The Deep Link (The Ascendancy Trilogy Book 1)

by Sicoe, Veronica

  We exit the ventilation shaft on top of a pile of pressurized crates. It's dark except for a couple of dim, red strobe lights warning us that decontamination is currently underway.

  The Transiter is parked on polyfoam-cushioned buffers. An unsightly bundle of cable entrails hangs out of its cracked hull to trail along the coolant-dampened floor toward the diagnostics terminal.

  We walk up to the hatch, and Jade takes a flexpad out of his pocket and peels a corner open with his fingernail. He pulls out an optical fiber relay, licks its needle-thin plug and inserts it into a tiny hole in the left gasket of the hatch. The gasket is backlit by a blue light and the optical fiber pulses with blue sparks, as the flexpad and the Transiter talk to each other.

  "Learned this trick from Vik," Jade says. "Pretty cool, eh?"

  The hatch hisses open and Jade hoists himself up on deck. I follow, and notice the three chairs have been removed. I crouch next to a jumble of cables springing from where the projector used to be, and watch Jade connect to the main computer. Then he sits next to me.

  He pulls a small plastic casing out of his pocket. It contains a sterilizer and a cell-spray, an injector with a tranquilizing cocktail, and a set of medical instruments for implanting temporary tags. It's the kind used for emergency synet replacements in case of EM-pulse attacks during military deployments.

  He meets my gaze. "Still wanna do this?"

  "We got this far, right?" I take the injector out of his hand. "We won't be needing this, though. Drugging me is not gonna work."

  "Want me to cut your skull open raw?"

  "The MD pumped me full of these. They had no effect on me other than pissing me off. You don't want me pissed off."

  He rolls his eyes and pulls the instruments out of their rubber fixtures. I lay face-down on the floor, forehead resting on my forearms. He takes a deep breath. I hear a short hiss, and feel the cool dampness of the sterilizing spray on the back of my neck.

  Jade palpates my vertebrae with steady fingers, then pricks my skin with the tripod that stabilizes a gamma drill. The rays coalesce and cut into my skin, cauterizing their way straight into my spine. It hurts, but not as bad as I expected.

  Jade breathes shallowly above me. "There, that's it. I'm in."

  The back of my head starts to burn. Waves of heat run up and down my back.

  Jade inserts the synet dispenser next, and a stabbing flash of pain pierces my skull. I try to ignore it, focus elsewhere, think of other things, distract myself. It doesn't work. The pain intensifies. I clench my jaw.

  "Done," Jade says. "But don't move yet. The slot's still in. I have to check if the synet unfolded correctly."

  My jaw hurts from the grinding pressure. I try to breathe steadily, exhale the pain. It doesn't work.

  Jade takes out his flexpad, disinfects the plug he licked earlier, and sticks it into the carbon nanotube slot sticking out the back of my head.

  I cringe under a million burning stings.

  "Did it work?" I whisper, trying not to move my head.

  "Give me a sec."

  Whatever happened, I'm prepared for it. I can take it. Even if the new synet will report some neural damage, or an alien disease. I can handle it. One way or another.

  "There's nothing," Jade mumbles.

  "What?"

  "I'm not getting any feedback from the synet at all. My pad tells me it's right where it should be, but there's just nothing coming from it."

  "Let me see." I push myself up and turn around.

  He protests, but I snatch the flexpad from his hand and run a few checks myself. Blood rushes through me as my pulse accelerates, making me queasy. I give him back the device. My vision narrows and spins. Cold sweat runs down my skin, and I start to hyperventilate. All my senses howl in an inarticulate mess.

  I fall backward on the deck and lose consciousness.

  When I come to, Jade is bent over me with a desperate look on his face. His sits me up and hugs me.

  "What happened?" I ask, and free myself from his hug. My head aches something fierce.

  "Not sure." He slides his hand through my sweaty hair, touching the back of my neck. I push him away and shudder.

  He frowns with concern. "You're really not well, Bug-Nut. You went into some sort of shock, started convulsing and thrashing. I tried to pull the live-wire out, but it melted and came out together with the plug and synet and all. It's fried. I've no idea how that's even possible. The temperature needed to melt carbon nanotubes is ridiculous. You should have severe burns, but there's nothing."

  I rub the back of my neck and find my skin intact. There's no trace of a hole, or burn, or even a scar.

  Jade holds up the optical fiber. A small black knot dangles from its tip, the size of a rice corn—a carbonized, frizzy mess of micro-thin circuitry.

  I lean forward. The smell of disinfectant and ozone instantly triggers a vivid memory of Amharr strangling me. I jerk away from Jade and clutch at my neck.

  "I'm sorry," Jade says.

  "It's okay." I breathe deeply, shoving the fear back down. "It's fine."

  I get up, walk to the hatch and jump out of the Transiter. Jade comes after me, huffing in frustration. "I'm really sorry, Taryn. I did everything right. I don't understand—"

  "It's fine, Jade. Thank you, really. Just … let me get some rest, okay?"

  I climb into the open shaft, and worm my way back out through the Station's guts. I retreat into my room, wishing I could dissolve into the ether and escape.

  10

  Several kinds of death scroll through Bray's mind as he marches down the corridor toward Preston's room. He could be shredded by TMC plasma or titanium volleys, or be ripped to pieces by the claws of a monstrous alien. He could suffocate when the Station's life support dies out, or when his refurbished skinsuit eventually malfunctions.

  As he walks on, glancing out the corridor's portholes, he notices air escaping through the cracks in one of the outer modules. A disabled maintenance drone, tied up with steel cables to the wheel of a door, floats above the damaged section like a long forgotten promise of mending. The whole station—with its improvised crew scurrying through the corridors like rats in a decaying mechanical maze—seems increasingly absurd.

  Bray stops in a maintenance junction and waits for a drone to finish mounting a diagnostic device before he can pass. One of the drone's arms has been replaced with a motorized gripper, and three plasma charges are taped to its back as a makeshift battery. A blowtorch is screwed to the side of its gripper.

  The drone lights the blowtorch and aims it at the panel. The flames erupt in an uncontrolled burst, spreading all over the place instead of focusing on a spot. The whole maneuver looks hair-raisingly dangerous, flames spewing around the bomb on the drone's back.

  Bray walks past it as quickly as possible, adding a new potential death source to his list.

  The Station's quarters are almost empty. Everyone seems to be going about their business somewhere else. Bray's footsteps echo into the corridor, the rhythmic pounding of his heels making him think of incoming gunfire. He's not the kind of guy who constantly worries about dying, not really, it's just that he worries about dying too soon. If there's anything life has taught him, it's that death is often premature and comes from the unlikeliest source.

  The immigrant orphanage at the edge of Piazzi—the largest colony on Bessel's Eye—was the only home Bray's ever known. Wasn't much of a home either. Built by the local government and funded by the Trust as a way to buy themselves the option to recruit minors for the TMC, the orphanage was a flophouse for immigrant kids. Most of them came to Piazzi illegally on cargo freighters or stuffed between the luggage on passenger ships, their parents either dead from the grueling travel conditions, gone missing, or simply uninterested.

  The orphanage was run by a bunch of colonial service and welfare officers, occasional volunteers, and freaks looking for easy access to children for a whole host of reasons. It was built cheap, near the edge of Piazzi where t
he colony dome generators roared continuously, shaking the ground as they strained to keep the hemispherical forcefield intact above the city. A perfect location for the colony's scum. The kids grew up to know a side of colonial life most respectable citizens usually repressed.

  Bray was fourteen when he finally parted ways with his caretaker, a man named Alfred Nykänen—a pervert and addict he liked to call Nugh, after the sound he made when he came. Their 'arrangement' ended abruptly when Bray managed to steal a gun from a drunk ensign. He used it on Nugh the way Nugh had taught him long objects could be used on people. Nugh didn't like it the other way around. It ended quickly, though. This toy had a trigger.

  Bray fled into the city, and succeeded eluding arrest for a whole month. But there isn't much stealth and strategy to a hungry boy, and he ended up in a correctional facility for underage delinquents. Later he was 'enrolled' into an asteroid prison camp where he almost died. Then Preston found him.

  Bray stops before a rotating door that's cracked open and disgorging a greenish light. He takes a deep breath, completes the wheel's rotation, and pushes against the dead weight.

  "Hey doc." He makes his way in between workbenches and racks filled with spare parts, circuit boards, and containers.

  Preston is hunched over his desk in the corner, behind a pile of data crystals and sensor recording modules. The projector on his desk is twirling a blurred rendition of the green alien's head. Preston's attention is glued to it.

  "Taryn said the aliens left." Bray looks in vain for a place to sit. Hopefully he doesn't look as relieved as he feels, knowing he won't have to fly out to those goddamn beasts again.

  Preston turns and inspects him. Several contradictory expressions chase across his face, fatigue winning in the end. "What's she got?"

  "Not much. She says they're not interested in starting relations with us. Like I said, they're hostile. We're lucky they didn't attack us."

  "You believe her?" Preston has that weird look like he knows something he won't tell. It pisses Bray off.

  "Makes sense to me," he replies. "Why would they want to get involved with us if we're so far below their tech level? They figured we're uninteresting and left. I think we should do the same."

  "What about her med scans? Any traces of that advanced technology on Miss Harber?"

  "No. I mean... I don't know. Aaron wasn't there when I talked to her, but I don't think he found anything."

  Preston curls his lip, and turns back to his projector.

  He brings up a keyboard and starts coding, line after line scrolling up through the air above his hands. His glasses start to glow in bright colors as they overlay their analysis over Preston's code.

  As the doc hacks his way through terabytes of data, Bray tries to imagine what it must feel like to fiddle with technology at that level. He's always been envious of hackers and tech-punks. It's as though they have access to another layer of reality, one he's too obtuse to understand.

  The doc sifts through Taryn's medical records and all the scans since she came back. He runs the information through a set of constantly adapting criteria as if through a flexible sieve, and compares the results. He snorts at Aaron's casual note of Taryn's missing synet, and his interpretation of the irregular patterns in her brain as 'atypical seizure symptoms.'

  Preston eventually pauses on a recording of Taryn and Aaron in the medbay, and leans back in his chair, scratching his beard.

  "What's going on?" Bray asks.

  Preston rummages through one of the many open boxes next to him, then jams a data crystal into a slot on the edge of the desk. A list of names, maps, blueprints, and assorted data starts scrolling before him.

  A logo swirling on top of the database copy draws Bray's attention. It's a symbol comprised of the letters D and S, back to back, forming the abstract head and horns of a bull. He's seen this logo before, but can't remember what it means. Before he gets a chance to ask, Preston switches the projector back to the medbay recording. He looks at Bray, pursing his lips.

  An uncanny feeling creeps through Bray's gut. "What is it?"

  "Aaron found something after all, even if he doesn't know what it is. But I do."

  Bray lifts his eyebrows. "And?"

  "Keep a close eye on Miss Harber from now on. I want to know everything she does. Where she goes, what she says, what she doesn't say. Everything."

  "I don't understand."

  "You don't have to," Preston snorts. "Just do as I say."

  "Does this have anything to do with the aliens?"

  Preston stands up, and starts searching for something through the mess by his desk.

  "Does it?" Bray insists, anxiety nibbling at him.

  Preston turns around and grins at him, holding another data crystal in his hand. "You keep an eye on her until I get what I want, and maybe I'll let you rectify your screw-up another way."

  "How?"

  "If I'm right, Miss Harber brought us a gift back from that alien ship."

  He turns back to his projector and scrolls forward to a still of Taryn grabbing Aaron by the neck. Preston overlays the image with a filter, and marks something for Bray to look at.

  Taryn's hand is piercing the alcove's restraining field as if it's bursting out of a soap bubble. Bray shakes his head, unsure what to make of it.

  "It can't get any more obvious than that," Preston says impatiently. "Something in her nervous system has changed. It's all over the scans, even if Aaron doesn't get it. No normal person can break out of a restraining field like that—not after they've been injected with a double dose of tranquilizers. There's also the manner of her return to consider: popping into existence in a cargo bay, no trace of the alien ship anywhere near us. I'm quite certain they did something to her."

  Bray instinctively recoils from the projection.

  "And you're going to find out what. I'll talk to Miss Harber myself, but it's important that you keep a close eye on her. And don't let her notice. We can't risk a slip in case she's being used against us."

  "Used against us? I—what— Are you sure the medbay scanners didn't just malfunction? Maybe it's a glitch in the recording. Or maybe she's—" Bray swallows. "What if she's infected with some alien disease?"

  "No. Her nerves and neurons don't show any signs of deterioration or decay compared to the deep-scan we took of her when she first came aboard. On the contrary, her peripheral nervous system shows an almost tripled increase in the number of axons. It's branching out through her body at incredible speed. Her central nervous system glows with electrical impulses like a torch, and her neocortex... Here, look at the difference." He flips back and forth between three neural scans, one from Taryn's first day on the station two months ago, one from her admission into the medbay, and one from last night, showing Taryn tossing in the alcove, having nightmares.

  "Let's say you're right," Bray humors him, trying to figure out how he could keep himself out of trouble if that's really the case. "What do we do with her?"

  "I have quite a few ideas... But first I have to contact some old friends on San Gabriel."

  Bray's stomach tightens. San Gabriel is one of the most militarized colonies in the entire Confederacy, a definite no-go for outcasts like them. What does Preston want there? Bray thinks back to the logo he's seen earlier, but however much he tries, he can't remember what it means. It's definitely nothing good, though. Nothing safe.

  Preston switches the projector off and scowls at him. "I thought you'd be glad I'm not sending you back out to deal with the aliens."

  "I am," Bray replies quickly.

  "Good. Mind your new job, then. We'll head out to San Gabriel as soon as we get the Transiter repaired. Vik's already working with the technicians to put together an FTL engine that can move part of the Station."

  "So soon? But I thought—"

  "We've got no time to waste."

  "But it's suicide, doc! The Ticks'll arrest us the moment we land."

  "It will all be taken care of," Preston says. "If
you don't want to come with us, fine. You can always fly back out to make peace with the aliens..."

  Bray's tongue goes dry. He swallows thickly, and nods.

  Preston smiles. "I thought so."

  11

  I've been pacing around my room for quite some time, not knowing what to do.

  Without a synet, without the possibility to fly a ship or hide my tracks in colony networks, I'm right back at square one. Worse, I'm stuck out here with Preston and his crew. I'd love nothing more than to be on the front lines, seeing to it that the TMC's cycle of conquest and exploitation is ended. If their treatment of the Dorylinae—the only sentients humanity has encountered so far—taught us anything, it's that they're unfit to lead us into a prosperous future along the other advanced species in this galaxy. But Preston and his bunch won't get us any closer to that future either, especially not since their only trump—the chance to make some allies the TMC knows nothing about—is off the table now.

  "I see you've recovered." Preston stands in my doorway, hands in his pockets. "It's time we talked."

  I sigh. "Ask away."

  "Actually, I'll start by telling you something." He steps in and closes the door behind him. "Your brain chemistry was altered. The aliens changed your entire nervous system's functions."

  My heart climbs up in my throat.

  He paces slowly around the small room, then turns to face me. "Have you ever been to San Gabriel, Miss Harber?"

  "Excuse me?"

  San Gabriel, where they failed to start a revolution twenty years ago? The Ticks executed dozens of people for that, including the resistance leader. Markan? Maican? I don't remember. My parents used to talk about him in hushed voices. Said he was crazy, but that it took being crazy to face the TMC on their own terms. He failed anyway. And San Gabriel never recovered.

  I shake my head.

  Preston's smile is cold. "I have old friends on San Gabriel. They have some influence and access to resources, despite working in rather precarious conditions. And they're willing to grant me the funds and equipment necessary to study what the aliens did to you. Maybe even undo it, if you'd like."