by Gorman, K.
Brazil was beautiful, no doubt about it, the lush forest always right outside the doors. It felt like an entity, sometimes. As if the entire forest were alive, aware, and sentient.
Which, of course, was a lie. Trees didn’t have brains. They couldn’t fit the human definition of sentience.
Still, there had been many a long evening spent watching the sun set across the canopy down the hill, at first leaning against the railings of the first floor’s wide concrete balcony, feeling the breeze lift the humidity from her hair, then later as Tia in her wheelchair, watching it all through a pane of worn and dusty Plexiglas and feeling the weakness of the ALS making her arms and legs shake and turning her speech into stuttering, difficult slurs.
Karin’s memories, more recent, were of blood.
Lots of blood.
She’d killed over fifty people in the compound’s hallways, mostly on the first and third floors, and she’d killed them violently.
So, seeing the halls filled with groups of Alliance and Fallon soldiers, scientists, and technicians, all going about their business and working to uncover the scope of the lab’s work and following a number of leads that both Tia, who had worked there, and Seirlin, the Eurynome Project’s parent company, had given them…it proved jarring and surreal.
Plus, more than a few of them were giving her a second glance.
It was probably the armor. Fallon didn’t spin out klemptas tech for just anyone.
The descent to the third level of the lab―technically the second level, since it was one above the lowest floor, but the Brazilian compound used a descending order in its floors―proved quick and uneventful. It had only been a few hours since she’d last been there, but the mood had shifted. It was busier. She got a sense of stress and tension, people working on tough deadlines.
The space between her shoulder blades itched with others’ attention.
Paranoia, she reminded herself. These people are just curious. Not threats.
Ahead, the end of the hallway turned right into the lab that housed the Cradle.
She stared at it a moment, feeling the brush of awareness that was Tia in the tank―like a fingertip of connection.
Perhaps it was the addition of Program Delphi’s genetic code, but the Tia in the tank had some form of telepathy. She’d felt it before, when she’d been flying in.
She’d almost crashed the plane.
It was an accident, the Tia in her mind said, her memory flashing like the scales of a fish under water as she recalled back―sitting in her own lab, designing the code on an older model holo, slipping into the lab room, the dreaded confinement of isolation, running programs and simulations on repeat.
There came a time when you just stopped being able to build anything new.
A deep, dark emotion overlaid her face and chest. She quickly pushed it aside, turning to Takahashi. “Have you heard of these people before?”
He shook his head. “Alas, I have been preoccupied. All I know is that they are not who I recommended for this―which is understandable, since the ones I recommended live much further into the system and would take more time to retrieve.”
Uh huh. So these people had likely come from Nova. It was the closest grab.
She tried to keep a positive outlook. Unfortunately, her pessimism about Fallon’s current attitude was hard to shake.
What are they not telling me?
Inside, Tia chuckled. Oh, honey. Don’t tell me you trusted the government?
A slip of anger shifted into her mind and body, fluttering low in her stomach. Her head tilted forward, teeth on the cusp of baring as her thoughts spiraled darker and the scent of blood rose in her senses.
She fought it. Hard.
Whatever our opinions, we will not take them out on these scientists. They are just regular people who are likely trying their best. Maybe they needed special equipment, or maybe one of their key members had only recently become un-Lost or had just finished transport to Nova. We’re all on the same side. We all want to defeat Sasha. So I’ll go in there, introduce myself, make sure they aren’t going to kill Tia and the Cradle, and assume that they are all nice-ish people who are just wanting to help end all of this.
She shoved the anger and the violence down, took a breath, and turned into the room.
A group of three people gathered around the tank with Shinji and Bella, several of them excitedly gushing over something on the screen. A sense of nakedness came over her at seeing the brain just floating there, suspended and vulnerable, trapped like a nautilus in a tank―blind, and in complete mercy to its surroundings and whoever had control of the dashboard overrides.
At the side of the room, apart from the others, General Crane spoke with a fourth scientist, the two of them leaning into the conversation.
The sight of him so close to her Cradle send a fierce urge of protectiveness swelling through her. She clenched her right hand into a fist, riding through the emotion. Her heartbeat quickened, then slowed again.
She breathed a steady breath out, trying to calm her nerves.
Beside her, Takahashi made a note of surprise.
“I recognize him.” His tone had turned unusually airy, almost breathless, his shock quickly slipping into confusion and speculation. “That’s Dr. William Somner-Bosch. He works for Seirlin.”
Karin stopped dead. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Suddenly, everything had gone very still. A surge of adrenaline pounded into her bloodstream, washing through her veins like a splash of numb heat. As she focused on the man standing next to General Crane, leaning into the conversation they were having, she could already feel the power that shook through her limbs.
Beside her, Nomiki had done similar.
“Are you sure?” Karin asked, her voice a low tone.
By the way Takahashi had stilled, he had sensed the change come over them. His jaw trembled as his brown eyes held hers for a second, then slid back to the man, gaze shifting up and down to get a good, solid look.
Likely, he knew his next words would condemn the man.
He swallowed and wet his lips. “Yes. I watched him speak once, several years ago. A corporate event when they launched a new biomedical product.”
And, just like that, the final nail was struck.
Ice slid into her veins. She schooled her expression as her mind opened, bright anger lighting her brain up like a beacon. Her vision tunneled, and an old, familiar violence slid into her tensed fingers.
Within seconds, her emotions dulled, and a cold, hard logic pushed into her mind like winter ice.
Tia slid in behind her, the new, familiar edict pressing into both of their minds.
Protect the Cradle.
“You should stay outside, Doctor.” The corners of her lips twitched, tugging into a fake smile. “I wouldn’t want to get blood on your nice clothes.”
“Be careful,” he said, giving a slight incline of his head as he backed away, then left.
Her lips pulled the smile wider, the psychopath inside her making sure it reached her eyes before she turned and stepped smoothly toward General Crane and the Seirlin scientist, projecting a friendly, curious attitude. “Hello, General! Are these the specialists? It’s so good that they’re finally here!”
Crane looked neither pleased nor surprised to see her, and he was already lifting an eyebrow at the armor she wore. “Dressing up for something, Makos? I thought we had agreed that you needed to rest.”
“Ah, yes, well, I happened to find myself in the Shadow world, so I figured I might as well suit up while I figured out why,” she said, the lie coming out, smooth as unraveling smoke.
She stopped less than a meter away, aware that Nomiki hadn’t moved from where she’d left her―giving her space―and swung her smiling mask to Dr. William Somner-Bosch, the Seirlin scientist, giving him an obvious once over.
“So, I understand that you work for the same company that mutilated my body and murdered my friends? Tell me―” She turned her penetrating gaze onto Cran
e, her smile widening just a little too much. “Why have you invited Seirlin here?”
Her tone remained friendly and concise. Too much so. She was no longer trying to hide the mask, but display it broadly, a psycho doll for them to see. The tension Crane had been carrying ramped up. He drew himself roughly an inch taller, one of his hands twitching toward his holster before he stopped himself.
“Ms. Makos,” he began. “I’m sure you understand the scope of our problem. As it happens, Seirlin not only has staff who are familiar with the Eurynome Project’s records and data, but also the equipment with which to handle something as medically invested as a brain suspended in an isolated system.”
Not even going to deny it.
Good. That made it much easier.
“Oh, yes, I’m aware. We found their little Cradle experiment in Pomona.” Her smile had teeth in it now, her tone turning sharper as she rounded on Crane, her voice now dropping into a depth that was wholly Tia. “My question was meant for you―in what realm of reasoning did you think I would allow anyone from Seirlin to touch my body?”
The room went silent. Her voice had carried, as she’d meant it to, and Tia’s steel-edged intent along with it. Five shocked faces fixed on her, and the smell of fear lifted into the room.
Tia was right. Fear did have a smell. Sour and pungent, like a bitter fruit rotting under a hot sun.
Power fluctuated through her, the dimensional boundaries already shuddering under her control.
General Crane’s expression resembled a stormfront.
To his credit, he didn’t let his fear show.
And when he spoke again, his voice held no hint of a tremble.
“Ms. Makos, you―”
The dimensional powers snapped.
She screamed, a raw, brutal, savage cry, and leapt into action.
The next few seconds felt like a dream. Ringing filled her ears, along with the distant sound of static. It felt like she was one step back from herself, watching her body move from afar. The two soldiers who had been setting up the table vanished, pushed into the Shadow realm. She cut into Dr. Somner-Bosch with a hand like a scythe, neatly slicing him in half. Red splattered everywhere. People screamed. His metal briefcase dropped to the ground with a loud clunk.
She finished him off with another cut, leaving half of his body bleeding out in the Shadow world.
With another violent gesture, she sliced the other three in half.
They died instantly, blood and entrails spilling out onto the floor in a mess.
By then, Crane had backed up and drawn his blaster. He fired several rounds at her. She phased. The rounds cracked harmlessly on the glass of the back wall.
She turned toward him, her armor bloody and her lips tugging into a smile again.
“Careful, now. You’ll hurt someone.”
He made to switch targets, to aim for the Cradle instead of her, to use it as a hostage―but she read his intent even as he started moving.
Reality blurred. She shot forward. By the time he’d moved his gun three inches, she had crossed the distance, switched them into the second world, and slammed him into the counterspace behind him.
She broke his arm with a smack and sliced his gun in half. The blasterpack erupted over the cupboards and floor, neon green burning bright in her eyes.
Behind her, the two soldiers she’d transferred over made sounds of distress, one of them lunging forward to help their general. She drew her own blaster and leveled it at them.
They stopped.
The general struggled, but she held him easily. The suit’s augments enhanced her own unnatural strength as she pinned him into the counter and put her face near his.
“I won’t kill you,” she informed him, her voice a low snarl. “That would be an act of war. But you will damn well never see my Cradle again.”
Despite his injury, he managed to growl at her.
Fallon generals didn’t hold their ranks out of incompetence.
“Makos, you are making a big mistake.”
“No, you made the mistake when you allowed Seirlin to breathe the same air as me. You know what I’ve become―you’ve seen enough combat records now for proof.”
She released him then, and with a thought and a twist of dimensions, pushed the two Fallon soldiers back into the other world before they could try anything. Holstering her blaster, she shoved the general to the floor, stalked to the other side of the Shadow Cradle, and sized it up.
Perfect. There was just enough room between it and the cupboards to brace herself.
The general stirred, watching her. “What are you doing?”
“Protecting myself.” She glanced over the base of the tank, rolled her shoulders, then put her hands on its frame and shoved.
The Cradle rocked, the water whipping up and sloshing over her hands. Then, her suit augments recalculated the load―she shoved again, and the Cradle slid a meter and a half over, making a horrendous grating screech on the floor.
She stood and rolled her shoulders.
“Makos,” General Crane began again, his voice a low warning. “We are all in this together. There is a procedure to follow. That is how we win. When we―”
“Really?” she asked. “You have a procedure for ‘if a mad, genetically engineered scientist decides to replace the universe with her own?’ That’s awfully specific, and I don’t believe it. If you’d had a procedure, you would have told me about it. And you would have given me an explanation for refusing to explore my new abilities. No, I’m done with waiting. My tenure with Fallon is over. I’m leaving. I’ll be in touch.”
She flexed her powers. A wave of dizziness crashed through her as she focused on what she wanted, then pulled.
Power rippled.
A second later, Crane was gone, the real Cradle was in front of her, sitting where the Shadow Cradle used to be, and Nomiki was standing across the room.
Her sister glanced around at the space, then down at the Shadow Cradle, whose water still rocked from the move, then to her, an eyebrow lifting.
“So,” her sister said. “I take it we’re leaving?”
“Yes.” Karin gave the Cradle a glance-over, wincing as the brain in the tank reached out to her mind, then veered around the Cradles’ ends, typing up a quick explanation to Tia Origin in the tank about what had happened. “But I’m picking up Tylanus along the way.”
Nomiki joined her, already rolling her shoulders for a fight. “Good idea. Apparently, Fallon is being way more shady than I thought they were.”
“Apparently,” she agreed.
As they left the room and turned down the hall, she glanced back at the Cradle, her gaze snapping to the glow of its screen and the dark silhouette of the backup power they’d strapped to it.
It would be all right until she came back. And, if she didn’t come back, they had other problems.
In the hallway, she pulled out the communicator Tillerman had given her, activated it, and half-phased, appearing like a ghost to the surprised techs.
She ignored the shouts of alarm and surprise, speaking quickly to send the message.
“Commander, be at your ship in five. We’re leaving.”
Chapter Sixteen
Nomiki jogged to keep up with her, dodging around an old pool of blood and gore that had desiccated into a large splotch on the floor. “Did you kill Crane?”
“No.”
“Good. What’s your plan? Pick up Tylanus and then what? Are you going to warp the Nemina over? She requires a twenty-minute warm-up, doesn’t she?”
“She does, but I’m not taking her. I’m leaving with the Centauri.” She glanced over at her sister. “I was informed today that I became their new Grand Regent a week ago when I killed Leisler. I’m guessing you didn’t know.”
Nomiki’s upper lip curled back. “No, I didn’t. Fuck, no wonder you looked so pissed off. Did Crane say anything more to you in the Shadow world that I didn’t hear?”
“Just excuses and threats.” Her te
eth ground together for a moment, the steel-toed anger settling into her bones for a slow, continued burn. The headache was beginning to threaten again, lurking like a heavy weight, but Tia’s combat pain reactions sent it to the edges of her mind. “Allowing them near my Cradle was stupid. Tia has some very strict protocols regarding her own protection.”
“Yes,” Nomiki said, her tone dry. “I remember you giving me a side-eye for standing too close to it in the beginning. Gods, what were they thinking? Who in their right minds would bring Seirlin in on this?”
“He gave me an excuse about them having vested interest in the Project and that, since they were the parent company and funding provider, they were likely a good authority on the subject. I shut him down.”
They sprinted up the stairs, her nose scrunching up as they had to leap over another putrefying splotch of Centauri remains. She’d killed about six in the stairwell, most of them at the doors, which made opening them an awkward dance of angles and reach. She had to force one of the doors to unstick and push the gore out of the way like a windshield wiper on a car.
Fortunately, the second floor was clean.
She hadn’t had to fight her way through it.
They jogged up to the clinic space midway up, dodging a few Shadows that loitered in the hall, and ducked into the room.
Karin looked around, the familiarity hitting her like a wall. “Huh. They put him in the exact room he was using when I last dream-talked to him.”
It was the same lab, at any rate, albeit re-arranged to transform it into a clinic. It even had the same desk near the front corner. And, in the Shadow world, the lighting looked similar.
“Well, that’s cool and weird and creepy. Synchronicity, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” Karin stopped, planting herself near the side of the room next to the bed, and looked around, sizing up the space. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
She pulled on her powers. The world twisted, warped. A thundering crash of static rolled briefly across her mind. In the next second, she was surrounded by a startled group of medical professionals―two men and three women, one of them with an Alliance patch on her uniform’s shoulder, and the others a mix of Fallon and UN.
