Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(31)
“We know all this, Stumpy,” Cricket growled. “Half the junk in Dregs was dumped there by BioMaas. They’d rather toss it than recycle it.”
“Thing is, they still need raw materials,” Ezekiel said. “So they build kraken. They’re basically huge, living vacuum cleaners that trawl the oceans collecting elemental particles.”
“Like metals and whatnot?” Eve asked.
The lifelike nodded. “Iron. Lead. Copper. There’s upward of twenty million tons of gold in the ocean. Thing is, it’s so dilute that it was impossible to collect until BioMaas developed the kraken project. Now they have dozens trawling the seas, filtering pure materials out of the water. But the oceans are so polluted, kraken tend to scoop up a lot of junk, too. It gets collected in specialized stomachs like this one and ejected in designated dumping grounds when the kraken gets too full.”
Cricket folded his arms. “So you’re saying this thing is just going to swim around with us in its stomach until it …”
“Dumps us,” Ezekiel nodded. “Literally. Probably a few fathoms below the surface.”
“This. Is. FOUL,” Eve muttered.
“I mean, the technology is fascinating, but—”
“And they just swim around brainlessly eating anything they come across?”
“Kraken are actually very intelligent,” Ezekiel said. “And they have crews inside them. Biomodified to be better suited to their jobs, but still human.”
The pain was easing in Eve’s skull. She stood slowly, dragged her water-logged fauxhawk into a semi-upright position. “So where are Lemon and Kaiser?”
Ezekiel shrugged. “Probably in another stomach. Kraken have dozens. These things are huge. The biggest living creatures to ever inhabit the earth.”
“Well, we’ve gotta go find them and get out of here,” Eve said. “That lifelike kidnapped Grandpa. Do you know where it’d take him?”
Ezekiel glanced sideways, avoiding Eve’s eyes. “Yes.”
“It called you ‘little brother.’”
“Yes.”
“You’re all 100-Series, right?” Eve pressed. “The lifelikes who rebelled against Nicholas Monrova. Destroyed GnosisLabs.”
He glanced up at her then. Eyes brimming with sorrow.
“You know something you’re not telling me … ,” she said.
“I—”
She hissed suddenly, clutching her brow and doubling up in agony.
“Evie?” Cricket asked.
She collapsed forward, clutching her temples and screaming as the pain surged again. The walls about her seething, rolling, splintering like glass. And beyond, that thought was waiting. The one too big and terrifying to contemplate. That flickering picture show, that kaleidoscope, that blinding barrage she was finally realizing …
Not just images.
“Evie!”
Memories.
1.10
GARDEN
The Research and Development Division of Gnosis Laboratories takes up most of Babel Tower. My family lives in the upper apartments, pristine white walls and music in the air. In the city below are tens of thousands of workers, all sworn to the Gnosis Corporate State. But in the lower levels, the walls are gray. And instead of sonatas hanging in the air, the scientists hear a voice. Deep and lyrical and sweeter than any music playing in the floors above.
“GOOD MORNING, MISTRESS ANA. GOOD MORNING, FAITH.”
“Good morning, Myriad,” we reply, stepping out of the elevator.
The holographic angel is waiting on a plinth, shining with a vaguely blue light. There are multiple instances of it throughout the tower, assisting and advising. Sometimes simply watching. The artificial intelligence that beats at the heart of Babel can see through almost any camera it likes. Listen through almost any microphone it wants. Truthfully, it’s as close to a god as anything I know. Except that gods rule, and Myriad exists only to serve.
“YOU SLEPT WELL, MISTRESS ANA?”
“Yes, thank you, Myriad,” I reply.
“AND HOW ARE YOU THIS MORNING, FAITH?”
“Wonderful, thank you, Myriad,” Faith says, and her smile is like sunshine.
The R & D levels are hustling and bustling, as always, men and women in long white coats rushing to and fro. Computers humming, a million machines singing in time. On levels below this one, they make weapons for the Gnosis military. Machina and logika to patrol the Glass, beat back the predations of the other CorpStates. My father showed me how clockwork functions when I was a little girl, and the R & D levels of GnosisLabs are almost like that. Every piece intermeshed and moving perfectly in time.
Faith and I walk hand in hand to the lifelike labs. As we arrive outside, the doors whisper apart and out he steps, with his old-sky eyes and strong, chiseled jaw and the clever hands I sometimes dream about but never speak about. Not even to my sister Marie.
Ezekiel smiles and his dimple creases his cheek, and it’s all I can do not to stare.
“Good morning, Faith,” he says. “Good morning, Mistress Ana.”
“Good morning, little brother,” Faith replies.
Father calls us all his children. The lifelikes all call each other brother and sister. And yet they call us mistress and master unless we command them not to.