Chapter 65 Chapter Eleven

When I woke up, I was surrounded by a dim red light, and I heard the sound of dripping water.I smell sewage, musty, ozone from uninsulated power cables.I open one eye. We were in a low place, more of a cave than a room.Cables zigzag across the cracked ceilings; pools of water fill the sticky tiles.The red light came from somewhere far in the cavern—perhaps some maintenance entrance shaft, or an automaton tunnel.I moan softly.Johnny was nearby. He got up from the tattered quilt and came to me. His face was dark, whether it was grease or dust, and he still had at least one fresh injury. "Where are we?"

He strokes my face.Another arm wrapped around my shoulder and helped me sit up.I was dizzy, the ugly vision in my eyes suddenly drifted and askew, and for a moment, I felt sick.Jonny held a plastic cup and helped me to drink water. "Scum hive," Johnny said. I guessed it before I was fully awake.The Scum Hive is the deepest pit on Lusus, a mechanic tunnel, an inhuman place; an illegal cave, home to half the rogues and fugitives of the Ring.It was in the scum hive that I was hit by a bullet years ago and still bear a laser scar on my left hipbone. I held the cup and handed it out, indicating that I would like to drink more.Johnny poured some water from a hot steel cauldron and walked back.I fumbled in my coat pocket, at my belt, and panicked: Dad's automatic was missing.Johnny took out the gun, showed it to me, and I, relieved, took the glass and drank hungrily. "Where's the ass?" I said, and for a moment I hoped it was all just a horrible hallucination.

Johnny shook his head. "Neither of us expected their defenses to be that strong. Butt's intrusion is awesome, but he still can't defeat so many core ultimate phages. Even so, half of the operators in the data plane feel this The common name of war. Butt has become a legend." "That's fucking good," I said, and then laughed in a voice that sounded like I was crying. "Legendary. Ass dead. Just fucking dead." Johnny's arms were tightly wrapped around me. "It's not for nothing, Braun. He took the data. Before he died, it was in my hands."

With an effort I sat up and looked at Johnny.He looked exactly the same as before—same soft eyes, same hair, same voice.But there's something elusive about the difference that's puzzling.More human? "You?" I said, "did you transfer successfully? Did you..." "Human?" John Keats smiled at me. "Yes, Braun. Or very nearly human, much closer than cast in the core." "But you remember...I...remember ass...remember what happened." "Yes. I remember the first time I read Chapman's translation of Homer. I remember the look in my brother Tom's eyes coughing up blood that night. I remember Seven's kind voice when I was too weak to open my eyes to my fate. I Remember that night we were in Plaza de España, when I kissed your lips and imagined it was Fanny's face on my breast. I remember it all, Braun."

In that moment I was dazed and hurt, but Johnny put his hand on my face and I felt it, it was him, I knew, he had no one else in his mind.I closed my eyes. "Why are we here?" I said softly, leaning against his shirt. "I can't risk a teleporter. The kernel can track us right away. I've considered airports, but you're too ill to travel. So I'm going with the scum." I snuggled up to him and nodded. "They'll find a way to kill you." "right." "Did the local police chase us? Where's the overlord police? The traffic police?"

"No, I don't think so. So far the only people who have challenged us are two gangs of thugs, and a few guys who live in the scum." I open my eyes. "What about the thugs?" There are plenty of nasty thugs on the Web, bounty killers, but I've never met one. Johnny picked up his father's automatic and smiled at me. "I don't remember anything after ass," I said. "You got hurt from the recoil attack of the phage. You can walk, but we're going to get a lot of weird looks from people in the central plaza." "Yes, I'm sure. Tell me what the ass found. Why is the kernel so obsessed with Hyperion?"

"Eat something first," Johnny said. "You've been unconscious for over twenty-eight hours." He walked through the dripping cave room and came back with a self-heating pack in his hand.Here's a holographic fanatic's potluck—instantly dry, reheated cloned beef, tomatoes that've never seen soil, and carrots that look like some kind of deep-sea slug.Nothing tastes worse than that. "Okay," I said, "tell me." "When the core was formed, the technical core was divided into three factions," Joni said. Once the information age has gained consciousness. The stable faction claims that there must be a symbiotic balance between humans and the inner core. They advocate that in order to avoid hasty decisions, the ultimate intelligent plan must be put on hold until all the variables It can only be continued if it can be managed. Reversionists are the forces that led the exit three centuries ago. They have made conclusive research that humans are no longer useful. Based on this, humans constitute a threat to the core. They advocate total and immediate extermination."

"Extinction," I said.After a moment, I asked, "Can they do it?" "Humans who exterminate the ring network, they can do it," Johnny said, "The function of the core is not only to create the basic facilities for the hegemony society, but they have also become necessary for everything, from the deployment of the military to the inventory Failsafe for nuclear and plasma arsenals.” "Did you know this when you were in the kernel?" "I don't know," said Jonny, "I'm just a cyborg, a fake poet, I'm a monster, a pet, a favored thing, I can hang out in the ring , just like pets can come out of the house every day. I never knew that artificial intelligence is divided into three camps.”

"Three camps," I said, "what's the third? Where does Hyperion get involved?" "Between the Stables and the Reversals, is the Ultimates. For the past five centuries, the Ultimates have been obsessed with the Ultimate Intelligence Project. They have no interest in the existence or destruction of human beings, only how it can be used for the plan. "Up to now, they are just a group of moderating forces, an alliance of the stable faction, because they feel that a reconstruction plan like the Old Earth Experiment is necessary and can help to finally realize the ultimate intelligence.

"Recently, however, the Hyperion problem has prompted the Finalists to turn to the Recurrentists. Since Hyperion was explored four centuries ago, the Kernel has become concerned and bewildered. They soon learned that the so-called Time Tombs, were The man-made objects dropped by the future of the galaxy at least 10,000 years later, have progressed backward in time since then. However, what disturbs the core even more is the fact that their prophecy formulas cannot resolve the variable of Hyperion. "Braun, to understand this, you have to know how much the kernel relies on their predictions. The kernel already predicts 98.9995% of the details of physics, humans and artificial intelligence for the next two centuries without using the input of the ultimate intelligence The global artificial intelligence advisory council, uttering some vague, Apollo-like words, human beings treat it as a treasure-in fact, it is a complete joke. The kernel is just some small tidbits in the ultimate intelligence plan It's just revealed to the overlord - these things are sometimes for the stable faction, sometimes for the anti-gang faction, but always to satisfy the ultimate faction.

"Hyberian, is the breach in the entire prophetic fabric of inner life. It is a hurdle at the end - an unforeseen variable. It seems to make no sense, it seems to be exempt from all laws: physics, history , human psychology, and the artificial intelligence predictions at the core." "The future has two outcomes - call it reality if you want. One of them is: the Shrike, the plague god that will soon be unleashed on the Web and the interstellar people, is sent from a future ruled by the Kernel Weapon, this is a one-time blow from the Repeaters against time. Since then, the Repeaters have started the galaxy dominion for thousands of years. The other one foresees the invasion of the Shrike, the upcoming interstellar war, and walks out of the Time Tomb after it is opened. The other stuff, all of which are the hard punches of humanity coming back in time, the struggles of the Ousters, ex-colonists, and other little humans after they escaped the repeatist extermination plans, before the last dawn." Water dripped on the tiles.Somewhere in the nearby tunnels came the warning sounds of the Mechanic's Burner, echoing in the ceramic and stone.I leaned against the wall and stared at Johnny. "Star Wars," I said, "Star Wars in both outcomes?" "Yes, there's no hiding from that." "Is it possible that the predictions of these two core factions are all wrong?" "Impossible. There are indeed doubts about what happened on Hyperion, but the disintegration of the ring network and all places is obvious. After the ultimate faction learned this fact, it took it as the main argument, and believed that we should step up and start the next step. evolution." "What does the ass-stolen data tell us, Johnny?" Johnny laughed. He touched my hand but didn't grab it. "The data tells me that for some reason, I'm part of the Hyperion Unknown. They created Keats' Cybermen, and that's their mortal bet. It's just that, as a Keats simulation, I'm clearly a failure , that's why the stable faction intends to protect me. When I made up my mind to go to Hyperion, the repeated faction killed me. Their intention is very clear, that is, to delete my artificial intelligence entity and prevent my Sai Mabo body from making that again Decide." "But you did. What happened?" "They failed. The kernels were too big and they didn't take into account two things. One, I would inject my entire consciousness into my cyberbody, which would change the nature of the Keats simulation. Second , I will enter you." "I!!" He grabs my hand. "Yes, Braun. You seem to be part of the Hyperion unknown." I shake my head.Suddenly feeling numb in the scalp above my left ear, I raised my hand, slightly expecting to find some trauma there, that is, the trauma left by fighting in the data plane.What my fingers touched, however, was the plastic casing of a nerve shunt. I jerk my free hand away from Johnny and stare at him in horror.He operated on my body and wired me while I was unconscious. Johnny raised his hands, palms to me, to calm me. "Braun, I had to. I had to for both of us to survive." I clenched my fist. "You bloody son of a bitch. Why do I need a direct interface? Huh? You glib bastard!" "Not with the core," Johnny said softly, "with me." "You?" My hands and fists trembled slightly, and I planned to smash his cloned face in the container. "You?" I sneered. "You are human now, have you forgotten?" "I know. But some of the cyborg functionality is still there. Do you remember when I touched your hand a few days ago and took you to the data plane?" I stare at him. "I'm never going to the data plane again." "No. I won't be going again. But I need to transfer a lot of data to people in a very short period of time. I took you to a black market surgeon in the scum last night. She implanted you A Shuklon ring." "Why?" The Shukron ring is very small, no bigger than my thumbnail, and that thing is very expensive.It contained countless bubble memories, each capable of holding nearly infinite bits of information.Shuklon rings are inaccessible through biological carriers and can therefore be used to transmit classified information.Whether it is a man or a woman, as long as they carry a Shukron ring, they can carry the artificial intelligence personality or the data network of the entire planet on their body.Hell, even a dog can carry it all. "Why?" I asked again. I wondered if Johnny, or some force behind him, was using me as a messenger. "why?" Johnny moved closer, his hand wrapped around my fist. "Trust me, Braun." After my father blew his own head off twenty years ago, after my mother retired to her selfish life, I never trusted anyone.Now, there's no reason in the world for me to trust Johnny. But I believed him. I let go of my fist and grabbed his hand. "Okay," said Johnny, "you're done eating, and we gotta do something to save our lives." Weapons and medicine are the two easiest things to get in the scum hive.We spent the last of Johnny's decent black market savings on some weapons. At twenty-two o'clock, we both put on our whisker-titanium-polyethylene armor.Jonny was wearing a goon's mirrored black palladium helmet, and I was wearing an extra military control mask.Johnny's power glove is really big, and it's big red palladium.I'm wearing breath filter gloves, that thing has a lethal trinket.Jonny was carrying an Ouster's Hellwhip, a trophy he had taken from Brescia, and he had a laser bar pinned to his waist.And I, in addition to my father's automatic, had a stanjin in my belt.I probably control this gun through the mask, and even shoot without using my hands. Jonny and I looked at each other and laughed heartily.After the laughter stopped, we were silent for a long time. "Are you sure Lusus' Shrike is our best chance?" was the third time I asked, maybe the fourth. "We can't do teleportation," Johnny said, "just fake a glitch in the kernel and we're dead. We can't even take an elevator in this lower space. We'll have to find an unsupervised staircase and climb up to 120." Above the tenth floor. The best way to get to the temple is the straight road in the central square." "Yes, but will the Shrike Church let us in?" Johnny shrugged, a movement that looked strange in its battle armor.The sound from the beater's helmet had a metallic quality to it. "Only they are interested in our survival. And only they have enough political clout to help us find a transport ship to Hyperion and protect us from the Overlord." I pull up the mask. "Meina Gladstone said that there will be no future pilgrimage to Hyperion for ships." The dome of mirrored black palladium nods knowingly. "Fuck Meina Gladstone," said my poet lover. I took a deep breath and walked to the opening of our little alcove, our cave, our final refuge, and Jonny appeared behind me.Armor rubbing against armor. "Ready, Braun?" I nodded, turned the minigun over the cardinal point, and started walking away. Johnny touched me and held me back. "I love you, Braun." I nodded and held back.I forgot my mask wasn't closed and he could see my tears.