Augment

by C R MacFarlane

  A small part of her retreated, curling in the corner, and let out a terrified peep.

  Thirty-two objects that could be used as weapons. Seven targets. One escape.

  I cannot be controlled by things external, the monster recited. I am me and mine alone. I am me and mine alone. I am ME and MINE ALONE. Her muscles coiled.

  Guitteriez studied the read-outs mildly, flicking a lazy finger to order the machine’s intensity increased.

  Fool.

  They had delved too deep in Evangecore, opening her mind, releasing secrets no human should know. He begged, but she never let him see.

  For a minute, she was back in her isolated cell, waking from an experiment. Her hands trembled, objects in the room tumbling through the air. Hands sensitive enough to pull energy out of objects could shape it too.

  She hid it, always. Wanted to believe it wasn’t true.

  But not now.

  Time slowed. Her pulse flowed, heart shaking with the force of each beat. Thump — thump — thump. Muscles spasmed and released, neurons fired electric current through their axons. Billions of her pieces and parts moved as one, held together by will alone.

  Sarrin flicked her hand.

  The lights went out. The guards shouted. The large, centre display screen ripped from the wall and flew across the room. Guitteriez fell to the ground.

  She willed the restraints on her arms to release, and they did.

  With a grunt, she made a clawing motion with her hands, and pulled.

  Guitteriez screamed.

  Everything in the world, every piece of matter, was made of energy. Energy that came from each living soul, giving rise to the physical world around them. She had been sensitized, could see it plain in front of her, and now that energy acted at her will. She dug in to Guitteriez, pulling him apart. Pulled until his molecules no longer felt their bonds and he scattered, dead.

  The soldiers started to move. They rose from their chairs and hoisted their laz-rifles, beams of light buzzing across the room. They were far too slow to hit her, and Sarrin slipped casually out of the way.

  With a flip of her hand, she sent the guards backwards into the wall.

  Almost an afterthought, pain flared in her temple. She drove her fingers through the flesh, blood catching in her fingernails. She pulled out the small tracking chip — less than a centimetre square — it pulsed twice and went out, crushed between her fingers.

  Anger coursed through her — no way to distinguish how much was the monster’s and how much was hers. They would all burn. The room lit on fire, flames springing up spontaneously from the walls and floor. The door lock melted away at her request, and she strode into the hall.

  The monster sketched a schematic of the compound, showing her the forty-six guards as blinking target blips on her map.

  A fire alarm rang out, distantly.

  The targets stopped their patrol, and she could feel their confusion as they stared at each other.

  Her iron hand ripped the door off a nearby weapons locker, and she stowed away three laz-rifles, two pistols, and a throwing knife. This was what she was trained for, after all.

  Two target-blips raced toward her, and the knife embedded in the guard’s skull before he had finished turning the corner. The second, stopped short behind him — an easy target for her laz-rifle.

  Ding-omega.

  Reinforcements arrived. Sarrin ran straight into them. In one swift leap, she snapped one’s neck and knocked another two unconscious. The fourth, she drove her elbow into his eye, crushing the socket and sending splinters into his brain.

  Ding, ding, d-ding, ding.

  The quiet voice tucked away in the back of her brain, nearly out of sight, whimpered, Brutal.

  More guard-blips shuffled through the building. Sarrin viewed the building beyond herself, she was only a piece in the puzzle, a character in a vid-arcade. The girl-weapon ran, igniting the corridor behind her.

  Fire climbed the walls and burst from electrical panels, consuming the compound. The flames licked up into the chemical storage tanks, and the powerful explosion tore the fortified construction apart at the seams.

  Sarrin ran for the door, leaping as the flames licked around her ankles. She hit the tarmac, rolling with the impact. Heat seared over her in waves. Finding her feet, she started to run.

  And run and run and run.

  Run! screamed the small voice.

  Her exhausted legs wobbled, her foot missed, and she fell. The impact crashed her back into herself, and she suddenly saw out of her own eyes. Blood filled her nostrils. Her hands too were covered, and she felt the sticky drops all over her face.

  Vomit sprayed across the ground. Breath escaped, impossible to catch. Each brutal moment came crashing over her, remembered in excruciating detail. Tears streamed, blurring her eyes so she could see nothing but memories. She had killed fifty-seven men. Brutal, brutal.

  She fell to her side against the cold tarmac.

  Monster.

  She should have died in there. But they wouldn’t give her that peace, not even after all this time.

  Legs pulled tight to her chest, she waited. Death would come for her. Sooner or later.

  TWENTY-ONE

  KIERAN LAID ON THE DECK, in a half-dream state — relaxed, not asleep. He should send word to his parents or they would start worrying and come rescue him. Maybe his sister Lauren would like to see them. He frowned, that didn’t make sense.

  Hoepe nudged him with the toe of his boot, and he gasped, fully awake again. “What?”

  “Come on, we’re approaching orbit.”

  Kieran sat up and realized the bridge had nearly emptied. The rescue team would already be assembling in the shuttle hangar. Hoepe pushed an auto syringe to his neck. The stim surged through his body instantly, making his heart beat faster than it should and his hands tremble. The doctor pressed something else in that made his heart stabilize so it wasn’t so painful.

  “Be careful, Kieran,” Hoepe clapped him on the shoulder. “And bring her back.”

  Kieran nodded and ran to the Hangar. Rayne handed him a laz-rifle and gave him a grim nod. He climbed into the shuttle, taking his place beside Grant.

  The door closed and the airlock decompressed. They started moving into space. Tension filled the air, and Kieran’s knee wouldn’t stop shaking.

  “Engineer, you shouldn’t be here,” said one of the Augments. “This will be dangerous, your seat should have been saved for someone useful.”

  Grant put a hand on his leg, forcing it to be still. “Kieran’s the most useful person here. I made the mistake of not bringing him before, and it nearly cost all our lives. I hope it hasn’t cost Sarrin’s.”

  Kieran’s eyes went wide.

  He whispered for just Kieran to hear. “I was wrong before. I’ve gotten so used to being against everyone, it was hard for me to accept help. But you’ve proven your worth to me, again and again.”

  As the shuttle flew, the Augments started supplicating, touching their fingers to their chests and then foreheads, repeating the motion over and over. Strange, that people who had suffered so much at the hands of the Speakers could still believe so devoutly in their Gods, but they must figure they could use all the help they could get. Glancing around to be sure no one was looking, Kieran moved his hand, making the sign of the cross, and prayed.

  Into the silence, Grant said, “We walk the Path of the Gods, my friends.” Around them, the Augments beat their fists to their chests, right over their hearts, and cheered. Then Grant held out a small data tablet. “I brought a poem,” he announced. Then he turned to Kieran and explained: “In the war, we used to always read something from Sarrin’s brother before a mission or a battle or anything like that. We used to get messages from him in the poems sometimes, about the UECs plans or traps. But this one is just encouragement — I think.”

  Someone chuckled.

  Grant read:

  Fiercely battle, for what you believe

  Fear has no tr
act, that I can see

  Nothing to hold you, nothing to win

  But, fear can be brave,

  If you let it come in.

  Take what you need from this fear that you see

  Take its courage, its wisdom, take what you need

  But the fear cannot control you, cannot make you bleed.

  Its fight is what guides you, what makes you proceed.

  Take it to heart, this strength in the fear

  Believe in it always, we will be near.

  You have everything to fear, everything to fight.

  Belief in yourself,

  It’s for you that I write.

  * * *

  The shuttle bounced through the thin atmosphere.

  “Uh, you’re going to want to come look at this,” the shuttle pilot said, turning in his seat.

  Grant and Kieran surged forward, pushing anyone else aside. They peered out the viewport. Ahead, where the facility should have been, laid only rubble and smouldering ash.

  “UECs must have bombed it,” commented the co-pilot.

  Kieran’s stomach dropped — after everything, she couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.

  “We’ll check it out anyway,” said Grant. “Maybe we can find some information.”

  The pilot nodded and angled the shuttle down.

  Kieran waited by the door, every muscle in his body trembling, waiting to spring into action. The adrenalin and stims mixed in his body, and he started to feel woozy. His knees buckled with the impact as the shuttle landed, but Grant caught him without a word.

  The rear door barely opened before Kieran leapt out, stumbling on unsteady legs.

  “Kieran!” Grant shouted from far behind.

  Smoke clouded the landscape. Burning piles of con-plas littered the ground, leaving an acrid stench. Kieran had long since abandoned any notion of a plan or a search pattern, and he pulled his sleeve over his mouth, running into the wreckage.

  “Kieran, slow down.” Grant caught his shoulder and spun him around.

  Kieran blinked. His eyes caught on something fleshy. A charred arm lay across the ground, the rest of the body nowhere to be seen. He dropped to his knees. The arm was red and black, bubbled and disfigured. Where the flesh had melted away shone bright white bone. “It’s bone,” panted Kieran. Not alloy.

  “What?”

  Kieran stumbled ahead. His eyes darted from jagged, torn supports to scattered, flaming cargo containers. Chemical’s in the air stung, but he blinked back tears and pushed on.

  “Look!” Grant shouted and pushed past. He couldn’t see what Grant saw, but he followed him running into the haze.

  Something small and pale lay in a clear patch.

  “Sarrin!” He pushed his legs even faster, screaming, “Sarrin! Sarrin!”

  She lay curled into a ball, smeared with dirt and completely naked. They stood stock still, three paces from her. Kieran’s eye caught on the new brand over her ribs. “Is she…?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Grant.

  Her body jerked with a sharp inhale. Kieran threw himself to the ground next to her. Her shoulder trembled, cold under his hand. Her eyes stared at ahead, unblinking and unseeing. “Sarrin?”

  Another jolt wracked her tiny frame. Her crystal blue eyes went wide, searching back and forth. Startlingly, they focussed on Kieran. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered, too weak to move away.

  “Gods,” muttered Grant. “Come on, we have to get her out of here.”

  Kieran threw his jacket over her and lifted her into his arms. So much for observation only. He knew he’d lost himself in this, but it didn’t matter.

  Her hand fumbled, groping for the side of her head. Blood streaked through her hair and across her face.

  Kieran gasped. “Jesus.”

  Grant pulled back her hair. “It’s not that bad.”

  She reached for her head again. “We have tracking chips.”

  Grant reached for his own temple.

  “I killed them all,” she said, her voice gravely and quiet. Her hands dug into Kieran’s shirt, dried blood flaking from them. “Don’t touch me.”

  He pulled her closer.

  “Pretend you’re asleep, Sar.” Grant rubbed ash onto her cheeks, blotting away the moisture that tore bright streaks through the dirt there. “No one cries in Evangecore,” he explained.

  Kieran felt her slump even further into his arms, her eyes closed, arm hanging limp. Only the desperate grip on his shirt told him she was still awake, still alive.

  He brought her back to the shuttled, the others crowding around. Some reached out to touch her, murmuring with a both awe and dread.

  In his arms, she didn’t react, a perfect mimic of unconsciousness, her head rolling unnaturally to the side.

  Grant pushed Kieran onto the shuttle, forcing him all the way to the front and into the co-pilot seat with Sarrin on his lap. He barely waited for the others to board before he closed the hatch and engaged the thrusters, taking them away from the planet.

  He pulled her tight to him, even as her grip relented and she slipped away.

  TWENTY-TWO

  SARRIN LAID STILL A LONG time, her back to the room, pretending to be asleep. She stared at the starchart on the wall, studying every detail. It held a dramatic appeal, something she couldn’t quite name, but it captured her attention completely. Another mystery she couldn’t solve.

  Kieran watched her from across the room. He slumped tiredly. He had slept a little earlier, but not much.

  Her body felt dead. A constant sensation of falling held her down. Even if she wanted to turn around, she wasn’t sure if she could. She was caught in the grav-well all over again. Her heart beat at a steady forty beats-per-minute, the pulse shaking her body with every push of blood, reminding her that she was very much, in fact, alive.

  The door chimed, and Kieran rose to answer it. Hoepe’s voice carried into the room: “How is she?”

  Kieran grunted once, rubbing a tired hand sloppily over his face. “Still asleep.”

  “Do you need anything? You should try to get some rest.”

  “No, I’m alright. Everything going okay in Engineering?”

  “Yes, I was just there.”

  “Any luck with the FTL?”

  A pause. “No, not yet.”

  “Warship?”

  “No sign. We’re taking out everyone’s tracking chips. So far, Sarrin’s is the only one that was active.”

  Another pause, and the muffled sound of something exchanging hands. “Rayne found her these.”

  “Thanks.”

  The door closed and sealed. Kieran shuffled back, leaving the parcel on the table before dropping himself into the chair.

  “How did your sister die?” The question surprised Sarrin as it came past her lips.

  “Huh?”

  Her mind had latched onto something in Kieran’s incongruous room, and she needed to know why. She repeated herself.

  He paused a long time. “It’s been a long couple days,” he said.

  “I want to know.” It felt different to be asking the questions, but maybe some small part of her had earned it.

  He finally admitted, “Old age.”

  Surprised, Sarrin rolled over to study the picture on the nightstand, even though its image had been perfectly etched in her memory. “She’s younger than you,” she observed.

  “Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck, staring at a spot on the floor. “That’s the problem with time, isn’t it? It’s always relative.”

  Indeed. Some days were long. Others were short. “How old are you?”

  He laughed, once quick and sad. “Twenty-three.”

  “How old was your sister?”

  His lips pressed together, twisting to the side in thought. “I’m not quite sure. I got word that she had died a few weeks before I went to the academy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Kieran quirked a smile, but it didn’t reach the rest of his features.


  Sarrin studied the picture again. “You loved her?”

  He nodded. “I’d give anything to see her again. I miss her everyday.” His voice cracked and he dropped his head in his two hands.

  Sarrin turned away, his grief slamming into her full force. She pushed down a sob. What a fool she had been, with her brother just down the hall. She hadn’t said two words to him.

  But Kieran’s sister dying of old age made no sense. Relativity didn’t apply unless travelling at sub-luminal speeds — grav-hole FTL jumps were instantaneous. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Don’t understand what?”

  “How your sister died when you’re so young.”

  A strange expression passed across his face. “Sarrin, try to get some sleep.”

  A thought occurred. “Unless you’ve been travelling near the speed of light and she wasn’t.” Her eyes locked on his.

  “I shouldn’t have told you any of that.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I don’t know.” He sighed, slumping back in his chair again. “Maybe… maybe because you remind me of her.”

  Thoughts started to combine: his strange expressions, unexpected solutions, the unknown quality about him and his room. “You come from a place that exists outside standard time?”

  “Yes.” He gauged her, staring intently into her eyes. “I grew up on a ship travelling nine-tenths the speed of light. We —.”

  Her heart raced, and the last three days were forgotten. “An Observer? I remember my — my friend told me stories.” Observers lived for centuries, seeing everything from their ship in the stars. “I think she was encouraging me to behave.”

  The corners of his lips eased up. “I can’t imagine how much trouble you were as a child.”

  “But I can see you?” she whispered.

  He laughed out loud, the melodious sound stirring her chest. “I don’t know what your stories say, but I’m still just human.”

  Human — the thing that she wasn’t. She swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “What are you doing here?”