Augment

by C R MacFarlane

  Copyright © 2018 by C R MacFarlane

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN 978-1-7753564-1-7

  www.blueponypress.com

  For Avery, who never gives up.

  THE GIRL SAT ON THE cold, white floor, fluorescent lighting shining off the slick surface. Ropes of permanently matted hair hung over her face. Electric burn marks blistered across her arms and legs, visible around the tears in her stained jumpsuit. The wounds would heal by nighttime, ready to start fresh again in the morning.

  If she closed her eyes, she felt the memory of straps running across her forehead and chest and legs, and the strange pulling sensation of being caught in a gravity trap, so she kept them open. Scratching a spot on her shoulder, she leaned into the feel of fingers against skin. Her hand felt nothing, dead and senseless where the nerves had been stripped away.

  A solid bench functioned as a bed in the opposite corner, an open latrine the only other furniture in her small cell. The monitoring station was clearly visible through the fortified, full-length permaglass wall, and she observed them as much as the soldiers observed her.

  The researchers didn’t know what she was, not really, so they tried to bring it out, while she fought to keep it in.

  She made a list of things she knew to be true: Name: Sarrin. ID code: 005478F. Female. Born on Earth. Nineteen or twenty years old (as well as she could count, there were lapses of time gone from her mind). She was a prisoner of war — a forgotten remnant of a darker time.

  Each day was the same: guards woke her, only to fill her small cell with sedative gas which she simply gave in to now. When she woke again, she would be strapped to a cold metal table, held down by a small-range artificial gravity well for extra security. They would run the day’s experiment protocol, sometimes talking into a little microphone. She would distract herself with figures or facts until they gave up, inject sedative and return her to her cell. Later, they would bring her a meal — too little and the minerals artificial — and prepare for the next day.

  She counted now the numbers of things: Guards: eleven. Cameras: twelve. Prisoners: one. Objects that could be used as lethal weapons: in here, zero, but in the observation room, thirty-eight. Possible escape routes: three.

  But where would she go?

  She had escaped once, early on. Through the ceiling, across the roof, the lawns, and over the nine-metre barrier wall. But there was nothing beyond.

  The planet — identification unknown — was barren. Its red-purple, dusty surface blended into the hazy atmosphere, the horizon invisible and unchanging. She had run for hours without so much as a hill or crater. Even hardy brome grasses could not grow. There was nowhere to hide, no way to survive.

  Eventually, the soldiers in their hovercrafts had dropped enough gas bombs that she had succumbed and awoken in her cell, as though nothing had happened. The routine resumed, day-in day-out, the only differences the dose of sedative and the meals which became less and less.

  Her stomach rumbled. After three years, her body had become finely tuned to their schedule, and the United Earth Central Army soldiers ran like clockwork. The meal was never late.

  A minute passed, then five, then ten. The seconds ticked off in her head.

  She started to shake. Sweat beaded on her back.

  In the monitoring station, all but one guard had disappeared. Her breathing quivered. Something had gone astray.

  Her pulse pounded in her veins, each thump shaking her core. The beats came further apart, slowing.

  No, that wasn’t right. She looked at the single guard — he had slowed too. She was speeding up.

  The trance, the monster she fought to keep caged within, called to her. A change in routine was unusual, dangerous. Darkness clouded around the edges of her vision threatening to take control.

  She shut her eyes and started to count, reciting Fibonacci sequences to distract her brain. 1-1-2-3-5-8… She couldn’t let it take hold, not after all these years. Not for a late meal. 233-277-610-987—. She lost count and her breath came in rags. Her finely tuned instincts screamed at her to stand and run. To fight.

  She refused. She had to keep making them believe they had been wrong all these years; if they thought she was normal, maybe they’d let her go. But normal people couldn’t do the things she could, she was certain. What would it be like to be normal? To live without the trance? To be somewhere not here? What would she do? Would they leave her alone?

  Her eyes squeezed harder. She would read. Yes. About engines. She liked engines. They spoke to her, purred and hummed, soothed her mind.

  Impulse thrusters were driven by controlled fusion reactions.

  The FTL drive worked based on gravity mechanics.

  Gravity was a particle easily controlled. Grav-wells could be used to control her.

  Her eyes flashed open. A man stared back across the permaglass, stroking his finger along the scar that ran across his right eye and curled wickedly down to his mouth. A scar she had given him.

  Luis Guitteriez. He ran his tongue over his lips, the corners turning up in a grotesque imitation of a smile. He leaned forward, resting on the ornate walking stick he always carried with him, as though he were about to come through the permaglass barrier.

  Her feet pushed against the floor, scrambling, but her back met the cold, hard, white wall of her cell.

  Trapped.

  He grinned, a predator toying with its prey, his eyes beady and dark like the demons in her dreams.

  She swallowed down her scream and hoped irrationally to demolecularize and disappear into the solid steel behind her. Why now? Why after all this time?

  There had been no doubt in her mind that Guitteriez orchestrated this series of experiments. But after three years of the same tedious work, so had let herself hope, even believe, that he had lost interest. Foolish hope.

  The head researcher joined him at the permaglass wall, standing crisply in his grey dress uniform. She barely noticed him, fixed instead to Guiterriez’s dark hair and leathery scowl and gleaming white medical coat. Her every sense finely tuned to the doctor.

  Without shifting his gaze, he spoke to the researcher beside him. The permaglass deadened all sound, but she had a perfect view to read every word from their lips. “No response?” Guitteriez asked. “Even with the increased protocols?”

  “Nothing, Doctor.”

  Guitteriez rubbed his chin, cracking his jaw side to side.

  “Perhaps if you told us more definitively what you’re looking for…,” tried the researcher.

  “You would know it if you saw it.” His eyes drilled into her, hunting for the thing he had never been able to discover.

  Even she didn’t fully know what they had opened in her mind. She didn’t want to know. Didn’t want any part of it. She pressed herself deeper in to the corner against the wall.

  “I’m just saying, it would be easier —.”

  Guitteriez turned abruptly to the researcher. “It is not for you,” he frowned. “We will have to push harder.”

  The researcher paled. “Are you sure? She’s just a girl, Doctor, less than a hundred pounds. We did 30,000 volts today.”

  “I am sure.” He clenched his fist and turned his gaze back to her. “She is the answer. She is the Gods’ gift and our Path to salvation.” But it was in his eyes: he no longer saw her as a mission for the Gods; this was personal. He hunted her and would not relent until he had taken the thing he wanted. He wiped the stray saliva that had pooled where the scar left a jagged hitch in the corner of his mouth, and his eyes gleamed with deadly certainty. “She will change everything. We jus
t need to break her open first.”

  Sarrin pulled her legs in tight to her chest. Possible escape routes: zero. Probability of survival: zero.

  ONE

  GALIANT IDIM HATED SPACE. HE hated waiting. He hated the cold. And he hated never having a newsfeed.

  And yet here he was, stuck in a tin can hundred of lightyears from the fields and forests of his home. The old freightship, Ishash’tor, floated in the middle of celestial nowhere, on their way back from a freight run to the outer planets in the Deep Black.

  In his hand he held a portrait. Not a picture, not a digital rendition in a screen, but a real, honest-to-the-Gods sketch. Made with charcoal on a handmade pulpy sheet with a frame of sticks and dried flowers. Aaron stared back at him from the drawing, remarkably lifelike. Gal reached out to touch the face, but stopped himself, afraid to upset the coloured dyes.

  Only a cracked fool would keep such an item, its very non-digital existence treason, let alone the subject matter. Aaron had been dead for six years, and Gal still couldn’t let it go.

  Besides, if they were gong to arrest him, it would be for something far worse.

  In the background, the thruster engines hummed, sending their subtle vibrations through the floor. He swirled his cup of Jin-Jiu in front of him, savouring the warm aroma and the release from the memories that haunted him.

  The room was dark, the only illumination coming from the bright array of stars outside his porthole. He liked it dark, it hid the soul-gutting decor. Everything on the ship — on every United Earth Central Army ship — had been painted the same dull, dejected, desperate grey. It was meant to crush Hope.

  Sure, you could have little-h hope out here. The kind where you ‘hoped’ there would still be a can of one of the more edible rations in the mess hall when you went to fix your meal, or ‘hoped’ that the fresh water tanks had a few drops in them when you wanted a drink because the ship-recycled water had a funny taste and you couldn’t stop your mind from guessing what that particular flavour was.

  But big-letter-capital-H Hope was hard to come by. Hope that somehow you could hide from your past out in the crushing confines of deep space long enough to make a ripe old age and die. If you wanted Hope, you had to get it from the Gods, and Gal was getting none.

  The old tin mug fit comfortably in his hand. A gift from his father, it too was both a cherished and hated souvenir that he couldn’t bear to part with. It had been through the academy, the rebellion, the war, and it hung on, tied to his pack, as he escaped the crushed and dying Earth.

  With another sip, he checked the standard date. Four years ago, almost to the day, the war had ended when the planet imploded on itself, killing millions. All that remained was a fiery ball of rock and molten atmosphere.

  And the Speakers themselves, of course. Five men and women directly descended from the Gods. Of course they had been evacuated first. Of course they said it was meant to be; it was the Will of the Gods.

  At least they gave the folk Hope, in exchange for all they had taken away.

  The door chimed, startling Gal. He grunted, and the door took it as permission and slid wide open with a mechanical clunk.

  Commander Rayne Nairu took two long strides and snapped to a precise military stance in front of his desk.

  He slammed the picture down, sliding it surreptitiously closer to hide it against his body.

  “Good news, Captain.” A subtle smile appeared on her usually placid features. A lock of her dark, curly hair bounced free of its neat military knot.

  He wanted to stand to tuck it away but stopped himself. “Report, Commander?”

  “Maths and Navigation are ready. We’ll be back at Etar in less than six hours.”

  “One jump?” He frowned, leaning his elbows on the desk as he gripped his mug. “It should be at least two.”

  “The senior mathematician says so. ‘Fortuitous Field Drift,’ he called it.”

  “Oh.” It really wasn’t fortuitous at all.

  One more interstellar jump and they would be back within communications range of the central planet. The weeks they spent out in the Black between planets on their freight runs were peaceful — as close as Gal could get anyway. But there was no telling what would be waiting for them when they returned to Etar. Every time the old freightship approached the station, he wondered if the Central Army might have an armed escort waiting for him. If they had finally figured out who he really was and what he had done.

  Gal shut his eyes and swirled the warm liquid around in his mug, inhaling.

  “Are you drinking again?”

  When he opened his eyes, she was glaring at him. “It’s okay, Rayne,” Gal smiled, hoping he could charm her, “just a taste, a little warm-me-up — it’s always cold here.”

  She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall. Sighing, she said, “We’ve known each other a long time, Galiant. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s fine, Rayne, I promise.”

  “I haven’t said anything to Central Army Command, but I’m worried about you. You weren’t like this before, it just keeps getting worse. I want to help —.”

  He slammed the mug on the desk, it’s tinny echo dampening on the grey walls. “I just —,” but how could he explain it? “Some days it’s too much. You’re not stuck out here with me. I would leave this Gods-awful assignment too if I could, but I can’t.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” she snapped. Pausing, she clenched her hands, picking her words. “I know you’ve seen terrible things, but you have to stop. You’re an officer with the United Earth Central Army. And that stuff is illegal, it’s a sin. The Gods will Provide — they’ll provide you salvation if you want it — but you have to let them in.”

  The last thing he wanted was a lecture on the sanctity of the Gods. He left the mug on the desk, at the same time shuffling the picture to the ground with his knees. He stood and pulled back from the drink with his hands up. “It’s not a problem. See, I can just leave it when I want to.” He waited, but she made no argument. “I suppose we’re on our way to the bridge to oversee the jump?” He started toward the door.

  “Gal.” She reached out, hand pausing halfway between them.

  “What?”

  She pressed her lips together and, here in the privacy of his quarters, placed a comforting hand on the side of his face, making his heart leap. “For two years, we’ve been out here, running the cargo that no one wants, to the places no one wants to go. I know it’s not glamorous. I know you’re more than this. They almost made you an admiral.” She started to shake her head. “And then the demotion…. I don’t even know why we’re stuck out here, running freight in the Deep Black. After all we’ve been through, you won’t tell me. Maybe I can help you, talk to my dad or put in a commendation. Did you think of that?”

  He took her hand and placed a kiss against the palm before pushing it away.

  They were stuck in the Black because he couldn’t get into too much trouble out there working for Freight, not like when he’d been in Exploration. But how could he say that, tell her all the things he’d done? She would never speak to him again if she knew even half the truth.

  “Let’s go to the bridge.”

  She sighed. “Yessir.”

  Rayne waited for him to pass and then kept pace a precise stride-length behind him. He’d tried to break her of the habit for years, but she insisted on showing the proper reverence of a commander to her captain. She did everything by the UEC handbook.

  They walked in silence through the grey on grey corridors, distance marked only by the uniform repeating bulkheads every ten strides. Rayne held a large data tablet, studying and tapping at it as they walked.

  “How much of the crew are we turning over this time?”

  She sighed. “Eighteen of twenty.”

  “I guess that’s not as bad as some trips.” He shrugged. His ship was nothing but a filter, taking the new graduates from the Central Army Academy, getting their ears wet, and weeding out the wo
rst of the cadets before they passed on to real assignments. Three-month tours of the most desolate planets under the stars, delivering freight with the disgraced Captain Galiant Idim. No one chose that. No one stayed. Not if they could help it. “Who’s staying?”

  “Lieutenant Wood and —.”

  “Wood? Oh no.”

  “Come on, Gal. He’s a good engineer.”

  “That’s the problem. Why is he here?” Kieran Wood had graduated top of his class and actually requested a posting on the Ishash’tor. It didn’t make any sense. “He’s weird as anything. I don’t trust him.”

  “Be grateful,” she chided. “He agreed to stay one last tour to make sure the new chief is up to speed. Then he’s moving on.”

  “Fine. Who else?”

  “Ensign Ramirez.”

  “Did you sign off on his request for leave?”

  She bit her lip again. “No. We’re trading ninety-percent of the crew — we need all the experienced hands we can get. He can take leave after the next tour.”

  Gal glanced back. “Grant him the leave, Commander.”

  “He’s barely done one three-month tour, I can’t in good conscience grant him a holiday.”

  “His father’s sick. He needs the time.”

  She paused, fingers hovering over her tablet. “How do you know that?”

  He shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell her the crewman stole six auto-syringes filled with analgesic. Or that Gal had secretly signed off on them so the Central Army’s count stayed even.

  His mind flashed an image of Aaron. It wasn’t nice what they did to traitors.

  “I didn’t realize,” said Rayne, her fingers in a flurry. “I’ll draw up the papers before we dock.”

  “Thank you.”

  They continued to the upper deck, turning to the grand corridor that led to the command bridge, fancy doors and entrance looming ahead.

  “One more thing, Gal.” Rayne paused, stepping to the side of the grey corridor.

  Curious, Gal followed, leaning against the wall so they were nose to nose, nearly lip to lip. He studied her lovely features, painting them into his mind.