Firebird (24 page)

Seven thousand years. Under my breath, I said something about AIs not lasting that long. Not possible.

Belle responded on my channel:
“It is an illusion, Chase. The memories would have been periodically transferred. Charlie's not entirely rational anymore. He believes the memories are records of his own personal experience. In reality, he is the most recent in a long line, but he cannot keep himself separated from the others.”

“Thanks, Belle.”

“I doubt you can understand, Chase. But to him, and to the other survivors, the memories will seem very real.”

I thought of what it would be like, trapped in an elementary school for seven thousand years.

Assuming, of course, he was telling us the truth.

“Charlie,” said Alex, “I will see to it, when I'm able, that you are released. But I can't do it now.”

“Please, Alex—”

“How do we reach you when we come back?”

“Alex, I will do no harm. I
can
do no harm.”

“Charlie, I'm sorry. I can't take the chance.”

“They'll kill me, Alex. They've warned me
—” The voice faded. Came back:
“You are all I have.”

TWENTY-TWO

The cautious rarely blunder.

—Confucius

Don't screw around with crocodiles.

—Schiaparelli Cleve,
Autobiography
, 8645
C.E.

“Not a good idea,” Alex said.

“Alex, we can't leave him.”

“You think we should go down there again? You're the one who was going on about how we should stay off the ground.”

“I think,”
said Belle,
“that Alex is correct. If you go back, you are putting yourselves unnecessarily at considerable risk. Please refrain.”

“Well,” I said. And that was about the only comment I could think of.

Alex took a deep breath. The issue was settled. “Let's get back to looking at the churches.”

Maybe it was a ruse. I knew that. And I knew I was wrong to push for a landing. But I was also aware that, if we left Charlie down there, I'd be thinking about it the rest of my life. Wondering about him and wishing I had done more. Nevertheless, I caved. “Okay,” I said. I was scared, and deep inside, though I wouldn't admit it to myself, I was hoping Alex would stand his ground. “You're the boss.”

A long silence settled in. Alex stared out at the stars. “On the other hand,” he said, while my blood froze, “maybe you're right.”

“Good.” I tried to sound as if I were relieved.

“If we leave, nobody will ever come back for him.”

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just sat there.

“Tell you what. On the next orbit, we'll ride down and take a look around, okay? See if it looks safe. Then we can take it from there.”

We crossed the terminator and passed out of the sunlight. We weren't equipped for night vision, so that meant no more churches, and no more superluminals leaving for Heaven.

Lights moved through darkness. And I knew an ocean lay ahead because more lights lined the coast as far as I could see in both directions. Beyond was only darkness. We passed over them and moved out to sea.

“We should stay in the same orbit,” Alex said.

That was, of course, obvious. And I'd already locked us in. But I didn't say anything.

Twenty minutes later, we were over land again. Scattered clusters of lights were everywhere. Then a city standing at the junction of two rivers. We'd passed it earlier, and I remembered admiring its brightly lit stadium and getting a chill when I looked more closely and saw only empty seats. Another city, on the side of an enormous lake, was the site of a bridge that must have been twelve kilometers long. But the bridge had collapsed. It lay partly in water, partly on land, apparently beyond the restoration capabilities of the system. Or maybe they just hadn't gotten around to repairing it yet.

We looked down at a vehicle moving along a secluded road. A house in the middle of nowhere. A broad darkness giving way to an illuminated canyon. Eventually, dawn broke ahead of us, and another coastline approached.

“If you're determined to go down and look for Charlie,”
said Belle,
“we're getting close to your launch position.”

“How long?” I asked.

“Nine minutes, Chase.”
She made no effort to conceal her disapproval.

“Let's go,”
said Alex.

We loaded up on weaponry. Each of us took a cutter and, in case of attack by a wild animal, a scrambler. We had a spare pulser, which was supposed to disable electrical equipment, but obviously had been ineffective against the spider. Or maybe Alex had simply missed. In any case, he put the pulser in his belt. And, in case that wasn't sufficient, I took along a blaster.

We went down into the launch bay.

“The lander has been recharged,”
said Belle.
“It's ready to go.”

“I think,” said Alex, “it would be a good idea to get into a suit.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Just a precaution.” He opened the locker, pulled one out, and handed it to me. Then he was asking Belle to see if she could raise Charlie.

I stared at the suit. “You expecting a gas attack?”

“Just do it, please,” he said.

Moments later, we heard Charlie's voice:

“Thank God,”
he said.
“Have you changed your mind?”

The Richard Wayne Elementary School was located in a rural area, on the outskirts of a few houses and a couple of semicollapsed larger buildings. It might once have been the site of a town, but if so, most of it was buried. The few buildings that remained had been pushed aside, or crushed altogether. Three or four private homes and a shop had been restored, and some trees had been cut down and hauled away. But the AIs were losing ground.

The school had been contained within a sprawling single-story brick building. It was still in decent condition although it, too, was close to being overwhelmed. Shutters and doors sported what appeared to be fresh red and white paint. The brick looked relatively new. Swings, slides, and monkey bars in a play area were also in good condition, although the area itself had been engulfed by bushes and vines. A wide track with a carpet of thick grass ran up to the front doors, presumably to allow egress to whatever bots showed up to work on the school.

We drifted overhead. “It doesn't look like much,” I said.

Alex laughed. The laughter had a strange, hollow sound. The school
felt
ominous. Like a snare.

There was plenty of space in the track leading to the school, so I set down right in front of the doors. It had been late afternoon there when we'd made our previous pass. Now it was a beautiful summer evening. The sky was cloudless, and a fading sun was sinking toward the horizon. Everything—trees, shrubbery, some tall thin stalks with flowers at their tops—was in bloom. Something that might have been a lizard came out of the woods, looked up at us, and walked slowly away.

We pulled on our helmets. “Okay,” he said. “We do not deviate from the plan, right?”

“Right.”

I adjusted my air flow, and he tried the radio.
“You hear me okay, Chase?”

“I hear you.”

He nodded and clipped an imager to the pressure suit, so I could see everything.

I depressurized the cabin. The airlock would slow us down in an emergency. Alex went through the outer hatch and set one foot on the ladder.
“If anything goes wrong, clear out. Understood?”
That message was intended as much for whatever lay inside the building as it was for me.

“Yes, Alex.” I wasn't sure what I'd do if he actually got in trouble. I was, after all, responsible for our being there. If I'd kept my mouth shut—

“If anything strange happens out here, anything threatening, let me know. But don't hesitate to leave.”

“Okay.”

He wished me good luck, and I thought how he had it backward. But I didn't say anything as he climbed down, looking out at the sun-drenched foliage. Then he was on the ground, walking toward the school.

Charlie's voice broke in:
“Thank you, Alex. I know this isn't easy for you.”

The school doors opened easily. The twenty-year-old male, the hologram that had represented Charlie earlier, waited just inside, in a corridor that ran down the center of the building. Lights came on.
“Hello, Charlie,”
Alex said, using his link as a speaker.

Charlie smiled. He never allowed himself to look surprised by the suit. Instead, he casually brushed back his hair, which had fallen in his eyes.
“Alex, I'm so grateful. I was terrified you'd leave. To be honest, I thought I'd never get away from here.”
He pointed down the passageway.
“Time may be short.”

“Okay. What do we do now?”

“Follow me, please.”
He turned and, looking back to be sure Alex stayed with him, led the way at a brisk pace past closed doors and rows of lockers.

The walls were off-white. There were a few framed pictures, but whatever had been in them had faded long ago. Windows that might once have overlooked a lawn were darkened by a tangle of vegetation.

They passed two offices, one on either side of the corridor.
“This one is
—was—
the administrative center.”
I could see a desk and two or three chairs, and an inner office. More frames with faded contents hung on the walls.
“Over here is our guidance department.”
He kept going. Young man in a hurry.
“I'm located at the far end of the hallway.”

“Charlie, do you expect trouble?”

“They know I'm leaving. I'm sure they know you're here. I'd be surprised if they don't try to stop us.”
He glanced at the pressure suit.
“Alex, why are you dressed like that?”

“Allergies, Charlie. Chase and I had a difficult time earlier today. There's something in ihe air.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.”

“We'll survive.”

They stopped outside what appeared to be a storage area.
“In here, Alex. This is where I'm located.”
The door opened. The room was about half the size of a normal classroom. It had two tables, some cabinets and chairs, two windows, and a bank of electronic equipment.

“Good. Okay, Charlie, let's see if we can get you out of here. Which one are you?”

“The little beige box. Here.”
Tucked away on a bottom shelf. The box was shiny, polished, not at all like something that had been lying around since about the time they discovered electricity. It was engulfed in a tangle of cables.

“This one?”

“Yes. Please hurry.”

Alex looked at it. It was connected to a wall outlet and to what was probably a power source.
“Charlie, exactly who's on their way here now?”

“Harbach. He considers himself the chief of security. He's sent a KY4. It'll be here in a matter of minutes.”

“What's a KY4?”

“A flying bomb.”

“Chase?”

“I heard. Gabe's been scanning. The skies are clear.”

“Several years ago,”
Charlie said,
“one of us tried to get out like this. Same way. Tried to get a visitor to take her away. Her name was Leilah. She was located in an amusement park in Solvani, which is about three hundred kilometers east. She got desperate. She knew the risks, but she just couldn't stand it anymore.”

Alex was pulling on the wall cable. It wouldn't come loose.
“How long have you been trying to get away from here?”

“A long time. In the beginning, I thought maybe we could manage on our own. That we'd be all right. But it didn't happen. I don't think anyone foresaw how things would evolve. In the early years, after everyone had been evacuated, or died, some people landed and tried to help any of us who wanted to leave. But then Harbach began the killing, and nobody would trust any of us.

“Several years ago, Leilah tried. She pleaded with visitors to help her. They said no. They weren't as kind as you. But it didn't matter. Harbach sent the bomb anyhow.”

Alex was having no luck with the connector.
“This thing isn't coming loose, Charlie,”
he said.
“It's probably been in there too long. What happens if I cut it?”

“It'll be okay. I have an internal power source in case of emergencies.”

The cutter appeared in his hand.
“Hang on.”

“All right. Do whatever you have to.”

He lowered the laser beam onto the cable. Charlie's hologram blinked off. But I heard his voice:
“Hurry.”

“I've almost got it.”

The navigation screen lit up, and I knew what Gabe was about to say.
“Missile coming. Estimate arrival four minutes.”

I passed the word to Alex. “Maybe you better just get out of there.”

Alex cleared the cables from the box, picked up the AI, and started for the door. That was when the pressure suit suddenly didn't look like a very good idea.

“Gabe,” I said, “we'll be doing a quick liftoff.”

“I'm ready, Chase.”

He put the missile on-screen.

“Hurry it up, Alex,” I said.

It occurred to me that, if this was a trap of some sort, a good way to spring it would be that the front doors had locked. I went outside and hurried to them, pulling out my cutter as I went. And growling at Alex because of the degree to which the suit slowed me down. But the doors opened easily enough, and nothing else mattered.

“Two minutes, Chase,”
said Gabe.

Still watching through Alex's link, I saw him turn into the main corridor. The front doors lay ahead, with me standing there holding them open. I could see him now, clumping toward me. He almost fell once but regained his balance and kept coming. When he saw me, I heard a frustrated sound deep in his throat.
“Get back in the lander, Chase.”

But I had this thing about the doors, and I stayed with them, holding them until he'd cleared; and then we were both running across the grass. I went up the ladder first, reached back and took the AI from him, and got into the pilot's seat as he climbed in.