by Scott Baron
Why does he keep looking at me like that? Be mad, dammit!
Vince seemed determined to be nothing of the sort. For a second it seemed he might step closer, giving in to the urge to hold her close and comfort her, but instead, his longing gaze lingered just a moment longer, then, with a reluctant little smile, he pushed the door open and left her to dine alone. The food wouldn’t be the only thing she would have to digest that night.
The following morning, Daisy woke early, stretching her aching body, then settling into what had become a daily routine of meditation as she tried to further unlock the seemingly endless curiosities hidden in her mind.
The door cracked open.
“Hi, Vince. Look, I wanted to thank you for—”
An angry woman with a metal arm strode in.
Shit. Tamara.
She fixed her gaze on Daisy as she placed the tray of fresh fruit and some hot coffee on the table. If looks could kill, Daisy might very well have been well on her way across the river Styx, but fortunately, that was one martial skill Tamara was lacking.
The patches of blackened skin were gone, replaced by fresh pink flesh where the frostbitten parts had been excised and regrown. A full two-thirds of her left ear was new, as were both cheeks, and part of her forehead just above the eyebrows. The tip of her nose had suffered as well, but seemed to have managed to survive the freezing temperatures of space.
“Thanks,” Daisy managed to say as the shock wore off.
Tamara remained silent.
“So, um, what’s going on here? The captain wouldn’t tell me anything.”
The angry botanist said nothing as she gathered up the empty metal tray from Daisy’s dinner the night before, then turned for the door.
“Tamara, at least clue me in a little. Come on, you shot me with a stun rifle.”
“You blew me out a goddamn airlock!” she spat back, venom in her voice as her newly pink cheeks flushed an angry red.
“Because you and Gus were trying to shoot me!” Daisy shot back. “It was self-defense!”
“It was a fucking stun rifle, Daisy, not a real gun.”
“Gee, thanks, that makes it feel so much better.”
The two women glowered at each other.
“So how did you survive, then?” Daisy finally asked. “I know the ship didn’t turn around.”
Tamara flashed an angry look, the metal tray in her cybernetic hand crumpling as she fought to keep her anger in check. A long moment passed before her fingers relaxed, then she tapped on the shoulder of her metal arm.
“You’re such a fucking dumbass, Daisy. I was a soldier before I was a botanist. This is a modified combat arm designed for both atmospheric as well as space function. The shoulder houses an emergency egress oxygen shell. It can provide up to an hour of breathable air—if you can get it around yourself before you explode or freeze to death first. I was just lucky I was drifting the same direction as the ship, otherwise they’d never have been able to pick me up in time. Gus barely made it to me in the jumper as it was.”
“Former military?” Daisy mused. “Your charming demeanor makes much more sense, now.”
“Stow it. I almost died out there, just because you wouldn’t listen and went off on some panicked freak-out.”
“If you had told me from the beginning, none of this would ever have happened.”
“Told you what, exactly?”
Daisy hesitated.
“Um, whatever it is you all have been keeping so secret from me. Obviously, there’s some massive conspiracy the entire crew was in on.”
“Not Sarah,” she replied. “She was just like you.”
“What?”
“Yeah. What?”
Tamara took a deep breath.
“You never wondered why the two of you bonded so well? Why you worked in tandem when no other position had a redundancy like that?”
Daisy didn’t know how to process that.
Tamara, for her part, and angry as she was, in the back of her mind was nevertheless understanding of Daisy’s reactions, even if she wanted to throttle her to death for what she had done. As a soldier, however, she had to admit it made sense, defending yourself at all costs. As someone who had at least considered Daisy a shipmate, if not a friend, it still hurt.
“Look,” she grumbled, “the captain will explain it all. Just try not to freak out. And for fuck’s sake, no more blowing people out of airlocks.”
Daisy couldn’t tell if there was any humor in that statement as Tamara turned her back on her as she exited the cell.
A mere twenty minutes had passed when the wiry tech opened the door a crack.
“Ms. Swarthmore? I’m Alfred Chu, chief technician for Dark Side.” He paused. “Well, actually the only technician for Dark Side, I suppose. The commander asked me to bring you some clean clothes. May I come in?”
Daisy rose to her feet. “Sure thing, Alfred, come on in.”
The man stepped into the room with a clean set of clothes in his arms.
“Please, call me Chu. Everyone else does. Here, these should fit you. I’m sure you’ve already found the decon shower in the back of the cell. Sorry it isn’t piped for a proper water shower, but they didn’t really design this section for many creature comforts.”
“No worries,” she replied. “I’m just grateful for something clean to wear.”
She began peeling off clothes.
“You’re just trying to get him flustered.”
Now why would I do something like that?
Chu blushed and turned quickly for the door.
Daisy noted there were no security guards waiting outside.
“Hey, Chu,” she called after him. “I know I’m in lockdown, but do you think there’s any way I could get something to read? I’m bored out of my skull in here.”
“We don’t have any books on Dark Side, and I know they wouldn’t allow a vid tablet in one of the cells.”
“Well, how about digital books? They only require the most basic of readers. You think you could load a few onto one of those for me?”
The technician pondered a long moment.
“I don’t think I can do that, Ms. Swarthmore.”
“Please, call me Daisy. Look, I understand they don’t want me having any high-tech devices, but what about a service reader? Those things are dumb as a rock and about as powerful, but you could probably put a few books on one for me. Come on, Chu, it’s not like I’ll dig my way through a foot of steel with a tiny, plastic shell tablet. I know they’re not made to be e-readers, but you have to be an exceptionally smart guy if you’re the head tech for the whole base. I’m sure you’ve got the technical chops to make it work.”
He considered her request, the competitive nerd in him suddenly motivated to live up to the technical challenge.
“All right,” he finally said. “Bare-bones, though. If I run a few books through a file compressor then transpose it into straight text, I should be able to load them into the core memory without impeding readability.”
“Wow, you’re really clever, Chu. That’s genius!” she lauded. The technician’s demeanor warmed marginally.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a while. We don’t have a lot of books here, but I’ll put what I can on it.”
“Thanks, Chu. You’re a rock star.”
A fun new technical challenge at hand, he wore a little smile as he stepped from her cell and closed the door.
“What’s that all about?” Sarah asked. “You going to try what I think you’re going to try?”
“Great minds, Sarah,” Daisy chuckled. “Now hush, I need to plan.”
Daisy sat cross-legged on her bunk. After the last several days, being in a relatively comfortable, safe, and quiet environment, she was able to slide effortlessly into a meditative state.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The tablet was worse than she’d expected.
Far worse.
Ancient. Slow. Terribly outdated.
“Thanks, Chu! It
’s perfect!” she bubbled as he walked out of her cell. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this!”
“Still no guards outside, Daze.”
Yeah, I noticed.
“Hey, do you have any idea when they’re finally going to get me out of here?”
“Sorry, Daisy, they don’t keep me in the loop for that kind of stuff.”
“Okay, no worries. It was worth asking. But thanks again for this. I’m so glad to finally have something to kill time with.”
Chu flashed a friendly smile, then stepped out of the cell, closing the thick door behind him. As soon as it sealed, cutting her off from the rest of the base, Daisy carefully placed the tablet against the edge of her bunk, and with a quick stomp, separated the case from the components inside.
“Who needs a screwdriver when you’ve got a solid pair of boots?”
She began whistling a cheerful little tune as she pried out the pieces she was interested in.
“Ooh, yeah. Good idea,” Sarah said. “Though I don’t know if you’ll be able to access the hardwired bypass mechanism through a foot of reinforced steel.”
“Half a foot, actually. It’s mounted in the middle of the wall. It’s less reinforced there,” Daisy replied. “But I don’t need to access it.”
“No?”
“Nuh-uh. I’ve got a different idea.”
She set to work, stripping wires, carefully splicing them to seemingly unrelated components, then feeding them back to other low-power systems within the wrecked device. To a layman—or even a tech, for that matter—it would appear to be a complete waste of time, but Daisy knew better. How she knew better was something she’d ponder at a later date. For now, the important thing was escape and evasion.
Step one: Escape.
She lifted the metal stool they unwisely equipped the cell with and approached the door.
There it is, she said, noting the small, flush bit of conduit embedded in the wall to the side of the doorframe.
“Like I said, no way to get in there. And the Faraday shielding in the walls won’t give you any wireless access, either.”
“I don’t need total access. Just a teeny, tiny bit.”
Daisy then pressed a shard from the tablet’s case to the joint where the conduit met the doorframe and proceeded to smash it with the stool, using it like a tiny chisel.
“Soundproofing works both ways, assholes,” she muttered with a little chuckle.
It took several minutes, and scored Daisy a few bruised knuckles in the bargain, but eventually a small gap appeared. Nothing big, and surely not enough to access the internal workings of the security mechanism, but Daisy had other plans.
Carefully, she took the long, loose end of the wire she’d stripped and coiled before splicing it inside the guts of the smashed tablet and slowly fed it into the tiny opening. Once it was roughly six inches in, she powered up the circuit board and keyed in a quick series of commands.
“Even if that gets you the tiniest wireless connection, it won’t be enough for any real data streaming. Face it, you still won’t be able to override their security protocols with that thing, Daze. It’s way too slow and underpowered. Why, you couldn’t even begin to crack the security on the—” Her dead friend abruptly stopped when she realized what she was doing. “Oh, damn. Now that is clever.”
“Thanks. Let’s just hope it works.”
Rather than attempt to access and overcome the advanced security protocols keeping the door locked, Daisy had a far different plan in mind. Using the tablet as a power source, and the stripped wire she had fed directly into the door mechanism itself, rather than the security keypad, Daisy had established a very fine, but very real link to the brain of the door itself.
Fingers crossed they didn’t remove the fabricator’s safety protocols when they installed this thing.
She entered a tiny string of commands, then hit the enter key. The tablet hummed and fizzled, dying in her hands, but as it breathed its last, the door mechanism unlocked and the seal opened.
“Boom! That’s what I’m talking about!”
Quickly, Daisy slid the powerless door open and stepped into the corridor.
All clear.
She closed the door behind her, then took off at a quick, stealthy run.
“Used the life-support safety override to short out the master circuits and make the door think there was a power outage. Good one, Daze.”
“I couldn’t very well override their security, but all core-level systems are designed to preserve a breathable atmosphere, so long as there hasn’t been a pressure loss venting into space. If you make it look like it’s just a power outage—”
“You trick the door into thinking power went out, and it opens automatically to keep the breathable atmosphere constant. That’s one hell of an oversight on their part.”
“Yeah, but in their defense, it’s installed at a factory core-code level, so even the facility’s builders likely didn’t know about it.”
“So how did you?”
Daisy ignored the question as she came upon a base access terminal. Her fingers flew across the access keypad, and once she was past the biometric recognition system—thanks to a painfully simple code exploit—she began to cautiously dig through the machine’s access files, using only the lowest level overrides to pull up a base schematic without triggering any alarms.
There it is.
Daisy smiled as she scanned the detailed facility map. Satisfied she had accurately memorized the plans, she reset the panel to appear just as she found it, then continued down the corridor. Daisy had a new destination in mind: the ship’s landing bay.
Just gotta steal that hopper and make it back to the surface. New York should be a good bet—opposite coast, and likely untouched by whatever happened to L.A.
“Then they come back up here and kick some AI ass.”
Precisely.
Quickly and quietly, Daisy took off in a stealthy jog, a new course firmly locked in her head. It would be a bit tricky bypassing the final set of codes to release the ship once she had made it through the hangar, but she’d just have to deal with that when she got there.
The first set of doors she encountered, while thick and sturdy, were nevertheless a snap, and she had them open in under a minute.
At this rate, I’m guessing three minutes till I’m in the hangar.
“Unless there are guards.”
Obviously. But we can avoid them.
“We? So I’ve been upgraded from a voice in your head?”
Shut up, you know what I mean.
Daisy paused as she slowly rounded a blind curve in the corridor.
No one there.
She increased her pace and soon arrived at the hangar doors, beating her estimate by nearly twenty seconds. She accessed the door terminal and ran a quick bypass protocol.
Locked.
Shit. They’ve modified this one. Something new.
Nimble fingers entered another string of commands. Again, the door remained locked. The clock was ticking. The longer she remained exposed in one place, the greater her chance of being recaptured.
“Is there another way in?”
“Yeah, but I’d have to pass straight through the mess hall to reach it.”
“So, what are the options?”
Daisy had an idea. Switching her scans from schematics and lock protocols, she tapped into the base’s life support status readouts. A series of red dots appeared on the screen, spread throughout the facility. None were in her immediate path, and the mess hall was completely empty.
“Everyone’s at the other end of the base. If ever there was a time to make a run through the mess hall, this would be it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“You share my eyes. You saw the readout.”
Without another moment of hesitation, Daisy ran the twists and turns of the work-around route to the hangar deck. In less than a minute she stood at the mess hall doors.
Silence.
Of course, the doors were sound-proof, so that was to be expected. Nonetheless, she double-checked the life signs readout on the nearest display. No one had moved. The mess hall was clear.
She bypassed the door’s monitoring mechanism and eased inside. The room was unlit, an energy conservation protocol preserving base power when areas were empty.
Should just take a second for the motion sensor to light up the—
The lights came on all at once, just as the door behind her slammed shut. Daisy spun on her heel, dropping to a low fighting stance. The burly military-types who had escorted her upon arrival stood in her path, blocking her escape, but made no move toward her. They were dressed in tank tops and fatigue pants, revealing more of their modifications.
“Check it out,” Sarah said. “Two metal arms, all the way up! Holy shit, this chick’s a total badass.”
Contrasting her deep ebony skin, the woman’s shiny limbs stood out even more than Tamara’s did.
Great, now we have two surly women with deadly appendages, Daisy griped. She took a quick look at the burly, crew-cut man as he shifted on his feet. Looks like he’s got two replacement legs, judging by the way he stands. Might even go all the way to the hip.
“That high? You think he’s got bionic junk, too?”
God, Sarah, you always go there, don’t you?
Daisy had the feeling her dead friend would have liked to reply with a witty comeback, but something else caught her eye. Vince was there, too, sitting at a table across the room next to Chu. He winked at Daisy, a mischievous little grin plastered on his face. The grin she had always found so attractive, before she found out what he really was.
“Told you she’d do it.” He laughed at the perplexed technician. “Come on, man. Pay up.”
Grudgingly, Chu handed over the pudding cup from his dining tray.
“Boom! Double dessert! That’s my girl,” he said with a chuckle.
“But it shouldn’t have been possible!” Chu lamented. “Those were triple fail-safe systems. There’s even a biometric security lock!”
“You’d be surprised what she can do. She’s far exceeded all parameters and expectations. At this point, we’re really just learning exactly what she’s capable of,” Captain Harkaway said from across the quiet room. A quiet room full of people.
