Page 65 of The Brightness Between Us

Devon’s voice rises to a shout, sending a flock of geese into the air even here in Old Scotland. “I am not finished! You don’t know what I’ve done yet.” He looks directly into the camera, like he knows which is the illicit feed, which one Ambrose and I will one day watch. Impossible, and yet it still feels like he’s talking right to us.

“People of the world, know that this mission is doomedto fail. The wirepullers are trying to spin this exoplanet colony as our new hope, a story to dangle in front of you so they can manipulate your hearts to distract your brains from their use of human capital for institutional power, that is now leading to the industrial murder of war. They want you to be swept up in imagining a new world, tens of thousands of years from now, when we here are all starving and dying. But humans will not spread. I have made sure of it.

“Beyond the gray portal of theCoordinated Endeavorare the protozygotes that the spacefarers will gestate and raise. They are composed of genetic code, and genetic code can be modified just like electronic code. At the very time Ambrose Cusk was streaming his disavowal of his family, I used the distraction to sabotage those protozygotes. I inserted a virus that will replicate and spread in them as they gestate, altering the DNA it finds. Some will become unviable from the start. In case that spurs the new colonists to find a workaround, the virus will also code the zygotes’ adrenal glands to produce excessive amounts of testosterone over their lifetimes, influencing their amygdalae to turn them aggressive. I’ve done the same to the yaks they’ll raise—predisposed them to become killers. Since the zygotes are stored in an inaccessible part of the ship, beyond the gray portal, OS can’t repair them. Thecolony will fall from within.”

Gasps in the courtroom. Devon glances toward the judge, waiting to be interrupted. But the judge is shocked silent.

Devon takes the opportunity to continue. “This malicious code will doom the mission. I did not do this to be cruel, but to prevent a false flag of hope from misleading the people yet again. I’m taking the risk of telling you this now so that they cannot spin stories to keep you cowed. Comrades, do not fight for those who would willingly see you go to war for their own ends! They cannot dangle promises of humanity’s destiny in a new home. That hope is now dashed!”

Ambrose’s torso is utterly tense between my legs.

The reel continues. Blurry shapes as Fédération officials move within the courtroom. The judge bangs his gavel and shouts something incomprehensible as the officials place handcuffs on Devon’s wrists, haul him to his feet. Then, as the hubbub dies, I can make out the judge’s words: “... sentenced to finishing your period of neural search, and after that forty-eight-hour period is over to be killed by neurotechnical means for espionage and treason. Your collaborators will be hunted down by warbot and brought to justice.”

“Oh my lords,” Ambrose breathes. “It can’t be true. Wehaven’t executed anyone since 2461.”

And yet it is true.“Any state will make this exception for treason, to keep itself in power. Looks like Fédération is as ‘barbaric’ as Dimokratía,” I say. “Which I already knew, of course.”

“Poor Devon,” Ambrose says. “Dear god.”

I give Ambrose a shove at the nape of his neck. He whirls on me, a flash of indignant fury in his eyes. The rowboat rocks. “What’s that for?!”

“‘Poor Devon’?!” I say. “Poor us! Get on your bench. We’re going to shore.”

Glaring at me all the while, Ambrose creeps to his bench, faces me, and sits down. Feelings storm across his face. Shock, upset, sorrow, anger.

“Crishet.” I splash the oars back into the water.

“Would you please tell me what you’re thinking right now?” Ambrose asks.

I stroke with one oar to turn us toward the shore. Sheep bleats with joy. Once I have us redirected, I pull hard, grunting as my heaving chest muscles forcibly compress the air out of my lungs.

Somewhere in its invisible, frozen realm, my heart is quaking. I find words. “What am I upset about?! Our doomed future selves. Us right now. Your mother and Fédération are killing Devon Mujaba as an example, toprevent an uprising. And they will send a warbot here to do the same to us, as soon as that neural mapping is finished.”

Ambrose’s expression turns grim. “We need to get to shore. We need to prepare.”

“Awarbot, Ambrose,” I say. “There is no preparation that can keep us alive.”

A warbot will mean our instant, streamed death the moment it arrives. There is no defending against one. I make a few more strong pulls, the force of the strokes lifting the front of the rowboat clear out of the water. Then I realize the magnitude of what this stranger has done to me. I could have lived my years out in peaceful isolation. When Ambrose first broke it by arriving, I was surprised to find myself grateful. But now he’s brought the outside crashing down on me. He’s ruined the scrap of a life I pulled together for myself.

The horror at Devon’s sabotage lingers beneath this feeling somewhere, but is too abstract to feel under the hot burst of this current anger.

A warbot. Whole armies have been taken down by a single warbot. We’ll be vaporized in seconds.

“I guess it’s too much to hope that EMP dust will stop a warbot?” Ambrose asks.

“Yes,” I say darkly as I stroke. “It is too much to hope. The military wouldn’t let EMP dust stop it. Every warbot after the first generation has dynamic shielding thatadjusts to each interfering wavelength.”

I look at Ambrose. He’s staring back at me with something other than admiration. It’s fear at whatever he’s finding in my expression. I crack my knuckles. “Good luck,” I say.

“Good luck?!” Ambrose says. “What is that supposed to mean?” He’s indignant again, like I’m a servant who’s just spoken out of turn.

I stand, the rowboat rocking under my feet. Then I dive into the lake and start the long swim to the farthest shore. Alone.

Part Five

MINERVA (SAGITTARION BB)

YEAR 18

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