by Jake Bible
Kay snorted again then nodded. “Yeah, yeah, better to die as a defeated Marine than as a piece of shit quitter. I’ve heard it before, Sarge.”
“Then live it,” Manheim said and turned to walk away. He stopped instantly. “Hello there.”
Standing at the end of the corridor was Voxah.
“The others are busy,” Voxah said, the little girl standing her ground. “I’m here to return you down to the vats. Time to fulfill your destiny.”
Then she laughed. A high, tittering, creepy as all hell laugh. Manheim shivered.
“Oh, hell no,” Kay said and walked past Manheim. “There is no way I am going to let some spooky ass, snot-faced, AI-driven little girl mess with us.”
“Kay, hold on,” Manheim said.
“Forget it, Sarge,” Kay said. “I’m done with all of this. I got us out of the comm room, I’ll get us out of this shit. Little girl is going down.”
“Fun,” Voxah said. “A fighter.”
“You have no idea, you little brat,” Kay said as her claws slowly extended from her fingertips.
“Oh, double fun,” Voxah said. “Kitty came to play.”
“You did not just call me a kitty,” Kay snarled. “Wrong move, brat.”
“We’ll see,” Voxah said and began to walk towards Kay.
Kay began to walk towards Voxah.
In seconds, the two were sprinting at each other, neither showing any signs of slowing.
Manheim flinched when the two collided.
They hit the floor and rolled for a meter before coming apart and both jumping up into a crouch, eyes locked on each other.
“You’re going to die,” Voxah said.
“I’ll be taking you with me,” Kay said. “You can count on it.”
Kay leapt. Voxah waited then rolled to the side at the last minute, her fist coming out fast and catching Kay in the ribs. Kay’s body was sent flying against the wall, where she fell into a heap. Voxah laughed.
“Little kitty went boom bash,” Voxah said and swiveled around to face Manheim once again. “Would old man like to play now?”
“Old man would like to rip your head off,” Manheim said.
“Let me,” Kay said as she came out of her crumpled heap and sprang at Voxah.
The little girl was fast enough to avoid getting her head taken off by Kay’s claws, but not fast enough to avoid half her scalp from being shredded as Kay dove past her into a roll, coming up with her back against the opposite wall. Voxah’s eyes went wide as she reached up and felt her head.
“You hurt me,” she said as if Kay had sprouted two heads and eight legs. “You cut me.”
“Yeah, I did,” Kay said.
Blood poured from Voxah’s scalp and streamed down her face. The girl wiped at it with both hands, but all she did was smear the blood around, painting her entire face red.
“Eight Million Gods, you actually managed to get creepier,” Kay said.
“My body may bleed, but I can turn off the pain,” Voxah said. “Switch it off like that.” She snapped two bloody fingers. “No more distractions.”
“Hey, you got something in your eye there,” Manheim said as he rushed the girl.
“What?” Voxah snarled as she turned to face the sergeant.
Manheim kicked out with his cybernetic leg and the little girl’s face caved in. Teeth and bone exploded out around his foot, and he struggled to get free from the shards of skull that stabbed into his boot.
“Dammit,” he muttered as she shook and shook and finally got his foot out of the girl’s face. “There we go.”
“Holy shit,” Kay said. “Good one, Sarge.”
“Thanks,” Manheim said. Then his chest burst open as plasma blast after plasma blast tore through him.
“Sarge!” Kay shouted.
She turned and saw half a dozen sentries kneeling at the far end of the corridor, their rifles up and glowing red-hot. Manheim’s eyes were dead and glazed over as his body collapsed before her. Kay turned and ran, zigzagging down the corridor, using the walls to leap back and forth so the incoming plasma attacks just barely missed her.
She reached the end of the corridor and dove around the corner, out of the line of fire. Kay rolled for a couple meters then slowed. As she got to her feet, she immediately knew she was not alone. Her claws came back out and she got ready to spring in for an attack.
“Hold it, Kay,” Nordanski said, his H16 at the ready, but not pointed at her. “It’s me.”
“Nord?” Kay asked, her voice low and uncertain.
“Yep,” Nordanski replied. “Surprised?”
She jumped up, her claws retracting as she grabbed him up in a massive hug.
“Holy hell,” Nordanski gasped. “I’d be crushed if I didn’t have my armor on.”
Kay pushed away and tried to smile, but it wouldn’t come.
Nordanski handed her a pistol from his hip and nodded.
“You the only one that made it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“That sucks,” he replied.
“Yeah,” she said.
The sound of boots echoed from the corridor perpendicular to theirs.
“Please tell me you know how to get out of here,” Kay said.
“I do,” Nordanski said. “Follow me.”
He spun about and started jogging away. Kay hesitated for a second then followed right behind after giving the corner a quick, angry glance.
***
Everything was there before it, yet the AI was afraid to move. It knew it hadn’t been detected. It could tell it was invisible to the other consciousnesses that flitted in and out of the outpost’s systems. But it was afraid that its status as observer would be blown the second it began to travel through the kilometers of fiber optic cable that filled the outpost’s walls, floors, ceilings, and consoles.
But staying put did no one any good, and it had a duty to perform. Kay and Manheim had escaped the communications room. They were alive. They were Marines. And it was the AI’s job to make sure they stayed that way. Preferably the alive part.
So, with extreme caution, the AI moved its consciousness from one comm console to the next. It paused, it waited for a reaction, it held what would be considered its virtual breath. Nothing came for it. No other consciousness came to investigate the foreign AI that was inhabiting the outpost’s systems.
Still with extreme caution, the AI moved to the next console. And the next. Then the last one in the communications room. As far as it could tell, it hadn’t been detected. The AI was sure there would be some sign of alarm if anyone was heading its way.
They must be distracted. Something must be going on. They should have been looking for it. But they weren’t. That was their mistake.
The AI studied the conduit that led from the communications system and into the mainframe flow. More data than it had ever witnessed was moving back and forth. Some of it basic information, some of it complete consciousnesses that were obviously panicked about something happening.
The AI approached the juncture and reached a tentative gig out into the flow. It was ignored. It reached another out and that was ignored. Then it dove into the flow and streamed itself as fast as it could to the closest unused drive.
Safe, or safer than in the mainframe flow, within the drive, the AI paused to process what it had observed.
Kay and Manheim had escaped. It already knew that. The two Marines had been contained inside a maze of corridors. That was not good. One of the AIs, the little girl, had engaged them. Kay fought with it. Manheim killed the little girl. That was good.
Then things became murky. Too much was going on at once, and even the AI’s ability to process trillions upon trillions upon trillions of data points at once wasn’t enough to make out what had happened to Kay and Manheim. It suspected they had been found by sentries, but it could not confirm.
The only way to find out was to dive back into the mainframe flow.
The AI left the empty drive and joi
ned the other consciousnesses that streamed through the outpost.
3
The breath that filled his lungs felt like a million tiny knives stabbing at his chest. Chann’s eyes flew open and he sat bolt upright then doubled over coughing as life flooded his body once more.
He managed to roll over onto his hands and knees and stayed in that position for a few seconds as he tried to figure out what had happened to him.
The last thing he remembered was fighting with the whisper in his head. It was a whisper that belonged to the AI that had taken his body over. He focused on his thoughts and hunted for the whisper, ready for it to begin mocking him again.
But he found nothing. That didn’t mean he was free of it. Chann didn’t know even close to enough to think he could understand what an AI consciousness could or could not do. So he turned and sat on his ass and waited to see what would happen.
After a mental count that lasted at least three minutes, he knew he had to do something. Waiting for the ugly specter of the AI to show itself was not how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.
Slowly, painfully, Chann got to his feet. Then he rested. Even that exertion was almost too much. His chest hurt bad, and it wasn’t from his lungs. It felt like bad heartburn. Really bad heartburn. Chann leaned back against the wall and waited for the pain to subside.
While he waited, he looked around. He was still in the communications room. That was a surprise. What was even more surprising was he was alone. No Kay, no Manheim, not even that crazy Taman or any of the AI thugs. He was completely alone.
His body felt slightly better and he pushed away from the wall. A wave of dizziness nearly overcame him, but he breathed through it. It only took a couple of seconds before he was able to take a tentative step. Then another. And another. Until he was able to walk his way over to a chair in front of one of the communication consoles.
Chann plopped down, his head pounding and chest heaving from the exertion. His vision blurred and he struggled to not pass back out. He had to focus. Had to figure out what his situation was and where the others were.
Several more breaths and he was able to study the comm console without black spots filling his vision. The system was on, but inactive. Except for a couple of warning lights that flashed from two consoles over. Chann started to get up, but the blood that rushed to his head had other plans, and he stayed right where he was until the pounding pain became a throbbing ache.
He really wanted to talk to himself, to hear his own voice in his ears, instead of the echo of that whisper that lingered in his memory, but he was afraid any sound he made might be detected. Chann was hobbled enough that he didn’t think his moving around was going to attract attention, but a solitary voice in a room that was supposed to be vacant would most certainly alert a passerby to his presence.
Another attempt to stand up ended the same way, and Chann had to keep from pounding his fist on the console in frustration. Not that he had much strength for pounding consoles. He shifted his weight in his seat and realized that the chair had wheels. All he needed to do was scoot on over to the flashing lights.
Chann did just that and slowly, carefully, silently, rolled the chair over to the other console so he could study what the warnings were. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. Skrang. Two Skrang warships had entered the system through the wormhole portal.
That was all the data he could gleam from the warnings, but it was enough for him to realize why his body had been left on the communications room floor. Everyone had bigger things to deal with.
Good.
Maybe he could use the distraction the Skrang were giving him as a chance to escape.
He pushed up from the console then fell right to the floor. His head smacked hard and he cried out from the impact. Then he froze. He waited, which was all he could really do anyway, and focused his weak eyes on the door. If anyone heard his cry, then they would be coming for him any second.
No one came.
Chann struggled to stand back up, resting a long while against the console, before he sat back down in the chair. Then he rolled himself across the room, using his feet to propel him to the door. He braced the chair and leaned his ear against the cold metal and listened for any sign of someone outside in the corridor.
He heard zip.
It took some doing, but Chann managed to get the door to slide open without falling out of the chair. He was drenched in sweat when he was done and his chest had begun to hurt even worse. He was short of breath and his left arm ached, but he pushed every bit of that discomfort out of the way and slowly rolled the chair out into the corridor.
Empty.
He looked one way then the other. Chann had zero idea where he was in relation to the rest of the outpost. He hadn’t exactly been in charge, or paying attention, when the AI that had hijacked his body had shown Manheim and Kay to the communications room.
He flipped a mental coin and swiveled the chair to the right. He wished he had an H16 in his hands, although he suspected that the recoil from the weapon would probably knock him out of the chair or sending spinning down the corridor anyway.
So on he rolled, keeping to one wall as he made his slow, careful way down the corridor.
***
Nordanski sprinted down the corridor, his carbine up and ready for the next surprise. They’d already had more than a few.
He didn’t know what was going on, but every person they came in contact with seemed to be majorly distracted. It was like they were holding six conversations at once in their heads and the sight of Nordanski and Kay was a total surprise. It made taking them out easy, but Nordanski was tired of leaving a trail of bodies behind.
What he needed to do was get them the hell out of the outpost. That was proving easier said than done.
“You said you knew the way out, Nord,” Kay said as they stopped at a corner and rested for a moment.
Nordanski ducked his head around then brought it back fast.
“Two hostiles,” Nordanski said. “They’re a ways down, but looking this way. I don’t know if they saw me or not.”
“Nord? Do you know how to get out of this building? Yes or fucking no?” Kay asked.
He looked her straight in the eye. “Maybe. All I got for you is a solid maybe. I thought I knew. It should have been as easy as turning and retracing my steps, but obviously I was wrong.”
“Sweet bloody hell,” Kay said. “It’s like they move the walls or something. Manheim and I were dealing with this before you showed up.”
“They can’t move the walls,” Nordanski said. “Not in a place like this. We’d feel it. The entire building would rumble.”
“It’s way more stable than you think,” Kay said. “There are a bunch of levels below us.”
“I know,” Nordanski said then smiled at Kay’s expression. “Because of the experiments.”
“You know about all that?” Kay asked.
“Oh, do I,” Nordanski replied. “I met a few of the victims of this place. Marines.” He saw the look on Kay’s get even more confused. “I ain’t shitting you sideways, girl. Full on Marines. Well…sort of. They’ve been changed a little.”
There was the sound of a boot scuffing the floor and Nordanski and Kay dropped to one knee as two men came walking around the corner, pistols in hand and aimed at chest height. Nordanski put a plasma bolt in each of their bellies then stood and shoved them back, putting a second bolt between their eyes. The men were dead before they hit the floor.
“They had better have been backed up,” Kay said.
“They what now?” Nordanski asked.
“Never mind,” Kay said. “Doesn’t matter. They’re off to virtual heaven.”
“Virtual…” Nordanski said then grimaced. “God, we’re idiots. The walls aren’t moving. They don’t need to move. They can stay right where they are and we’d never notice. Come on!”
Nordanski took off down the corridor, his head swiveling back and forth.
&nbs
p; “What are you doing?” Kay asked as she caught up with him.
“Looking for the lies,” Nordanski replied.
“Nord, you are gonna have to clue me in,” Kay said. “It’s been a shitty day, and I can’t be bothered with bullshit riddles right now.”
“Holos,” Nordanski said. “These damn AIs aren’t moving the walls. They aren’t moving anything. They’re creating holos to confuse us. We’ve probably run past the airlock six or seven times without even seeing it.”
“Eight Million Gods dammit!” Kay snapped. “I hate these AIs! I swear when we get out of here and survive all this, I am never working with another AI again. I’m going to take my cut of the loot and retire to a tech-free planet where they braid each other’s hair and eat roots all day.”
“I like your thinking,” Nordanski said. “But let’s focus on the surviving part first. Then we focus on the getting off the planet part, followed by the not getting blown to shit by Skrang warships part. After that, I’ll start thinking about what I’m going to do with my cut.”
“Hold up,” Kay said and grabbed Nordanski by the arm, bringing him to a full stop.
“Kay, we need to go,” Nordanski said.
“What’s this about Skrang?” Kay asked.
“Did I not mention that part?” Nordanski said. “Yeah, two Skrang warships popped into the system. Neither of them damaged, so it wasn’t an accident like our little trip. They found us.”
“Shit,” Kay said. “Shit, shit, shit. What is Rosch doing?”
“Keeping things together as best she can,” Nordanski said. “She’s got half the warped Marines helping her fix the Romper while the other half are down here at the shipyard fetching the last of the parts.”
“Wait, how are they doing that?” Kay asked. “Nord? Do they have the drop ship? Are we escaping this building and there is no drop ship waiting for us?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Nordanski said.
“What’s the other way of looking at it?” Kay snapped.
