And had twice as many arms.
None of this kept her from saying, “Let me go!”
“You shouldn’t be out of your seat,” he said.
“I’ll go back.”
“It’s too dangerous to be moving.”
She struggled again; nothing doing. Zeds was still in his e-suit, though he had shed his gloves. She felt as though she had been abducted by a humanoid machine of some kind . . . a child’s toy. It hurt being pressed up against the straps and tools on the front of the suit.
Yahvi said as much.
“You won’t be damaged,” Zeds said. “Just inconvenienced.”
“Mom!” she called. “Make him let me go!”
But Rachel didn’t answer. It was probably because the plane started shuddering worse than at any previous time. Whether it was because she was not strapped down, or because circumstances were different, she had a sense of real forward motion now, mixed with a stomach-clenching rocking motion and even a bit of side-to-side.
She had heard Pav talk about roller coasters and seen imagery . . . This must be what it’s like, she thought. Only you don’t die on a roller coaster.
She must have made a noise—probably a whimper—because Zeds spoke again. “This is difficult, but not impossible. We are probably descending out of the storm.”
“You don’t know that.”
With one of his free upper hands, Zeds pointed toward the window behind Yahvi. “I have been seeing more clear sky and fewer clouds.”
But he still wouldn’t let her go. So she tried another tack. “Aren’t you afraid?” she said. “This is really not your world.”
“My world is not my world,” he said. Zeds often made joking comments; Yahvi realized, after a moment of confusion, that this was one of them.
It took her so long, in fact, that by the time she realized it, the airplane had stopped bumping and the seat belt sign was off.
And Xavier Toutant was saying, “I think I’ve got it now.”
Day Six
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2040
NYC REPORTS PROGRESS ON LOWER MANHATTAN LEVEE
PRES GERRY TO VISIT MEXICO CITY RE BORDER ISSUES
SEC DEF: U.S. CONSIDERING MISSION TO KEANU
LILY MEDINA SEPARATED AFTER ONE WEEK! NEW PERSONAL RECORD
PACIFIC STORMS DO NOT THREATEN CALIFORNIA
HEADLINES, NATIONAL TIMES,
7 P.M., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2040
CARBON-143
SITUATION: Midway through a standard workday, Aggregate Carbon-143 and her units were summarily ordered off the line and instructed to form up on the exit platform. The orders came from the highest branch of the information tree.
As one, each disengaged from her workstation, moved back, then rotated to the right before marching out.
Carbon-143 was curious about the value of the maneuver. According to the countdown to First Light, the program was running behind. Surely no information or somatic improvement session was more important than catching up!
As she and her sisters—to perpetuate the human usage—left the assembly and operations building, Carbon-143 noted that other Aggregates were leaving, too, as if the assembly were being abandoned. She scanned up and down her trees and across their branches for information on a possible mechanical malfunction or possible human attack, these being the only two causes that would seem to require such a drastic, formation-wide movement.
Then they received orders to proceed to the storage and staging area, the collection of newly arrived and outfitted vehicles that seemed to stretch to the far horizon.
NARRATIVE: As other formations joined up as they proceeded out of the assembly area, the number of Aggregates grew from 144 to 1,728. Carbon-143 realized that as a unit she was not authorized or programmed for emotions such as pride, but she found an obscure moment of satisfaction in being part of such an impressive team . . . marching in the bright sun with her sisters, if she were careless enough to use human-centric terms.
She found that having even a few seconds off the assembly line was a pleasant diversion—and there was another use of “emotion.” She entertained the idea of informing number eleven in her line, or even the unit above them. But only for a few seconds. She did not believe there was any objective basis to suspect that her productivity had suffered. Indeed, in the daily tag-ups she was never ranked below the middle of her twelve.
She also wondered, even more briefly, how number eleven would react if she shared either of these ideas. So far their information exchanges had been purely factual. Eleven was, in fact, identical with Ten or another of the others in the element.
Carbon-143’s third inappropriate thought was to wonder this: Suppose Eleven or Ten or Three had these same thoughts! It made sense. The Aggregates were identical at assembly. And while it was true that being a Twelve in a unit meant a slightly different range of experiences from a One, they were so minute as to be lost in the noise of other data.
Or so Carbon-143 had been taught. Perhaps this was untrue.
She was not prepared to test this theory, however.
ACTION: They arrived at a corner of the storage lot. As directed, Carbon-143 moved toward the twelfth vehicle in the first row and initiated contact. A schematic of the vehicle appeared in her internal screen.
DATA: The vehicle was known as an 11F732, which to Carbon-143 implied that there might be 731 other 11Fs. This particular model massed five thousand, two hundred kilograms. It was largely made of a titanium-based composite shell for durability. Its complement of weapons consisted of a 155-millimeter howitzer (the 732, the data showed, was based on an existing Free Nation U.S. Army model for simplicity and speed of design) as well as a device Carbon-143 only knew by name: a Model 3 Field Disruptor, which appeared to be a narrow rigid coil wrapped around a coppery rail mounted atop the cannon.
The interior of the 732 consisted of an electric engine with a generator for the Field Disruptor weapon as well as ammunition storage for the cannon.
There was room for a single Aggregate, with the appropriate navigational, communications, and weapons control interfaces.
The units were ordered inside the 732s for “fit checks,” which Carbon-143 was happy to perform. If nothing else, this procedure was another stimulating diversion from her usual duties.
She wriggled through the topside hatch into the 732. It was not an easy fit, but Aggregates were flexible. Carbon-143 rearranged her left side limbs, flattening herself to asymmetry and improving the interfaces.
There was a delay. Some of the units and formations had to travel farther to reach their assigned vehicles. Carbon-143’s data Net showed that some of those vehicles were either massively larger or substantially smaller than the 732, which required appropriate adjustments: several units bonding temporarily to control the larger vehicle, and some Aggregates forced to nearly disassemble themselves so they could make the proper interfaces.
The delay allowed Carbon-143 several minutes in which she could freely access the larger weapon system grid. Most of the information was purely logisticaclass="underline" numbers of vehicles (currently 2,011, with more arriving), plans for their movement to and through the Ring. She was fascinated to see how long it would take to transfer more than two thousand tracked vehicles through the Ring itself: ten hours optimum, twelve to fifteen likely.
There was still no easily accessible information on the ultimate destination for this army. Until this moment, Carbon-143 had not even thought of the vehicles as weapons aimed at targets. These tanks and tracked weapons carriers seemed well suited to attacks on a human armored force.