Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two - Sonde

"New things tend ta be real scary. Ya brain don' know what ta do, feels like ya got left hangin'. People don't like it, an' they react bad.

Ya don't either, and if ya think ya do, quit lyin' to yerself.

Listen to yerself and think. That's how ya learn ta react right."

– Aunt 'Auntie Care' Carroll, giving advice to her young shadow, June 2056

 

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Sister Lana once again sat on her bed and stared at the picture of the French woman with that long, luxurious red hair. For the hundredth time. An exact copy of Leah's hair, combined with one of a few specific body shapes chosen for their…remarkableness. 

She had a sinking feeling that she knew exactly what that meant. Anxiety sucked at her belly. Her fingers shook slightly and her breathing was uneven.

"It's not the only explanation, Lana," she whispered unsteadily to herself.

No, not it wasn't the only explanation, or even anywhere near the most likely. Just the one she was most intimately familiar with.

And also one that would really fit the kind of establishment the beautiful stranger seemed to be hanging around. The picture was taken just outside after all.

Sister Lana's shoulders shook as years-old terror scrabbled up her ribcage and strangled her throat. Bent over, she silently cried into her palms, hidden in her room behind locked doors where no one would be able to intrude.

As it always did, it took an hour before she regained her equilibrium enough that she believed it when she told herself that she could trust her friends and coworkers.

– The previous day, during a quiet moment at the Saint Viktor orphanage

 

***

 

Aerial combat really was completely different than anything I’d experienced in my entire life.

Well, sort of. I'd had dream training in aerial maneuvering—aerodynamically controlled falling, really—so I did actually know what to do. And the organic flight-navigation instrument and computer connected to my lower spine certainly helped with its lightning-fast calculations and corrections to my profile.

I still had to actually think about my strategies. On the ground, I was experienced. I knew where to move and how to move my body, without much consideration beyond the nature of the threat I was facing. Trained instincts, almost.

But up here? I had to think about energy management and dog fighting. I'd needed a second to realize that the correct tactic was to gain height by slowly circling upwards on my wings, sticking to low thrust settings so my Second Wind's tanks would refill, and using the rising heat from the fires like a glider used thermals.

Instead of jetting my way up one or two thousand meters, which I didn't have the necessary gas for anyway, I would want to lure the model Elevens into diving for me. I'd handily win in raw maneuverability with minimal energy expenditure, but I'd lose if I tried to force the fight. Baiting them was my only real option at the moment. If I wanted to protect Leah's mechs, anyway.

It took me accidentally trapping and killing the first one in just such a maneuver for me to realize that this was in fact, my best strategy.

So I circled my way up in comfortable spirals, riding the thermals Leah was creating. I was splitting my attention between the remaining half-dozen Elevens a kilometer above me, and the battlefield just a little more than one kilometer below me, planning my actions to help bring an end to this fight.

The Elevens were the biggest, most direct danger. They were large and heavy, served as fast transport for smaller models, and could squash our spider mechs just by dropping on them. Leah had two ways of defeating them: her one-oh-five, which had a bit of a slow fire-rate and locked her in place, and the Dakka's twin twenty mil, rotary autocannons. Those would allow her to continue moving, but she'd have to hose down the Elevens with dozens to hundreds of Class II rounds each, or maybe get a lucky headshot against a tiny articulated target on a flapping bird, from a moving platform, two kilometers up.

We figured I'd get things done for a lot less points, and being up here would help me control the rest of the battlefield anyway.

Cloud cover's starting to close Leah's, uh, hole, though, I thought, glancing at the ragged edges of the gray cloudbase. Might need another shell before I've finished killing them all.

That meant I'd need to secure space for Leah to stop and gun the sky again.

Her three spiders were constantly moving to use the sight-blocking ramps of shredded alien bodies to hide from Fives all around. They would riddle her defenses with too many projectiles to deflect and explode. Only the artillery model Fifteens could throw their spring-loaded spike balls. These released their payload as soon as the structural integrity of the ball was injured, but that was fairly easily handled by teleporting the spiders' reactive explosive hexagons close enough to catch most of the organic shrapnel with just one plate.

A group of thirty Fives moved to cut off Leah several corners down the corridor. If they shot several quills each, at short range, there'd be no way her electrolasers would have the time they required to redirect an acceptable number of them. The mechs' armor should bounce them at oblique angles, but at least some would find flat-enough surfaces and penetrate.

I commanded the Myriad bobbing along behind Leah to release a cloud of Javelins and sent them hurtling ahead. They screamed past the bends in the fleshy canyon, just a meter above the ground, and reached the Fives in seconds, where they arched up and away until their flaming rears were pointed at the walking clods of alien weeds.

A smile played over my lips as I pictured the pain my missiles would deliver in moments.

But there was too much to do, too many things to think about.

Can't let myself get enthralled by gorgeous mayhem, right now.

So, for the first time ever, I sank into the Quanta with conscious intent.

Time dilated as I dipped beneath the turbulent waves of hormonal emotions, into the cool currents of logic. Solidity and intrinsic existence were washed from me, traded for measured curiosity, decisive certainty, and a widened horizon.

I watched the Javelins core each of the model Fives, shredding their bodies with ultra-violence, but the chaotic joy of havoc skipped across the surface of my consciousness and left my thoughts undisturbed.

Leah's mech pulsed an automated situation change packet of data at me, and I unpacked it with virtual fingers. Her sensors had picked up the initial motions of three of the Elevens preparing to dive bomb us as I moved to intersect a line drawn between them and Leah's Dakka.

I filed it away; I had a dilated hour before I would need to take action.

Once again I considered the battlefield in its entirety, and many things jumped out at me. Tactical mistakes we'd made and their repercussions, weaknesses in the tactics of the Antithesis, decisions and solutions that would see us safe and gone and the aliens wrecked.

I snagged on a simple realization that I'd somehow missed before: I'd not been using the Quanta correctly. I'd thought the mental tabs were the point of its design, the pinnacle of its capabilities, and the jailbroken quasi-selves that of its successor models. But these were just the means by which this line of augmentations achieved their designer's intent. They were meant to be mini-Tyneas. But unlike the Class XII AI, these organic computers were completely and utterly open to their users. My Quanta was me, in a way that Tynea wasn't, couldn't be.

The buds that would grow and come into their own, would remain linked to me in a manner that would ensure that we'd act with an unparalleled seamlessness. Even if they achieved independence of thought and existence, we'd continue to synchronize on decisions that affected all of us.

Or something. The Quanta links priorities, but thoughts and personalities remain disparate… A hivemind limited to certain aspects of the subconscious, maybe?

Quite unlike Tynea, who was only peripherally connected to me and had to rely on faulty predictions to work with me.

Mission Control, Combat Command, and Logistics all were facets of me, but their…jurisdictions limited them. They weren't equipped to really take advantage of being me. They didn't have the power to make autonomous decisions, and that meant I wasn't truly using the Quanta.

I couldn't just unlock them either. They were untrained and lacked…wisdom? It would take constant supervision to prevent collateral damage.

Hmm.

I would create a new bud to analyze and categorize all of my experiences and decisions. It…she, would—first and foremost—learn. Unlike my previous tabs, I wouldn't specify her jurisdiction, but rather reinforce a natural inclination to learn, analyze, and adapt. She would use what she learned to make decisions, and she would not require my confirmation to execute. If she was me in the way that the Quanta was meant to be, then she would simply not cause unwanted harm.

The calm curiosity of Quanta-space rose in me; what would she teach me about myself? How would her decisions compare to my own, hormone-driven as they are sometimes? Would she force me to confront aspects of myself I preferred to ignore? If she was part of the Quanta, that is, me, would she do only what I would, or would she find a new path?

Without a specific area of expertise, she'd be active around the clock, unlike my other buds. She'd develop very quickly, wouldn't she? Then she needed a suitable name.

She'd be a learner, an analyzer, and probably, eventually a teacher to my other buds. A chronicler and actor.

Hmm.

Ah. She'd be an explorer, too, somebody who'd discover unfamiliar sides of myself, and make decisions as I would have made them in different circumstances, with less baggage and probably healthier priorities. A pioneer of Tinea's psychology?

A probe.

Sonde. German for probe, and it has a pretty ring to it. That'll work.

I launched the mental tab, named it Sonde, and let it loose. It immediately jumped at my memories and began sorting the data it gathered, building nodes and correlations. It wasn't even a bud yet, more an organic machine-learning algorithm, fed by a connection to the only emotion the Quanta allows itself: curiosity.

There'll probably be some panicky panting once I move beyond the Quanta again, huh? I…don't really trust myself enough to give an uncontrolled shard of myself free run like that. Going to have to create some space for a personal self-confrontation, or I'll end up canceling the project.

I left Sonde to her—it, really, at this stage, but I had a feeling that assigning her pieces of an identity would anchor her and strengthen her development of one—flitting about, and turned my attention back towards the battlefield, where only split-seconds had passed.

My position in the sky really did give me a plethora of options.

The Antithesis were clustering up in big pools, whirling about and extending tentacles of groups that probed for unchallenged routes towards Leah's spider mechs. They'd make great targets for bombs, and I was in a great spot to deliver some. I wanted more throw weight in my warheads, and those in greater volumes, than the Myriad had offered.

There were also the model Fifteens, the huge artillery grasshoppers, and they'd spread out enough that more surgical strikes were appropriate. The Myriad's micro-missiles would be perfect, if they had a little extra heft.

Bombs and missiles to take care of the hordes were good, but such weapons took time to prepare, fire, and hit the target. I also needed a way to deliver a lot of pain instantaneously.

My trusty hunting rifle had served that purpose, and the Sentinel on my tail still did, but I figured I should upgrade to something a little upsized.

I sent Tynea my varied set of requirements, and she answered with a set of diagrams.

 

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