by Amy Cross
"With this old pile of junk," another voice says, "we'll be lucky if we can get anywhere at all."
Turning again, I see a young-looking Nick Sutter working at one of the terminals. My first instinct is to grab him and restrain him, but the memory seems to be constantly shifting, as if I can't quite focus on any particular moment for too long.
"Josh isn't even sure he can get us as far as the rim," Nick complains. "We might just end up floating through deep space, with no power and no chance of being rescued. There are certain rules about these old ships -"
"Screw the rules," my voice replies firmly. "The rules don't apply right now. We're going to make it to the Nebulan Cluster. I don't care how many problems we run into, we'll get there and then we'll start the next phase of the plan. If something goes wrong on the way, we'll fix it. If something else goes wrong, we'll fix that too."
"I'm starting to think we'll get there on pure will-power alone," Tom replies, heading over to one of the other monitors.
"Ready when you are," Deborah adds.
"Me?" I ask, although I'm not sure if it's my real voice or the voice from my memory.
"You have to give the order, Captain," she continues, with a faint smile. "That's one rule you really can't ignore. Someone has to be in charge of this old rust-bucket."
"Do it," I tell her, although I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. "Get us out of here."
Turning, I find that I'm back in the station's docking bay. Looking over at the window, I see Io-5 far below, but somehow everything feels wrong. The memories have subsided for a moment, but I feel as if they're still in the back of my mind, waiting to come bursting back through. Stumbling toward the hatch, I try to work out of I'm losing my mind; this isn't exactly the same as my bout of Hidden Eye Syndrome, but I guess it's possible that I'm suffering from some kind of psychotic breakdown. If that's the case, I need to double-check that Sutter's restrained and then I have to get back in touch with 51-Alpha so I can tell them I can't maintain control of the station.
Climbing through the hatch, I feel dizzy for a moment, and it takes me a few more seconds longer than usual to clamber through. My heart is starting to hurt and I can barely even concentrate, and in the back of my mind I can hear all those other voices still arguing with one another. Wincing, I make my way toward the hatch that leads to Sutter's room, before realizing that I'm going the wrong way and turning back. As I take a step forward, I stumble and drop down to my knees, and I'm forced to haul myself up by grabbing the side of one of the terminals.
"Having problems?" Sutter's voice asks.
I wait for one of the other voices to reply.
"You look like crap," he continues.
After blinking a couple of times, I turn and see Sutter standing nearby, but this time he doesn't look young. It's the real Sutter, my Sutter, and he's standing next to one of the consoles. From the look on his face, it's almost as if he's waiting for me to do something.
"You..." I whisper, trying to summon the strength to say something. "You... drugged me..."
"No," he replies. "You had your head tampered with a long time ago, but fortunately it wasn't a permanent process. It took a little longer than expected, but you finally seem to be having the breakthrough we've been anticipating for so long. At this rate, I think your real personality should start to take control in the next forty-eight hours." He steps closer and smiles. "Doesn't that sound nice, Crizz? You'll become the person you were always meant to be, the person you were before Supreme Command and their butchers started tampering with you." Crouching next to me, he clearly no longer sees me as a threat.
"What did you do to me?" I ask, trying once again to haul myself up.
"Nothing," he replies. "I'm just waiting, along with a great many other people who are sitting in the Nebulan Cluster right now with a very large, very stolen space cruiser, waiting for the signal that you're back. And once that happens, I'm afraid Supreme Command isn't going to have a very good time."
"You're... traitors," I gasp, lunging at him but missing and collapsing against the control room's metal floor.
"And proudly so," he replies. "Don't worry. Not long now, Crizz. It's going to hurt, but sometimes you have to push through the pain to get to what's important. Trust me, I learned that the hard way a long time ago."
I try to shout back at him, but I'm starting to feel as if something's seriously wrong with me. My mind is being peeled apart and something new, something darker seems to be rising from the depths. Every time I try to speak, some other force pushes me back, and finally I realize that somehow I seem to be losing control of my own body. Closing my eyes, I hold my breath for a moment, trying to force the unwanted presence out of my head, but it's too late; a whole new mind bursts through, screaming as it pushes me out of its way.
Chapter Six
Sutter
I think she's trying to speak, but no words are coming out of her mouth. I can only imagine that right now, two completely separate personalities are battling for control of her mind. I guess it's not a good time to be either of them right now.
"I don't know if you can hear me," I say as I limp across the control room, ignoring the pain in my right leg, "but we've got incoming visitors. Two sets, actually. There's the bunch you called, but they'll take a while since they're coming from the nearest base station and even at full speed, we're looking at a week, tops. Then there's the bunch I called, and they're likely to get here much faster since they had something of a head-start."
I turn and look back at her, but she seems to be lost in her own private battle. As she tries to get to her feet, she grimaces and drops back down onto her hands and knees.
"Yeah," I say with a faint, sad smile. "I figured that's what you'd say."
Looking back at the monitor, I launch a quick scan of the surrounding area, but there's no sign of anything approaching the station. I guess I'm probably jumping the gun a little; even if they launched the second I activated the transponder, the guys from the Nebulan Cluster could easily take three days to get to us. I was hoping that maybe they'd inched closer already, but now it's clear that we're not going to be so lucky.
Checking another screen, I see that the computer is still trying to decode the pulse that came up from the surface of Io-5. Supreme Command ordered Crizz to stop the analysis, but of course I restarted it. There aren't many mysteries in this part of the galaxy, but this is something that's genuinely got me fascinated; not only because it's unexplained, but also because the commander at 51-Alpha was so desperate to make sure that Crizz left the situation well alone. I'm sure as hell not a conspiracy theorist, but if I had to guess, I'd say that there's definitely something down there that Supreme Command wants to keep out of the wrong hands.
I'm definitely the wrong hands.
"My leg hurts," I say after a moment, looking back over at Crizz and seeing that she's barely moved in the past couple of minutes. "I'm sick and tired of the pain," I continue, "and I think it's getting worse. Whatever got me down there, it's caused some kind of infection, and I'm not sure whether I can last until help arrives. Then there's the fact that we need to come up with some kind of cover story. Deborah Martinez and I both knew that this was one of the ways things might end, but obviously there's been a certain degree of improvisation along the way." I limp over to another monitor and start programing one of the back-up systems. "I don't know whether to be relieved or scared," I add, "but I suppose the honest answer is that I'm a little of both."
"Please..." Crizz gasps, trying to crawl toward me.
"Calm down," I reply, "you're just -"
"It's me," she whispers, slowly raising her head to look at me. "Nick..."
I turn to her.
"I..." she gasps. "It's me..."
Pausing, I stare at her for a moment and realize that there's something different about the way she's staring at me. Her eyes are filled with a kind of desperation and anger that I sure as hell never saw when I was talking to Crizz Arnold.
"Do it
," she hisses.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean," I reply calmly, still not certain that this is really happening. I was never sure how the change from Crizz back to Amanda was going to happen, but I sure as hell didn't expect it to be so sudden.
"She's going to come back at me," she says breathlessly as she starts crawling closer. "We talked about this. You can't let it all go wrong at the last minute. After everything we -" Grunting, she drops down to the floor and then rolls onto her back, and it's clear that she's in a huge amount of pain. Taking a series of jagged breaths she stares at me, as if she's desperately waiting for me to help her.
"I don't know exactly what you think I can do," I tell her, "but my options are somewhat limited. We're still waiting on some back-up."
"Do what we discussed," she replies, keeping her eyes fixed on me. "Do what's right. I trust you, Nick. You're a pain in the ass sometimes, but I can always rely on you."
"I don't think I remember how to work out what's right anymore," I reply. "It's good to see you though, Amanda. I'd like to say you're looking well but... Frankly, you look like you've been through hell and back."
"All these years," she whispers, "trapped in the back of this stupid girl's mind, having to watch as she pledged blind allegiance to Supreme Command."
"So you were conscious in there the whole time?" I ask.
"Not exactly," she continues. "It's more like... I remember now that I'm breaking through again, but at the time it was more of a vague impression. I'm back now, though. Please, Nick, you have get us out of here..."
"The process isn't over yet," I point out. "We still need to -"
"I've got my side of the deal covered," she replies. "You're the one who needs to step up to the plate. It's one thing to make a load of promises, but this is crunch time and everyone has to do what they promised. Are you gonna be able to keep your word?"
"Of course," I reply, even though I'm genuinely not sure if I can press the button. Turning to the monitor, I bring up the station's self-destruct system. It takes me a moment to key in my access code, at which point I have to authenticate the request with a retina scan. I guess I always knew this day was coming, and I rehearsed these final moments over and over again in my head, but I still can't quite believe that the moment has arrived.
"Do it..." she whispers.
"One hour," I tell her, trying to summon the courage to complete the job. "I can only set it for one hour, no less. Believe me, if I could make it go off in one minute, I would, but we're going to have to wait."
"An hour's too long," she whispers. "An hour's forever."
"There's no other option," I reply, as my finger hovers above the button that'll commit the station to an irrevocable self-destruct countdown. "I know I've said this to you before," I add, turning to her and smiling, "but this time I really mean it. See you on the other side."
"Do it," she hisses.
I pause. In my mind's eye, I keep seeing the moment when Deborah killed herself by letting her body get flushed out into space. She was brave and strong, but I've always worried that maybe, when it really came down to it, I wouldn't be able to make the final step. Suicide's a lot to ask of any man, even if I know with absolute certainty that this is the only way we have a hope of striking back at Supreme Command. I'll die, but at least Amanda Cole will rise again.
"Do it!" she shouts.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly.
"Do it!"
Closing my eyes, I press the button.
Part Eight
Space
Chapter One
Crizz
"What happened?" I ask, wiping the sweat from my face as I struggle to get up from the floor.
"That depends," he replies, with the countdown warning screens flashing nearby. "Who am I talking to?"
Although I feel weak and tired, I manage to grab hold of one of the terminals and pull myself all the way up, before steadying myself for a moment. There's a strange sensation in my head, as if the past few minutes have somehow been scrubbed away, although I have vague memories that I was thinking and talking. I turn to Sutter, and it's immediately clear that something's very wrong.
"What are you doing here?" I ask. "You're supposed to be confined to your bunk..."
"Huh," he says with a faint smile. "It's you. Well, I guess that's to be expected. It's not like a switch being pressed, more like a slow recovery. I guess you don't remember the past few minutes, do you?"
"You have to to get back in there," I tell him, taking a step toward him before stumbling and half-falling against one of the monitors. I reach around, hoping to find the blaster, but the damn thing seems to have disappeared. "What did you do?" I gasp, struggling to get my breath. "You poisoned me, didn't you?"
"No, Crizz," he replies calmly, "no-one poisoned you. Unless you count a mind as a type of poison, in which case I guess Supreme Command maybe has something to answer for." He pauses. "I'm afraid you're going where no-one has gone before. There have been a few people over the years who've received these experimental mind patches, but as far as I'm aware none of them have ever experienced an old mind forcing its way back through. The problem is, Amanda Colewants her body back, and I don't think Crizz Arnold is in any fit state to deny her."
"I'm not Amanda Cole," I reply, trying to summon enough strength to get over to the other side of the room.
"You are and you aren't," he replies. "You share the same body and you basically share the same mind, but Crizz Arnold only exists because Amanda Cole's memories were wiped clean and replaced. You were her, once, and you're going to be her again. When they captured you, they subjected you to a kind of brainwashing procedure that allowed them to implant so many false memories, you became an entirely different person -"
"No," I reply, still feeling weak. "I remember my early life. It's all real..."
"It's as real as they could make it," he continues, "but you'll see soon enough. It'll all come crashing down soon enough. Can't you feel your real mind breaking through already? Amanda Cole isn't the kind of person who likes taking a back-seat to anyone. In fact, that's one of her problems. She's so damn stubborn and uncompromising, sometimes she ends up getting herself into more trouble than she needs. I knew her pretty well, back in the day. We were part of the same team, but it all fell apart when she was captured. Well, I say captured..." He pauses. "In a sick kind of way, this was part of her plan all along."
Ignoring his mad, rambling claims, I struggle over to the next terminal. The screen is flashing and although it takes me a moment to work out what I'm seeing, I finally feel a wave of horror pass through my body as I realize exactly what he's done. I stare at the screen a moment longer, telling myself that there has to be some kind of mistake. Sure, Sutter can be a little irrational from time to time, but there's no way he'd actually go this far...
"Something wrong?" he asks after a moment.
"You've set the self-destruct system," I whisper, barely able to believe that he'd do something so insane. Turning to him, I see a look of satisfaction on his face. "You're going to kill us both!"
"All part of the plan," he replies. "To be fair, I'm not going to kill us both. Just one of us. The one who needs to die in order that the other can live. Deborah Martinez already made her sacrifice when she killed herself. It was the only way we could ensure that Supreme Command would send someone new out here to Io-5, and we had someone on the inside who was able to make sure you were the one who ended up being selected. Now it's time for the rest of that plan to be put into action, which means another sacrifice." He pauses. "It's also a test," he adds after a moment. "If you can't get out of this alive, you're no use to the cause. There's a way, but you have to find it."
"They'll know," I tell him, trying to stay calm. "If you think they won't realize what you've done -"
"Of course they'll know," he says with a smile. "Their cruisers are going to show up in a few days, and they'll start picking through the debris field, and it won't take them long to figure out that this
was intentional. It won't matter by then, though. One way or another, this will all have been settled."
"You have to disable it," I say, turning back to the monitor and bringing up the priority access interface. I try punching in my tag number, but the system blocks me; I try a couple of other methods, but nothing seems to be working. It's as if Sutter has managed to find a way to lock me out of the network.
"You're not thinking laterally," he says after a moment. "Like I said, there's a way out of this, but it sure as hell doesn't involve trying to break back into the system. You were never one of the great coders, so I sure as hell wouldn't set you a challenge that involved tapping away at a computer for the best part of an hour. There's really only one button you need to press."
"I can do this," I mutter, still trying to find a way through the mainframe's defenses. I'm no hacker, but I studied advanced programing at the academy and I'm damn sure I can reroute my access requests through a different server and use one of the back doors to get into the core system. Once I've done that, I have sufficient clearance to cancel the countdown, which is already down to fifty minutes. As I bring up screen after screen, however, I find that every part of the network seems to have been locked down with ruthless efficiency. I'm still convinced I can do this, but it's going to take time.
"Is this really how it's gonna end?" Sutter asks. "The great Amanda Cole, reduced to tapping away at a computer system she can never get into?"
Ignoring him, I try another approach. Bringing up the lander's flight computer, I try to reactivate it remotely, figuring that maybe I can use its interface to get back into the main system. For a moment, it seems as if I might actually have a chance, but once again I find myself coming up against a fully encrypted knot that would take hours to break down. I pause for a moment, desperately trying to come up with some other idea, but my mind is starting to go blank.
"I can do this," I whisper, trying to keep my thoughts running. "I can, I swear..."
