Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(73)
“How exactly are we supposed to get out from here?” Noemi’s question is valid. What is now the top of the ship stands a solid eight meters above their head, and no uninterrupted framework for their climb readily presents itself.
Abel leans out, examines the wreckage, and comes to a conclusion. “First, we’ll need to climb down this”—he points to a nearby waterfall of dead cables, most of them as thick around as Noemi’s ankle—“to a level approximately fourteen meters below us. From there we can shift sideways and reach that piece of wreckage.” His gesture indicates a latticework of metal that leads very nearly to the top.
Even the most courageous humans are not entirely unafraid of extreme heights, especially in uncertain conditions like the ones they currently face. Noemi appears pale, but she nods. “That looks, um, doable.”
“It is.” At least, he believes so. Testing the weight capacity of that latticework is a task he’ll turn to later.
He slips off his white parka, which Noemi quickly dons. By mutual, silent assent, she prepares to go first—until, in the distance behind them, they hear a thump.
Turning his head to focus better on the sound, he makes out at least two sets of footsteps—still faraway, but heading in their direction.
“They’ve found us,” Noemi whispers.
“Not quite.” He gestures toward the cables leading downward. “You should go on alone.”
“What?”
“They’re only after me, Noemi. I can evade them for a time and escape the Osiris later. You and Virginia could retrieve me then.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not leaving you.”
This is enormously pleasing but poor strategy. “One of us has to go first regardless. It makes more sense for that to be you.”
Still Noemi hesitates. “You swear you’ll follow me? Right away?”
“I swear.” Oaths mean more to humans than to mechs; Abel sees little purpose in promising to do what future conditions may make impossible. But for Noemi’s sake, he will try to obey.
She begins shinnying down the cables, hand under hand, bracing her booted feet against fragments of wall. He watches her carefully until she’s out of sight and only then glances back.
In the darkness, he sees movement. Specifically, he sees a badly broken Tare, one eye missing so that the yellowish glow of her brain circuitry shows through. Behind her, an Oboe straightens, ignoring her shredded left arm and leg, and begins to hobble toward them.
“We have company,” Abel says, knowing Noemi’s still close enough to hear. “Some of Simon’s—playmates.”
She freezes in place; he is able to determine this from the way the cables stop moving. “Can they tell Simon we’re here?”
“They already have.” Abel knows this as surely as if he’d programmed the mechs himself.
“Come on,” she urges. “Hurry. Follow me.”
An altercation with Simon must be very close. Although Noemi wishes to avoid it due to her own fears and prejudices—understandable, if regrettable—Abel welcomes the chance.
He had been absolutely honest with Gillian; he believes he can get through to Simon. Calm him, reassure him, maybe even repair him. As long as that’s true, Abel has to try just as hard to save him as he tried to save Noemi.
She’s the first person who believed I have a soul, he thinks. I must be the person who believes in Simon.
“I’ll be right there,” he murmurs as he gets to his feet.
“Dammit, Abel—”
He ignores Noemi’s fury. The Tare staggers closer, her half-destroyed face more terrible in the brighter light. Abel doesn’t share the instinctive human revulsion at what looks like a life-threatening injury, but there is nonetheless something uncanny about the tilt of her head, the exposed illumination from the circuits of her mechanical brain. When she speaks, she reveals a damaged larynx, sounding more like an ancient type-to-speech reader than either mech or human: “Simon says stay.”
“Are you in contact with him right now?” The mechs seemed linked, before—to one another, and to Simon—which means Simon doesn’t have to be in the same room with the Tare to speak for her. Abel takes one step toward her, but the Tare points and stomps her intact foot.
“No! Simon says stay!”
Finally Abel remembers the game human children play, which for some unaccountable reason is attached to this name in particular. No doubt to a child called Simon, this game was even more appealing. “I’m staying. See? Am I speaking to Simon right now?”
“May-be,” singsongs the Oboe, who continues shuffling closer. Bloody wire hangs from some of the gashes in her leg.
From below Noemi calls, “Abel? What are you doing?” He doesn’t dare follow; at this point in the “game,” he shouldn’t be moving.
Simon is only a confused child, trapped in a mind he doesn’t understand. Abel may be the only individual who can ever help him make sense of it, the one native speaker of a language Simon must immediately learn.
The Tare and Oboe stand on either side of Abel, effectively pinning him with his back to the enormous crevasse. They’re not operating independently; they’re being controlled by Simon with a level of coordination that goes beyond any standard protocols. Queens and Charlies perform military procedures programmed into their circuits, or they can respond to combat cues independently. They can’t do both. Tares and Oboes lack any strategic functionality—one practices medicine, while the other provides entertainment, usually in the form of music. For them to behave as they are now, they have to be operating as though they are parts of Simon’s own body.