by Gorman, K.
The ship’s silence bled between them. His eyes darted between her face and body, the gesture not so much sexual as reading the language she presented.
It also felt like a memorization. As if he thought he was losing her.
Which he was.
“Karin,” he said. “Are you okay?”
This time, she knew he wasn’t asking about her general health, nor about their relationship.
He was asking how she was. Whether she was happy or not. Whether she was stressed. If there was anything on her mind bothering her.
She closed her eyes.
Gods, this is not how I wanted this to go.
“I’m fine,” she told him―truthfully, this time. “By the literal definition of the word, I’m fine. There’s a lot of stuff going on, and I’m concerned about some things, but I’m still keeping my head above water.”
“You’ve always been a strong swimmer,” he commented. “As long as I’ve known you.”
She doubted that. When they’d first met―officially, in-person met, not over a netlink call―she’d been a skittish, doe-eyed, freshly-graduated navigator with bouts of anxiety and paranoia and a habit of walking into inanimate objects.
But the compliment was nice.
“You’re concerned about some things?” he asked.
She hesitated.
He read the expression on her face, and his eyes darkened. “Are you okay? What is it?”
That was the third ‘are you okay’ in as many minutes, and each of them had held a slightly different meaning.
She hesitated again, glancing over her shoulder to where the open ramp spilled light into the intersection behind her and the occasional background shout and clunk and engine roar came.
“Are there bugs in here?” she asked, then shook her head―of course there would be. If she were Fallon, she would definitely bug the ten holy hells out of the Nemina. “Never mind. I don’t care.”
“What is it?” Marc repeated.
“Fallon’s acting kind of weird―or at least I think they are. All these missions―Hells, I’m probably not supposed to talk about the specifics, but sod that―they’re just basic combat stuff. Usually, they have something to do with the Shadows, or some angle that makes it more logical to involve me, but these last few were for gravitational anomalies on the ship scans. The first was a gunship and a large bomb, but the second was an old grav-based electrical generator, and we terrorized a group of settlers to get to it.”
She took a breath, shaking her head as a puzzled expression turned her face, bringing her eyes back up to meet his. “I don’t know. It just seems…It feels like they’re giving me busywork. Stalling for something. They haven’t even touched my other powers.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t been in the Shadow world?”
“Not unless I was ducking in for combat.”
“That’s…” He frowned. “Have they given you any reason for this?”
“No.” She gave him a small smile―a genuine one, this time, full of teeth and sarcastic emotion. “In fact, General Crane avoided my questions at the last briefing. Something about ‘let the scientists figure it out, we’ll just keep swinging these combat missions until then and, hey, maybe we’ll find Sasha that way, despite her having not been on this side of the gate in at least seven years.’”
A smile flickered over his lips. “That’s quite specific.”
“It was a creative paraphrasing,” she said. “Oh, and there’s possibly something hinky going on with the Centauri. Soo-jin’s on it. Also, my muscles keep growing.”
She flexed, showing off the new bulges of her shoulder, bicep, and forearm. Underneath the skin, the muscles felt like bridge cables.
His teeth flashed in another smile. “Well, I never did mind a strong woman.”
Her buoyant mood fizzled out like a popped balloon. The smile dropped from her face.
“Look, Marc, I―”
“No, I know―you’re selectively psychopathic. But, Karin, you’re still in there. You aren’t a different person, and I still love you.” He paused, and a small, comfortable silence passed between them before another smile flitted across his lips. He ducked his head and opened his arms. “Can I hug you?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
She sank into him as his long arms wrapped around her, closing her eyes and drawing in his familiar scent. Though the smell of sweat was strong, it wasn’t overpowering, and it was a clean sweat, not one that had been left to the microbes for a few hours, and she caught the familiar hint of soap in its undertone.
Slowly, she felt herself relax. A rare moment, these days.
But, after little more than half a minute, she began feeling restless. Her mind was moving again, exploring other paths, and her muscles were itching to duck into her cabin, get her charge cable, and go.
She pulled back, sliding free from his gasp.
“Thank you. I think I needed that.”
A white lie, and he might have caught it, but his features schooled themselves.
She stepped away, putting a distance between them, and turned to her cabin.
Charge cable. Get it and go. Nomiki’s waiting.
But, just as she was about to head through the doorway―the door was still open, waiting for her―the light flickered at the end of the hall, and a shiver of power raked through her skin like static.
A psychic voice spoke in her mind.
‘Karin?’
She stopped dead, eyes going wide. “Tylanus?”
The dimensional boundaries rippled. She felt them go through her skin like a cold rain. The light fluctuated again, playing at the edges of her powers. Something spiraled up through her.
He stood at the end of the hall, flesh and blood for all appearances. His hair was shorter than she remembered from a few weeks back, gathered in a loose ponytail at the base of his neck, and she detected something different about him.
He looked older.
He watched her, his eyes as pitch-black as the Lost she’d healed.
She took a step toward him. “Tylanus? Are you really here?”
Her gaze darted around. The dimensions were still in flux around him, their undulation reflected physically on the Nemina’s center wall. They looked like splotches of light refracted through water.
A few seconds later, they were gone.
But he wasn’t.
Behind her, Marc sucked in a startled breath.
He could see him, too.
The breeze picked up, rippling through his shirt. Like before, he wore a T-shirt and jeans combo, but this one looked far more worn out than his last one. Threadbare, with holes dotting its collar like they’d hosted a couple of moths.
His eyes found hers, a subtle shifting. A jolt of electricity went through her as they met hers. A small frown pressed down on his brow. His arm twitched, lifting.
“Karin? Is that you?”
Then, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
Chapter Eleven
“He’s still out,” Nomiki said. “Takahashi’s monitoring him, along with that Alliance scientist―Adamiak, that’s her name. They’ve got him on saline and something. And a sedative.”
“A sedative?” Karin questioned.
Nomiki lifted an eyebrow in her direction. “He’s an enemy combatant with unknown, likely dangerous powers. Of course they’re going to keep him sedated.”
It made sense. She knew that. But, still, something pulled wrong at her mind. She paced a small circle, fingers rubbing next to the bridge of her nose.
“Will I get to talk to him?”
“Too early to tell. They have a special team coming out from Nova to look at him.”
Oh, now they could spare the resources? She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “They should have arrived a week ago.”
“Agreed.”
She shook her head. “Well, what did you want me for earlier? Something to do with the tank?”
�
��Ah, yes, right―” Nomiki bounced off the wall, immediately striding for the nearest staircase. “Had something to show you. Tia will be interested.”
If it has to do with my disembodied brain, I am always interested, Tia thought. Are you going to tell her your suspicions about Fallon?
No, Karin answered. Not yet. She shut down that topic last time, remember?
“You know how we got that cybernetics specialist in from Tala?”
“The one Shinji was gushing on about? Yeah.”
Shinji Tasuhada, originally of Ajin Pharmaceuticals on Chamak Udyaan, was their on-the-spot biomechanical engineering expert. He’d been looking into the cybernetics installed on Tia’s physical brain.
“She came with a bunch of hardware. They’re looking into potentially replacing some of Tia’s cybernetic components with upgrades.”
A dead stillness entered the back of her mind. Suddenly, Tia was paying a lot more attention.
It wasn’t a happy kind of attention.
They’re doing what?
“Is that smart? Upgrading something so…” she hesitated. “Unique?”
As far as she knew, Tia was the only disembodied brain successfully being kept alive by cybernetic technology.
“They’ve been communicating with her on the interface, apparently.”
Huh.
Sounds like they’re asking permission, she thought to Tia.
Goodie for them.
“Has anyone asked the Centauri about it?” she said. “They seem to have the reigning knowledge on cybernetics around here.”
“They’re also enemy soldiers who are prone to retaliation.” Nomiki shrugged. “You did kill their leader.”
“Yep. That I did. So, I take it that no one’s asked them about it?”
“It was debated, then decided that allowing them to examine the Cradle would give them too much access. It’s invaluable. If they damage it, we could literally lose the universe.” Nomiki looked over her shoulder, catching her gaze with a little smile. “Plus, you know, I’d lose a sister.”
Right. My own mind is also in there. Part of it, anyway.
They descended to the third floor down―the compound was built into the face of a small cliff, and with the way the slope worked, the main floor and entranceway was actually at the top―and wound their way through the hallways. Parts of the compound had been stripped. She wasn’t sure how much stuff Soo-jin had managed to secret away in the Nemina’s cargo when Karin gave her permission to loot the place, but she thought of the woman every time she saw a large blank spot where a machine had obviously once stood, or the empty panel where one of the screens had been. Fallon and the Alliance must have taken more, because the hallways were a lot emptier than a rushed scrounge run could accomplish. The halls crawled with people, a mix of scientists and the soldiers assisting them.
She glanced around, remembering the Centauri she’d fought here.
Well, ‘fought’ was the wrong word. ‘Slaughtered’ would be a better descriptor.
It had been no contest. She’d literally spliced their troops between dimensions. Fresh out of the Cradle’s tank.
The busyness of the corridor petered off the closer they got to the Cradle. By the time they reached the hall, a noticeable pocket of quiet had formed around them.
Guess that, once the novelty had worn off, few wanted to share a space with a living cybernetic brain in a tank. No matter how cool it was.
Takahashi was in the room, poring over notes―both paper and holo―in the far corner. Shinji was there, too, along with the Alliance scientist, Bella Adamiak. Both looked equally bedraggled, their black hair rough and taking on an oily sheen. Five temporary tables had been moved into the room, three of them covered with fine, expensive-looking machine parts. A box of varying fiber optics lay half-open on the closest one, along with a closed technician’s repair kit.
All three of them looked up when they entered.
“Ah, Makos squared!” Shinji said, referring to a moment in the Macedonian compound when Soo-jin had slurred the two doctor’s names together and Nomiki had voiced a desire to refer to them together as ‘Drs. T-Squared.’
She nodded. “Shinji. Bella. Takahashi.”
Energy rippled from the tank. For the briefest moment, Tia―the real Tia―reached out and brushed the edge of Karin’s psyche.
“Tia Origin,” she said.
Hah. I like that, the Tia in her head said.
After a moment, the energy retreated back in.
Karin took a moment to examine the brain.
It wasn’t what one expected. It held a darker shade than the stale, coffee-stain-colored preservations she’d seen in her university days and on the net, and a more rigid structure. Where she’d expected a human brain to become somewhat loose and spongy, Tia’s had developed an angular quality with its brain stem and cybernetics, looking more like an odd sort of angelfish than something preserved. The cybernetics connected to every single part of it, fanning out in a ripple of fiber optics like tiny tendrils of metallic sea grass, all gathering toward the Cradle at the top. Implants wove through the nodes and structures, some pieces bridging apparent gaps and connecting things.
Seeing it made her jaw clench.
Just what kind of man would do this to a person? And then leave her to rot for over seventy years, stuck in her own world, abandoned to the slow decline of corrupting software and malfunctioning systems.
Like I told you before, those two have little regard for human life, Tia thought, her tone laden with derision. I spared you the memories of them removing my brain.
Karin’s heart stuttered. Jesus Christ, you were awake for that?
No, no. But I remember them positioning me on the table and putting me under.
She couldn’t imagine going through that. Saying goodbye for the last time, knowing that they were about to crack open her skull and spine and remove her nervous system…while keeping her alive.
I’m a medical marvel, Tia mused, considering her brain in the tank. I suppose I have that going for me. Does the Guinness Book of Records still exist?
No idea. It probably got blown up in the last Earth war.
Probably.
“You’re talking to her right now, aren’t you?” Nomiki said. “Tia, right?”
She’d been watching her closely for the past few seconds. Karin had noticed, but hadn’t reacted.
“Yes,” she said. “The Tia in my head, though, not the original.”
“Hmm.”
Karin’s gaze drifted over the nearest table, taking in the cybernetics. On the far left, she noticed a newer drone camera with its back unscrewed and wires sticking out of it.
“We’re figuring out how to connect that,” Shinji said, following her gaze as he walked over. “The Cradle uses atypical connections, so we’ve had to find manuals for them. Fortunately, Alliance keeps a good file system in its technical database.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And we’ve found scans of Tia’s…Takahashi, what did you call it?” Shinji snapped his fingers, struggling for the word. “Connect-a-something?”
“Connectome,” Takahashi said without looking up from his notes.
“Yes, that. It’s a…like a system image for the brain, except also including the hardware. A map of Tia’s neural connections, including a system of activity. Each of these wires monitors, stimulates, and connects a different piece of brain tissue, and they all collectively map it together.”
Tia’s attention was still on the camera.
The second-worst thing about transplantation was not being able to see. The worst was not being able to breathe, but never dying, Tia thought. Just…continuing to exist.
Karin glanced over at the tank. “She’s suspended in an oxygenated liquid, right?”
“Yes. It’s some sort of blood substitute, but more complex than that.”
“Does it monitor oxygenation levels?”
Shinji frowned. “Yes? Of course.”
“Conn
ect her to those. She’ll appreciate it.” She stepped farther in, examining the rest of the table. “How is she, anyway?”
“Ancient,” Bella said. “But feeling better. The human brain isn’t the ideal structure for an isolated, in vivo suspension like this. Whoever did the cybernetics installed extra valves to help with that, but a few of them had failed, leading to less-than-great oxygenation levels in some areas. With her permission, we managed to inject a load of nano to help unglue some of them. We’re waiting on a delivery of replacement valves.”
Inside her mind, Tia was taken aback.
“Sounds good,” Karin said.
“We’re also figuring out how to hook a replacement battery without causing her to lose power. Her logs indicate an increasing amount of shut-down fail-safes occurring over the years, and her last backup is currently…” Bella winced and made a teeth-sucking sound. “Out of commission.”
“It was full of cockroaches,” Shinji explained.
A sudden, dizzying throb of disgust caught her throat. She wrestled it down.
Cockroaches. They left me to rot with the cockroaches.
We’re going to kill them, she reminded Tia. Both of them. Viciously.
Yes, well. We better get that young man of yours in the other room talking. I’m starting to think Fallon doesn’t want Sasha found.
Karin chewed her tongue, stewing on the situation.
“Has anyone asked the Centauri about this?” she said, voicing her question to Nomiki from earlier. “They seem to be pretty down with cybernetics.”
Shinji shook his head. “They’re not even allowed in the same room. Fallon’s afraid they’ll trash it.”
“With good reason,” Bella said. “They’re the enemy. Why wouldn’t they trash it?”
I don’t know, maybe someone should ask them, she thought.
Tsk, tsk, Tia replied. They do have a point. Until we know what’s going on with the Centauri, we have no way of reasoning how they would or would not behave.
Yeah, yeah.
Movement caught her attention on the other side of the glass wall. Soo-jin met her gaze as she swept past, moving at a speed and stiffness that was unlike her, her bottom half a blur of black beyond the pane’s occasional frosting.
