Eye of the Abyss

by Michael Formichelli

  “None of that matches what I remember.” He frowned.

  “Is this not what you want to know? Are you looking for something more personal?” If he didn’t know better, he would say she was mocking him. “You will never find that. The man you were exists only as data in Daedalus’ files. Your memories were overwritten by your Abyssian programming. Daedalus felt they would be an impediment to your operation, as clearly they were.”

  “An impediment?” His eyebrows drew together. “Overwritten? Then how come I can remember Praetor Modulus coming for me on the Zeus’ Thunder? How come I felt natural and alive in that armored shell?”

  “Residual information may have been retained or reconstructed by your brain. The human cognitive organ is quite adept at adapting to new situations, however, you will never get all of it back, not even most of it.”

  “Daedalus stole who I was.” Nero felt his blood heating up and clenched his teeth.

  “The sacrifice was deemed necessary for the experiment. The data you are generating will help Daedalus advance those under his charge.”

  So it’s true, Prospero whispered. We are an experiment.

  Kiertah was right all along. Hearing the confirmation from what amounted to the source sent a chill creeping across his skin. It was all true. The Nero Graves he knew himself to be was a lie. Where did that leave him? Who was he really? What kind of person was he before? A million questions passed through his head along with a sense of great regret and anger. The machine entity, the so-called protector of the Confederation, had taken everything from him. He may never learn who he was, he may never get his life back, but now he knew beyond a doubt that the AI who did all of this wasn’t his ally or his master… It was his enemy.

  “Regardless,” Athame continued, “you will soon be repaired and this glitch in your thinking will be deleted.”

  “The fuck it will.” It only took him a millisecond to decide on a course of action. Would he be fast enough? He didn’t know. Athame was a full Abyssian, a machine, and as fast as he was. He doubted he was her match—but he had to try.

  Go! Prospero shut down their comm so she couldn’t override him as she had on Taiumikai. He dropped them into combat mode as Nero drew the SGX-228 pistol Baron Mitsugawa gave him. She must have sensed his intention because she was already swinging her body to the side as her hand folded back to reveal her electro-magnetic pulse weapon. He knew he was going to miss her on the first shot. He was used to everyone moving slower than himself when he was in combat mode, but her body was just as lithe and quick as it was when his time perception was normal. She brought her weapon around just as he leveled his. For a brief moment he thought this was how he would come to an end—and then the cockpit door irised shut, slicing through her arm just above the wrist in an expanding blossom of slow-motion sparks.

  You’re welcome, Prospero said. Get ready.

  The door dilated open. Nero fired.

  Athame was recovering when the laser lit up her left eye. The purple disk of her iris turned black and sparks flew from her pupil. Her body jerked and threw itself against the cockpit walls like a rubber ball as her processors lost control of the magnets holding her in place. The noise was like someone pounding on an empty storage crate with a metal rod. It went on for nearly a full minute before her system shut down and went stiff in the air.

  Nero launched himself forward and used the far wall of the cockpit to reverse his momentum. He grabbed her body and pinned Athame’s inert form into the upper half of the command seat. At Prospero’s signal the restraints flowed up and secured her in place.

  She’ll repair and report to Daedalus in two minutes with her built-in q-comm. Quickly, cut and peel the polymer back from her skull and open the neuronal CPU access port. Prospero said, directing him as Nero got the laser-cutter from the toolkit mounted by the door. Grab the black rectangular chip when you remove the access port, and pull it as hard as you can.

  Prospero highlighted what needed to be done in his visual field as he worked. In a flurry of vaporized metal he had Athame’s skull open along the right side. It was a simple thing after that to locate the correct chip among the maze of circuits within and yank it out.

  “Got it,” he said, holding it up.

  You’re not done yet, that was only a part of the system that guards the real access point to her neuronal quantum processor. That’s located under—

  Nero drew his pistol, put the barrel against the circuits in her skull, and fired the gauss barrel. His hand jerked up and his body tried to swing down, banging his knees into the chair. He struck something, and his hand went numb. He spun in the air until his back struck the cockpit wall. The blow winded him, but killed most of his momentum, and he drifted back the way he came.

  Or you could do that, Prospero said. I’ll get that bone you just broke repaired shortly. Praetor Athame will be back online in approximately three hours, forty—

  “She’s not dead?” He frowned, kicking off the wall to retrieve his pistol.

  Negative, Daedalus’ repair nanomachines will have her operational again in the time-frame I stated. We are hard to kill, Nero. However, I suspect your bullet passed through one of her secondary memory cores and may have deleted part or all of the exchange we just had.

  “So what?”

  Well, it gives me an idea. I believe I will need Agent Khepria’s assistance with this, but I think we can make an enemy into an ally before she reboots.

  He nodded and messaged Sorina to come up to the cockpit.

  They got to work as soon as she arrived.

  “That should do it,” she said looking up from the body of the former Abyssian. She finished welding the section of skull Nero removed and put the arc welder back on the utility belt she borrowed from the Akanda’s maintenance locker.

  He looked down at Athame’s body strapped to the cargo hold deck with thick metal cords. The waxy, morphic-polymer coating floated around her endoskeletal frame like a bag of jelly. He could make out some of the plates of her subdural armor beneath it where the material was bunched up in asymmetric patterns around the restraints. Sorina had repaired Athame’s severed hand, and it rested at her side with the naked, silver cap of the weapon gleaming in the light.

  “Are we sure it’s going to work?” he asked.

  Are you implying that either myself or Agent Khepria are inept? We both worked on the reprogramming.

  He sighed and shook his head. “Of course not, but we’re talking about rewriting Daedalus’ code here.”

  A programming language and style I’m obviously familiar with, and now so is Agent Khepria.

  “I don’t mean to imply either one of you did a bad job, I’m just wary. Okay?”

  Nero, you need to relax. We know what we’re doing, Prospero interjected into his thoughts.

  “There is only one way to find out if we succeeded.” Sorina gave him a meaningful look.

  The better part of the last three hours was spent digging around inside Athame’s mechanical brain. It was possible it was all for naught. Prospero warned them when they started that if they missed blocking an automatic restore file, or something like it, they would have one pissed-off Abyssian to deal with when they turned her back on. Still, it was worth the risk both in gaining a permanent ally and in the knowledge contained in Athame’s databases.

  He nodded. “Switch her back on.”

  Sorina’s ears twitched.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “We did not get the chance to finish on Taiumikai,” she said with some hesitation.

  He frowned. “Finish what?”

  Sorina looked up at him and licked her lips. The muscles of her face tightened. “Never mind.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “If it’s important you should speak your mind.”

  “It is—” she looked away for a moment. “It is nothing.”

  I believe she is trying to talk about her unprofessional feelings for you, Prospero said.

  “Oh.” His stomach tingled. “
I still don’t know what the future will bring. Like I said on Taiumikai, I don’t know what I’ll learn about myself on Zov.”

  She put a hand on his chest. The contact was brief and set them drifting away from each other. “I know. I just think I want you to know that no matter what you find out about yourself, I will remain at your side.”

  He watched the gentle trembling of her ears and saw her eyes fix on his. The tension in her body made the tingle in his stomach intensify. It was not the right time. They were not yet free of their mission, and it would be the greatest unfairness to start something now if he would be torn from her so soon by death, or Daedalus, or whatever else might be on the horizon. He might find out he had a family who thought him dead. He could have a wife, children—

  She knows all of that. You know I don’t approve of interpersonal relationships, but I think you would do well to be honest with yourself and with her in this situation. Yes, you could die, or have other entanglements, but this is your chance at some measure of happiness.

  Prospero’s words shocked him, and he felt his eyes widen as he stared into Sorina’s.

  “I am sorry. I should not have—” she began.

  He reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her body against his. She looked at him in askance for a moment, then wrapped her arms about his chest, and her legs about his legs, and hugged him close.

  “Sorina,” he said to bring her head up to look at him. When she did he touched their lips together and just held them still. The warmth of her body penetrated his skin, and the smell of cinnamon filled his nostrils. He held her like that until his throat tightened and his eyes stung with a feeling like he was awakening to something he had long been away from.

  He inhaled to steady himself when they separated. Her ears danced, and her skin flushed as she pulled back. They looked at each other, both with something like a half-smile on their faces while their chests heaved with the power of the moment.

  “We have work to do,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “We’ll come back to this.”

  She nodded.

  “Switch her on.” Nero looked over at Athame, trying hard not to succumb to the urge to grab Sorina and take things further.

  Athame’s body jerked against her restraints. The flesh around her frame tightened and smoothed, restoring her appearance to that of a young, physically fit woman. Then her eyes blinked open, her pupils contracted and relaxed, and she tried to sit up but stopped when the cords holding her to the deck pulled taut.

  She locked eyes with Nero. “Master.”

  He gave Sorina a look. “Master?”

  “We replaced all references to Daedalus in her code with you to ensure she has the highest level of loyalty,” she explained.

  “That made sense, but ‘master?’” He looked bewildered.

  Sorina’s ears twitched.

  Ask her to call you by a different name. It’s not hard to figure out, idiot, Prospero said.

  Watch it! he thought. “Just call me Nero.”

  “Confirmed designation, Nero. Why am I restrained?”

  “We had to do some maintenance on you,” he said.

  “Restraints would not be necessary if that was the case. Combined with the data fragments in my RAM I surmise that I attacked you, and you prevailed despite minimal odds of success. Well done, Nero. Diagnostics indicate you disconnected my q-comm.”

  A precaution. I disconnected mine as well. We cannot have Daedalus attacking your programming, Prospero transmitted. And by the way, I had something to do with Nero’s miraculous success.

  “Disabling my q-comm was a logical step. Vanity, however, is unbecoming in an AI.”

  Nero looked at Sorina and saw her eyes sparkling while he tried not to laugh.

  Vanity? I am incapable of vanity as you well know. I’ve never been so insulted in the whole of my existence, and another thing—

  “Prospero, quit it while you’re ahead.” Nero grinned.

  You would take her side, wouldn’t you?

  He released Athame from her bonds while holding onto the grated deck to prevent himself from floating away. She stood up on it using her magnets.

  “What do you require me to do?” She reformed her hand around the EMP weapon, and her protean flesh flowed up and around her metallic fingers.

  “Earlier you suggested a plan to use the Akanda as a computer core for the annihilator. We need to do that and head for Zov,” he said.

  “Order confirmed. I am ready to proceed,” she said.

  “Okay, let’s get to it.” With a grin, he gave Sorina a thumbs-up.

  Ten days later, Sorina put a yellow food cube in her mouth from the floating bag and bit into it. Nero watched her ears twitch as she blinked through the flavor.

  “I have missed these.”

  “Are you being serious?”

  Doubtful, Prospero said.

  “Of course.” She winked at him with half a smile on her face. “I have been waiting for us to run out of the tasty MREs for a long time.”

  See? Sarcasm, Prospero said.

  “Pass me one.” He reached down to her. They were seated butt to butt in the Akanda’s cockpit. He was in the half of the split, avocado-like chair facing the annihilator below them. Through the ring of small windows he watched as Athame pulled large cables from the nearest access port and connected them to the Akanda.

  The cube tasted bitter with hints of old-cheese.

  I knew we should have replaced these on Kosfanter, Prospero said.

  “How long have we had them?” he asked.

  About six years, Prospero answered using the link with Sorina’s implant so she could hear.

  “Ugh, that’s horrible.” He blanched.

  “The package said they had a ten-year shelf life,” she said.

  “Remind me never to buy these again.” He stuck his tongue out and wiped his palm across it, trying to erase the lingering flavor from his mouth.

  You didn’t buy them last time. I did, Prospero said.

  “You are banned from ordering food again.” Sorina’s statement drew a surprised chuckle from Nero’s lips.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “I have never heard you make a joke like that before.” He leaned over the edge of the seat so he could look into her eyes.

  “I was not joking.” Her ears waved. “I must be tired of waiting for Athame to finish. Ten days spent not going anywhere is wearing on me, I guess. I come from a nomadic people.”

  “It would go faster if we rebooted some of the maintenance ‘bots on the ship.” He looked out the cockpit windows. The band of the Milky Way ran across the annihilator’s bow beyond the edge of its glossy, dark hull.

  “We cannot risk Qismat hiding in one of their systems,” Sorina replied.

  “That’s what Athame said.” He sighed. Ten days was a long time to wait. They could have spent part of it in the ‘node in the ship’s computer, but he hadn’t wanted to. There was something about the notion of being in virtual space that made him uncomfortable now that he knew he had another life somewhere. Was it waiting for him? Was anyone he knew still alive? He hoped to have that answer soon. If Kaeden Faen was still on Zov, he would find out. “I know why we had to take so long, I just wish we didn’t. I’m sorry I’m complaining.”

  “It is all right. Do not worry.”

  He looked into the vertical pupils in her amber eyes and felt a smile raise his cheeks. “It hasn’t been all bad.”

  An alarm beeped, startling both of them.

  “Prospero?”

  It’s the airlock cycling, he replied. A moment later the hiss and clang of its inner door echoed down the corridor outside the cockpit.

  Nero and Sorina looked at each other and released their restraints. Both of them pushed off the chair and headed towards the sound. When they arrived Athame floated in the air beside the iris of the door with waves of condensing vapor rising off her body. She held a canister
about as long as her forearm and as thick as her head with a small lid on top.

  “The rigging is completed, Nero. Mistress Khepria, you may now activate the link.”

  He looked at Sorina. “Mistress?”

  She grabbing a pipe to arrest her motion, and her ears twitched in the air. “The link is working. We have control of the annihilator’s systems.”

  “Mistress?” he repeated.

  She looked away, half-a-smile on her face.

  He felt Prospero’s amusement and decided to let it go.

  “What’s that?” He pointed at the canister.

  “At some point I know we need to scuttle the annihilator vessel lest it fall into the wrong hands. I wanted to save this. From what I surmised of your mission, you will need a record of what happened on the ship. This is the memory core that stores all of the system information. It contains a record of the Q-virus infection and the firing of the relativity cannon. As we travel I will transfer the records to my memory using every precaution.”

  “Athame, thank you,” he said. They finally had solid proof against Baron Revenant. “But be careful. We don’t need another round of Qismat.”

  “As I stated, I will use every precaution.”

  Sorina nodded. “Nero, the link is live. Your orders?”

  He took a deep breath. Baron Mitsugawa and the rest were lost which, aside from his personal feelings, meant they also lost their way to present the evidence against Zalor Revenant in the Barony. He wasn’t an Abyssian anymore, so that was also gone as an avenue to bring the baron to justice. A chill traveled down his spine at the thought. Were they dead in space? No, he refused to accept that. The only thing they could do right now was press on and hope a new way to bring this all to a close presented itself. He drew himself up and met Sorina’s eyes.