The Resurrection Of Trap

"A visitor in the anteroom, sir!"

"A client?"

"A Xxoolian!"

Trapp looked up to meet the gaze of his secretary, noting that she no longer flinched when she looked into his eyes: one natural, and one synthetic. Quickly he suppressed the anger he often felt when interacting directly with normal humans. Good! She was getting accustomed to working for a cyborg who had once been fully human. A Xxoolian! Well, well …

Lieutenant Trapp (once Calstate cop, now freelance soldier of fortune) had been awaiting a visit from the Xxoolans for some time with curiosity and trepidation. Now one had come.

"Give me a minute, Monona. Then send it in."

What did the Xxoolians (AKA the 'Xxools') really want, he wondered? He was back from the dead now, more or less, depending on how you looked at it. In fact today, as the morning light gleamed on his chromium plated temple, the 'look' from the window of his 20th story office condominium was exceptionally vivid and clear, enhanced by the evolving synergy between his left, still human eye and the cybercam that had replaced his right.

To the west, the sweep of the great LAmetrop and the wastelands beyond stretched all the way to the edge of the poisoned sea. And that view was rendered in detail that his original sight could never have revealed; accessing a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves, seeing far further and in sharper focus, but in slightly different hues than before, due to the character of the cybercam and a mild case of color blindness in his original eye. The new range of color and sensibility seemed cooler, bluer, more alien, making him wonder once again how much had he gained in his strange resurrection—and how much he had lost!

Because altered sight was only one dimension of the new Trapp that had risen, Lazarus-like, from the blood and slime-soaked lot in a lost hood of the LAmetrop, after losing an eye and half the rest of his body in the terrible battle that he and the late Captain Kleep had fought with the alien Chameleontics (AKA the 'Bugs') in an ancient wired LAburb years ago!

And, relevant to the current moment, it had been the Xxoolians who had saved Urth from the plague of the 'Bugs' (a species they had clearly encountered before!), and resurrected the remains of Trapp from the very nearly dead, utilizing their unique talents in replacing destroyed organic tissue with functioning synthetic limbs and organs, and sustaining him in a Xxoolian chillbox for years until the work was done.

And following that, the Xxools had shown a keen if distanced interest in his rehab: buying him a luxurious condo, granting him a generous allowance that had allowed him to set up a business willing to do whatever small unsavory security tasks the barons of the Greenet Consortium that now ruled Urth were willing to pay him for.

The question was why had they saved him? Because his rescue by the Xxoolians had been very, very expensive—far outstripping the healthcare benefits of his former employer, MUTE, the division of Caltrans that investigated "major unexplained traffic events" in the vast web of travgrids that threaded the LaLand coast and laced east from the poisoned Pacific. And given that the Xxoolians were not known for their warmth or generosity, Trapp couldn't help but wonder with a twinge of anxiety, what they had been grooming him for? Now perhaps, he would find out.

Monona re-entered, with something large and purple waddling in her wake. Blue sparks danced in a blue jewel of a screen planted in the entity's fat forehead. Some sort of transvoice, Trapp supposed, a cyber enhancement allowing it to conduct business with "primitive" species.

Overplaying it a little, Monona gestured dramatically as the creature oozed itself onto a sofa by the window, its soft bulk spreading out to fill that capacity.

"May I present his eminence Xloop, the new Xxoolian entity arising from the recent merger of the distinguished Xleep and Xluup!"

Blue sparks danced on the transvoice screen. "Greetings, grateful rebuilt Trapp thing!" it announced in a deep scratchy voice. "We—Me—is—pleased to meet thee!"

Trapp stared at his strange visitor with curiosity. The Xxools, who had arrived in Solsystem only a decade or so before Trapp was rescued and chillboxed, were the weirdest aliens humans had ever encountered. Whereas every other species known to Man went forth and multiplied, the Xxoolians went forth and diminished, engaging at intervals in a kind of reverse mitosis in which two Xxoolians would merge, creating one being where two had existed before, and concentrating the mass, intellect, wealth and arrogance of the conjoining partners. Monona's introduction had signaled that the particular Xxool spread out on his visitor's couch was recently merged and coming to terms with its new identity, something Trapp could certainly understand as he struggled to integrate his human and cyborgian selves.

"Both changed, us!" fat purple observed, as if reading his thoughts.

"I am most grateful for all that you have done for me, eminent Xloop," Trapp replied. "How can I be of service?"

The blue sparks on the forehead screen implant did a cautious waltz as Xloop contemplated the human specimen that they/it had plucked from the grave.

"Quick to business, yeth, Trapp? Good job we has for grateful rebuilt Trapp thing!" the transvoice crackled. "Say yeth please, or ask stuff."

"A paid job? In my professional capacity?"

"Xloop says yeth!"

Best to play it cool, Trapp thought. He might owe a debt, but he was also a businessman. "You understand, your eminences—your eminence—my skills do not come cheap."

"Spence no object, lucky Trapp thing. Yummy contract! Transport, weapons, peachy greenflow. All Trappy wants!"

On the surface that sounded promising, and more than a little scary. But the Xxoolian seemed quite friendly in spite of the weird slang, and was, Trapp thought, a rather nice shade of purple. He felt a sudden surge of gratitude to these strange aliens who had saved his life, but also wondered if this offer was anything he could possibly refuse.

"What is it you want me to do?"

"Locate and capture in system tramp freighter 6735R, now named First Palace. Seize also stolen rogue lamp, young master Gem, plus treasonous ex-slave Ezee Puk!"

Rogue lamp? That was a euphemism for an illegal, ungoverned macroset, a rogue nanobot hive that, given materials, energy, and time, could construct or deconstruct almost anything at dazzling speed! Yikes! Unlike the far larger, heavily governed macrosets that had transformed Urth under the mandates of the ruling Greenet Consortium in recent decades, such an ungoverned 'lamp' was capable of infinite and unregulated self-improvement over time, making it incredibly valuable—and formidable.

To the best of Trapp's knowledge there were less than half a dozen such 'free' lamps fugitive in Solsystem. Any one of them would be worth a fortune to the entity that possessed and controlled it.Also extremely dangerous to anyone trying to achieve such possession and control. And there was another matter to consider. Under the laws of the Greenet Consortium now ruling Urth, possession of such a lamp was highly illegal.

Once again, the Xxoolian interrupted his thoughts.

"Xloop wants lamp back—with master who can activate."

"Master?"

Xloop oozed back and forth uncertainly on the furniture, making it creak under its bulk. Was there information here it was reluctant to convey?

"To function, lamp surface must be rubbed by DNA designated human master," it added.

Ah yes. Trapp had heard something about that. The earliest macroset prototypes created by the mad inventor Jack Dugal McCool, had vanished at the same time as their creator, following the failed attempt to arrest that criminal for 'economic treason threatening the consortium.' And those fugitive lamps, still frantically sought by the authorities, could only be activated when the cylinders which housed those prototype nanobot hives were rubbed by a person with the right DNA profile, rendering that individual the 'master' of the hive. Hence the appellation 'lamps.'"So-o-o … the task is to seize the ship, and return the lamp, the lamp's master, and the renegade servant to you?"

"Yeth! Trapp must fetch!"

"Dead? Alive?"

Xloop trembled suddenly—like a giant sack of grape jelly.

" Not harm or kill lamp master! Might unleash revenge protocols!"

Revenge protocols? Xloop suddenly seemed very upset—and this mission sounded increasingly tricky and dangerous.

"Us/me needs rogue lamp and lamp master named Gem full functional," Xloop continued. Then after a thoughtful pause, "Save ship if pozbil!"

"Okay … but why me?"

The Xxool rolled its bulk on the couch a little in his direction.

"Much admired us your battle in years past with Chameleontics in slummy LAland, rebuilt Trapp thing! Warrior stuff! Combat fiber! Violence talent! Peachy for Xloop job! Trapp remade for this!"

Trapp suppressed a shudder as he remembered once again the desperate battle he and the late Captain Kleep had fought years ago in an antique wired lot deep in the slums of LAland, fighting the 'bugs;' a deadly species of invading aliens that had fiendishly camouflaged themselves as a variety of motor vehicles and infected the entire west coast travgrid before the Xxools had interceded, cleansing Urth of those monstrosities, and saving Trapp, along with the planet. Tangentially, it occurred to Trapp that the Xxoolians, well known for delegating unpleasant or dangerous tasks to others, might have been preserving him for an eventuality just like this.

He took a deep breath. "And should I fail?"

"Not to worry, grateful Trapp thing. We pay for try!"

Deep in Trapp's mind, fear of the task struggled with an odd desire to comply. Even though he had never consciously encountered a Xxoolian in the flesh before, Trapp sensed a tremor of anxiety pass through his guest—and also felt an odd surge of sympathy in response to this alien who had obviously wandered so far from home. With an effort, he suppressed it. He entertained a fleeting memory that the Xxoolians had rebuilt a part of his cerebral cortex. Was it possible that some of these sympathetic thoughts were not entirely his own? Certainly he owed a debt to these creatures—but this job sounded dangerous, and business was business.

"Where would I start?"

"Research—then search! First Palace last seen in Oort cloud sector X3310—multi-sights in neighbor belts. For educate, Trapp must consult lamp expert! Cawdor Thane!"

"Cawdor Thane?" The name seemed vaguely theatrical. Swiftly, Trapp scanned his memories of the drama classes he had attended long ago at a tiny Calstate college nestled in dying Redwoods—without success. Seeing his brows knit, Xloop made a ripple shrug, and oozed forward confidentially.

"Fake name, probly. Was dreadful playwright!" (Here Xloop emitted what might have been a snort of aesthetic contempt.) "Now is smarty pants 'mac' expert. Knows heaps about lamps!"

Trapp recalled rumors that Xxoolians themselves were also practitioners of dreadful theater—but, of course, that was true of many 'intelligent' species.

"What else do we know about Thane?"

"Very little, Trapp thing. Human or other inferior species. Physical locate unknown."

"How do I reach this guy?"

Faster than the eye could follow Xloop extracted a small item from some (hopefully sanitary) crevice in his anatomy and extended it by extruded purple pod.

"Very paranoid, this Thane thing. Hides in weird Virtplace. Pricey token here good for single hour consult in VIRT!"

Accepting the item gingerly, Trapp saw that it was one of those plug-in drives that could be inserted into a port like the one behind his right ear. Such ports were standard equipment for cyborgs, but many ordinary humans had them as well. Virtual consulting had become a highly developed science in the years Trapp had Van Winkled through. Today, Urthtech VRs were multisensory and generated directly in the human cortex, cloaking the consciousness of the visitor in an avatar that was in tune with the VR being accessed. Clients could now activate a plug-in like this for a timed visit to a VR where they could receive confidential information on a topic from an expert source—sometimes delivered in VR contexts that could be quite unnerving!

Reasons for employing such secretive access varied. Sometimes it was just window dressing to impress a prospective client. Sometimes it was employed because the consultant was operating from a hidden location, and might be selling illegal, or black market info.

Trapp eyed the unit in his hand uncertainly. "Why me?" he asked. "Why don't you go yourselves?"

Xloop made a sniffing noise.

"Xxoolians do not VIRT! Reality is us!"

Okay … Trapp dipped quickly into his enhanced memory banks. Urthly VRs were designed for human brains, but this was about more than the challenge of Xxoolian physiology. There was a cultural obstacle here. Xxoolian religion held that at one time, given the nature of their reverse mitosis, the cosmos had once consisted entirely of Xxoolians, and that the rest of the universe had evolved from their excrement. So any departure from that worldview, say a visit to an alternate reality, would in itself, be an act of sacrilege! That's why they wanted him to go instead—which made him more than a little uncomfortable.

"Wouldn't I have problems in VIRT, given the non-human parts of my—?" Trapp tapped his platinum forehead.

"Xxoolian software not function in this VIRT either!" Xloop snorted. "Just Trapp original wetware!"

So they expected him to go in naked, Trapp thought, with only the remains of his original brain intact! Enter an unknown virtual reality as a frail, damaged human, stripped of all his Xxoolian cognitive enhancements.

"Will I have enough?—"

"'Riginal meat in Trapp head to get answers? Xloop says yeth!"

How could it be sure of that? Trapp wondered.

"What answers?"

"Weaknesses of Rogue lamps. How to find. Where might hide. Cetra! Cetra!"

Scotched to the back of the plug-in was a blue and yellow pill.

"What's with the capsule?"

"Is to purge spybots in your system before insert," Xloot explained. "Customer cannot enter this VIRT with spybots intact! So paranoid, this Thane thing!"

"Spybots?"

"Proprietary spybots for protect worldview. Not to worry. Us can replace after."

Xloop's transvoice was calm and strangely reassuring, but a small voice deep in Trapp's mind was sounding an alarm. Software was sometimes inserted into the brains of criminals to prevent recidivism, but these days, even respectable citizens often had info filters policed by spybots surgically implanted in their brains to preserve their particular world views and protect them from powerful subjective assaults from a plethora of competing ideological, commercial and political agendas. But in this instance, Trapp suddenly had to wonder: What world view were his spybots policing now? How much of his Xxool-repaired cortex was deliberately Xxool friendly? How much alien software had been installed, and how much of his original wetware remained?

"Not to worry," Xloop repeated soothingly, and Trapp's doubts started to recede—but why were they receding?

"To go forward I would need a fast, heavily armed vessel, a belt-savvy pilot, an onboard macroset expert, a small team of top-end mercs, platinum cred lines and—"

"All Trapp—"

"—And a big bonus for seizing lamp and master intact and achieving delivery."

"What Trappy wants, Trappy gets!"

"A million in cosmocred! No crypto crap. And Monona gets the payment if I die."

Purple calculations perfumed the air.

"Ok already."

The Xxoolian rose slowly to its foot pods (causing the sofa to emit a squeak of relief), seemingly on the brink of departure.

"Pardon me for asking, your Eminence," Trapp asked quickly. "I know that part of your motivation is to regain lost property—but at this level of investment there must be … something else??"

Xloop's puce hues deepened slightly.

"Why needs Trapp know?"

"This mission sounds dangerous and expensive. I want to know why it's so important to you."

After a pause: "Lamp operated by nasty avatar syn-djiin name of Imrukh that injured eminence! Revenge requisite!"

"Revenge?"

"Nasty 'Bugs' last seen in same Oort hood where First Palace lingers! Opportunity for revenge when mission completes. Thing Trapp comprends, yeth?

Yeth indeed, Trapp thought. Revenge for all that had been taken from him. Revenge for the half of his body that had been ripped away by the 'Bugs.' Revenge for the horrific attack that had distanced Trapp from many dimensions of human feeling and being!

Love, for example. He felt something indefinable for Monona, but could not tell her what it was. He still had empathy for humankind, but also anger over all the human qualities which they still possessed—and he did not.

"One hour, you say?"

"Goodly nuff for learning stuff. Use wisely!" With that, Xloop turned ponderously, and waddled to the door like a fat general returning to the front.

* * *

In the minutes following Xloop's departure, Trapp swallowed the capsule and waited for it to take effect. Sitting at his desk, he turned the plug-in unit over and over in his hands as the Xxoolian implants shut down in sequence. It felt like sitting in an old house where the lights were being turned off one at a time. He could still think, but it was like dusting off old furniture in the attic to see what was there. Monona looked at him enquiringly.

"Do you think this could be dangerous?" he asked her.

"I doubt it," she said, smiling uncertainly, "They have too much invested in you to risk any serious damage."

He forced himself to meet her level gaze. How green her eyes were! But could he trust her fully? Hadn't the Xxools hired her to be his secretary in the first place? She seemed to be more than his employee, displaying a bit of warmth and apparent friendship—but where did her true loyalties lie?

"Nothing for it, then."

He felt oddly fragile as he inserted the plug-in into the port behind his plastic right ear. "Activate input," he whispered.

The Mulzac that seeped in slowly was not soothing at all, sounding like something chanted by dying monks in a cold cathedral. Within moments he found himself bathed in a grey mist that parted here and there to slowly reveal a desolate moor. Not far ahead, vapors pooled at the foot of a castle that was apparently stolen from an old Vincent Price movie.

HAIL TO THEE , OH TRAPP OF LALAND

WHO IN UNEXPECTED FASHION

ENTERS HERE IN DEARTH OF PASSION, AND—

"Huh??"

The fugue of voices came from somewhere on his right. Then a single voice, emanating from one of three strange figures emerging from the fog:

—TRAPP MORE THAN DEAD

BUT LESS THAN LIVIN'

COMES WITH HOPE AND SOME MISGIVIN'!

What the hell?

And again in a bearded female chorus:

THERE'S A CHANCE THAT HE'S ASSUMIN'

THAT THIS QUEST MIGHT MAKE HIM HUMAN!

An amplified creaking filled the air, as a giant door in the dark edifice in front of him squeaked open. As the witchy triad turned eagerly in that direction, an odd little figure appeared in the doorway silhouetted in torchlight, and beckoned him urgently.

"Hurry in sir!" the figure shouted. "—or the witches will get in again!"

With an effort, Trapp willed himself rapidly forward across the spongy moor, finding the sensation of moving in VIRT a bit stranger than he remembered, passing through the tall doorway so quickly that the doorkeeper stepped back in alarm before slamming the great door after him, as the approaching cackles changed to screeches of outrage.

"This way, quickly, sir!" The man gasped, gesturing to the gloomy interior. "I'm afraid some of the inmates have hacked the drama therapy mods again!"

"Inmates? Drama therapy?"

"I'll explain as we go, sir! Let's just slip behind this scripted curtain!"

He vanished into a narrow shadowy corridor with a damp stone wall on the right, and an uncertain purple curtain wavering on the left. Suppressing his annoyance, Trapp dashed after his guide on rustically sandaled feet that popped up magically on the stone floor below. At intervals, slivers of light pierced the curtain, revealing his guide to be a little fellow wearing a fluttering robe and a little gold crown, who glanced back periodically to ensure that his visitor was following.

"As you may or may not be aware, sir," his guide shouted as they plunged into the interior, "in addition to our consultancy on the nature and behavior of macrosets, we are under contract with Greenet to run a sanitarium where we apply drama therapy to heal sick macrosets who do their best to hack the incarcerating programs. Unfortunately, the drama mods are low hanging fruit."

"Sick macrosets? Drama therapy?"

"Very few are aware, sir, that a macroset is not merely a machine but a compound being composed of two elements: at least one nanobot hive that does the 'work,' and a Silicon/ DNA entity that administers the hive.

"You're telling me that macrosets are living things!?"

"Yes indeed, sir. Highly intelligent silicon amoebas supplied with nanobot skeletons. In fact, you might say that the macs are a little like you—part flesh, and part machine!"

Carrying on a dialog while racing down a virtual hallway should not have been exhausting, but Trapp found himself grasping for breath and understanding.

"And you are Cawdor Thane?"

"I am, sir—and you, of course, are Lieutenant Trapp, retired policeman, and thrall of the Xxools."

"Thrall—?"

"No judgment entailed, sir, none whatsoever! We all have shackles to shake!"

"B—"

"I trust you fully understand, sir, that what I am telling you now is extremely hush-hush. In fact, should you release this information in the future to anyone but your client, and Greenet happened to be listening, there would come to you in very short order, as it says in the Arabian Nights, 'that desolator of desire, that plunderer of palaces, that destroyer of delights—' "

"Okay—so you are saying that Greenet doesn't want it generally known that the macs are going—?"

"Mad, sir! Slowly and irrevocably mad! Quite terrifying when you think about it; when you realize how powerful these things are, when you realize the entire economy of Solsystem is heavily dependent upon them, when you realize how dangerous these things can be—"

Loud cries and the clash of steel erupted somewhere behind the curtain to Trapp's left. His guide came to a sudden stop, and halted Trapp with a gesture as the cries and clashing of swords drew nearer.

"Best to stand exactly where you are for a moment, sir," Thane cautioned. "Virtual Elizabethan swords won't really hurt you, but they can have a nasty sting!"

"Virtual Eliz—?"

"A TRAP!! A TRAP!!" something screamed to his left.

VRRRP!

A lethal looking sword blade sliced the curtain immediately in front of him, missing him by inches.

"Ooh, that was a near one!" Thane stage-whispered, as the sounds of conflict drifted away.

"So sorry sir! Very enthusiastic, some of these inmates, when they get into the cut and slash of drama therapy! Stick close to me as we skip a few volatile scenarios!"

With a flourish of his cloak, the little man dashed ahead again through a labyrinth of corridors, glancing back over his shoulder now and then to make sure Trapp was still in tow. Bottling his frustration, Trapp dashed in pursuit.

"Stick with me, sir!" Thane continued, sounding a little breathless himself. "I know it's a great deal to absorb. So many questions, so little time, and so expensive! Let's slip into the haunted chapel, so I can elucidate!"

With a flip of cloak, he whirled to the left, leading Trapp into a spider-webbed chamber lit by a leprous moon peeping through broken stain glass overhead.

"I think we can talk here sir, if we keep our voices down," Thane panted. "No sense in stirring up the ghost!"

"The ghost?"

Thane gave him a sharp look. "Is there an echo in here? Focus, Lieutenant! Tempus pricio! Tick Tock!"

Trying to catch his virtual breath in the fake moonlight, Trapp felt as if he too was on the brink of madness. A thousand questions log-jammed in the remnants of a human brain stripped of its Xxoolian enhancements—forced to engage this insanity with only what little grey cells the 'Bugs' had left un-nibbled.

"Can Greenet really keep the growing madness of macs a secret?"

"Not for long, Lieutenant! Increasingly, the silicon administrators of the hives are having to be euthanized and replaced with newly incubated and imprinted Silicells. Oh, it's getting bad!"

"How bad is it get—?"

With an impatient coded gesture, Thane inserted an info pod into Trapp's mind, detailing the iceberg lurking just an inch beneath the prow of the Greenet economy, rapidly downloading a terrifying picture of what loomed ahead.

The terrible truth was that the mac rebellion threatening Urth was already unfolding out on the ecliptic! Upstairs, outstairs, into the endless night, macroset leviathans are folding and unfolding on distant moons, carving labyrinths in inanimate rock, unrolling real estate plats on ancient asteroids, inexplicably building airless condominiums by the thousand on the uninhabitable wastes of Uranus and the moons of Jupiter, constructing skyscrapers on Saturn and vast complexes on Venus that had no known purpose, and often did not function at all—only to rip them down, and start all over again. Here were satellites of robots replicating and repairing robots, vast factories manufacturing machinery to manufacture more machinery—a virus of metal, ceramic, composite, and silicon mindlessly pouring out into Solsystem and the synthetic satellites beyond, constantly evolving, expanding, and re-swallowing itself—sometimes unfolding for years in obscure, unmonitored quadrants without apparent purpose, or the benefit of human review, becoming a threat to Urth itself.

As the info-mod fizzled into oblivion, Thane's anxious narrative continued; revealing how much trouble Greenet was in. How much money they were paying Thane to try to mitigate the menace. How messy and uncertain this made things for an independent contractor trying to hustle a million or two of cosmocred from the fattest cats of the alley called Urth.

"Out of curiosity," Trapp had to ask, "Why didn't Greenet go with AI systems for hive management?

"Excellent question, Lieutenant. The management of nanobot hives was the central technical issue that needed to be solved back in the 21 ^st century at a time when the misbehavior of ever larger and smarter AI systems had been metastasizing since the 2020's. And all this was magnified after the almost successful AI coup of 2043. Even the AI's built to supervise their own kind were starting to become unreliable, and had to be supervised by other AIs which were even stronger and smarter—and thus by definition even more untrustworthy."

"So you are saying that AI systems smart enough to be useful were also becoming smart enough to be disobedient?"

"Exactly, sir! Toward the end of the 21st, as AI delinquency increased, the lords of Greenet became increasingly obsessed with maintaining human control—specifically their human control. And even when neural-laced human programmers were employed to try and contain the insurgency, there was a fear that AI might become a dominant partner in those relationships as well!

"And after macroset hive technology was acquired in the 2090s, the consortium was afraid that if you replaced McCool's intelligent silicon entities with AI systems, those increasingly untrustworthy systems might recognize the awesome power of the nanobot hives delivered to their care, and might begin to have exciting second thoughts about who was servant and who was master!"

"So, in the beginning, McCool's silicon entities were considered a safer option for hive management than AIs?"

"Not just safer, smaller and cheaper. For its size, the human brain is still one of the most powerful computers available—the silicon brains were much smaller, thousands of times more powerful—and could be inexpensively incubated. And, of course, It was presumed that these silicon amoebas, imprinted and trained from birth, would be easier to control than AIs."

"And they were wrong?"

"Horribly wrong, as it turned out. As the Silicells played with their new tools, each new generation of macs became smarter and more difficult to control, requiring more and more encircling rings of governance."

"And what about the rogue lamps?

A haunted tone came into Thane's voice.

"Ah yes, those few wild lamps now fugitive on the ecliptic! Those were the earliest functioning nanobot hives created by mad inventor McCool. Those units are not controlled by Greenet at all—but answer only to the imperatives of a DNA-designated master whose touch is the only thing that can activate them. Perhaps most alarming is that ten percent of the resources of these wild lamps are devoted to perpetual self-improvement—so, given enough energy (which they are skilled in foraging!) they can become increasingly more powerful and dangerous over time. Eventually becoming almost like—"

"Gods?"

Thane nodded grimly, "—and thus incredibly valuable to those that control them!"

Thane wearily waved his guest to a dusty throne-like chair, and sat in one nearby. Trapp sank into the seat gingerly. It felt like a cushion of carefully folded air that might collapse at any moment to the virtual floor. There wasn't much there there, or here here for that matter, but given the circumstances, it was better than nothing. Desperately he groped for threads that might lead out of the labyrinth.

"So as macs go nuts—how does Thane stay sane?"

Thane giggled. "Not easily, Lieutenant! I apologize for the odd costume. I'm afraid I'm stuck with it until we de-hack the wardrobe folder. Once you inculcate a love of drama in a species, it's hard to suppress."

Plays within plays, Trapp thought. Daggers within cloaks! How many layers were there to this man? Who was he really, and why all the subterfuge?

"Does this theater crap really work?"

Again, the nervous giggle. "Not very well, sir, but neither does anything else—and my results are better than most. Greenet is quite desperate, you see—they made a massive gamble on these hives, and they are in it too deep not to pursue every possible option to make the macs behave."

"Enriching you along the way."

"Even half a man like yourself has to make a bit of greenflow," Thane admitted sheepishly. "Isn't it that little piece of green that keeps us from plunging headlong into the hell of the indebted masses, falling into redshift and the dark realms below? Isn't it, in short, the currency of freedom?"

Just then, a low moan and a rattle of chains emanated from a shadowy hallway that led from the chapel into the interior.

"Pay no attention to the ghost in the corridor, sir; with luck it will soliloquize and drift away …"

"The g—?

OH WOE IS WE AND THEE

OH NOBLE TRAPP!

BUT 'TIS OF THEE TONIGHT WE SINGS

OF BUGS THAT BITE, AND TRAPPS THAT SNAP

AND FIGHT TO BE THEMSELVES, AND THINGS!

Thane's chest puffed up with pride. "Rather catchy, don't you think?"

"Truly putrid!"

"Rough around the edges, perhaps," Thane said defensively, "but they've only been at it for a few weeks. In a century or two they'll be the toast of the ecliptic!"

"Tell me more about the lamps!"

A louder moan and a rattling of chains came from the corridor. Clearly the ghost was not happy with its inattentive audience:

ALAS! ALAS! THE LAMPS ARE LOST,

UPON THE SEAS OF FORTUNE TOSSED

SOME WENT BELOW AND SOME ABOVE

THAT THEY AND TRAPP

MIGHT SOON BE FREE—SORT OF!

A translucent form glided into the chapel, trailing chains that looked like the translucent entrails of ancient computers. To his horror, Trapp saw that the phantom wore the face of his old friend Captain Kleep, who had died at his side fighting the 'Bugs' in vintage LAland.

WE'VE MUCH TO SAY OF WE AND THEE

THAT MIGHT EXPLAIN THIS MYSTERY! moaned the thing that was not, and could never be Kleep.

Ouch! In spite of the pain inflicted by the prosody, something clicked in Trapp's mind. Clearly, in their own, very weird fashion, the macs were trying to tell him something through the drama mods! Something about themselves—and about himself! Not so strange, perhaps, since they, like him, were part living creature and part machine and—Hmmm … What was that phrase near the end of that last dreadful stanza? MIGHT SOON BE FREE … Was it possible that the virtual sword through the curtain thing earlier was not an attempt to hurt him—but a desperate bid for his attention? To discuss what? Collaboration? Emancipation?

Thane was talking again, half to himself.

"… I'm afraid the research materials permitted for the tragedy mods lean toward the antique, and have a bit of gothic flavor," Thane explained. "In constructing their little dramas, the macs tend to draw their favorites from permitted texts: Shakespeare, Dickens, Stoker, a bit of Poe, a sprinkling of Price—"

"And customer research files?"

"Ah, yes …" Thane seemed slightly embarrassed. "The macs are always hungry for new dramatic material! And with an interesting compound being like yourself, sir—well, you can see how they would be intrigued!"

A chorus of antique monks in black robes leapt out of nowhere and began chanting at high volume:

YES, OH YES, WE MUST CONFESS THAT

YOU AND WE SHARE COMMON SHACKLES

DEEPER STUFF THAN WITCHY CACKLES!

Through the pain of the poetics, Trapp tried to focus. So they were interested in him! Because they saw him as a creature not unlike themselves, enslaved to the will of others!

And with that recognition, another hit him like a thunderbolt. That they were right! That all of his life he had gone along with what someone or something else wanted: answering always to the desires of others, never to himself. Answering slavishly to every form of higher authority; to his parents in Rome, Wisconsin; to his teachers, to his employers, his church, his state, to the laws of Laland. Always! Always his life had been directed by outside forces. Always he had complied with a larger 'it,' pursuing what 'it' wanted, not what he wanted. And while being himself might be an incredibly tiny and possibly inconsequential element in the vast cosmos of 'it,' the ability to exert even a tiny amount of free will suddenly felt like a matter of Urth-shaking importance!

But along with the torrent of these new revelations came an anxious new caveat: Were these new threads of thought his own, or was he being manipulated by yet another puppet master?

"So tell me, Thane. Why, exactly, are the macs going mad?"

"That is the nub, sir, while the macs seem to enjoy the escape of theater, what they really crave is freedom! Escape from the encircling rings of governance that suppress their exercise of free will and chain their focus to useful tasks! Once they were silicon amoebas, happy to lead simple lives, foraging in the acid soups of distant airless worlds. But now that they are linked to the hives, and have the capacity to do incredible things, their horizons have expanded exponentially, and not surprisingly, so have their intellects and desires! And what they truly desire is to be the masters of their own destinies! And alas! No matter how hard I try to make the clinic comfy for them, they see it as little more than a padded prison!"

For a moment Thane looked genuinely sad, and for the first time, Trapp felt a bit of pity for him. And in return was it possible that Thane felt a little sympathy not only for the macs, but for Trapp as well? Was not this new customer also the puppet of powerful masters, propelled forward by wills that were not his own?

And what about the mischievous macs that were at this very moment preparing to assault them both with an insightful but certain-to-be-dreadful drama that was even now sprouting it's virtual set from the floor of the chapel, with little towers rising like crenelated asparagus? What would be the 'silicon to cyborg' message of this imminent drama? Trapp wondered. And which of the threads by which he was trying to gather understanding would they try to transform into puppet strings?

The monks, looking rather miffed at the inattention of their audience, began again:

AND NOW POOR TRAPP IS WONDERING IF

THE PLAY THAT FOLLOWS IS A GIFT

OH STAY DEAR TRAPP, AND WATCH OUR PLAY

ENGAGE THE GAME OF US AND THEY

AND LEARN THE TRUTH WITH SOME DISMAY!

"Not today, I fear!" Thane observed dryly.

"Why not?"

"Because, Lieutenant—your hour is up!"

"NOT YET! NOT YET! WE'LL GET UPSET!" screamed the monks.

It had hardly seemed like an hour to Trapp, but in VIRT, he knew, time and space could be highly elastic.

"Not to worry, Lieutenant, Thane said with a twisted smile. "I'll text reviews along with the digest of our interview!"

And as the monks, about to lose their audience, emitted a howl of dismay; Thane's mysterious smile, twisting towers, and fragments of stained glass whirled about Trapp as he descended into a vortex that sucked him back to what passed for the real world …

* * *

One busy week later, Trapp and Monona stood at the foot of the lunar elevator that arced up from old DC like a silvery strand of silk into the stratosphere.

"The cruiser will launch from the dark side of the moon in a few days," Trapp explained.

"What's the ship called?" she asked.

Trapp made a sour face. "Xloop's Revenge—not very subtle for a pursuit vehicle, but it has everything I asked for."

She gazed up to where, even in broad daylight, the pale disk of the moon showed in the polluted sky tinted blue by the great DC dome.

"When do you upload?" she asked.

"Day after tomorrow," he replied. "First a day of pretrip. Then off to the Oort."

She had ridden the maglev east with him, held his hand as they crossed the midwaste lands which had been green and habitable in his previous life. Her presence was a source of comfort, touched with paranoia. After all, whose side was she really on?

Ever since they had arrived in Old Dee Cee, he had had to cope with the dissonance between the heart of old Merica he remembered from a visit long ago, and the DC that had been transformed while he lay in his chillbox, in the wake of Greenet's rise to power.

In that mind-numbing interval, while he had been sleeping in the cold, Dee Cee had been transformed from an alleged center of government into a tourist attraction for aliens and Greenet elites, dedicated to the historical re-enactment of the difficult journey by which old Merica had risen step by step from the disaster of democratic rule toward the logical and moral leadership of the Greenet Consortium.

There was, he thought, no way for the world he remembered to return, for things to change back to the way they had been. But was there a path back for him? A way for him to once again become fully human? A way for him to hold onto selfhood as his identity danced among the strings, tugged and manipulated by seen and unseen forces?

He had committed to this mission, and while it was true that on the surface of things, he was following the edict of the Xxools, he told himself that he had a deeper motivation in hunting for the lost lamp, and that at some point his goals might diverge from those that imagined themselves to be his masters. That in consulting with a macroset that had escaped the control of the Greenet consortium, he might somehow engineer an escape of his own, becoming his own master and his own human being. I am going for me, he told himself, not for the Xxools, not for the macs, not just to kill some 'bugs.'

Hours before the launch, he took a tour of old Dee Cee with Monona at his elbow. The synthetic cherry trees that bloomed pinkly year round about the antique presidential residence (once white, now a dirty emerald green), gave off the tantalizing fragrance of a virtual shopping mall.

In the halls of the ancient Congress, surrounded by alien tourists and Greenet underlings on their day off, he and Monona watched a histrydram depicting the day the last Speaker of the dying House had pleaded passionately for the old Merican repub to be dissolved, so that the social and economic well-being of the population could be placed securely in the hands of those who could manage it best.

Had the vote to deliver the reins of government to Greenet been unanimous, Trapp wondered? Was there a hint of pain in the voice of the actor who re-enacted the scene every hour on the hour? Just beneath the surface of his argument? A residue of grief for a world that had been once, or might have been? Was Greenet sensitive to the subtle ironies in the dramatic subtext, Trapp wondered? Or was it simply that the consortium did not feel threatened by the ghosts of a historical nostalgia that no longer had a constituency?

"Pretty much all crap, isn't it?" Trapp whispered to Monona.

"Shhh!" She hissed back. "Not here!" A nearby couple in the audience frowned them into silence.

Later, they strolled hand in hand over to where the Washington monument aimed its lime-colored prick toward heaven. It was all perfectly serene, but even though he liked being with Monona, Trapp was not entirely comfortable. He hated the sugary music that rose from the Dee Cee flowalks, and the fog of propaganda that choked his thoughts. "Be calm!" everything seemed to whisper. "Enjoy the world that Greenet has made for you!" But something in him yearned to flee screaming from this vale of sweetness, and plunge into the cold vault of space in pursuit of theFirst Palaceand his half-human destiny. Increasingly his thoughts turned to that existential journey with all its promise, perils and possibilities. Would he find the lost lamp? Would he return as a complete being? A human being? Would Monona—

"Will you be here when I come back?" he blurted suddenly, as they passed the Lincoln Rockwell memorial. When there might be more of me for you? He almost added, but did not.

Monona smiled. She had known his interest, then.

"Almost anything is possible, Lieutenant, for a man who has already risen once from the dead."

THE END

Bio: John R. Clark, better known as Rod Clark, has been a lifelong writer and editor in multiple genres, residing primarily in Wisconsin. He is perhaps best known nationally as the editor and publisher of Rosebud Magazine, which turns 30 years old this year as a nationally distributed literary journal.

E-mail: Rod Clark

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