Cibola Burn

“Okay,” Holden said, then pulled out his medkit and sprayed bandages onto Murtry’s two bleeding injuries. “So you’ve got your defense strategy mapped out. That’s proactive thinking. Lawyers’ll be happy to hear it. Wanna hear mine?”

“Sure,” Murtry said, and probed at the wound on his arm. He grimaced, but no blood squirted out.

“The most powerful person on earth owes me a favor, and I’m going to tell her you’re an asshole who tried his best to make her look bad. It’s just a sketch of a plan at this point, but I think it has potential.”

“That’s what passes for justice with you?”

“Apparently so.”

Murtry opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was lost when the factory exploded into chaos. A wall of blue fireflies shot up from the chasm next to them, and then streaked across the cavernous factory space to disappear into small vents in the walls. All around, the cacophony of massive machines coming to life filled the air. Something flew out of the shadows by the ceiling and swooped low over Holden’s head. He threw himself across Murtry, not unaware of the irony in using his own body to shield a man he’d just shot three times.

“What is it?” Murtry said.

“Elvi,” Holden replied. “It’s Elvi.”

Chapter Fifty-Four: Elvi

“Yeah,” Miller said, sounding satisfied. “I’ve got a plan, but I’m going to need your help. I need to get as close to that whatever-the-hell-it-is as I can. You can see it, I can’t. So this one’s on you.”

All right,” she said. “What… what are you going to do?”

The robot shrugged. “Every time we… I… well, you get it. Every time anything reaches into this, it dies. This thing takes down networks like the one I am. I’m going to get connected to as much of the crap on this planet as I can and escort it all into, y’know. That. Take it down. Break the system.”

“Won’t that shut you down too?”

“I think so. That’s the thing about using complicated tools. Sometimes the features you’re looking for come with a whole lot of baggage.”

“I don’t understand,” Elvi said.

“It built me to find something that’s missing,” Miller said. “Turns out I’m also a good tool for dying when that’s the right solve. Seriously, I’ve got practice with this. So come over here and get me as close as you can to the whatever-it-is. I don’t want to touch it, though. I slip in before I’m hooked up to everything else, and I’m pretty sure you’re just boned.”

“All right,” Elvi said, shifting until she could see the robot and the darkness both. “Turn about thirty degrees to your left.”

The robot shifted with the speed and sharpness of a startled insect.

“The boundary’s about half a meter in front of you. Why do you need to be close to it?”

“Well, the thing I’m part of? It may not be conscious, but it’s not stupid. When I do this, pretty much all the tools its got are going to know what I know, and they may not take a forced shutdown well. Whatever else this thing was designed to do, it likes still existing until it finishes its job. It’s a survivor. I’m pretty much the opposite of that.”

She thought she heard a smile in the thing’s voice. Where had that come from? The patterns and habits in a dead man’s brain? Or was that fatalism another good move in design space? Did the universe evolve eyes and wings and sense organs and bitter amusement at the prospect of death all the same way?

“Okay,” Miller said. The robot shifted, hunkered down, prepared to spring forward. “We’re going in three. Two. One.”

The impact was like being in the heavy shuttle again as it crashed. Elvi’s world contracted to a small space inside her own skull, and then slowly bloomed out again in pain. She struggled to sit up, trying to see straight. Trying to think. Had Miller exploded? Was she dead? The cacophony of shrieking metal and violence made it hard to get her bearings.

She was against the wall. All around her, mechanisms were crawling down from their niches. Many of them were failing – legs scraping at the walls without the strength to pull themselves forward or landing on the ground only to crawl in a panicked, spasmodic circle like insects dying from poison. The air was thick with the mindless chittering of their joints. Three massive machines had pinned the Miller-robot and were pounding it while Miller’s voice shouted shitshitshitshit. One of the attackers caught Miller’s claw and pulled, ripping the appendage off in a shower of sparks and bright fluids. He wasn’t going to make it. There was no way.

A small winged machine with a bright blue margin on the knifelike edge where a beak would be swooped down from above, passed through the darkness, and fell clattering and rolling to the ground. Elvi ran to it, picked it up. It was light enough to carry, as long as her forearm, and sharp at the front. With a howl, she charged the machines that were piling on Miller. The impact stung her fingers. Something struck her across the back, and the world narrowed again, but she lashed out with what strength she still had.