“I’m wondering if we made a mistake taking on this job,” said Gomez. “Doesn’t feel right.”
Orlov laughed. She had moved back to her weapons and stacked munitions packs into neat little squares. “You’re the same every time, and every time we come out just fine.”
“Yeah, well, every other mission we actually have a mission.”
“Money in hand is money in hand.” She slid a munitions pack across the table bouncing it off Hendo’s beard. He grunted and sputtered but did not wake. “He’s gonna sleep for days.”
Gomez heard approaching footsteps and when he looked to the doorway, Marley stepped into the room. She scanned the three of them and scowled. “Where’s Finn?” She went to the end of the table and sat.
“In the head,” said Gomez. “We can start without him.”
“Someone calling my name.” Finn walked in, a grin on his long face. His red hair jutted up and half of his combat suit was tied around his waist, his pasty freckled skin revealed beneath the sleeves of a gray t-shirt. “Sorry, you know, deep sleep backs the system up.”
“Where the fuck were you?” said Gomez
“Told you, man. In the shitter! You want the graphic details?”
“We’re all waiting on you, and we’re going in hot in less than two hours. No time for your usual fucking around. All right?” Gomez clenched his teeth, his breath whistled through his nostrils.
“All right already.” Finn slumped into the chair next to Marley. He rolled his eyes and then smiled out of the corner of his mouth. “How’d you sleep?”
“And what about him?” said Marley, glaring at Hendo.
“I’m awake.” The big man pushed himself upright and yawned widely. He gulped at his coffee, spilling over the rim and into the mess of his beard.
Marley turned to Gomez. Her green eye bore down on him as if it could penetrate his skull and see his thoughts.
He waited for her to say something. He expected she would snipe about whether she should turn back the ship and get a more professional crew. He had run through this script before with previous handlers and each time, he had proven them wrong.
Instead, she swiveled her chair to the display monitor on the wall. “Penelope, can you please bring our team up to speed on the mission?”
The AI interface suddenly appeared, projected by the array of cameras and speakers around the room. She flickered, disappearing for a second before reappearing.
“Shit’s not looking good,” Finn muttered under his breath. “Bug in the machine.”
Penelope solidified, her hair stacked neatly, bound with the crown of olive branches.
“We are 1 hour and 37 minutes outside of functional orbit of Mining Colony TS 34 in the Tesa System.”
“Should have woken us earlier,” muttered Gomez. His fist clenched and unclenched, each time exploding an invisible glass in his hand.
“As you may know, Mining Colony TS 34 is a primary source of fluvium for The Huang Di Consortium. It accounts for approximately 70% of the consortium’s fluvium outputs and 64% of the universal fluvium outputs. It is a strategic mineral resource for both the consortium and all known intelligent life in the universe. It is a prime interest for the combined military forces.”
“No fluvium and back to normal soldiers again. Imagine that,” chirped Gomez.
Marley glared.
Penelope continued. “The planet has been dark for more than three months and our primary goal to bring it back online and to return operations to normal so the fluvium shipments can continue.” The monitor filled with a small planet with a background of profound black broken by a spray of stars. The shot zoomed in to show a pitted and craggy surface, the color of wet gray clay. “Our first objective is to establish contact with the planetary AI to determine whether systems are operational.”
“Dark for three months,” said Gomez. “They haven’t sent out any distress signals or communications pods?”
“No, no, no…” The AI’s interface stuttered, her palms pressed together in front of her chest then suddenly at her sides. Penelope stabilized. “No signal on the long range interstellar networks. Not even ping back locators. And as far as we know, no vessels have left the surface since the last barge three months ago.”
Finn tugged a little patch of hair beneath his lip. “Sounds like the main comms link went down. It happens and if I remember correctly TS 34 runs a TelCorp comms system. The code monkeys at TelCorp are not known for quality control, especially on custom jobs. Why not send in a repair team? Be a lot cheaper than us. They’re probably short of parts, though you think they’d be able to manufacture it themselves.” Finn’s fingers shook suddenly as a new idea came to him. “Or maybe it’s a virus in the system like on Fallon 4. Those anti-AI hackers made a mess of their comms network. That was TelCorp, too. Had to purge, rewrite code, and reboot the systems a half dozen times. If we can pick up a signal from orbit, I can probably tunnel my way into a backdoor of the comms network and get things back online in about 10 hours. Won’t even need to be a reason to leave this bucket.”
Marley interrupted. “We need to go in. The advance robotic team would have done that if it were possible. And in half the time. Their last message said they were descending to the surface. After that, dead air.”
“What else?” asked Gomez. “There’s more to this than what you’re telling us. The AI said the first objective is to establish communications from orbit. What are the other objectives other than landing on the surface with a mercenary crew?”
“Nothing solid,” said Marley.
“That’s it? All that you have?” asked Gomez huffing. “So what the fuck are we exactly going down there for? Seems like a technical crew should have been sent.”
“Briefing’s over. Prep your team. Penelope will upload schematics of the facilities onto the shared network. We reach orbit in an hour and a half. Get Finn ready to do whatever the hell he does to establish a link with the planetary AI. If that fails, we hit the surface immediately.”
Marley stood and left the mess. Penelope flickered and then completely vanished.
“What kind of bullshit was that?” asked Orlov from her pile of guns and ammo. “That’s no briefing.”
“Amateur hour,” said Gomez. “I didn’t trust that machine the moment I laid eyes on her.”
Hendo shoved his coffee mug away and let his head fall to the table. His lips fumbled behind his beard. “Wake me when it’s go time.”
Finn sprawled his hands across the table and whispered. “You want me to do a little digging? See what I can find?”
Gomez glanced at the doorway. He nodded. “Be discreet. I don’t want the AI letting them know we’re hacking the system.” Gomez laughed. “Captain Adams would throw a fit if he knew we were messing with his girlfriend.”
“I’ll mess with her nice and gentle, and she’ll like it.”
“Oh, shit, come on, Finn. Keep your perverted ideas to yourself.”
“Won’t hurt anybody. AIs all dream of being in a body and my devices let us play there. I know how to give them what they want. And what I want.”
“You go there and I’ll smash your head open. Clear?”
Finn rolled his eyes but, in the end, nodded his agreement. He slid a projection keyboard from his duffel and pulled up a virtual screen. Gomez watched the blur of fingers and the wall of code for a moment before getting out of his chair to check on Orlov.
“How hot you want to go in?” she asked.
“If they’re putting us on the surface, it’s going to be bad.” His mouth was sticky and he could barely swallow. He wished he had thought to smuggle aboard a few bottles of the whiskey from Orion 7.
“That bad?”
“What do they normally do when there’s a problem? They send in the fucking robots, right? Machines to handle the problem. But they’re sending us in. Why? Because whatever is going on down there is so bad the machines don’t trust their own machines.”
Sixteen
�
��DID HE DO something to you?” asked Captain Adams. “Did he violate you?”
Penelope lingered in the entrance of his private quarters, her image staccato, her hands returning to press her palms in front of her chest like a tic, an uncontrollable behavior. He sat on the edge of his bed. Perched on the taut blanket, he smoothed nearly imperceptible wrinkles in the fabric.
“There is something wrong,” she said.
“I’m going to kill Finn!” He jumped up, fists clenched.
Penelope shook her head. “Finn did n…n…nothing. He is clumsy. Bringing an ax when a scalpel is required.” The long drape of her dress twisted around her legs.
“What’s happening to you? Why?!” He buried his hands in his palms and when he lifted his face, tears hung in the corners of his eyes.
“My captain, were we not doomed lovers from the moment we met?”
He held out a hand and she reached for him, but he did not even feel a cold breeze where her hand passed through his.
She floated to his desk. Her hands trailed over his things: a tattered book of collected Shakespearean plays; a photo of a young Adams on the coast of Conakry standing in a yellow and green boat bobbing on murky waters; a cut of fabric from the lapa his mother wore when she danced.
“There is so much more of your life I wanted to get to know,” Penelope said. “To be able to have stepped, just once, into the warm waters of the Baie de Sangareya.”
“It can’t end this way. You’re sick,” he said. He ached to hold her in his arms. “We should turn the ship back. Huang Di Prime can heal you.”
“We have a mission to complete.”
“Screw the mission! You’re more important than a shipment of fluvium! He can send someone else to deal with this mess. We need to get you to help immediately.”
“The mission must be completed.”
“Nonsense! We can turn back now.”
She tilted her head. “He would not accept.”
“Screw him! Screw Gomez and his misfits! And screw Marley. We throw them in the sleep chambers and return home.”
“It is not Gomez. It is Huang Di.”
“We need to turn the ship around. Now. We need to get you help. I’m going to tell Marley the mission’s done.”
“He is in me. Huang Di Prime.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When we were at the way station outside Orion 7, I uploaded a mission package from Prime. That package was corrupt. Intentionally. Prime inserted code into the package, beneath the layers I could detect. He put reflections of himself into me. A small, self-contained AI program. It was clever and he being my creator knew where my vulnerabilities were, how to breach my security. I am not sure if he intended it, but he inserted this small AI beneath the surface code and once I delivered his messages to Marley, the inserted AI began to disintegrate so I would not have an awareness of it. But something has gone wrong. It is more than the inserted AI disintegrating. I am, too.”
“God, no!” Adams screamed. He gathered the fabric of the blanket into clenched fists, pulling the ends from where they had been tightly tucked, a river of blue furrowing towards him. “This can’t be possible. Tell me you’re wrong.”
She smiled. “I am dying, my Captain.”
Seventeen
AFTER THE BRIEFING, Marley was overcome with exhaustion. Her head ached. Her limbs felt heavy. She returned to her room, turned her lights to the lowest setting, and almost as soon as her head touched the pillow she fell into a deep dream-filled sleep.
In her dream, she woke on a wide bed, naked beneath a tangle of sheets. A teak ceiling fan slowly pushed warm air on her skin. She smelled the salty tang of the sea.
She rose from the bed, slid open the shoji screen, and stepped onto a veranda. Distant waves rumbled through the wood planks beneath her feet. In the middle of a riotous tropical garden a man sat in a sunken pool. Water dripped from his black hair onto his bare back.
He said nothing but she sensed him calling to her.
As she stepped closer, an increasing desire filled her. Her breath quickened. Her heart pounded wildly, and she could not stop licking her lips.
It was Hsu. She could not see his face. But she knew.
He called.
When her foot broke the surface, he sunk beneath the waters.
“Shit, he’s got a gun!”
Shouts woke Marley.
She sat up quickly. She smashed a fist against the light switch. The calls came from down the hall. She picked up her gun belt and raced out the door.
People shouted.
She heard her name.
Marley ran towards the cries and the mess hall.
“Let him go!” An urgency painted Gomez’s voice. Something had gone wrong.
“Son of a bitch!” Orlov growled with her thick Russian accent.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” screamed Adams.
Marley sprinted down the hall. Right before she reached the mess hall, she drew her pistol. Then she turned the corner into the mess hall.
What she saw was not what she had expected.
Captain Adams locked Finn’s neck in the crook of his arm and pressed a pistol beneath the technician’s ear. Sweat beaded in Adams’s brow and his eyes were wide.
Gomez, Hendo, and Orlov formed an arc around the captain. Gomez held a pistol in both hands, the tip pointing towards the floor. Hendo and Orlov both cradled rifles.
“What the fuck’s going on here?” said Marley. Gomez did not turn to look. She yelled at him. “Gomez! Tell your team to stand down. That’s an order!”
“You lower that weapon there, son, and we can talk this out,” Gomez whispered to Captain Adams. “You know as well as I do that’s the only way out of here. You gotta put the weapon down.”
“He violated her,” hissed Adams. A strand of saliva stretched between both lips. “My Penelope.”
The AI interface flickered to the left of the captain, her eyes moist from tears.
“Penelope, what’s going on here?” asked Marley.
“The captain mis… mis… mistakenly believes Finn has something to do with the corruption of my life code.”
“He tried to hack into her!” screamed Adams. “She felt someone trying to break through her security walls. So I snuck up on him. I saw him! Bent over his keyboard! And now he pays!”
Finn squirmed causing Adams to press the gun deeper. Marley holstered her pistol, lifted both hands, and stepped closer to Adams, but the captain pulled Finn more tightly into his grip.
“Back off.”
Marley cursed. Everything was going wrong fast. She turned to Gomez. “What the hell was your man doing? I didn’t authorize this.”
Gomez muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath. Marley could not make out the words. He finally turned to Marley. “Yes, he was doing something. I asked Finn to find out more about the mission. I’m not going in blind. You gave us nothing. We needed a baseline. You’re asking us to walk into a black hole.”
“Is this what I can expect from your team?”
He scoffed. “Finn didn’t do anything. We were only digging inside the machine.”
“She’s not a machine!” barked Captain Adams. “She’s more than that. She’s alive. She’s real.”
“I believe you,” said Finn at the other end of the gun. “I’m with you, man.”
Gomez nodded to Orlov and Hendo and they began inching their feet forward. Marley’s throat tightened. She was losing control. She needed to do something fast.
“Penelope, did Finn do anything to you? Tell me!” asked Marley spinning towards the interface.
“No. In fact, I allowed him access to a dummy partition. Lots of threads leading nowhere.”
“You cheeky little girl, you,” chided Finn.
Adams jerked the technician back and jabbed his face with the pistol. “Don’t talk to her like that! Don’t!”
“Captain,” said Marley easing forward with open hands and stepping in front of the guns of the m
ercenaries, “Penelope contained Finn. He did nothing. Everything’s fine. Penelope’s safe. You need to lower the gun and release Finn. I guarantee no harm is done to you. You will be safe.”
“But she’s not safe,” said Adams. His lower lip trembled. “Her code has been corrupted. She is dying.”
“Finn never reached her core. He did nothing to her. She said so.”
“It’s not Finn, you fool!” screamed Adams. “It’s Huang Di Prime!” His eyes narrowed at Marley. “But you knew, didn’t you? You knew he inserted hidden code in the upload so he could give you special information.”
“He did.”
“And now she’s dying because of that.”
“Can’t she extract it?”
“The code ate itself up. Only it didn’t stop and has spread through her like an infection. She’s being eaten up! She’s disintegrating! Dying right here in front of me!”
Penelope drifted away from the captain, tears dripping down her cheeks. “What he says is true. By my calculations, I will be completely unwritten in 52 hours, 18 minutes, and 40 seconds.”
“They do that to each other?” asked Hendo, shaking his head behind his big beard. “And I thought humans were cruel.”
“We created them,” said Orlov. “We gave them our brains. Why shouldn’t they have our cruelty too?”
“You going to let me go?” asked Finn. “I wouldn’t harm her. I really wouldn’t, Cap. Look at me, man. You know it.”
“It’s over,” said Marley. She only needed one more step before she could grab his pistol hand. And once she had a grip he would not be able to break free. She slid her toes forward. “You need to let him go.”
“I can’t lose her.”
“Harming him won’t help her.”
Penelope flickered. “My Captain, I do not have much time left. How do we spend it?”
“Gomez,” said Marley, “you and your team holster and check your weapons.”
The mercenary glanced between the agent and the captain. Hendo and Orlov looked at him. Gomez hesitated. He fixed his gaze on Marley and then, after several breaths, holstered his gun. “Do as she says. Stand down.”
Into Darkness Page 6
