Patchwork

by Elle E. Ire

  I hurry to catch up. It doesn’t take long.

  In the corridor leading back to Storm territory, Vick’s leaning against the wall, eyes closed, breath coming in quick gasps. I touch her cheek with one hand, the other going to the sealed pocket of my cargo pants and pulling the blue-tipped syringe.

  “Easy,” I whisper to her, pain, fear, and stress pouring into me through our connection. Her AI-induced walls are coming down hard.

  “I can make it back….” She attempts to push off from the wall and fails, falling against it.

  “No, you can’t.” I begin rolling up her torn sleeve.

  Her eyes snap open, vision narrowing on the syringe in my hand. With renewed energy, she jerks away. “No.”

  “Yes,” I say, placing my hands on my hips. “You’re going into full meltdown. You need this, right now.”

  Her expression falls. I ache with her. She hasn’t needed chemical assistance to get through anything for almost nine months. It has to be crushing her confidence to need it now. But I know what I felt. It’s more than she can handle alone, and without the powerful sedative I intend to administer, it’s more than I can take in a release session. She’ll send me into emotion shock in her current state, then blame herself. I won’t let that happen. I reach for her arm. She sidesteps me.

  “Please. Not here. Not… not now.”

  There’s a significance to that “now” that I’m missing, and I follow her gaze over my shoulder. Alex, Lyle, and Officer Sanderson have entered the corridor right behind us, and all three are watching with varying expressions of interest and concern. When I turn back to Vick, she’s suffused in a yellow aura, her embarrassment plain to see through my eyes.

  The drugs will kick her with adrenaline first, because adrenaline helps keep her implants and her organic brain tissue in synch, and sometimes that makes her loopy. Then the sedatives will take effect. Showing any weakness in front of others is anathema to Vick. I try to give them to her in a private setting where only I can see her. But if she gets much worse, I’ll need to resort to the green-tipped syringe—the one that will medically induce coma. She’ll be down for the count for at least twenty-four hours while her implants repair any emotional and physical damage without using their resources on other things she won’t need in unconsciousness. We’ll miss leaving on our trip to the reunion tomorrow morning, and she needs that break.

  “I’m sorry, Vick. But it has to be now. You’re getting worse.” She is. Her hands shake uncontrollably. She’s borderline hyperventilating.

  Her head comes up. Her eyes meet mine. “I don’t consent.”

  What? What does she mean she doesn’t— Oh. That’s how she’s going to play this. “Vick—”

  “I’m telling you I’ll handle it. Alone.” Her mouth twists. “Or are you going to ‘override’ my autonomy programming?”

  Dammit. I can do that. I can whisper a code and literally force her to accept the drug. To be honest, I’m surprised VC1 isn’t already doing so. Vick has self-preservation programming in her implants. If she isn’t making the Storm a priority, then her health comes in as a close second.

  Times like these, I wish she could put herself first.

  It does give me pause, though. If VC1 isn’t forcing the issue, the AI may know something I don’t. Like perhaps Vick does have the strength to push through this traumatic experience and purge some of the anxiety on her own before working with me at a later hour.

  Things are rough enough between us already. If there’s any way I don’t have to treat her like the machine I keep telling her she’s not, I’ll do it. “You have fifteen minutes. Get yourself under control if you can and meet me back here. If you don’t, I’ll use our bond to find you and I’ll have no choice.”

  Vick nods once, jaw set. Pushing past me, she grabs Officer Sanderson by one arm and drags her down the corridor and around the first bend, speaking rapidly and in hushed tones. I can’t make out anything said, but I hope whatever it is, it helps.

  Because if it doesn’t, I’ll have to override Vick’s free will.

  Chapter 9: Vick—Private Release

  I AM a risk taker.

  I drag Sanderson around the corner until I’m certain we’re out of earshot, then face her head-on. “I need someplace p-private. Sh-shielded. Sec-cure.” The words stutter from my lips. I’m sweating, and I wipe droplets from my stinging eyes with shaking hands.

  She studies me, staring into me like she can read me the way Kelly does. She’s a couple inches taller and a few years older. Her wiser gaze bores into mine. “I’m not sure helping you right now would be actually… helping you.”

  “Fifteen minutes. Come on… Helen.”

  Sanderson blinks, then shakes her head with a smile. “Pulling the first-name card, eh?”

  We’ve known each other almost a year. I sometimes run into her at the promenade sports bar when I go there to catch Earth baseball or Cirulean grass hockey. If Kelly doesn’t feel like joining me, Sanderson and I will share a table, some small talk, and a couple of beers. She keeps things easy on me, doesn’t push, doesn’t pry. Through the rumor mill, she has a fairly good idea of what I am, though she’ll never know the details.

  She’s a friend—the only one I have outside the Storm, outside of the people I work with on a day-to-day basis, which pretty much amounts to the members of my team. I apparently had many friends before the accident. I value each and every one I have now. But we don’t call each other by first names. That’s just a touch too… intimate.

  “Dirty pool, ‘Victory,’” Sanderson finishes, a twinkle in her eye, though her face still shows concern.

  “D-don’t start. Just cut me a break. You owe me for tonight.”

  “You tampered with station systems and blew up the Alpha Dog.”

  I study the toes of my boots. “I didn’t blow up the Dog.”

  “Hah! Gotcha! I knew it was you in the control panel. Someone ‘conveniently’ cut the security camera feeds on both the Dog’s interior and the corridor where the emergency access box is.”

  I glance up. I didn’t do that. VC1 must have taken the initiative. Again. I’m glad for it, but her AI status does worry me sometimes.

  “Don’t worry,” Sanderson continues. “I said I’d cut your team some slack. And I’ll help you now. Come on.” Throwing one of my arms across her shoulders, she guides me down the hallway. Not sure how she knows I can no longer walk unassisted, but I’m grateful for it.

  We stop in front of a private office hatch marked “Girard Base Security—Officer Sanderson, Security Lead.” “You can use my space. It’s privacy shielded to keep sound in, though I can’t do anything about the cameras and microphones the department has installed everywhere.” She shoots me a sideways glance. “I’m sure you can take care of wiping any footage you need to.”

  I nod once, acknowledging what we both already know.

  She shakes her head. “You’d make a very dangerous enemy, Corren.”

  Yeah, don’t I know it. “So don’t piss me off,” I say, earning a laugh from the head of security.

  After opening the door with a swipe of her keycard and a retinal scan, she steps back and allows me to enter, then turns away. “Eleven minutes left,” she calls over her shoulder. “After that, I’m coming to get you. Probably with Kelly on my ass. We’d better not have to scrape you off the floor.” Then she allows the door to slide shut, and I’m alone.

  Let the breakdown begin.

  I barely have a moment to take in my surroundings. I’ve never been in here before, but the warmth of the space surprises me. Faux wood paneling, deep-pile carpet, imitation-leather seats, and a mahogany desk. Browns and tans dominate, creating a very masculine, comfortable feel like one might find in a private detective’s office a hundred or so years ago on Earth.

  Then the emotion suppressors cut out entirely and sightseeing time is over.

  I drop like a stone, thankful for the carpet as I hit it on my already badly bruised and scraped knees and palm
s. Instinct rolls me into a ball, hugging my knees into my chest as I try and fail to hold the shaking at bay a little longer. Only it’s not shaking anymore. It’s all-out convulsing, wracking me from head to foot and bringing on a migraine that pounds the inside of my skull.

  A few rounds and I’m wondering if maybe, just maybe, Kelly was right.

  I’ve been through these episodes before, on missions when the team separates and Kelly isn’t by my side to help me release the pent-up emotions. But even my worst ones came nowhere close to this.

  In the past I’ve managed by taking deep, even breaths, counting to ten, picturing calm places I’ve seen in vids and would like to visit someday. Someday when the Storm finally lets me go.

  Like that’ll ever happen.

  I can do this. I just have to focus and—

  The screaming begins.

  It starts as small whimpers, sounds at first I don’t recognize as coming from me. I even raise my head and scan the corners of the otherwise empty office for anything that might make those pitiful, injured puppy cries. Then another works its way free of my throat. And another. And another. Each one progressively louder and more desperately terrified than the last.

  I’m detached, hearing and analyzing each howling cry and failing to own any of them. They control my body, dragging like sandpaper up my throat until I manage nothing more than a raspy whisper, though my chest heaves with the futile effort to release pain through sound. It just goes on and on.

  The Sunfires are fucking insane to wish their people were like this. God, I hope Kelly’s had her mental shields up.

  Exhausted, I fall back against the wood desk, still seated on the floor, my head bowed over my knees, panting for breath. The front of my uniform shirt is soaked with sweat and tears I don’t remember shedding. I’ve lost time, never a good thing for a being running on programmed efficiency.

  How many minutes? How long until Kelly and Helen come barreling through the office hatchway?

  One minute, twenty-seven seconds.

  I laugh a little hysterically, relieved beyond measure that VC1 is online enough to speak to me. My fingers dig into the carpeting on either side, reconnecting with reality. My head pounds.

  Can you pull me back together? I subvocalize.

  An image of a marionette, its disjointed limbs connected by distended threads, appears in my internal view. The arms and legs snap into place with audible clicks. The puppet’s face is mine.

  Little close to home with that one, I tell her. I’m a puppet to far too many people in far too many ways.

  Sorry.

  Wow. That might be the first time the AI has ever apologized.

  I’m on my feet and mostly functional when the hatch opens and Sanderson slips in, then closes it behind her. She looks me up and down, steps around her desk, and pulls a package of facial wipes from a drawer. When she tosses it to me, I catch it one-handed and she nods with approval.

  “Guess you pulled it off,” she says while I clean off the evidence of my emotional purge, wiping my forehead and eyes.

  I drop the empty packet into the recycler by the desk. “Kelly with you?”

  “You had twenty more seconds. I said I’d bring you or call her.”

  “Fair enough.” I follow her into the corridor, pausing just outside her office to lean against the wall under the pretense of fastening a loose closure on my boot, but really I’m covering the locking panel with one palm. Do your thing, I mutter to VC1, knowing she’ll get the hint.

  If I’m operating at peak performance levels, VC1 can enter almost any electronic system wirelessly, without any contact on my part. Considering the torment I’ve put us both through, I’m cutting her a break and giving her easier access. There’s the slightest of tingles from my shoulder to my palm, the only indication I have that she’s carrying out my command. Via the tech in the locking mechanism, she’ll find her way into Sanderson’s recording devices. It’s only a matter of ti—

  Objective accomplished. Visual and audio data erased. A pause. You were never here.

  I grin and straighten, then follow Sanderson down the corridor.

  Kelly’s standing with Lyle and Alex where we left them fifteen minutes ago. She’s got her hands shoved in her pants pockets, a pouty scowl marring her usual beauty. Cute, but I’m going to hear about this later.

  “Finished,” I tell her, moving close. “Sorry,” I mutter for her ears only.

  It doesn’t soften her expression. “Not finished,” she says. “We’re going to Storm Medical. The base medics patched you up, but they can’t check your more… unique attributes.”

  Well, that’s one way to describe them. I stifle a yawn, hiding it behind one hand. “It’s late. Can’t it wait until morning?” The staff won’t appreciate having to do a full diagnostic at this hour, not to mention that I’d rather go almost anywhere else.

  “No waiting. You got your way. Now I get mine.”

  Sanderson nudges my elbow. “Better do it, Victory. You’re not wining this one.”

  I want to wipe the smirk off the security officer’s face with my fist, but she’s right. Shrugging like it doesn’t scare the living crap out of me, I gesture for Kelly to lead the way.

  “I’ll be with you the whole time,” she whispers, resting her fingers on my arm. “You’ll be fine.”

  She knows I’m terrified.

  Of course she does.

  Chapter 10: Kelly—Revelations

  VICK IS scared.

  It takes a lot to scare Vick. I’ve watched her dive through flames to rescue a fellow soldier, leap from a twelve-story building to save a kidnapped child from an impending explosion. Vick faces fear like it’s a walk in the atrium.

  According to her records, she’s always been this way, even before the installation of the implants made it simpler for her to ignore the rational fears most people listen to in order to prolong their survival. Her bravery, loyalty, and skill set made her the perfect candidate for the implanted upgrades. Notes in her file suggest she might have been offered them even if the airlock incident had never taken place.

  And knowing Vick, she would have taken the mad scientists up on it.

  So feeling the fear roiling through her now makes me question, again, if I’m doing the right things for her.

  Ten months ago, Dr. Whitehouse, the man in charge of overseeing her “recovery” and her acclimation to her implants, tried to remove the last of Vick’s humanity, turn her into a perfectly controllable, unemotional, obedient robotic slave housed in a human shell. Combining the processing speed of the implanted technology with the human brain’s ability to adapt and create, along with the agility and mobility of her physical form, Vick would have been made unstoppable.

  Except, according to Vick, the “perfect” soldiers Whitehouse tried to create retained bits of their souls and memories. At least some of them did. On our failed mission to rescue Vick’s father, the founder of the Storm, one of those soldiers saved Vick’s life and lost the last of his own while doing so.

  And I felt his relief.

  Memories of our encounters there still wake both of us up at night, shivering from the nightmares and holding each other until the tremors pass.

  Whitehouse is in prison for crimes against humanity. His creations, deemed unsalvageable, were put out of their misery and given funerals with all the honors the Fighting Storm could muster.

  There’s a new team assigned to Vick’s medical care and a specialist rumored to be arriving from the Storm’s ancillary base on the outer rim any day now.

  Yet she shakes every time we set foot in the medical facility. And I don’t blame her one bit.

  “Listen, Kel, about tonight’s incident,” she says, forcing the words out one at a time. “There’s something you and the rest of the team need to know.”

  “You’re stalling,” I accuse. We’ve stopped just inside the doorway, Vick pulling me off to the side so we don’t block any other incoming patients.

  “No, really. The
attack, it was specifically targeted at—”

  “Corren!”

  The receiving nurse on call is Isaacson, I’m glad to see. He welcomes us with a big smile and a friendly handshake for Vick. Medical staff have quarters housing them right here in this wing of the Storm’s section of the base, and we probably roused him from a late dinner or bed, but he doesn’t show any annoyance or impatience. He’s part of Vick’s inner circle of support personnel, one of the handful who knows everything about her, including all the classified parts, though not that VC1 is an AI. They know what she goes through more than anyone does except me, and many of them suffer from a healthy dose of hero worship whenever Vick comes in.

  “Good to see you, Corren. Alex called ahead so we’re ready for you. We’ll get you checked out and on your way as fast as possible, promise.”

  She looks about to protest, like she wants to continue with whatever she was saying when we came in, but then nods, pressing her lips together. We follow him to the diagnostic and treatment room set aside just for her. Taking a deep breath, Vick steps over the threshold.

  We’ve been in here many times before, but I still find it intimidating, and I’m certain Vick does too. An elaborate chair dominates the center of the space, tubes, sensors, and wires extending from its arms and headrest in all directions, then snaking across the tile behind it to disappear into the floor. Banks of screens, currently blank, fill the walls on either side beyond the chair, out of view of whomever occupies the seat but easily read by the doctors and nurses.

  Vick stands off to the side, shifting her weight from foot to foot, keeping as much distance between herself and the chair as possible.

  Isaacson grabs a datapad from a shelf and makes a few notes, taking some baseline readings with its built-in scanner and asking the basic health questions. “We received the civilians’ report on the Alpha Dog brawl and your treatment.” He takes one of Vick’s arms and rolls up the sleeve, ignoring her flinch. “Burns and cuts are healing nicely. They do good work, for civvies.”