by K. Gorman
But she hadn’t yet told Karin that she looked like shit yet, and it got her away from the rest of the camp for a bit.
Plus, she’d been too busy with missions to catch up with Soo-jin.
Gods. It’s been four days since I last spoke to her.
Tia was right. These missions were getting to her.
She let out a heavy sigh and forced her squinting gaze to focus on the five stone ruins in front of her.
They were, at best, a confusing misconception. An archaic red herring that sat next to Seirlin Biocorp’s mad science experiment. These ones, half-hidden in the low-hanging undergrowth just down the slope from the compound, where a once-cleared area had been taken over by a grassy coating of ambitious undergrowth, had a russet color that time was slowly eroding away. Three of the five stones had been knocked askew by growing roots, with vines and flowers creeping up and over their sides. Others had grass tops, like mossy, frayed haircuts. One even had a small sapling growing on one edge, its roots draping down like thick, permanent versions of Soo-jin’s dreadlocks.
But, where the ruins in Macedonia had thin, shallow, barely-discernible markings―like kitten scratches rather than anything remotely legible―whoever had made Brazil’s ruins had etched in deep, and the thick gouges brooked no confusion over what pictures were shown on the sides.
Their content was disconcertingly accurate.
“Now, I don’t want to get meta about this,” Soo-jin said, tapping a finger to her lip, appearing to grimace. “But there’s literally a fucking dude on here reaching for a star that has a literal snake encircling it. Isn’t that pretty fucking on point for this whole Eurynome Project shit?”
“Yes,” Karin said. “It’s very on point for this Eurynome Project shit.”
She winced, rubbing her temple a little harder and thinking wistfully of the painkillers in the Nemina’s Med bay. She’d already seen the petroglyphs. She and her sister had made a point to inspect them very thoroughly on the morning after their arrival, and the apparent accuracy of the images etched into the stone had definitely unnerved them.
The snake itself was an easy link to the Project, given that Seirlin had used a gods-damned ouroboros in its emblem, but the star was what hit harder, since it appeared to refer specifically to her. With her original designation as Program Eos, she was meant to represent the coming of the dawn. Although the star on the rock depicted something that looked like a more distant star than a closer representation of a sun, Dr. Sasha―the crazy, malfunctioning Program Chaos―had modified the Program Eos parameters to create Program Eosphoros, which did represent a star.
Gods, she hoped the girl was still safe. The only time she’d seen her, her clone had seemed to dislike both her and Nomiki on sight. She suspected it was a reaction to seeing a grown-up version of herself―despite their differences in lived experience and upbringing, they’d instantly recognized the similarities in each other. The physical characteristics had been obvious. Ione had the same blond hair as Karin and shared a similar build and eye color, but she suspected it was their similarity in mannerisms and body language that had thrown the girl.
After their raid on Sasha’s pocket dimension, everyone they had found in the tanks and pods had gone into Fallon custody, and those with powers―Ione, Toriana, Genevieve, and many others―had been moved into a special building on Nova Kolkata’s base.
Karin often worried that Sasha would go back to retrieve them. Why would she have kept them around if she didn’t need them? And, with the time delay between them and Chamak, they wouldn’t know what had happened for hours.
Hopefully, though, the imagery on the petroglyphs was a coincidence and not actually related.
Her jaw tightened as a memory of Marc’s voice came to her.
I don’t believe in coincidence.
This was the first time today that she’d thought of him.
For the briefest moment, a coldness twinged inside her chest.
No, she still didn’t want to think of him.
You can’t avoid it indefinitely, Tia told her. You should just confront him now. That way, we don’t have to keep having it drag on us.
She clenched her jaw.
You don’t get a say in this. You’re the one who took those feelings away.
And you’re the one who agreed to it. So, let’s get on with it, shall we? Either shit or get off the pot.
Fuck off.
“Uh…Karin? You still in there?”
Soo-jin was looking at her, waving her hand in an exaggerated motion. Karin snapped back to reality, realizing that more than thirty seconds had passed since she’d last spoken. Belatedly, she recognized the distinct hum and buzz of her brain―a sign that it was working a little extra harder than normal, for whatever reason.
The headache, at least, seemed to be passing.
She gave her head a shake and slicked a stray frazzle of blond hair back. “Sorry, lost in thought. What did I miss?
“Oh, nothing. I was asking stupid questions. Talking to myself, mostly.”
She grinned at her friend. “Did you get stupid answers?”
“Most likely.” Soo-jin wrinkled her nose, one hand lifting to feel down the stone’s side. “My research hasn’t turned up much. I have no idea how old these are, nor do I have any idea who made them. According to what I could find, there were many different cultures of people inhabiting these lands, some of which remained uncontacted well into the twenty-first century, but a massive fire at Brazil’s main museum took out a lot of the historical documents and collections. Unless the UN comes up with something for us, so far, I haven’t found any significant documentation of which cultures lived in this specific area.”
“You mean, there aren’t specific tourist signs in our secret scientific compound?” She let out a small chuckle and twinged a smile Soo-jin’s way. “Thank you. I appreciate your effort.”
Soo-jin shrugged. “It wasn’t much of an effort. Just reading. And clicking. And frowning. And struggling with translation programs. And not getting far at all.”
“Still, I appreciate your efforts to try and replicate the knowledge and skill of a very specific archaeology PhD that exists in a non-System Standard language, in a week.” She let out a sigh. “It may not feel like much, but it’s leagues more than what I know. Fuck, I barely remember what language they speak here. Spanish, right?”
“Portuguese,” Soo-jin corrected. “The Spanish invaded the other side of the continent.”
“Right. Well, I had little to no idea which pre-Colonial civilizations lived where in the Americas. And my education on world history was…somewhat skewed.”
The Eurynome Project’s idea of childhood education had been both misleading and selective. Not only had they straight-out lied about certain aspects of physics―turns out that normal people who hadn’t been genetically engineered and brainwashed didn’t develop magical powers―they’d left out large swathes of modern history, and had, in hindsight, outright ignored half of the world. When she and Nomiki had escaped through the gate, they’d arrived in Sirius with little knowledge of space travel, and even less of terraforming.
“Still technically better than mine. My parents didn’t really touch much on Old World History, except to extrapolate on how much they hated the Japanese.”
Soo-jin stepped up to the next stone, a taller piece that lay at an angle on the slope, and bent forward to examine it. The roots of a tree buckled the ground beneath it, and several vines wrapped around its surface, the lines of previous vine damage clearly visible on the stone’s weathered surface. Underneath, the wing of a bird was etched into the piece in a thick groove.
Soo-jin’s lips formed into a thin line, a sign that she was thinking.
Whatever it was, she didn’t voice it, instead straightening and changing the subject with a jerk of her head as she stepped away. “Can you do anything with it? With your powers?”
Karin tilted her head. “Not sure. Nomiki and I tried on the first day, but…”
/>
“You were dead-tired, with significant blood loss, and were still adjusting to the voice in your head?” Soo-jin suggested.
“Yes. That.”
She was still tired, and she was still adjusting, but at least, she didn’t have the blood loss this time.
She considered the stones. Basic scans had revealed both the Brazilian and the Macedonian ruins to be simple hunks of stone―nothing hidden, and nothing irregular. Whatever coincidence had landed them both within walking distance of a Eurynome Project compound, it didn’t make them useful.
Or at all relevant.
Staring at the weathered stone, with its cracks and crevices overgrown with moss and dirt, the side of one laden with lichen and bird shit, something turned in her gut.
Gods, how she’d wanted them to be something more. How many times had she stared up at the Macedonian henge, willing it to be something? How many times had she stood around them, wondered at them, touched them?
They’d always seemed to mystical. So otherworldly.
But they were nothing. Just slabs of stone with some ancient graffiti on them.
Except…a small, niggling memory tugged at her mind. Layla Jibril, the old Program Athena, telling her something about the stones in a dream that wasn’t a dream.
‘I said that they weren’t made for us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use them.’
That hadn’t been quite what she’d said, but she had mentioned them as an anchor point for something.
How about you? she asked Tia. Any special insights on the rocks?
Nope. If they have genetic code, let me know.
She eyed their weathered surfaces and all the plants currently growing on them.
Technically, they have a lot of genetic code.
Movement up the slope interrupted her thoughts. At the top of the hill, the small set of aluminum doors swung open from the compound’s cream-colored broadside, and light flashed on the distinctive silver armor of a Centauri guardsman. This cyborg was a woman, with thin blond hair braided to her scalp and a network of tattoos around the cybernetics that worked through her arm. She was accompanied by a second cyborg with pale skin and a choppy set of tattoos marking their cheek, and a Fallon soldier who stood too straight to be completely at ease.
A second later, Commander Sarah Tillerman of the Menassi Tri-Quad Alliance walked through the door, followed by Sergeant Tian Adan Reeve of the Fallon military.
They made an odd pair. While Reeve was of average size for the Fallon military―just under six feet tall with a lean frame of muscle―Tillerman’s cybernetics gave her a larger, stronger frame. Standing several inches above him, her tech had an older look than that of her compatriots, as if it had been built in an industrial metal shop rather than the finicky, bioengineered cybernetics labs she’d seen in Fallon. Only a bit of it―her breastplate, her right shoulder, which featured an armored decoration, and a robotic hand and forearm currently making a conversational gesture to Reeve―was visible. The rest hid under today’s choice in loose pants and tank tops.
Older cyborgs in Alpha Centauri, she gathered, did not require a uniform.
You think Kalinsky is on to something? That Commander Tillerman wants to speak to me?
Tia made a humming sound in response, but said nothing. Up the hill, Tillerman was leaning in to hear something Reeve was saying.
The breeze lifted, making the thick leaves above them rustle and dance. The trunks nearby creaked and groaned.
Between one moment and the next, Tillerman’s head turned. Her gaze drifted briefly over the foliage, as if she were taking it in, then dropped down and found Karin in the shade of the trunk.
A shock went through her the second their eyes locked. Karin met her gaze, unflinching, arms crossed over her chest, a neutral expression on her face.
Seconds ticked by as they stared at each other.
Then, Reeve noticed that Tillerman’s attention had drifted. He followed it, saw her, and his expression tightened.
He forced a smile and said something, then moved off.
Tillerman tilted her head, but didn’t immediately move. When she did, she kept her gaze on Karin as she followed, only turning away as she vanished over the curve of the hill and the forest foliage picked up again.
The two guardsmen also gave her glances.
“Huh.” Soo-jin crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “That was…interesting.”
Yes, Tia echoed. Definitely interesting.
Karin gave her head a small shake and shrugged. “I won’t comment on the curiosities of other cultures.”
Soo-jin snorted. “That’s bullshit and you know it. And I’ve definitely seen her stare at you like that before. Intently.”
“Well, I did single-handedly slaughter my way through a good portion of her troops. I’d be staring at me, too. Intently.”
But the argument was half-hearted and already ringing false in her ears.
She let out a sigh. “It seems like more than that, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. And I’m not sure I liked the way Reeve moved her on.”
Karin chewed the edge of her tongue, thinking.
Normally, she loved it when Reeve moved people along. He’d been her chaperone when she’d been healing people on Chamak Udyaan, and it had saved her from conversations she really hadn’t wanted to have.
She didn’t love it when he may or may not be part of a Fallon conspiracy to hide something from her.
And it would seem that Soo-jin had picked up on that, too.
“Are you suggesting that they’re blocking her from talking to me?”
A guilty expression plastered across Soo-jin’s face. The woman shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I’m a paranoid fuck. Maybe they’re not. Maybe she really is just staring at you because you killed a shitload of her people. But, in our brief interaction, she didn’t strike me as the kind of person who quailed at brutality.”
No. Very few of the Centauri did, she had found. And, as she mulled over the memory of the encounter in her mind, it wasn’t hard to read Tillerman’s expression. Soo-jin was right―she wasn’t afraid of Karin. Wary, perhaps, but she had a feeling she’d gotten over that some time ago. She’d have to, in her position.
No, this was calculation.
This wouldn’t be the first time someone has tried to control me, Tia thought.
She got a flash of the tank, the cybernetics routing through the floating brain that was left of Tia’s physical body, the limitations of the computer programming and slowly corrupting hardware.
Karin clenched her teeth as the headache throbbed harder.
Us, she corrected. They would be controlling us.
“Karin?” Soo-jin’s voice jarred her from her thoughts. Her friend was looking at her now, concern deepening her brows. “You okay?”
She shook off her internal conversation with Tia. “Yes. Fine.”
Soo-jin didn’t move. Slowly, her gaze flicked over her.
“There’s blood from your nose.”
Karin lifted her hand to her face and touched wetness. When she pulled it away, the first three fingertips were bright red.
She wiped it off. “I’m fine. It’s just the heat.”
“Uh huh.” Soo-jin stared at her for another few seconds, the skepticism never leaving her expression. “You know, you do this thing―like you go really still and don’t move at all. And then, you don’t seem to hear anyone else.” Her gaze narrowed. “It’s pretty fucking creepy.”
She sighed. Was it that obvious? She’d known there would be some changes, but she thought she’d masked them better.
“Sorry. I get lost in thought. Lots of memories to sort through.” She forced a smile, a small one, onto her lips. “I guess I’m taking more after my sister, that way?”
“Oh, definitely,” Soo-jin informed her. “You’ve got that creep down pat.”
“Thanks.”
Soo-jin cleared her throat. “Just so we’re clear―we�
��re still friends, right?”
“What?” Karin’s eyebrows shot up into her forehead. “Yes! Of course.”
“Good. ’Cause it’d be super awkward to keep thinking we’re friends, then end up in a sudden pile of dimension-spliced flesh a few seconds later.”
The image of blood flashed across the front of her mind, followed closely by a warm, slick feeling, like oily, coppery soup, over her fingers. For a second, she flashed back to three days ago, the way it had felt to have it coating her skin, cooling against her, making a tacky, slippery sheen that smeared rather than wiped. The sickly scent of metal and humid sweetness pushed at the inside of her nose.
“No,” she forced out, shoving the sensations back against the humming in her mind. “That’s not going to happen.”
For a second, Soo-jin’s expression didn’t change. Her face remained serious. One finger tapped the side of her thigh, another sign that she was thinking.
Then she shifted, crossed her arms, and turned her body askance, the tails of her dreads falling down her back in a tumbling pile. “Good. I don’t mind creepy, so long as we’re cool. But it’ll be nice when you’re back to normal. Marc misses you. Did you know that?”
“Yes. I know.”
Her netlink chirped from her pocket. A second later, Nomiki’s voice crackled over the comms link.
“Karin, can you meet me at the Cradle?”
She pulled it from her pocket and lifted it to her mouth. “Yeah, just give me a sec. Gotta grab something from the Nemina.”
She exchanged a glance with Soo-jin.
“Another mission?” her friend guessed.
She shook her head. “God, I hope not. But I don’t think she’s inviting me for tea.”
“No, probably not.” Soo-jin took a deep breath and straightened, her gaze once again turning into a frown up the hill. “I’ll see if I can have a chat with Tillerman. See what she’s about.”
Karin gave her a curt nod. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, yeah. Go see what Nomiki wants―and don’t forget to talk to Marc. He misses you.”
Chapter Ten
