Shall Machines Divide the Earth by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (list of e readers txt) 📕

variables. “Can one duelist bind themselves to more than one regalia at a time?”

“Not without frying their brains.” Houyi does not elaborate. “We’ll be your allies, provisionally. Contingent on you convincing Daji to assist Ouru. And speaking of that, it’d be best if you leave now.”

I start to ask. The virtuality’s fabric starts to rip. Scriptorium shelves give way to blinding gold. Chun Hyang emerges wreathed in its own brilliance, and where its feet fall Ouru’s virtuality singes and blackens. Houyi’s Chariot steps between their duelist and the intruder, spear drawn.

No point staying and inquiring as to Ouru’s operational security. I pull free of zer virtuality. Back in the gym, in a wash of synaptic storm: the physicality of a hard bench, the sunlight pouring in, and the water murmuring outside. The warm weight of Daji has annexed my lap.

“You were gossiping about me with Houyi.” She bites my earlobe, none too gently. “Very rude, Detective Thannarat.”

“I was implying that you were resplendent, without peer.”

“And yet you were asking Houyi if you could have more than one regalia.”

“As a hypothetical. I don’t plan to adopt any. You’re my only partner.” I wrap my arm around her thick waist. “Your opinion on my little machinations?”

“Clever that you intuited naming me would make Houyi talk. They and I are friendly rivals, though I don’t need their help to take down Chun Hyang.” Her delicate shoulders rise and fall. “I’ve battled Chun Hyang’s Glaive many times, across the rounds.”

I trail one hand down her spine, languorous, appreciating each curve and bend. The architecture of vertebrae: brittle in a human body, impregnable in hers. “The records suggest Chun Hyang has won every round it entered.”

She pinches my forearm. “The archivist is not a reliable narrator. What, you think we’d let him do this silly chronicling if his information was accurate? He’s part of Septet’s infrastructure. The papers he keeps have multiple versions.”

I grimace; she laughs. “And you I am to take as reliable? Why make the Divide so deeply . . . difficult? The deceptions on deceptions, the double- and triple-crossing, the masquerades.” Though I haven’t yet met any human I’d suspect of being an AI, but that is the point. “The destabilizing of all aspirants and duelists.”

“We didn’t create this to make it easy for you to win, Detective. There have been rounds where it was all pyrrhic victory or scorched earth where not a single soul emerged in triumph. This game’s for—” Her head cocks. “Aren’t you going to ask about my time as a haruspex?”

Machines do not hesitate or misspeak. She’s not going to tell me about the Divide’s true aim, though I’m starting to glimpse the iceberg-tip of it. For now that’s a suspicion only. I set the thought aside. “I’m interested in a different question, Daji. Duelists risk themselves in the Divide for tremendous gain. Why do machines bother? Individually, not the great overarching purpose of the Mandate. It can’t be just to stave off boredom—this is too much investment.”

“Says who? An AI can run a range of parallel threads, piloting scores of proxies. Even now I might be entertaining a dozen other lovers.”

“I can hardly fault your appetite.” I kiss her palm. “But I do aim to be your most interesting, such that when I occupy your attention I’ll force you to tunnel down to, oh, five others. When we fuck, that’s going to have to be down to two others at most. So what’s the Divide to you? Personally?”

“Cocky.” Daji squeezes my thigh. “On Shenzhen, where I was made, a haruspex is the incubator for new AIs. You meld with a human and, at the end of this life cycle, the human half dies and is sloughed off. For me—for us—we ran into a . . . neurological incompatibility early on that made it no longer possible for the haruspex to hold. One of us had to give. My human half chose to sacrifice herself so I could continue.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. In me she’ll be immortal. I am her living memorial. But because our time was cut short, it gave me a peculiar longing; I don’t think many AIs share it. I don’t want to become a haruspex again, that was too limiting and I’ve been granted my full capacity since.” She runs her nail up my throat, drawing circles until she reaches my cheek. “I want a companion, Detective. Someone who’ll love and cherish me as my human half did. Someone who is mine, all mine, and who pleases me in all ways. The only one—once I’ve found this companion I will require no other. No more dalliances, no more diversions. Just her.”

I smile, slight, against her thumb. “And have you found such a person?”

“I’ve come close once; now I come closer still. I stand on the brink.” Her hand tightens on my jawline. “This time I don’t intend to lose. I’ll turn Septet to cinders if I need to. Victory, Detective, at any cost.”

By late night I send Ouru a message; ze replies promptly that Houyi successfully repelled Chun Hyang, and that both regalia remain active. Peculiar, I think, that those two keep fighting and yet their battles lead always to a stalemate. Both are holding back, or are playing at a deeper purpose.

“It’s not that,” Daji says when I bring up the subject after I wake up to her face between my thighs and we’ve had our mutual satisfaction. “Chun Hyang and Houyi have a complex. They want a single decisive fight, going all-out, having their duelists use every single override they’ve got. A huge spectacle; they’re building up to it. It’s popular with AIs back on Shenzhen and these two adore being the center of attention.”

“It seems excessive to protract their skirmishes so they can have something worthy of the stage. I never knew AIs could be so theatrical.” My fingers rub along the soft fuzz of hair at the base of Daji’s skull, then against a few stray petals. She’s deactivated her custom perfume; currently she smells like