escape with their lives
.
—A RAYT S HAH
NEURONAL ID: VASILY ZAYTSEV
“Let me out, damn you!” I shout to Maxim.
The only response is a slight flicker of the fluorescent light overhead. The steel elevator door flutters minutely in its cradle. Blank and solid and implacable.
I never had time to cut the counterweights.
A groan pulses through the solid rock walls. Dust like powdered sugar drifts through the lights. People are dying above and they do not know why. All the time I have spent down here in the darkness has been for nothing. In this stink and filth, with pale skin and bloodshot eyes, I have scrabbled and fought and worked like an animal.
I had hoped to save Anadyr a second time. But I have failed.
In the guise of a little boy, Archos R-14 told me I was only a pathetic variable in some god-mind equation. But that is enough for me. Instead of anger upon hearing those words, I felt relief. It is enough for one man to do his part. I tried to do mine.
Am trying
.
“Maxim! I know you can hear me. Bring down the goddamn elevator.There is nothing more I can do. Let me go up and fight and die with the rest. I won’t wait here like a rat on a sinking ship!”
In a flash, Maxim the hologram stands directly in front of me. His weathered face is dirty and his workman’s coveralls are worn. He rubs his stubbled face. It looks as if he hasn’t slept in a week. I wonder, why should he simulate that? Imagine, a being of pure light, marred by beard stubble.
“You have one final task,” he says in that low, modulated voice. The sound comes from a speaker but for some reason I think I can feel his breath on my face. There is a brave sadness inside his words and I understand why instantly. “Then you can go.”
Maxim looks over my shoulder. I turn and follow his gaze. With resignation, he is staring at the ax. Its dense metal head rests on the rock floor, the long wooden handle against the wall. I haven’t touched it in the months since I placed it there. Hickory and steel and death.
“You don’t want to be taken alive,” I say.
My voice is drowned out by a thud from the surface. I hear the metal-caged elevator shaking in its shaft, banging into the bare stone walls. For a few moments, objects fall down the shaft and ping off the floor. I hear the twang of swinging wires.
“We don’t have long,” says Maxim. “Soon, Arayt will breach the shaft and infiltrate my processors. It will pervert my mind. It will use me to try to destroy you.”
I shake my head.
To die alongside my brothers, fighting the enemy—this I can stomach. But I can’t execute my only friend. It is too much to bear.
“We can fight,” I say. “Whatever comes down the shaft—”
Maxim sighs. His light collapses into shards that scatter onto the floor. They coalesce into crawling shapes. A satellite view of the battlefield above us—a real-time map of the fight. It’s a trick he learned from the American boy. And now I understand what is causing the thunder up above.
I see no way to survive.
“Then we die together,” I whisper to the still cavern air.
“No,” says Maxim’s voice. “My processors must not be captured. Butwe can make it mean something. We can wait until this Archos R-8 comes. Wait until it enters the stack. Together, we can capture part of its mind. Glimpse its plans.”
“You will die,” I say.
“Yes,” says the flat voice. Now it belongs to Maxim again. His hologram stands, squat and determined.
“You were a man once,” I say. “I cannot kill you, my friend.”
The fact is there. Though I can see the rock dust floating through his hologram, in my heart I
know
that Maxim is still a man. In the last weeks, our talks ranged far and wide. Women and battles and travels to places that no longer exist. But the talk always ended back at home, with the ghosts of our family and friends.
“You saved all our lives,” I say. “How can I end yours?”
“I am not alive,” whispers Maxim. “There is no
.
—A RAYT S HAH
NEURONAL ID: VASILY ZAYTSEV
“Let me out, damn you!” I shout to Maxim.
The only response is a slight flicker of the fluorescent light overhead. The steel elevator door flutters minutely in its cradle. Blank and solid and implacable.
I never had time to cut the counterweights.
A groan pulses through the solid rock walls. Dust like powdered sugar drifts through the lights. People are dying above and they do not know why. All the time I have spent down here in the darkness has been for nothing. In this stink and filth, with pale skin and bloodshot eyes, I have scrabbled and fought and worked like an animal.
I had hoped to save Anadyr a second time. But I have failed.
In the guise of a little boy, Archos R-14 told me I was only a pathetic variable in some god-mind equation. But that is enough for me. Instead of anger upon hearing those words, I felt relief. It is enough for one man to do his part. I tried to do mine.
Am trying
.
“Maxim! I know you can hear me. Bring down the goddamn elevator.There is nothing more I can do. Let me go up and fight and die with the rest. I won’t wait here like a rat on a sinking ship!”
In a flash, Maxim the hologram stands directly in front of me. His weathered face is dirty and his workman’s coveralls are worn. He rubs his stubbled face. It looks as if he hasn’t slept in a week. I wonder, why should he simulate that? Imagine, a being of pure light, marred by beard stubble.
“You have one final task,” he says in that low, modulated voice. The sound comes from a speaker but for some reason I think I can feel his breath on my face. There is a brave sadness inside his words and I understand why instantly. “Then you can go.”
Maxim looks over my shoulder. I turn and follow his gaze. With resignation, he is staring at the ax. Its dense metal head rests on the rock floor, the long wooden handle against the wall. I haven’t touched it in the months since I placed it there. Hickory and steel and death.
“You don’t want to be taken alive,” I say.
My voice is drowned out by a thud from the surface. I hear the metal-caged elevator shaking in its shaft, banging into the bare stone walls. For a few moments, objects fall down the shaft and ping off the floor. I hear the twang of swinging wires.
“We don’t have long,” says Maxim. “Soon, Arayt will breach the shaft and infiltrate my processors. It will pervert my mind. It will use me to try to destroy you.”
I shake my head.
To die alongside my brothers, fighting the enemy—this I can stomach. But I can’t execute my only friend. It is too much to bear.
“We can fight,” I say. “Whatever comes down the shaft—”
Maxim sighs. His light collapses into shards that scatter onto the floor. They coalesce into crawling shapes. A satellite view of the battlefield above us—a real-time map of the fight. It’s a trick he learned from the American boy. And now I understand what is causing the thunder up above.
I see no way to survive.
“Then we die together,” I whisper to the still cavern air.
“No,” says Maxim’s voice. “My processors must not be captured. Butwe can make it mean something. We can wait until this Archos R-8 comes. Wait until it enters the stack. Together, we can capture part of its mind. Glimpse its plans.”
“You will die,” I say.
“Yes,” says the flat voice. Now it belongs to Maxim again. His hologram stands, squat and determined.
“You were a man once,” I say. “I cannot kill you, my friend.”
The fact is there. Though I can see the rock dust floating through his hologram, in my heart I
know
that Maxim is still a man. In the last weeks, our talks ranged far and wide. Women and battles and travels to places that no longer exist. But the talk always ended back at home, with the ghosts of our family and friends.
“You saved all our lives,” I say. “How can I end yours?”
“I am not alive,” whispers Maxim. “There is no
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