by C. G. Hatton
The AI didn’t say anything. It waited. I knew it was there. Lurking and watching me. Creepy as hell. The drugs were making me sleepy again but I didn’t fight it. Like I said, I’d decided not to care. My knee was hot so whatever it was doing it was working. I could see the route into the system, almost an open door inviting me to go explore. Whatever programmed learning they’d subjected us to had always taken place while we were fully under. We were never aware of it. I suppose that was the point. Right then it felt like the AI was testing me. I didn’t react.
Eventually it whispered, “Not tempted?”
I ignored it but I could feel my heart rate go up a notch.
“Oh child, are you afraid of me?”
I think I might have smiled. I was playing games with an AI. I had no idea at the time how dangerous that was.
It was almost murmuring inside my mind. “Are you not curious…?”
Of course I was. I was itchy as hell to go looking but I didn’t. The more it pushed, the easier it was to stay calm and defy it.
Until it started to reveal tantalising glimpses of data to me, spiralling threads of images and numbers, stats, charts, schematics, reports, each one lingering just long enough that I could see it but not read it. And there were corridors in that unreal world of the AI that I could see stretching off into a bright infinity, logic strings filling every dimension in a pulsating, living dance. I wanted to look at everything all at once. But at the same time, I only wanted to see a way to get a message out. Figure out where, in all this, the comms routes were. Physical or not, they’d be somewhere.
It started to flash up personnel files, faces I recognised, the details vague and hazy, just beyond my reach.
I didn’t fall for it.
It didn’t like that.
It stopped.
The data vanished, black descending fast, a pressure building against my chest.
“Are you not curious to see your mission brief, Luka?”
I refused to get drawn in. They’d not told us anything and I was sure they would when they needed to. I didn’t even know if I was going.
“Oh, you are going, let me reassure you of that.”
A shiver shot down my spine. I was sure it was reading my thoughts, and to some degree I guess it was. I’d read about the Senson implants. How you could communicate just by thinking what you wanted to say. But I was still new to all this. I had no control. I didn’t know how to not send. I didn’t realise it at the time but it could hear what I was thinking because I was sending everything I was thinking. It felt like my soul was laid out, wide open. I clicked into neutral, hoping beyond desperate hope that it’d need to be an active thought, an actual neural spark of a connection and not just stuff I knew.
It laughed. It was a machine and it laughed. “I have a job for you to do, Luka. They’re sending you to infiltrate a military base. I want you to hack into the AI at that base for me. Just like you did on Kheris.”
I felt trapped. If the AI knew, the IDC guy would know. They’d all know what I’d done. My skin was crawling and all I had going through my head were his codes, his account numbers and the lines and lines of detail from his damned ledger that had caused so much damage.
“Fascinating,” it murmured, “but he isn’t Diplomatic Corps. Surely you know that? But don’t worry, Luka, you’re mine. He might be in charge of the operation here, but I am Spearhead and he follows my orders. I need you. Your talents are too valuable to me. And I am certainly not going to let any harm come to you.”
You know I’ve told you before that I hate AIs? After what happened to Charlie, I’ve never been able to trust one. Not even Skye. It didn’t matter what anyone said to me. I’d been bullied before and believe me, being intimidated and held to ransom by a freaking machine tops anything any other human could ever do to you. And it was listening in to everything I was thinking.
“Luka, I want you to be smarter than this. You think the AI at that tinpot garrison on Kheris was tough? That was child’s play. You need to listen to me and do exactly as I say.”
A schematic appeared around me, encircling me. I was in its centre, its core, pulsing lines spreading out in all directions. I could feel my internal temperature rising.
“The location you are being sent to,” it murmured, “is one of the most secure facilities in the galaxy, and security is being heightened even as we speak. You think you’re smart? Prove it to me. Do what I say and I will keep you alive. And Luka, work with me and I can give you – what – ever – you want.”
It couldn’t give me what I wanted. I squeezed my eyes shut but I could still see the lines, I could still hear its insidious taunting.
My head felt like it was going to implode. The pressure built, my temperature increasing.
“No,” I whispered, shivering even though I was burning up.
“Oh, Luka, you don’t have any choice.”
“No.”
The pressure spiked, every nerve in my entire body sparking in agony. The data flowing around me started to spin, pin pricks of lights so bright my eyes felt like they were on fire. It went faster and faster.
Then I saw it. The core. The very essence of the AI. I nudged the strings, isolating one of the pulsing arteries, following it like a thread in a maze through to its central nervous system and its cerebrum, seeing the pathways, clearing the way ahead of me with gentle touches here and there. I couldn’t breathe but I forced myself to reach further, manipulating the code, subtly at first then more blatantly as I saw a way to reach the comm network.
I almost had it, it saw what I was doing, and it burned my fingers. I could almost feel its panic. It became a race. It was shutting me down as fast as I was busting a way through.
The heat and pain escalated.
I grabbed for the connection.
Dizzy. Clumsy.
It stopped me and held me there, as if it had me round the throat.
Then the voice of the AI was a whisper in my ear. “Oh child, I wish you hadn’t done that. How can I let you live now, knowing you can hurt me so easily, so heartlessly? Things could have been so different…”
The pressure peaked. I screamed. And a dense, black darkness washed over me, sucking me in and drowning me out.
I came round with a jolt, waking into a nightmare, standing outside in the open, in bright sunshine, eyes stinging from the acrid white smoke that was swirling all around me, shots ricocheting in every direction, shouts echoing. And a gun in my hand.
I staggered backwards. My upper arm was burning, heart thumping, head pounding. My finger was on the trigger. I sucked in a lungful of smoke and nearly choked. I turned, shying away, trying to shield my mouth. Someone screamed. Someone else crashed into me and I stumbled onto one knee. The shockwave of an explosion up ahead sent a blast of heat and a flurry of dust and debris into my face. I couldn’t see, couldn’t think, could hardly breathe. Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me, staggering, into a run. There were harsh, snapped shouts of, “Pull back. Get inside the Citadel. We’ve gotta get to the armoury. C’mon, pull back.”
Whoever had hold of me didn’t let go, hauling me along with them until we’d made it deep inside, running through dark corridors, footsteps echoing, and finally a blast door slamming shut behind us, closing out the noise and clamour.
Whoever it was that had hold of my arm spun me around and shoved me forward. I fell and tumbled, scrambling up onto my knees, chest heaving.
The AI had done something to me and I had no idea what. And my amazing memory? I can recall everything that’s ever happened to me, in my whole life, in excruciatingly exact detail. That last session in that freaking pod wiped me out. I don’t remember a thing.
“What the hell happened?” Hilyer was saying, calm and controlled, and in a way that made it worse than if he’d screamed it at me.
I still had hold of the gun. It felt really bad that I had a gun. I tossed it onto the floor in front of me, trembling, and looked up. Hil was standing there wearing a military pa
rade uniform, a gun in one hand, a baton in the other, and I realised it was Hil that had pulled me inside.
“What happened?” he said again.
“He’s gone rogue.” Jem shoved me from behind and went and stood next to Hilyer.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hil said. “We’ve got what we need. Secure him. Secure them both.”
Someone caught hold of my arms and yanked me backwards, pulling tight and snapping cuffs around my wrists.
“This is bullshit,” I said, struggling against them and trying to twist around to see who else was there. “What the hell are you doing? What the hell are you all doing?”
It was some of the kids that had been selected from Redemption. All standing there, all holding guns, all in uniform, all watching me.
I was wearing the same uniform. The shirt was itchy as hell, buttoned up, too tight around the neck, sleeves too tight around the wrist. I’d never worn clothes that smart, that rigid. It might as well have been a straight jacket. I tried to see who was holding me and got a blow to the side of the head, so hard it made my vision blur.
“Put them in the storeroom,” Hilyer ordered. “We need to reinforce our position.”
I was twisted around.
“Wait.” I tried to protest but just got another blow to the head that almost sent me to my knees.
They pushed me forward and shoved me into a dimly lit room not much bigger than a cupboard. I hit the floor and rolled, vaguely aware that they were throwing someone else in there with me. I rested my forehead on the cold ground as the door was slammed shut. My eyes were watering from the smoke and a warm trickle was dripping past my ear. I looked up. Into the scared face of a young kid. His Royal Imperial Majesty the Emperor Wu of Earth. Commander in Chief of the Imperial forces. Eight years old. And locked in a cupboard. With me.
Chapter 27
I recognised him straight away. He was wearing the uniform of an Imperial Naval officer cadet similar to the ones we were wearing but with significantly more medals and decorations.
“You’re bleeding,” he said. He looked scared but he didn’t sound it.
“Where are we?” I muttered.
“In the storeroom.”
Apparently he was a comedian as well as Imperial royalty.
He reminded me of the middlings we used to have in our gang but there was something about the way he held himself, an aura of authority even though he was sitting on the floor with his hands bound behind his back.
I struggled to sit up, a headache banging behind my eyes. “Where are we?”
“How come you don’t know where you are?”
I was probably that obnoxious when I was eight. I closed my eyes, trying to suck in a deep breath without coughing. “Can you just tell me where we are and what just happened?”
His reply was dry, dripping with statesmanly condescension. For an eight year old, he had presence. “This is the Royal Ancients Military Academy,” he said. He paused for effect. “And you just shot the admiral.”
I didn’t remember anything after the AI had threatened to kill me, inside that pod. My mouth was dry, lungs sore, heart in my stomach.
“Where is that?” I said. I’d never heard of it.
“The military academy? Caron Four.”
I blinked open one eye and squinted at him. “A planet?”
The kid nodded, looking at me like he couldn’t believe I was being so dim. I couldn’t believe I was being so dim. It didn’t matter how much I rattled around inside my head, I couldn’t remember. I definitely didn’t remember shooting anyone.
“I shot the admiral?”
He nodded again. “Don’t worry, you didn’t kill him.”
That didn’t make me feel better. “How long have we been here?”
He looked at me like he was going to say, ‘In the storeroom?’ again but thought better of it. “Term started last week,” he said. “I’ve been here for three years. You’ve been here a week. Preparing for the celebration today. How come you don’t remember?”
“A week?”
“We’ve been practising for the parade. There are cadets from military families and schools all over the Empire. It’s the Veteran’s Honour Parade, anniversary of the first battle of Hanover. How come you don’t remember? Did you bang your head?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t mean to but I snapped it. My head was hurting. My arm was hurting. I was sitting in a damn cupboard. This kid was the target. He had to be. But if it was a straightforward assassination, he’d be dead already. I had no recall of our orders. Nothing. Nada. And I didn’t understand what had knocked me out of the state of conditioning they’d dropped us into, out of whatever it was the AI had done to me.
“What are they going to do?” he asked. Calm as if we weren’t discussing his fate.
“I don’t know.” I looked around. “But we need to get out of here.” There were vents in the ceiling.
“You’re bleeding,” he said again.
“Thank you, I hadn’t noticed,” I said sarcastically. Then felt bad for saying it. It wasn’t his fault we were in the storeroom. I leaned to the side, twisted my wrist and snapped my hands free, shrugging my arm round to take a look at the wound. I’d taken a hit that wasn’t much worse than a graze but my sleeve was soaked red. I shrugged out of the tunic and tore off the shirt, glad to be rid of it, thankful I had a vest underneath, and more breathless than I should have been. I tore a strip off the shirt and wrapped it round the wound in my arm, pulling with my teeth to fasten it. Getting shot sucks. I was glad I couldn’t remember it this time.
The kid was watching. I didn’t know how to free his hands and he wouldn’t get far as he was.
I sat back and looked at him. I knew they wouldn’t leave us alone in there for long.
“Where are we?” I said. “Within the academy, where are we? Is there a comms centre?”
“In the admin block on the other side of the parade square. I can show you.” What he meant was, ‘Don’t leave me here’.
I pushed to my feet and looked around the shelves, doubtful there’d be a knife in there or anything as useful but you never know. I started pulling boxes out, rummaging through drawers, half an eye on the door and half an ear on trying to hear anything out there.
There was nothing in there, nothing I could use. I turned back to the kid, the Emperor, the target of our damned mission, sitting there looking at me like I was going to make it all okay, and I didn’t know what to say.
“Why are they doing this?” he asked in that insanely calm voice.
They. In his mind he’d obviously come to the conclusion that ‘I’ was not ‘they’ by virtue of the fact we were sharing the same cupboard. Which meant ‘I’ was now also ‘us’. I had to admit he had more of a handle on things than I did right then.
“I don’t know.” I was thinking that I’d have to split, make a break for it, hope to get word out and get back before anyone realised I was gone. I looked back up at the vent. And froze as the door opened and Jem walked in.
She took two steps towards me. I backed off.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Hilyer wants to see you.” She noted the discarded plasticuffs on the floor but made no comment.
There was no banter, no bad jokes, no smiles. It was like she’d never seen me before. She pushed me out ahead of her, towards two other kids who were cradling rifles. They slammed the door shut. I heard the lock mechanism engage and they dropped into step behind us.
Walking through the dark corridors of the Citadel brought on an insane bout of déjà vu. It was similar enough to the construction of the base on Kheris that it felt like I’d been in there before but the memory of it was hazy, fogged, like I’d dreamed it. And it mingled with weird memories of a dank basement on Kheris when I’d been marched in to see Calum lording it over our little gang of kids after Maisie had left. For a fraction of a second, I wondered where they were and what they’d be doing. But it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered exc
ept getting back to the guild.
Jem took me into an office, past another two kids that were on guard. I should have been one of them, and I wasn’t. There was a set of displays on one wall, flicking from one view to another, surveillance cameras, most of them showing the parade square, various views of the Citadel surrounded by what looked like an entire army, ground troops in powered armour, tanks, DZs, drop ships. It was hard to think all that was out there, while it was so quiet in here.
Hilyer was sitting on the edge of a massive ornate wooden desk, talking intently to three others. They didn’t look happy and they looked even more unimpressed when we walked in.
Jem pushed me forward.
Hilyer glanced up, expression dark, muscle ticking in his jaw like he was about to lose his temper.
One of them started to argue.
“No,” he snapped. “These are our orders now.” He jumped off the desk. He wasn’t tall but he was commanding. He had a gun in a holster on his thigh, another on his belt at his side. He rested his hand on the pistol grip. “Are you questioning me? Do I have to report your disobedience to the General?”
The kid that had opened his mouth to protest, clamped it shut and skulked past me, shoving me with his shoulder.
“Everyone, get out,” Hilyer said. “You know what you have to do. Go do it. Or we’re going to get overrun.”
They all split, reluctantly, but they went.
The office we were in was wood panelled, plush carpet, more ostentatious than anywhere I’d seen on the Alsatia, a world apart from anything on Kheris.
Hilyer waited until we were alone then he stared at me. He looked furious, gun still held down by his thigh.
“Do you remember anything?” he said.
“About what? About why we’re here? No, I don’t. You want to tell me?”
He took a step towards me and I thought he was going to hit me for being such an ass, but he just stared at me. I half thought he was going to shoot me.
