by M. D. Cooper
“Does that mean you were glad to leave or wanted to stay?”
“Ready to go,” Jirl said with a small laugh. “You know me.”
“Yes, I do.”
They passed the office where Jirl had intended to plant the data stick and continued to an unused conference room with sound-proof plas walls. People could see them from the corridor but wouldn’t be able to hear anything they said.
Jirl wanted to get Arla talking. She could see that her boss was anxious but didn’t want to assume it was about her. Until now, Arla had never given her any indication of mistrust. She turned Arla’s words in her mind, reviewing them from the perspective of a woman who had no one to talk to, who’s only confidant had just returned. That was a possible explanation. If Arla had decided to distrust her for some reason, Jirl felt it wasn’t like her to draw out an interrogation. She would strike and move on. That was her way.
Whatever she was going to do, she needed to get away and plant the data stick. Tristan would be hitting the building any minute now if he’d been able to escape the TSF complex. Jirl needed to complete her portion of the plan. After that, it didn’t matter what Arla tried to do to her.
“Bothering me?” Arla asked, continuing to speak aloud. “Nothing’s wrong. In fact, I feel good.” She looked around the generic conference room, taking a moment to watch the employees passing in the hallway outside.
Jirl waited, watching her.
“It’s nice down here,” Arla said finally. “Relaxing. You almost feel anonymous, but I can tell a few of them recognize me and do their best to just keep walking. They flick their eyes this way, see me, and they stiffen. Why do you think that is?”
Frowning, Jirl said, “It’s always been like that. You’re a member of the board.”
Arla chuckled. “You being you, I know you’ve been keeping abreast of everything happening while you were gone. But you wouldn’t know about the board because it’s been very close-hold. They’re going to announce tomorrow.”
“Announce what?”
Without looking at her, Arla said, “I’m out. They’ll hold the vote tomorrow morning and it will be done. Quite a lot has changed since you left.”
“I was only gone two weeks, Arla.”
“A lifetime. You know what else I’ve been up to? I destroyed one of our clinics.”
Jirl’s blood went cold. “Why?” she asked. “Which one?”
“A cognitive research facility not far from Venus. There was an attack on it by some pirates that turned out to be a joint TSF-Marsian task force. That was strange.” Arla shrugged. “I learned about the attack through some very interesting channels. Without my Jirl here to interpret information for me, I had to turn to new sources in the TSF, folks who don’t like your Colonel Yarnes as much as you do. Turns out he’d requisitioned one of the ships that was picked up by the clinic. And he’d been in contact with General Kade from the Mars Protectorate, the very one who died in the clinic termination. That’s very interesting.”
Jirl glanced at the window past Arla’s head, where a woman was pushing a catering cart loaded with coffee service and pastries. She hoped for a moment the worker would stop at the conference room door and inform them it was scheduled, giving her an excuse to stand and move. The data key poked her as she shifted, a bead of sweat running down her chest.
“I realized something I’d forgotten about, Jirl,” Arla continued. “I have the power right here to destroy every remote facility we operate.” She stabbed an imaginary button on the table. “Isn’t that exciting?”
Jirl had calmed her breathing as Arla spoke. She focused her thoughts on a litany of questions: What does she want? Where is she taking this conversation? Is she a rational actor or has the loss of her board seat sent her over the edge into somewhere… else?
What would losing it look like for Arla Reed?
“There are thousands of people on those clinics,” Jirl said carefully. “An evacuation would be better. They would scrub the data. It would look better in the newsfeeds. Heartbridge could call it a realignment.”
“Oh, I’m done with Heartbridge,” Arla said. “If I’ve learned anything from Special Projects Division, it’s that data wants to be free. Once it exists, once we’ve even dreamed it—it will be free. It will enter the world.”
There was a tremor in Arla’s right eye that looked stress-induced. Jirl wondered if she might convince her boss to visit one of the stress rooms where she could lounge in the dark for a while.
“I spoke to Kathryn Carthage,” Arla said suddenly.
“When?” Jirl asked.
“Two days ago. She had just finished with another of her anti-SAI rants to the Assembly. She’s never forgiven me for her son.”
“Why should she, honestly?”
A crease appeared in Arla’s brow.
“Because it’s the past and I can’t change it. The problem is that she’s pushing the Assembly into a hardline stance against non-organic sentience, and it might not turn out well. Someone else came to see me, Jirl.”
Arla reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out a silver cylinder with flat ends about five centimeters long. It looked like one of the Weapon Born seeds but was much too small. She stood it on end on the table’s surface, in the same spot where her imaginary clinic-destruct button had been.
“I’d like you to meet Camaris. This is her shard, as she calls it.”
As if the cylinder had been listening, the light spray of a holodisplay’s projection skirt burst in a disc from its top, filling the room just above their heads. The light sparkled, then focused to a point on the chair on the opposite side of the table, where a red-tinted holo of a woman with straight black hair and a narrow jaw now sat. Her eyes were a solid black without pupils. She gave Jirl a pleasant smile.
“Hello, Jirl Gallagher,” she said. “I am Camaris Rota.”
Jirl gave Arla an uncertain glance. “I’m pleased to meet you, Camaris,” she said. “Are you teleconferencing in?”
The woman smiled. “Of a sorts. The shard is a version of me that allows most of my consciousness to be present in different parts of Sol where distance makes my direct attention difficult. The shard checks in with me to ensure concurrence.”
“You’re an AI,” Jirl said.
Camaris nodded. “I prefer non-organic intelligence, but these are just labels.”
Jirl swallowed. An idea sparked in the bottom of her mind as events aligned with the information Yarnes had just given her about the fleet closing on Ceres.
“Do you know Alexander?” Jirl asked slowly.
The woman’s face went hard. “I know him. I do not serve him, if that’s what you think. In fact, with your assistance, I wish to destroy him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
STELLAR DATE: 01.15.2982 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies, docked with Traverna
REGION: Jovian L1 Hildas Asteroids, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
Hanging on to the side of the shuttle door, Andy let Cara adjust his EV suit closures. He tried to focus on her fingers as they manipulated the seals—something that should have been easy for him—but he kept forgetting where she had been just seconds before. He felt like he was watching individual frames of a vid that disappeared in sequence, adding up to blankness.
“There you go,” she said. “It’s all set.”
He nodded.
he answered, then forgot to thank Cara. In another frame, she was sitting beside him in her own EV suit and Fran sat in the shuttle’s pilot seat. Fugia buckled in across from Cara and froze in time, staring at him. In another frame, she was talking to Fran. Andy caught a glimpse of Harl through the shuttle’s cargo door before it slid closed, and then the next thing he knew, the shuttle had left Sunny Skies.
He sat with his helmet in his lap, his harness h
olding him to his seat.
“Did you buckle your helmet, Dad?” Cara asked.
Andy looked down at the thing in his lap and then back at her, not understanding.
“Should I put it on?” he asked.
Cara reached over to attach the helmet to his harness. It still floated in his hands but couldn’t get away.
“So it doesn’t hit anybody when Fran uses the engines,” Cara explained.
Andy gave her a slight smile, overwhelmed with pride. Images of her as a baby and toddler flashed in his mind with the vid frames, and then Cara sat next to him, already looking like a young woman.
A tickle of pain crossed his forehead. He imagined the feeling as tiny spiders with needle legs crawling across his scalp. It was the start of a migraine. After the spiders came the lightning forks. Andy closed his eyes, then squeezed them tighter, preparing himself for the waves of pain.
His stomach shifted as Fran executed the flight plan for the short hop between Sunny Skies to the Traverna port. Andy used the sensations in his arms and legs to try and distract himself from the pain. Strangely, he felt most in control of his mind during the headaches, but the pain made it even more difficult to think. If he didn’t stop himself from moaning, he would have Cara asking him what was wrong.
He focused on the movement of Fran’s agile fingers over the console, and in another few minutes the brightly lit exterior of a set of cargo bay doors loomed in front of the shuttle windows as Fran matched spin.
Andy blinked, feeling time skip again as the heavy vibration of the shuttle’s main maglocks connected with the landing deck, and internal gravity dropped his helmet in his lap. They were inside the station.
He felt like he’d made the statement before. He needed to repeat it again. He didn’t want them coming here just for him. But it wasn’t just for him; they had to ensure Lyssa’s safety as well. If he was breaking down, that meant she would need to be extracted, placed in a mech or drone like the other Weapon Born. What if they put her in an android like Riggs Zanda had used to try and board the Sunny Skies? They had looked so human.
For an instant, he was back in the corridor outside the Sunny Skies’ main airlock, waiting for Zanda to board, sweat trickling down his temple, worried about the kids.
“Dad,” Cara said. “Are you coming?”
She stood in the open door, holding out a hand. Andy looked down at his harness and found it was already unlatched. His helmet now hung from the front of his suit. He tapped a drumbeat on it as he stepped out of the shuttle, walking down the short steps to the deck bounding into the air with each step in the low gravity.
They were in a mid-sized cargo bay stacked with maglocked crates. The walls were made of mismatched pieces of metal, seams raggedly welded. Mismatched lights shown from odd angles, bathing the bay in mottled yellow-white light. An observation window looked down from above, where a few people sat at consoles probably tracking shipping manifests. They didn’t have cargo though. He was the cargo.
“Come on, Dad,” Cara said. He let her take his hand and lead him through a smaller interior airlock. On the other side was a wide corridor lined with lean-to vendor’s stalls.
“No security?” he asked Fran.
She gave him a smile. “Welcome to Traverna. This place makes Cruithne look like a maximum-security prison.”
The world freeze-framed again as they walked through the first corridor crowded with shoppers and workers struggling with cargo sleds or other crude haulers. The air smelled of sweat and heavy spices from cooking food. Fast haggling came from several directions. Cara squeezed his hand, reminding him that he was anchored to something. He let her pull him through the throng, following Fran. Fugia brought up the rear of their line.
Fran found a lift and they crowded inside with other people that didn’t fit any stereotype Andy could identify. A rash of fireworks in his head made him squeeze his eyes closed again, fighting a wave of dizziness from the pain. He felt like something inside his skull was digging its way out, scratching and clawing.
The lift rose, bringing a separate wave of nausea as weightlessness teased his stomach. Sensations in his body lasted longer than perceptions. He was inside the lift and then outside in another corridor, Cara still squeezing his hand.
Fran spoke to a man with a rifle standing in front of a reinforced metal door, passing him a cash token. The world blinked and then they were walking down another corridor, this one lined by small rooms with medical couches inside. For a second he thought he was back on the Resolute Charity, but everything looked grimy. The hallway was littered with medical debris. They passed a woman sitting with her back against the wall, knees pulled up to a jaundiced face. She looked up at Andy with brilliant blue eyes, opening her mouth. Cara pulled him on.
There was pain in her voice.
His shuffle grew more regular as his legs seemed to move on their own. He stood straighter, and Cara looked back at him in surprise.
“Lyssa’s helping me,” he muttered.
In another blink he was sitting on one of the medical couches in a room that made Heartbridge look like future tech. Boxes with dials and glowing displays sat amongst shipping crates scattered around the room, with more discarded medical waste on the floor. The air smelled like mold and blood.
A man with stringy gray hair stood in front of Andy, peering at his right eye. He held up a tool with a glowing dot at one end and pointed it at Andy’s retina. A new headache hit Andy like a hammer.
He clutched at his temples, turning his face away. “Stop,” he said. His voice seemed to emerge in another room. “Who is this guy?”
“He’s the doc, Andy,” Fran said, a stern note in her voice. “He’s going to perform the surgery.”
“I’m going to see if I can perform the surgery,” the man corrected. “I don’t know what bad shit you got mixed up in. I’m not finding any tracking information on the upgrade. Where did you buy it?”
“What’s your name?” Andy managed to ask.
“Don’t worry about my name.”
Andy grabbed his wrist with strength he hadn’t expected. The man’s forearm twisted, rotating the burning light away from Andy’s eye, and the surgeon squealed in pain.
“Andy!” Fran shouted. He blinked, and then she was standing beside him, a hand on his shoulder. “Let him go, Andy.”
Cara was holding his free hand again. “Dad, please. He’s going to help us.”
“Yes,” the surgeon said. “I’ll try if you let go. You can call me Fryson.”
“Fryson,” Andy said. He squinted through the headache, trying to get a better look at the man. Eyes, mouth and nose swam in an unrecognizable mess.
Andy released Fryson’s arm and put his hands on the edge of the medical couch, which he saw was covered in stains.
“Thank you,” Fryson said. “Now why don’t you lie down here so we can get the scan completed.”
With Cara’s help, Andy lay back on the couch and looked up at the dented metal ceiling. The room was divided by another of the ragged
weld seams that had scarred the cargo bay.
An arc of white plas appeared over his head, reminding him of the machine Kraft had placed over Tim’s head during the imaging process. A wave of blue light passed over his eyes from right to left. The process repeated several times as Fryson moved at the edge of his vision, stringy gray hair catching the blue light.
“You’re sure you don’t know where this came from?” Fryson asked. “Look, if you really want me to help him, I need all the info I can get. Otherwise I could very well kill him by just attempting access. Some of this biotech is really nasty when it doesn’t want to be messed with.”
Fran made a growling sound. “Fine,” she said. “As far as I know it’s a project that was developed by Heartbridge medical, but there may be tech involved from another company called Psion. The scientist who developed this implant came from there.”
“Heartbridge,” Fryson mused.
“If you sell me out,” Fran continued, “I will track you down and end you, you understand me? I’m not known well here, but you look me up on Cruithne and they’ll verify. I’ll put you out an airlock before you can whimper.”
“Hey,” the surgeon said. “Hey, I told you I would help and I will. This is Traverna. You think I’d still be alive if I talked about what I saw?”
“You don’t exactly look like you’re rolling in cash here,” Fugia said.
Andy squinted at the light, trying to remember when he had last seen Fugia. In the shuttle. No, in the corridor with the cooking food. Had she gone somewhere else? He reached for Cara and she took his hand again, anchoring him. He wished he could see her face.
“I spend my money where it counts,” Fryson said.
“On briki from the looks of it,” Fugia said.
“You don’t know me. And it doesn’t matter. You want me to check him out or not?”
“Do it,” Fran told the surgeon.
Andy felt a prick in his arm and immediately wanted to get off the couch. He wanted to hit Fryson, grab Cara and get out of the room. Before he could move, a wave of lethargy rolled over him, like sinking beneath a vast ocean.
