It was the first day of summer and already uncomfortably hot with the sun barely above the horizon. Random and Ruby had come out onto the surface ostensibly to study the ground for the day's attack, but actually they were just looking for a little time in each other's company. Conditions underground were crowded at best and often claustrophobic, and after a while even the best intentioned of people could really get on your nerves. The Rejects had taken to treating them both like heroes of legend, promised saviors who would lead the rebels to inevitable victory over the forces of darkness. Neither Random nor Ruby were particularly happy about this.
"I was never meant to be a hero," said Ruby firmly. "The pay's lousy and the working conditions suck. I'm a rebel because I was promised first crack at the loot when the Empire finally falls apart. And because that cow Lionstone put a bounty on my head. The way some of these Rejects have been looking at me, you'd think I could do the three-card trick with one hand while walking on water. I have a horrible suspicion they're going to start asking for my autograph soon."
"It's in people's nature to want heroes," said Random. "Someone to follow, who'll make the hard decisions for them. They build us up larger than life, pin all their hopes and dreams on us, and then turn nasty when we let them down by being only human after all. I've seen this all before, Ruby. It's one of the reasons I gave up being the professional rebel and ran away to hide on Mistworld. I got tired of carrying everyone else's hopes and expectations on my shoulders. They were never that broad in the first place. I've spent most of my life trying to get people to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own destinies, but it's an uphill task. All too often they'd rather cheer and follow a leader, some smiling charismatic bastard who can inspire them into being more than they thought they were. I sometimes think they'd be happy to drag Lionstone off the Iron Throne and replace her with the first smooth-talking hero to come along. Even me."
"Emperor Jack," said Ruby. "I like it. You'd shake things up."
"I'd hate it," said Random. "No one can be trusted with that much power, not even me. It's too much of a temptation. I've seen the way power corrupts, even when people take it on with the best of intentions. Perhaps particularly people like that. There's no one more dangerous than a man who knows he's right. In the end he'll sacrifice any number of people in the name of his belief, friend or enemy. In my experience people can't be trusted in the singular when it comes to power. Democracy works because it's a mass consensus. On the whole people are always better off when they can throw out any leader who starts believing his own press releases."
They watched the metal plain before them in silence for a while. The early morning was eerily quiet after the roar of battle only hours before. There were fires burning here and there, and the occasional Empire war machine, riddled with disrupter fire and abandoned where it fell, sparked and twitched and dreamed of killing. The factory complex was a dark forbidding shape studded with dull crimson glows that came and went, like doors opening and shutting in hell. The faint shimmer of its protective Screen could just be seen in the growing light. Like an ogre's castle, protected by magic, fueled on innocent blood, powered by hate and fury.
"What's up with Storm?" said Ruby. "He's been going all funny around you just lately. I thought he was supposed to be your friend?"
"He is," said Random. "We've known each other since we were teenagers. Fought side by side in more battles than I care to remember. You should have seen him then, Ruby. Handsome, dashing, deadly with a blade in his hand. I was the one they sang songs about, but he was the one who got all the women. He was my good right hand, the one thing I could depend on in a changing universe. But now I'm… changing, and he can't cope."
"You look younger," said Ruby.
That was an understatement, and they both knew it. Random had shed twenty years of hard living over the past few weeks and now looked to be a man in his late thirties. His frame bulged with new muscles, and a new energy burned within him. His face had filled out from the gaunt mask it had once been, though many of the old lines of pain and worry remained. All in all, as far way from the shattered wreck of a man Ruby had first encountered on Mistworld.
"I feel younger," said Random. "Stronger, faster, fitter. I feel like I used to feel when I was a legend."
"Could it be jealousy?" said Ruby. "Because you're younger and he isn't?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I'm beginning to remember things about Alexander Storm. Toward the end, he lost his faith. He no longer believed in giving his life to the Cause. We'd fought the Empire for decades and got nowhere. He wanted to retire and let younger men take a crack at it. He wanted his comforts and an easy life. He thought he'd earned it. We were both getting too old for the field of battle, though I wouldn't admit it. I led my people into battle on Cold Rock, and he came with me; not for the Cause, but out of loyalty to an old friend. He was always a good man, when it mattered. We were massacred. Wiped out. I think I remember Alex running at the end. I didn't, and I got captured, so he was probably right.
"I lost track of him after that, until he turned up as representative of the Golgotha underground. I should have known he'd never be able to give up the Cause completely. But now here we are again, fighting together in the field, and I'm the man I used to be, and he isn't. I'm a legend again, and he's just an old man with a sword that's too heavy for him, and failing breath. And just maybe I remind him of the time on Cold Rock when he turned and ran and I didn't. But then again, maybe that's just a false memory. I don't remember much about Cold Rock, or anything else from that period of my life."
"Hardly surprising, after what the Empire mind techs put you through," said Ruby. "They had you in their clutches for a long time. Those sick bastards could mess up anyone's mind. You're lucky you're still sane."
"I sometimes wonder if I am. There are too many places in my mind I can't see too clearly. Places with closed doors and heavy locks. They could have planted all kinds of control words or remote-control programming inside me, and I'd never know it, until they activated them. You saw what that renegade AI Ozymandius was able to do with Owen and Hazel in the Hadenman city. I could be an unexploded bomb, just waiting to go off where I could do the most damage."
"You're a morbid bugger to be around, you know that? Sometimes I wonder why I stick with you."
"Because I blind you with my charm and charisma."
"You wish. No, it's mostly because I admire what you've done with your life. You found something you believed in and put your life on the line for it over and over again. I've never believed in anything except hard cash. Honor spoils and courage fades, but you can always trust in gold to pay your bills. Maybe I'm hoping if I hang around you long enough, some of that hero thing will rub off on me."
"Ruby, why do you always put yourself down?"
She shrugged. "It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. Don't ask me questions, Jack. I don't have any answers. I'm here because I choose to be. Settle for that."
"I'm not the only one who's changing. You are, too, Ruby. Whether you like to admit it or not, you're becoming just as much a hero and legend as me."
"I bloody hope not. In my experience most heroes end up dying noble but tragic deaths at an early age. I think I'll skip that part of the legend. I'd rather just be the trusty sidekick, the one with the good advice and snappy dialogue, who emerges after the dust has safely settled to make her fortune through a ghost-written and thoroughly commercial set of memoirs. The only changes I'm going through are what the Maze did to me. You're not the only one who's feeling younger. It's not as noticeable on me, but I reckon I've lost a good five years. I'm faster, stronger, sharper. When I'm fighting, it's like the other guy's in slow motion. I recover faster, too. A warrior notices things like that. But, Jack, it's occurred to me that this reverse aging might not necessarily be a good thing. I mean, what if it doesn't stop? Where are we going to end up? As kids? Babies? What?"
"Whatever the Maze did to us, it's an ongoing thing," said Ran
dom thoughtfully. "Even if the Maze itself isn't around anymore. I have to believe there's a purpose behind what's happening. I think the process is refining us, turning us into the best, strongest versions of ourselves that we can be. The changes aren't just physical, remember."
"Yes, I know. I'm linked to you, and the others. I always know where you are, even when you're not around. Sometimes I can tell what you're thinking—or feeling; you dirty old man, you. And sometimes, when I'm in a fight, I can tell where an attack's coming from, where a sword's going to be, even what's going on behind me. Eerie. I always was a good fighter, but the Maze is taking me way beyond that."
"To put it simply," said Random. "We're becoming more than human."
"Or maybe inhuman," said Ruby. "The Madness Maze was supposed to be an alien construct, remember? Maybe the Maze was programmed to turn anything that went through it into copies of the species that built it. We could end up with six arms and antennae coming out our ears."
"And you have the nerve to say I've got a morbid mind. Look, let's start worrying about things like that when they start happening, all right? We have other things to concern ourselves with."
"Such as?"
"Don't take this wrong, Ruby, but… I can't help noticing you never take prisoners. Even before we came here, you never fought just to wound or stop your opponent. You always kill them."
"Best way," said Ruby briskly. "A dead man isn't going to suddenly sit up and try and stick a knife in you."
"A dead man can't be converted to our Cause, can't be made to see the error of his ways. What if we'd killed you when you attacked us back in Mistport? No, as and when we overthrow Lionstone, we're going to have to replace her with a system that can govern efficiently, or there'll be chaos. That means we'll have to use the same people she relied on to keep the wheels turning. We can't just kill everyone on the other side. We're going to need some of them."
Ruby shrugged. "That's your area of expertise. Mine is killing people."
"Look, you used to be a bounty hunter. Didn't you ever bring any of them in alive?"
"Not if I could help it. Too much paperwork."
Random sighed. "I am working with a barbarian."
Ruby grinned. "Civilization's overrated. Jack, I'm really not interested in this ethics shit. I'm a professional killer. That's what I do. My only other interests are sex and loot. Not necessarily in that order. All you have to do is choose the targets and point me at them. Like the upcoming raid on the factory. Want to run that by me again?"
"Don't think I don't know when you're changing the subject," said Random. "But given the blank looks you were showing me during the last briefing, I suppose I'd better. All right, this is the simplified version in words of one syllable or less. Tomorrow the Wolfes will be hosting a major ceremony that will show them beginning mass production of the new stardrive. Live coverage on all the holo networks. The Empress herself will be watching. To ensure a clear and uninterrupted broadcast, they'll have to lower the factory complex's force Screen. And that's when we go in and hit everything that moves that isn't a clone. We'll overrun their defenses, free the clone workforce, trash everything in sight, and then get the hell out of there while the security forces are still trying to figure out what hit them. And all of it on live holo coverage. It'll be a major coup for the rebellion. Should win us a lot of new converts. And it sure as hell will bring stardrive production to a dead stop, until they can repair the damage and ship in a new clone workforce. And then we'll just hit them again."
"The raid will do the Rejects a lot of good, too," said Ruby. "Show them what they're capable of and establish them as a power base in their own right. A force the Empire might have to consider negotiating with if it wants its precious stardrive. Right?"
"Very good, Ruby. I'll make a tactician out of you yet. And all of this has brought us back to where we started. To why I don't want the Rejects focusing on us as heroes. Once we've proven to them that they're strong enough to kick the Wolfes' ass pretty much at will, as long as they keep their act together, our job here will be over. Before we move on to some other mission, it's vital these people have learned to believe in themselves. That they can win this without us. All they needed was someone to come in from outside and show them new ways of fighting. I never wanted to be a leader, Ruby, or a hero. I just wanted to fight for the right of people to be free. Even free of the cult of the hero. Heroes are great at fighting evil and injustice, but in practice they usually make piss poor political leaders."
"I just fight because I'm good at it," said Ruby. "And because I enjoy it."
"We're going to have to work on that," said Random. Ruby grinned. "Why improve on perfection?"
Investigator Shoal stood at parade rest in Half A Man's private quarters and silently wondered what the hell he wanted with her at this unearthly hour of the morning. Her eyes were drooping despite herself, and she had to keep fighting back a yawn. She had a strong feeling Half A Man hadn't been to bed at all yet, if he ever slept. There had been a time when she could fight all day and still get by on only a few hours of sleep a night, but that was some years ago now. She was slowing down, needing more and more rest during missions. Forty-eight wasn't old, by any means, but Investigators had to be the best of the best. It said so in the job description.
She looked around the room unobtrusively as she waited. Calling it spartan would be polite; there wasn't a trace of personality, or even humanity, in the furnishings. No personal touches at all. It could have been anybody's room or nobody's. Half A Man was sitting in the only chair, his single-eyed gaze directed at the opposite wall, concentrating on something she probably had no concept of. Shoal tried not to stare at him, but it was hard not to. The seething energy construct that made up his right side was endlessly fascinating. If you looked at it long enough, you started to see things. Disturbing things. But you couldn't help looking anyway. Half A Man looked around at her suddenly, and only her training kept her from jumping.
"I know, Investigator," said Half A Man in his surprisingly normal voice. "It's far too early in the morning, and there are certainly other more productive things you could be doing with your time. But I need to talk to you. Sit down. You make the place look untidy standing around like that."
Shoal automatically looked around for a chair she already knew wasn't there, and then realized he meant the bed. She sat down gingerly on the edge, kept her back straight, and looked at Half A Man attentively. He wasn't exactly known for being talkative, so presumably whatever he had to say was going to be vitally important to their mission here. Half A Man sighed quietly, his half a mouth moving in something that might have been meant as a smile.
"Relax, Shoal, I'm not going to eat you. Despite whatever rumors you may have heard. I just need to talk. There aren't many I can talk to these days. Most people think me cold and inhuman, and it suits my purposes to encourage that impression. And it's mostly true. But I do still have a human side, if you'll pardon the expression, and now and again I need someone to talk with, as one human to another. I knew your grandfather."
Shoal looked at him uncertainly, not following the change in subject. "More than I did, sir. Investigators aren't encouraged to have family ties. They might distract us."
"Probably wouldn't have been allowed to talk to you about me anyway. Your grandfather was a good man. Good starship officer. Would have made a good Captain if he'd only had the right Family connections. When I heard they were detailing you to this mission, your name rang a bell, so I looked you up in the files. You've had a very impressive career, Shoal. Until you came here, but that seems to be true of a lot of people. Anyway, it seemed to me that if I could talk to anyone here, it would be you. And I have to talk to somebody. You do understand that anything you hear in this room cannot be repeated to anyone, on penalty of death?"
"Yes, sir. Of course. What did you want to talk to me about, sir?"
"My past. Who I used to be. When I was still just a man like any other, and my name was Vincent Fas
t. That used to be a joke; that I was fast enough getting into trouble, but rarely fast enough to get out of it. That turned out to be true in the end, but no one tells the joke anymore. They wouldn't dare. Wasn't much of a joke in the first place. I like to talk to people now and again, in private. It helps me keep track of how human I still am. I'm always afraid that I'm losing what's left of my humanity; that once I reach a certain point I won't notice or care anymore. You won't have noticed, but every day there's just a little less of my human side and that much more of my energy side. Takes a computer to measure the process accurately, but it's there. I'm losing myself, bit by bit. I've still got a fair amount of time ahead of me, unless the process decides to accelerate for some reason. But what's left of me isn't that human anyway.
"I don't eat or drink anymore. Cold and heat don't bother me. I'm a lot older than I have any right to be. The energy construct keeps me alive when I should have died long ago.
And sometimes I wonder what the aliens had in mind, that they needed me to live for so long. I've tried to kill myself more than once, but I can't do it. My energy half won't let me. That's why I'm talking to you now. Investigator. If in your opinion the energy half is taking control of me, overriding my humanity, I want you to kill me. Destroy my human half completely, with sustained disrupter fire. That should do it. I'm asking you because you're one of the few people on this planet capable of doing the job, because I trust your judgment… and because you have your grandfather's eyes. He was a good man. He would have killed me if he'd thought it necessary. How about you?"
"If that's what you need," Shoal said slowly. "I can't argue with your logic. You'd make a hell of a threat to the Empire if you got out of control. Lionstone would have me killed for depriving her of your talents, but that's my problem. I'm an Investigator, and I've always taken my oath seriously. My life for humanity. If you're in such a talking mood, sir, can you tell me anything about the aliens who changed you? The official reports aren't very helpful. Even the ones only open to Investigators."