The Obsidian Blade (24 page)

The corpse wasn’t sinking; it was being devoured by an army of ants. Except they weren’t ants. They were tiny ant-size machines, and they were coming out of the floor. More precisely, they seemed to be
growing
from the floor. Tucker watched, too fascinated to be grossed out, as the machines formed themselves from the metal of the floor, beginning as tiny blobs like beads of sweat, then becoming more complex until, after about five seconds, they would detach themselves from the floor, crawl on miniature treads to the corpse, and, using tiny bladelike scoops, cut off a piece of clothing, or skin, or fat — never larger than the head of a pin — then melt back into the floor, carrying their prize with them. At any given moment, several thousand of the tiny machines were tearing the body apart bit by bit.

Tucker leaned down and blew on one of the miniature robots, flipping it onto its side. The machine’s treads continued to roll, causing it to spin in futile circles. After a few seconds it stopped moving and melted back into the floor.

Tucker felt something moving between the floor and his knee. He jumped to his feet with a shout, brushed frantically at his robe, and stomped his feet up and down. A sprinkling of minirobots fell to the floor. He ran back to his place by the wall, breathing hard, and stared at the floor beneath him, ready to stamp out any reinforcements.

His father had been here, and he had survived. That meant there had to be a way out. Other than in a million pieces.

More machines pimpled the floor around his feet. When Tucker moved to the side, the pimples sank back into the base metal. As long as he moved every minute or so, the minirobots ignored him, but if he stood still, a new crop would form around his feet.

The dead man continued to lose mass — about a third of him had been devoured. Had something like this happened to his mom? Had she died in a Medicant hospital to be eaten by tiny machines? The image was intolerable. Tucker pushed back the thought and walked slowly around the perimeter of the room, running his hand along the wall, feeling for a concealed doorway. He could not find even a hint of a seam in the warm metal surface.

By the time he had circled the room a dozen times, the corpse had completely disappeared and the machines were following Tucker en masse. He could no longer avoid them by moving every few moments. Each step he took produced an immediate response; the tiny bumps in the floor came and went within seconds. He figured he could keep moving for a few hours, but he couldn’t walk in circles forever. Did the machines care that he was alive? Did they know?

He stopped and watched the machines form around his feet. Squatting, he pressed his palm to the floor. Several of the tiny robots trundled over. He forced himself to leave his hand there long enough for the robots to nip into his flesh. It felt like being poked by a dozen pins at once. Tucker jerked his hand up, stomped the rest of the robots off his feet, and continued to walk. Maybe by sampling his flesh, the robots would realize that he was alive.

Moments later, his offering of flesh seemed to have an effect, but not the one he had hoped for. The entire surface of the floor changed texture, becoming sandpaper-rough as thousands of machines formed on the surface. Each of them emitted a tiny puff of smoke. The hazy, vaporous layer rose up from the floor, becoming fainter as it climbed up his robe. By the time the haze reached his chest he could feel himself growing dizzy. Moments later his knees buckled and, with his last glimmer of consciousness, he sank to the floor.

T
UCKER OPENED HIS EYES
. H
E RECOGNIZED THE CEIL
ing, or rather its color: the most neutral beige imaginable. He was lying on his back on what felt like a thin mattress. A low mutter came from his right; he turned his head. A bug-eyed alien wearing gray coveralls stood a few feet away. It reached out a gloved hand and touched his abdomen. Tucker felt a prickle of fear, but the fear faded as quickly as it had come, driven off by a soothing, numbing wave of comfort radiating out from his belly.

“Point four cc tramophine,” said the creature.

Tucker realized that he was looking at a human being — a woman, by the sound of her voice — wearing cups of metallic mesh over her eyes. Her silver hair was cropped close to her scalp, and several black, jewel-tipped wires sprouted from her ears like antennae.

“Anxiety levels falling. One point two,” she said. Her accent was weird, but he could understand her. He could see her eyes through the mesh. She was not looking at him; her eyes were focused on something he could not see. Tiny lights flickered across her irises. He felt weirdly peaceful and calm.

“Level zero point five,” the woman said.

“Where am I?” Tucker asked.

“Mayo One Fourteen.”

He wasn’t sure if that was an answer to his question — she still wasn’t looking at him.

“Are you a Medicant?”

She did not answer his question.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Exit Tech Severs two nine four.”

“That’s your
name
?”

She turned to face Tucker. “Yes.”

“Are you going to make me into a work zombie?” he asked.

Exit Tech Severs frowned slightly and returned her attention to the lights dancing on her eyes. “Injuries level one. Minor contusions, dehydration, anxiety level zero point four seven.”

Tucker sat up. He was wearing only a pair of filmy shorts and the same blue foot coverings, but this time there was no tube affixed to his abdomen. A man with antennae sprouting from his ears, but no eye cups, was standing beside the open doorway. In his right hand was a device about the size of a cell phone, which he held pointed at Tucker.

“Can I have my clothes?”

Exit Tech Severs was speaking rapidly, but not to Tucker, or to the guard. “Internal functions normal, mentation twentieth-century neurotypical, immune system ninety-nine point seven percent operative; patient appears alert . . .” She cocked her head and appeared to be listening to something. After a moment, she turned toward Tucker and said, “Certain of your functions have been enhanced.”

“Are you talking to me?” he asked.

“We have harvested your appendix.”

“You took out my appendix?”

“We harvested its contents. The appendix is a rich source for atavistic bacteria. You should suffer no noticeable effects. Is this acceptable?”

“What if it’s not?”

“The bacteria will be reintroduced to your abdominal cavity.”

“Oh. No, thanks. How come you’re even talking to me? Last time I was here, nobody told me anything.”

Exit Tech Severs was staring into space again, absorbing information from her eye cups. “You have been here before,” she said after a few seconds.

“I was in a place just like this. Only the people had colored buttons on their chests and these metal things on their heads. With lights on them.”

“That technology is obsolete.”

“Are you a Klaatu?”

“Klaatu are discorporeal.”

“You mean they’re ghosts,” Tucker said.

Exit Tech Severs hesitated before replying. “Yes.”

“What was that place I was in? With the dead guy.”

“The portal that delivered you here is one of several our techs have captured and adapted.”

“What do you mean, ‘adapted’?”

“The portals have been acquired from various locations and moved here.” She opened a compartment under his bed and handed him his coveralls and the robe his father had given him. “Clothe yourself and come with me.”

Tucker pulled on the coveralls but left the robe behind. He followed Exit Tech Severs out of the room into the hallway. The guard stayed close behind.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“You are being discharged,” she said.

The floor shuddered. An instant later came a sound like muted thunder. The guard went rigid.

“What was that?” Tucker asked.

Exit Tech Severs’s lips were moving, but she was making no sound.

“Was that thunder?” Tucker asked.

“No. Come with me.” They followed the hallway to an elevator and ascended. As before, the elevator opened onto a rooftop. It looked like the same roof they had taken him to the first time, but instead of one disko, there were five of them, trapped within a framework of metallic girders and cables.

Beyond the rooftop, the city spread in all directions, as far as he could see. A plume of smoke was rising from a nearby structure. Tucker started toward the edge of the roof to get a better look, but the guard grabbed him by the arm.

An explosive sound hammered Tucker’s ears; the building shifted violently. Exit Tech Severs lurched against him and the guard, and the three of them fell to their knees. One of Exit Tech Severs’s eye cups popped off and skittered across the rooftop. Her eye was blue. An instant later they heard several more explosions. The hum from the captured diskos seemed to get louder.

“What’s going on?” Tucker asked.

Exit Tech Severs consulted her remaining eye cup. “This unit is under attack.”

“By who?”

“Lambs,” said Exit Tech Severs.

“Plague,” muttered the guard.

“What plague?”

“There is no plague,” said Exit Tech Severs. “The Lambs’ religious frenzy precludes all rational thought. You must go now.”

The guard hoisted Tucker to his feet and pushed him toward the leftmost disko.

“Where does it go?” Tucker asked Exit Tech Severs.

“I do not have that information.”

“What information do you have?”

“Portal two three seven emanates particles in accord with certain aspects of your genetics. You are being returned to your proximate point of origin.”

Tucker considered the previous places he had been. The chances that he would end up someplace he didn’t want to revisit were daunting. “What if I refuse to go?”

Exit Tech Severs fixed him with her cupless eye and tipped her head toward the guard. “The facilitator will enforce your departure.”

Another explosion shook the building.

Tucker took a deep breath and stepped into the disko.