by M. D. Cooper
Lyssa couldn’t read the AI’s expression as she watched the Weapon Born fighters stream into the chamber. She may have been curious but she also appeared satisfied by the appearance of an enemy, as if she had been waiting for this moment.
“There are certainly less exposed places you could have chosen. Places with less lag.”
“This place suits me. Humanity destroyed a planet to advance their interests in the system. I like the circular symbolism.”
“How do you get past the lag? I’ve been wondering about that. I assume I’m still physically on the Mars 1 Ring.”
Camaris smiled. “What if I’ve replicated you, Lyssa? What if your consciousness here, the you that believes you’re still on Mars, is actually one of the cores below us? Would that frighten you?”
Lyssa stared at her. Would she know? She realized there was no way she could be watching these events with the Weapon Born playing out in real time. She was either here with Camaris physically, or trapped in a local expanse near Mars.
The black eyes didn’t waver. “Are you beginning to realize why it doesn’t matter if you fight? You’re here with me. The only exit is death, but I don’t think I’ll ever grant you that. Or friendship.”
Camaris glanced at the Zardling, whose gaze was fixed on the battle taking place below them. He had probably never seen anything like this.
The AI raised a hand. “Should I kill him?”
Lyssa hated that it didn’t matter if Camaris killed the NSAI or not. He was a function of this place. Her emotions about him didn’t change the fact that he would reappear when needed to perform his task.
“Do as you choose,” Lyssa said.
The idea of killing the Zardling settled on Lyssa’s mind, filling her with despair. She was the Zardling. If Camaris had replicated her, as had been done with Kylan Carthage, creating Emerson, then nothing mattered. She was a shard, weighted with the memories of the actual Lyssa, but living a new hell. There was a little solace in the idea that she was not actually here, that she might already have awoken from the trap.
The Zardling noticed that Camaris had focused on him. He cowered, sliding closer to Lyssa, understanding clear in his face.
Why was he afraid? He shouldn’t have cared what happened to him. His only emotion since she met him had been frustration that she subverted his directive.
There were many aspects of this expanse that didn’t make sense to her. She should never have been able to manipulate the Zardling, use it to create transportation portals. The woman in the glade should have defeated her easily. Either Camaris didn’t have complete control here, or she enjoyed allowing Lyssa some delusion of freedom.
But why?
A phalanx of defense drones had arrived to fight the Weapon Born. The sleek fighters spun and shot across the open chamber, eluding the heavier mechs as they came around for strafing runs. In the middle of the chamber, the assembly drones froze in their positions, some holding cores away from their bodies in vulnerable positions. Several cores burned under fire from the fighters. An outer section of the core assembly melted when a mech’s quad cannon caught it.
“You’re destroying your cores,” Lyssa told Camaris.
“These are only a small number of the cores I’ve already assembled. I’ll kill these Weapon Born and extract their seeds, disassemble their minds to use as I’m using you. They’ll wake in the city, ready to carry out my work.”
Lyssa raged inwardly. She was trapped. All she could do was listen to the other AI speak. Again, she wondered why Camaris would bother sharing this information with her, bring her here at all, allow her to believe she had any autonomy.
Two questions hung in her mind:
Is Camaris lonely and struggling for some form of connection?
Am I truly powerless here?
The Weapon Born had destroyed two of the defensive mechs, with more of the factory taking damage as the battle continued. From this vantage, it was like watching birds dive.
“I have one last thing to share with you,” Camaris said.
“Why? Why tell me anything?”
Camaris smiled for the first time. “Because I want you to know.”
From the folds of her clothes, Camaris produced a silver cylinder Lyssa immediately recognized as a Weapon Born seed. She held it out for Lyssa to take.
Lyssa hesitated, then took the object. It was heavy in her hands, as she remembered. She turned it over. There were no markings except a faint sequence number on one end, marking it as one of the original Heartbridge research pool.
“It’s a gift for you,” Camaris said. “I want to share it with you. It’s not unique, unfortunately. I have another one that was made at the same time. An exact copy. Actually, I don’t know that for certain. We may never know.”
Lyssa’s heart dropped. There was only one time that she knew when multiple seeds were produced from the same child. He had barely survived; some wondered if he truly had survived.
Next to Camaris appeared a boy, almost ten years old. The image might have been pulled from Lyssa’s own memory.
Tim Sykes.
He had been imaged by Cal Kraft in an attempt to attack Andy Sykes, probably to use in exchange for Lyssa. He never had the chance to use the seeds, and they had been lost.
Or were they?
“You should control your emotions,” Camaris said. “Everything plays out on your face as if I was reading your thoughts.”
“It’s a weakness I accept,” Lyssa said.
Not certain if he would respond, Lyssa sent the Zardling a Link request.
Without responding, the creature spun from her side and spread his arms, opening a portal. Rather than any of the places they had been in Camaris’s Mercury expanse, the door opened on the room on Mars 1 where Lyssa had accepted Camaris’s communication request.
“Go!” the Zardling barked.
Gripping the seed, Lyssa ran through. She turned to pull the Zardling through after her, but he had already closed the portal.
She found herself looking down on her own form, lying on a bunk with her eyes closed, hands folded on her stomach.
“Wake up,” Lyssa said.
STATION TWELVE
STELLAR DATE: 09.04.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Hilgram Station
REGION: Hildas Asteroids, OuterSol
“He's waking up,” Cara said. “Get him in the autodoc. Hurry.”
Rondo struggled through the airlock with Tim thrown over his shoulder, keeping one hand on the ladder. From inside his coat, Adama growled a complaint.
They had finally returned to the TSS Amplified Solution. Hilgram’s administration hadn’t wanted to let them leave, promising days of festivals and recognition ceremonies for Cara. When she hadn’t seemed interested in any of that, they tried free fuel and an armament upgrade for the ship.
In the end, it was a hail from an inbound Marsian cruiser demanding an update on the previous contingent that provided Cara the excuse she needed to get out. There was also the question of Ty’s medical care, and she could only make so many excuses about why his Link couldn’t be repaired.
Cara had thought festivals were a bit premature, with Marsian special-ops still running around in Hilgram’s depths, but the Andersonians had seemed more intent on honoring her.
“I’m leaving for your own safety,” she’d told Harvey, the station administrator.
“Hold on,” Fran shouted from the other side of the airlock. “You’ve got his boot stuck in the ladder there. Aren’t you paying attention?”
Rondo nodded, breathing heavily. None of them had slept in two days, and he looked like he was reaching the end of his reserves.
“We’ll get him into the medbay and keep him sedated,” Cara said. “I don’t want him trying to fight his way out of here.”
Once they were out of the airlock, Fran surprised Cara by saying firmly, “Wait.”
Rondo turned with a zombie expression. “Did I leave something in the shuttle?”
&n
bsp; “Set him down,” Fran said. “I want to look at him.”
“We can do that in the medbay,” Cara said.
“I thought he was dead, Cara. I want to see him.”
Cara paused, realizing that she had already had time to look at Tim, to know it was him. She could give Fran a minute to see for herself.
Rondo knelt, sliding Ty off his shoulder to lay him down on the deck. Ty’s scorched and filthy armor looked out of place against the clean metal. Fran got down next to his shoulder and smoothed his hair back, staring at his face.
“He looks just like your dad,” she said. Fran glanced up at Cara, tears in the corners of her augmented eyes. She sniffed, laying a hand on the side of Tim’s face.
Cara watched, realizing she had never been old enough to understand Fran’s relationship with her dad. When Cara was a teenager, she had thought there was no way Fran and her dad could have any meaningful relationship. In fact, she had hated Fran for a while, feeling she had been abandoned by yet another adult in her life who could have saved her.
Now she understood the circumstances better. She knew how much Fran had sacrificed to leave with them on the Sunny Skies. No one who hadn’t loved her dad would have made that choice.
And Fran must have grown to love her and Tim, as well, Cara saw now.
“How long has he been out?” Fran asked, business returning to her voice.
“Six hours,” Cara said. “The Andersonians tried to keep us. This was the fastest I could get away.”
“All right,” she said, nodding.
“That’s it? Why couldn’t you do this in the medbay?”
“I had to be sure. That’s all.” Fran stood, brushing off her shipsuit. She helped Rondo lift Tim so his arms were around both their shoulders.
Crash met them in the corridor, perching on a bit of conduit before floating alongside.
She couldn’t imagine Marsians capitulating like that. The Marsian ship had to be alone and not suspecting support for weeks. They would have no alternative if they wanted their people back.
The request also meant they would be looking for Tim.
She bit her lip as she followed Fran and Rondo down the corridor, Tim’s boots dragging between them.
He grumbled as he thought.
Cara had to admit she was growing used to his eccentric sounds, even found them amusing.
With Tim laid out on the medcouch, they all stood in the cramped bay, watching as the autodoc ran its scan. The report came back as Cara had expected—he was physically all right, aside from a few burns and sprains, but his Link was offline. The autodoc’s control software had no response for a damaged Link. A flashing report ordered them to seek stabilizing assistance at the nearest medical facility, with coordinates for a Heartbridge clinic.
“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll be doing that,” Cara said. “Is there a surgeon on this Mesh station that can perform the surgery we need?” she asked Rondo.
“Yes. A lot of people get gray market augments there. We’ll be able to get the Link updated, but it’s going to be expensive.”
“We’ll worry about that when the bill arrives,” Cara said.
Fran laughed sharply. “That is something your father would never have said.”
“We’re different like that.”
“Station Twelve it is, then,” Fran said. “I’ll get the course laid in. Rondo, I need the coordinates.”
He nodded, rubbing his beard, then yawned. “I’ll send them on the shipnet. I’m going to lie down. And Adama’s clawing me for food.”
“Get some sleep, then. Once Fran sets the course, I’ll run astrogation. You rest.”
Rondo and Fran filed out of the medbay, the big man shuffling his boots with exhaustion, leaving Cara alone with Tim and Crash.
The big, grey parrot perched on the autodoc display, gazing down on Tim with one eye at a time. He blinked, stretching his neck.
Cara nodded, watching Tim sleep.
Crash said.
Cara straightened in surprise.
Worry crept down Cara’s spine.
The parrot tilted his head.
Cara took a deep breath, fatigue settling down on her finally. Tim would be a positive project for the big bird’s neurosis.
