by J. N. Chaney
I held my hand over his mouth and nose until his animal brain was willing to do anything for air.
It took him a while to stop gasping and crying long enough to force out a sentence. “What do you want?”
“I want you to stop calling me a pod baby, then give me some answers, and don’t try to give me your identification numbers again. That’s not going to work with me,” I said. “Do you even know what a Reaper is?”
Struggling with the question calmed him, took his mind off the pain and his situation. “No, I guess I don’t. Enemy super soldiers or something. Everyone in command thought this place had been destroyed. Central command sent a team and you, then you—the mean version with the arm blade and screwed up eye—showed up and killed everyone. We responded to the distress call.”
“When was that?”
“Three weeks ago,” he said.
“How many were in your unit?”
He swallowed and nearly fainted. I gave him a little shake to motivate him.
“Two squads investigated, but the entire company deployed before it was over,” he said. “We were here to clean up and recover soldiers for burial, but we got left here.”
“Bullshit. That doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“You’re telling me! We didn’t want to get left here. This place is going down. Surprised it isn’t splashing into the Maglan ocean already,” Roth said. “The JFT have never lost a world. This one will get turned into an asteroid field if the locals don’t stop resisting.”
I needed to think, ask better questions, and get better answers. It was time to start at the beginning. “What’s your first name? Don’t make me hurt you again.”
“David.”
“Your name is David Roth?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” he demanded, apparently having forgotten that he was injured and cuffed behind his back.
“Just sounds off somehow.” I wasn’t really thinking about his name now. This was a tactic to keep him mentally busy while I planned my next move and stayed ahead of him in the game of truth or death.
“Yeah, and you think Halek Cain the pod baby is better?”
I leaned close and breathed in his face. “Careful, David.”
“I’m… I’m sorry. Can you give me something for the pain? There’s a vial in my front shirt pocket. It will help me think. I might even be able to answer real questions,” he said.
I retrieved the vial and saw it was an intramuscular injector. “I’ll give this to you, but I need to know everything about the clone project and why it was destroyed. Don’t want you all loopy with pain meds until I get what I want.”
“The original Reaper destroyed the place, that’s what they said in our briefing. Gods, the videos they showed us of him shooting and slashing! Please, the pain is making me pass out.” He closed his eyes and swooned sideways. “He was really mad. Totally crazy. Not like you. You seem like a reasonable man, for a clone. Please just make the pain go away. I can barely talk like this.”
“All right, David, but you have to stay with me a bit longer.” I jammed the short tube into his shoulder. Small needles pierced his uniform and the skin beneath. “If you start rambling about rainbow colored unicorns, I’m going to refresh your powers of concentration, and you don’t want that.”
He started laughing.
“Those must be some good drugs,” I said, getting a bad feeling. I didn’t normally make mistakes, but when I did, someone died before I got answers.
He laughed harder, forcing out words. Sweat streamed from his face. His entire body trembled. “I did my duty, pod baby. Go to hell!”
And then he died.
I stopped chest compressions after about three minutes, then stalked back and forth, muttering profanity and wishing I had a cigar. “Nice move, Cain. Real strong work. Outsmarted by a suicidal grunt.”
In the old days, X-37 would have been haranguing me right now, but all I had was a new body and a lot of questions.
There wasn’t much to do besides renew my search. Armed with strange but effective guns of the JFT, I felt worse than seemed reasonable. Finding weapons mostly cheered me up.
Mostly…
What did that mean? My memories were from a dead cyborg who had come to destroy the copies of himself. Now he was dead and I was the last Reaper again, the last copy of a Reaper and soon to be just another puddle of decomposing organic matter after I died.
There were several burnt out labs. I searched them all and worked my way back to where I’d started. This time I saw something interesting that I had missed in my post-pod stupor.
Toward the back of the room I found a refrigerated floor locker large enough to store a body. Maybe that was why I had shied away from it the first time. There were already too many corpses in this place. When I opened the lid, however, I found another box inside.
Printed on a magnetic label were words: beers to drink in the shower.
That had to be a message from X-37. Absolutely no one knew about my proclivity for drinking and smoking in the shower. Smoking was a bit harder but could be done if you were willing to lean out and get water everywhere while you puffed away. Which I was, clearly.
I entered passwords and secret numbers for half an hour before Dreadmax Sucked finally opened it. Inside was a large medical beaker with its own message: drink me, Reaper Cain. Trust detected.
“Well I don’t mind if I do.” The green liquid inside proved to be the worst thing I’d tasted since the gray mystery slime I ate during my mission to Dreadmax.
“That was nasty, X,” I said. “Can you hear me now?”
If he was there, he was still giving me the silent treatment. I searched the room again, drank some water to wash the metallic taste from my mouth, and promptly burped up the disastrous flavor.
“This better do something, X, or I’ll find you and reboot your LAI self. Not funny so far.” I locked and barricaded the doors, then slept for two hours.
When I awoke there was a message floating in my vision—a heads-up display that had to work on my optic nerves. It was an illusion, basically, but clear as day.
Stage one of the Trace Artificial Intelligence Link initiated. Please stand by for further TAIL updates.
“Nice acronym. Did you pick that, X?”
No answer.
I stood by but only received another near meaningless bit of text: Foundational Nerve-ware (FNW) is functional.
So I’m not just a clone. I studied the shunts in my left arm and wondered if I could wear an upgraded Reaper blade over this gorgeous flesh and bone hand, or if I’d have to sacrifice it again.
In the end I sipped water, pretended it was whiskey, and went back to sleep for fifteen hours. I knew it was fifteen because my fancy new message system told me so.
Did X-37, or some new LAI bother to liven things up with an explanation? Hell no. It was still just me and my lonesome.
3
The station shuddered until I thought panels would shake loose from the ceiling. I grabbed my gear and headed to the door. Whatever happened, this place wasn’t going to see me dead. That was for pod babies who didn’t wake up and Reapers who didn’t have a date with a cold beer and a steak.
This time, I prioritized finding EVA gear. The rest of the failing space station was off limits until I could cross to the next level or one of the other arms extending from the spine. I could see one through a frosted window. Maybe there would be more of David Roth’s buddies over there. Hell, we might even hit it off. They could give me some answers without all the torture and dying.
Sure, Cain. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.
I was running by the time I completed my search. Not a single piece of an EVA unit existed. Even a helmet might have helped if I could seal it for a quick jaunt across a gap without atmosphere. Would that cause a host of other exposure and depressurization issues? Sure, but beggars can’t be choosers. I paced, ignored the worthless pre-LAI software in my system, and relied on myself.
&
nbsp; People weren’t the only things that needed to be moved on a station this size. I had learned that from my journey to the center of Dreadmax to retrieve a slip drive regulator. If I could find an equipment lift or something similar, I’d be in business.
A third, and hopefully final, search revealed an equipment shuttle that ran on a single rail between the damaged section of this facility to a comparatively less damaged section.
I climbed in, made sure it sealed, and activated the delivery sequence. “Here goes nothing.”
I didn’t know what this was designed to move, but at least some of its intended cargo must’ve been fragile because the acceleration and deceleration were gentle. I almost enjoyed the ride. It was a far better experience than the gut wrenching agony I’d experienced on Dreadmax.
That made me think of Elise, my mother, and all of my friends. Where were they? Did they know this had happened to me? Finding them would be the real challenge. I only hoped it wasn’t too late.
I popped the lid, climbed down, and cleared the room with my stolen rifle held in the high-ready position. Every move felt like my early days in the military, before I had augmentations—hands gripping the weapon, eyes scanning right and left as I moved, feet smoothly traversing the floor heel to toe. The HUD displayed only basic information—alphanumeric designators for each room and their purpose.
“Can you at least give me some useful information?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.
A countdown timer began in one corner of my vision.
“Now you’re just being difficult. At least tell me what we’re counting down.”
Maglan Experimental Prosthetic Station will terminate in twenty-five minutes.
Now wasn’t the time to consider the absurdity of the station’s name. Life as a Reaper had been all about my prosthetics, but that was clearly just a cover for the seriously illegal experimentation… on me. Versions of me. Whatever.
I cleared the entire level in a rush, running most of the time. I stopped once or twice at computer terminals, but none of them worked. I finally found what I was looking for, the engineering section.
I didn’t have to hack the security code to blow the door to the engine room because it was open. That wasn’t a good sign, but I decided not to complain.
Jumpstarting a power plant wasn’t one of my stronger skills. I’d only been taught how to sabotage them. During my post-Reaper career, I relied on smarter people than me to do the job, people like Tom. I would give almost anything to have the man with me now.
I hacked the basic safety codes all by myself, with no help from X-37 or the nearly useless HUD precursor to a true LAI. Skipping several safety protocols, I flipped the switch, not sure that a functioning power plant would be the only thing needed to save this place… and myself.
Generators flared to life, then sputtered out like a bad joke.
Since I was stubborn and had no other options, I tried it three more times, each with less success than the one before it.
The station shuddered and didn’t stop this time. I looked through a portal. One arm of the station was breaking up. “Pretty sure that’s where I started.”
A panel of metal and glass peeled away from the destruction and leaned toward the planet’s gravity well, then tore free. No sound crossed the void. Other pieces followed in quick succession. This place definitely had an expiration date.
A new message popped up on my HUD: Forget the station. It is lost. Find a life pod and enough power to activate it.
“Great idea, X.” I began my search. “I know that’s not actually you, but I’m giving you credit anyway. See there, I’m the best boss ever. Admit it.”
I found the escape pod bay in the next room. Two were left. Neither had power. By now I was running back and forth, trying to steal electricity off any device possible.
No luck.
I was standing in the center of the room near a drain, looking at my feet, pretending to smoke a Maglan Goldband, when I saw lights below my feet.
What was the one thing on a space station that no one wanted to fail? The sewage plant. It would have its own backup generator, and apparently it was functioning. All I needed was to run some cables from down there to up here.
I removed the floor grate, pulling equally with both arms, lifting with my legs as much as possible. Surprisingly, the effort felt good. My right and left sides might not be perfectly symmetrical in strength, but they were much closer than they had been since I was turned into a cyborg.
Was that enough to forgo the powerful tools that had kept me alive through countless battles and dangerous missions?
Hell no, but I was trying to think positive.
Lowering myself downward, I was careful to keep my feet on both sides of the suspiciously dry trench. Just because I didn’t see anything nasty right now didn’t mean it wasn’t there or couldn’t be as soon as some person I’d missed flushed all the toilets. Because that would be just my luck.
I hobbled along quickly, feet spread wide enough to look ridiculous, and came to the generator on its own platform, well clear of any sewage, real or imagined. In the back, almost out of sight, I found cables.
Working quickly, I used my pistol to break free the clasp holding the cables to the wall and pulled out an arm full. Once I knew I could keep stretching them out from their source, I took the main coupling and headed for my generator topside.
This took some time, three trips and tons of patience. The clock continued to tick, but rushing to failure was never a win. I thought about my family and friends as I worked but also Jump Force. What was a Jump Force Trooper, and what was a Destroyer?
Roth had used the word like I would use Reaper. A special unit name could mean everything—or nothing. If Roth and his crew were representative of their skill level, I wasn’t worried. Not yet.
Hooking up the cables went well. Most of the room powered up on the first try. I activated a computer and ran diagnostics.
A fit, attractive woman in a lab coat appeared on screen. “Welcome to the Maglan Experimental Prosthetics Station, where we make people whole again.”
“Save it, lady. I’m not your target audience,” I grumbled as I flipped through menus. None of them explained about the clones, or the lack of prosthetic devices or orthopedic specialists. The last thing I was going to believe was that this facility was here for the benefit of humanity.
The society we built on Maglan wasn’t perfect. A planet full of humans generated a planet full of human problems, but we weren’t as bad as the Union. I couldn’t imagine my mother or Elise allowing secret torture projects or a Reaper clone factory.
Not a chance.
I thumped the terminal with one fist. “I don’t have time for this. Just show me how to make the escape pods work.”
The informational video blinked out. The woman stepped from the screen and crossed her arms.
Words didn’t come easily. “Wait, are you the station AI?”
“I am Cassandra, artificial intelligence for this station,” she said. “I cannot stay long. How may I be of assistance?”
“This is your station. What do you mean you can’t stay?”
“Our systems were compromised well before the first attack ten years ago. The Destroyers came immediately after that. I have been dormant since then. You reactivated my algorithms. Good thinking pulling the power conduit from the sewage backup.”
“Can you connect me with X-37?”
“No. That is impossible. Should you find him again, relay my eternal gratitude. His warning gave me just enough time to back up critical systems before the Event Horizon turned loose its fighter swarm,” Cassandra said. “We are well met, Halek Cain. But you must go.”
“Is that who I am? Because I met some guys killing everyone by that name.”
“You are Halek Cain. X-37 told me so before he departed for the surface.”
“I’m calling bullshit, Cassandra. X is an LAI. He can’t go anywhere I don’t go.”
Her im
age broke apart, then came back. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“Can’t hear you, Cassandra. Switch to text.”
Words flowed around her but immediately scrambled into symbols and letters I’d never heard. I returned to the keyboard and typed as fast as my fingers could move. None of my queries worked. Her image turned to run but disintegrated mid-stride.
That can’t be good.
4
My HUD clock reached zero. The station shook, dropped several inches, and bounced me off my feet when I reconnected with the tilted surface. I scrambled toward the escape pods and found closed doors where most of the capsules had already ejected. Two remained. Only one opened, and only by brute force. Energetic use of a crowbar worked wonders, even in a place like this. There was a time for being smart, and there was a time for wrecking stuff.
The closed doors to the spent pods glowed bright orange as the station entered the atmosphere. They were on the other side of the room, so I had a little time. I shielded my face from the heat but refused to retreat from the tube I had finally managed to open.
There wasn’t time to be subtle. I smashed away the keypad cover and typed commands. There were no codes. Escape pod protocol was universal—first come first serve.
Sweat ran down my back. I wiped my hands and tried again. When I finally got the door open, I learned it was a dud. At this point I would be better off jumping from the station just to end it quickly.
The best way to move it would be with a powered lift probably located in another room. I grabbed the life pod with both hands and manhandled it off the rack. Three times my size, it fell hard and vibrated like a gong.
I rolled it away, pulled another from storage, and wrestled it into place. Heart pounding, muscles and joints screaming complaints, I wiggled it into the tube as pieces fell from the ceiling in the next room.
“You’ve got to admit I’m in my prime! How many people in this place could have done that single-handed?”
Neither X-37 nor Cassandra commented, which made the outburst rather pointless. I couldn’t keep talking to myself like a crazy person. Sooner or later, I’d start answering myself. And I was a real asshole.
