Expatria: The Box Set (45 page)

CHAPTER 21

It was night-time in Ark Red and Stopp slept fitfully, wedged between a lichen-encrusted log and a velvety bed of moss, a few tens of metres from the Zagreb Complex.

Lui Tsang came to her as the white sunlight was beginning to filter gently in, the morning beginning tentatively to break.

She smiled. He looked funny in the dream. More intense, more fluid. As if an artist had been playing games with the trifacsimile projector. 'Hi,' she said, yawning, stretching, rubbing her eyes. 'You look like hologram soup.' It sounded funny but she didn't care, in her dream.

Lui smiled and bowed his head. 'Stopp,' he said. 'Come. I want to show you around. I want to show you your world like you've never seen it before.'

He reached out a hand and Stopp took it, marvelling at its warmth. She looked back at her body in the moss bed, shrugged, let Lui lead her down into the Complex.

They passed through the doors without pushing them open, they passed into the console bay without need of the guide rails and grab-bars. 'Hey, this isn't real,' she said, as she stopped without even trying.

Lui swam over to one of the false spaces reserved for holo projections. He turned and beckoned to Stopp. 'Come,' he said. 'I want to show you... 'And then he began to fade, flickering at the fringes of perception, vanishing finally.

Stopp moved forward, suddenly unsure. Where had he gone? She swung herself into the holo space, turned, looked back out at the banks of screens and restrainers, the doorway.

The console bay began to darken.

Stopp felt that she should panic but she didn't know how... she felt she should flee, but instead she just stayed where she was, let the room slide into grey, into black, into more than/less than black.

'I knew you could do it,' said Lui.

'Here.' A viewpoint flashed into her vision, an overall view of Red's internal jungle, the view from a mobile camera; with the spectrum skewed towards infrared, Stopp's speck of body heat was highlighted starkly against the vegetation.

'Here.' Another view of Red's interior. This time it was just the overgrowth, no floor level visible.

'Here.' Another. The viewpoints were piling up, one on top of the other. Somehow Stopp could see them all, study them all. She felt a little dizzy but she thought she could probably take it.

~

'We're in ArcNet,' said Lui, swimming up to hang somewhere in the mind-space between the various views of Red's interior. 'Or our mind facsimiles are—our pre-psylogues, if you like.' It felt warm, with him inside her, all around her, like that. If he was there in person she would probably want to screw with him.

He smiled, said, 'Come. Let's quit kindergarten.' Faded.

She followed him easily this time, although he could have been helping her, or ArcNet could. She didn't know.

She sensed all kinds of views of the orbital colonies, internal and external. Lots of blind spots too, places where it felt there should be more. 'GenGen have cut off a lot of the cameras,' said Lui, beside her, around her. 'They don't like to be watched.' He laughed suddenly. 'But they like to
watch
,' he continued. 'They have teams of special evangelicals—some of the ones you heard Roux and Kingston discussing, the ones that even most of their own people don't believe exist—watching over all the transmissions between Expatria and orbit, all the ones their consoles mark out as relevant, in any case. They know everything that's happening on Expatria, or at least everything that's broadcast out to orbit. One of the MetaPlex's favourites, a special active called Patrische Kingston, is organising it all. It's one of his pet schemes, like the hit squads in Newest Delhi and Orlyons. He—'

'How do you know all this?' Lui seemed transformed from the person she had spoken to the previous day. A new worry occurred to her: 'And how are you telling me this if they're monitoring your signal? Are you Lui or are you a psylogue?'

'I know it because I've spent the past eight hours finding my way around in here. I figure I know ArcNet even better than
ArcNet
does, in lots of ways. I'm not a psylogue, though. ArcNet holds a kind of primitive psylogue of me, but that's only so I can get into the system like I am now. Down there I'm dreaming, like I am up here, but I'm still me—Lui Menzies Tsang—I'm just helped along a bit by the 'Net. The signal between my room in Alabama City and ArcNet is shielded. Has been for three days. They don't know we're aware of their monitoring so the shield is working. But we can't protect all the links or they'll just escalate their surveillance. ArcNet knows its limitations: we can't take the MetaPlex on head to head, we have to be more smart than that.

'Come on, Stopp. We're wasting time.' Now she felt something definite, guiding her through the void, leading her through channels of nothing. She didn't like to think of taking the MetaPlex on, she didn't really believe it could come to that.

They flowed through the ArcNetwork, a small globule of data, gelled together by bonds of knowledge. They flitted from nook to crack to tiny crevice. A view spread out and Stopp held on to it, Lui encouraging her from somewhere nearby. A sweep of green, a hundred metres by maybe three hundred, expanded beneath them. Shrubs grew from the green, along with flowers and mushrooms and huge, tangled balls of moss. Something darted across the scene in a perfectly straight line. It was a bird. It had looked strong, its line had not varied. Birds didn't fly like that unless there was gravity.

'Right,' whispered Lui. 'It's the three tee. This is a top storey of one of the Roman blocks. It goes down five storeys beneath.'

'But ... how...?'

'We've slipped into the MetaPlex,' said Lui. 'We're marked off as the guiding mimeosentience of a Roman autonome—the mimeos flit in and out all the time, they need to so that the control levels of their director's mind can shape their actions with real-time mental impulses. So long as we keep moving, we'll be OK. Come on.'

He gave her a mental tug and the view disappeared.

They emerged again in a small room, filled with heady scents. A group of evangelicals were sprawled all over the floor, wires trailing from plastic strips at the bases of their skulls. 'It's a common room,' said Lui. 'Meta's sampling the air for illicit substances. The evangelicals are Free-wIring. The Meta' keeps records, makes sure they're not going too far, that kind of thing. The psylogues figure there's no stopping substance abuse, so they manipulate it, using it as a kind of reward and control system, a blackmarket version of Maxing. Come on.'

View cut to blackness, back to a thoroughfare. Streams of menials hurried along the sides of the street, bowing and cutting out of the way of any evangelicals or actives. Occasionally a menial would not dodge and was subjected to curses and abuse as it brushed against or bumped into its superior. 'The Meta' is really worried about the menials,' said Lui. 'They're playing up and they never have before. It can't find any flaws in their breeding.'

'They thought it might be a rebel virus,' said Stopp.

'Yeah, they thought a lot, but they still don't know why the menials have learnt to say "No" or "Maybe" or, worst of all, "Why?" Come on.'

They cut to a view unlike any of the others. It was a docking bay, crowds of menials floating all over the place, no centrifugal gravity to pin them to the floor. A few actives cut through the crowds, a few more evangelicals. There were at least three vessels docked to the
Third Testament
, and the menials were loading them with huge cases of supplies. A man in a baggy body-suit was barking commands at a line of seven Romans. His skin was dark, his hair a ginger mat, his eyes narrow, penetrating.

'That's Patrische Kingston,' hissed Lui. 'And that's another of his special units. All evangelicals, to keep them distinct from the actives. It's easier to cover them up if they act like evangelicals. Come on.'

They switched to another view of the same docking bay. 'We're in the heart of the three tee,' said Lui. 'The core. This is a special place. They dock here, yeah, but there's more. It's where everything comes from, it's where everything goes. The MetaPlex is wired into all of the three tee—there are processing ganglia everywhere you go—but this is where it's really at. This is the MetaPlex, Stopp, this is GenGen's heart.

'It's going to go its own way in forty-five hours. The core's going to break away from the three tee. It's going to isolate itself completely so that its only link with the holy staff will be the broadcasts it makes. It's going to fix itself into orbit a few hundred kilometres ahead of the colonies.'

'What about the
Third Testament
?'

'That'll stay right here for the holy staff. It's only the Meta' that wants out: it wants to protect itself from any threat. You should listen to the MetaPlex arguing. At macro scale it's one vast computer system, but everything it does is shaped by the psylogues, by their personae. They have so many different mental levels they can argue with each other in literally hundreds of different forms. They even argue with themselves.

'ArcNet's been stirring them up, too. Now that I've been here for a time, the 'Net has all these mental echoes that it can use to worm its way in and set them to arguing. Come on.'

They cut to a view from inside one of the shuttles, looking back out into the docking bay. Menials were dragging plants and young trees into the shuttle, ready, no doubt, to stock up one of the arks to the GenGen design. 'It's worrying. Sometimes I think ArcNet actually wants to get back at the Meta', like it's some kind of revenge syndrome.'

'It wants to come out on top,' said Stopp, watching the perfect co-ordination of the teams of menials. 'Maybe 'Net is standing up for the little people.'

'Come on,' said Lui suddenly. 'I've got a bad feeling. We've been leaving echoes all over. ArcNet has plenty of covering to do if the Meta's not going to find us out. OK?'

Blackness returned, swamping her mind, fogging her. She pulled herself back, searching for control. She smelt earthy scents in her nostrils, felt damp moss pushing out at her body, lichen scratching at her forehead, making it itch.

She opened her eyes, blinked, looked around. She stretched, frowning as she remembered slices of her dream. She tried to hang on to them, but the harder she tried the more surely they fled.

Lazily, Stopp scratched her head. She felt more tired now than she had before she had slept. Maybe a drink would help.

~

The singing was louder than ever. It seemed to worm its way inside her head and then expand, making her skull throb with the pressure of it all.

Stopp shook her head. She tore a strip of pap moss from a floating clump and squeezed it. The water hung in the air in wavering globules and she sucked most of it up and swallowed gratefully. Most of the moss was dying now, even in the more sheltered corners of the ark; Stopp guessed that it was something to do with the drop in the temperature.

She pulled herself through the gum tree, edging closer to the singing menials branch by unsteady branch. They sounded far too close. The mission houses had been nearer to the main docking area...

Ahead, the overgrowth thinned. Stopp peered out from behind a tangle of vines. Overnight, they had cleared another huge swathe of vegetation, upwards of two hundred metres in length and almost half of the way around Ark Red's circumference. She could see the original mission house at the most distant end of the clearing, along with its three neighbouring buildings. Since she had last been here, frames for five more constructions had sprung up, all attached to the ground level of the ark. Menials and evangelicals appeared to be everywhere, working at the buildings, lounging about, listening to preachers, singing psalms and folk tunes. Towards the distant end, several strands of menials led to the docking bay, carrying their loads of tools and equipment.

Evangelicals watched over them, barking their instructions as an active barks at an evangelical and a director at an active.

She pulled back. She hadn't expected anything like this.

There was a farmstead at the other end of Red where there were tunnels out to growing units on the surface of the ark. Maybe there would be a suit that Stopp could use, enough air to get her across to Babeloah.

She set off through what remained of the jungle, cutting a line parallel with the thinning fringe of the GenGen clearing.

'
And when the broken-minded people fall in line, unite, agree, There will be a future, Shine on me
.'

The words rang clear, they rose above the general hubbub like a trifax leaping out from the screen. The diction was perfect, the accent unadulterated GenGen, the timing microscopically precise. She knew the tone but not the voice it had become.

She edged herself through a clump of wych-fir to try for some kind of a view.

'
For though they may be blinded there is still a chance that they will see, There will be a future, Shine on me, oh gee-gee
.'

Zither was alone in a small cavern of tangleweed, washing himself with pap moss, singing more perfectly than he had ever sung before. '
I can see it shinin' on me
.' His body was trimmer, the muscles seemed to move in unison across his chest and his shoulders where there had only been loose skin and jutting bones before. '
Oh I can see, oh gee-gee
.' He was wearing his usual grey groin cloth but the clothes he had spread over the bush were new, made of the shiny linen EpheHermann had made a great show about.

'
In the light of GenGen I will be, I will see
.'

Stopp joined in on the familiar last line. Her voice sounded awful, set against the smooth precision of Zither's; she dropped the last note where Zither held it, turning gracefully to stare at the bush where she was concealed.

She pulled herself out into the open, smiled, stopped her hands from leaping up to dance at her sides. 'Hi,' she said. 'Long time since.' She felt her face burning and she didn't know why. She was out of practice at this kind of thing, one to one, in the flesh, person to person... She dragged her eyes away from his groin cloth and looked for a moment at his face, before her gaze moved onwards, making her feel awkward, uncomfortable, scared at her own ineptitude.