Upgraded by Peter Watts, Greg Egan, Ken Liu, Robert Reed, Elizabeth Bear, Madeline Ashby, E. Lily Yu Read Free Book Online Page B

gravity.
    Muck oozes from grates, and biological mists hang in the air, thick on the lungs.
    The Satrap’s subterranean cavern is dim, and the wormy trilobite itself slouched in a dust pit at the center. The long tendrils around its maw socketed into machines, and from those machines, controlled anyone unfortunate enough to be in thrall.
    A curious adaptation. You imagine the Satrap evolved somewhere deep underground, where it could lie in weight and plunge its neuro-tendrils into a prey’s spine. And then what? It could use predators to grab prey, without harm to itself? Use prey as lures, dangling around that eager, gaping mouth.
    “Finally,” all ten voices around you say in unison.
    John is shoved to the floor in front of you, and you move into the next section of your plan. You reach up to your back and use carbon-fibre fingernails to rip into the scars on your back.
    This hurts.
    But pain doesn’t last forever. Not the pain of your skin ripping apart, or your fingers pulling. The pain of grabbing the handle just underneath as you pull the modified machete of your shoulder blade with a wet tearing and hiss.
    Memory strata reforms the blade’s handle to fit your grasp, and the black edge of the blade sucks the light into it. The molecular surface is hydrophobic, the viscera and blood on it slide off and splash to the floor.
    The Satrap’s thralls move toward you, but you put the edge of the short blade against the back of John’s skull. “Don’t.”
    As one, they all pull back.
    You could have killed John with your bare hands, you don’t need the sword. This is part statement. Theater to help the Satrap realize that you’re far more dangerous than it has realized. Because, if it can get away with it, the Satrap will have both its prize and keep your memories.
    And that isn’t going to be happening.
    “Give me my memories,” you tell it.
    “Let me have my new world,” it replies in ten voices.
    Ten. That’s all it has surrounding you.
    But you want those memories, so the standoff continues. You broadcast your implacability. You will not be moving until you are given those memories. And first.
    “Tell it half the coordinates,” you order John. You push the edge of the machete against his neck. Let’s dangle the prize a little, you think.
    “No,” John says firmly.
    “John,” You kneel next to him. And you whisper, “it will die with those coordinates in its head. Trust me. Don’t hold it to just yourself now, let it go. Let go of the burden. Let me help you. And then this will be all over.”
    But you notice something in his response.
    He has been sharing the burden. Someone else knows the coordinates. Who? His first mate. Jay. There was a bond there, you remember.
    John stumbles to his feet. “If you want the coordinates, you’ll have to rip them out of my head yourself,” he says to the Satrap.
    And why would he do that?
    His body is warm, near feverish. A Satrap wouldn’t notice. Not a Satrap that had people under thrall to it with sores on their skin. But you notice.
    You’re not the only player in this game. John has a different plan. A plan to protect the coordinates. A plan to give his people time to grab what they need: fuel. He’s got a bomb in him. Hidden, like your machete.
    Well done, Mr. deBrun, you think.
    Something moves from in the shadows. A large man with shaggy hair, seven and a half feet tall, muscle and fat and pistoned machine all stitched together like an art show gone wrong. A glimpse of what you could have been, if you’d been designed for strength and strength alone.
    In the palm of his oversized hand, a brick that leaked superconducting fluid. ShinnCo logo on the outside and all. The last time you saw it . . . the last time you saw it, you’d woken up in a room and a man in a suit had sat with it in his lap. He’d explained to you that you were in that box. Everything that had once been you, at least. And now they owned it. And by extension, you.
    “A copy of