Apex

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t get at it here,” he said, frustrated. “It’s entrenched, and more than that, it’s active.”

  Ella frowned. “By active you mean . . .”

  “It’s not a memory remnant. It’s a self-­contained programming remnant.”

  Ella blanched. What he was saying should have been impossible.

  A remnant was an accidental copying of a memory when inside another’s mind. The piece of memory that didn’t belong would be imprinted in a random location and could manifest itself at odd and unexpected times. Seasoned telepaths knew how to keep their mind separate from the target’s, and only had to worry about remnants occurring during deep or exhausting scans.

  Once located, a remnant could be wiped away like a bit of mud being scraped off your boot. It wasn’t overly complicated, but required some finesse to accomplish. Ella had to occasionally sweep her own mind to clean it of remnants after telepathic links with strong minded individuals or other Cres, whose minds were nearly identical to her own. When Riax had said Humans automatically filtered out remnants that made a certain amount of sense to her, given their advanced mental powers. The fact that this one had made it past those latent defenses was significant.

  More than that though, he’d said it was active, which meant it wasn’t just a memory remnant, it was a program remnant.

  Like the computer console Ella had been using earlier, a mind operated in the same way. There was a controller at the computer, which in this case was Riax’s core energy/conscious mind. That was the powerful ‘cloud’ that Ella had encountered. It was linked to and operated his mind, and through it his body, just as Ella had been operating the information terminal.

  But not all functions of the terminal were a direct response to her keystrokes. Most of the operations of the computer were governed by programs that took their cues from her input. Likewise, within a person’s mind there were the biological version of programs that regulated bodily functions, such as breathing and heartbeat, without the conscious mind’s direct control being required.

  There were also mind-­only programs that existed. Riax had built an additional program when he learned the basics of the commerce language from Jalia and was continuing to expand that program with the more he learned from day to day use. There were also language translation programs that linked others together, which is what had allowed Riax to ‘grow’ a new language program off of the one for Esset, the Junta’s native language, which had already existed within his mind.

  The inherent meanings of the words in Esset were copied into new forms in the commerce language, with appropriate alterations being made for language specific concepts and multiple definitions. In this way, every additional language learned was spawned from a person’s native language, which in Riax’s case was Terran. As a result, he viewed all other languages from a similar structural viewpoint initially.

  With use, his additional language programs would separate from the Terran structure as their intricacies were learned from social interaction. Once this process was begun in earnest, a person became fluent in the new language, with its program becoming a standalone and not an adjunct. Riax wasn’t there yet with the commerce language, but his program was sufficient for basic comprehension/communication.

  While searching through another’s mind it was possible to intentionally copy pieces of a program from which to grow one of your own later. Accidental copying created a program remnant, which was incredibly rare given the difficulty and complexity of copying the equivalent of a book as compared to a single sentence. Programs often contained many facets, including memories, and were vastly large remnants.

  In Riax’s case, his mind was so complicated to begin with that Ella could see how dormant program remnants could be present without him knowing about them, but an active remnant should have been impossible for him to miss.

  To make it worse, he’d said ‘self-­contained’ program remnant. This meant the program was complete and acting without outside input, essentially meaning that it had a mind of its own.

  “Why could I not see it?” she asked, referring to her previous mental scan.

  “That’s my doing,” he said, standing up and putting his hands on his hips in frustration. “My subconscious locked down the remnant when it first arrived, rendering it completely inactive and undetectable even to me. I’m lucky you were able to find it at all. Thanks, by the way.”

  “Do you know when it occurred?”

  “I believe so,” he said slowly. “I was able to access a piece of it earlier when I was in a dream state, and again just now, but it’s not something I can remove without great effort. I’ll have to wait until we’re in Cres territory before I risk opening up that much. What you witnessed on the battleship would be mild in comparison.”

  “What is it?” she asked, sensing something ominous.

  “I’m not sure how it happened. The physical contact probably played a role, and maybe during the trauma my mind’s defenses fell temporarily. This shouldn’t have been possible to begin with, but I can’t remember much after my arm was bitten off anyway, so who knows what my mental state was at the time.”

  Ella’s eyes widened in shock.

  “The remnant is from our enemy. From the one that I killed after I lost my arm. It’s viral and attempting to spread within my mind, that’s why it’s been locked down so tightly,” Riax explained, frustration evident in his voice.

  Ella walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, sending what calming influence she could into him while making her attempt obvious so as not to be rude. “Viral?” she asked, not fully understanding his meaning.

  “It’s adaptive, which is why I couldn’t start taking it apart now. It adjusted to my small attacks, defending itself and seeking to find its way out of the breach. It’s fully contained again, so not a threat, but semantically speaking the creature is still alive, embedded within my mind.”

  Ella recoiled automatically, pulling her hand away then scolding herself for doing so.

  “I feel the same,” Riax assured her, but Ella could see a trace of worry in his eyes, even if she couldn’t sense anything past his blocks.

  The Cres took a half step forward and, seemingly making amends for her recoil, wrapped the slightly shorter Human up in a tight hug. “Hold on a bit longer, my friend.”

  “Do I have a choice?” Riax answered sarcastically, wrapping his arms around her waist and fully accepting the gesture.

  Chapter 32

  THE JANNEX ARRIVED in the Iras System an hour earlier than scheduled, which in interstellar terms was spot on accurate, as was the Yiori norm. It was scheduled to remain for four days before making its next jump, but Ella and Riax decided to board as soon as possible.

  They left the resort without incident and hopped on a subsurface train that took them through the sprawling metropolis to the sector were the Yiori kiosk was located. The pair, dressed in nearly identical dark grey robes that hid most of their bodies, exited the train and walked up a tall, wide stairwell to the surface where the Yiori establishment was located.

  ‘Kiosk’ was a generic term, given to corporate outposts of varying size. The Yiori version was the size of its own small city spread out majestically across a wide crater in the cityscape that they were now looking down upon from the top of the stairs. It spread out like a great white/grey bowl with numerous starships parked in the center, a few of them currently in transit as they ferried ­people and supplies to and from the jumpship.

  At the top of the stairs there was a short, flat platform, then another shorter descending set of stairs that bottomed out in a ring-­like walkway that encompassed the entire rim of the crater with huge viewports displaying the size and majesty of the compound. Riax figured the point of the up and over staircase was to create the cinematic moment, and he had to agree that the aesthetic design had the desired effect. Th
e architecture of the facility also differed from the rest of the city, suggesting a higher quality of craftsmanship and professionalism.

  “Yiori is the primary jumpship operator,” Ella explained, picking up on his surface thoughts. Ever since the mind-­sharing sessions he’d been letting her past his outer defenses a bit, which generally among telepaths was a sign of friendship.

  “A bit more like home,” he offered as they descended the stairwell, angling for the boarding arrows that pointed toward the right, “but ours are bigger.”

  “I can imagine,” Ella said as they bottomed out on the ring corridor, only to be directed to an adjacent, steeper stairwell taking them further down.

  “No, you can’t . . .” Riax said, sending her a mental image.

  Ella stopped suddenly and stared at him. What is that?

  A conduit endpoint.

  She started walking again, taking the steps down two at a time next to Riax who rapidly took singles. Conduit?

  Faster than jumpships, but hard to build. It’s how we travel around the galaxy.

  How much faster?

  From one end of the galaxy to the other would take less time than it will take us to reach Cres space.

  “Impressive,” Ella said aloud as the signs directed them to a liftcar station. They had to wait in a short line, but eventually boarded along with four others and were transported down along the crater’s surface, visible through the transparent walls, to the processing outlet at the center. Within an hour they boarded a Yiori transport along with 258 others and lifted off on an uneventful twelve hour trip to the Jannex.

  They boarded without incident and secured a private room, waiting for the jumpship’s stay in the system to expire and hoping to avoid any trouble. None manifested itself, and they left the system breathing a sigh of relief . . . though it wouldn’t last. Two weeks later they would pick up a tail, and from there on it all went downhill.

  TWO MORE, RIAX reported as they blended in with the flow of pedestrian traffic.

  I only sense one, Ella replied from a distance. She was about thirty seconds ahead of him on a curvy road through the jumpship’s entertainment district.

  Up high, he told her, sending a mental image of the approximate location.

  Ella kept her eye line straight ahead, but mentally looked up to her right. On a high balcony overlooking the road was another of the Nevari scouts that had been tracking them ever since they’d been driven out of their quarters six days ago by security personnel. They’d gone on the run within the gigantic city-­ship and had thus far eluded pursuit, but in addition to Yiori personnel they’d been hunted by a large number of the diminutive, yet lanky brown-­furred Nevari.

  Yiori security was acting on a capture warrant for a Cres and an unidentified collaborator, wanted for the murder of over 600 ­people on a passenger ship in the Narfax System. A generic posting had been made for all jumpships, dated over three weeks ago, with descriptions and crude photos of each, ostensibly taken during their time on the Jannex. They’d transferred to the mainline jumpship Utgara a week ago, secured temporary quarters in a luxury resort, then been jumped by security less than a day later.

  Fortunately they’d sensed the agitated security guards coming, with Riax hiding as Ella was confronted at gunpoint within their suite. When they attempted to take her prisoner she responded in a flash of reflex and quickly incapacitated them with a combination of mind tricks and muscle before Riax even had a chance to intervene. They scanned their unconscious minds and determined the source of the raid was a legitimate detain order, which meant the entire jumpship crew was now set against them, not just a splinter faction.

  They’d grabbed what few items they required and fled the suite, using their telepathy to vanish amongst the denizens onboard the jumpship. Soon after, they began spotting Nevari scouts in ones and twos, but they never engaged. The few times the pair had been spotted it was Yiori security that showed up to capture them, while the scouts merely looked on.

  The current scouts hadn’t detected them yet, nor had the group before, but there were more and more becoming visible within the jumpship as the days pressed on. Riax and Ella stayed on the move, with neither of them sleeping much. They hid out in innocuous places, often within the crowded streets, never staying in one place longer than a few hours.

  I see him.

  Keep moving through the courtyard, Riax told her. “We need to get out of here. They’re looking for something specific. I sense a trap.”

  Too late, Ella said as a blue security field went up, blocking access to the courtyard. Dozens of armored security forces poured out of adjacent doorways and began subduing the crowd. They don’t know where we are, she told him, sensing their thoughts. They’re after a contraband dealer associated with one of the nearby shops.

  No, it’s meant for us, Riax replied calmly. The Nevari probably arranged it to flush us out.

  That means they are tracking us, Ella pointed out as the line of guards was nearing her position. She’d pushed herself against the side of the road along with the rest of the crowd to stay away from the security.

  Behind Riax another line was approaching and sifting through the crowd. Their exits were cut off in both directions.

  Sliding into a wall alcove, Riax mentally distracted those around him from his presence. Lay low and let them pass.

  Ella steadied herself as the crowd around her was beginning to be picked apart by the guards. Each one of them was being visually inspected by the squad preceding the line, then they were escorted through it when they didn’t match up with the description of the dealers. The Cres stretched out her telepathy and dove deep into the leader’s mind, searching for the identity they sought.

  They are looking for an Elari, two Fret, and a blue-­skinned Presca, she told Riax. I suggest you become something else.

  I’m going for a piece of the wall, how about you?

  Ella mentally smiled, but kept the look of worry and panic on her face. I was thinking more of an identity change. I don’t really look like a wall.

  Do what you have to. I’m here if you need me.

  Here we go, she told him as the search squad pulled off a female Fret two meters away from her. They compared her visage to that on a small datapad, then subsequently put her into restraints before sending her back to the line where she was passed through, led to an impromptu confinement area, and forced to sit down with a group of three other Fret.

  Ella knew she wasn’t any of the three races they were looking for but she did have blue skin, and while the Presca were decidedly scaly, she couldn’t trust them to be smart enough to discern the difference, especially since most of their minds registered as Menkat. The physically strong bipeds were notorious for simple thinking, and it appeared that they were arresting every Fret they came across, probably unable to identify differences in appearance between them.

  When Ella was pulled off she summoned an image of a Mindra with pure white skin and forced it into the mind of the guards nearest to her. She looked up at the helmeted head of the lead guard as he compared her description with those in his information. After a thorough three seconds of inspection he roughly pushed her behind him and reached for the next closest person in the crowd.

  Ella was pulled aside by one of the other guards and escorted back to the sentry line, where she was subsequently ignored. The Cres walked through the gap the guards made for her then rushed off into the crowd gathering near the containment field that had yet to be lowered.

  I’m through.

  Rendezvous at the waterfall in two hours. Looks like I’m going to be here awhile.

  I’ll hang around, she offered.

  No, it’ll only draw suspicion. Leave when the crowd does.

  Alright, she said after a long pause. Good luck.

  Likewise.

  Ella waited with the others until a second containme
nt field was established minutes later just behind the sentry line. When it went up the previous one went down, allowing the agitated crowd to disperse. She went with them, noticing in mind’s eye that the captive Fret were moved elsewhere, probably to confinement for interrogation.

  Not wasting any time, Ella blended in with the crowd, passed by two more Nevari scouts, and disappeared into the city once again.

  Chapter 33

  ANY TROUBLE? ELLA asked Riax as he climbed through the thick vegetation up to her position at the top of the waterfall in the center of one of three parks inside the jumpship. At the top, away from public view, was a containment pool that the artificial waterfall originated from. It was fed by recirculation pumps from the small lake in the distance, which was connected aboveground to the waterfall by a thin, fast moving river.

  The subsurface feed lines swelled up water just behind the pool, which allowed it to settle out and create precision fall lines as the warm water spilled out over specially designed grooves in the pool’s face that were overgrown with vegetation, so much so that Ella could have sat on the edge and not be seen. To the park’s view, the waterfall emerged from a mass of greenery. The public had no knowledge of the feeding pool behind it.

  Not really, Riax responded as he crawled into view through the vegetation. “There were a lot of Nevari hanging around, but I lost them,” he said as he accidentally stepped on Ella’s clothes, neatly folded up in a pile beneath a fern just off the edge of the pool she was swimming in.

  “Make sure you don’t go over the waterfall,” Riax said, sitting down next to her garments.

  “Just staying out of sight,” she said, her orange hair slicked down behind her back, which was partially covered by a thin two-­piece undergarment made for the water. “There’s an overhang near the inlets, plus a maintenance hatch.”