Exin Ex Machina

by G. S. Jennsen

  Perrin leaned in close when they reached the other side of the street. “She’s not answering any pings.”

  “I realize she isn’t. Focus on reaching her cleanly. It won’t matter what state she’s in if we don’t get to her.”

  “Right.”

  “I need you to keep it together, okay? Nika needs you to keep it together.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  He didn’t have to see her to visualize the resolute set of her mouth that came with the response.

  They skirted a lone security dyne not obviously involved in the search, then finally left behind the pedestrian traffic of downtown as they reached the perimeter of the park.

  Joaquim: “Target patrol squad is forty meters ahead, moving rapidly on a southeast vector. Ryan—”

  Ryan: “I’m on it. Repulsors up, everyone—big-ass stun pulse incoming.”

  On the tacgrid, Ryan’s dot rushed forward. Two seconds later Joaquim’s repulsor field sizzled; even at such a distance enough energy made it through the barrier to set his hair on end, though not enough to disrupt his processes.

  Joaquim: “Move in!”

  The squad’s drones had already dropped to the ground by the time they came into visual range, as had all but two of the dynes, which stumbled around erratically. But this wasn’t a normal patrol squad—this was a hunter squad, and the two mecha it included had barely flinched from the stun pulse.

  As one, the hulking machines began firing in a full three-sixty arc. They wouldn’t be able to determine the direction from which the pulse had originated, and it seemed they didn’t care.

  Joaquim: “Increase shield strength and stay mobile!”

  He held up an arm and the force field shield it projected in front of him to deflect the high-powered fire as he advanced in a jagged path toward one of the mecha. As he neared his target, the fire became so strong it almost forced him to a stop, but he fought his way forward nonetheless.

  When he was less than a meter away, he brought up his non-shield arm and fired a projectile grenade into the open barrel of one of the mecha’s weaponized appendages, then rolled away.

  The resulting blast turned his roll into a tumble. His shoulder jarred roughly against the edge of a stone path, but he scrambled to his feet and spun around in time to see the second mecha explode from a reactive flexmat paste two of Ryan’s drone pets had splattered on its frame from afar. One of the drones got speared by the flying debris and broke apart as it hit the ground, but the other made it away cleanly.

  Silence fell with the same suddenness as the explosions—but not for long. The park was now an active battlefield, and both sides would know it.

  Joaquim: “Ryan, make sure the rest of the squad stays asleep, then take up defensive positions and watch for additional squads converging on this location. Dominic and Perrin, with me.”

  Ryan: “Take IkeBot with you, too. You’re apt to need it more than I do.”

  Joaquim: “Copy that.”

  The security dyne-turned-pet ambled over to meet Joaquim as he advanced toward a small copse of trees halfway down a grassy slope.

  Ηq (visual) | scan.thermal(240°:60°)

  Τ → Η μ (α) = gridpoint(41.2, 6.8)

  The heat signature was on the ground just past one of the trees. He jogged toward it.

  Perrin got the same information he did on the tacgrid, and on seeing it she decloaked and sprinted past him to fall to her knees beside the limp form.

  Joaquim: “Dominic, I want a mirage field fifteen meters out from my location. Notify me if anything gets within twenty meters of its border.” He decloaked as well and joined Perrin.

  Nika lay on her stomach, face-down in the grass. Perrin was leaning down next to her head, moving tangled hair out of the way and talking to her, but it didn’t look as if she was getting any response.

  Dominic: “Mirage field is active.”

  As soon as Joaquim knelt on the ground, he felt an increasing dampness at his knees. He shone his light downward. The grass beneath him was soaked in blood.

  Shit. “She’s got a bad wound somewhere. We need to find it and stop the bleeding.”

  Perrin nodded and started feeling along Nika’s clothes. He increased the brightness of his light and let it follow Perrin’s progress.

  When she reached the waist, she stopped. “Help me roll her onto her right side.”

  He did as instructed, and she peeled away the soaked, sticky fabric of Nika’s tactical shirt to expose two bloody holes in her upper left hip, front and back.

  Perrin choked back a cry. “Um, hold her in this position so I can grab the supplies.”

  He held the limp form still—giving silent thanks upon feeling the slight shift in the muscles beneath his hands as Nika took a shallow breath—while Perrin opened up the field repair kit and yanked out several items.

  She quickly poured an expanding white foam into every place the skin was torn open, then stuck a ream of bonding tape over the wounds to seal them. Next, she placed a small module on Nika’s port at the base of her neck and pressed her index finger to it. “I’m letting her OS know the bleeding’s under control and it has repair foam to work with.”

  “Good thinking. She should be stable for now, but we need to get her home and into the tank.” He raised his voice a notch. “IkeBot, come closer. I’m going to place Nika in your arms. Keep her secure, but be gentle.”

  “I understand.”

  Joaquim breathed in and wound his arms behind Nika’s shoulders and knees, then slowly stood. Her head lolled back lifelessly, evoking a real cry from Perrin this time. He winced himself, but he kept his voice confident for Perrin’s benefit. “It’s all right. She’s just unconscious.”

  Ava: “Second patrol squad dispensed with. Josie took a hit, but nothing a few minutes at the repair bench won’t fix. On our way to your location, because more squads will damn sure be on their way to ours.”

  Joaquim: “Don’t waste time stopping off here. We’re clearing out in ten seconds. Head home via door #1 under full stealth. We’ll take—” not #3 “—#4 and see you at The Chalet.”

  Ava: “You got her?”

  Joaquim: “We got her.”

  He placed Nika in IkeBot’s outstretched arms. The dyne came with its own kamero-type technology for stealth, and it could bear the weight of three people before it began to get strained, so it shouldn’t have any trouble keeping a hold of her.

  Joaquim: “Dominic, get ready to fade out the mirage field when we start moving—”

  Ryan: “Three new hunter squads are closing in from the north and northwest, and they’ve got an AV between them.”

  Justice was pulling out all the stops to find and catch her. Whatever had she done?

  Joaquim: “Ryan’s squad, withdraw and return home via door #2. However, everyone move to the south or southeast out of the park and for three blocks before diverting to your assigned door. Avoid detection, but otherwise speed is our top priority. By the time those squads get here, we need to be gone.”

  47

  * * *

  Delacrai: “Nika Kirumase has resurfaced. Somehow, despite an exceptional-grade psyche-wipe and complete displacement from her support structure, she returned to search through the exact same files in the exact same location where we last found her. This time, however, she was able to escape after doing so.”

  Luciene: “We should have stored her five years ago.”

  Delacrai: “No, we should have revealed the truth in all its grim fullness to her in the hope of winning her as an ally in our crisis. Because we did not, she knows only that we wronged her and nothing of why, and now we have made an enemy of her.”

  Anavosa: “And a dangerous one as well. Our analysis of the infiltration techniques used at the Mirai Tower data vault indicate a high likelihood of her being NOIR.”

  Selyshok: “A former Advisor at the head of a terrorist group is a formidable threat.”

  Anavosa: “But the nature of the threat i
s clear now. While an unfortunate turn of events, in some respects it may make eliminating the group easier.”

  Selyshok: “I fear there is no longer any basis for your confidence, Anavosa. We now face unprecedented threats on two fronts—from within and without—and we are no closer to resolving either of them than when this crisis began.”

  Anavosa: “I disagree. As the threats begin to converge, we will increasingly be able to act with more focused purpose and more targeted resources.”

  Luciene: “Ornamental prose will not fix this problem. Only swift and merciless action will do that.”

  Anavosa: “And if our definition of ‘merciless’ differs?”

  Iovimer: “Enough! Let us focus on reality as we find it and identify practical actions we must take in the coming hours. What of Advisor Ridani?”

  Anavosa: “Appearances aside, we have no choice but to assume that his allegiances are now in question. We will need to watch him more closely. Luciene, do not say ‘store him.’ ”

  Luciene: “It would eliminate the particular complication he represents.”

  Delacrai: “Then what of Advisor Weiss? Advisor Debray? Are the very citizens we depend upon most falling under suspicion as well? Perhaps now is the moment to reevaluate our approach. Perhaps they should be told the truth. These are the citizens we trust above all others with advancing the welfare of the Dominion. If they understood the situation we find ourselves in, they could be of great assistance.”

  Luciene: “No! Maintaining a veneer of normalcy is essential if we are to win ourselves the time needed to resolve the Rasu crisis. If even one of the Advisors goes public with the information, we will find ourselves facing a multi-world panic.”

  Delacrai: “So you say, much as you said five years ago. Yet it is now five years later, and we have made little progress on devising a solution that stands a chance of preserving the Dominion as we know it. I submit that we are in need of a new plan.”

  Anavosa: “Iovimer is correct. Let us first direct our minds to what we can do to improve our situation in the near term. If we succeed, then we can contemplate more substantial course corrections at that time. Now, NOIR and Nika Kirumase are, I regret to say, a problem of our own making. And if we can no longer trust our Advisors, it appears it will be up to us to solve it.”

  SYSTEM

  CALL

  48

  * * *

  The watery depths welcomed her into their arms. They were as a soft, cushioned cocoon warmed by the afternoon sun’s rays that streamed down from far above.

  She danced among the currents, weightless and free in a way long denied her, and in the paths the currents wove she felt contentment. She felt safe. In the waters’ embrace no harm dared threaten her.

  “It’s time to wake up, Nika. You have things to do. Urgent things, vital to the survival of your friends and of the Dominion.”

  She didn’t want to go. Also, why was Dashiel speaking in her head? He wasn’t in the water with her, and in the short time she’d known him, they had certainly never ventured out into any large bodies of water. This couldn’t be a memory from before, for she had none.

  The visual in his apartment floated into her mind. There had been a boat, which meant there had been water. But she possessed no memory of that day, either. It had been erased, stolen from her.

  The thought made her sad, and she didn’t want to feel sad here, in this wondrous, free place.

  “I want to stay. It’s peaceful here. Nothing is hard. Nothing hurts. And you’re here.”

  “Not truly, Nika. I wish I was. I’m so sorry, but you must wake up now. Your destiny awaits. It won’t be gentle or weightless—it won’t be easy or kind. But it will be yours.”

  Nika awoke enveloped in water.

  No, not water, not precisely. A semifluid gel. Curving glass walls enclosed it and her. A scratchy tube made her throat tickle, and a transparent covering protecting her nose and eyes made it difficult to discern what lay beyond the glass.

  She was in a tank.

  Why was she in a tank?

  …Because she’d gotten shot. Then tumbled out of a tower and nearly squashed herself flat on the ground before managing to get her wingsuit fully deployed. Then crash-landed in a park. Then….

  The fuzzy, broken recollections ended there. But her presence in a tank—and not any random tank, but NOIR’s tank, their most expensive and thus most prized possession—gave her some clues. Somehow her friends must have found her, saved her from Justice’s clutches and brought her back to The Chalet and the tank.

  Stars bless her friends.

  And stars fuck Dashiel. How dare he masquerade as a benign voice in her head, dream or not.

  A rapping sound echoed through the glass around her. She forced her head to turn, sluggishly fighting against the gel, to see Perrin waving at her from the other side of the enclosure. “Are you ready to get out of there?”

  The voice was muted and indistinct, but the message was clear enough. Nika nodded as vigorously as her confines allowed.

  Perrin disappeared, and after a brief wait the nanobot-infused gel began draining out of the tank.

  The sensation of weightlessness vanished, and she briefly mourned its loss before yanking the tube out of her throat and the covering off her face. Perrin returned to open the tank’s hatch, and Nika swung her legs over the lip—then promptly succumbed to a coughing fit as her lungs began the transition to breathing normal air all by themselves.

  Perrin wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Take it easy.”

  She struggled for several seconds but finally got the coughing under control. When she was able to breathe again, she peered down at her left side to find two large patches of shiny, virgin flesh that gradually blended into her more world-weathered skin. “How long?”

  “Around five hours. You were wounded pretty badly.”

  “Dammit!” She half-climbed, half-fell off the tank’s lip and stumbled toward the door. “I have to grab my things and get out of here.”

  “Whoa, slow down.” Perrin appeared at her side, which coincidentally stopped her from collapsing to the floor a meter short of the door. It seemed her legs weren’t ready to run quite yet. They had better get their act together pronto.

  “You can’t just go taking off.”

  “I have to. Every minute I stay here, I’m putting all of you in grave danger.” Her throat tightened as a horrific thought occurred to her. “No one got damaged rescuing me, did they?”

  “Nothing too bad. Ryan and Josie got a bit banged up, but everyone’s fine, so calm down. You’ve been here for five hours, and no one has come for us. You can take another hour. Let’s start with a shower and some clothes—get you presentable for the public—and we’ll go from there.”

  Nika was starkly reminded of their first meeting, when Perrin had shepherded her to safety with much the same offer. It had meant everything then and nearly as much now…but she couldn’t escape the perception that her life had gotten trapped in an endless loop, with the ‘reset’ button being hit every time she got close to discovering the portentous secrets that hid just past the horizon.

  But there would be no more resets; one way or another, she was breaking out of the loop this time.

  Joaquim and Perrin were both waiting in her room when she walked in after having taken the fastest shower of her life then half-yanked on the clothes Perrin had left for her.

  Nika knelt in front of them and grasped one of their hands in each of hers. “Thank you. You shouldn’t have come for me, but since it worked out I’m glad you did. I owe you both my life for the second time. I can never repay you—but I can protect you.”

  Then she stood and went over to her dresser. She grabbed a bag, tossed it on the bed and started opening drawers.

  “Of course we came for you.” Joaquim’s voice sounded instantly stern. “So what’s this shit about you taking off?”

  She didn’t look back at him, instead focusing on gathering the clothes she needed. “
I’ve been exposed. The Guides, along with an Advisor named Gemina Kail, were responsible for my psyche-wipe. Now they know that I know, and that I’m after them again. And so they are after me again.”

  She stared down at the half-full bag as her attempt to concentrate on leaving faltered. “It’s only a matter of time until they examine the security logs, if they haven’t already. Even with the alterations Ryan made to the routines, they’ll pick up on the similarities to our other infiltrations. They’ll figure out I’m with NOIR.”

  Or Dashiel will tell them. Would he betray her so completely, or only enough as suited his convenience? She honestly couldn’t say. He was once again a stranger to her.

  “Therefore, my presence puts everyone in danger. I hate abandoning you when everything is such a fucking mess, but I need to get far away from here before I bring the full might of Justice to your door.”

  She sensed Joaquim lurking over her shoulder. “And then do what? Keep running?”

  She grabbed a few more shirts and stuffed them in the bag. “Find answers. Answers about the virutox, answers about the reasons for my psyche-wipe, answers about what the Guides are hiding and why.” Abruptly she spun and hurried over to her gear cabinet.

  “Care to share how you plan to find all these answers?”

  She retrieved a smaller, sturdier bag and began placing her gear in it. “I’ll figure it out once I get clear and catch my breath.”

  Perrin hovered near the door, like she was planning to try to stop Nika from leaving. “What about Dashiel? Is he going with you?”

  Nika shot her a dark look and shook her head tightly before finally looking at Joaquim. “If you want to say ‘I told you so,’ now would be the time.”

  “No need. I didn’t want to see you get hurt, which was why I…anyway.”

  “Thanks to you guys, I’m no longer hurt—but I am angry.” She went to the hidden panel and entered the elaborate passcode to open it. She couldn’t take the whole setup with her, but all she legitimately needed was the interface and some spare weaves. The rest was merely for comfort, and she expected comfort wasn’t apt to be high on her list of priorities for a while.