Cormac 1 - Gridlinked by Asher Neal

Author:Asher, Neal
Language: eng
Format: epub

Cormac 1 - Gridlinked

Epilogue

The bleak sun inched above the horizon and a new day fell across the ruination that surrounded the complex. Above the corroded-​bronze sky Samarkand was gaining yet another feature; a spreading orbital cloud of frozen gobbets of flesh, pieces of bone and metal… Dragon remains. Hubris, poised geostationary above the complex, watched this cloud spread with an aesthetic appreciation only available to AIs having the full spectrum of senses it possessed. With another fraction of its sensorium it listened in through the computer of the departing mini-​shuttle. In a completely disconnected way it knew that it too was being used in this way, by a mind as many orders of magnitude greater than it, than it was of the computer.

'It woulda looked at everything y'said and did,' said Blegg, then he chugged down a large cup of whisky and grinned wickedly.

With his own cup resting on his knee, Cormac stared down at the floor of the shuttle with the unseeing gaze of exhaustion. He was finding it difficult to grasp that his plans had paid off.

Eventually he spoke. 'I guess it's a case of knowing who your enemies are.'

Blegg looked at the bottom of his cup in annoyance, took out his flask, shook it, and then smiled benevolently. Cormac had never known anyone like him. He probably knew exactly what had happened, yet managed to appear completely unconcerned. A strange man was Blegg. He rested his head back and closed his eyes.

It seemed only a minute had passed before Blegg was shaking him awake. He looked up at the screen and saw that the shutde was coming down on the edge of the complex, in a storm of C02 crystals. He waited until he felt it touch down before he spoke.

'Aiden, ask Samarkand II how the stage-​two run-​cible's coming along.'

The Golem got up from his pilot's chair as if he had not heard. Samarkand II answered the question over the shuttle's speakers.

'The stage-​two runcible is undergoing rough alignment. This will take approximately fifteen minutes. I will fine-​tune it in one tendi of a second.'

If ever an AI had been guilty of conceit, Samarkand II was that one, diought Cormac. He moved to the door of the shutde as a covered walkway attached itself like a lamprey. As he waited at the door for the air beyond to heat up, he turned back to Blegg.

'You know, they have a carrying pouch inside them. Dragon knew everything that was going on here. It just grabbed them to make sure they were internally clear of the mycelium. It didn't want us finding that.'

'Y'not wrong. That where the CTD went?'

'Yeah, but it had to cut away some material to get it in.'

The door diumped open like the door to a fridge, and they entered the walkway. Soon they were passing by the milling technicians, and Samarkand II's voice droned over the speakers.

'Stage-​two runcible alignment test commencing… Test complete. Still too far out for insertion of five-​D cusp.'

The larger containment sphere of the stage-​two runcible now rested under a large dome with floorspace all around.

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