Velocity Weapon

by Megan E O'Keefe

  “I found it myself.”

  “You’re lying,” the director said. Not an accusation, a simple statement of fact. He could see Biran’s vitals, streaming to his wristpad, and must have registered the increase in anxiety signals.

  “Is it so hard to believe I’d watch the space where my sister died for any sign she might have survived?”

  “He won’t give up his source,” the general said, and flicked her wrist dismissively. “But we can find it easily enough.”

  “The question,” Hitton said, “is what to do with Keeper Greeve. The source we will handle later.”

  “Since he likes to talk so much,” Lavaux mused, “it occurs to me that the position of Speaker for the Keepers is currently open.”

  A smile that sent razor-blade shivers down Biran’s spine split the director’s face. He leaned back, interlacing his fingers together. “What an inspired idea, Keeper Lavaux. His face is already familiar to the public, after all. And a familiar face in times of distress can be a soothing balm.”

  “Ridiculous,” Hitton said. “He is to be punished, not promoted.”

  “No, no.” The director spread his hands magnanimously. “As Lavaux has pointed out, Keeper Greeve has done nothing untoward regarding our laws. And as he has already shown great aptitude as a de facto face of the Keepers, well, the official position would only solidify his duties. Make them more defined. So that we’re all on the same page, at all times. And so that the public understands we Keepers are united in purpose. We would not wish to frighten them by showing division within the rank and file.”

  Hitton’s smile made Biran swallow. “I see. Then that proposal is amenable to me.”

  “I don’t understand…” Biran began, but the director waved him to silence.

  “We cannot, as you so adroitly pointed out, punish you. But from this point forward, as Speaker for the Keepers, your word will be the voice of the Keepers. All the Keepers here on Ada. Do you understand?”

  Accountability, that’s what the director was dancing around. If Biran accepted the position, his rise would be meteoric—a career path so sharp and bright it would cut through the annals of history. The director, and the Protectorate, were handing Biran fame. And power.

  And a leash.

  For if he misspoke while representing the Keepers, he’d be facing more than an angry Protectorate in a dark room. He’d face them all—his peers, his people. The shame of mis-stepping then would not be his alone. Sweat soaked through the armpits of his shirt, but he nodded.

  “I understand. And I accept.”

  “Good,” the director said. “Guardcore, please remove the Speaker’s handcuffs.”

  CHAPTER 13

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3771

  TWENTY-ONE DAYS OF TRIAL AND ERROR

  Sanda’s first attempt at a prosthetic had been little more than a peg leg, and she had a bruised nose to prove how well that had worked for her. Her other experiments splayed out around her, most tossed to the ground in disgust, herself the epicenter of a crater of failed limbs.

  This latest, the one laid before her now, was her last-shot effort. She’d gone through rounds and rounds of single-limb models, peg legs and faintly modern variations on the same theme. All had been less than ideal, but well within her skill set. It wasn’t until she branched out, sought Bero’s help, and examined Grippy’s inner workings that she’d messed with the robotic components Bero’s stores offered.

  All of those attempts had been outright failures. Pathetic, twitching things she was unable to program to suit her needs. They kicked and twisted awkwardly, moving counter to her wishes.

  It had taken her ages to reach this point, and she found she had a sparkling new respect for robotics researchers all across the known universe.

  “Well, Grippy,” she said as she hefted her latest prosthetic. “Let’s hope this one performs a little better than the last couple dozen, eh?”

  Two beeps. She grinned and patted him on what she thought of as his head—the bulky box of electronics lurking behind his sonar board. If only she understood what went into his making, she might have been able to craft herself something a little more sophisticated.

  “This one looks promising,” Bero said.

  She snorted. “You said that about the last twenty versions.”

  “They were also promising. This one is the most promising of that series.”

  “Glad to have your approval.”

  The light flickered once, what she interpreted as Bero’s imitation of a wink. They’d been together awhile now, and while Sanda sometimes felt as if she were going mad talking to the walls, she was grateful for his company. His, and Grippy’s, too, of course.

  She swung around on the stool affixed to the floor just a little too far from the workstation for comfort and rolled up her pant leg. The only garments on board that fit her were the FitFlex suits. Apparently the scientists on Bero back before her had all either been tall and lanky, or short and lanky. Wasn’t much wiggle room in the sizes, there. But it was easy to grow sick of running around in what was essentially a second skin, so she often stuffed herself into the short set of pajamas. Bero kept the habs pretty warm. He had a lot of heat to bleed off, after all.

  She folded the pant leg into place just above her knee and started at the mottled knob of flesh there. Still wasn’t quite used to looking at it. The NutriBath had done a substantive reconstructive job, no doubt about that, but her flesh puckered like a poorly wrapped present. White and pink scar tissue striated her skin, spearing all around her lower thigh like tiger stripes. Bero had told her they would fade, with time. She’d reminded him he was no medical professional and to stuff his opinion on the matter.

  The prosthetic was two pieces of custom-bent aluminum. One to represent her shinbone, the other her foot. Grippy had bent them for her, showing surprising strength, and put a substantial amount of spring in both. The foot portion was arched to specifications Bero had gotten from measuring the size and gait of her other leg, refined to bend just slightly with every step. A primitive affair, by modern standards, but she wasn’t about to be picky.

  It wasn’t like there was anyone around to mock her for her poor workmanship.

  She shook her head and fitted the rubber cup she’d crafted from adhering strips of tubing together over the nub of her thigh. She’d powdered the interior of the rubber, but knew there’d be chafing no matter what she did. Foam filled the cup’s interior, cushioning her leg, and a couple of belts cinched tight to hold it in place. Not ideal. She knew that. But enough to get her around without Grippy’s help, if she was lucky.

  Hesitantly, she pushed to her feet. The height was a little strange at first as she waited for the foam cushion to compress beneath her weight. Sanda stood in place, shifting from side to side without raising her foot, feeling out her new center of gravity. On instinct, she reached down to grasp Grippy’s hand. The little bot chirped once at her: No.

  “Fine. Be that way.”

  “You must test it on your own,” Bero said. “It won’t do you any good if you need Grippy’s help to manage.”

  “Yeah, yeah, thanks, Dad.”

  Her own gibe cut her. How long had it been since she’d seen either of her fathers’ faces? Years and years, by reality’s standards, but mere days by her time frame. She’d spent longer than that away from them before. During training, and later during missions wherein she couldn’t reveal her location or her purpose. But they’d always been home, waiting to give her hugs and home-cooked meals when she got back.

  “Sanda?”

  She blinked back into reality. How long had she been silent, staring at her makeshift leg?

  “Sorry. Just thinking about my dads.”

  “They were important to you.”

  “Yes,” she said, “my entire world. Them and Biran.”

  “I… wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

  All these years, alone. Bero had traveled with a crew for a while but, functionally, he had been alone. No
family. No childhood friends. Her longing for her fathers made her ache. She wondered if she’d feel better, or worse, without that pain. A pit opened in her stomach. She ignored it and focused on her new leg.

  One step. The foot rolled on the improvised joint, caught on a governor she’d installed to keep it from dragging on the floor when she lifted her leg. She put it down again. It had a nice spring to it, a comforting solidity. It may not be ideal, but it’d work, and she could refine it over time. Not like she was short on that particular resource.

  “How does it feel?” Bero asked.

  “Weird,” she confessed. “Like I’m stepping on custard. But it’s stable. It’ll work. I’ll just have to keep fiddling with the harness. I don’t like the way the rubber shifts when I lean forward.”

  “Come down to the command deck, see how it moves under low-g conditions.”

  “Good idea.”

  Each step down the hallway was pure hell. Every little shift, every scuff and shuffle, she feared pitching face-first onto the hard floor. She walked with her arms out, like a tightrope walker, grimacing as her balance slewed. Grippy trailed behind, but she doubted he could move quickly enough to stop her fall if it came to that.

  Her foot clanged against the textured grip on the rungs of the ladder. Entering the command deck, she grabbed a handle and hauled herself out toward the captain’s chair. She didn’t come down here much.

  Up in the habs, the halls were narrow and the rooms built for just a few people to inhabit. The research lab was different, but in there she had her head down, her focus on what she was doing, not what she was missing.

  Here, there was no hiding from what she’d lost. They had designed the command deck to allow easy communication among the crew strapped into the seats facing the central smartscreen. It was open, bright. A lively place for lively exchanges between peers and friends and enemies and colleagues. They never meant it to have only one body on board. It certainly wasn’t meant to have just Sanda, drifting, twitching her new prosthetic this way and that to see how the harness responded to weightlessness.

  It was fine. The fitting worked well, which was something of a disappointment. She needed something to do. Having to rush back up to the lab to patch a fix would have been welcome.

  “Bero, is there anyone you miss?”

  Hesitation. “You are implying I’m capable of forming emotional attachments.”

  “Don’t give me that I’m-just-a-computer line. Primes might not infuse personality into our AI, but we know how it works. You feel for things just like I do. Grow attached.”

  “And you believe one needs a personality matrix to achieve those feelings?”

  “Of course they do. Regular AI, they’re just advanced computational systems—working away on single problems. Which is why we Primes don’t force personality matrixes on them. No one needs to have a conversation with their house security system, they just need to know if their boundaries were breached.”

  “Just like no one needs to have a conversation with their spaceship, they just need to know if their engines are operational?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that—”

  “Yes. You did. You can’t help it. You Primes and your Keepers try so hard to distance yourselves from what you’ve been toying with, from what some of you have become. What if a Keeper, a human being wrapped around a piece of code, is just a personality matrix? What then of your home security systems—your water plant managers, your kitchens? Are they invalids, born to interact with the world in one way, and one way only, and never understand their place in it?”

  Sanda winced and strapped herself into the captain’s chair to keep from drifting. “I’m sorry, Bero, this is all new to me.”

  “I know. It’s just… When I watch videos of your worlds, the Prime stations all over the universe… it sickens me. You’re so cold to your technology. You drive a line between us and them, without acknowledging that so many of you have already blurred that line.”

  “I think,” she said quietly, “I think because we’ve already blurred that line, we cling to the division a little harder. I wouldn’t ever want to think of Biran as a matrix supporting a mechanical system.”

  “But he is, or was. As are you, in a way.”

  She flexed her leg. “You’re deflecting. So there is someone. Someone you miss.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “I can show you.”

  The smartscreen fuzzed. Dark filled its center, snow creeping in at the edges. Colors appeared in broad strokes, slowly refining until she recognized Bero’s control deck. A woman sat in the captain’s seat, her posture an eerie mirror of Sanda’s: leaning back, hands on the armrests, one ankle crossed on the opposite knee. Although, Sanda had to admit, that woman had a lot more leg going on below the knee than she did.

  The seat dwarfed her, the smooth blue neoprene setting off her grey-and-orange jumpsuit. Fire and ashes, Icarion colors, and they never bothered putting their logo on the chest. They saved the logo for the back, where they could stretch the fiery wings up over their shoulders. A hint of a flaming feather curled near her neck.

  “Hello?” the woman said.

  She leaned forward, walnut-dark eyes bright with excitement, her black bob cut swinging against her cheeks. “Are you awake? Can you see me?”

  “I see you.” Bero’s voice was crisp, modulated somehow. Like an electronic that’d just had the screen protector peeled off and hadn’t yet been smudged with fingerprints.

  “Wonderful!” The woman clapped her hands. “How do you feel?”

  “All systems are operational.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “… Confused.”

  “Perfectly normal,” she said, and tapped a few buttons on her wristpad. “My name is AnnLee Yu. What’s yours?”

  “I am AI-Class Cruiser Bravo-India-Six-One-Mike.”

  “Sure. And my citizen ident number is Alpha-Four-Two-Tango-Seven, but I like the sound of AnnLee better. What do you like the sound of?”

  Pause. “India is a nice sound.”

  She grinned. “I’m afraid that name was taken. You know, the bigwigs will probably want to stick you with one of their old philosophers. I think Berossus is next on the list. Tedious, right? But just between us… Ooh! How about Bero?”

  “Even better.”

  “Then it’s nice to meet you, Bero. Now, we’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted, but I want you to know I’m here to help you get acclimated to your new life.”

  She reached around the chair and dragged a worn, grey vinyl bag into her lap. It crackled when she flipped it open and drew out a battered paper kid’s book. The cover was deep blue, with a boy standing on a pockmarked moon. Sanda squinted, and the title sharpened on the screen: Le Petit Prince.

  “First things first,” AnnLee said. “I’m going to read you a story.”

  AnnLee read, the screen faded back to black. All that kindness, all that vitality Sanda had just witnessed, gone. Turned to so much rubble by the woman’s own masters.

  “She seems nice,” Sanda said.

  “She is.”

  Sanda ignored the tense slip. The last thing she needed was to remind the already grumpy spaceship she was inhabiting that his friend was long since dead.

  “Thank you,” Bero said.

  “For what?”

  “For asking. Who do you miss the most?”

  “Most is a strong word.” Biran’s face filled her mind, his straight nose and narrow forehead, his kind, patient voice. She had made protecting him her life’s goal, supporting him as he rose through the ranks to achieve the coveted Keeper status. The idea had seemed so simple—so perfect. The impulsive, headstrong sister looking out for her little brother, Little B. Now she wondered if the time she’d spent throwing herself into training wouldn’t have been better spent with him. With their dads.

  Ilan and Graham, gone to dust just like the rest. She’d avoided the thought—avoided everything but
what she must do next. What must be done to keep on surviving. She’d known she’d outlive her dads. That was the point of parents. But she’d never expected it like this. Never imagined she’d be cut off without so much as a goodbye. It didn’t matter that, in reality, hundreds of years had passed. For Sanda, the wound of grief was scarcely scabbed over. All she had to do was graze it with a thought to start it weeping again.

  There’d always been a risk during the war. They’d all known that. But this… this immediate destruction. No warning. Nothing but dissolution. And here she was, flung into the future without them. An outcast of time and place. It wasn’t fair she should be here, striving for life, when millions were lost.

  But pushing through was the only way she could right the wrong. Getting, at the very least, Bero to safety. These were the things she could do that mattered.

  “My family,” she said.

  “No friends?”

  “Oh, I had those. And I do miss them… But my dads and I, and my brother, we were tight, you know? My dads owned this warehouse—just a layby for shipping in and out of Ada—and Biran and I, we grew up chasing each other around there. Playing space pirates, the floor is a black hole, you know, kid stuff. And our dads, they didn’t mind. Knew we wouldn’t break anything. They got a kick out of it—just laughed and laughed at us. They were… they were my guys. I’d give anything to see them laugh again.”

  “There is a possibility I could recover footage of your family from the news stream, if—”

  “No.” She sat up bolt straight. “No. Thank you, but I’d rather not.”

  “I think I understand. My memory is absolute, all the images of my past are locked in place, but human minds deteriorate. I… I can never forget.” His voice tightened, laced with pain. She gave him time.

  “Your memory is only as good as its last recall. Things shift over time, grow fuzzy and incomplete. Is there comfort in that?”

  Her smile was rueful. “There’s often comfort in human ambiguity, Bero. Our real thoughts… They’re too sharp, sometimes.”