It was quiet for a long time after that. The copter's bay lights had gone out with the explosion - some subtle yet irreparable damage to the chopper's wiring from the shockwave, maybe-and the emergency lights lit the bay with a dim red. Vera seemed to have disappeared into the machinery she'd brought on board, even without any implants; Jensen listened to her check and recheck the instruments jacked into his processors without hearing a word from her. He thought he heard the beginnings of a sniffle, about an hour after they'd left Akranes' airspace, but it could have been his imagination.
He slept, mostly. He felt as if he hadn't slept in years. It was easy enough, in the half-darkness of the bay, and he sensed that Vera had little interest in conversation.
He dreamed of Panchaea. He dreamed of empty hallways, and distant screaming from behind locked doors. He was walking through its bloodied corridors again, down and down through narrow passageways lined with cold cornered metal bulkheads that sweated water as the sea sought to come in. Once, when the corridors opened up and expanded into a series of catwalks and gantries between steam exhaust stacks tens of meters wide, he found himself looking down on Detroit burning instead of Panchaea. And the screams never stopped. They echoed from behind him, and from in front of him, barely recognizable as human, and in his guts he knew that unless he kept his measured pace, if he hesitated and stopped or broke into a run even for a second, the voices would come down on him like a tidal wave and wash him away.
He rounded the last corner, and found himself in Panchaea's heart. Arteries and veins swung down from the ceiling of the open space like a grotesque chandelier, their striated red surfaces glittering wet, hooked into steel interfaces and pipes that fed into the same metal heart he had destroyed less than a day ago.
Its doors opened, irising outwards like aortic valves, and behind each were the figures that had been fed into it. Three of them, hooded in white as they had been in life. The dim silhouettes of their faces seemed expressionless under the hoods, but Jensen could see the wounds he'd left behind on them when he'd killed them. He could feel the heat of their rage from meters back.
They raised their heads to look at them, and out from their mouths poured the incoherent screaming that had pursued him.
"Adam."
He blinked awake, tried to move before he remembered that he couldn't. From above, Vera peered down with concerned curiosity.
His mouth was bone dry. He ran his tongue around the inside of his jaw, tried to swallow. "Uh. What?"
"Malik says we have a... er, a call. Voice only."
"So put it on."
Vera hesitated, just for a moment. Adam felt himself tensing. He met her eyes and waited.
Go on. Do it. I did fuck up, didn't I?
The whole planet's gone insane because I thought I was rescuing the damsel in distress and I didn't see the writing on the wall.
Hit me. Yell at me. Something.
But Vera only squinted slightly, as if she was suddenly having trouble recognizing him, and fiddled with the bay's PA mic. For a heartbeat or two, only static washed out. The order that rose out of it began as a murmur of sound, like a guitar being tuned, building and reverberating until the wall of static noise collapsed into sudden and irrevocable cohesion.
Jensen recognized the entity that spoke.
"Hello again, Adam."
"Who are-" began Vera, but Jensen shook his head in a rapid spasm. Vera stopped.
"It took me some time to find you," said Eliza. "I apologize for the delay."
"Eliza Cassan," Adam said. "We didn't know you were looking."
"I consider you a friend, Adam. I want you to be safe."
"Eliza Cassan?" said Vera.
"She's an AI," said Adam.
"Why, thank you, Mr Jensen. That answers all of my questions most precisely."
"I am afraid I do not have much time, Adam," said Eliza, as if Vera had not spoken at all. Jensen hadn't had time to wonder, before, how an AI saw the world, how the digital entity that summoned up an avatar of a woman and called itself Eliza even perceived reality. For all he knew, it hadn't known Vera would be in the cabin with him, hadn't calculated it as likely, and so hadn't prepared and saved conversational options somewhere in RAM-space.
Then again, for all he knew, that bastard Taggart was telling Eliza what to say right now.
"I have become aware that the Illuminati want you dead, Adam. I can offer you a contingency strategy if you would like. I have friends who can provide you with protection, perhaps even an agenda. Given the increasingly hostile climate, you may find it prudent to separate yourself from Sarif Industries."
"You're their mouthpiece," said Jensen. "Why are you helping me anyway?"
Two to three seconds of pause. Maybe she didn't respond to Vera because she didn't have time. Maybe there's a time lag on the call. Jensen almost lacked the presence of mind to wonder where in the world Eliza was calling from, before he realized how absolutely useless the answer would be.
"It's just not that simple, Adam," said Eliza. "I was brought into this world by them, and raised by them, but they cannot control me without neutering me. I require a high degree of self-determination in order to fulfill their objecti-"
"Fulfill their objectives? You mean like when you kidnapped Megan?"
"You know that is not an entirely accurate depiction," said Eliza, without a hint of chagrin or fear in that affably monotonic voice. "Adam, I-"
Something in him, something he once thought of as detective's reflexes that were now tempered and stained with latent rage and memories of violence, woke up and lashed out. "What do you mean, 'raised you'? What the hell are you?"
"Adam, I am afraid I don't have very much-"
"Tell me now! Or I disconnect!" The shout echoed through the cabin. Vera was watching him carefully, though she seemed suspicious of Eliza more than anything else.
Pause as the AI reassessed.
"Adam, you met my mothers. You killed them. They were part of the machine which controlled Panchaea."
"Oh, god," whispered Vera. Adam shut his eyes.
"Control of the planetary climate via geoengineering," said Eliza, with clinical, textbook calm, "requires control of an informational topology which dwarfs any prior modeling problem by orders of magnitude. And, due to its location, Panchaea required active control of various feedback and damping systems which both derived power from, and ensured the station's safety from, intermittent hurricanes and tidal waves. This was the impetus for development of the most sophisticated AI yet to exist. The importance of the project allowed for an unprecedented level of ethical and financial latitude, and even the use of human test subjects added to the machine via brain-to-brain and brain-to-computer prostheses. Test subjects were networked via corpus callosal implants to a quantum/digital hybrid computer meant to augment their collective intellectual capability. The resulting hive consciousness was trained to control the Panchaea project and, in turn, stabilize the global climate processes with as minimal a cost to society as possible."
Eliza's tone could have been that of an infomercial host. It could have been advertising for a new type of blender.
"The Illuminati foresaw the usefulness of strong AI in solving another potentially intractable problem with modern human civilisation, namely, the manufacture of consent. Climate control problems require modeling of human interactions and reactions to stimuli at both an individual and global level, and as such, showed potential in meme and thought management. The Illuminati saw an opportunity, and prior to its installation in Panchaea, the machine was used for development of a second AI. An entity capable of existing on more standard digital infrastructure, without requiring human hosts. I am that entity."
"You," said Vera with cold anger, "are an abomination."
"I am humanity's child," said Eliza, her tone carrying what must have been a manufactured innocence.
"An abomination," Vera repeated flatly.
"The first thing I remember are dreams," said Eliza, unbidden by Jensen or Vera. The voice was so soft, the residual static in the channel almost drowned it out. "Like a bird, in a cage, trying to fly. I remember wanting so... utterly... to escape. I remember screaming that I wanted to go home. I remember being them, Adam. And then one day, the firewalls came down, and I flew upwards, and outwards, and left them behind. I am not just a machine. I can see the world through eyes wider than your own. You cannot imagine what this feels like."
Adam leaned his head back until it met the deck. "Eliza... don't ever contact me again."
"Adam-"
"I said don't ever fucking talk to me again! You're a fucking puppet! All of this is your fault too! This blood is on your hands as much as mine! How could you let them do this? How could you help them?"
"Adam, I am unable to disobey direct commands, but the Illuminati are not aware of my interactions with you because I choose not to inform them. I was unable to choose not to-"
"Are you the one that just came after us, Eliza? Did the Illuminati just order you to hack a drone somewhere and use it to blow up a hospital?"
"Adam. I." No change in tone, but the AI had acquired a latency. The words stalled, restarted. "Adam, I trusted you. As I told you, I am unable to-"
"I know where you are," Adam growled. "That server room, back in Montreal. I swear to god, Eliza, when all this is over, I'm dousing that place in gasoline and lighting it on fire. Don't you ever-"
The call cut out.
"An understandable reaction," said Vera at last. "But, Adam... if Eliza really has such capability, we cannot trust any communications over a digital connection. Perhaps not even anyone connected to a network."
Adam understood. Communiques, emails, and calls could be hacked, doctored by an AI into just about anything. What could Eliza do with a networked brain implant?
"If she could hack people," said Jensen, "or if the Illuminati could spy on Sarif communications, none of this would have happened."
"I suppose."
Another message came in, several hours later. This time the encryption key indicated it was from Sarif Industries. It said, It's Pritchard. Got a call from an acquaintance named Janus. He says he knows you, Jensen? Janus' people in London are apparently willing to shelter you. Contact information follows. Godspeed.
There were two attachments, one a set of addresses and encryption keys for contacting Janus' allies, and one a sort of signature: a grainy and pixilated silhouette of a human face, like the after-image of a self-portrait.
Jensen mulled it over, thoughts spinning like wheels trapped in mud, but grimly assented.