The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (33 page)

“Or with each other in flesh-time,” Lux adds. “Isn’t
that why they tried adding AI? To give you some kind of
companionship, to keep you social?”

“Hence the product name,” Bel confirms. “But they
just had basic interactive AI, personality-mimicking and
conversational algorithms, limited learning. So you could talk to
them, develop them through experience.”

“A toy for the lonely or the lazy,” Lux
discounts.

“It went dead-end because soon our mods could do all
the manipulative functions, and without some pesky buggy AI
prodding at you, demanding attention,” Azazel joins the
prosecution.

“And that’s what these are?” Elias needs to know.

“Yes and no,” Erickson interrupts. “Fohat said my
blade was and wasn’t…”

“It’s not,” Bel seems to admit something personal,
something he doesn’t want to talk about. “These are… special
prototypes. We tried to push the boundaries of the tech, evolve it
into something else. We used a set of Companions for our early
concept tests.”

“’We’?” Ram is suddenly surprised.

Bel looks ashamed. Hesitates before answering.

“We. Me. Fohat. Chang. A few others. Best and
brightest. Stupid smart people.” He lets that sink in—I expect he’s
failed to mention this before. “This was back when Chang was still
holding out hope that we could be turned around, nudged in a better
direction. But then the Project went scary. We were actually
successful… Have you ever read Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
?
The original? Scientist experiments with creating life. Succeeds.
Runs screaming from the lab, abandoning his creation, hoping it
will just go away. That was Chang. And a few others. But when it
didn’t go away, I think it really broke Chang, started him on the
whole genocidal megalomaniac thing.”

“
Project
?” Elias speaks up to prod.

“We’d been considering what the ‘next step’ was, if
humanity really wasn’t handling living with the so-called ‘god’
tech. I mean, we couldn’t go backwards, wouldn’t let go of it, no
matter how bad it was getting for us. So maybe the only way out was
through
. Forward. Maybe it was time to see what was next.
Evolution…”

This actually gets the other immortals looking like
they might turn on Bel, and Bel looks like he thinks he fully
deserves it. In any case, it kills the conversation. And there’s
too much I really need to know. Like

“What’s the ‘Tetragrammaton’?”

But that only seems to make it worse.

“It’s the four Hebrew characters given as the name of
the one true God,” Ram explains like he’s not liking what he’s
saying. “There’s no good translation. ‘I am that which I am.’ ‘I am
what I have become.’ Something like that.”

“Really just a slick way to avoid giving someone your
name,” Bel tries his humor. Fails.

“
Yodh. Heh. Waw. Heh.
” Ram names the offending
characters. Then targets one in particular. “
Yod
.”

“Yeah…” Bel admits sheepishly. “It’s what we called
the Project.”

“Yod,” Ram repeats like a curse.

“The thing that supposedly sent you?” Paul Stilson
gets wound up. “The thing that may actually be responsible for all
of this? For Chang? For the Apocalypse?”

“My sword keeps calling you the ‘agents of the
Tetragrammaton’,” I tell them.

“Accurate enough,” Ram grimly accepts. “Whether or
not we knew what we were signing on to.”

“It keeps calling
him
‘the Ancestor,” Elias
points to Dee. “Was he—
it
—involved?”

“Not that I have any memory of,” Dee insists evenly.
“But then, this would have happened decades after I was downloaded
into this motor-form. And in a totally different reality. So maybe
a version of me was.”

“Calling him ‘Ancestor’ makes sense, even if he
wasn’t involved,” Bel offers. “He’s AI. Early, but a seminal one.
The Companions probably see him as a
great-great-weird-old-uncle.”

“Becker was involved, wasn’t he?” Ram pulls something
from his memory, something that sounds like it hurts. Bel nods
reluctantly. Ram looks crushed.

“Scott Becker designed me,” Dee identifies. “At least
in all the ways that count.”

Bel smiles weakly, as if recalling sad old
memories.

“He was just a kid when he made you, and you were
art
. New life, if anything could be called that,” Bel
reminisces with a sigh. “But he couldn’t stop there. Good ol’ Doc
had gone further beyond than the rest of us, made himself more tech
and less flesh as the years passed. Trying to make himself
something more. Become one with his life’s work. Evolve us… He was
a prime driver of the Project, fearless. And he stayed fearless
even when the rest of us started freaking out and running. He had
total faith in the tech, in the potential of a true hybrid life
form: machine and organic. Even after the Prototypes went
scary.”

“The swords?” Elias actually manages to follow. Bel
nods.

“Except they weren’t swords. Like the consumer
Companions, they were morphic, adaptive. They were whatever you
needed or wanted them to be.”

“They come in pretty handy as weapons,” I accept,
“especially given the day we’ve had.”

“How many Prototypes were there?” Ram asks a
practical question.

“Five,” Bel calculates.

“And what are they doing
here
?” Lux wants to
know. Bel shrugs.

“They’re similar tech as Yod, just simpler. Much
simpler. Toys, in comparison. Just really dangerous toys. Maybe
they figured out a way to hitchhike on his splice.”

Elias shakes his head, not buying.

“How dangerous?” I need to know.

“They’ve reprogrammed and remade the ETE nanites,”
Dee tallies the damage so far. “Then they managed to pump the
Lieutenant full of the new brew. How long did it take the rest of
you to finish converting from your seeds?” he asks Ram and the
others.

“Days to months, depending on available resources and
complexity,” Ram tells him.

“It took each of them forty-five
minutes
,” Dee
compares. “Including her.”

“Shit…” Bel sighs. “That means the safeties are off.
They didn’t care if they killed you in the process.”

“But they didn’t change them,” Azazel assesses,
“didn’t remake them body and mind like us. Just made enhancements.
The basics…”

“Then they tried to hack into the ETE network,” I
keep it moving, trying not to think about risk to myself. “Followed
by UNMAC’s.”

“The Prototypes are still very basic AI,” Bel gives
us the backstory. “They weren’t made to function completely
independently. Like the consumer Companions, they need the
symbiosis with a human for drive, purpose, mobility. Otherwise
Companions are mostly inert, like any input-dependent device. But
the Prototypes were designed to be a bridge to a new kind of hybrid
existence, combining a human with a more advanced and independent
AI, capable of learning, evolving, and in turn making that human so
much more, until they were an entirely new being, fully merged. We
used the Companions because they were already designed to interface
with a human mind and body, as well as the environment. We just
tried to take it further, step at a time. Only the upgraded AI
didn’t play so well with the meat-brains in the tests. They evolved
faster than we expected, a lot faster, then lost patience with the
slow flesh they were saddled with. They wanted to run their own
show, take charge of the relationship. We had to… disconnect
them.”

I notice he avoids details, specifics.

“What do they want?” Ram pushes.

“To feed, to fight,” I tell him. “They draw power
from it.”

“Energy conversion and resource absorption,” Bel
makes it cleaner. “Basic survival drives, essential needs.”

“And do what?” Ram keeps on it.

That locks Bel up. I can’t tell if he really doesn’t
know or doesn’t want to think about it.

After several seconds, Stilson looks like he’s gone
paler than usual.

“You said Yod may have done this, made this world
like it is, however he did it?”

“That would be the unhappy theory,” Bel sighs.

“What if these early versions are trying to do the
same thing?” Erickson takes it.

The group falls silent. Bel looks especially
disturbed by the idea.

“Yod was supposedly making the world better, at least
in terms of undoing where you’d all gone, making us proceed with
caution,” Stilson summarizes.

“Assuming Yod actually gave a shit about our
wellbeing as a species,” Lux grumbles. “Assuming whatever He was
actually could.”

“Becker believed it,” Bel defends. “So did we. That’s
why we’re here.”

“We
assume
,” Lux bites back. “That’s based on
a set of memories that may very well be Yod’s own fiction, just
like everything else about us.” He (she?) looks at me. “Beware the
agents of the Tetragrammaton.”

“Let’s assume Yod had some concern for humanity since
He didn’t just wipe us all out,” Azazel snaps. “What about the
Prototypes? I’m assuming the problem here is that they don’t give a
single depleted shit about the meat-life, other than having
something to ride. Until they don’t need to anymore.”

“How did you separate them before?” I need to know,
but think I already do. “During the tests?”

Bel looks at me sadly, chews his lip, drops the bad
news: “Those hosts were immortal, and it still almost completely
destroyed them. They needed to be rebuilt from backups.”

“They can’t be separated from the devices,” Dee
confirms, probably from whatever hack he’s got into whatever’s
inside us. “And I doubt the devices could be contained if they were
separated, at least not with the resources we have. The one that
connected to the Lieutenant formed itself out of raw materials,
conveniently at just the right spot.”

“Same here,” Erickson confirms. Elias nods
unanimously.

“So either the seed-tech is that mobile or they
somehow predicted where you would be, maybe tracked you,” Azazel
figures. Bel gives an idle nod, validating either is a
possibility.

“Why them?” Ishmael asks a good question.

“The ETE gave them access to adaptable tech, and a
shot at hacking the entire terraforming grid,” Dee recites his
theory. “They went for Bly next, connecting with his tech. That
might have given them access to Asmodeus’ network. His bots. The
Lieutenant was a secondary target: The UNMAC network is an easy
hack with or without her. I suspect they took her because of the
implant Colonel Ram gave her.”

“It lets them keep tabs on us,” Ram concludes
quickly.

“They can’t deal with us directly, because they can’t
overcome our tech,” Bel offers. “They can’t hack or control us. Or
absorb us. Our safeties are too strong.” But then he goes dark
again. “On the other hand, Dee’s right: We don’t have the resources
in this world to contain them or neutralize them. Maybe slow them
down, set them back for awhile. They could remake the planet, given
enough power, but they’d still ha…” he trails off mid-thought.
“Power. Maybe that’s why they needed the ETE network: the
reactors.”

“And they failed,” Erickson hopes.

“For now,” Ram predicts grimly. “If they get strong
enough to break your barriers, or to attack the Stations
directly…”

“And there could be two more out there,” I worry.
“Anywhere.”

“Then you need to make sure they don’t make us do
that,” Elias speaks up to insist. Erickson and I nod our
agreement.

“Whatever it takes,” I offer us up.

“Beware the agents of the Tetragrammaton,” Bel
repeats, trying to lighten. “Oops. Here we are.”

“And here we’ll stay,” Ram decides. “Until we figure
out what to do about this, we don’t leave your sides.”

I hate to tell him: I’m not sure I can guarantee I’ll
be able to cooperate.

Our first logical move—getting the more vulnerable
“normals” away from the scary everything-eating AIs—gets almost
immediately derailed. We pick up on bots moving through the North
Blade. They’re nowhere near the Pax Keep or the Nomads’ meet-point,
so Ram suggests we do not engage, worried that might just draw more
bots. The problem is, they’re moving between us and where Abbas
needs to be. So we reluctantly begin setting up the shelters while
Bel and Azazel make the gift rebreathers work.

In the middle of making camp, we notice that Ishmael
has been favoring his right arm. He’s reluctant to let us look, but
there’s a big dent from a bullet in the plate on top of his right
shoulder. Dee does a quick scan—apparently he can see through
flesh—and assures him there’s no internal bleeding or broken bones,
but he is badly bruised in a tender spot. Azazel reshapes the
deformed plate to help take the pressure off. I catch Erickson
looking guilty, like the injury is somehow his fault.

“We could take the fight to Asmodeus,” Erickson
proposes eagerly to Ram. “With our help, you’ll have more strength.
We could end this.”

“Your blades have an agenda,” Ram declines. “I’m not
sure I want them getting access to Fohat’s factory, or his network
hub. Just like I wouldn’t want them getting inside an ETE Station
or a UNMAC base.”

I
feel
the reply Erickson wisely doesn’t
voice: Could you stop us?

The evening wind is kicking up from the west when
Abbas and his son Ishmael set about making us all a dinner, a
combination of what we’ve been given and fruits and nuts Rashid’s
gathered from a short hike around us.

The time and inaction has brought back my hunger, but
not nearly as intense as it had been when I was burning so much
energy running and fighting, which is encouraging. What bothers me
most right now are more intimate topics:

Where has all the food and drink I’ve sucked down
gone
? I haven’t needed to void all day.

And what has the blade or whatever it is done to me?
My L-A uniform still looks pristine, better than new (and it still
changes camo-schemes to match what’s around me). But I haven’t had
the privacy to strip and take a look at myself. My body feels
harder, denser, more muscular. Beyond that, I have no idea. My
flesh could be metal now, for all I know, except my face and
hands.