The Chosen Twelve, page 1
THE
CHOSEN
TWELVE
JAMES BREAKWELL
First published 2022 by Solaris
an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,
Riverside House, Osney Mead,
Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK
www.solarisbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-78618-519-8
Copyright © 2022 James Breakwell
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
eBook production by Oxford eBooks Ltd.
www.oxford-ebooks.com
To humanity in general. There couldn’t be a dystopian future without you.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
God lived in the coffee maker on deck four. Only Gamma knew. But Gamma didn’t make it out that way very often because it was a long journey through the outer halls and he always had schoolwork and also the door wanted to kill him.
Gamma eyed the doorway carefully. Sure, it looked wide open. The door was recessed in the frame with all its indicator lights off. A less wary organic might march right through and ask God a question, but Gamma knew better. He remembered.
How long had it been? Four thousand days. No. He had been counting for four thousand days. But there had been many more days before that, indistinct and unchanging, between the day Mu went out the airlock and the day Gamma started keeping track, secretly scratching a metal line below his bunk every night when he went to bed. And it had been even longer since a dishwasher killed Chi, even though Edubot denied it and tried to pretend Chi had never existed at all. Gamma didn’t start counting after Chi died, but he didn’t know he would need to. Gamma was a young and naive eleven-year-old back then. How much time passed between Chi’s death and the day Gamma turned twelve, God only knew.
Four thousand days ago, Gamma was twelve. Today, Gamma was twelve. That’s what Edubot said. But Gamma had taken Calculus IX enough times to know the math didn’t add up. Somebody was lying.
Gamma stuck out his arm and waved it in the doorway. The recessed door didn’t react. The threshold was covered in a layer of dust undisturbed by machine tracks or organic feet. It was possible the door hadn’t closed at all in the last four thousand days. If anything, that just made it more dangerous. The door was patient.
Spenser whirred his brushes apprehensively. Gamma had told him to stay behind, but the small vacuum bot came anyway. It was futile to try to get him to leave Gamma’s side.
“Shhh,” Gamma said.
Spenser repeated his apprehensive whir, but quieter. It didn’t matter. The door knew they were both there, even if it was pretending to be dead. It had a ghost.
Gamma looked back down the abandoned hall. It wasn’t too late to return to the colony ship. If he ran at full speed, he might still make it to class in a few hours, assuming he didn’t cross paths with any other hostile digital life. That was a big “if.” But by some miracle, he had made it this far safely enough. There was no sense in pressing his luck. Better to return to the colony ship and live to take Calculus IX a sixth time.
Gamma took one last look at the door and the coffee machine, then turned and walked away. He dragged his feet a little and did his best to whistle, even though he had never learned how. Spenser pivoted to watch him go. He remained beside the door.
Twenty meters down the hall, Gamma changed direction and sprinted toward the door. He jumped and planted both feet right before the threshold. His balance wavered, his torso leaning forward, both arms windmilling. He regained his balance and fell backward, away from the door. He landed hard on his tailbone.
The door remained inert. It was a cunning foe.
Spenser rolled forward and bumped gently into Gamma.
“I’m fine,” Gamma said. He stood and brushed off his dusty hands against his jumpsuit. Other than his own foot (and now hand and butt) prints, and Spenser’s narrow tracks beside them, there was no sign of life in the hall. Nothing had been down this way for a very long time. God chose this place for a reason. He liked to be alone.
“Can you hear me?!” Gamma shouted through the open doorway. The coffee maker remained as inactive as the door. God might be all-knowing, but his ears could use some work.
Spenser rolled through the doorway.
“Spenser, no!” Gamma said, but it was too late. Spenser was already on the other side. The door didn’t react.
Spenser rolled back and forth through the doorway. He wanted Gamma to follow.
Gamma shook his head. That didn’t prove anything. There were many doors with ghosts that let digitals pass freely but that snapped at organics they didn’t like. Even this doorway had let Gamma go through for weeks (or had it been months or years?) before it attacked. It almost got Gamma that first time. That hadn’t deterred him. Back then, Gamma had been a young and invincible twelve-year-old. But that was four thousand days ago, back before Mu was blasted out an airlock and everything changed. Now Gamma was an old and cautious twelve-year-old. He knew life didn’t last forever, even if he never grew up.
He turned away from the door and looked back the way he came. He wanted to cry. Crying never solved any problems, but it also didn’t cause any new ones. Sometimes it was the only thing that didn’t make his life actively worse. He knew he shouldn’t be out here. That’s why he had waited so long. His plan had been simple enough at first. After he put 365 scratch marks below his bunk, he would ask Edubot how old he was. And if Gamma were still twelve, he would ask God what was really going on. But 365 scratch marks came and went, and Gamma was still twelve. He decided there was no reason to be hasty. He could wait a little longer. So he put a thousand marks below his bunk, and he was still twelve. Now it was certainly time. Except that he had worked his way back to Calculus VII or VIII for the third time, and that one always gave Gamma trouble. So he decided to wait a little longer. At two thousand days, he would definitely talk to God.
Two thousand days came and went, and Gamma was still twelve and he still didn’t venture out of the central colony ship. If God were there at two thousand days, he would be there at twenty-five hundred. And he was. Or so Gamma assumed because he didn’t actually leave the colony ship to check. But Gamma was still twelve, and something had to be done, so Gamma boldly waited another thousand days. At three thousand days, it was absolutely, positively time to act. Gamma felt guilty that whole day, but in an active self-loathing kind of way that made it seem like he did something, even if that something was just hating himself. Gamma rode that feeling. He would go to see God at thirty-one hundred days. Then thirty-two and thirty-three and thirty-four and thirty-five and thirty-six and thirty-seven and thirty-eight and thirty-nine hundred days. And now, here he stood before the door. He was, after all, a man of action, even if it sometimes took him four thousand days.
Still facing away from the door, Gamma jumped backward across the threshold.
The door slammed closed, barely missing Gamma’s face. The door hit the opposite jam and bounced back, then slammed closed again and again in frustration. Gamma rubbed his nose. The tip had a friction burn.
When the echoes of the door slams finally faded down the empty hall, the door sulkily retreated into its recess in the wall, leavi
“I told you,” Gamma said.
Spenser whirred erratically. Gamma wasn’t sure what that one meant, but he let it go. He wasn’t here to argue with a vacuum. He was here to talk to God.
Gamma had long wondered why God lived in a coffee maker. This didn’t seem like a good place to meet a deity. Or a good place to get coffee. And it wasn’t. There was no coffee, of course. None of the dispensers on the base gave out what they were supposed to. No matter what you ordered from the ration stations in the colony ship’s various cafeterias, they always released ration blocks that on good days tasted vaguely like cherry and on bad days tasted vaguely like nothing. Although none of the students had ever had a real cherry, so they just had to trust the machines that this was vaguely what cherries tasted like. Not that a digital would know one way or another since they didn’t have taste buds. It was best to just eat your block of rations and not think too much about what it tasted vaguely like.
“Hello,” Gamma said.
God heard him loud and clear. His small display screen flickered to life.
“I AM G_OD,” the display said.
Gamma didn’t know why there was an extra space between the G and the O, but it seemed like a bad idea to correct God’s kerning, even if God wasn’t really God at all. He could just be another ghost inhabiting a random piece of equipment on the base, but Gamma didn’t think so. The God of the coffeemaker was different than any ghost Gamma had ever met. For one thing, the coffee maker had never tried to kill him. For another, it had never lied to him. Those were good traits in a coffee maker and a god.
In fact, the only thing God couldn’t do was make coffee. God had many, many coffee options, but all of them just spit out water. Usually, it was room temperature, but if Gamma hit the right combination of choices, it was sometimes lukewarm. That alone made risking death at the door worthwhile. Almost.
But that wasn’t why Gamma was here. Not this time.
“How old am I?” Gamma asked.
At first, the display didn’t respond. Then it began blinking on and off, the words “I AM G_OD,” appearing and disappearing in long and short bursts. Gamma counted them, deciphering the Morse code in his head.
Finally, the display stopped flashing.
“It can’t be,” Gamma said. He put his hands over his mouth. He wasn’t sure about God’s policy on blasphemy, but he didn’t want to find out.
The display began flashing again, alternating long and slow blinks. It was the same pattern. God’s answer had not changed, which made sense since God was omniscient and unlikely to make a mistake the first time around.
Gamma stepped back from the coffee machine, his head spinning like Spenser’s brushes. Spenser tried to get Gamma’s attention, but Gamma didn’t hear him. In a daze, Gamma stepped through the doorway. The door slammed shut on his arm, crushing it utterly.
Chapter 2
Delta removed her helmet and wiped the sweat from her forehead. The thin metallic suit might stop flames, but it did little to dampen the heat from the blast furnace. She pulled off her gloves and drank deeply from a water bottle.
Then she heard the scream again. She wasn’t crazy after all. This deep in the outer halls, it could be coming from kilometers away. But who was screaming? Bots with ghosts didn’t usually cry out when they died unless they really wanted to put on a show. They were more likely to taunt or swear or bargain. Screaming was optional because they didn’t feel pain. Just another perk of the superior race, Edubot would say.
As for the zots—short for zombie bots, or bots with utilitarian digital intelligences in various states of decay—they didn’t vocalize at all. They either ignored you or tried to kill you, no conversation needed. There was nothing in between.
Whoever this was screamed again. The voice was weak. And human.
Delta sat down and rubbed her sore muscles. She knew only she was strong enough to survive out here. Even the bots with ghosts kept their distance from her factory. They learned the hard way. As for the zots, she had dealt with any of them dumb enough to wander into her territory. There were no second chances. Not even for her.
Delta stood bolt upright. What if it was Epsilon? Delta reached for her latest masterpiece, then thought better of it. She had kept her secret for so long. Now wasn’t the time. She grabbed her tool belt and ran out into the outer halls.
Whoever it was screamed again. Their voice was getting weaker. Martha bumped against Delta’s leg as she ran. After a few more minutes of running, Delta came to a section of hallway where the ceiling had caved in, revealing the unlit deck above, and leaving a pile of debris and sheared off pipes in Delta’s way. There was still oxygen. If it had been exposed to vacuum, the entire hall would have been depressurized, and Delta knew she would already be dead. She carefully worked her way through the pipes to the other side. Then she stopped cold.
A science bot stood directly in her path. Its eight metal legs and extended diagnostic apertures made it look like a giant scorpion in the dark.
“Are you active?” Delta asked.
As if any digital would ever answer that question truthfully. It was like meeting a new human and asking them, “Are you a serial killer?” Whether they were or not, their answer would be the same.
Delta heard the scream again. It was the weakest yet. There wasn’t time to backtrack. She gripped Martha with her right hand and slid against the wall, pressing her body as far from the metal science scorpion as possible. The scorpion didn’t move. Delta sprinted past.
“Are you still there?” Delta called out down the hall.
“Iota?” the voice called back.
“No, it’s Delta.”
“Help.”
It definitely wasn’t Epsilon.
After one more turn, Delta could finally see Gamma. He was leaning against a closed door, all color drained from his face. His right arm was pinned in the door and appeared hopelessly mangled. Delta was shocked the limb was still connected at all. Gamma’s blue jumpsuit was soaked dark red around the wound.
“What did you do to that door?” Delta asked.
“Went through it,” Gamma said. He coughed up blood.
Delta inspected the door. It shifted a little and seemed to push harder. Something thumped against it on the other side. Delta gently tapped Martha against the door. The crowbar made a dull thud.
“Open up,” Delta said. “This is your only warning.”
The door remained firmly closed. Delta sighed. Digitals never made this easy.
She twirled Martha in her hand, then shoved the pointy end between the door and jam. She pushed. Every muscle in her strong, wiry arms strained under her jumpsuit. The door opened a crack.
Gamma’s arm slipped free. He fell forward and hit the ground like a sack of moist vaguely cherry-flavored rations. He didn’t make any effort to break his fall.
Delta stopped pushing on the crowbar. The door snapped closed, sending Martha spiraling across the room. The door slammed open and closed in frustration. Then it casually slid back into the recess in the wall as if it hadn’t just tried to kill someone.
Spenser shot out of the room and rushed up to Gamma. The vacuum bot oscillated in place as its brushes revved out of control. He was panicking.
Delta picked up Martha and slipped her back into a belt loop. Then she knelt beside Gamma.
“You need a med bot,” Delta said. “Get back to the colony ship.”
Gamma said nothing. Delta wasn’t sure if he was conscious, but she had done her part. The rest was up to him.
She walked away.
Spenser raced ahead and cut her off. When she took another step, he bumped her foot.
“What do you want from me?” Delta asked. “I saved his life.”
She picked up her other foot, but the vacuum bot moved under it, nearly tripping her.
“Just get him back to the colony ship,” Delta said. “Leave me out of it.”
“Can’t,” Gamma said. He coughed up more blood. “The med bots want to kill me.”
Delta swore under her breath. You and me both, she thought.
She couldn’t just leave Gamma out here to die. Well, she could. In fact, that was exactly her plan until seconds ago. But that was before she knew Gamma couldn’t get help at the colony ship. The med bots held just as many random grudges as any other bot with ghosts. Once they hated you, it was suicide to get within their reach. Gamma might get treatment from a med bot that had never seen him before in the outer halls, but he would never make it to one on his own. Not in his condition.
