“The thing that I promised them was protection.” I wait for Speaker to react, but he just squats there, impassive as a stone. “Protection from you,” I say. “I promised that we would prevent you from destroying them.”
“Well,” Speaker says, “this should be an exceedingly easy promise to keep, since we have no intention of destroying them.”
I open my mouth to respond, hesitate, then close it again.
“But—”
“It should be clear to you by now that the thing at the heart of the collective is not of my species, yes?”
I shrug. “I mean, I kind of assumed that, once I saw it. I wasn’t entirely sure, though, after what you told us about the spiders.”
“I tell you now that it is not. In fact, it is not an animal of any type, nor a plant. It is a third kind of life, but I do not know your word for it.”
“A fungus?”
A ripple runs the length of his body. “Perhaps. In any case, we know of its type. It is a parasite, infecting creatures and overtaking their neural systems. It is a plague in particular to the small, crawling things that hunt in the ferns. We have never known it to seize any larger creature.”
“But it seized one of your Primes.”
“Yes,” Speaker says. “It did, and in doing so it seems to have achieved some form of sentience. We would not have thought this possible. We need to study it now, to determine if this was a chance occurrence, or if this represents a new type that poses a true danger to us. So, we will not destroy the collective. We will seal the entrances to their labyrinth, though, and we will watch to ensure that they remain sealed.”
“You intend to bury them alive?”
“This seems to us to be the safest option. We must preserve them for study, but we cannot risk the spread of further contamination. Once we have learned what can be learned, any of us who have had direct contact with the collective will be disassembled and sterilized.”
“Oh. But you…”
“Yes,” he says. “You see this correctly. I interfaced directly with the collective. I am surely infected. So I will be isolated and observed. Once the infection takes root and manifests, I will be destroyed. This is hard, but it is necessary. I would not expect you to understand.”
I stare at him.
He stares back at me.
I can’t help myself. I burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry,” I say when I finally wind down. “I’m really sorry.” I crouch down in front of him. His mandibles nearly brush against my face. After a moment, one feeding arm reaches out toward me, claw-tipped tentacles splayed. I raise my right hand and press my palm against it. “I do understand, my brother. You’d be surprised how well I understand.”
We hold that tableau for what feels like a long while, until finally Speaker withdraws his arm. He scuttles back a half meter, and I stand. He rises up to face me.
“Goodbye, Mickey,” he says. “I am pleased to have met you.”
My vision blurs, and I don’t trust my voice to reply. After a long five seconds, Speaker bobs his first segment in my direction, then turns and disappears into the labyrinth.
MARSHALL IS GONE when we get back to the hangar.
“So?” Berto says when he’s powered down the lifter. “What now?”
I turn to look at him. “Now? Now I get it over with.”
He sits silently as I unstrap and get to my feet. I’m almost to the bay door when he says, “You sure about this, Mickey?”
I laugh. “Sure? No. No, I’m not fucking sure. That’s why I’m doing it now. I don’t want to have time to think about it.”
“He can’t force you. Marshall, I mean. After what happened today—”
“He’s not forcing me, Berto.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, they have to get that fuel back into the reactor, and they won’t risk another attempt with a drone. You know that. So? What options does that leave them?”
Berto shrugs. “Ask for volunteers?”
I feel my face twist into a scowl. “Volunteers. Right. You know who’s gonna volunteer, Berto.”
He gets to his feet and faces me. “So? Let him.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not fair, Berto. It’s not fair to him. It’s not fair to me.”
“You’re back to believing in that Theseus stuff again, huh?”
I close my eyes and rub my face with both hands. “I don’t know, Berto. All I know is that I’m tired, and I want this to be over.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “So that’s it? This is goodbye?”
I roll my eyes. “You can’t possibly be getting sentimental about this, Berto. You’re the guy who left me to die in a hole, remember?”
“It’s different,” he says. “The last two years, I guess…”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m sure the next guy they pull out of the tank will be a perfectly adequate substitute.”
The door is open now. I’m through and onto the hangar floor when Berto says, “What about Nasha? Doesn’t she get a say?”
That’s a low blow. I shake my head and keep walking.
BURKE TOLD ME to check in on Nasha tomorrow morning. She should be getting out of surgery just about now. If I went down to Medical, they could probably give me a pretty good idea of how it went. I don’t, though. If she’s okay, I’m not sure I can go through with this.
And if she’s not, I don’t ever want to know.
<Mickey7>: Hey.
<MightyQuinn>: Barnes? What do you need?
<Mickey7>: I need you to meet me at the lab.
<MightyQuinn>: Huh?
<Mickey7>: Meet. Me. At. The. Lab.
<MightyQuinn>: You’re not gonna try to get me to do a download for you again, are you? ’Cause I told you—I won’t do it. I took an oath not to fry people’s brains for no good reason.
<Mickey7>: No, Quinn. No downloading this time. No fake thumbs. Nothing crazy at all. I just need to do an upload.
<MightyQuinn>: Upload? What happened to retirement?
<Mickey7>: Turns out I hate pog-ball.
<MightyQuinn>: Ha! Well, I’m in the caf at the moment. Meet you there in twenty?
<Mickey7>: Twenty’s fine. Thanks, Quinn. You’re a good noodle.
<MightyQuinn>: Uh … okay. See you then.
<Mickey7>: Yeah. See you then.
Quinn isn’t there yet when I get to the med labs. I’ve got a few minutes to kill, and Nasha should be right down the hallway. I could …
No. There’s no outcome there that’ll make this any easier.
I lean against the wall, then slide down until I’m sitting with my knees drawn up to my chest. I’m so … damn … tired. My eyes drift closed. I’m just starting to fade when something nudges the toe of my boot.
I look up to see Quinn looming over me.
“Hey,” he says. “You sure you want to do an upload now? You look like hell, Mickey. The next iteration they pull out of the tank is going to feel exactly like you feel right now, you know.”
I bark out a short, sharp laugh. “Yeah, fuck that guy. And anyway, believe me, I’m not gonna look any better later. Let’s do this.”
He offers me a hand. I take it, and he pulls me to my feet.
“It’s been two years now,” he says as he palms open the door. “This won’t be a superficial update. It won’t be like your first upload, but it’ll be a deeper dive than you’ve been used to. It’s probably going to take a while too. You sure you don’t want to wait until tomorrow morning?”
“No, I really need to get this done now,” I say as I follow him in. “Take as long as you need. I didn’t have any big plans tonight.”
There’s a weird sort of comfort in the rituals of preparing for upload. I settle into the chair, and Quinn slides the helmet over my head. As he straps me in, I realize with a start that these are the last real moments of my life. When I wake up later, this is the final thing I’ll remember.
Maybe I can pass a message on to the other side.
Hey, I think. Nine, or Eleven, or whatever number they’ve given you: this is Seven, coming to you from beyond the grave. Boo! No, seriously … I want you to know … I want you to know that nobody made me do this. Somebody had to get that fuel back into the reactor, but it didn’t have to be me. I could have gone on my merry way, and they would have pulled you out of the tank and shoved you straight into the reactor and that’s all the life you would have gotten—ten minutes of briefing from Maggie Ling and then two minutes of getting shot through by neutrons bouncing around at relativistic speeds, and then, if you were lucky, a quick but very painful death. I couldn’t … it just didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t fair when it happened to Two, or to Four or Five, or to Nine and Ten, I guess, if they even count.