by K. Gorman
In retrospect, that was a weird sentence to say. And she was glad she was alone with Tia when she said it.
Technically, they could have this entire conversation in thought, but she preferred to speak out loud when they were alone. It helped keep the two of them separate.
Minor upgrades. Some things we did in the tank need tweaks.
“Things such as bone density and muscle growth?” she guessed.
No, those are relatively automatic. I’m tweaking response and reaction time, amongst other, less exciting subroutines.
“You make me sound like a computer.”
Given that my main body exists as a cybernetic brain in a tank, I’m not sure what you expected.
She chuckled. “You got me there.”
All joking aside, the human body is very similar to computation, albeit less efficient in some areas and prone to strange, incurable deviations like the ALS that plagued me. It takes more time, creativity, and experience in biology to tweak, but―lucky for you―I have a lifetime’s worth of experience.
“Just very…old experience.”
It still works―but, yes, the modern nano was a nice upgrade.
There she went, speaking in computer terms again.
Karin gave her head a shake. “So what do you think? Have these goose-chase missions been worthwhile, or do you think I’m right and I should be exploring the alternate dimension powers instead?”
For a moment, Tia didn’t reply. The room ticked around them, quiet and empty. Relaxing. It felt dry in here, and cool, as opposed to the heat of the desert canyon they’d been in and the humidity of the jungle they were traveling to, and there was a scent to the air—metal with something akin to rubber.
I stand by my thoughts earlier: Yes, I think they’re stopping you from using your powers and keeping you busy, for whatever reason. It smells political, to me, but we don’t have enough information yet to diagnose it properly, so to speak.
Tia paused, and Karin felt the hesitation as the woman collected her thoughts and weighed her words.
These missions have been good in expanding your combat experience and test-running your combat routines in real-life scenarios, she said, her tone quiet and careful, clipped. However, you didn’t go into the Cradle to become a super soldier.
Karin sighed. “No, I did not.”
Dimensional transitions are new to me, as well. I never got to use my powers―not really, and most definitely not fully. They put my body to sleep long before I grew to my full potential.
“Men suck,” Karin said.
Yes, they do. That’s why we’re going to kill them.
“How do you know that they’re still alive? It’s been seventy years, and, as I recall, anti-aging stuff was still prohibitively expensive back then.”
They were alive eight years ago when they were experimenting on you, Tia pointed out. I’m willing to bet that they’re still here.
She winced as the memory of her being in the Macedonian Cradle came to her―and then again as she remembered the Lost baby they had found inside it, isolated but still remarkably…in stasis after all of these years.
Fallon had it, now. From what she knew, they were taking as good care of the child as they could.
Heads up, you’ve got company.
Karin snapped back to attention with a jolt, quickly scanning the room. For a second, it was as if nothing had changed. Everything was still quiet, subdued. Calming. The lights were as they had been, and she could feel them with her other set of powers, the now lesser Eos line.
But the air was different. And something in the back of her mind tingled, feeling the change in the dimension ripple.
Her eyes snapped to a spot next to the door, where the darkness lay thickest.
The Shadow shivered into being like a mirage. Piece by piece, like an intelligent mist pouring in and solidifying. Her senses shifted, feeling the blur at the edge of its form on a visceral level now. It made her gut ring and caused the hairs on the back of her skin to shiver.
Then, it was there.
She stared at it. And, in turn, she felt it stare at her.
Neither of them moved.
Man, the Shadows have gotten fucking weird.
Not that they hadn’t been weird before, but they’d all, for the most part, stopped attacking when they appeared. Perhaps it had been Sasha who had egged them onto the attack in the beginning, but nowadays, they seemed more interested in staring at Karin and making weird comments.
She let out a breath, and settled in to wait, continuing to meet its gaze.
All right, let’s see where this goes.
Seconds passed. Then, half a minute. The Shadow didn’t move. In fact, only the occasional sway or rock, and the swirling of its blackness, gave away that it wasn’t stuck.
They do this when you sleep, too, Tia commented. It spooked me, at first.
That wasn’t surprising to her―the Shadows were, after all, bona-fide creeps. What did surprise her was that Tia had noticed them while she’d been asleep.
I don’t sleep, Tia said, reading her mind.
Karin’s eyebrow arched upward. “You realize how creepy that sounds, right?”
It’s tactically advantageous that I am aware of your surroundings when you are not.
“And here I am, wondering why I’ve been so tired all of the time.”
No, it’s not that. You still get your REM cycles. I monitor them, make sure your brain and body are doing their jobs. The Shadows appear every so often. I can’t see them with your eyes closed, but I can sense their presence through your other senses.
“My other senses?”
They mess with dimensional boundaries, Tia said flatly.
“Oh, do they?” Karin’s eyebrows quirked. That fact was fairly obvious―even a single glance at the Shadow would tell you that it was otherworldly.
But, as she cycled into herself and paid attention, she realized that she could feel it―like a presence coated in a piece of physical radio static.
She frowned, attention focusing on that static. Her fingers flexed, and a thrill went through her.
Then, she reached out, trying to touch that piece of static with her power.
For a moment, there was nothing. The Shadow rippled and shivered, its borders moving in a slight rocking and swelling pattern, like the slow ripple of wind on a calm harbor, or the burn of a candle in a silent room. The piece of electric charge twisted in her senses, danced.
Then, with a click, she felt herself connect.
The Shadow rocked and flinched, as if she’d physically touched it, then rippled higher, like a fire that had hit the wind. She felt its connection pass between her, felt the slip of surprise that it registered, the buzz of its mind.
And, beyond, the buzz of other minds like its.
Then, the Shadow began to fade.
It was gone within seconds, its fragile body slipping away to another dimension as easily as someone putting on a sock. From a physical standpoint, it looked as though it had simply shifted from view.
But, in her mind, she felt it leave. Felt how it turned to its home dimension and stepped in.
She stood, staring at the now empty corner, feeling the distinct rock and hum of the vessel flying through air.
Her hand still tingled from where they had connected.
Well, that was weird.
Your nose is bleeding again, Tia told her. It could probably use some treatment before you rest.
Karin huffed. Then, she did a partial turn, scanned the room, and strode over to the kitchenette. The tissue dispenser rattled as she ripped one out. She scrunched it up, rolled it into something resembling two marijuana joints, tilted her head back, and stuffed them up her nose.
That works.
“Thanks,” she replied, the words coming out clogged as if she had a cold, as she walked back over to the bunk and began to take her armor off. “I try. Just don’t let me bleed to death from my nose while I’m asleep.”
Roger that
.
The remark earned Tia a half-smile. ‘Roger’ was a massively outdated radio term that had long gone out of use in modern communications, but one she loved to use specifically because it irritated her sister. As a pilot, she was more than well-enough versed in modern communications lingo.
“Good night, Tia.”
Have a good sleep. I’ll wake you when we’re there.
Chapter Eight
Eva was five, skinny and long-legged, wearing thin, well-used flip-flops, pink shorts, and a Starcats Princess shirt, and this was not her first time in the jungle.
It was a big space for a little girl. The trees loomed thick and high above her, their canopies a semi-far rustle of leaves and animal chatter. An adult would have had trouble with the game trail―the deer around here were small, little things, and the boar about half her height but dense, and they kept more to the lowlands, anyway. She’d only seen them up here a handful of times.
The breeze lifted, and the sound of insects quieted as the canopy rustled with the swell. When it fell again, the insects picked back up.
She moved downslope at an angle, following the trail. When she got to the tree with the bent face in its rotting trunk and the ants running along the ground, she veered off. Her flip flops made crunching sounds against the old leaf litter.
Then, halfway down, she came to the ruins.
She’d found them a month ago. Five thick slabs of rock with drawings gouged into them, their forms almost overtaken by the jungle. One had been toppled over, the roots of a tree draped over its surface like wooden spaghetti noodles.
A doorway within them whispered at her mind.
She stopped. Hesitated. Through the trees, the tan walls of the compound glared down from the top of the hill, looming. Up above, she could hear some of the other kids playing.
They’d be looking for her, soon. She didn’t have much time.
She lifted her hand, pulled on her power, and walked into another world.
Chapter Nine
“You know that you talk in your sleep, right?”
“Really? What do I say?”
Karin rubbed at her eyes. Despite sleeping for nearly all of the eleven-hour transit―and then some―a heavy tether of exhaustion pulled at her. Her eyes were dry and scratchy, tinged with red according to the mirror in the last sani closet she’d visited.
The Courant had landed some twenty minutes ago, and it had taken that long to push herself out of bed, wake herself up in the sani, and shuffle her way into the halls. She had, at least, changed out of her armor before she slept this time―last time, she’d managed to skip that step. With her brain so tired and the damn thing so form hugging, she’d half-forgotten it was there.
But right now each step felt like she was dragging a weight behind her. Not that it was a heavy weight, given her new strength, but it felt like it took more mental effort.
Fortunately, her tired appearance seemed to have given her a boost in crew relations. The faces of techs and soldiers didn’t regard her with wariness, as they had yesterday.
Perhaps seeing her as haggard and pre-coffee as this reminded them that she was human.
Nomiki shrugged. “Weird shit, usually. This time, it sounded like you were talking to someone. You sat bolt upright.”
Karin picked her brain, trying to remember. She didn’t think she’d been dreaming. She directed a mental eyebrow-raise toward Tia, who had supposedly been monitoring her subroutines while she slept.
And they were fine, the scientist replied. You were in REM. I can’t help it if humans are fucking weird when they sleep.
Karin internally snorted. As opposed to you, who doesn’t sleep?
Precisely.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said aloud. “Did I say anything interesting?”
“Not sure. It was in a different language.” Nomiki’s eyebrows rose. “Sounded heated.”
Geez, just what had she been dreaming about?
She quirked another internal eyebrow at Tia. You sure you weren’t mucking about with anything?
I’m always mucking about with something.
She blew out a slow breath, trying not to let her irritation show.
Yes, it was always one thing or another. She’d assumed the ache in her muscles had been from the mission, but there was no sign of a bruise where the bullet had hit her armor―and the sleep had felt…intense.
Nomiki was watching her through one eye, keeping a monitor on her expression.
“It’s nothing,” Karin assured her. “Just my muscles getting bigger. And my brain getting faster.”
Nomiki snorted. “Uh huh. Sure thing. But if I see your head pull a three-sixty, I’ll be getting the Catholic Church involved.”
“Italy’s nice this time of year.” She had no idea what time of year it was for Italy at the moment, but it had been warm in Macedonia a couple weeks back, and that was close-ish. Right?
Ugh. Maybe she should have paid more attention to the map when she was flying out of Europe.
“Yeah, well, make sure you get checked out,” Nomiki said. “I worry about you.”
“Thanks, sis. I’m sure Takahashi’s waiting for me.”
“No doubt.”
A small silence passed between them as they continued up the hallway. Around them, a sense of restlessness hovered in the air, the ship crew still in the post-landing rush, but it felt like another underlying tension hung back. Nomiki didn’t look at her for a few minutes, instead keeping quiet and walking, her gaze darting around. A sign that she was thinking.
Eventually, they came to another intersection, and her sister pulled up short. “Well, this is my stop.”
Karin gave her a nod. “Don’t work too hard.”
But, instead of striding off like she expected her to do, Nomiki stayed where she was. Her expression faltered, a more serious, assessing look coming over her as she gave Karin a glance-over.
“Hey,” she said. “You’d tell me if something was up, right?”
Briefly, her mind flitted back to Kalinsky earlier, and his suggestions about the Centauri. And to her concerns with Fallon’s missions. And Tia’s suspicions about what those missions were really accomplishing.
But Nomiki had already fought her on one of those things, and she’d rather wait until she had more information about the others.
“Of course I would,” she said.
“Good.” The corners of Nomiki’s mouth turned up, and some of the brightness reached her eyes. She gave a curt nod and walked off, heading to one of the flight offices.
Karin watched her go.
This feels wrong. I should tell her.
No, your instincts were right, Tia said. We should wait. This way, she has plausible deniability if we do something and the military questions her.
Her eyebrows arched upward. Oh? Just what are we planning?
Nothing yet. But I like to keep my options open. Oh, look, the good doctor’s waiting for us.
Karin glanced up. Sure enough, Takahashi was waiting for her by the ramp.
The air grew warmer as she headed to the exit, the mix of air conditioning mingling with the heat of the tropics. It was bright outside, the sun just hitting around one o’clock in the afternoon, and the compound was bustling. Beyond, the green, muggy scent of the jungle came to her, along with the tell-tale drone of its wildlife.
Takahashi gave her a quick glance-over as she approached. “You don’t look well.”
“Thanks,” she said flatly. “I’m getting that a lot. It’ll surprise you to know that I slept very well last night.”
“That’s not what your sister said,” he replied, turning to join her as she strode across the lot. “You’ve been talking in your sleep.”
Ah. Maybe Nomiki had been a little more concerned about Karin’s new somniloquy habit than she’d originally let on in the hallway.
“Apparently,” she said.
“These crates will do.” He gestured to a few pieces of stacked prefab to the side of one o
f the tents. “Please, have a seat.”
She popped herself down on the taller stack and leaned her head forward. A second later, the crown brushed into place over her scalp and gave a beep.
She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, the sensation of its prongs and electrodes making her skin crawl.
Breathe, Tia thought. Relax.
A minute later, the crown beeped again. Takahashi pulled it off and consulted his netlink.
“Still running hot,” he said. “I recommend we keep an eye on that. Are you sure you’re getting enough sleep?”
“I’ve had at least sixteen hours of it out of the last forty-eight,” she replied.
He grunted. “Try for twenty, next time. These changes―they’re hard on your brain and body.”
“Sure.” Her netlink beeped. A message from Soo-jin. She skimmed it and pushed it back into her pocket. “Are we done?”
“Yes. You know where to find me.”
“Yep. By the braintank.”
Apart from their checkups, he’d been working almost non-stop to examine Tia’s brain and the Cradle setup―him and Tasuhada both.
“Thanks, Doctor,” she said, striding off.
“Take care of yourself, Karin. You’ll get through this.”
“These aren’t anything like the other ruins.” Soo-jin’s dreadlocks slid over her shoulder as she leaned forward, an expression of frustration ingrained in her near-permanent frown and the unhappy downturn of her mouth. “I mean―tell me I’m wrong?”
“You’re not wrong. They’re completely different.”
Karin winced as a stab of sunlight hit her eye, rubbing at her temples to ward off the approaching headache―which had, conveniently, started approaching just after she had left Takahashi’s checkup.
Soo-jin was a good friend―more specifically, she was a good friend who was not entwined in Fallon, Alliance, Earth, Mars, or any of the other powers currently playing out on the board.
With her, there was no need for pretense.
About a week ago, she’d set her on to researching the ruins. So far, Karin was getting the impression that she hadn’t found much.
