K-Machines by Damien Broderick

Author:Damien Broderick [Broderick, Damien]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Contemporary, General, Science Fiction, Games, Fiction
ISBN: 9781560258056
Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press
Published: 2006-02-22T06:00:00+00:00

My dearest Sister

You are cordially invited to a T-party, to be held tomorrow afternoon in the Thyme Garden. I do hope everyone will come. Please bring an amusement to share with your fellow revelers. Dress in costume (I shall be coming as a Faerie!) or if you'd rather, as you are. All shall have prizes!

I do hope to see you there tomorrow, along with every one of our brothers and sisters. Of course you may bring a friend!

Your loving sister, Juni Seebeck

Ruth placed her invitation to one side, shook her head minutely. A Faerie. How precious! A Tegmark-levels party, at this moment of impending crisis. Her family was corroding like the inner workings of an old clock left too long unwound. She sighed, rose, called a handful of her assistants, and set off down the empty corridor to her nexus collection point.

The most recent Deformer trophy lay stretched and inanimate but carefully restrained on an autopsy table close to her array of tools. A robot like an especially mobile Calder mobile, all wire coat hangers and boxes, clattered and jangled to her. Ruth took her white lab coat, drew it over her neat afternoon-wear. A drawer slid open, disclosed surgical gloves and mask; she slipped them on, dismissed the machine. Through the eyepieces of the mask, she dispassionately examined the motionless, terrifyingly dangerous thing on the table. After a moment's study, she found a scalpel and took its face off.

Time to learn as much as she could of what the damnable thing and those who manipulated it understood concerning recent developments in the Seebeck family. She twisted its neck cruelly, clamped the head in place. With probes positioned as delicately and exactly as acupuncture needles, she closed down potential pathways in the spine. When she had done all she could to protect herself and ensure the thing's responsiveness, she switched some of its brain back on.

Of course, it shrieked most foully. Ruth observed with quiet satisfaction that she had not recoiled in the slightest, although muscles in her chest, bowels, and throat tightened. A touch with another probe hushed the racket.

"Speak to me and tell the truth," she said. "Tell me: What is the number and clade formation of your principal Opponents in the Contest?"

With plain reluctance, the Kurzweil spiritual machine told her, "Two of three, and two of two, and one each of two." It ground its fake teeth.

"A certain ambiguity attends this response." Ruth performed an excruciation. "Which are the three, the two, the one each?"

Answers came grudgingly, but they came. "The three are Rocks, each of Solid, and Augurs, each of Liquid."

"Yes, Earth and Water, and?"

"Two are Warriors of the Gaseous Realm."

"Air," Ruth said.

"If you will. Two are Warriors of the Energy Realm."

"We call that realm Fire."

"You may call it what you wish, witch, bitch."

"Indeed I may, and do. Keep a civil tongue in your mouth. But wait, you have no mouth." She made it scream. After a time, a robot assistant crossed to the table, dabbed at the faceless face with tissues.

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