What consequences? We can speculate, but there’s no knowing until we move ahead and see what happens.
Arnon D’Bvaym
64BIT’S HOME WAS worn and compact. It had two hallways set in a T-shape, the T’s stem ending with the front door and the two arms holding most of the rooms. It had been abandoned for years—decades, more likely—before Fort was settled by the master and others. Smooth, blank spots showed where walls had been broken and repaired, while cracked and faded paint marked where walls had been touched by age alone. Wires were attached to the floor and ceiling, running all across the house, and the wooden floor was warped or splintery in parts. This was home. As 64Bit approached the kitchen, his nose was greeted by the warm smell of toasted bread and oatmeal, making his stomach rumble.
The master and Cortex sat at the table eating as 64Bit stepped into the kitchen. Cortex looked up and motioned to a bowl next to him, the toast resting directly on the oatmeal. “Here you go!”
64Bit nodded, then sat and prayed before he began eating. The thick toast was dense, crunchy on the outside, and chewy on the inside, while the oatmeal was plain. He ate the two separately while Cortex ate by scooping oatmeal with his toast and eating them together.
“When are you making the battery today?” Cortex asked.
64Bit shrugged and looked at the master. His eyes were glazed over and flicking side to side. Most likely, he had downloaded some document directly to his cranial hardware and was reviewing it—perhaps reports from the settlement masters, perhaps information traded from the Binary. 64Bit wished that the master were fully present as he turned back to Cortex. “I might study a bit more and then get to it.”
“Can I watch?”
“Don’t you have chores to do? If I remember correctly, we had some medicines that you needed to mix together.”
Cortex frowned. “That isn’t going anywhere. But you only get to make something for the first time once. I want to cheer you on!”
“We’ll prepare the battery right after we finish eating,” the master mumbled. His eyes kept scanning as he spoke.
64Bit looked at his half-empty bowl and suddenly wasn’t certain he could finish it. “Are you sure?”
“Aye. Ye’ve studied enough. Better to try and . . . Hmmm . . .” The master pursed his lips as his eyes froze, then continued flicking. “Look into that later. Yes? Oh, and ye will have the whole day to try again if needs be. If the mixture doesn’t burn just right or if the casing is too thin ye can fix it right off, get back to it.”
The lights flickered on and off. 64Bit looked around, confused, then saw Cortex grinning. 64Bit said, “Cortex, stop playing with the lights.”
“I’m just setting a mood,” Cortex responded.
“Enough mood,” the master said. He set down his empty bowl and pushed it toward Cortex. “Cortex, I have a lesson for ye on the main computer. Go do it now?”
“But I don’t want to miss 64Bit’s thing! And the dishes aren’t cleaned up yet—” Cortex began.
The master waved his hand. “Ye can take a break when 64Bit starts. Off ye go, now. Yer well behind on your studies.”
Grumbling, Cortex hopped off his stool and dragged his feet toward the hallway. As he exited he yelled, “Don’t you dare forget about me!”
64Bit took a deep breath and tried to force himself to take another bite of oatmeal. He didn’t want to be distracted by hunger pains while working on the battery—everything had to be just perfect.
“Lad.”
64Bit froze, then slowly met the master’s gaze. His brown eyes were sharp and clear as they bore into his acolyte.
“This isn’t like ye. Something’s on yer mind.”
“I don’t really know,” 64Bit said. “I’m trying to manage it myself. I’ve been categorizing the past few days and comparing them to how life usually goes, and I don’t find any oddities. Our meals are pretty consistent, my study is pretty consistent, and our chores around Fort follow a seasonal pattern. I didn’t lose sleep over my first computer.”
“So ye are losing sleep.”
64Bit nodded. “Yes. I just have had a hard time sleeping recently. I toss and turn, wake up nervous. I felt I was being watched a few times. You haven’t installed cameras in the house, have you?”
The master narrowed his eyes. “Watched, hmm? No, no cameras or such from me. Perhaps Cortex playing a trick on ye?”
“No. I swept my room. Everything in there I recognize as mine. I tapped the walls to see if something might be hidden, and I checked outside my window to see if there were footprints in the dirt or marks on the wall to suggest someone climbing. All my theories are coming up without any data to support them.”
“Something else, then,” the master said.
64Bit ran his thoughts over the past few days again. “I still can’t get the Therexe Cube to do anything.” He felt his hands clench. “Cortex can so casually make it do anything, while I concentrate on it for hours and nothing happens. It’s not right. Something—something has to be wrong.”
The master’s expression was unreadable, as blank as a computer screen turned off. “A late bloomer, that’s all. Lad, let all things grow in their proper time.”
“I’ve been waiting!” 64Bit shouted. He paused and took a breath. The words tumbled out of him. “I’ve been waiting. Since I became your acolyte. Waiting. At least when working on a broken computer I can get a sense of progress by taking it apart. Or when growing a plant I can dig at the soil a bit to see if roots are beginning to spread. I have no way to see any growth for me. Nothing changes.”
“Hmmm.” The master rubbed the back of his head. He nodded. “Aye, well, we need to speak more about this then. Rather than just letting it fester.” He sighed. “About time as well, I suppose. Yer getting on the edge of yer years to be an acolyte. First, though, the battery.”
“Why?” 64Bit asked. He could tell the master was being cryptic about something and felt annoyed that he was changing the subject.
The master pushed himself away from the table. “Good practice, learning to do something important, something ye’ve never done before, while having to put aside loud thoughts. Come, build the battery quickly, we’ll talk further after.”
“About time? For what?” 64Bit muttered as he followed the master out of the room. As he passed the shuffling old man he said, “I’ll collect the casing and the chemicals.”
“I’ll move to the workroom just as fast as these old bones move.”
64Bit took a right at the T to get to the robotics room, where he collected a casing that he had made earlier. It was very practical, if not much to look at: a simple gray tube, capped at one end, and a disk that would be welded on to the open end later. He then visited the lab to collect two chemical solutions in large glass bottles. Arms full, 64Bit was forced to stop outside the workroom and open the door by tapping his forehead against the doorframe—the master had programmed the touch sensors to respond to skin only. 64Bit scuttled into the room.
The workroom was a love letter to controlled chaos. Almost every spot within it was occupied. There were several long tables covered with tools and spare equipment that had been scavenged or crafted over the years: nuts, wires, circuit boards, and any other random thing that might be necessary for an engineering experiment. Boxes underneath the tables overflowed with more of the same, and the wall space was covered with hung tools.
64Bit glanced past a hand-cranked charger for battery-powered tools, then a plethora of outlets for corded tools, as he made his way to the back of the room where the master stood before a chest-shaped machine as tall as 64Bit’s sternum. Simply called “the workstation,” its brown plastic was cracked and faded, but the glass bubble that covered its top looked as clear as if it had been installed yesterday. Within the bubble were two metal robotic arms at rest on a flat surface.
The master looked at 64Bit as he approached. The old man patted the workstation, then walked to one of the overburdened tables and leaned against it, arms folded. He appeared distracted, not quite focused on anything. 64Bit paused before the machine, then pressed his lips together. Open, he thought. The machine did nothing. Shaking his head, 64Bit knelt and carefully placed the two glass bottles he held onto the floor. The metal casing slipped, and he flinched as it struck the wooden floor and bounced, knocking one of the glass bottles over.
“Excellent . . . excellent start, 64Bit,” he muttered, then picked up the bottle, dusted it off, and checked it for cracks. There was a small chip where the casing had struck the bottle, but the overall integrity of the bottle appeared to remain. 64Bit retrieved the casing, which had rolled under a nearby table, and stood, glancing at the master, then at the workstation. He took a deep breath. “One other thing only a technomancer can do, I guess,” he muttered.
64Bit screwed the tip off his little finger and watched as the universal jack there shifted its shape until he could insert it in the workstation’s port. After he was plugged in, he commanded the glass bubble to open, which it did. He then set down the casing and cap, then briefly ejected his finger again to fetch the glass bottles and set them next to the casing.
The door to the workroom opened. “Wait for me! Did it start already?” Cortex said. 64Bit looked back to see the boy, red-faced, bouncing between tables as he approached 64Bit. “You didn’t finish did you?”
“I just got started,” 64Bit said. “You didn’t miss anything.”
“You should have called me!” Cortex said, looking hurt.
64Bit sighed. “It’s fine, Cortex. You’re here. And I need to get started.” He turned his attention back to the workstation. With mental commands, he ordered the glass bubble to close again and commanded the metal arms within to lift into the air and unscrew the glass bottles. As he worked, 64Bit noted how easy it was to manipulate the machine when he was manually connected to it—it felt like an extension of himself, a third arm he never knew he had. He only wished he knew what felt like to control a machine without a manual connection. Would it feel as natural, having what amounted to another limb that didn’t need to be attached to his body?
He dumped the contents of one bottle into the other, capped it, and shook, then inserted a metal rod into the mixture as it bubbled.
A moment passed, two, as 64Bit waited for the bubbling to increase, his eyes glued to the workstation. He heard a scuffing sound behind him and assumed it was Cortex shifting positions; none of that mattered. Finally, finally, he was doing something only a technomancer could do. He felt his lips begin to twitch into a smile, a weird sensation that made his lips feel creased.
Maximum strength, pulse, 64Bit thought. The rod crackled with energy, creating a flash of light that appeared for just a moment then seemed to get absorbed into the chemical mixture. He held his breath.
It began glowing red.
“Yes! It’s working!” 64Bit cried. He looked back and saw only Cortex. The boy was standing on a table and leaning over in an attempt to get a better view. The master was nowhere to be seen. “Where . . . where did he go?” 64Bit said.
“Told me he had some quick business, to keep an eye on you. Said he’d be back soon,” Cortex said. “Don’t stop! This is interesting.”
“I can’t stop,” 64Bit said as he turned back toward the workstation, feeling like a baby bird that was pushed out of its nest for the first time. The chemical mixture had pulled into itself, forming a pulsing ball that slowly floated into the air. 64Bit lowered the glass bottle until the pulsing ball was free. So far, so good.
The floor shifted. 64Bit stumbled, then leaned back against the workstation. He turned and looked at Cortex again. “Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake?”
“What?” Cortex said.
64Bit shook his head. He was psyching himself out. He took a deep breath, but rather than clearing his mind, the breath made him feel light-headed. As his vision faded in and out, he tried to command the metal arms to take the casing and scoop up the floating, glowing ball of energy, but everything seemed to be moving so slowly. The last thing he saw as he fell and his finger popped out of the workstation’s port was the gooseflesh on his hands.
#
THE SKY WAS shadowed over, filled with boiling clouds.
64Bit tried to shake his head but found that he couldn’t move. Where am I? he thought.
His vision was pointed downward. Below him, he saw rugged mountains, forests, and the moldering remnants of ancient suburbs and roads in the process of being reclaimed by flora. Finally, staring farther downward, he saw Fort, its crowded streets, repaired or makeshift homes, tall surrounding wall. Crucified above the main gate into the settlement was a dead rozie, the left half of its body covered in synthetic skin to make it look like a man, the right half tarnished metal in a vague imitation of a human skeleton. It was supposed to be just a symbol, a reminder of the world he lived in—but now it seemed to stare down at the settlement hungrily.
The wall rozie was clear to see, as was a building within Fort that 64Bit recognized—his home. Try as he might, he couldn’t focus on any other places within Fort’s walls.
64Bit’s view changed so he looked upward at the eastern mountains that edged Fort’s valley. Rising from their peaks was an enormous, upside-down tree, the trunk gray and pitted. As he watched, branches grew and extended from the bottom of the tree, sinuously piercing the earth and emerging farther on, advancing like snakes down the mountain, toward Fort. 64Bit could only watch as they reached the settlement walls and penetrated them. He looked up again at the great, dead tree in the distance and saw three orbs in its trunk: a flat, green orb with two below it, which he now recognized as eyes, one metal and one flesh.
Id . . . What are you doing? rang through 64Bit’s mind.
Who is Id? 64Bit thought.
He felt his mind begin to release from the vision and the land around him fell out of focus. He scanned through the histories he had memorized, his knowledge of technomancers that the master had recorded, and found nothing. What, then, is Id?
Then the roiling clouds from the black sky dropped, falling into Fort like reverse smoke plumes. As one passed through him, 64Bit shifted into darkness.
#
64BIT FOUND HIMSELF staring at the cracked ceiling of the workroom, coughing to clear his lungs from smoke that wasn’t there. A splinter from the floor dug into his back. How long had he been out? That vision—was it from the Creator? What was he supposed to learn?
64Bit’s thoughts were interrupted by a crackling sound. He muttered, “Now what is that . . . the battery!” then sat upright and looked at the workstation. He saw Cortex standing in front of it, hands on the glass bubble, outlined in red-and-green light.
“Cortex, move!” 64Bit said. He used a table to pull himself to his feet and stumbled, trying to find his balance, his head still swirling.
Cortex looked back at 64Bit, wide-eyed, and said, “I wanted to help! I tried to move the arms to put it in the casing like you did, and it almost worked, but it stopped listening to me—something is wrong with the signal.”
The signal. 64Bit then recognized a high-pitched whining noise, giving him a headache in the base of his skull. He stepped forward and pushed Cortex out of the way, then froze. The anomaly in the workstation had tripled in size and was crackling with a mottled, glowing red and green energy. It pulsated
angrily, its shape rippling, emitting waves of heat that 64Bit could feel warming the workstation’s glass bubble.
“Destabilized—the potential battery is destabilizing,” 64Bit muttered, mind racing as he ran through the master’s notes, “could implode and all that’s lost is resources or time. Could explode— radius and power inconsistent, not directly linked to battery size. Bubble shield may not be sufficient.” 64Bit grabbed Cortex with his free arm and shouted, “Disengage from the workstation and get out of this room, now. Find the master. I’ll—I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I told you, I couldn’t connect with it—that thing!” Cortex pointed at the workstation. “It’s jamming the signal! What do we do?”
64Bit pushed Cortex back and shoved his finger into the workstation’s port. The metallic arms inside immediately jumped to life, except instead of feeling like an extension of himself they felt heavy and sluggish. He felt as if the world were moving in slow motion as he grabbed the battery casing with one arm, its cap with the other, and then scooped the floating anomaly inside and shoved the cap into place. Then 64Bit commanded a welder to extend from one of the arms. “Look away!” he said to Cortex, trusting his eye screens to handle the welding light better than Cortex’s fleshy eyes.
Light flashed and sparks flew as 64Bit hastily welded the battery cap into place. Within a few moments, the cap was sealed into place with a thick weld that looked like jagged scarring, but it was attached. He tensed for a moment, wondering what would happen next.
The workstation continued to radiate low amounts of heat, but otherwise the situation seemed stable. 64Bit let out a long, low breath.
“That . . . was awesome!” Cortex exclaimed. “Did you see that? You got all woozy, and I jumped in to help, and the light started going all crazy, then you scooped it up, all fast, boom, boom, boom—” Words rolled out of his mouth like water down a river as he punched the air with each boom.
64Bit’s face burned. Something about Cortex’s celebration felt grating. This was his moment—finally, hard evidence that he could do something that only a technomancer could do. But he couldn’t really be sure how much his effort really counted when he’d spent an indeterminate amount of time unconscious on the floor, with Cortex stepping in to try to help. He shook his head and responded, “Yeah, sure.”
“I bet this is going to be the best particle battery ever,” Cortex continued, inching back to the workstation. “Hey, is it supposed to be doing that?”
64Bit looked at the battery and started. The case was glowing green. He looked closer. No, it wasn’t the case—there were several small cracks in his new welding with light leaking out. He whispered, “Fetch the master.”
“But—”
“Now!” 64Bit said. Cortex scurried off.
Scenarios ran through 64Bit’s mind as he waited for the master to arrive, connections between bits of data. Had he applied too strong of an electric shock? Had he waited too long to capture the anomaly? Or was his casing simply failing? Had Cortex done something to destabilize it while 64Bit was unconscious? 64Bit couldn’t be sure about any of it, not sure enough to form a valuable hypothesis. And then there was the unknown factor—just because technomancers knew how to create particle batteries didn’t mean they understood how they worked, much to 64Bit’s frustration. Why were they able to produce seemingly limitless supplies of energy? Why wasn’t there a consistent pattern to what happened when they destabilized? The many unknown factors further grated on 64Bit.
“Conduct an experiment,” 64Bit muttered. “Rule out as many options as you can.” He looked around the workroom. There were a variety of machines that could be powered by particle batteries—perhaps if he plugged it into one, he could run off some of the excess energy and prevent destabilization. Still plugged in, he commanded the glass bubble to open and tested reaching toward the particle battery with his hand. It was hot, but not painful, despite how warm the glass bubble had felt. 64Bit gently took the battery into his hands.
The door slid open. 64Bit turned as Cortex walked into the room.
“. . . started glowing or something, looking radioactive, and I know that’s not how radioactive things actually look and that particle batteries aren’t radioactive, but it had this yellow-green thing going on—”
“What are ye doing?” The master exclaimed as he stepped into the workroom and saw 64Bit. 64Bit looked down and noticed that the glowing battery had grown brighter, making his hands feel numb from the power it was generating. His eye screens began to flash with static; his frame felt electrified.
“Oh,” 64Bit said as the light from the battery began flashing. He looked up. “I don’t think I should have acted on this hypothesis.”
“Get down!” The master dashed toward 64Bit, dodging around tables as he did so. He snatched the particle battery from 64Bit’s hands. “Protect the boy!” The master used his free hand to shove 64Bit toward Cortex; the battery was growing exponentially brighter in his other hand. Confused how to protect his fellow acolyte, 64Bit rushed to Cortex, who was shielding his eyes. 64Bit grabbed Cortex and pulled him to crouch behind a pile of boxes. Every hair on 64Bit’s body stood on end from static charge.
The glow from the battery blinked, and in that moment, the world felt very still.
Then a pulse emanated from the battery. Tools and materials were thrown from the worktables, battering 64Bit and Cortex as they were knocked to the floor.
64Bit’s eye screens flashed between sight and static; he forced himself to watch the master, barely able to comprehend what was happening. Somehow the battery was still in the master’s hands—the man was at the epicenter of the pulse. The master shone with green light in long lines that ran up and down his body. His eyes and mouth, both wide open, as well as the port in his forehead, shone like spotlights. The master groaned loudly, looking in that moment like an avenging angel or a demon risen from the depths of hell. 64Bit trembled and his hand flew to his heart.
“Oh Creator,” he whispered. “Please do not let my master die. Please protect us.”
The master staggered toward the wall covered in outlets and placed his free hand on them. As quickly as the energy had come, it flowed through the man and into the outlets. 64Bit’s ears popped as the room’s pressure shifted and the lights in the ceiling brightened before exploding.
Darkness.
64Bit looked around, barely daring to breathe. There was an acrid smell in the air and a quiet stillness broken only by Cortex’s hiccoughing sobs. 64Bit’s hands felt tingly, as if they had fallen asleep and were just now waking up. He waved a hand in front of his eye screens and saw nothing.
“Uh . . . Blindness. Possible injury,” 64Bit whispered to himself, breathing deeply. “Lights exploded—possibly it’s just dark. Find a light source before . . . Panicking . . .” He commanded his eye screens to turn on and off again and didn’t notice any significant difference in the darkness around him. One test marked negative . . .
Cortex’s crying continued. 64Bit could feel Cortex’s back pressed against him and surmised that the boy was curled in a ball on the floor. 64Bit turned and patted at Cortex until he found his face, then wiped off the boy’s tears.
“Cortex, crying isn’t helping,” 64Bit said.
“I killed him,” Cortex sniffed. “I grabbed the machine when you fell down and the glowing thing got bigger and it made the battery explode and I killed him . . .” He let out a long, low moan.
64Bit sat up and noticed a graininess to his vision. He reached up with the sleeve of his robe and rubbed at his eye screens, then found he could see once they were cleaned. A heady feeling washed over him, relief and lingering fear—he still hadn’t heard or seen anything from the master. He had no idea the extent of the damage his project had caused.
“Break it into pieces—begin with observation,” 64Bit whispered to himself, his voice rising in pitch. He pulled himself to his feet, legs shaking, and looked around. It was like the room had been struck by a tornado. Tools were thrown off their wall mountings and onto tables or into walls, while the tables’ contents were cast to the floor. The outlets that the master had touched were replaced with a black, shallow hole that yawned in the wall where they had been. A long, greasy black streak ran down the wall where the master had stood.
It looks like he combusted, 64Bit thought. All that energy— there’s no way his frame was capable of handling it. He must have burned up from the inside.
Cortex whimpered again. 64Bit shook his head—how long had he been standing there, staring, as a strange ringing sound echoed through his head? He forced himself to take a step forward, then another, to move past the crowded worktables to where the master had stood.
Once in more open space, 64Bit looked at the workstation, let his eyes run down it.
He gasped. The master lay face down on the floor. Much of his clothing had been burned off, revealing scorched palms and long, black lines that ran down his torso and to the edge of his limbs—remnants of the subdermal and sub-muscular wires and sensors that made up his technomancer frame. The smell of burnt flesh made 64Bit want to vomit; he covered his mouth with his robe and forced himself to think about what had happened. Crafting an explanation helped him to ignore the wild feeling of panic that threatened to take him over.
“Destabilized—the battery destabilized, obviously,” 64Bit muttered. He gulped. “Uh, the master . . . he must have somehow absorbed much of that energy before it built into an explosion. Hence the glowing—the burns following his frame. That must have had a catastrophic effect on his frame—blew him across the room when he released it into the power grid. Chance of survival . . .” 64Bit took a deep breath and decided to be very generous. “Slim. Very, very slim.” His heart wrenched as he looked at the master’s prone form.
64Bit swallowed, his mouth dry, and looked back at the destroyed power outlets. If the master’s plan worked, all of Fort would have felt that surge. But that may be better than an explosion—could have saved everyone. He . . . Oh, Creator!
“What have I done? I killed him!” Cortex whispered. 64Bit felt the boy’s hands grab the back of his robe.
64Bit fell to his knees before the master. No—I killed him. Whatever Cortex might have done to the anomaly, the only thing I know is that I saw the light glowing from my rapid welding. I did not prepare a casing that could contain the particle battery’s energy anomaly.
64Bit knelt before the master’s motionless figure, staring blankly.
The master gasped, his bony back arching violently with the sound.
Copyright © 2023 by David Ludlow
Boo Ludlow 