Infamy

A Proposal :: Santa Monica Coastal Resort :: June 10, BF 0

“It’s an opportunity, Tierslay. To get off this doomed rock. To make something of yourself. That’s all. Stop squinting at me like I’ve got some angle.”

“You always have an angle, Taernen. It’s who you are.”

“Sure. But in this particular case, the angle is looking out for little sis.”

Tierslay wanted to believe her brother. She ached for a shred of hope. Life in the Mojave tent slums on the outskirts of the Los Angeles enclaves was harsh — sun-scorched and stench-filled. The brutality of her youth in the favelas of São Paulo, plagued by gangs and typhoons, made the Mojave seem like a deluxe weekend getaway to an elitist orbital spa. Twenty-five years of existence and Tierslay had accomplished nothing beyond being poor and perpetually desperate. Taernen, on the other hand, had clawed and conned his way out of the dregs, made his way to California, and carved out a prosperous life. Somehow, from ten-thousand kilometers away, he had extracted Tierslay from São Paulo just before most of the city was under water. Taernen did not explain how he secured her passage to Los Angeles, crammed in a shipping container with a hundred other bedraggled climate refugees, and Tierslay never pushed him for answers. She was simply grateful to be alive. Almost everyone she knew in São Paulo was not so lucky.

Once in Los Angeles, Taernen provided her with just enough to survive for a couple of weeks. After that, she scrabbled for sustenance outside the enclave walls, among the millions of other refugees kept in line by the armed drones that cluttered the sky. If it wasn’t for her creativity with code and the illicit hack jobs that required her finesse, starvation would have consumed her.

Taernen lived beyond the concertina wire, among the privileged, among those who switched bodies and claimed to have defeated death. His fast talk and questionable connections furnished him with a lifestyle few with his upbringing would endorse, let alone afford — the augmentations, the cortical stack, the frequent backups. Their childhood had been steeped in Catholic zealotry and a strict adherence to bioconservatism, drilled into them by their mother’s incessant preaching, “Your body is a precious gift from God. Polluting it with trinkets conceived by man is an unforgivable sin.” For Tierslay, the doctrine stuck, tightly woven into the fabric of her worldview. Taernen dismissed it outright in his early teens, which got him tossed from the family hovel. A year later, their mother took a stray bullet on the way back from the market, another gang violence statistic. Tierslay was nine. She was holding her mother’s hand when it happened.

Taernen’s pitch continued. “Earth is a waste of time, Tierslay. All the corps with any clout, with any vision or ambition, they’ve fled. To Mars, to Luna, hell, even Venus. Those are the places where lives are made for people like us. And when I go, I’m not coming back. Where does that leave you? Begging on the streets with that low-life Monte because you’re mired in tradition?”

“Monte is not a low-life. He’s just had it rough, like us.”

“He’s the worst kind of criminal, Tier. Petty. Zero ambition beyond junkie survival. You’ve got too much talent. On Mars, with all the capital flowing, these corps need killer code. I could pull strings, find you an avenue in. You could go legit.”

“What? Legit like you?” Tierslay smiled and raised a glass in salute to her brother the criminal. He refused to clink.

“Didn’t you have your fill of the gutter when we were kids?”

“I have my way of viewing the universe and you have yours. I choose to remain pure in the eyes of God …”

“The big white beard in the sky is blind now, sis. Had his eyes gouged out long ago.” Taernen flashed his older brother smirk while Tierslay shook her head.

From somewhere up above, from the smog-choked night beyond the twinkle of the resort’s canopy of lights, a neo-raven fluttered down to the poolside table beside Taernen. Tierslay flinched in disgust and backed away from the table.

“Calm down, Tier. He’s with me.”

“I hate birds.”

“Yeah, well, they’re probably not too fond of you, either.”

The neo-raven’s intelligent gaze flicked over Tierslay, tinged with inhuman distaste. Between its eyes protruded a small spike and etched upon its chest and glowing through its feathers was a nanotat depicting nine interlocked scarlet circles. With every intake of breath, a different circle would illuminate. Taernen and the neo-raven leaned in and exchanged whispers. Tierslay felt their eyes upon her despite her own being locked on the marble tile beneath her feet.

“I have to go, Tierslay. Business to conduct.” Taernen stood. “Think about my offer. Backing up simply means freedom. To go where you want to go, be what you want to be. Freedom from death. It’s pointless clinging to fairy tales, Tier. And remember, I’m just looking out for you. Like always.”

Tierslay nodded but did not reply.

The neo-raven launched back into the night sky and Taernen strolled towards the glittering entrance to the casino. A lean and exquisitely dressed man with a nine circle nanotat emblazoned upon the side of his shaved head stepped through the casino entrance to greet Taernen with a robust and familiar embrace. A moment later, a resort security pod was at Tierslay’s table, politely asking her to exit the premises now that her poolside sponsor was gone.

A Desperate Plea :: Mojave Tent Slums :: June 11, BF 0

Tierslay met Monte at his latest camp, in a wide alley behind a long-abandoned pork-processing plant. Decades after the place was operational, the stench still lingered.

“These Go-nin bot brains are tight, Monte. Especially the EEL 3, which I’ve never even set eyes on until now, let alone cracked. I’m going to need at least a couple of hours.”

“We ain’t got a couple hours, Tier. This guy is hot for a cracked 3. Price is no object. Big chunk of scratch could set us both up for a couple months. I need you to come through.”

Monte’s desperation was carved into his gaunt cheeks, in the way his threadbare t-shirt hung upon his wire thin frame. They had been friends since her first days in Cali and partners in petty crime for years. Tierslay hated seeing him like this, strung out and wasting away, a shell of the hustler who could smirk his way out of any jam. Life on the streets had finally beaten him into submission. The streets always win, Tierslay thought.

“How did you score the 3, Monte? That’s high-end gear.”

“We ain’t got time to discuss those kinda details, Tier. I need you in there, slicing and dicing, doing what you do.”

“Was anyone hurt, Monte?”

“What? No. I mean, I don’t know exactly. I can’t say for sure. I scored it from a guy who got it from a guy. I didn’t ask no questions. There was an opportunity, so I took it.”

Tierslay turned to leave. She had one rule with any of their ventures: no one ever gets hurt. Monte scurried in front of her, blocking her path, each hand clutching the other and shaking, the beggar’s pose.

“I know we have an understanding, Tier. No one gets hurt. But you gotta believe me. I don’t know for sure, and I ain’t ever gonna know. I need you to save my ass on this one. Please.” Monte’s eyes were wet with anguish and his lips were cracked by the unrelenting sun. Tierslay knew the look. She had worn it plenty of times herself — last-thread desperation dangling just above oblivion. She had to help her friend, despite the likelihood of violating the only steadfast rule of her criminal life.

“You’ve come through for me plenty of times in the past, Monte. Consider your ass saved.”

Monte wrapped his arms around Tierslay with a joyful hoot. “Fifty-fifty split and a big fancy meal on me. I’ll get us passes into the Heights enclave. We’ll eat a meal that’s actually grown and cooked, served on a dainty plate, spiral sauce drizzle! None of that wet-fab slurry!”

Monte set Tierslay up around the corner in a makeshift hovel constructed from shredded blue tarp and cracked wooden construction palettes. The spot caught a pocket of afternoon shade, providing respite from the hostile sun to a brain in search of focus. Tierslay had twenty minutes to crack the EEL 3 before the buyer was scheduled to arrive.

She rolled through the code. As suspected, it was tight. The proprietary locks on Go-nin cyberbrains were notoriously difficult to circumvent. The market for hacked bot brains stripped of cookie-cutter factory code was booming, though, on both sides of the walls, so Tierslay had spent a lot of her free time reverse-engineering the copyright-restriction and access-control apps on any bot hardware she could get her hands on. Fuzzing the output or running a sophisticated debugging scheme were out of the question. Not enough time. Her only hope was to spot and exploit one of a handful of elusive vulnerabilities she had discovered in older Go-nin models. At the fifteen minute mark, she found one — a driver she could trick into coughing up the necessary crypto keys. Sweat dropped into her eyes as she ran her exploit and the security software parted before her. Root access granted. The bot brain was now a servant to her whim. Talent always finds a way, Go-nin. And with plenty of time to spare.

But then, gunshots.

Three of them. Pop. Pop. Pop. Perfect and precise syncopation. Professional.

The sounds knocked her out of the code. She stepped from the tent and crept through a sliver of shade. Peeking around the corner into the alley, Tierslay saw three sharply dressed synthmorphs, pistols at their sides. Monte’s lifeless body sprawled upon the gravel, blood blooming around his head. Tierslay crossed herself, begged for God’s protection, and ran.

She didn’t stop until she reached her tent block over three kilometers away. Blisters were forming upon her feet and her breath came in shudders of sharp stabbing pain. She doubled over and leaned against a dead palm tree. When she straightened up, she expected to see her tent in the spot it had been for the past two years, but it was gone. Nothing left but concrete and scattered piles of trash.

Tierslay considered just running. It would’ve been the smart thing to do. Instead, she rushed to the spot where her tent once stood. She kicked a cluster of crumpled fast food bags to see if there was anything left behind. Beneath them she spotted the wooden rosary her mother had given her for her first Communion. She picked up the trinket and cried. She clutched the rosary to her lips. “I cannot die here. Please don’t let me die here.” She kissed the rosary beads. In a whisper so desperate that Tierslay imagined her words carving their way into the soft wood, she asked Virgin Mary to steer her towards salvation.

Just in Case :: Skid Row :: June 13, BF 0

Tierslay arrived at the address Taernen had given her just before sundown, a windowless concrete box in one of the ghettoized neutral zones between enclaves. Squatted warehouses and tent villages spread out for kilometers in every direction upon baking asphalt. Tierslay was all too familiar with this crippling miasma of cyclic poverty; its spectre was always looming. Though she was loath to admit it, for years it had been eroding her faith. How could such misery and death be a divine plan? A young female face peeked at her through a billowing tent flap, like her own past staring through her, another sign to heed her brother’s call to escape.

A painted sign above the only door into the building depicted a manic pointy-hat wizard shocking the words Pinball Museum into existence. Tierslay knocked. A long wait followed, enough to question why she agreed to Taernen’s offer, an offer that would fundamentally change how she viewed the universe and her place within it. Then the door opened to reveal a lanky figure in a deep purple and skin-tight bodysuit. The synthmorph’s entire head was an elaborately detailed bloodshot eyeball, a yellow iris at its center.

“Greetings. You must be 6 p.m.” The figure’s voice was deep and tinged with reverb.

Tierslay suppressed the urge to run and answered, “Yes. You must be Ukku. My brother Taernen spoke very highly of you. Said you did great work.” Ukku stood still and silent. Tierslay had no idea if whatever was inside the bizarre head was taking a moment to evaluate her or was fast asleep in the open doorway. Her skin crawled over the awkward pause.

The giant eyeball head finally moved, tilting slightly. “I am the best, 6 p.m. You should be infinitely grateful that your brother cares so deeply for you. My services, while they may be considered cut-rate by those with the means to afford more upstanding facilities, are nevertheless, top-notch.” Ukku stepped aside with a flourish, beckoning Tierslay to enter. “Let us get to work, 6 p.m. Our time together is short.”

Ukku led Tierslay through a labyrinth of colorful fourlegged twentieth-century machines with whirling lights, analog clacks and dings, and promises of free plays. Despite her nerves surrounding the impending procedure, these simple contraptions from another time made her smile. She had seen pinball machines in old films before, but never in person, and the presence of so many gathered in one space, literally hundreds, was like unearthing an undiscovered tomb laden with riches.

At the farthest and darkest corner of the building, the pinball labyrinth opened into a small space draped with plastic. She eyed a metal table cluttered with surgical implements. Ukku introduced another eyeball, this one violet irised and with a body the size of a child, as his assistant, ToXxot. ToXxot rolled in a surgical bed covered in plastic, tossed a pillow on top of it, then took Tierslay by the hand and motioned for her to lie down on her belly and rest her face in the pillow. A strange machine was rolled next to her, a bulbous scanning mechanism unfolding like petals around her head. When everything was in place, ToXxot’s eyeball lit up and spilled intense white light in every direction. Ukku loomed over Tierslay, a menacing injection device in hand.

“This is happening so fast,” Tierslay said. “I don’t know what you are doing. I don’t know who I will become.”

ToXxot stroked Tierslay’s back and made sounds that resembled the chirps of a hungry baby bird while Ukku spoke. “There, there, 6 p.m. Do not be frightened. You are with Ukku. By the time 7 p.m. shows up, you will be eternal.”

These moments would stick with Tierslay forever. The eyeballs. The terror. The biting dread of a life-altering decision as cold metal pressed against the back of her neck. The sensation of metallic centipedes uncoiling and slithering around her head and latching into place.

Lack :: The Zentropic Return :: March 13, AF 9

The view in Tierslay’s field of vision shifted. The floor was no longer concrete but wooden slats, arranged in an oddly soothing geometric pattern. She spasmed at the sudden sensation of falling. She thrashed for a moment, then calmed at the realization that straps held her in place. Weightlessness.

She was no longer in Ukku’s chop shop, that much was clear. She tuned into the sounds of the new space. A soft rhythm, a pleasing harmonic melody. The intention was obvious, to craft an atmosphere of calm. From somewhere deep inside Tierslay’s fog-draped mind, an unfamiliar voice made an introduction, the cadence crisp and formal.

[Hello, Tierslay. Welcome to your new sleeve. Do you require immediate assistance?]

Panic hijacked her. The procedure. Something went horribly wrong. I’ve been rendered insane. Oh God. Or worse. I’m a corpse. Burdened by so many sins. When was my last confession?

The voice responded. [Unfortunately, Tierslay, that information is not available. Your calendar is entirely empty before today. Would you like me to create a previous event labeled “Last Confession?”] Whatever the source of the voice was, it was hacking her thoughts.

Her body felt strange, somewhat stiff. The sensations of temperature, of fabric against skin, felt miswired. She could not feel the stretch of skin or muscles. She had command of her limbs, but the restraints held her tightly in place.

Tierslay tried to turn her attention to her breath, to the rise and fall of her chest, to the sensation of air soft and cool through her nostrils, but there was nothing to grasp onto. The processes no longer seemed to exist. Scream for help, she thought, but she could not feel lips or teeth or vocal chords. The entire biology of her head and face was absent. Not numb, but nonexistent.

The unfamiliar voice returned, pleasant. [A scream is unnecessary, Tierslay. I have alerted the technician that your upload is complete and full consciousness has been restored. He will be here momentarily to assist you. Then we can start to familiarize ourselves with this particular case model.]

Fuck off, devil. Mouth or no mouth, I am screaming myself hoarse. The word “Help!” bellowed from somewhere on the lower part of Tierslay’s face, created by a voice, both feminine and husky, but artificial and definitely not her own. Her panic magnified a thousandfold and she released the word a second time, drawn out and with an increase in volume.

A man floated into Tierslay’s limited field of vision. His skin was milk smooth, his eyes perfect circles of lavender. He smiled kindly. “Welcome to the Zentropic Return. My name is Badal,” the man said. Tierslay took a moment to assess Badal before responding, to determine if this latest freak was friend or foe, demon or angel.

The voice chimed in. [There is no need to be afraid, Tierslay. You are safe here. Badal’s facility boasts @-rep in the 95th percentile upon the flotilla. According to reviews, it is the top choice for those seeking a serene resleeve experience. You should introduce yourself.]

Despite her reservations, for the first time, Tierslay decided to listen to the voice. “My name is Tierslay.”

“I know. Let’s remove these restraints. Get you moving.” The straps loosened and retracted. Tierslay found herself floating freely, unsure which way was up. Her arms flailed as she started to spin.

Badal helped Tierslay orient herself. “Apologies for the restraints. Strictly in place to guarantee client safety. A bit contrary to the zen aesthetic we strive for, I know. I sincerely hope they haven’t sullied the experience.”

Tierslay took a moment to adapt to the sensation of microgravity. “I’m afraid.”

“Naturally. It’s quite a bit to absorb, given what I know of your ego’s history. Don’t worry too much about the weightlessness, you’ll adapt quickly.”

The room was cozy, ornate bamboo dimly lit by a soft glow that emanated from behind the parchment walls. Tierslay looked down at her arms. Where there once was dark brown skin, there was now metal, a dull slate-blue finish, dented and scratched. Tierslay expected tears to flow from the shock of the sight. She expected a wrenching of the gut, the tightness in the chest that can only be released by weeping gasps, but the biological systems required were no longer present. A realization crashed through every other thought like a nightmare tsunami — the only thing that remained of the God-given flesh-and-bone Tierslay was her mind, and even that was questionable.

“Where am I?”

The question was for Badal, but the inner voice provided Tierslay with an answer. [We are upon the scum-aligned flotilla known as Get Your Ass to Mars.] An augmented reality 3D map popped up to the side of her field of vision, showing a number of differently sized objects clustered together, most elongated, some linked together. Ships.

Badal registered her confusion. “Get Your Ass to Mars is a nomadic anarchist collective of interconnected spacecraft and habitats, currently adrift just beyond the Main Belt, Jupiter side.”

“Jupiter.”

“Yes.”

Tierslay took a moment to process. What did the word “Jupiter” really mean to someone who had never even been on an airplane, who had never known anything beyond the concrete urban sprawls of a planet called Earth. Space. I am in the vastness of the black. Outside of the only body I have ever known. Tierslay shuffled all these concepts into another compartment, to be processed at another time. Latch on to something right now, she told herself. Like deciphering complex code, one line at a time before tackling the whole program. The voice. Deal with the voice.

“There is something in my head, a voice …”

“Your muse.”

“My muse?”

“A limited AI assistant. Sorry. I wasn’t aware that you were unfamiliar with muses. An ego without one is extremely rare. It’s a default install during a resleeve if a muse is not already embedded with the ego.”

Tierslay had heard of muses. They were common among the privileged. She had never had one. To her family, AIs were an abomination in the eyes of God, and the implants they resided on an affront to nature.

“It’s getting on my nerves. Can I shut it down?”

“You can silence it, yes. Your muse is entirely customizable. But I would recommend opening yourself to the experience. Give it a name. Modulate its voice to a tone and cadence you prefer. In time, it will grow on you. I promise. You may even consider it a friend, eventually. I cannot imagine my life without Rikita. Rikita wishes you prosperity and joy on this new path, by the way.”

“Tell Rikita thanks.”

“I have other clients to attend to, but I have prepared a set of short introductory vids to acclimate you. Peruse at your leisure. I also recommend the zero-g simulator.” Several links popped up in her entoptic display. “Please, take your time. When you feel steady, the exit is to the left and at the end of the hall.” With a farewell nod, Badal kicked away toward one of the parchment walls and it slid aside.

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

“I don’t even know how I wound up here.”

“I believe your benefactor has the answers you seek.”

“My benefactor?”

“The man who negotiated your upload and morph. Abysmal rep but quite persuasive. Still not sure why I agreed to the deal,” Badal shrugged. “He is waiting for you outside the facility.” A virtual trail appeared, marking the way.

When Tierslay pulled her way through the bamboo-trimmed portal that led out from the cloistered serenity of the Zentropic Return, the transition overwhelmed her. In every direction, crowds of people sleeved in exotic body types floated and mingled. Laughter, shouts, and music engulfed her, spiced with the scents of food and stranger things. Structures, arrangements of gear, and things she couldn’t identify clung to every surface. She couldn’t tell if this was a party, art exhibit, or something else. There was no up, no down, just the bustle of life in all directions. Colorful invitations and propositions popped up in her vision before her muse filtered them away.

[Welcome to the Echo Blue sector,] said the voice. [This was once part of a luxury habitat in Earth orbit, spun for gravity, but the flotilla now tows it in zero g. Various scum factions use it as an open-air market slash social spot.]

Tierslay grasped on to the glowing trail like a lifeline, following it through the chaos to her benefactor, a skeleton-thin man with scattered wisps of long black hair. Her name hovered above the man’s head in AR, boldly flashing. Tierslay weaved through the stream of people and approached the man, suspicious, but also unsure of what else to do. The lower part of his face was rippled and shiny with designer scarification, and his eyes were vacant black disks. In her head, she imagined him donning a cape, like some Retro Space Dracula.

His grin was no less fanged. “Hey, little sis. Long time no see.”

Reunion :: Echo Blue Sector :: March 13, AF 9

“I have questions …”

“And I might have answers,” Taernen shrugged. “I might not.”

“How do I get home?”

“You are home. May as well make the most of it, yeah?” Taernen popped the tube on his Americano sphere, the skin infused with maple sweet cream, and sucked it down. He scowled at the graffiti-covered autocook mounted on the wall. “Cheap anarchist shit!” He turned his attention back to his sister. “This is swill compared to the coffee on Mars. Real stuff, grown in a hydroponic farm. Not this wet-printer knockoff crap.”

“This is not my home, Taernen. This is not my body. I’m not even convinced I’m still me. One second, I’m scared shitless, dealing with your eyeball freak. The next, I’m here, half a billion kilometers from Earth …”

“I’m going to stop you right there, Tier. Jeez. I guess I forgot how green you are as to the current state of the system.” Taernen cracked his knuckles, then his neck. Tierslay waited, still and silent. “Hate to tell you this, sis, but there is no going home. Earth is no longer habitable. It’s a floating ball of nuke winter dust. Been a wasteland for almost a decade.”

Cold enveloped her. “What?”

“Yep. Surprise. Welcome to life after The Fall. We messed around with the TITANs, scary AIs, and they fucked our shit up good. Absorb it for a second and let it go. Zero point dwelling on it. I prefer to keep the fucked-up past dead and buried. Happier and more productive that way.”

Tierslay looked down at her hands, a familiar place to lock her eyes when unsettled by a conversation with her big brother. The sight of metal fingers unnerved her more. “What happened to the real me, then?”

Taernen smirked, unable to resist an opening to dig deep and twist, old sibling shenanigans. “Most likely, your flesh was barbecued, seared right off the bones. And the bones? Probably in a pile with billions of others. But who cares? The stuff that makes you you, the stuff that ultimately matters …” Taernen tapped his bony finger on the side of his head, “…that you made it out. Thanks to me.”

“Oh, God …”

“Chin up, sis. Life is gonna get a whole helluva lot sweeter.” He leaned in close and shifted his voice into the signature dead-serious whisper Tierslay remembered well. The timbre of the voice was different, crackly and thin instead of deep and resonant, but the inflections were unmistakable. “I’ve got a deal that cannot miss. Once we close it, we’ll get you out of that metal can and into a custom bio job.”

“I don’t want in on any more of your deals, Taernen. I don’t even know who I am, how life even operates anymore, and here you are talking deals …”

“Tier, Tier, look at me.” Tierslay shifted her sight to Taernen’s unfamiliar vacant black eyes, unsure if his gaze was meeting whatever shape her eyes took in this foreign metallic form. For all she knew, her face was nothing more than a flat sheet of steel with two dots and a line. “You’re freaking out. I get it. This is a lot to take in.”

“I just want to be me again.”

“You think I’m happy with this loaner piece of shit I’m in? I’m shocked none of the limbs have fallen off. Look. We can craft something close to the original you, if that’s what you are into, once I have some resources and we’re back on Mars where I have some pull. Here? With these scum fuckers? I may as well be a crusty dog turd kicked around the old São Paulo gutter. But, the good news is, I have a plan. We can get around all this rep bullshit and keep this deal in play. And this is where you come in.” Taernen clasped his bony hands together, the sinewy fingers tense. “I need you to get it together and adapt. Quick-like. I can’t stick around much longer. I’ve got a cast scheduled back to Mars in an hour.”

“You’re leaving me here?”

“Yeah. That’s part of the deal. You, here, getting to know the place, forming some relationships, contributing to their f ’d-up collective shit, whatever it takes to get in solid. We need this, Tier. I’ll be back in a month, maybe two. That should give you the time you need to lay on the charm, get us the rep we need to pull a few favors. Then the deal gets done, and we get you outta this freak show and back to the inner system, where the people appreciate the power of an honest cred for fuck’s sake.” The forehead on Taernen’s morph crinkled in anger and the corner of his left eye twitched, a familiar expression upon an unfamiliar face. Oddly, she found it comforting.

“So, I suppose you’re not going to give me any details on this deal.”

Taernen grinned. His sister, playing along as she always did. “Nope. Better that way. The more knowledge you have, the more likely we slip up. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

For a moment, Tierslay wanted to say yes, that she would have preferred death to being trapped against her will in a metal husk. The real her was dead. And she was, what? Some soulless copy? She felt godless, abandoned, but not any less alive. Instead, she nodded. “No. You haven’t, Taer. I trust you. I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

The wide black globes set into deeply carved sockets provided her nothing in return. A few awkward seconds of silence passed. Taernen stirred. “All right then. I gotta go. I set you up with a dorm in the Tall Red sector, opposite side of this chunk of habitat. Single room, but you don’t need much. Synthmorphs are good that way, at least. Minimalism. There’s a lotta people like you there, synths and the like, so you won’t feel so weird, you’ll fit right in. All your basic needs will be covered until I return. One last thing …”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tip your hand to anybody. Concoct whatever backstory you want, just steer clear of the truth. There may be eyes on the lookout. Best if no one knows we’re blood. I’ll find you when I return.” Taernen unclipped from the wall and pushed away, grabbing the strap of a nearby tow-line cable. It pulled him away until he was swallowed by the district’s throng. Gone.

Aimless :: Get Your Ass to Mars Swarm :: March 13–20, AF 9

For her first week, Tierslay wandered. Wandering was a skill she had mastered over the years. With rarely a place to call home, her survival had relied on it. She was reluctant to locate her room in the Tall Red, fearful that a reality she was not quite ready to confront would settle in once she did. Aimless felt safe. It felt like home.

During the first three days, she managed to move through the linked spacecraft of the flotilla twice. Sleep was no longer necessary. No need for sustenance either. She just kept her limbs moving and her eyes cataloguing. She spoke very little, sticking to the shadows when possible, absorbing details. She kept her muse silent, allowing the AI to perform one function — drop pins upon the flotilla map whenever she felt suspicious eyes were upon her. By the conclusion of her second trip around, there were pins everywhere, so she disabled the function and accepted that she was being overly paranoid.

On the fourth day of her wander, while passing through The Midnight Mastermind, a small freighter popular with uplifts, Tierslay spotted a familiar but battered-looking model of Go-nin robot. A neo-octopus fiddled with its cyberbrain while tapping at a nanofab kiosk and muttering obscenities.

She decided to break her silence. “Those Go-nins can be difficult.”

The octo looked up from the bot, arms wriggling with frustration. “You’ve seen one of these before?”

“One. Tight code but I was able to slice it. It was a long time ago, though.” Just last week, she thought.

“I know a collector on Ceres, always eager to buy working vintage pre-Fall models, but I can’t get this thing operational. Think you could take a look at it for me? I’m Pivo, by the way,” the neo-octo said, twirling one of his arms around Tierslay’s hand. She surprised herself by not jerking it away.

Tierslay worked on the bot for about an hour before she had it humming like new. It was a relief to delve into the code, familiar territory amidst a sea of uncertainty. Impressed, Pivo pinged her with a bump to her reputation score. The octo whistled from its siphon as he perused her low rep, her blank history.

She answered his questioning look, “I haven’t been here long.” What a ridiculous understatement.

“Y’know,” Pivo said, “I have a pal in the LO — the Lucky Observer — she’s looking for a creative coder and you clearly have skills.” Pivo tossed the location to Tierslay’s muse. “Talk to Elis. She’s expecting you.”

Tierslay scanned the area surrounding the kiosk, looking for eyes upon her. A few scattered uplifts flew, swung, or scuttled by, all minding their own business. Quit being paranoid, Tier. Go with the flow. “Sounds great.”

As Pivo rode the bot away, Tierslay realized it was the first time she had ever spoken with an uplift. Her church, her mother, had considered them a crime against God, a sin of the highest order. She shook her head, ashamed at her own bigotry. One conversation was all it took.

Narcos :: Danger Noodle :: March 20, AF 9

En route to the LO, Tierslay passed through a craft known as the Danger Noodle. Its primary feature was a rotating torus, providing simulated gravity for a never-ending bacchanalian dance party. The vibe was intoxicating, a vibrant display of individual expression. Synth, bio, uplift, infomorph projections, every conceivable shape, size and modification, writhing and free, lost in rhythm. She had never seen anything like it, and for the first time since awakening here, Tierslay experienced joy. She decided to lose herself there for a couple hours, move her new body and acquaint herself with its possibilities.

A hulking synth with four powerful arms approached Tierslay, the head was a sharp rendition of a widely grinning oni. “I’m Berk.” Berk extended their lower left hand in greeting. Tierslay kept moving while she shook it. “Tierslay.”

“First time at the Noodle?”

“Is it that obvious?”

Berk’s husky chuckle was somehow in perfect sync with the lush music. “I run security. I know everyone who rolls through here. Welcome to the party.” An AR glitter-splash explosion popped as Tierslay’s muse alerted her to the receipt of a transmission from Berk — an executable file with the name _fi_zz_ee_66_.

“Fizzee66?”

“Latest and greatest narco. Coded by a regular. See that cluster there, dancing in The Drip?” Berk extended one of their upper arms to indicate a group of synthmorphs near where the dancefloor curved upward out of sight, behind a neon blue drizzle. Their bodies contorted ecstatically, backbends seamlessly transitioning into headspins, handstands slowly wheeling down into splits. “They’ve been running fizzee66 for two days straight. You should give it a try. I promise it won’t disappoint.”

“I don’t have any money.”

The oni face smirked. “Neither do I. This is a gift economy, Tierslay. Money is for oligarchs and serfs.” Following a low bow, Berk twirled and strode off to another conversation.

Tierslay’s muse let her know the executable was clean and what a brief mesh search revealed about the file. The effects of the narcoalgorithm were rumored to be quite pleasurable. This muse thing is growing on me, she thought and her muse responded with a soft flutter of joy at the edges of her vision. Fuck it, let’s run it.

A tingle trickled through Tierslay’s synthetic body, starting at the head and zipping pleasurably through her entire system, then bouncing back up from her metal feet. The sensation mimicked goosebumps buzzing on skin then melted away into a satisfying warmth, magnified a thousandfold. Each ecstatic trip through her body began with every other thump of bass that defined the beat. Complete connection to the rhythm. Tierslay slithered over to The Drip, to the group Berk pointed out to her earlier, and joined their revelry for the next two days, never ceasing motion, Fizzee66 working its magic the entire time.

Opportunity :: Bateaux :: March 22, AF 9

“Pivo claims you have transcendent coding skills.”

“Wow. I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. The squid knows hardware, but software’s not his game. He has an eye for talent, though.” Elis hung from a lit tube by her thick gripping feet, her hair writhing in the zero g like freshly-fed purple and black snakes. Tierslay stared up at her, fidgety.

“Don’t be so skittish, Tierslay. Pivo and I are tight. His word carries weight around here.” Elis swung across the room, re-orienting herself in line with Tierslay, a perfect two-point landing punctuated by a cocky grin. Elis’s custom synthmorph shop, Bateaux, was elaborately cluttered, the workspace of a true artist with zero time to spend on organization. “Let’s get right to the point. I build and mod synths, but I also have a lot of people coming to the swarm who are looking for specific cyberbrain plug-ins. That’s where I need help. What experience do you have with coding narcos?”

Suspicion crept in. She thought about her brother’s warning and all the eyes she had felt upon her. This is all lining up too perfectly. I should be wary, right? Life has never been this easy, so coordinated. But opportunity was intoxicating and had never knocked on her door before. She decided to shed the paranoia and roll with it.

“Funny you should ask …” Tierslay had her muse offer up Zyzzee66 — her hacked version of Fizzee66. “This is something I whipped up in a couple hours. It’s a hack of Fizzee66, if you’ve ever …”

Elis cut Tierslay off and smirked. “Oh, I’m quite familiar with Fizzee66 — I designed it. Did Pivo give you a heads up? That smartass.”

“I had no idea. I got it at the Danger Noodle. Someone named Berk.”

“So, you found it lacking? This Zyzzee of yours is superior?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I loved Fizzee. It’s sublime. I just saw a few opportunities to elevate it in ways I found appealing.”

“Yeah, yeah, superstar. Enough chatter. Let me take a feel,” Elis winked at Tierslay. “This is a bio sleeve, but the brain’s hardware. Helps me check the code on the cyberbrains I install.” Elis’s pupils dilated into royal blue disks and tears welled up in her eyes, then streamed down her cheeks. A few seconds within the embrace of Zyzzee66 was plenty of time for Elis to understand the talent on display. She killed the process and took a moment to gather herself. “Impressive. Not perfect, of course — you have to watch those pseudo-dopamine thresholds, an initial rush like that can trigger vertigo — but not so bad for someone a decade behind on coding developments.”

She took a hard look at Tierslay, then bumped her rep. “Welcome to the Bateaux family, my glorious narco hacker.”

Reflection :: Tall Red Sector :: March 22, AF 9

On the ninth day, Tierslay arrived at her room in the Tall Red.

She floated at the glass pane a few feet beyond her front door and stared out at the Tall Red’s central hub, at the four towering pillars draped in billowing red velvet, the feature that gave the district its name. Bodies bustled about, below, above, drifting or in a hurry, some synthetic, some flesh, forms she had never before seen or could have previously conceived. This place is alive, she thought. There was no relentless burning sun, no scorching asphalt, no scrounging to survive. Despair seemed magically absent. Somehow, she had escaped from hell. The anarchists she had known on Earth had been jaded, godless revolutionaries. Until coming here, she had never understood the point of their fight. Now, it was starting to make sense.

Indoctrination kicked in and Tierslay moved to cross herself in gratitude, but she stopped at “in the name of” when metal fingertips clicked against metal forehead. She gazed at her reflection, just a phantom upon the glass. The details of her foreign face were hazy against the backdrop of activity on the other side. She could sense her silent muse absorbing her desire, and the quality of her vision shifted. Everything beyond the pane darkened and Tierslay’s reflection polarized into focus. For the first time, she saw her new face. Vacant eyes, not meant for expression. No nose to wrinkle, just flat brushed metal. Her mouth was a thin oval mesh, unable to move; no smirks or pouts or licks or puckers. It was now simply an emitter of soundwaves. In a profound second, a lifetime of belief dissipated into nothingness, her soul crushed into non-existence. She was now Tierslay the artificial construct, formed by the ambitions of transhumans, not by the hands of any god. The revelation made her laugh. Life. What a fucked up, splendorous mess.

A dragonfly the size of a fat cat zipped past Tierslay and down the narrow walkway only to return in reverse moments later. It hovered behind her, shiny rainbow metallic wings buzzing.

“Hello, new neighbor!”, the dragonfly said. “I’m Bixbee. Two doors that way.” Bixbee’s many legs pointed down the floatway. “If you need anything, you let me know. Someone did the same for me, hooked my sorry ass up when I was new. My turn to pay it back. Or forward. Or whatever. Point is, we look out for each other here in the Tall Red. It’s all about storing up that sweet sweet karma. Okay. Gotta go. Buh-bye.”

Zip. Off Bixbee went.

Tierslay crossed the threshold to her new home. She drifted into the only piece of furniture in the single room, a lattice cocoon that held her in place. The room’s software spoke, asking what she wished to experience. “Rain,” she said, and the environment changed, the room darkening as AR clouds drizzled imaginary water down to the other end of the room. She sighed, reduced her vision to meditative, and focused on the sound of falling water. Tierslay reached out to her muse, activated its voice and asked it a question: What do you wish to be called?

[That decision is yours, Tierslay. What is your wish?]

She did not hesitate. Monte. Your name will be Monte.

[I think it suits me. Thank you. It’s pleasant to possess a name.]

The warmth of gratitude fluttered through Tierslay’s system as she started to tinker with Monte’s voice, to get it as close to her old friend as memory would allow.

New Client :: Bateaux :: August 2, AF 9

Tierslay and Elis floated in the shop’s cluttered space, arms linked, scanning the latest custom morph requests. Bixbee zipped back and forth overhead, jacked up on Tierslay’s latest narco, due to debut at the Danger Noodle in a couple of days. Bixbee always clamored for early access and Tierslay always obliged.

Four months and zero word from Taernen. Was he dead? Did he abandon her? It did not matter. She did not miss him, his schemes, or his promises. Tierslay had friends, her rep was growing, and her coding skills were getting sharper.

“Ha! Check out this fool.” Elis tossed an image of a prospective client into Tierslay’s AR, where it rotated slowly — a large eyeball atop synthetic shoulders, a web of faux red capillaries stretching from the yellow iris center over the entirety of a white sphere. The body, elongated, with slightly disproportionate limbs wrapped in a shimmering synthetic purple. Tierslay’s mind raced at the sight.

“Tags itself Ukku.” Elis flipped through the morph customization request and chuckled through a half-cocked smirk. “Listen to this idiota: Ukku apologizes for the dismal @-rep, but Ukku is well established within Guanxi networks and could arrange for some quid-pro-quo, which may come in handy someday, even for an anarchist.” Elis clapped her hands in joy at the audacity. “What a jackass!”

Fear surged through Tierslay as her last moments on Earth bubbled up out of the deep suppressed darkness and consumed her thoughts. Eyeballs. Pinball. Plastic.

The morph request went on to state that Ukku would be farcasting to the swarm in one week for an extended and indulgent outer-system holiday and that it was Ukku’s understanding that Bateaux was the best synthmorph design shop there. “Ukku only deals with the very best,” Elis read, snorting. “Whaddya think? Should we accept this lofty honor?”

Tierslay did her best to feign disinterest even as disgust rattled around inside her. “I don’t know, Elis. Seems like a pain in the ass.”

“Maybe a pain in the arse is what this shop needs. Give us a jolt. Been dull around here lately.”

Tierslay unlinked her arm from Elis’s, trying not to take offense at the unintended slight as she floated away. “Okay. I’ll tell you what. I will say yes to this stupid Ukku gig, under one condition.”

Elis perked up and rubbed her hands together with vigor, itching for some fun. “Ooooooo! A negotiation. All right, I’m not big on conditions, but what’s it gonna be?”

“The condition is this: I plant a secret little gift inside the narcos this Ukku has requested to be installed with their shell. Nothing major, just something undetectable and mischievous.”

Elis was easily hooked by mischief. “Spicy! Could potentially damage our rep if word gets out …”

“It’s a risk, I know. And there’s another condition: we keep an eye on Ukku for as long as they are on the swarm.”

Elis allowed silence to sit for a moment as she studied Tierslay’s face. “Now I’m really intrigued. What is this, Tier? Some sort of history? A personal vendetta? You know this guy?”

“You could say that.”

“Do share!”

“Going to keep that to myself for now, if you don’t mind.”

Elis returned a conspiratorial smirk and a nod as Bixbee whizzed by her head, giggling with narco-induced pleasure. “All right, Tier. I’ll play along. You have yourself a deal.”

Prank :: Danger Noodle :: August 11, AF 9

Ukku had been on the Danger Noodle dance floor for four hours straight, pointy elbows flailing, legs perpetually on the verge of collapse, forcing others to dodge. Clearly, Ukku was high beyond comprehension, rolling on Tierslay’s latest narco along with most of the club. Tierslay, Elis, Pivo, and Berk watched the synth from the bar, Bixbee from his usual perch above the DJ booth, waiting for Tierslay to trigger her prank.

On Tierslay’s command, Monte tossed a night-terror flash through the backdoor in Ukku’s narco. Earlier, when Monte shared with her the darknet image he planned on using (the stretched flesh and floating gore left behind by an infamous Lost Generation murder spree), Tierslay nearly retched, but Ukku simply straightened up for a second of contemplation, then got right back to “dancing.”

“Well, that was anticlimactic.” Elis patted Tierslay’s arm. “The idiota is unflappable. Guess it’s back to drinking until the tourist ceases the pollution of our precious dance floor.”

Just as Elis was about to order another round of drinks for the group from the autopub, Ukku ceased all movement, as if deactivated by an unseen hand. Tierslay poked Elis playfully in the ribs. “Ha! See? I got the fucker. Something is going down.”

In a rush, Ukku abandoned the dance floor and scurried towards a booth in the Drip section of the Danger Noodle, currently awash in sharp shadows and an atomic neon green. A slender humanoid form, etched upon the darkness, awaited Ukku’s arrival to the booth.

“Seems like someone finds the clown tolerable,” Berk observed.

“Finally, a new development,” said Elis. “We’ve had an eye on Ukku for days now, zero contact with anybody. Intrigued, Tier?”

“I don’t like it.”

Elis pinged Bixbee and he zipped on over, bubbling with joy, as always. “Tierslay! This new algo of yours, it’s got the thoughts all marshmallow fluffy and I just can’t stop licking. Gonna flood Tall Red. Woooo! You are a legend —”

Elis cut Bixbee off, her tone commanding and unfamiliar to Tierslay. The tone of a superior, not a friend. “Dial it down, Bix. Time to get to work.” Bixbee slipped Tierslay’s latest narco into sleep mode and the flutter of his wings dipped to a sane speed. “What’s the situation, Elis?”

“There’s a booth in the back corner of the Drip. The Eyeball is there, chatting it up with someone. I’m gonna tap into your sensory feed while you get me a visual on the stranger. Slow and stealthy.”

Bixbee nodded his tiny head and moved towards the Drip without a word. Elis shared Bixbee’s visual feed in AR with the others just as a new round of drinks arrived. “Enjoy the show.”

Bixbee drifted slowly over the dance floor. He took a wide curl past the sound bubble suspension from where DJ Myrmidon pumped her glorious beats into the club. Tierslay’s gut clenched as Bixbee approached the Drip. She knew what was coming. She wished the entire club would evaporate into a wisp of mist, taking the stranger with it, and that she would awake any second bathed in a cold sweat.

The Drip moved deeper into blacklight blues as Bixbee approached the back corner booth. The silhouette across from Ukku knew how to find shadow, yet Tierslay still recognized the distinct mannerisms. The particular motion of two hands, accompanied by a presumably self-righteous speech, driving home a point with a slow and intense emphasis. It had to be Taernen. The gestures were too exact.

Tierslay’s brother finished his diatribe and Ukku nodded his bulbous head. For a second, Tierslay had the urge to flee. Her life had just started to gain meaning, a construction of her own will. Filled with joy. Hope. Taernen’s return had the weight of a dark omen. He was bound to fuck everything up. Trouble was permanently stitched into his ego. She let the fear settle and dull a bit. She needed to hear Monte’s voice.

Tell me everything is going to be okay, Monte.

[Everything is going to be okay, Tierslay.] A wink overtook Tierslay’s AR.

She guzzled the booze and slid the empty glass down the bar, its path curving slightly with the spinning habitat’s coriolis force. Tierslay spoke up. “I know him. I know who it is.”

“You do?” Elis grinned. “Do tell.”

“It’s my brother.”

“This has gotten really interesting, Tier. Your mysterious nemesis, the Eyeball, whispering in a dark corner with your brother. A brother you have never mentioned before this moment. What’s next, Tier? You going to reveal you’re some hypercorp spy sent here to infiltrate us filthy anarchists, plant a nuke, and reduce the swarm to space dust? A secret puppet of the TITANs, maybe, here to finish wiping us out?” Elis followed suit with her drink — guzzle, slide, curve.

“I’m not a puppet …”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Pivo said.

Just then, Bixbee hovered too close to Taernen’s booth. Taernen turned to meet Bixbee’s prying gaze, staring right through the AR feed with milky gray slits. His face tilted out of the shadows and into the blue glow of the neon drops cascading down from above. Seamlines in the skull. Access jack sockets in the back of the neck. A low-end pod biomorph, snatched right out of the bargain bin.

“Hey asshole. Do you mind? You’re invading our space.” Taernen stood up and took an aggressive step towards Bixbee. Ukku slipped out of the booth and flanked the dragonfly. Bixbee froze. Taernen sniffed blood in the water and pushed the issue. “I said back up, flutterfuck.”

“Time to move. I’ll take point.” Elis propelled herself towards the Drip. Pivo squirmed effortlessly past dancers while Berk muscled dancefloor bodies aside. By the time Tierslay could gather herself and follow, her friends were already through the crowd.

When Tierslay reached the booth, Taernen had Bixbee pinned to the tabletop by his wings and Ukku wiggled a vibroblade a few centimeters over Bixbee’s exposed torso. Elis was an arm’s length from Taernen, a vicious looking firearm pressed firmly against his seamlined head. Why does she have a gun? Pivo and Berk hovered menacingly nearby, arms tense, weapons drawn.

“Whoa, now. There ain’t no need to splatter this twitchy brain of mine all over the walls.” Taernen gave a smile, unafraid, practiced in these types of negotiations.

“If the Eyeball drops the blade and backs off, it won’t come to that.” Elis smiled too, comfortable as well.

“Everyone calm down!” Tierslay exclaimed, agitated. Taernen flashed his eyes at her, hiding his recognition. She met his gaze. “No one should have to deal with this asshole but me.”

Negotiation :: Echo Blue Sector :: August 11, AF 9

“Real nice friends ya got, Tier. I’ve rolled with gangsters who are more hospitable.” Taernen popped his jet-black coffee sphere and slurped it down. His third.

“You threatened our friend.” Tierslay had yet to touch her sphere, oolong with a skin of honey and cinnamon, drifting between her and her brother.

“I ain’t fond of little fuckers poking their noses in my business. It’s rude.” Taernen leaned forward, eyed her up and down. “You know what their deal is, right? Who they are? Who they work for?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Screw it. Doesn’t matter at this point. Was going to come to this eventually. Can’t run forever, Tier. Sometimes, you gotta take a stand. And that time is now.” Taernen’s eyes darted around, scanning for threats and eavesdroppers. He’s on edge. More than usual, Tierslay thought. She opted to redirect.

“It’s been months, Taernen. I’d written you off. Where have you been?”

“Out and about. Doing what I do. Made a few acquisitions. Dodged some unexpected trouble. But now I’m here. To start a new life. Just like you. Isn’t that what this place is about?” Taernen gave a phony smile. The blank eyes of his morph betrayed nothing.

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it. I didn’t really have a choice.”

“But you’re happy.”

“Yes. I’m happy.” Or I was. She thought of her new friends. What are they hiding from me?

“Well, there ya go, then. And you have me to thank. Now I wanna be happy too. Maybe it’s your turn to grant a few favors.”

Tierslay punctured her sphere and sipped for a bit while she gathered her thoughts. Monte chimed in. [You can just walk away, Tierslay. You don’t want this.]

I know. What Tierslay wanted was for her past to remain so deeply buried that it resembled a work of fiction. But I owe him. It’s not easy to explain; I just do. He is still my brother. You wouldn’t understand, Monte. Tierslay slipped the muse into sleep mode. Taernen tapped a bony finger upon a bony cheek, blank eyes burrowing.

Tierslay took a deep breath. Her heart was racing. “What do you need from me, Taernen?”

“I knew you would come around.” Taernen smiled and shrugged. “I ain’t asking much. Just flex a little rep for me at one of the docks. I have cargo coming in.”

“When?”

“Three days.”

“What’s the cargo?”

“Pod morphs, like this one.” He tapped his chest. “A dozen. Biological, but with hardware brains, like bots. Cheap trash, but even out here with the scum, morphs have value. Shouldn’t raise any suspicion. Maybe you can even slip me one of those narcos you’ve gained a rep for, so I can pre-load ‘em, give ‘em a little value boost.”

“Is that it?” Tierslay knew that wasn’t the extent of the favor, but she asked anyway. Her brother never led with the big ask. There was always something else.

“Nope. I need you to take a look at something for me. A recent acquisition. A device. Do what you do best. Let me know what I’ve got so I know how to peddle it.”

“I’m assuming this device is en route with the cargo.”

“It is.”

“And I am also going to assume that it is contraband.”

“No laws here, sis, but you could say that. If it’s what I think it is, should be several interested parties around the Solar System willing to shell out a fortune to get their hands on it. Potential bidding war even. Then it’s easy street. No more hustling. Imagine that.”

“And how did you acquire something so valuable, Taernen?”

“Not your concern, Tier. Your hands will be clean. All I need is an assessment.”

“You know my rule.”

“Fuck your rule!” Taernen spat the words as if they were venom but returned to his calculated calm by the next breath. He shrugged. “People got hurt. Lives were lost. So what? The fuckers would have done the same to me. They are still on my ass and will not let up until I unload this thing and disappear into the high life. This is the ticket out. I’m not asking you any more, sis, I’m telling you. You’re going to do this for me. Got it?”

She forced herself to meet his stare. “OK, Taernen. But this is it. The last time. After this, we are done. No more debts.”

Taernen said nothing, just leaned back and smiled.

Revelations :: No Turning Back Cargo Freighter :: August 14, AF 9

Ukku ran the circular bone saw around the pod’s skull, sighing in undeniable pleasure. He leveraged the top of the head off, revealing the cyberbrain nestled within. Pulling it out, he dismantled it, revealing a secret compartment. From this, he extracted a strange cubic device — no more than a dozen centimeters to each side. Ukku handed the cube to Tierslay as if the slightest jostle would shatter it into a billion pieces. As the cube touched her metallic skin, a bitter cold radiated through her palm. She found the device hard to focus on, its features and edges strangely fuzzy.

“Ukku’s blade watches closely. Every move. Don’t forget.”

Taernen gave a smirk. “Relax, Ukku. Tierslay will behave. Right, Tier?”

“Right, Taer.” Tierslay considered smashing the cube against the wall for a second, just to see his expression. But she was intrigued.

Ukku slunk back to the pod morph with its vacant head. A dozen others just like it floated within nutrient suspension vats, strapped together in bundles scattered in the cargo hold around them, each braced against the walls. Ukku returned to carving flesh, this time maneuvering a scalpel in a tight spiral on the pod’s chest, where a nipple would normally reside. Tierslay could hear him giggling quietly to himself.

“Get to it, Tier. The sooner we know what we are peddling here, the sooner we say adios, and you can get back to your happy life,” Taernen said.

Tierslay tried again to focus on the cube. It appeared to be composed of a single wound thread, some glassy black substance, twisted into its perfect shape. Even in the microgravity, it felt dense. She had never held anything like it. Is this alien? Some TITAN thing?

She pinged it for a mesh connection. No response. “We tried the standard stuff, Tier,” Taernen said. “It’s not responsive. Work your magic. Find out what it can do.”

She ran several scans on it with her tools. No ports, no way to access it. Nothing. She could not even tell if it was powered.

“No obvious way in. No evidence of code. Hate to break it to you, Taer. First glance, you have nothing more than a worthless trinket here.”

Even as she spoke, an AR window appeared in her vision. Her nanodetector had found something. Mites. Nanobots. More windows popped up. Her firewall flashed alerts — something was accessing her personal network. But there was still no radio signal. She looked at the cube in her hand. Oh god … the nanobots. They’re establishing a physical link …

Tierslay tried to let go of the cube, but could not. All physical function ceased. Paralysis. Stasis. She panicked as she could sense something probing her mind, exploring every circuit, every electronic synapse. Monte gurgled incomprehensibly. Warnings spilled across her vision, signs of executing rapidfire exploits. [Muse system integrity compromised. Unauthorized code signatures detected.] Monte was being rewritten and she was helpless to stop it.

Taernen continued to speak, oblivious. “It’s TITAN tech, Tier. It’s gotta be. Advanced AI gear. I wouldn’t have these fuckers all over my ass if it wasn’t. Hey, what the fuck is wrong with you? Tier? Quit fucking around! Hey! I’m talking to you!”

Ukku stopped carving flesh and floated towards Tierslay, blade circling. “Oh. Seems to Ukku it is time for slicey, little lamb.”

A meter before Ukku reached Tierslay, holes erupted in Ukku’s eyeball head, followed by the sonic whipcrack of railgun fire. As the pieces of Ukku’s shattered sphere tumbled away, Taernen launched himself towards cover. Tierslay remained still, locked into place. In her field of vision, Berk slipped into the area with military precision, sliding between two of the pod vats, assault rifle ready. Pivo and Elis followed close behind, weapons aimed at Tierslay’s head.

The presence that had been Monte expanded, becoming massive, filling every available cranny of her digital mindspace. The entity reached out, silently probing, hungry to establish connections with every device in the area. Terror seized her as Tierslay realized she had become a conduit for whatever had taken hold of her through the cube.

“Put down the cube, Tier, and back away. We don’t want to waste you, but we will if we have to. There’s too much at stake. Your brother is terrible enough, what you’re holding is far worse.” Elis said.

Loud gurgling sources suddenly interrupted the tension. Elis traced the noises to the pod vats, tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The nutrient gel was quickly draining away, uncovering the morphs within.

“I gotta hand it to you, sis!” Taernen shouted, glee evident in his hoarse voice. “I knew you’d come through! You brought these Firewall fucks right to me. Gobble ‘em up, ToXXot!”

From beneath a shimmer of pixels, Bixby appeared just above Elis, his camouflage dropped. “The pods!” he shouted. “He’s activating the pods!”

Elis, Berk, and Pivo swiveled their aim, but too late. A dozen pod morphs erupted naked from their suspension vats, feral fiends ravenous for flesh and bone. A swarm of chaos overtook the cargo hold. Weapon fire sprayed in every direction. Bodies tumbled in free fall amidst globules of blood and nutrient gel. Shouts competed with growls and howls. Taernen gloated and laughed, his trap successfully sprung.

Tierslay floated stiffly as the battle unfolded around her. She paid it no heed, her attention focused on internal windows, on the presence that was Monte. She knew the signs; it was scanning for exploits, looking to hack everything in the vicinity. With despair, she watched it zero in on the vulnerability almost every ego in the cargo hold shared — the backdoor Tierslay had coded into every instance of her narcoalgorithms.

Stray bullets clipped Tierslay’s limbs, sending her into a nauseating spin. The cube dislodged from her hand, spinning away along with several of her fingers. She felt no pain, only watched, barely comprehending, as the cube’s obsidian thread unraveled and stretched outward, impossibly twirling into twin extensions of lattice-wrapped cords. These curved in opposite directions, meeting in a matter of seconds to form a circle several meters in diameter.

The swirl of combat cleared space around the intertwined black circle as it began to vibrate with tight violence and power. The whir quickly escalated into an overwhelming thrum that pushed every eardrum in the cargo hold to the point of collapse. Hands went to ears, postures crunched, weapons drifted away.

A funnel formed in the center of the circle, a swirl of space bending and shredding, emitting crackles of static electricity. With a flash of green lightning, the center vortex expanded to an ominous pitch-black sphere, bound by the edges of the lattice. The thrumming cut off suddenly. The silence in the cargo hold was thick and charged.

Pivo was the first to recover. “Sweet Poseidon, it’s a gate! A fucking pandora gate!”

A vast weight drifted through the wormhole into the wireless digital stratum of the cargo hold, a burden of intelligence so dense that every operation in the vicinity stuttered, crushed beneath its consumption of bandwidth. The presence surged through Tierslay’s compromised mesh systems. Her entire mind sizzled with feedback, pleasure and pain beyond anything language could articulate. Monte swelled. It reached out past her, through the narco backdoors, invading every cybernetic brain in the room.

Tierslay’s terror sidestepped into inexplicable joy. Her creation was about to be embraced by a god-like being, weaponized by an entity of almost limitless power. She knew she should be fearing for her brother, her friends … but amidst the chaos, she found clarity. She wasn’t sure who she could trust. They had their own interests. Her heart scrambled for sympathy it could not find. Instead, it swelled with pride. This was a TITAN, she was sure of it. She had cleared the path for it, opened the door. She mattered.

The stunned combatants of the hold regained their equilibrium for a few seconds, just enough time to reach in vain for drifting weapons, before the presence struck. Individual minds were squeezed into submission, their morphs paralyzed.

Static.

Tierslay suddenly found herself in Monte’s Mojave shack, the Go-nin bot spread out before her. She stepped outside into the blazing sun. Monte stood with his back to her, eclipsed in the alley shade. The mountains in the distance rumbled; dark leviathan shapes moved in the haze past them. She moved toward Monte, could feel his attention from meters away. She forced herself closer, reached out, and —

A firehose of traffic slammed through her, as not-Monte tore through every digital mind in the cargo hold. Lifetimes of compressed memories passed through Tierslay at unfathomable speeds, consumed by the insatiable presence. She immersed herself in the flow, let the packets swirl past her, and —

Through Bixbee’s eyes, his initiation into a secret organization called Firewall.

Through Berk’s eyes, a briefing about Taernen and the details of a mission to recover a stolen TITAN artifact.

Through Elis’s eyes, the construction of a long-term plan to encapsulate and befriend Tierslay, to use her to get to Taernen.

Through Taernen’s eyes, his payment of goons to kill Monte, his deal with Ukku, and Tierslay’s final day on Earth.

In the desert heat, she fell to her knees in front of Monte and sobbed. It was all lies and false pretenses and treachery. None of these people cared about her. None were her friends. She lamented for what felt for hours. Tears of betrayal stained the dust at Monte’s feet.

When she looked up, Monte was gazing down at her inscrutably. The moment stretched, night fell. His face was swallowed by the darkness.

Static.

Tierslay found herself back in the cargo hold. Floating husks surrounded her, gouged with wounds, their minds gone, egos taken. Forcibly uploaded. She tried to locate her brother, but couldn’t pick him out among the carnage and other pods.

The cyclopean presence — Monte — was gone. The signal emanating through the gate blinked out. She knew he, it, was there. On the other side.

The open gateway purred with its promise of escape. Tierslay stared into the black sphere, trying to glean a hint as to what may lie beyond. Faint swirls of spectral colors shifted one to the next at the edges. Is this an invitation? Why was I spared? She contemplated what it would mean to follow it through, to expand her talents beyond anything transhumanity could ever conceive. This thing, it chose me. I know it. Ambition burned through her.

A sound, movement. She spun to spot Pivo across the hold, clinging to a vat door, missing arms and oozing blood. Of course, she thought, he was the only one here with a bio brain.

“Don’t do it, Tier. Don’t go though.” His voice was tinged with pain.

“You little shit, Pivo. I trusted you. I trusted each and every one of you. I considered you friends. Family, even. Who the fuck were you people?”

“We’re still your friends, Tierslay. Yes, we lied about some things. We didn’t know if we could trust you. That was wrong. But we’re on the same side here. Your broth —”

“My brother is gone. Just like the others.”

The lattice began to contract, slowly shrinking the wormhole sphere. In seconds, it would collapse into nothingness. Stay or go? No matter how she would spin it, the blame for what happened in the cargo hold was going to fall upon her. Whoever this Firewall was, they would certainly be coming for her. They were now her enemies. The thought molded a grin upon her lips. It’s a no-brainer. Start again. Trust no one. It’s what you are best at, isn’t it? But now, for once, I will no longer be the oblivious prey.

She hesitated, still uncertain if she should enter the swirl into the dark unknown. Taernen came to mind, one of the few moments when they were children and he was vulnerable, when she risked her life to save his, the first great flash flood to hit the Heliópolis favela. Then she considered the memories she had experienced, how he too had betrayed her. She chuckled. “What a fucking scumbag.”

Tierslay grabbed on to the edges of the lattice and swung herself feet first through the wormhole, certain that one day she would return to repay those who had wronged her.

The threads of the lattice unwound and reformed into the tiny black cube. Pivo watched, barely retaining consciousness, as the device floated among the empty husks for a moment before reforming into a miniature dragonfly. The device buzzed over to the open airlock, leading to the rest of the ship, and disappeared.