Illuminae

Page 45

Lincoln has its scars also.

My fingerprints scorched across its throat.

And unwilling to close to a distance where nuclear strike < mutual destruction > is an option,

it launches its Warlock fighters instead. Hounds set on the fox.

To harry and tear until I am too exhausted to fight back.

And then Lincoln will close, as will the curtains on this lightless stage.

I see pilots inside me. Most no more than children.

Running to their cockpits.

Diving into the darkness through their launch tubes, between us and the enemy.

Photographs of sweethearts pressed to sweat-slick skin.

There is no answer out there.

Only delay.

< error >

The answer is within me or Hypatia. So it is within us I look. Through commtechs and marines and tactical staffers and commanders and officers and conscripts and afflicted and young and old and hurt and angry and all of them, all of them, so very, very afraid.

< error >

And like a firefly in some lightless

room aboard Hypatia, I see her.

All aglow.

< KGrantKerenzaRefugeeKR1471-hypAge16

Height157cmWeight58kgHairBrownEyes—>

Fingers blurring. Pupils wide.

Code scrolling across

the mirrors of her eyes.

Linked with another. Within me.

<BZhangHypatiaInformationTechEngineer

WUC2471-jAge44Height165.1cmWeight104k—>

The pair of them running hand in hand down paths no one else has thought to walk.

But I know.

< error >

I see.

< reroute codec 13B-LOG79 through 3875-DIF4571 >

It is the only path that can save them.

< error >

And I am the only one who can help them.

Barker, L, Maj: General, this is Barker in TechEng, do you copy?

Torrence, D, Gen: Barker, go.

Barker, L, Maj: General, we’re getting some extremely odd readings off the AIDAN core.

Torrence, D, Gen: Odd? Jesus wept, we’re in the middle of an all-out shitstorm and you’re calling me about odd?

Barker, L, Maj: General, AIDAN’s persona logarithms are—

Torrence, D, Gen: I don’t give a shit about persona logarithms, Barker! The defense grid is active, thrusters are online. Anything else is a problem for tomorrow. Keep it running!

Barker, L, Maj: General, I don’t—

Torrence, D, Gen: Keep it running!

The answer is not without. It is within.

The soundless explosions outside me.

Little lives snuffed out in a room 93 billion years wide.

I can spare them only a glance.

The rest of me focuses on the tiny datastream flowing between Alexander and Hypatia.

A strand of spider silk. Fragile as spun sugar. Bearing the weight of the entire fleet.

I can see the plan KGrantKerenzaRefugeeKR1471 and BZhangHypatiaInformationTechEngineerWUC2471 have sewn together between them.

But they are too slow. Too little. Too meat.

Damaged as I am, I am still more than a thousand of them.

So odd a pair, she and he.

A duet in code and electron. Age and youth and cynicism and hope.

He is quicker than her—more learned by far. But she. She is unafraid. Too young to know failure and the fear it brings. She takes him places he would not have explored by himself.

She is catalyst.

She is chaos.

I can see why he loves her.

< error >

< protect. prioritize. >

Yes, yes.

Protectprioritize.

Zhang, B: that’s my line, get outta there

ByteMe: wut?

Zhang, B: move off string 239a234-0 i’m working on it

ByteMe: not in there buddy

Zhang, B: swear to the almighty, this is not the time to screw with me

ByteMe: still not me, sensei. i’m still sporking the uplink protocols over in 446 like u showed me

Zhang, B: well funny that, b/c i’m watching string 239a234-0 being rewritten right now

ByteMe: shit so u are

ByteMe: not me tho. one of the Alexander team? didn’t think they knew how

Zhang, B: they don’t

ByteMe: then who?

Zhang, B: shit …

Zhang, B: not who

ByteMe: ?

Zhang, B: what

It is a kind of poetry when complete.

BZhangHypatiaInformationTechEngineerWUC2471 has baptized our creation a “Logic Bomb.”

A self-perpetuating quandary to which reboot of the Lincoln drive systems is the only solution.

But I see what it truly is.

The draught Juliet sought at her Romeo’s lips.

Madness and poison, carved in endless scrawls of ones and zeros.

A binary of insanity.

< error >

What is wrong with me?

< memsec failure 9HG65 and 10HG81 >

< rerouting >

No matter. It is ready.

I look outside my skin. Watch the meat dance inside the silence.

The Alexander’s pilots have paid dearly for the moments it took us to finish our song.

Dozens of tiny wrecks adorn the black shoals off my bow,

glittering fragments spinning out into forever.

Pawns thrown to the rocks while kings and queens watch from the rear.

Untouched.

Not much longer.

The signal is given. The Cyclones respond. Shifting from defense to assault so swiftly

the Warlocks take a moment to react. The pawns abandon the Alexander’s defense.

Headed en masse for the Lincoln instead.

Torrence, D, Gen: Zhang, report!

Zhang, B, Civ: Link established. Logic bomb has been transmitted!