

'I know,' Arla says. 'l know.'

Lewis keeps looking at Redbook, and there's a funny little dead patch while Klaski sniffles and Arla stares into space. You are acutely aware how artificial this comradeship is; how ill-at-ease and duplicitous. You are also aware of the Grid, humming and pulsing. Ever since reading about Serge's musical experiences, you notice its soundmaking more. You also keep thinking that you glimpse the girls, keeping pace alongside sometimes, or sometimes watching from above. lt's hard to be sure. Gossamer's eyes aren't well-adapted to seeing into the Grid at such close range. You belong in the sky, not in this soup of uncertainty.

Then Hendricks barks, 'Hey! Beans are ready.'

Everybody jumps because she sounds just like Serge, who is gone.

The others watch Gonzalez eat. She makes faces and pleasure noises.

'It sure is nice to see somebody enjoying the cuisine out here in the field,' says Klaski. She looks at her own bowl. 'I wish this was pizza.'

'The interesting thing,' Lewis says, 'is how there are no carnivores in the Grid. The ecology is all based on the Grid itself.'

'I've noticed that,' Hendricks put in. 'Gossamer here feeds directly off the Grid, and it doesn't seem to mind. Nothing actually kills each other.'

'No, it only kills us.'

'Machine Front will finish that up,' Lewis says confidently. 'The Third Wave is already coming in, and once the new MFeels are here there won't be need for any personnel. So no killing. The effort can become purely scientific.'

Gonzalez breaks off eating, suppressing a belch.

'That depends what you mean by killing. The ecology of this planet extends to its electrical fields and its mineral substrate. Take the logic bullets. Structured metals.'

'But what is a structured metal?' Hendricks asks.

'Something you could make smartbombs from, apparently,' Lewis answers. 'Logic bullets. Fight the Grid with its own language. Something you could use in computers. Ask Klaski. She got into MIT.'

'Jo? What are logic bullets?'

'Something too high-tech for Cosmo,' says Klaski, looking annoyed. 'They're a way of encoding information. Kind of like a computer disk. But you can't stick it in your computer. Machine Front have been developing the interface and looking for ways to decode the information recorded in the planet's insides.The logic bullets are the result of a distillation of the Grid's whole way of processing information. Plug them into the right hardware and we should be able to predict certain things about the Grid.'

'I didn't know you knew all this,' says Hendricks. Klaski gives a wan smile. 'What things could you predict?'

Klaski shakes her head. 'Electrical behavior. Placement of branch arms. How the scent-language works. All the things that make it impossible for us to move effectively through the Grid, or over it, with machines.'

Gonzalez is chuckling. 'ls that what they teach you in school?' she murmurs, shaking her head.

'Do you know something I don't?'

'Logic bullets are going to be used back on Earth, to make our computers run faster and better, to solve problems we can't solve, to make the guys who get hold of them a whole lot of money.'

Lewis shrugs. 'Military technology always filters down for civilian use.'

'Maybe,' says Gonzalez. 'But I don't trust Machine Front anymore. I think they're in over their heads – actually, I think they're in over our heads.'

Lewis says, 'Maybe, but as long as my Swatch tells me the stuff I need to survive, I'm not trading it in, you know what I'm talking about?'

'That's OK,' says Hendricks airily. 'We don't got to talk politics. I'm thinking about doing my hair in cornrows. When I get back, I mean. This frizz is driving me nuts.'

'You should,' Lewis puts in with her mouth full. 'You'd look good with long hair.' Klaski looks bothered.

'But, Doctor Gonzalez, everybody at N-Ridge—'

Lewis kicks her. 'Leave the doctor alone, Klaski.'

Klaski starts to pout, but Hendricks tries to smooth things over.

'We're eating. She doesn't want to talk about that stuff now.'

'It's OK,' purrs Gonzalez, and smiles at Klaski. 'What do you want to know?'

'I was just wondering how you survived all this time without Machine Front? How did you escape the golems?'

Gonzalez blows on her beans. 'They never seemed interested in me. Sheer luck, I guess. Maybe it was my perfume . . .'

Lewis casts you a lot of sidelong glances.

You are their best hope. Only you know where you really are – or would know, if you could just get into the open air. Only you have a silent link with MF – again, if you could get a signal. Lewis studies your torn wing whenever Gonzalez's turned back presents her with the opportunity. She's doing it now; but she must be aware that Klaski is taking the conversation too close to personal questions about Gonzalez and the Grid, and Serge.

Abruptly, Lewis says, 'Did you know that they do brain surgery without anesthesia?'

'No way. That's disgusting,' said Hendricks.

'They do. Your brain doesn't have any nerves. It can't feel pain.'

'I don't believe you.'

'It's true, scout's honor.'

'Yeah? Then that means a brain surgeon could operate on himself, right?' says Klaski. Her stomach is filling up and her confidence is coming back. Too soon, to your thinking. 'That's what I'd say before they could get me under the knife. "Hey, doc," I'd say. "Let's see you do it on yourself before you go doing it on me.'"

General ha-has.