“Human children aren’t like ours. They are grown, not made. Their lives form twisting and winding paths, all to often made short by their choices. And they die. Humans die.“ - Celeste, Administrator of the Lost Luna Arcology

_____________________________________________________________

Time was always the last arbiter. Even in an arcology, where the resident Administrator saw all, or at least was purported to, there was yet one higher authority.

And in time, Martin had changed. He knew parts of those changes, but were one of his old friends from Camp Sala meet him, they wouldn’t recognise him. That fact, remained unknown to him, for now.

Bagdad Café remained as it were. Open skyglass, the furniture a dreadful combination of steel and glass that his teachers had judged modern——of what time?

“Soda and gin,” he mouthed to the bartender.

The same as he had ordered last time, when Chiyo Moyomoto made him an offer that he was still busy accepting. He had shook like a leaf in the wind. I told myself to keep cool and how long did that last?

Between the intervals of laughter of the perfectly rendered guests, their shouts and exhortations, she entered.

Gone was the red. Gone the nails, and the suit, and the hair. She wore a neat overall coloured like salmon. Traditional, that.

Once, he recalled, there hadn’t been enough fabrics to create proper fashion. The great fashion houses of the world had made overalls and even now, a time so very removed from those disastrous decades, the make was still partially in a fashion. Three hurrays for comforts!

He took another sip and wheeled one of the high-end stools up to the counter, for the lady of the hour.

“Vodka, two shots,” she ordered and as the bartender poured the transparent liquid in a glass the height of his thumb, she looked him down and up.

Likewise he did too. There was nothing sexual about it, more of a you-have-seen-something-have-you-not to it. Judged and be judged. Her hair was longer, reaching down below her ears now, and she still kept the tan. Must be nice to be outside the arcology.

She threw back the shot.

Then the other.

“Does that actually do anything for you?”

A shrug.”The great thing about virtuals is that you get the taste but never the hangovers.”

She made a come-hither wave with a hand. The sub-routine that acted as a bartender sidled up to them.

“A drink——something that will scorch the inside of barrel.”

“Even better,” she continued with a smile,”is that you don't have pay for a tab in virtual.”

Martin Soleri sipped on his drink.”Rough week?”

“You tell me. Word through the arcologies is that your Tutelage-class fought a drone equalivent to a Sovereign. You, and those crazy Americans out of Alaska.”

Alaska? That was in North America.

“We fought something that didn’t take damage no matter how much we tried to hurt it, that wore out the entirety of class 2095-13. Don’t know if that was a drone meant to mimic a Sovereign, but it was strong.”

“Was it as bad as your preliminary bouts? I saw those by the way.”

“Worse. I think. I didn’t feel like I lost anything during those.”

“That’s rough. Well, if it makes you feel better, you’re not the only who’s been shown how far it is to the top.”

“Oh?”

“I’m part of the vanguard for the reclamation of Luleå. They’ve pulled some of the seniors from the Fronts- limited thing really considering the things the Holds can brew - and they needed a relay.”

She spoke with a gush now, needing to say it.

“The thing is, I remember you. Well, not you-you. But being in that position. That message you sent reminded me.”

She gazed up into the skylight, her back against the counter. “When we first met, and after you accepted my offer, I worried. You were like a little lamb.”

“I thought to myself: this boy’s not going to make it. Then I heard about that demonstration. And your examination. And those bouts. Then——this,” she said, making a gesture with her hand as if to encompass all that was Martin Soleri.

“What?”

“You look so calm,” she said with a certain fondness, meeting his gaze directly. “I think that’s why the Tutelages are constructed the way they are. The capacity to care, to be surprised, it’s burned out of us, hardened, and then we climb the demands of our instructors and one day they pin the badge of a junior proxy on your chest and you’re done.”

Martin, unwilling to adress that line of enquiry, merely changed direction. It was too recent.”You were saying something about what a week it had been?”

“Oh, that. You’re not the only to one to encounter an enemy far, far beyond you.

As I was saying; I’m part of the reclamation effort to push through the wilderness and up towards Luleå. There were a couple of seniors, not even a cadre, just a small group of them. I kept up their communications. We had a region where a High Regial was maintaining an interdiction——and they just…”

She laughed then. A high-pitched sound, close to a giggle.”…they broke the hills.”

She snapped her fingers.”Just like that. I’m a junior Proxy. I have killed Regials, Martin. It’s hard work, but hit them fast and hit them cleverly. They die, like anything else.

But I can’t cause an earthquake. After, after they broke the hills, we got a call from an AC whose purpose is to ensure that no Host tunnel through the ground.”

She shook her head. Theirs was an exchange of similarities; they had both been humbled, and now all that was left was what could come of it.

“That AC told use there were seismological readings in the region that were ‘worrisome’. The senior who killed that Regial did it with enough force to register on the Richter scale.

How are we ever supposed to become as strong as they are?”

Chiyo’s word-vomit stalled. He didn’t think the question one to be answered and even if it had been such, he wouldn’t know the answer. He had parts of his answer, but she’d have to find her own.

She shook herself after a while. “I’m sorry. This is not what you’re here for. You said you had news?”

“I spoke to Coastline, the Administrator of Vänern arcology about that health-exam and the identity of the senior Proxy, the one whose identity you couldn’t find out.”

“Wait, when did you speak to the Administrator?”

He told her about Chevalier, and how Coastline had helped him. Twice. More so, he told her what had happened after that demonstration, the item that hadn’t come up with the news.

“You should be careful. An Administrator’s Field is somewhere between a Sovereign or a senior Proxy. And they, themselves, have their own agenda. They don’t hand out advice for free.”

“About that. Coastline told me two things that I thought you should know; and maybe even help me with.”

“Ah?”

“He said that the identity of senior Proxy wasn’t safe to say out loud. That, even he might be in danger were he to say it.”

He didn’t imagine the indrawn breath.

“That is quite worrying. If—”

“He said that a certain Proxy in my class, a Viktor Solzhenitsyn might know. Now, good ole’ Viktor isn’t in the arcology. He’s in a Camp Sala right now, and here’s what I was thinking…”

_______

Martin baptised the cricket in sauce. It did crunch quite well in his hand, but all the same, it was no rat. Really, people in the arcologies were mad. Why eat insects when there were perfectly good rats anywhere people gathered?

“…it’s not going to bite you. It isn’t a rat, you know.”

Soleri did not quite look down on the insect and swallowed it whole. He wouldn’t dignify the barb with a response.

Lisa Guo sighed.

She bit down on the head of the fried cricket, each crunch echoing over the small stall they sat at.

“So,” she mouthed, wiping away the sauce from her mouth.

“So,” he echoed back.

“Don’t be smart with me.”

Martin bit back what he was going to say; it wasn’t helpful and it might actually lower the chances of her accepting his request. In the wake of their fight against the drone, the opinions people had of him——had changed. Not overnight, and not completely, but it would be a mistake to think that everyone in the class was suddenly his friend. He had actually been invited to events now. Better temper one’s expectations.

“Sorry. I have been doing some thinking, which is why I’m here today. What I am about to propose is their idea, I’m just the messenger.”

The last name didn’t escape Lisa Hong. Berenice might have gone under the radar under their Examination, but this was different. The entire class had seen her create wards in moments and not to mention how she handled their communications. In a sense he had her to thank. She’d made it loud and clear that the fight would have been lost before it could have started, had he not delayed the drone.

“What do you think of the fight against that drone? Our fight?”

Lisa dipped another cricket in sauce. The smell of frying oil wafted from the stall, and the scent of old worn steel, the smell Level 3 mingled. Not a pleasant smell, but distinctive. She swallowed a cricket whole, her bangs moving with the motion.

“Educative. We couldn’t win, not that I or my brother haven’t tried coming up with a way. We’ve used sub-routine to game the odds…and it is a wonder we lasted as long we did. Westerfield and Sonnentag are to thank for that. As are you.”

“And would you say that you’re satisfied with that?”

“Are you?”

Her brown eyes were conflicted.

“I’m not. Which is why I’m here.”

Soleri put one cricket in the small earthenware pot filled with sauce and ground it around before putting it in his mouth. It was a good thing the cooks used a generous amount of batter. Deep-fried or not, he wouldn’t want to eat a damn insect without a little something in between.

“Here’s the plan. We’re going to form cadres, dividing the rest of 2095-13. Those who want to join a group, they get to do that. Those who haven’t formed a cadre, well, they’re going to have to butter another Proxy up. We’re going to meet, say every week, or often as the schedule permits.”

“And then?”

“We train. Formations, tactics, tips on how to improve and so on.”

“That’s the big idea you’re selling me on? Training?”

She shook her head.”Viktor offered Westerfield a chance to join my and my brother’s training sessions. We all know how that went.”

Martin recalled the story of Solzhenitsyn’s impalement.

“That was different. You were doing it for glory, to get one up on the rest of the class. This is to make us better Proxies.”

It was telling that they finished their meal in silence.

_______

“I HAVE CREATED A MODULE FOR YOU.”

Martin got up from the floor, stretches done, Chassis equipped.

“Yeah?”

“I DID PROMISE TO FIND OUT WHAT I COULD OF YOUR CHASSIS. THERE WAS LITTLE TO FIND, HOWEVER. IN LIEU OF THAT I HAVE TAKEN THE DATA OF YOUR TIME SPENT IN THE ARCOLOGY AND CREATED A SCHEMATIC TO TAKE YOUR FURTHER ON YOUR PATH AS A PROXY.”

“What? We just had the Excursion-“that was what the rest of the class were calling their journey through the pocket-worlds,”when did you make it?”

“MARTIN SOLERI,” Coastline said, his amusement loud and clear,”I AM AN ADMINISTRATOR. I AM AT MANY PLACES AND MANY TIMES AT THE SAME TIME.”

Martin stared up at the ceiling. The disembodied voice could come from anywhere and nowhere, but he needed a point of reference, a direction in which to speak up to.

There was one thing about the the class’ recent trial. A not so-small detail. Sonnentag had mentioned it, but even Martin himself had considered it.

The Field of that last drone had been beyond anything he encountered previously. When he put the question to Westerfield, the Scottish Proxy had been quite honest about never having encountered anything like it, even in Paris.

The Field supplied to the drone had to have come from a Proxy an order of magnitude stronger than Moyomoto. Or, Martin thought as he stared up, an Administrator.

A precedent existed: an Administrator in Western Africa fought using drones. He wasn’t sure why it mattered-it was an exercise meant to teach them how to deal with the outdoors-but the arrival of that drone had been as sudden as it had been unfair.

But then, maybe that was the point. A good chunk of their class had come through those five days, some poisoned, some tired, others parched and they all had been wiped out in a short evening.

You could do everything in your power to survive, only to be wiped out at a whim.

“Did you supply the Field?”

Coastline’s lecture died off. He didn’t ask what field or when.

“YES, MARTIN SOLERI. I DID.”

Martin felt his chest constrict. He had expected it, but still.

“You knew, then.”

The silence lasted longer.In a human being Martin would consider this awkward, but he had begun to see how the artificial consciousness thought. It - he - knew what it was going to say, the pause was for human convenience.

“BECAUSE ONE DAY, MARTIN SOLERI, YOU WILL LEAVE THIS ARCOLOGY. IN TIME, YOU WILL ENCOUNTER ONE OF THE SIXTEEN. AND ON THAT DAY YOU MIGHT DIE. WILL PROBABLY DIE. EVEN SENIORS ARE AT RISK FIGHTING A SOVEREIGN, LET ALONE A JUNIOR PROXY WHO HAS JUST FINISHED HIS TUTELAGE. I DID WHAT I DID TO PREPARE YOU. THAT YOU MIGHT RUN, KNOWING THE EXTENT OF YOUR CAPABILITIES.”

Martin nodded. The sense of betrayal in his chest commingled with a question. He understood the how, but not the why. Why was it doing this for him? Coastline had not mentioned the rest of the class, but him, specifically him.

“Why me?”

“What makes me so special, huh?!”

“NOTHING. YOU ARE THE RESOLUTION TO A PROMISE MADE A LONG TIME AGO. ON THE DAY OF THE END OF YOUR TUTELAGE. THEN, PERHAPS, YOU MIGHT BE READY TO HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY.”

There was a final ring to it.

He wanted to ask whether this was connected to the identity of the senior Proxy, but he stilled himself. Like Coastline said: he could be at many places at the same time, and if he began to consider where Chiyo Moyomoto had gone off after their meeting…

Martin held a sphere of black lightning in one hand, an orb of pale fire in the other. His mind went back to Coastline’s admission. Not of guilt, but of doing only what he thought best.

“Could you do it again?”

“DO WHAT?”

“That drone. Could you mimic a Sovereign again?”

“…NOT TO THE SAME EXTENT. USING MY OWN FIELD TO THAT DEGREE WOULD NOT ALLOW ME TO RUN THE ARCOLOGY PROPERLY. I COULD, HOWEVER, USE DRONES OF A MORE POTENT QUALITY, NOT UNLIKE THOSE SEEN IN YOUR EXAMINATION AND EXCURSION?”

Martin considered the practises Westerfield and Sonnentag had envisioned. What if they could have drones, actual Field-using drones to fight against—rather than just themselves?

“…MARTIN?”