Traitor

by C R MacFarlane

  “I’m glad.” She sat comfortably on the bed — the bed in his freightship quarters. “It gave me a fright. I thought the warship had come back. Hoepe says no one was injured, at least not badly.”

  Gal frowned. “The shuttle — the Ishash’tor’s shuttle — crashed?”

  “Yes.” A puzzled look came over her face. “They’re still trying to figure out what happened. We vented a lot of atmosphere, and that airlock was the only way to get supplies and people on or off the ship.”

  So, they were on the freightship. The bunker was the hallucination. Gal felt a little bolder, now that he had something concrete to work with.

  “They’re working through the calculations now — trajectory, speed, thruster burst. We’ll go as soon as possible. I would prefer to go straight to Etar, but this seems like our best chance right now.”

  A cold dread nearly dropped Gal to his knees. “What is our best chance?”

  “To go to the planet. I know you said —.”

  “We can’t go to the planet!” he shouted, clutching his chest again.

  She jumped up, blurting, “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s too dangerous!”

  Her lip trembled, eyes wide.

  Gal hadn’t meant to shout. “It’s too dangerous, Rayne! Don’t you see?”

  “It’s our only option. With the shuttle and the hangar ruined, Kieran can’t get the parts to repair the FTL.”

  “I thought I was clear. Who decided we would go to the planet?”

  She gulped. “Hoepe and the Augments.”

  “Augments,” he despaired. They were back in the bunker. Indaer, Augments, bunker, planets. Rayne was with them. He drove the heels of his palms into his eyes. “No, no, no. You don’t know what’s going to happen. They’ll destroy everything.”

  “The Augments? They’ve been working with us. They’re just kids Gal. The rumours were wrong.”

  “No, Rayne.”

  “Yes.” She grabbed him around the middle. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll go back to Etar and tell the Speakers. The Gods will be good to us. Sometimes hardship is part of the Path.”

  But that was the problem. They — the Gods — already knew. Gal pulled back. Across the room, Aaron watched him. The demons crept close, tangling in his feet. Even in the safety of the bunker, the truth was dangerous.

  “We can’t go to the planet,” he repeated.

  “Why not? You’re not making any sense.”

  “Because.” The lines of code scrolled across his console screen, a program he’d written just in case. But for what? For the bunker and their mission to infiltrate the Speakers’ compound, or for the Valkas as a last, final measure to ensure they never made it to the planets and that Cornelius would be safe?

  “What is so bad about this planet?”

  “It’s all part of it. It’s all connected. Don’t you see?”

  She shook her head and stepped back.

  “If we make it to the planet, they’ll destroy it.”

  “Who? What?”

  “The Augments, the planet, the Speakers! It’s me, I’m in the middle of all of it. Me and Hap Lansford.” She took another step back, towards the door, but he grabbed her wrist. “We can’t let them take over. Can’t let them destroy everything.”

  “You’re scaring me, Gal.” She jerked her wrist away.

  “You should be scared.” He reached for his desk, for the tiny chip attached to the console. “Take this.” He pressed it into her hand, curling her fingers around it.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice shook. “Tell me why the planet is so dangerous. And what do the Speakers have to do with it?”

  “I can’t. They would kill you, like they’re killing me.”

  “Who? The Augments?” Of course she thought it was the Augments, not the Speakers. Never her precious Speakers.

  “The Augments aren’t the enemy.” He shook his head. “I’m the only one left. The only one to be tortured with the knowledge of what I did.”

  “Gal, I don’t understand.”

  He muttered, his head pressed into his hands, “No, and why would you?” He pressed not he controls on the console, ejecting the thin data card he had been working on. “Take the chip. You need to deliver it to the main Engineering computer. Just plug it in and the rest will happen automatically.”

  “What?”

  “Rayne, my love. You don’t know what they’re capable of. What they’re trying to destroy. We can’t let them. This program will stop it. It will keep us all safe.”

  “I thought you said the Augments weren’t the enemy. I don’t understand.” She looked at the chip. “You made a computer program? How do you know how to do this?”

  “I’ve made several. I need you to upload this one.”

  “I can’t, Gal.” She held out the chip to give it back to him

  He took her hand, curled her fist around the chip again, and shoved it into her pocket. “I know too much. We need to stay away from the planets. Promise me.”

  “Planets?” she squeaked.

  “Yes.” He held her wrist until she nodded, her face ashen. “Trust me.”

  He let go, and she turned and ran for the door, pausing only until it slid open wide enough for her to squeeze through sideways.

  Gal turned, striding into the dark shadows of the bunker with Aaron.

  “That’s one complicated relationship, Johnny,” Aaron said.

  The demon-Rayne lay prostrate on the floor, the others crowding around it to see. Just a hallucination, but the image died in his memory again and again. “I have to keep her safe.”

  “What’s that program going to do?” Aaron strapped a laz-rifle across his back, peering at Gal questioningly.

  Gal shrugged. A raid, a warship, a freightship — they were all the same. It was all happening again and again. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m with you to the end, Johnny.”

  * * *

  Sarrin woke slowly, pushing through the heavy blanket that 400-milligrams of telazol left in her system. Groaning, she rolled over in the bed. She had lost control. The monster had taken over. The memory flooded her of a violent machine relentlessly attacking the hallway.

  What was she? She could hardly say human, though she tried. A monster through and through, there was no escaping it. These were her friends. If she couldn’t live with them, where could she live?

  It was too dangerous. Hoepe had said she was getting better, but it seemed farther and farther from it. The more her synapses restored, the faster her reflexes and the quicker her trigger. The more she healed, the worse the trance would become.

  She kicked out again, trying to straighten her leg, but it was stuck. Cracking her eyelids, she realized why: a hunched figure sat at the end of the bed. Kieran.

  He turned, feeling her kick. No pretending she was asleep now. He smiled at her, but his eyes seemed to do the opposite. “I’m sorry, Sarrin.” He wrapped one of his hands around her foot.

  She gasped and pulled away.

  If possible, his eyes seemed to get sadder. “I — I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I —.” He stopped and pulled his hands back into his lap and stared at them.

  She remembered his face, filled with fear, in the second before he injected her. She remembered the feel of the other Augment’s trachea, squeezed inside her grip. She stared at her own hand, blood dripping, silver glinting.

  “Go away.”

  He stood obediently. “Sarrin, just….”

  She turned away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She heard him swallow from across the room. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

  But she could hear the shake in his voice, feel the fear emanating off him. “You’re afraid.”

  He paused. She glanced back at his hanging open mouth.

  “Yes. That’s true.” He sat down again. “But, I’m not afraid of you.”

  A fool. He had seen it. He had a bruise on his arm from Gods-only knew what she had done. Didn�
�t he have any sense of self-preservation?

  Her thoughts stopped abruptly when he grabbed her foot.

  She yanked away, but he held on. What was he doing? Her eyes went wide with panic, as he held on through another kick.

  “This isn’t hurting you,” he said, the sternness in his voice causing her to pause.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said as icily as she could manage.

  He let go, at least. “Why not?

  She rolled over, squeezing her eyes shut. She felt him staring down at her, heard his exasperated sigh. When she opened her eyes again, she saw his back as he stomped to the latrine.

  He slumped at the sink, pouring water over his face. Poor, sweet Kieran. If anything happened to him, if she lost control just for a second, she would never forgive herself.

  She sat up and watched until he made his way back.

  “I know you don’t like to be touched. I respect that. But I’m trying to help. You can’t go forever never touching a living human being.”

  “I can feel everything,” she said.

  “I know. I see it. I know you picked up Rami’s anger, and probably the panic from everyone in that corridor — that’s why you lost control, you got overwhelmed.” His eyebrows knitted together in pain. “I don’t understand why you’re so afraid of me. I’ve touched you before, like when I carried you here, or when I carried you back to the ship — no one exploded or anything.”

  She tried again, owing him an explanation he could understand. She could barely understand it. “Every thought, every emotion — I feel them.” She cleared her throat. “Rami, he’s so full of anger. He touched me, and that’s all I could feel. I took it into me.”

  Kieran nodded. “I feel it too. He walks into a room and my heart starts to race. But I’m not like Rami.”

  She shook her head. “I feel, and I take.” A shaky breath left her body. “She was trying to help, too. And I killed her.”

  Kieran’s face paled. He sat down on the bed and wrapped a hand stubbornly around her foot, the thin sheets the only thing between them, saving him. “Tell me.”

  Sarrin squeezed her eyes tight, bundling all her energy in her core. It was too much, and the words came tumbling out. “I didn’t know it would happen, but I was so tired. She gave me her hand. I didn’t know, I didn’t know! She died. I touched her and she just died. All the life taken from her.”

  The memory of Nurse Adelaide’s warm body falling lifelessly to the cold, hard floor of Evangecore threatened to make her vomit. She remembered the sensation more than the vision: she was filled up, renewed, left vibrant with life, and the horror as she looked up and saw the life drain from the nurse’s eyes.

  Kieran was staring wide eyed, fear and confusion rolling off of him.

  But he wasn’t staring at her.

  He was staring at the floor. “Did you see that? All that stuff went flying.” He stood to examine it, the warmth of his hand suddenly leaving her foot. “It was like it just hovered in the air for a second, and then blew across the room.”

  Sarrin’s mouth was suddenly dry, the nurse forgotten. She licked her dry lips. “I didn’t see anything.”

  Kieran scratched his head. “I coulda sworn.”

  She wrapped her hands in the sheets. It was impossible to swallow.

  He picked up the stuff, and came back to sit on the end of the bed. “This was the nurse you told me about, the one who brought you books?”

  She released a breath, at first relieved he hadn’t asked again about the objects she had unwittingly manipulated. Then, hollow at the memory he had recalled in her once more. “Yes,” her voice barely came out. “You can’t touch me. I’m a monster. That’s what they made me.”

  He grabbed her foot again, his voice serious. “No one can make anybody anything.”

  “Don’t.” She pulled away from him, curling into a tight ball at the opposite end of the bed.

  “Sorry!” he shouted and leapt up, as far from her as he could. He paced, driving his hands through his sandy hair. “You remind me too much of my sister. I just want to help you.”

  Sarrin glanced at the photo on the nightstand, at Kieran’s sister who had already died of old age. They looked nothing alike to her, Lauren was so full life, and she was so full of death.

  But still an idea formed in her head.

  “Take me with you,” she said suddenly to Kieran, “when you go back.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Can you do that? Can you bring someone with you when you go back to your ship?”

  His eyes widened in understanding, and a smile spread across his face. “Yeah. You would want to come, be an Observer?”

  She nodded. Maybe she could escape it.

  He stared, expression frozen, before a real smile cracked through the surface. “Yeah,” he laughed. “They always remind us to bring people back if we find someone. It’s good for —.” He stopped suddenly, and turned to her, his face pink. Then he looked away, gripping the back of the chair until his knuckles turned white. “No.”

  “What?” She sat up out of sheer surprise. “I’m smart, I could learn. Help with the engines, the research.”

  Confusion rolled off of him, and something else she couldn’t name. “It’s not that.” He shook his head again, staring at the wall.

  “I can’t stay here.”

  He turned, his green eyes filled with sadness.

  “They’ll hunt me. I have something they want, something dangerous, and I’ll never be safe here.”

  He stared at her with wide eyes. “I just…. I don’t know.”

  She felt her heart start to fall.

  He closed his eyes. “Maybe it would be okay. I’ll have to write a letter.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. The emotions rolling off of him were so confused, but none of them were bad, none of them stirred the monster.

  He smiled up at her, a sad smile. “Alright. I would probably miss you too much anyhow.” Then he flashed one of his goofy smiles that made her heart thump around, much differently than anything else. “I should warn you that my mom hugs everyone.”

  Sarrin swallowed. She hadn’t thought of that. But it didn’t frighten her half as much as the UEC experiments.

  “It’s not so bad. Mom gives the best hugs.” He reached for her.

  Automatically, she flinched away. But that was the problem wasn’t it? She glanced up at him. He held his hand out, patiently holding it still. Always trying to help. Gingerly, she reached forward. Her fingers began to hum as they came close to his.

  Too close. Too intense.

  She gasped and pulled away.

  Behind her, she heard Kieran sigh.

  He moved past her and headed for the door. “Come on, we still need to get the ship out of here, and I need to write home — it’s been a while, too long, probably.”

  She stayed firmly in place. “We should go soon.”

  He frowned. “You mean home? To my home?”

  “There’s nothing left for me here.”

  “What about Halud?”

  She looked away.

  “Sarrin,” he said seriously. “He’s your brother.”

  “He’s already dead.”

  She felt his eyes on her, searching her. “You don’t know that.”

  But it was hard to hold out hope when everyone else knew it too.

  “You told me he was still alive, that you could feel it.”

  She shut her eyes. She felt so many things. If he wasn’t dead, then he was bait in a trap. A reason for her to behave.

  If she went looking for him, they would catch her. If they caught her, he would be dead or worse. At least if she never showed up, they would keep him alive. Eventually, he might become useless to them, and they would let him go.

  It was the best she could hope for.

  “Don’t give up on him.”

  “I’m not a fool, Kieran.”

  He frowned again, leaning away from her.

  Not a fool, but maybe she was a
monster.

  “There’s still a lot of work to do. I need your help.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “It’s only going to get harder the longer you hide in here.”

  “That was the last of the sedative. If I … if I lose control again, no one can stop me. I have to stay in here.”

  “Oh, right.” His face turned white and she heard him gulp from across the room. He took a step forward, emphasizing his words: “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “I know.”

  He sat down on the bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I haven’t slept in four days, what does it look like I’m doing.” He pulled his boots off and dropped them on the floor. “Besides, Rami is investigating the shuttle crash, and until we know the extent of the damage, there isn’t much to do.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You trust him?”

  Kieran shrugged and laid back. “He’s a good engineer, despite everything else. A little trust will go a long way with him, I think.” A moment later, soft snores sounded from his slightly open mouth.

  * * *

  The Rubik’s cube shifted idly in Sarrin’s hands as she made a half-attempt to solve the puzzle, curled up in the room’s only chair. Her attention was focussed more on the sleeping figure on the bed. Kieran’s chest moved steadily, his arm — still clad in burned grey coveralls — hung over the edge, and he snored. Loudly.

  A gentle warmth stirred in her, knowing that he felt he could fall asleep with her — a monster — a few steps away. The afternoon felt peaceful, almost lazy. Nearly as though none of the rest of it existed.

  But of course it did.

  The door chimed, cutting loudly through the serenity. Sarrin froze, listening and counting four sets of shifting feet in the hallway. The gentle rhythm of Kieran’s snoring was interrupted, and she swallowed a sudden urge to scream at them for being so thoughtless, but he remained asleep, falling into the cadence once more. She blew out a breath and relaxed. They would go if the summons was ignored.