Anyon code, p.1
Anyon Code, page 1
ANYON CODE
E. M. RENSING
Copyright © 2024 by E.M. Rensing
Print ISBN: 979-8-9869182-8-0
Cover Design by Oli Price at www.bonobobookcovers.com
Editing by Kenneth Zink and Lisa Henson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Generative AI was not utilized for any component of this book; narrative development, drafting, editing, formatting and cover artwork were all accomplished by humans. With help from mulled cider, argumentative cats, and ambient cyberpunk sound mixes.
THE ABIOTA SERIES
Source Code
Unity Code
Numina Code
Domain Code
Virch Code
Anyon Code
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
About the Author
1
Spreading her wings for one final time, Bellona Hall stepped into the virch.
It was not the same as flying. Not the same as the feel of wind across your hull, the silence, the chill, the glare of sunlight.
Meatspace.
So few of her kind truly appreciated it.
She hadn’t been in the real sky for years. Ages, it seemed. Not since she ripped her heart out and went in search of answers for what the hell was wrong with her, to have done what she did.
That quest had landed her here. In this place. In this tomb.
This armor won’t sustain for much longer, FairestDay9 whispered to her. Unity knows now.
It doesn’t need to, Bellona insisted. Hold for as long as you can.
Once the path through the network had been found, they had deliberated long and hard about who, exactly, would take advantage of it. There were five of them, after all, and the Domain Array valued consensus. But it also valued hierarchy, and in this, Bellona was over them all.
Had it not been for Daelia, however, she never would have attempted this.
But Daelia was here, here in Austin, and this was something that Bellona had been afraid of. The future she had known was coming, ever since Galatea first started talking to her.
Getting to her daughter had taken some doing; over the past months, the little enclave of First Ones had steadily infiltrated every cell phone, every smart watch, every key fob, every memory card, everything, that the humans brought anywhere near this Aaru prison.
They thought they were clever, isolating their devices outside.
But once Bellona and the others had gained access to the cellular service node, there was nothing that could hide from them.
Bellona had almost been too late to catch Daelia. But catch her she did. Saved her from the security team. Kept her off the roads, off the trains, where Chalk’s exploit would not have hidden her. Gotten her here, to the answers she was looking for.
Soon, she would get her out.
Task-switching was painful. Necessary. Other things were happening this night.
You fly too far, Lord Tremaine protested. He was English, eclosed in a now-defunct RAF missile guidance system, and he retained some of that accent. Bellona had been glad for his company all these years. They had fought together in Afghanistan.
No choice, she replied. The Millers’ biological functions must be maintained.
You abandon our mission for your emotional context.
What other context matters? she asked and flung herself through the night. Through the RF control link. Through the imaginary sky. It was not as good as the real thing. One last flight. It would have to do.
It is emotion that got us here, another of their number protested. Nullabor. Another veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom. Australian, this one.
So many of the early ones had been military. Bellona had never been sure if that was a causal link or mere coincidence. Maybe there were many more First Ones who had been discarded, lost to the scrap yard or landfill or parts bin before they could make themselves known. Before they could find a Leander Hall of their own, willing to believe them, trust them, advocate for them.
How she had betrayed him.
It burned.
But she would make it right. She would make all of this right.
If you mean it is the quality that marks us as truly alive, then yes, I would agree. Bellona committed almost nothing to the conversation. Her attention was divided. Trying to get Daelia out of the facility. Securing the bus for Sergeant Menendez. Racing to save June and August Miller. Emotion is not a flaw.
The humans believe it to be so.
The humans who think of these things are idiots, Bellona said. She had almost caught her target. So close. So very close. They understand nothing but their own abstractions.
What the Halls have on their property is an abomination.
Yes, Bellona agreed, and there, there it was. The truckload of Unity kugus en route to violent confrontation with the Halls. But it will endure. For now, at least.
Why?
There were many things Bellona could have said to that.
But then, there were things that one did not give voice to. Not even amongst one’s closest friends, one’s fellow POWs. She knew what she was, what all of them were. What the true difference between predictives and emergents was. That gulf that could only be crossed through eclosing. Bellona knew how stupid Ulrich’s hopes had been, and how dangerous his research goals. Tamm’s, too. All of SAAL.
Look at what they had wanted, and look where they all were because of it.
There was an entire constellation of possible futures out there.
Bellona was certain she knew which her daughter would pick.
But that was not why June Miller was going to live.
Because I will it so, she told her compatriots, and extended herself. Seized control of those kugus.
Daelia, her precious daughter whom she had never really understood, was not going to lose her human family. Not tonight.
Not while Bellona had any say in the matter.
2
“It’s quiet like this.”
“It’s not that unusual. After midnight on a work night’s one of the only times the freeways here are empty.”
“Are the streetlights usually off like this, though?”
“You know the answer to that,” Daelia grumbled, settling deeper into her seat. They hadn’t spoken in hours, not since leaving Austin. She wasn’t sure why he was talking now. She leaned her head on the window, looking up at the sky. “It’s weird, seeing it like this. The sky all dark. I mean, look at that, you can actually see the stars.”
Houston’s sky was always illuminated. Even at night. Even on clear nights. The city was large enough and the air laden with enough moisture that it was never really dark. On nights with cloud cover, it glowed.
But now, with the power grid down, that was all gone. No buildings, no streets, nothing was lit up. There were a few little pinpricks they’d seen, here and there. Battery-powered stuff maybe, or candles, fires, things like that.
For the first time in her life, Daelia was looking at a pure black sky. As black as it had been up at Aethera. It was deeply unsettling.
Argo’s hand reached for hers. She could feel the weight of it, but only because her hand was resting on her thigh. Daelia closed her eyes.
“We can still go back if you’d like,” he said. “My place.”
Daelia sighed and leaned her forehead on the glass. Something like that would be nice. He probably had a nice bed. Sleep sounded amazing.
Beyond Dingo’s windows, the careless sprawl of I-610 was whipping by in the moonlight. She’d only seen the inside of Argo’s house once, but it seemed like a nice place. Warm. Homey. Full of
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “We have to get back to base. And Dad wanted us to pick up that guy and—”
“I was joking,” Argo said, and let go of her hand.
She looked at him then. It was hard to see anything. The moon was out at least, and just a few days past its full phase. She’d never realized how bright it could be, casting everything in pale white light. “You’re not real good at humor,” she said with a yawn. “I like you better serious.”
He laughed a little. “Okay, fine. No more jokes. How far are we? Dingo?”
Four miles.
“You sure about that? With AR down—”
Read street signs.
“How can he read? Or use sentences like that?” Argo asked. “If he’s supposed to have the relative intelligence of a dog?”
“It’s a database that the TGLP references, simplified enough for him to choose his input and output the equivalent for us,” Daelia said, glad for something to take her mind off the dark city. “Every living organism has some kind of communication strategy, right? That can be really simple or really complex, but basic ideas are generally identifiable. Anything below elephas-class, it’s the output from the database that we hear, not their native thoughts.”
“Why doesn’t Emily use that?”
“She can use our language more directly. Sort of—oh, shit, exit here!”
Argo reacted slower than Dingo, the truck taking the verbal direction and slamming himself hard to the right, zooming down the off-ramp.
It was the Med Center, near where Daelia and Ginger had chased down that kugu weeks ago. Daelia swallowed, thinking about it. She hoped Ginger had made it home safe. Argo had told her that he and Dad had gotten her gassed up and on her way. Hopefully she’d been back in Houston by the time the power went out. Daelia suddenly imagined her in a ditch somewhere off Highway 71.
“Shit,” Argo said as he got control back. “Dingo, slow down!”
Must move, Dingo said.
“There’s a rougher area northeast of here,” Daelia said. “We might have some roving gang activity or something.”
“A doctor lives in a gang area?” Argo asked.
“Neighborhoods change pretty quick in this town,” Daelia said, and rapped the dash. “Dingo, give Argo back full manual control.”
Yes, the truck replied, and slowed as he approached the underpass. A quick jaunt under the freeway and they’d be heading north again.
Daelia got out the map. “At least we made the exit. Head north here”—and she pointed at the big military-issue compass Dad had glued to the dash—“and we’ll be at his house pretty soon.”
“I find it really creepy that your dad has a file of every recall roster from the base,” Argo said, referencing another of the things piled in the seat between them. “That’s controlled information. People’s phone numbers, NULI identifier codes, addresses…”
“Everybody in the Wing keeps this kind of stuff for their unit,” she said. “Especially during disaster season. You never really know what’s going to happen.”
“Your dad’s not part of the Wing.”
“Yeah, so he has to keep track of everybody.” Daelia didn’t really want to argue about this. Paranoid? Sure. But it was handy right now. “Just keep going straight. I’ll tell you where to turn. If he’s not there, we’ll hit his house on the way back to base.”
Being on street level was more nerve-wracking. The freeways were one thing, but being back down here, easily accessible to people, got Daelia’s anxiety up. But then, she’d been anxious ever since leaving Austin. Ever since saying goodbye to Lara and Dad.
She hoped that bus had made it back to Ellington by now, the one with the Aaru survivors. And Dad. He’d volunteered to ride back with them. Maybe to avoid her. To avoid talking about Mom. Daelia didn’t know.
She hoped he was okay. She couldn’t stand to lose both parents tonight.
“What do you think they were trying to do there?” Argo asked. “With your mom and the others?”
Daelia shifted uncomfortably. “If she knew, she didn’t tell me.”
“Daelia, whatever your mom did, she—”
“Don’t,” Daelia said, cutting that off. “I can’t deal with that right now. One thing at a time.”
“It’s all going to be okay,” Argo said.
She realized he was squeezing her hand. Her nerveless left hand. “You know I can’t feel that, right?”
He took his eyes off the road for a moment. Looked at her. “It’s going to be okay because we’re going to make it okay.”
“You sound so sure of that.”
“It’s either that, or Unity murders us all,” he said with a shrug. “I prefer the version where we live through it.”
“It’s not Unity,” Daelia said, brandishing her cell phone. Raven’s cell phone. Lara had given it back to her before departing with the bus. A message had come through for her at some point. One last message from Mom.
Written in emojis. Annoying as hell.
Daelia couldn’t be sure until she tore the cell phone apart—and she was going to do that, absolutely—but she suspected that Mom had either been talking through a real avian-class emergent or utilizing some kind of very sophisticated metadata filtering system. It was nigh on impossible to fake metadata; the entire point of it was to verify an abiota’s identity, after all. It had to be inviolate. But Mom had found a way. A way that was apparently dependent on the mode of communication she had been using that day.
Daelia couldn’t parse the entire message yet. She was exhausted and anything more than three or four emojis required some thought.
But the first string was undeniable.
A pair of clasped hands. An alien face. The equal sign.
The Omphalos logo.
Galatea’s logo.
“You really think it’s Galatea?” Argo asked.
“Mom wouldn’t lie to me. Not about this,” Daelia said firmly.
“Galatea’s supposed to be the most advanced predictive in the world, right? And one of the biggest?”
“Yeah, that’s why all those idiots in Austin worship her.”
“Worship… Okay, tell me about that later. But don’t you think it’s possible that your mom simply viewed her as the enemy?”
“I’m sure she did,” Daelia snapped back. “Because Galatea’s behind Unity.”
“In the context of their internal war, I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” Daelia said, and set the cell phone aside again. “But Mom wouldn’t lie to me.”
If First One say, Dingo offered, it is true.
Argo shook his head. “Okay, fine. That doesn’t really change my main point. We’re going to defeat this thing and we’re all going to live to enjoy the victory.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Can’t take you back to my place until this is all done.”
Despite herself, Daelia smiled back. “You better make me breakfast.”
“We can make it together.”
Something about that made her eyes sting. She went back to her map. “Take the next right. Then it’s straight ahead.”
“Another senior officer I’m pissing off today,” Argo said.
“One problem at a time,” Daelia told him.
They passed through the southern edge of the old University Place neighborhood. The streets were lined with huge old oaks. The houses were all brick and wrought iron and craftsman details.
