by C. Gockel
But Volka was already being buffeted by another wave of hate, this time from Alexis. To the ambassador, Alaric’s wife spoke in dulcet tones, “I would like to speak with … Volka … alone.”
Starcrest bowed to Alexis, oblivious to her anger. “Of course.” He turned around and left them alone … well, almost alone. Volka found two little boys looking up at her cautiously. Their little hearts were beating fast, and one little boy was hiding something—
“You will take us to the Republic,” Alexis said.
“What?” Volka asked, startled.
Alexis raised her chin. “You will take us on your ship now.” One of her delicate nostrils flared. “You owe me.” Her sons’ attention jerked up to their mother.
Volka’s jaw dropped. “You’ll cause an interstellar incident.”
“It isn’t of any concern to me,” Alexis said, and in her mind, she thought, “When I bring Alaric back, I will be forgiven.”
“I might not be forgiven,” Volka snapped.
Volka didn’t believe it was possible, but Alexis straightened more. Volka smelled suspicion from the other woman.
“That doesn’t concern me,” Alexis replied, leveling her eyes at Volka. She stood straight and tall, proud, and undaunted. The poise was a lie. Alexis was deeply afraid that Alaric wouldn’t come back. Alexis’s fear was chilling and made goosebumps rise on Volka’s arms. Volka started to protest. “Alaric will—”
A high-pitched hiss made her start. On the elder boy’s shoulder, a tiny, blue-eyed werfle had emerged. Alexis looked down and gasped—not in revulsion, but in motherly concern for the little creature. Volka’s brow furrowed in confusion. How could the woman be so nasty and so caring?
The boy pulled the creature from his shoulder and cradled it in his hands. Looking up apologetically at his mother, the boy said, “Little Solomon wanted to come.”
Regaining her former poise, Alexis straightened her shoulders, lifted her head, and sniffed dismissively.
Little Solomon purred in the boys’ hands and spoke into Volka’s mind with the old Solomon’s voice. “She won’t believe you. Why should she?”
Volka’s lips parted.
“You’re the enemy,” Little Solomon said, wrapping his tail around the boy’s thumb.
Memories flitted through Alexis’s mind. The scorn she’d received since helping Volka. Commander—no Captain Ran—had lectured Alexis for her part in recruiting fallen weere women for the Republic. Another memory came that made Volka’s skin crawl. Ran had visited Alexis earlier today. He’d gotten too close and told her that Alaric seemed to be faring very well in the Republic and appeared quite comfortable among all the machines. He’d taken her hand and whispered close to her ear, “He’d be a fool to leave you.” Volka felt the revulsion Alexis had felt, and also the relief that had surged through her when Silas had entered the library, Little Solomon on his shoulder, a hammer he used for making canvasses in an arthritic hand, expression murderous. Ah … Silas. Her one great love.
Volka blinked. That had not been her thought, it had been Alexis’s. Alexis hated leaving Silas, but she feared for her boys if her marriage couldn’t be saved.
Unwanted advances from Ran. Alaric. Volka and Alexis shared so much. It hurt Volka not to protest her innocence.
Little Solomon squeaked. “She won’t believe you.”
“I could make her believe,” Volka retorted silently.
“With mind control, only for a while, Hatchling,” said Carl, standing on his hind legs in between Volka and the other woman.
“Whose side are you on?” Volka silently asked the golden werfle.
Carl’s little shoulders sagged.
“I’m on Alexis’s and Alaric’s side,” Little Solomon declared matter-of-factly. “You and Alaric would drown in each other’s idealism. This one is sneaky and duplicitous, and he needs that.”
Volka’s heart fell to where her stomach should be. Even if she wasn’t with Alaric, to be told she was deficient in one more way made her eyes heat. Carl hissed at Solomon. “That wasn’t necessary.”
The tiny Solomon hatchling hissed right back. “Don’t get uppity with your elders!”
Interrupting them in a haughty voice, Alexis declared, “You will take us.” Disdain dripped off every syllable, but weere bitch she didn’t say aloud.
Volka broke. “I am telepathic and know every thought you have.”
For just an instant, Alexis’s shoulders fell, her mind pondered the possibility, and then she mentally catalogued everything that had occupied her mind since Volka had arrived. She regained herself. She wouldn’t be ashamed … and … a bitingly-sharp wave of curiosity bubbled over within her and spilled straight to Volka. “Really? Everyone’s thoughts?”
Volka was taken aback by the sincerity. “Yes.”
Alexis cocked her head, and her lips broke into a wicked smirk that broadcast both loathing and, oddly, pity. “You poor thing.”
The pity caught her off guard.
“We need to get a move on, Hatchling,” Carl declared.
Perhaps still reeling from the pity, Volka said, “Let’s go.”
Crossing the lawn minutes later, Volka tried to focus on Sam and Lucas’s thoughts as they trotted along beside their mother. They did not know that “Little Solomon” was really the Solomon, but they had named the little werfle that because it felt right. They were delighted to be going on a spaceship and to see their father. They still didn’t understand he was in the Republic, or that he’d been injured. They had no idea who Volka was, nor did they understand that there was any trouble between their father and mother …
And that’s where Volka’s thoughts turned bitter. She was lending a hand in healing Alexis’s and Alaric’s relationship and had no relationship of her own … not really … did she? Sixty hadn’t trusted her, and though he had apologized, it had been all wrong. He’d spoken of “operating systems” as though she were built like he was, of metal, and silicon, and plastic.
Pushing it out of her mind, she crouched low to walk beneath Sundancer. Stratos was by the ship’s entrance, physically ready to help Alexis, the boys, and Volka aboard, but mentally he was graphically imagining Alexis with Rhinehart.
“Oh, come on!” Volka exclaimed.
“Right, right,” said Stratos, hauling one of the boys up from the ground and passing him to someone in the ship. “We’re running late.”
Volka sighed. And her heart sank. Sixty had left after she’d rescued Alaric … if the reason he’d left was because of that connection, their relationship might not survive. She couldn’t turn off her connection to Alaric; she couldn’t even turn off her connection to Stratos.
If Sixty—who was programmed not to be jealous—couldn’t handle that, could anyone?
32
Handling It
Galactic Republic: System 5 New Grande
In the magni-freight tunnel, body flat against the wall, feet on the narrow walkway that was for service ‘bots, 6T9 checked his chronometer—ten minutes before the operation truly began. In front of him knelt Davies, Mao seated on his shoulder. 6T9 wasn’t sure if Davies knew if the tiny creature was there, if the kitten was mentally controlling him, or if the kitten was just too tiny to notice. Davies’s rifle was aimed at the lit platform that was their target. Behind 6T9 thousands of sex ‘bots silently waited.
… He could contact Volka through FET12 again … but she was wrong. He didn’t have anything to say to her. He had a question to ask himself. Could he accept that she would be forever telepathically bound to Captain Darmadi? It was a connection more intimate than sex.
His vision flashed white. He should have killed the man. He could have gotten away with it with 83.5% certainty.
6T9’s hands tightened on the rifle, Q-comm sparking not quite so brightly, dissecting that answer. He’d removed the abhorrence for murder that came with his sex ‘bot operating system and was left with what was expedient. He’d asked Volka to marry him because it had been expedient, a
way to ensure her continued companionship. Expediency violated most codes of human morality—codes that were as messy and contradictory as humans themselves.
His chronometer chimed. Five minutes left. Glad for an excuse to leave that inquiry behind, 6T9 closed his eyes to prevent dust accumulation and connected to a mindscape. All of his sex ‘bot “lieutenants” connected a millisecond later. They didn’t meet as avatars, and the information that flowed to his server was in ones and zeroes. They were all in position. He sent another query and received visual data in response—images his lieutenants had received etherly from their possessed feline companions on the surface. The airstrikes had stopped, and the ships were landing, which meant instead of trying to cause commotion, the Dark was gearing up to infect as many humans as possible. It was time to go. 6T9 sent that message to everyone with a thought and came out of the mindscape an instant later.
Davies wasn’t etherly connected—not that it mattered; the ethernet was down. 6T9 lightly touched Davies’s shoulder. The human rose, gaze meeting 6T9’s through his suit’s sealed visor. 6T9 inclined his head to the platform. Behind them, the sound of a magna-train approaching echoed in the tunnel. They moved forward, the train’s approach covering the sound of their footsteps. In exactly seventy steps, they arrived at a spacious passenger platform. It was lit, but the holographic billboards that lined the walls were playing only static. The floors were made of the same sandy yellow-orange stone that lined the canyon walls of New Grande, but it had been coated and buffed to a brilliant shine. There were ten men and women sitting primly on neat white benches. Some wore rugged, mismatched, threadbare clothing that marked them as pirates, but some were dressed in more typical civilian attire, and others were dressed in the jumpsuits that were worn by the system’s Local Guard forces. They were all facing the tracks. Their eyes were bright and clear without the slightest indication of ethernet daze.
The One didn’t need active ethernet stations to transmit ether signals. They warped the quantum wave to create ether frequencies. Mao’s thoughts erupted in 6T9’s mind just as the train reached the station. “Infected! All the humans you see!”
The train was just behind his shoulders, and 6T9 relayed the message in a shout. “Kill them all!” The train was too loud for him to be heard by anyone but Davies and Mao. In their Galactican armor, they were all but invisible. The Luddeccean, one pace ahead of him, stepped onto the platform rifle raised. 6T9 was beside him an instant later.
A few Infected managed to get weapons out before they were mowed down, but none managed to shoot in time. 6T9 hoped it had been as easy for the lieutenants paired with Falade, Lang, and Michael. It would be much harder for the lieutenants who didn’t have a killer among them.
The train came to a stop, and 6T9’s troops arrived—pouring out of train cars and from the service pathway Davies and he had emerged from.
“The dead humans are infected. Do not touch them,” 6T9 said.
“There are uninfected in the janitor’s closet,” Mao informed him silently.
6T9 spotted a metal fire door. “Survivors,” he said to Davies, indicating it with an incline of his head.
“Is the air infected?” Davies asked.
6T9 checked his suit’s readouts. “Too dry.”
Mao bobbed. “Agreed.”
Davies said to 6T9, “Sir, you are the Galactican. It would be better if you talk to the survivors. I’ll take care to see the bodies aren’t touched—and no one sees them. Will help prevent panic.”
6T9 wasn’t sure if a sergeant would normally give orders to a general—or make suggestions, as the case might be. His Q-comm seized immediately on the practicality of the proposal—the people aboard Time Gate 5 had been afraid of the Luddecceans, and even with his visor down, Davies’s face with its irregular symmetry, scant acne scars, and slightly crooked teeth, might give his origins away.
“Agreed,” 6T9 said, striding to the closet. The door had a simple lock with an iris identification scan. Time Gate 5 was responsible for all software updates on the planet, and in Volka’s words, Gate 5 had a “crush” on 6T9. 6T9 leaned forward, let the scan pass over his eyes, and read his model name and serial number. The door opened with a soft click, and a light automatically went on overhead. He briefly saw that it was more than a janitorial closet—there was a single bathroom, a desk, and a fridge and a microwave at the far end. It was an office for the human who maintained the subway’s machines. Screams and gasps from the floor shifted his attention. He looked down to see one adult woman and fourteen young teens. On the woman’s shoulder a squirrel-like creature with enormous eyes, smallish round ears, and short, tan fur declared, “Ms. Shen, children, it is Android General 1 here to save us!”
It wasn’t an animal; it was a sugar glider ‘bot. 6T9 zoomed in and identified it as a SUGAR3000. Animal ‘bots were often used as teacher’s aides.
A cleaning ‘bot in the far corner, a simple machine shaped like a cone with a rounded top whirred, “It is him.”
Ms. Shen climbed to her feet. “You can take us to safety?”
6T9 nodded curtly. “I am going to try. The Fleet is coming—” His Q-comm flashed brightly. “They will attempt to evacuate the uninfected.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, motioning for the children to rise.
“Above us is a residential building that is protected by Fleet veterans. Fleet will evacuate from the roofs.”
Ms. Shen’s brow furrowed minutely, but he saw comprehension in her dark eyes. The teenagers were wrapping cloths pilfered from among the cleaning supplies around their faces, making jokes about looking like bandits.
“How long have you been here?” 6T9 couldn’t help asking.
“A few hours,” she said weakly.
That timeline didn’t make sense. 6T9 stared at her.
“We were returning from a field trip at Settler’s Landing.”
A fast query revealed Settler’s Landing was outside the canyon. Unlike most of the magni-lines, there were no side tunnels on the way to the historical attraction.
“The invasion started above,” Ms. Shen continued. “We were told to shelter in place—but we were on a train that stalled.”
“Something fell on the track,” a teen supplied.
“We got out and walked to this station along the service lines.” Ms. Shen smiled tightly and said almost defensively, “There were other platforms. But this one has the lavatory and the kitchenette. There was fighting on the surface and we needed water, and when the emergency ether was working, we were told we needed to boil water before drinking it.”
“You kept teenagers quiet all that time?” 6T9 asked, astonished.
Taking a proffered blue poly-cloth from a boy, she grimaced. “I gave in and turned SUGAR into a local ether hub, and we played VR games.”
6T9 had seen panic on Shinar and here in New Grande. Ms. Shen had kept her cool, and more incredibly, kept teenagers safe during a period in their lives when their biological neural networks were in frenzied development that made them, by some definitions, insane. His higher processors hummed as he contemplated the monumental nature of her task—in human emotional shorthand, he felt admiration. Sensory receptors that had not been affected by Lolita warmed.
“She never lets us use our neural interfaces in class,” a boy declared. “We knew it was serious.”
“And we could hear the bombs overhead,” a girl said faintly.
Another boy said, “The cleaning ‘bot and SUGAR said Android General 1 was here, and Ms. Shen said we needed to listen to them.”
6T9’s jaw tightened. All of 6T9’s sex ‘bot lieutenants had servers on Time Gate 5. As soon as 6T9 had hatched his plans, Time Gate 5 would have known. The ethernet had been coming on intermittently. The gate must have broadcast 6T9’s plans to the ‘bots it regularly updated; that message must have been encoded; he hadn’t heard it. But if random ‘bots were telling humans they encountered he was coming, the Dark must know, too … he looked at the little cleaning
‘bot in the corner. Simple little ‘bots like it wouldn’t know the Infected from the uninfected—they’d just tell everyone.
Davies emerged at his shoulder. “Sir.”
“A kitten! It’s so cute,” said some of the girls.
Mao hunkered down on Davies’s shoulder and muttered, “Must. Resist. The. Scratches.”
Davies started and swept her from his shoulder. He gave a curt nod to 6T9 and bolted up the exit stairwell.
“Ooh,” said the girl, picking Mao up and petting her. “Adorable.”
Mao silently cursed. “So humiliating,” but purred loudly.
As Ms. Shen tied on her poly-cloth bandana, her neural port glinted in the light. 6T9 had gotten so used to speaking aloud for Volka, he sometimes forgot there was another level of communication available to him. He found the local ether hub SUGAR had created and was immediately granted access. 6T9 connected to Shen. Aloud, he said, “It’s time to go.” Privately, he said, “We need to keep the kids moving. There are things on the platform it would be better if they didn’t see.”
Shen’s eyes got wide, but over the ether she said privately, “Of course.” She said to her students, “Kids, let’s get moving. Follow the general.”
Quietly, she said to 6T9, “I’ll take the rear.”
He smiled minutely at her strategic thinking. She’d handle the children whose fear might hold them back.
“This way,” he said, following Davies’s footsteps. The bodies on the platform were surrounded by sex ‘bots standing shoulder to shoulder. They all waved and blew kisses as the kids emerged. “Oh, you are so handsome and beautiful!” a RussianDoll said, bobbing up and down. “I can’t wait until you’re of legal age.”
The girls put their hands to their mouths. The boys blushed and grinned.
6T9 froze.
Shen’s voice buzzed in his mind. “Sex ‘bots? I was prepared for something terrible.”
He turned, and over the heads of her young charges, he saw her with a hand around the smallest girls’ shoulders. The ethernet buzzed with her voice. “Are they here for first aid? I’ve heard most sex ‘bots can do the basics.”
