Kei

  If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

  --Albert Einstein

  The strange thing about suddenly becoming smarter is instantly realizing all your mistakes.

  The depressing thing about instantly becoming much, much smarter is instantly realizing every mistake you’ve ever made, ever, and being able to guess a bunch of the ones you’ll soon be making.

  Knowing you’ll be ‘dumb’ again all too soon, and going right back to blundering through your life.

  I know this because I do it all the time, and it’s more painful and embarrassing than it sounds.

  When my Gift kicks in fully, it kicks me in the backside, hard, for every stupid thing I’ve ever done and asks why I didn’t know any better. Even though the answer is obvious. But of course, turning my Gift up to eleven is usually one of those stupid things. Or whatever led up to doing so, anyway.

  The only good thing about my Gift’s perspective is I’m usually too busy in these life-or-death moments to pay attention, and then I’m not intelligent enough to remember it all when it fades.

  The weird thing about running into someone who is always superintelligent is knowing they see all your flaws and errors all the time.

  Which is humbling, sure. But what’s really humbling is running into someone like Lyra or Kerry, who are supersmart but too nice to call you out or even judge you for it.

  Granted, they’re so busy they don’t have the time, but it’s still kind of a relief.

  As I race for the Maze, I’m not feeling relief of any kind. And for once, my Gift is in full force yet I have just enough time to listen.

  A hundred different things I could be doing burst into my brain, bringing me back to all the ways my life could have played out after washing up on that beach. But of course, bitter as this is, I don’t even have the excuse of my weakness and trauma to hide behind.

  Coldfire burns, and it accepts no excuses.

  So I ignore it, just as it ignores the reality I inhabit in its absence. And once again, I run.

  I dive off the sidewalk and into the trees almost immediately, less for privacy than for the direct path I can take to reach the Maze, and beyond it, the Academy. I burst through bushes, tread past trees and pursue paths in a blur so swift my conscious mind is barely processing any of them.

  Fortunately, my inborn instincts and my Gift know this state well, and shift into their usual rhythm of keeping me upright until my goal is in sight.

  Of course, they’re used to me fleeing for my life in these situations, or at least running desperately from the threat, so we’re all growing today. I take in air like a jet engine, and burst from the last line of trees before the Maze.

  And look out upon chaos.

  Normal people lack the sight to see Hounds when they do not wish to be seen, but I’m on a slight incline above the mazework of hedges and can see the frantic scene unfolding all the way to the horizon.

  It isn’t pretty.

  Waves of tiny drones are clashing in the skies above me, above the Maze, and above everything stretching from here to Waycross Academy. Or rather, waves of small advanced drones seem to be fighting endless swarms of yet more drones – running from hyperadvanced custom devices to cheap armed commercial drones welded together in someone’s garage. Some of those drones are also fighting flocks of strangely steampunk artificial avians. Brass and silver glimmer on these mechanical birds, who are attacking swarms or evading them for their own reasons. A mission, perhaps, or simply instinct.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Bounding out of the Maze I see yet more Hounds, though they have yet to take notice of me.

  And as I stare out across the scene, I see a subtle ripple moving across the flying drones and clockwork flocks. And a shift in their patterns, as if being pushed clockwise from me by a powerful, immaterial, but rising wind.

  My Gift, making its presence known. And by extension, mine.

  Because who doesn’t want to make a splash when they’re hiding from their mortal enemies? Not me, obviously.

  Meanwhile, as if to mock any notion I have of going around or simply slipping back into the trees and rethinking all my life choices, I can see scrambling crowds of people fleeing from their idyllic day in the park before some back-alley AI decides they’re an enemy combatant and vaporizes them.

  Obviously, I have to do something. I just wish I knew what that is.

  My Gift, of course, has suggestions. Unfortunately, trying to assess the ideas of something a thousand times smarter than you are which might suddenly have different priorities, or simply a less-than-healthy concern for your mortality, can be tricky.

  Unfortunately, every normal part of my mind – and every part even close to normal – is blanking out in the face of all this, so I open the floor to any superintelligences which might be lurking in my skull. Or which at least have a dedicated line straight into my brain.

  I don’t think I fully understood how everything in my head worked before I lost my memories, and supersmart or not, now is not the time to ask.

  I think hard, and so does my Gift. So hard I almost drop to my knees, the world spinning around me. A flurry of ideas sweep up to meet me.

  They flicker through my brain, moving incredibly fast. But finally I settle on one.

  The most dangerous, of course. But really, I have one way of engaging this many drones and dragging them away from the scattering people around us. And one way to keep them engaged with me, once I do.

  So needless to say, the smartest thing I can possibly do is also the most stupid.

  I grab a branch, toss it end-over-end into a nearby quadcopter drone which detonates with an impressive ‘whoomph!’ Then I hurl a pinecone, snatch up another branch from the ground, and race towards the nearest drone on my new path between the trees and the Maze’s entrance.

  Charging machines carrying explosives and designed to detonate when they’re close to their targets is an incredibly bad idea. Especially when your only weapon is a stick.

  Which, of course, is the genius behind this plan. Or maybe my Gift doesn’t really make me smarter, just delusional.

  Hard to say. I’ll let you know at the end of this.

  The quadcopter notices me and turns in midair to intercept. Not even fifteen yards away. No, not ten. No…

  My arm snaps into a throw and my branch pierces it like a javelin launched by a rocket. The quad drone twitches once as it slams backwards towards another knot of drones swirling behind it, then detonates. Those first few are caught in the blast and go up like a string of firecrackers.

  Which, Gift or no Gift, draws the attention of every nearby drone. Again, the sheer brilliance of this plan.

  I keep charging forward faster and faster as every homicidal machine over a swath of greenery the size of a football field spins and sweeps towards me. How one javelin toss put me that high up the priority list I don’t know, but facial recognition and a standing kill order leap to mind.

  Why do these things leap to mind? Amnesia or not, I’ve had a difficult childhood and I know it.

  The wave of bloodthirsty, back-alley steel and silicon surges for me. And I head for them even faster, not even flinching as the first ranks dive.

  But I finally reach the parking area, and so I’m on to the next suicidally dangerous step in my ‘plan.’

  So I dive as well. Face first, sliding under a car which will crumple like tinfoil under the first real explosive which hits it.

  And I coil beneath it and lunge again, uncoiling explosively just as the buzz of quadcopters is about to hit the top of this hapless Corolla.

  I’m two cars away and sporting carpet burn from the grass and gravel when the first detonation shatters the car. I’m under yet a third before the pressure and scattering shrapnel reaches me. And I keep going.

  This knot of cars has no one in it. No one outside and no one hiding within. Terrible property damage, but I’ll trade things for people any day.

  Drones keep falling like confused raindrops passing through a whirlwind. They can’t all see me at any one time, there’s dust rising and debris falling everywhere, and their communications and protocols are failing as my influence wreaks havoc on their systems.

  And, of course, our violent display draws even more attention from their fellow machines than it warrants.

  I do the only thing I can now that I’m committed, and keep hurtling between and below these rows of vehicles, getting ever closer to the Maze entry itself. My Gift is accelerating me, and while I’m tougher, my jacket is taking most of the beating every time I slide across the ground.

  Drone after drone descends, destruction abounds, and my mind is blanking out all of it. I’m listening to an inner voice – my own instincts and whatever the Gift inside me has to say.

  Almost there, it remarks as I approach the end of the parked SUVs and my only cover. Then… Change up!

  I jump the Jeep in front of me and spin while still airborne, flinging stone after stone at the closest drones, which shatter beneath gravel flung with deadly accuracy. Then I land, and run again.

  There’s no cover, here.

  Only the Hounds, who have moved to intercept.

  My one trump card is the bloodthirst of my many pursuers. But I can set my watch and make my plans based on that.

  I leap into Death’s slavering fangs, and charge the Hounds.

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  Emerging Futures.