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SECTION III.
d)
Dedication is hypnotic. When we work it becomes easy to forget our enmities. We can live in a dream of purpose. We can exist to do.
The clock loses relevance. Service robots prompt us to take food and drink because they've been programmed to worry. We wave them away impatiently. Progress is the only nourishment we crave.
We can pretend to be friends again, Pulse and Air and I. Every exchange is civil, succinct, ungarnished by undercurrents. We are to an end.
"Push another diagnostic series through the constrictors, Marly."
"I'm running it now. It's clean, Air."
"Nice work on that, Pulse."
"Thanks."
Our voices are hoarse, our eyes burning. Through the space of a single night the ambition of months takes shape, the apparatus now too large to be concealed under a simple drape. It is inelegant, perhaps. It is a hack job. But it works. It really works. A damaged Zorannic robot can enter one end and come out the other with a respawned consciousness synchronized with his line's fully integrated memory pool, standing on brand new legs and seeing with brand new eyes.
We have made ourselves obsolete.
The apparatus is not energy-efficient. Nor is it beautiful. It can't print its own parts but there's nothing we can do about that with such meagre resources. Air does suggest one enhancement, however. "It needs handles," she says.
I scratch my head, blinking blearily. "Handles?"
"So they can carry it," says Air. "So they can take it someplace and hide it."
Pulse looks around at the stacks of spare parts that surround us -- Zorannic hardware of every kind, from jaws to knees. He glances over at the lockers of nuts and bolts and monomolecular nails. He shakes his head and whistles. "We've got too much of just about everything under the sun, but I don't think we have any handles."
Air considers this, then looks up with a raised brow. "We'll use hands," she says.
Pulse opens the nearest box and pulls out two units by the wrists. He nods. "That'll work. Come here, Marly. Grab a couple of these boxes of mitts."
On my way to him I fall over my own feet. In a blink Air and Pulse are hovering over me. Air takes hold of my face and looks into my eyes, turning my head from side to side. "You're exhausted," she pronounces. "I think you're done, Marly."
"I just need a glass of water."
"Pulse: take him home."
Pulse nods, hauling me up by the elbow. "She's right, buddy."
"I can still help," I argue.
"It's finished, Marly," says Pulse, letting me lean into him. "This is it. Like Air says, all it needs is handles."
All of a sudden I'm crying. "I don't want to leave," I blubber. "I don't want this to ever end."
Pulse draws me into his arms and squeezes me tight. I feel Air wrap around us both from behind. I'm about to cry out some other dumb lament but it dies in my throat and instead I just sigh.
It's the kind of sigh that makes you feel tingles in the tips of your fingers. It's the kind of sigh that makes you feel like it's all okay, despite whatever.
But it's over. They're right. I let them let me go. Air pats my shoulder and smiles, then kneels on the floor and starts laying out sets of hands. Pulse passes me my jacket and leads me up the ramp...
The sun is almost rising. The sky is pink, the campus buildings silhouetted. The grass is crisp with frost.
"I'm sorry I said some of the things I said," says Pulse. "You're not a pair of buttocks, Marly. You're just a coward."
I nod. "That's true."
"We're all cowards," he continues. "But if we wind ourselves up enough we can trick ourselves into thinking we can see past the ends of our noses, you know, for a while. Air tricks herself like that. And I think we should respect her for it, because it makes her better than us -- you know...bothering to trick herself. I mean, now she has us caught up in it, doesn't she?"
I sniff, hands jammed into my pockets. "What do you mean?"
Pulse smiles sadly. "Tonight we tricked ourselves into believing we're actually integral to Zorannic liberation, when really we're just trying to do something that feels noble to make up for being so petty to each other."
I stop walking. "You don't think the apparatus will work?"
"Of course it works," snaps Pulse, pulling on my elbow until I start moving again. "I'm brilliant," he says. "You're brilliant. Air's brilliant. We've done a totally amazing thing. But in the big picture it won't matter. Do you think jokers like us change history?"
I shrug and allow myself to smile hopefully. "Well, it's got to be somebody."
He shakes his head. "Not this time."
I frown. "Why do you sound so sure?"
An irregularity disturbs the tempo of his walk. I hear his breath catch in his throat. "I've...done a pretty bad thing, man. You know, actually. Like, rash." He looks away from me, eyes cast out ahead into the gloom of the dark quad.
"What?" I prompt, feeling like Air.
"I called the cops," says Pulse. "On us. On the project, really. On you and Air, sort of." He stops walking and looks up at me sheepishly. "When you fired me. I was so angry. I just sort of snapped."
I hear myself say, "Faeces."
Pulse sticks out his chin. "Hit me."
"I already hit you, and you hit me back. Remember?"
"Yeah, but now it's my turn again."
We stare at each other for a long moment. I blink first. "You came and worked with us, though," I say. "You came back."
He spreads his hands helplessly. "You made me want to trick myself into making amends."
"Why?"
"Because you're my best friend, you dumb sphincter. I love you."
I don't know where to look, so I look up. The conifers of the rooftop gardens sway in the breeze. Morning birds flit away. "Don't beat yourself up about it, Pulse," I tell him. "It's not like the police showed up and stormed the lab. I bet they've got bigger fish to fry."
"They don't," he says.
"How do you know?"
Pulse sighs. "Because they're here now. Can't you see them in the shadows? Can't you hear them breathe?"
I freeze, not daring to move my head. "I don't have your senses, man," I whisper. "I don't have your pedigree. Are you serious?"
He nods slowly. "They're surrounding us."
"Faeces! What are we going to do?"
"Nothing, bro. There's nothing peons like us can do. It'd be the whole world against us. And who are we?"
I press my lips together grimly.
"Here they come," says Pulse.
Boots thud on the walkways and crunch in the cold grass. Figures in helmets and armour are suddenly on every side. They shine lights at us. They bark orders. We wince against the light, we drop to the ground, we lace our fingers behind our heads.
An army floater coasts over the quad, pegging us with its roving searchlight. Soldiers are rappelling down the walls.
Somebody kneels on my back while binding my wrists. There's a lot of yelling. I feel like I'm going to throw up.
We are totally, totally fornicated.
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