Shall Machines Divide the Earth by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (classic novels to read .txt) 📗

out a neutralizing tab. Keeping the child—almost certainly an AI proxy piloted by Wonsul’s Exegesis—unconscious would minimize mess, but I have nothing I can fashion into a sling, and fighting one-handed is suicidal. To make sure of all my options, I heft the child up: light enough for me to carry, should it come to that. The kit also contains a sedative patch, in case I need to put her back to sleep. Considerate.

The override Recadat transferred me offers three options: Retribution, which calls down an orbital strike. Seer, which gives me access to satellites that would let me map the area and monitor other participants for a few minutes. The final option is labeled simply Bulwark. It requires triple-factor authentication—from myself, and the rest from my regalia. Daji doesn’t answer when I inquire.

No jamming in the area. I pluck from my belt a tiny casket and pour out a handful of swarmbots no larger than poppy seeds. They fleet through cracks in the stone, and in a moment I have a visual of my part of the arena. Recadat’s overlays hail mine and we establish a synchronization link: she’s brought her own scouts and their view expand mine as they spread and cover more ground. The arena is densely but haphazardly built, seraphinite-colored chambers stacked on top of each other, connected by the occasional stairway and passage. I’ve been put into one of the lower levels and the openings and gaps between floors means I’ll be easy pickings for duelists who have entered through one of the higher tiers.

My destination is a round little gazebo, accessible by two narrow catwalks exposed to the elements and also to other duelists. One of whom is heading toward me. I don’t see Ouru; ze must be in a part of the arena my bots and Recadat’s haven’t reached yet.

The first duelist coming for me is a short, stocky man situated several levels above. Well-armed and evidently equipped with reconnaissance gear similar to mine. Reckless: he doesn’t anticipate that other contestants would have scouted the area too.

He’s climbing down a ladder when a shot takes him out. Precisely placed: it enters the back of his skull and punches cleanly through the medulla oblongata. Consciousness shuts down nearly instantly—a painless way to go, but looks ignoble all the same. Comical almost, how the muscles spasm in its last throes, how the collapse looks more like a puppet’s than a person’s.

The count of active duelists ticks down. Seventeen.

I open the cage, retrieve the child, and administer the tab that’ll flush out the sedative. She comes awake with a jerk and a cough—convincing, for an AI proxy. When she meets my eyes, her gaze is vacant. I don’t let Recadat view my visual feed. She’s soft and would err on the side of assuming that this is a human child.

“On your feet,” I say. The child obeys. Good; the AI has decided to spare me play-acted hysterics. “You’re to follow me. Closely. Can you do that?”

She nods. I don’t have sensors with biotelemetry functions, though a proxy can emulate human vital signs in any case—the only way to know for sure is to cut the chassis open. Her movements are stiff and heavy. That will be an issue.

I venture out the corridor, keeping an eye on what my scouts are sending me. I take a stairway and ascend without event, the child in tow. I can avoid the other duelists, though not for long. Two are directly above me, moving in parallel passages so that when I exit into the open air—a natural chokepoint—they’d be flanking me.

You doing all right in there, Thannarat? Recadat’s frown is almost perceptible through the connection, even though we share no visual except the bots’.

Fine, considering. Keep expanding our range. The bots can do more than scout. As I move toward the chokepoint, I direct a stream of them toward one of the duelists, a wide-hipped man. Some cyborgs with military-grade defenses have personal dampener fields that’d have shorted out the bots; this person is not one of them. My swarmers streak into his ears and nose, puncture the wet surface tension of an eyeball and release a vitreous flood. The human face is a vulnerable entryway, full of unprotected orifices. Each offers up an open channel to the gossamer barrier of the meninges, the trembling isthmuses of cranial nerves, the artful whorls of the cerebrum. A little time in forensics is worth years of medical education. Mathematics and physics too, for fluid travel and splatter vectors—projecting where the blood will land after a gunshot, a knife slash, a switchblade stab. Everything has its own signature.

As soon as I emerge, I shoot almost without looking—I know the other duelist’s exact position. He topples over screaming, one knee shattered. I fire again and he turns quiet. The counter ticks down once more: fifteen.

Ouru and Ensine Balaskas are the only known quantities here, and I have yet to encounter the latter. I still haven’t seen Ouru, and I’ve expended some scouts; they now cover much less ground. I send the ones remaining ahead of me. Recadat’s bots are a little more sluggish, hovering near the arena’s periphery.

A different connection blinks on. You pilot these things well, Detective, for a human. A specialty?

I have a minor affinity for machines. The path is clear for the next couple stairways; good enough. I thought our regalia aren’t meant to interfere or assist.

Daji laughs in my ear, lover-close. I’m offering commentary, who’ll chastise me for that? My help doesn’t come so easily.

Get too tart, I tell her, and when I return to the Vimana I’ll chastise you well enough. Because this is what she wants to hear, the expected retort in the script she’s set up between us. Her the petulant, flighty seductress in need of a firm hand.

Oh, you know just what to say; I’ve picked the right duelist. But don’t let the thought of disciplining me distract you.

A segment of my swarmbots extinguishes, but not