by A. K. DuBoff
Jasmine replied with a mental wink.
“If you can help keep Kira from transforming into a Robus against her will, I’m happy to have you along,” Ari said.
“We can use the transit time to get synced,” Jasmine suggested. “I have reviewed all of Kira’s medical records, and I have some ideas for how to regulate the transformation.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kira agreed.
Each of the soldiers sat down on their respective bunks.
“We’re up against something entirely new here,” Kira began when everyone was situated. “What we witnessed with Colonel Kaen and Chancellor Hale was only one facet of this race’s capabilities. We know they can take over people with a compatible TR, but they have also swayed a number of individuals to work with them of their own free will. The ability to be so persuasive suggests a high level of social awareness that is contrary to Kaen’s experience with Nox.”
“Yeah, it sounded like Nox was really bad at blending in, once it asserted itself,” Kyle agreed.
“A clear distinction,” Kira confirmed. “When I talked to Nox, it seemed annoyed with our social constructs. Yet, Reya was adept at working within those systems to build what appears to be an elaborate distribution system throughout the Elvar Trinary, and maybe beyond.”
“People each possess different skillsets,” Nia pointed out. “It’s not unreasonable to assume that the Gaelons, or whatever we want to call them, would have variation in their individual proclivities, as well.”
Kira nodded. “You’re absolutely right. Where I’m going with this is that we’re working with a sample size of two right now. We have no idea what other variations there are—how strong they might be or how good at manipulating—but they’re smart. Monica didn’t come up with the alien hybrid nanites on her own; she was using information that the Gaelons relayed to her.” She paused. “You know, we really need a better name for these guys.”
“It’s not suitably evil-sounding,” Nia agreed.
“Their actions may appear evil from our vantage, but who’s to say this isn’t a cultural misunderstanding?” Kyle countered. “I’m not sure it’s fair to paint them squarely as the bad guys.”
“Remember what they did to Hale, making her a prisoner in her own mind for decades?” Kira pointed out.
Kyle held up his hands. “I retract my statement. Evil-sounding name, it is.”
“Gaels?” Ari suggested, but he immediately scrunched up his nose and shook his head.
“Lons, maybe?” Nia ventured.
“Still doesn’t have a good ring to it,” Kyle said. “Maybe trying to pull in the system name isn’t the right way to go. Perhaps something having to do with their traits instead?”
Kira nodded. “They whisper in people’s minds, try to control them.”
“The ‘Whispers’, or ‘Controllers’…” Ari shook his head. “No, that’s not right.”
“What about ‘Trol’, short for ‘control’?” Kyle suggested.
Nia tilted her head. “Too on point?”
Kira considered it. “You know, it does have that ‘mysterious baddie’ quality to it. I like it.”
“Watch, they’ll declare they have their own name that’s something terrible, like the Fooferies,” Ari said through an amused snort.
“Stars! And then we’d have to use the official designation.” Kira groaned. “Let’s hit it hard with ‘Trols’ now, while we can, and hope it sticks.”
“I’m for it,” Kyle agreed, followed by Nia and Ari voicing their support.
Kira was silent for a moment.
Her AI did, indeed, have a jokester streak. I better keep Jasmine in my good graces or Ari will have a source with access to way too much material.
Considerations for another time.
“The point is,” Kira said, trying to get back on topic, “now more than ever, we’ll need to have each other’s backs.”
“How do we attack an enemy we can’t see?” Ari asked, always seeming to think with his gun.
Kira smiled at the huge soldier. “They have a physical presence, even if it’s something different than what we’re used to. We’ll find what it is and figure out how to disable them.”
“Not destroy?” Kyle questioned.
“That’s not for us to decide at this juncture,” Kira replied. “We’re investigating a new lifeform. It’s not right to take the fate of a race lightly, even though they did paint a giant target on their telepathic backs.”
Nia eyed her. “And if our investigation confirms everything we already suspect about them?”
Kira’s hazel eyes took on a slight orange cast for a moment. “Then their last thoughts will be regrets for ever messing with my home.”
CHAPTER 4
With Kira busy in the Gaelon System for at least the next three days, Leon returned his attention to the tests looking for TRs in Guard personnel.
He settled into his workstation in his lab with coffee in hand. What awesomeness awaits me today?
Working with Doctor Elric, Leon and his team had developed an automated process to compare historical medical records with a new scan, but like any batch processing system, it was imperfect. The system kicked back the occasional inconclusive result, which required manual review.
Though Leon’s graduate degree was in genetics—he’d made that very clear—the rest of the team had spun his credentials to insist that that also made him an expert in neuroscience, and therefore he was the best person to review each and every one of those inconclusive records. While he could easily have pushed back and assigned the project to Tess or Jack, he decided to give them a pass this time around and just do it himself. A happy team was a productive team, and he’d rather have a favor stashed in the bank.
As he did his morning inventory of the test results on his dashboard, Leon was happy to see fewer files to review than he’d feared.
“Hello!” Tess greeted as she entered the lab, pulling Leon’s attention from the screen.
“Hey.”
“Why the grumpy tone?” she asked while sitting down at her own station across the room. The workspace was affixed with an odd assortment of a dozen magnetic stickers, including a cat wearing a spacesuit and a taco with rocket engines that Leon hadn’t noticed before.
How can she work like that? Leon shook his head. “The system is still kicking back these ‘inconclusive’ results,” he replied. “I’m getting sick of the manual review.”
“Is there any common factor with those records?” Tess placed her hand on the desktop to log into the workstation. “Maybe we can tweak the analysis algorithm.”
Leon took another sip of coffee. “I don’t think I’m awake enough for that yet.”
“Get to it, boss! We have a lot to do today.” Tess grinned. She turned her attention to her screen and brought up her inbox.
“Wow, do you always have this much energy first thing in the morning?” Leon asked.
She glanced over her shoulder at him with a raised eyebrow. “It’s 10:00. I’ve already had two meetings today.”
“Is it?” He checked the time on his dashboard. “Guess I got a late start.”
“I’ll say.”
Leo
n turned back to his work. At least my team is more responsible with time management than I am.
Tess was silent for a moment, tapping her finger on the desk. “Wait, where’s Jack?”
“Elric wanted him for something,” Leon responded without taking his eyes off his monitor. He took a deep breath. Is she ever going to break that habit of tapping while she thinks?
Tess was silent for another thirty seconds as she continued tapping her finger. She stopped. “Oh, that explains it.”
“Hmm?”
“Why didn’t you tell me Kira got an AI?”
Leon swiveled his stool to face her. “Why is that relevant?”
Tess sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “Because Jack’s specialty is in bioelectronics integrations. We got thrown together on this team when you arrived, and we’ve been sort of fielding the random requests that have come in. But now that we don’t have an immediate crisis on our hands, this is an opportunity to take an approach that caters to our specialties.”
“And that’s connected to Kira… how?”
“Now that she has an AI, we can figure out what’s going on with her,” Tess stated.
Leon crossed his arms. “She has an alien strain of nanites. I’ve run the genetic models. We already know what changes they’ve made to her.”
Tess nodded. “On the physical level, yes. But now we have a chance to learn about how the tech thinks.”
“I didn’t get the impression that the nanites are a sentient entity.”
“No, not like that,” his assistant replied with a touch of annoyance in her tone. “I mean, like, how it operates based on the specific circumstances. We know what it does, but her transformations have been random. With the detailed data her AI will collect, we’ll be able to analyze the specific conditions at the moment she’s about to transform—the triggers and the variables that impact the speed and expression of her abilities.”
All right, so she knows her stuff. Leon leaned against his stool’s backrest. “I hadn’t thought about that part.”
Tess pursed her lips with a hint of smugness. “It’s easy to think of the AI as just being a regulator, but for it to do that job, it needs to perform that analysis. We can access that data and learn even more about the nanotech.”
“What can we do with that information?” he prompted.
“Well, if we understand the triggers, we might be able to glean some more insights into what the aliens were after when they designed the tech.”
Leon perked up. “Stars! I didn’t think of that. The trigger points will indicate certain expectations for the physiological state the Robus would be in. How they’d be used.”
“Precisely.” She held up her index finger victoriously.
“Except, we already know the plan was to turn them into soldiers.”
“Yes,” Tess acknowledged, “but if we know the chemical threshold to trigger a transformation, it’ll indicate how long one could stay in that state.”
“Blitz fights or extended conflicts,” he said.
“You’ve got it.”
“Huh.” Leon nodded, impressed by her reasoning. “So, what might Jack be doing with Doctor Elric?”
“Probably figuring out a way to port the medical monitoring into our models of the nanotech expression so we can get a holistic view.”
He chuckled. “You were doing just fine on your own before I came along, weren’t you?”
She smiled. “We didn’t have the genetics angle before. It’s great to have you on the team now.”
“Glad I’m not completely useless!”
“No way.” Tess flipped her wrist. “Besides, it’s not just anyone who’d volunteer to go through all those records.”
Leon laughed. “There’s grunt work with any job.”
“You’re in charge, but you took that task on yourself. Don’t think we didn’t notice.”
“I appreciate that.”
She nodded. “Sure thing.”
“Well, I should get back to this,” Leon said, glancing back at his screen.
“Have fun.” Tess smirked.
“Yeah, and you with your… whatever you’re doing.” Guess that’s not very good management if I have no idea what my team is working on, whoops. He made a mental note to get caught up on their side projects and specialties so he’d be able to delegate more effectively in the future.
“I will,” Tess said, offering no further insight into what her current project may be. “Oh, but first, there is one more thing.”
“Sure, what?”
The young scientist shifted in her seat. “I know we have things under control here in the Guard, but what kind of testing is happening on Mysar?”
Leon nodded. “I was thinking about that, too. Even though we gave them our algorithm and the procedures, we have no way of knowing if they’re following those protocols.”
“Or who’s reviewing the inconclusive results,” Tess added.
“There’s not a lot we can do about it.”
“Isn’t it our responsibility to make sure this is done right?”
Leon shrugged. “Not particularly. Mysar isn’t even an Empire world.”
Tess tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Was that supposed to sound convincing?”
He chuckled. “All right, I spent way too much time on Mysar to not care about what happens there.”
“Not to mention, now that the government is in transition, it’s not unlikely that they’ll be joining the Empire soon.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense for Elusia to be in and not have Mysar and Valta in, as well,” Leon replied. Not too long ago, he would have thought unity among the three worlds was only an aspirational, distant future. To now have that reality so close at hand still caught him by surprise.
“Right.” Tess nodded. “And given that eventuality, we need to make sure there aren’t any threats to the Taran Empire once we start mixing together.” She waggled her fingers, as though kneading dough.
“I don’t have any suggestions for how to improve the oversight.”
Tess smiled. “But I bet you do know who would.”
— — —
Compared to her last visit, Ellen’s nerves were considerably more settled as her shuttle came to rest on the landing pad outside one of Mysar’s many biodomes. At last, she was returning to the planet as her real self, not some fictionalized modern version of her twisted past.
She gazed out the viewport at the nearest translucent dome glimmering under the early-afternoon sun. Interlocking triangular panels formed the enclosure for the three-kilometer-wide dome, which was one of five connected structures comprising the city. It was the metropolis closest to the Mysaran government building from which Chancellor Hale had governed, and the place where Ellen had spent much of her time when she had lived on the world in years past.
That feels like a lifetime ago.
Her motivations and her way of thinking had been drastically different back then. She’d thought that keeping the Elvar Trinary isolated was the best way forward. Now, she couldn’t wait to help bring Mysar and Valta into the Taran Empire and solidify their partnerships with Elusia.
Ellen rose from the passenger seat on the shuttle and gathered her belongings from an overhead bin.
“Business or pleasure?” a middle-aged man asked her while he got down his own bag across the aisle.
“Business. I don’t think there’s a lot of tourism on Mysar,” Ellen replied.
“Pleasure doesn’t have to be tourism. Lots of good bars here.”
Ellen cracked a smile. “Fair point.”
“Are you government or private sector?” he questioned.
“Government,” she told him, hoping that would be the end of the inquiries. While it wasn’t a secret that she was on Mysar, it wasn’t common knowledge, either. Given the complication of Elusia being in the Empire and Mysar still being on the outside, it was better if her activities on the foreign world remained behind the scenes.
“Ah.
” He bobbed his head of shaggy, graying hair. “Politicians. Can’t live with them… and we’d probably do just fine without them.”
“Fortunately for you, I’m not a politician.”
“One of the poor cogs that keeps society rolling, then?”
Ellen nodded. “Someone has to do it.”
“There is that.” He extended the handle on his rolling bag. “Hope it’s a productive meeting.”
“Thank you, I’m sure it will be.” She gave him a parting smile and they made their way off the shuttle with the other passengers.
At the bottom of the ramp, Ellen peered around the port for her escort. She had been instructed that one of the government aides would meet her and take her to the government office in town. When no one was readily apparent, she headed for the main terminal, a one-story structure constructed of the dark stone common across the planet.
She was sweating by the end of the short walk. The ambient temperature was well above comfortable levels, due to the planet’s proximity to the sun. While the open air was technically habitable, only life inside the biodomes felt civilized.
Ellen was about to step inside the port terminal when a woman’s voice stopped her.
“Ellen Calleti?”
She turned around to identify the speaker, her gaze settling on an attractive, dark-haired woman close to her age. “Yes, hello.”
“Trisha Mercer,” the woman introduced.
“Thank you for coming to meet me.”
“My pleasure. It was no trouble at all.”
They walked away from the port to a transit station at the edge of the dome. A set of automatic doors parted and they stepped inside.
Ellen breathed in the conditioned air.
Trisha noticed her relief. “Acclimated to Elusia now?”
“Didn’t think it would happen, but I have.” Ellen smiled.
“It’s a wonder the worlds aren’t more different, given their placements,” the other woman commented. “I’d expect Elusia to be a solid ball of ice.”
“A lot of it is. I sometimes wonder if some ancient race prepared this system for habitation.”
“And had it perfectly suited for Tarans? Doubtful, but you never know.”
