Echopraxia by Peter Watts Read Free Book Online Page A

of augments you got?”
    â€œFor my eyes? Nothing.” Brüks dropped his gaze back to the horizon. “Got wired with cryptochrome back when it was the Next Big Thing, thought it would help me find my way around down in Costa Rica. You know the ads, never be lost again . Except suddenly I wasn’t just seeing Earth’s magnetic field, I was seeing a halo around every bloody tacpad and charge mat. It was distracting as hell.”
    Lianna nodded. “Well, it takes some getting used to. Give sight to the blind, takes time to learn how to see.”
    â€œMore than I had the patience for. Pigment’s still sitting back there in my retina but I got it blocked after about a week.”
    â€œWow. You’re old school.”
    He fought back a twitch of irritation: Half my age, and she’s probably already forgotten the difference between the meat she was born with and the chrome that came after . “I’ve got the usual brain boosts. Can’t very well get tenure otherwise.” Which reminds me —“I don’t suppose there’s any Cognital on the premises? I left mine back at camp.”
    Lianna’s eyes widened. “You take pills ?”
    â€œIt’s the same—”
    â€œIt’d take about ten minutes to fit you with a pump and you take pills .” Her face split into a big goofy grin. “That’s not old school, that’s downright Paleolithic .”
    â€œGlad you find it so fucking amusing, Lianna. You have the pills or not?”
    â€œNot.” She pursed her lips. “I guess we could synthesize some. I’ll ask. Or you might ask Jim. He’s, well…”
    â€œOld school,” Brüks finished.
    â€œActually, you’d be surprised how much wiring he’s got in his head.”
    â€œI’m surprised to even find him here. Military man in a monastery?”
    â€œYeah, well, you were expecting us all to wear bathrobes.”
    â€œHe’s here to help you in your war against the vamps?” Brüks set his empty plate beside him on the step.
    She shook her head. “He’s here to—he just needed a place to work through some stuff. Also I think he’s kinda spying on us.” She cocked her head at him: “What about you?”
    â€œI got herded,” he reminded her.
    â€œNo, I mean, what were you even doing out in the field? There any species even left out there that haven’t been RAMrodded and digitized?”
    â€œThe extinct ones,” Brüks said shortly. Then, relenting: “Sure, you can virtualize anything in the lab. Still doesn’t tell you what it’s doing out in the wide wet world with a million unpredictable variables working on it.”
    She looked out across the flats. Brüks followed her gaze. There, just off to the northwest: the ridge upon which his own home had crouched lo these past two months. He could not see it from here.
    â€œYou gonna tell me what’s going on?” he said at last.
    â€œYou got caught in the crossfire.”
    â€œ What crossfire? Why were the zombies—”
    â€œThe vampire,” Lianna said. “Valerie, actually.”
    â€œYou’re kidding.”
    She shrugged.
    â€œSo Valerie the Vampire summons her zombie forces against the Bicamerals. And now they’re all sitting together just down the hall, munching chips and cocktail wienies because—Moore said something about a common enemy.”
    â€œIt’s complicated.”
    â€œTry me.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t understand.” She tried for a smile—“You’re behind on your Cognital”—but it fell flat.
    â€œLook, I’m sorry I crashed your party but—”
    â€œDan, the truth is I don’t really know a whole lot more than you do at this point.” She spread her hands. “All I can tell you for sure is, well, you gotta trust them. They know what they’re doing.”
    She stopped just