Augment

by C R MacFarlane

  No matter, she only had to pull up the floor enough to slide through.

  Gas hissed from the air vent above her head: sedative. She held her breath and started to count — she had four minutes at a full run, twelve if she stayed still.

  Behind her, dead bolts clunked out of place on the cell door and the magnetic seal released. Surprised, she turned, watching the door swing inwards. For a moment she stilled, confused by the sight of the door that she had never seen open before.

  Someone out of sight yelled, “Sedate the prisoner.” Then, “Subdue him, he’s pushing forward.”

  Through the open door, a panicked looking tactician shot off three dart-injectors in rapid succession.

  They hit the wall — Sarrin already spinning to the side, her movements automatic.

  She leapt to the door, pushing it closed. It would be too dangerous if they came in, too dangerous if she went out. She would escape through the floor.

  The guard pushed back, his eyes wide as he stared at her through the three-inch thick permaglass.

  Shouts and grunts came from the hallway. The guards came into view, a single man in the centre of them, fighting against their grip as he staggered forward.

  She gasped, sedative gas burning her throat. Her nearly photographic memory remembered him perfectly, even though she had last seen him age 4-standard. Halud. Brother.

  For a minute she felt the sedative — not enough to fall, but enough to pause — before her rapid metabolism chewed it up. Adrenaline rushed through her tight veins. Time slowed, her perception speeding up.

  Halud struggled. His eyes caught on her, and he started shouting.

  No no no. Everything felt too far away, too dark. She couldn’t lose her grip on the world. Couldn’t let the monster out. Was this the experiment Guitteriez had planned?

  A laz-gun fired in the hall.

  A black curtain dropped across her vision, and she pushed it back, struggling to keep control.

  “Sarrin!” Halud screamed.

  She opened her eyes. Guards: fourteen. Prisoners: two. Weapons: eighteen. Objects as deadly weapons: forty-two.

  No, no weapons, she shouted to herself. Even she didn’t know what she was capable of, didn’t want to know. But if this was Guitteriez’s experiment, it was working. The laser bolts and the shouting and the fear threatened to push her over, to put her somewhere she wouldn’t be in control.

  The terrified guard still pressing on the opposite side of the door, seemingly frozen. In the hall, Halud struggled, and another round of lax-fire bounced around the glossy white corridor.

  There had to be a way out, there always was. They taught her that. She shut her eyes and forced her memory to recall the first non-combat thing she could: old engine schematics. She focussed, painting the image in detail until everything else fell away. Only then did she trust her eyes to open.

  In the ceiling above the guard’s head was a light — a recessed light. Escape routes: one.

  She stepped back from the door, the guard falling in as the door opened under his weight. She leapt over his head, reaching for the light fixture and punching through it. The shattered fixture rained around her, leaving a trail of micro-cuts. Her other hand caught the edge of the ceiling, and she pulled herself through the hole.

  A laz-bolt exploded behind her.

  Scrabbling in the space above the ceiling, she made her way around the structural supports. Her mental map found the fixture closest to Halud, and she smashed with her fists, sending it crashing down. She peered through the hole, throwing herself back as a guard fired into the ceiling. The bolt bounced off the support, tearing through the metal construction with a dangerous scent of ozone.

  Her reflexes, fast as they were, were untrained and sloppy after suppressing them for years in the cell. Panic surged through her.

  The darkness clouded into the edge of her vision, tempting her. There was a way she could win, ensure her own survival. It reminded her of the speed and precision she could achieve if she just trusted it.

  A tactician grunted as he heaved himself into the ceiling through the hole behind her. His laz-rifle fired, bolts bouncing off of every surface.

  Gods.

  She dove headfirst towards Halud.

  The chaos below threw her senses into overdrive. She stepped on someone, falling as her feet unexpectedly slipped out from under her. She tucked into a roll, and her legs caught another guard, automatically toppling him over.

  Yet another guard reached out, brushing her arm — the first person she’d touched skin-to-skin in years. His fear and anger transferred, zapping her like lightning, and she shrieked, pushing away.

  She panted against the wall. A laz-rifle buzzed in her hands. And a taser prong stuck in her arm, its long coils spilling out. She didn’t remember acquiring either one. A mini black-out, the monster was getting closer.

  There’d been time for the monster to rip out the rifle’s biosensor and reset it too. It hummed at her, waiting.

  No no no. The rifle clattered to the ground.

  She pulled the taser prong from her arm, it’s 100mV charge still active. Her heart raced nearly as fast as her head, the world swimming around her. Escape routes: unknown.

  She inhaled raggedly. Guards moved slower and slower.

  Her brother struggled a mere two strides away. His blue eyes met her own. Time had weathered him, pushed his features into grim adulthood, far from the boy she used to know.

  They were both quite far from what they used to know.

  Halud spun to throw off his captors, a guard flying into the wall. He jumped out of their reach and grabbed the laz-gun from the floor. “Run!”

  Her legs obeyed.

  Behind her, Halud’s laz-rifle fired in quick succession.

  Her head swam. The darkness threatened, but she couldn’t let it. Wouldn’t let it. Still, every ping, and zing, every shout drew her closer.

  “Here!” Halud shouted, pointing to a door. They passed through together. Grey robes billowed behind him as they climbed the dark hallways. They were running, just the two of them, like kids. The trance slipped a little farther away. They raced up the dark stairs, through the grey corridor, and broke out into the dull, outdoor light behind the compound.

  She blinked, overwhelmed by the scent of cold dust and dying grass from the planetary compound.

  Laz-fire rained down from the roof above, and Sarrin slammed herself into the cold, grey wall of the building, pressing flat. She touched her five fingers to her chest.

  Halud pulled at the door, trying to go back in, but it held closed, locked. “No retreat, only what lies ahead,” he said — an old litany. He cast her an apologetic look, then squeezed his eyes shut and stepped out, firing at the guards hidden on the roof. He let out an inhuman howl, a death roar as he sprayed laz-bolts wildly. Uselessly.

  But they weren’t done. She’d survived far worse. If the world would just stop spinning, if the blackness would leave her alone long enough to just think.

  She turned to the door, sparks flying as she ripped open the electric panel. She crossed three wires, holding them until the simple mechanism overloaded, and the door sprung open.

  Halud’s face lit with surprise, and he darted through the opening.

  No one waited for them inside, and Halud leaned against the wall to catch his breath. “Well, that was surprisingly convenient,” he panted. He flashed a smile, a peek of boyhood shining through. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  She was tempted to ask what he thought they had been teaching her all these years, to snark at him like she had when they were kids in the wide open fields of their home, but her voice had forgotten how.

  The sound of footsteps spurred them on.

  They ran through the facility, the mental maps coming to her easily. The main entrance lay straight ahead, but the blackness sensed two guards and told her to go round. Halud kept straight.

  With a shout, he came upon them. He shot one in the chest, burning through the pe
ricardium into the heart, blood pouring from the wound. Halud’s next shot only grazed the second on the arm, but he kept running and slammed the guard into the wall.

  She gasped. Her overly sensitive and finely tuned body felt the empty, rushing, hollow feeling of a man dying. For all the violence she’d seen in her life, it still made her sick.

  “Come on, Sarrin.” Halud strapped another rifle over his shoulder and pressed two laz-guns into her hands.

  Her fingers tightened around them reflexively.

  “You just point and pull the trigger,” he yelled at her, as if she didn’t know. As if she hadn’t spent her entire life being trained. He stepped over the bodies, through the front foyer of the UEC compound, and paused at the last set of doors leading to the outside.

  She stared at the bodies, cold and empty.

  “Come on, Sarrin. There won’t be much time.”

  She nodded and followed. The subtle pulse of the laz-guns felt too familiar, too dangerous. They were a part of her, merely an extension of her being. And she was something else entirely.

  He pushed through the door first. Nearly a dozen laz-bolts exploded into the ground, sending Halud jumping back.

  Ten laz-bolts. She had seen each of them, measured their trajectory and speed. Six independent shooters, slightly spaced apart on the roof above, but still standing foolishly close together.

  The darkness showed her the movement map, actions rippling through her muscles. She saw how to leap into the air, fire five shots, and kill them all. It was possible. Easy, even.

  Her hand gripped the M250 laz-gun in preparation.

  No!

  She stumbled to the ground.

  “It’s not over until it’s over, Sarrin. Don’t give up.” Halud took a deep breath, his voice shaking. “We just need to make the tarmac. I didn’t come all this way….” Fear rolled off of him, waves of it crashing around her.

  His blue eyes met hers, glossy with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Sarrin.”

  Why? she wanted to say, he’d come all this way, given her more hope than she’d had in years. But her throat got confused and words just jumbled around in her mouth.

  She couldn’t let him die. The trance tempted her, but it showed her only an escape route for herself, not for Halud. And there was no telling what it, what she, would do, or if she would be able to stop.

  She pushed the darkness aside, scanning the scene. There was always a logical solution. Her own map came, this one born of memory, the same way that engineering specs and engine schematics did.

  But Halud took off running before she could signal her plan. He launched forward, his arm over his head as though that would stop the high frequency laser bolts.

  She threw herself after him. The sound of laz-rifles charging buzzed in her ear. But the guards weren’t half as fast as the simulators, and their laz-bolts dug into the ground at her feet.

  Halud ran straight for the gate, firing laz-bolts over his shoulder. Foolishly straight. A bolt flew at his head, and Sarrin fired her own laz-gun, intercepting the shot, both of the bolts fizzing out harmlessly.

  She jumped in front of another, catching it with the side of her thigh. The smell of charred flesh greeted her, but the bolt disappeared all the same.

  “Come on, Sarrin.” Halud ran ahead, oblivious of how close he’d come.

  She dug her feet into the ground and ran, ignoring the fire that radiated from her burned muscle.

  Halud raced toward the gate — the only opening in the perimeter wall. Guards poured from either side of the opening, filling it. More shouts and laz-rifles sounded in the courtyard.

  A solid wall of guards blocked them. She grunted, the only thing she could do to catch Halud’s attention. And she leapt onto the wall itself, climbing, the same as Halud had taught her to do so many years ago.

  * * *

  Gal sat on a cargo container, gripping the edge until his knuckles turned white, as he stared out the open cargo bay door into the red-purple haze. The crewmen had disembarked for shore leave an hour ago, excited to explore the UEC base. Luckily, the Poet had gone with them, and Gal was free to wallow in his memories for a few hours until they returned.

  Next to him, Rayne sat working a cloth over an already polished M700 laz-rifle. “What are you thinking about?” she asked without looking up.

  He sighed, and tore his gaze away from the wall, the heavy gate to the barren wasteland long-since shut. “Do you think those settlers will make it?”

  Her hand slowed, pausing in her polishing for just a millisecond. “You tell me, sir.”

  The way she said ‘sir’ reminded him that Gods and their Speakers frowned on blasphemy, and the question was too close.

  “If the Speakers say it is time to try, then it is so,” she said. “They know the Gods’ Plan and their reasons.” She reached over and squeezed his leg. “I’m sure they’ll be alright.”

  Gal nodded, blowing out a heavy breath. Maybe this would be the time, maybe Minerva and the others would make it after all. Little-h hope.

  She returned to polishing her rifle, moving the cloth by rote. “Can I ask you something,” she asked in a small voice.

  “Anything.”

  “Why didn’t you want to visit the General with me when we were at Etar?”

  His heart crumpled inside of him, and he slumped forward. After a minute, he’d regained enough strength to speak. “Rayne, I’m sorry. I —.”

  “I accepted a transfer request before we left Etar,” she said bluntly, fixing her gaze straight ahead.

  “What? I don’t understand. We’ve been out here together for years. What changed?”

  “Nothing. And nothing will, that’s why I have to go.” She glanced at him, eyes glazed with unshed tears.

  His heart shattered. “Rayne.”

  “I don’t think this is the Path the Gods intended for me. When the Poet came on board, he said —.”

  “The Poet?” Gal jumped in his seat. “You can’t trust anything he says!”

  She clucked her tongue once, annoyed. “Well, he said some things that spoke to me, and helped me make a decision I’d been thinking of for a long time. He told me that we all have a part to play. That the Path may not be comfortable or easy, that it can require sudden changes, shifts we might not choose for ourselves. We should not be disheartened, and instead should continue to focus on our Service to the Gods, because that is what will always play through in the end.”

  Gal’s mind reeled. “He said that?”

  “Yes. I’ve gotten too comfortable here, I’ve been afraid to change. But I’m not meant to be out here ferrying freight, Gal.” She sighed. “Neither are you, but that’s a different story.”

  It made sense, it did. But the sentiments, if not the exact words, Rayne had quoted had a terrifying familiarity. “I want you to stay,” he blurted.

  “I’m sorry, Gal.”

  He said the only words that came to him: “I love you. If anything —.” If anything happened to her, it would be his fault.

  A hint of red crept into her fine features and her mouth worked as though looking for the thing to say.

  A little of the big-H hope crawled into him. “I can do better. Please stay.”

  “I’ve already signed the transfer.”

  “No. I need you with me.” He knew he sounded desperate, but this felt like the end. A terrible tightness squeezed all the air from his chest. “Our Path is together.” If she was close, at least he could protect her; at least he would know she was safe.

  She blinked at him, her lips pressed together in pity. He felt his heart shatter, taking the last semblance of life out of him.

  Rayne sprang to her feet suddenly, laz-rifle braced against her shoulder and aimed through the open cargo door. “Gal! Get down.” She rolled behind the cargo box, rifle set over the top of it.

  From beyond the hatch came the unfamiliar, unmistakable sound of laz-fire. High-pitched zings grew louder, closer, before Gal could react. He stood and took a curious s
tep forward. “What in the Deep is happening?” A laz-bolt reflected off the gangway at his feet. Burning ozone filled his nostrils.

  A voice from the tarmac: “Here! The ship!”

  Rayne’s rifle charged.

  A man in billowing grey robes sprinted up the ramp. Gods, it was the Poet.

  Gal stood dumbfounded.

  The blast from Rayne’s rifle shot high and to the left, flashing off the cargo bay wall behind the Poet.

  A girl came up beside, laz-guns in both hands. She stopped, her eyes wide. One hand quickly aimed a laz-gun at Gal’s head. The other jerked to the side, shooting the control panel.

  Halud doubled over, panting to catch his breath. “We made it.”

  The cargo door groaned as the hydraulics moved; the heads of UEC soldiers disappeared behind the closing hatch.

  The girl turned her second laz-gun at Rayne.

  Rayne had her rifle pointed right back.

  The Poet flopped onto his side, still breathing hard. A cracked smile spread on his features.

  Gal stood there, his mouth hanging open as his mind struggled to comprehend all the erratic and dangerous thoughts that came into his head.

  The hatch sealed with a hermetic hiss, leaving the cargo bay silent except for the quiet pings of laz-bolts bouncing off the hull.

  The Poet picked himself up from the floor.

  “What in the Deep is going on?” Gal shouted.

  “We have to go,” said the Poet, waving his arm as he took a step towards the stairs.

  “Go?” Gal planted his feet. “Where? What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Off this planet.” The Poet came to him, resting his hand on Gal’s arm, forehead bent inches from his own. “I sense the call for great changes.”

  Gal stumbled backwards.

  “Is this what you were talking about, Poet?” Rayne asked. She slung the laz-rifle over her shoulder.

  Gal wished she was a million galaxies away.

  The Poet frowned at Rayne.

  “We’re here for the peaceful haul. That’s all.” Gal threw his arm in front of Rayne, grabbing the Poet and turning him away from her.

  The Poet bit his lip, and glanced back at the girl.

  Gal’s gaze followed. Filthy, hollow-boned, every finely conditioned muscle ripping under her skin — Gal felt the fear of ending when he looked at her. “No,” he whispered.