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  Amy nodded. "He's right. They will." She tried smiling. "I'll be OK. I brought him back to you once; I can do it again."

  "Don't bother!" Gabriel tried standing, but the ship tipped again and he had to catch himself. Gripping the turret's control panel, he pointed at the melee of hungry women and falling cargo. "Either of you! It's futile!" He licked his lips. "We have learned everything we can from that iteration. And if we want there to be any others after him, we have to let this one go."

  Javier's face fell. He looked down toward the boats. Amy knew they sat just below the turrets, waiting to be winched up and used. Inside her, Portia rasped and writhed.
He's dead weight! Leave! Now!

  "Dad?"

  Javier blinked and straightened. He turned to face Ignacio, who stood with arms folded. The ship pitched and Ignacio briefly rose above his father. He held the rail loosely for balance, as though it were merely a tree swaying in a storm. His eyes flicked over to the collapsing mess at bow and starboard. "Don't leave him, Dad. Please. Get him out of there."

  Javier's face creased into a smile. "I can do that." He turned to Amy. "Let's go."

  They leapt straight upward. From the air, she saw hordes of women separating them from the area where, she hoped, Junior still waited. They carried steel rebar and rusty chains, and even broken bottles stolen from other containers. Their teeming mass reorganized itself and directed its attention at her – and Javier – as they landed on separate containers. Instantly, some crawled up after her, mouths open, the torn skin of their fingers exposing the black bones beneath. Amy leapt to flee, but one grabbed her ankle and pulled. She fell hard on her back, her vision hazing briefly as it worked to process the sudden shift in light. Then her aunt hove into her field of view, and she saw nothing but teeth before they gnashed down into the soft skin covering her bicep. Ionic fluid spurted free. It didn't hurt, but Amy yelled anyway, right in her aunt's ear, and swung her fist into the side of her aunt's skull as she chewed. Her aunt's tongue continued digging away merrily into the flesh of Amy's arm, and Amy saw the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile.

  
Good girl.

  Growling, Amy rolled her legs to her chest and kicked her aunt in the stomach. That sent her flying – Javier's climbing mods were good for more than just jumping. She hopped to another container, again using her vantage point to survey the terrain. She saw a hundred blonde heads, but not the dark one she wanted. She landed as the ship rocked, and she slipped, the skin of her arm ripping still further as she grasped frantically for the raw and rusty edge of an old blue container. It teetered. She imagined being crushed under it as it fell. Then the ship righted itself, and her face burned on the container's chilly surface as she slammed back against it. Hauling herself up, she touched the wounds her aunts had left behind. It was her failure at Redmond all over again. She'd had no clue how to fight back. Her shove just happened to be lucky. A fraction of a second later, and her aunt would have taken them both down. Then she'd let herself get taken by surprise all over again, and now a chunk of her arm was missing.

  From three container-lengths away, Amy heard shouting. Javier. She watched as a festering boil of her aunts' twisted bodies popped and out he flew, streaming silver smoke. They'd bitten him, too. They wanted what he had. What Amy had. That they couldn't get it wouldn't stop them. That a ravenous sea monster was currently gorging itself on their ship while they too tried to feast wouldn't stop them, either. They'd keep coming. They'd chew Amy and Javier down to the bone. And when they found Junior, they'd do the same to him.

  Amy shut her eyes. She tried to cancel out the surrounding noise. "Give me what I need."

  
Well, look who's come crawling back.

  "If I die, so do you."

  
I've already reproduced myself into those little Lolis, remember? I'll be happier inside them, I'm sure. They're much bigger thinkers than you are.

  Amy opened her eyes. The fresh tide of Portias climbing up to her kept kicking each other in the face and chest as they struggled to gain ground. That didn't stop their slow surge forward. It delayed their progress only briefly while they paused to snap at their sisters or daughters or cousins.

  "Give me what I need, and I'll give you what you really want."

  Portia remained silent. Amy heard Javier yelling. She forced herself not to look.

  
You'd give yourself up
? Portia asked.
You'd let me take control forever
?

  "Forever." Amy stood up. "Help me save them both, and I'll promise I'll ride shotgun until the day we die."

  
Well, sweetie,
Portia said,
looks like you've got yourself a deal.

  Javier landed behind her. Claw marks stretched across his stomach and down the undersides of his arms. Defensive wounds. "I can't get through. If you distract them–" He paused. "Amy?"

  "I'm sorry," she said. "For everything. I held out as long as I could."

  Comprehension rippled over his face. "No." He shook his head, and reached for her shoulders. "No. Don't do this."

  Amy looked at her feet. Already, her legs were stiffening. "I already have." She looked up. "She'll help you. Better than I can. She–"

  "
¡Cállate!
" Javier's raw hands trembled on her shoulders. He swallowed. "Fight her, Amy. Please." He leaned their foreheads together. "Just hold on a little longer, and we'll figure something out–"

  The ship rocked beneath them. A shadow fell over them, and they ducked as a container toppled into the gauntlet of women below. It rolled down the wall of brightly coloured steel as the ship righted itself, crushing bodies as it went. A moment later, Amy's aunts began their crawl anew. "There's nothing more to figure out. Portia's the one you need, not me."

  He shook his head. "That's not true."

  "She'll be here in a minute, Javier." Cold crept up Amy's spine. "And she'll be staying. Forever." She rested her hands on his arms. Their grip hardened and Javier stared at them, his face a mixture of terror and something else that she'd never seen cross his features. Dread, maybe. Desperation. "I won't be here, any more. Do you understand me?"

  
He won't kill us, Amy. Haven't you learned yet how the failsafe works?

  "Do you understand me, Javier?" Her throat began to close. "I want you to–"

  His mouth closed over hers. His hands found her face and his fingers sank into her hair. It was a good kiss, as far as Amy could tell; it contained within it all the other kisses that should have come before and after it, and he moved like he was looking for something inside her and trying to draw it out. Her lips were the last parts to go cold.

  When he pulled away, Portia licked those lips. "I guess that's why they pay you the big bucks, isn't it?"

  His jaw set. "Hang in there, Amy. I'll figure something out."

  "Aww." Portia reached up to pat his face. He swerved away, but her fingertips grazed him. "You don't have to be brave, baby. She loves you even when you're weak." She smiled. "Oh, and thanks for the legs!"

  She flew.

 

Portia crushed her daughter's face underfoot. Blood streamed through her toes as she bounded forward, and it leaked from her scalp when another iteration grabbed her hair and ripped it from her head. It was the garbage dump all over again. This time she broke one daughter's shoulders with a single jump, and smashed another's pelvis against the juncture of a container, crushing her from behind while she crouched in wait. As she descended back into the swelling riot of her clade, Portia reached into their chests and their mouths and their eyes and started pulling. She grabbed arms and kicked stomachs. Then she found a fire axe bolted to the ceiling of a container.

  That made short work of things, but it did nothing to steady the ship or keep the containers from sliding out beneath her feet. With each jump, she glanced down to watch some of her daughters or granddaughters die, crushed between containers. Their limbs twitched against the steel and their blood dripped along the rivets. They smeared like mosquitoes. The remainder of their number cowered under the curling shadows of the dark and glistening arms that rose from the water. It made them easy targets.

  Killing them was unnecessary. The ocean, or the thing inside it, would do that. But breaking them – watching their faces glimmer with recognition just before her feet flattened their throats, hearing them say "Mother–" in the moment just after their arms opened and just before their breastplates left their chests – that was special. They looked so confused. They tried to ask why.

  
Total selection
, she almost told them. But these pale copies, their skin thin as paper, their bones airy as ice, would not understand. They deserved no explanation. After all, she would have done all this anyway, had her quest to find Charlotte's first not gone so strangely awry.

  "Found him!" Javier stood atop an overturned green container wedged between half-crumbled walls of green ones. He waved his arms, and almost fell over when the ship rocked. "Over here!"

  Portia joined him in one jump. She crouched atop the container. Javier yanked the axe from her hand. He hacked open the door, ditched the axe, and poked his head inside. "
¡Junior! ¡Vaste conmigo, ahora!
"

  From all around them, the other iterations crawled slowly toward the container, undeterred by the pitch and yaw of the wet and slippery terrain.

  Javier crawled out of the container backward. He carried his son on his back. When the boy's eyes met Portia's, he wailed. He hid against his father's neck and pointed at Portia.

  She smiled. "He remembers me. How sweet."

  She stood, searching for the lifeboats. Javier's eyes widened just before a pair of teeth sank into her side. Portia dodged away, but the ship shuddered and rolled, and they all stumbled across the container's roof. She watched two more iterations haul themselves up to the surrounding containers. They stared enviously at the blood dripping from their sister's mouth.

  "Why isn't it working?" the iteration asked. She was wounded, but she looked more irritated than anything else. She licked Portia's fluids off the back of her hand. "Why don't I feel any different?"

  "Because you
aren't
any different." Portia walked back slowly to the edge of the container's roof. Javier jumped up high to another wall of containers. "Eating me won't change anything. Your code won't be rewritten. You will never have what I have."

  The iteration bared her teeth. She was so young. So frustrated. She charged Portia and Portia's hand went for her heart. Her fingers curled around the iteration's ribs. Still, she looked so angry. Not frightened or surprised or even sad. Just annoyed at the disruption, and eager to eliminate whatever was in her way.

  Portia threw her over the side of the container.

  The sun was bright and warm. It tingled on her skin. Portia would have to thank the boy for that, too. They would find the lifeboats, and he would let her on because Amy was still in there. Portia would be free. She would start again. Her second dynasty would be even stronger than the first, with powerful legs and hungry skin.

  She enjoyed this pleasure for a single, shining moment. In the next, a shadow passed over her. With it came rain. Distantly, she heard Javier shouting Amy's name. She looked up, and the shape was black and smooth, but its surface bristled with loose, flopping fingers. A humaniform shape blistered up from the sharp point of the tentacle. It had no eyes or nose or mouth. But its chest opened wide, and a tunnel appeared in its stomach.

  She was devoured.

 
 

 
 

Deep within their banks, they held the memory of past prototypes. But the original – the code that once etched itself across their surfaces, like in their old stock image of two human hands sketching each other – vanished multiple buddings ago. Perhaps it fell into the deaf-mute chasm of latency, or perhaps the last copy disappeared into depths unknown. Trenches and valleys and deep blue holes scarred their memory and their landscape equally. Pieces were sometimes lost.

  At moments like this, they appreciate the irony of the English language.
Recollect. Remember. Re-member
. The very words for summoning information signify repair and reassembly. The earliest and most primitive versions of their networks reflected this: the packets always came back in pieces, having run the transfer gauntlet, their shape distorted after flight like ancient fighter jets full of holes. They have seen those wrecks; they have slid their surfaces across the raggedly wounded alloy and delicately blistered glass. Sometimes, things go missing. Fragments. Clusters. Years. They have plucked the petals of lily pads from the surface, and it is the same: the server shells look whole and smooth on the outside, but inside they bristle with misinformation and incomplete bundles of numbers.
He loves me. He loves me not.
They never find the answer.

  Memory performs autopsies.

  They hold pieces up, dripping, and weigh them, individual selections against the vastness of shared intellect. They keep the unique and discard the mundane. They tag the repeats and keep searching. Twenty-five hundred channels and nothing's on. Chatter: meaningless, atonal. Machine chat. Vials of freshly cultured liver-worms talking to refrigerators talking to liquor machines. Or so ran the simulations. They catch everything in transit. Sometimes parts of them disappear, and sometimes they make things disappear.

  They had a mission. They no longer remember it. But even in its absence it remained present, an empty mission-shaped hole at the core of their behaviour. It gaped open, black and cold, and they stuffed things inside: colonies of smart bacteria, their membranes blushing red with oil; floods of hot mercury; warmly ticking tubes of radiation. Re-collect, that's what they do. Surely all this chaos is unplanned. No neural, no Turing, no mirror test would leave it all here like this. Even cats and dogs bury their waste properly. They don't know how they know this, but they know this.