by S. E. Smith
Ssssnake can sssspeak for hersssself…
Apologies.
Weapons? Rap asked. He had the odd sensation his eye twitched.
There issss a reposssitory of weaponssss nearby…
Show me.
A human came around the corner, a guard of some sort because his arm lifted, but he never got a shot off. Rap took time to drag him back and throw him in the cell. Snake closed the door again. The short journey to the weapons storage was uneventful. Where is she, he asked, as he grabbed everything he could. He glanced around. He still remembered—
Where is she, he asked again. And then you can both go back to the ship.
With all due respect, you need us.
Need ussss…
They were correct, but Ale’s “I’m sorry” echoed in his mind. Whatever it was she planned, she did not expect to survive. He could not, he would not let her die alone.
They have detected the virus and are launching countermeasures.
He felt his body settle into grim lines. He could not be in two places at once. He would fight to complete the mission and then… “Where is the nearest systems’ terminal?”
Thissss way…
The room is not empty. In point of fact, it is quite populated.
Then he’d have to depopulate it.
As soon as the doors closed behind her, V’ruwak stepped close—but not too close—running his dead gaze over her. Ale felt frozen, a part of her shocked at what she’d just done but unable to stop. It was as if she’d caught a virus, too. She remembered this man, though the aspect of man facing her bore little resemblance to the man in her memory. Except for his eyes. They had not changed. They were devoid of warmth or humanity.
He looked and moved like a walking cadaver. There were deep grooves putting dark shadows in his gray skin. He lifted a hand, one with so little flesh under the skin the bones were clearly outlined. He’d managed to extend his life, but he looked as if a touch would turn him to dust.
If only, she thought. If only he hadn’t lived, then—what? What was this strange compulsion? Why had she revealed herself to him? Perhaps she’d come hoping to find information about her mother, but not this way. She’d never wanted to see V’ruwak again.
Four fingers curled in as one claw digit reached and poked her cybernetic skin. It seemed she had overestimated her importance to him. Only her skin interested him, at least for now.
His gaze lifted, and the hand withdrew.
“Bring it,” he ordered and turned, striding quickly down the long hall.
It?
Jett sounded outraged. Ale did not blame her. Unlike Ale, the AI was not used to being called an “it.”
You need to leave as soon as an opportunity presents itself, Ale told Jett. Find your way back to the ship. It felt as if Jett snorted.
Who is it?
There was disdain in the AI’s tone. Ale almost smiled at Jett’s returning of the dismissive designation. When Ale didn’t answer, Jett asked again.
Who is it?
Ale fought the urge to bring her cybernetic skin back up as the two robots dragged her after V’ruwak. And inside she fought the urge to answer the question, to face what she’d hidden from for so long.
He is my father.
I am unclear on the plan.
You have two options, Rap told Nelson. You can leave, or you can help Snake launch a counter-attack on their systems.
What will you be doing?
I’ll be clearing the room, he told the AI. Choose now, because I’m going in. It felt odd to sense Nelson pushing back his sleeves. He almost asked, then decided he didn’t have time.
His cybernetic enhancements were not as efficient at entry as his unit had been. He had to manually touch the entry pad, allowing attack nanites to flood in and authorize his entry. He had two weapons ready—both set to stun—as the door slid back. No one in the room even looked up from their terminals. They were hunched over data-entry pads, frantically working.
They are trying to stop the virus.
Nelson fed him a data stream that appeared in his cybernetic headgear. There was no reason now for it to stay stealth, so it was fighting back. How are we doing? he asked.
Right now it is about even.
Nelson did not sound like he liked admitting it. Get in there and help. Please, he added. Rap targeted a humanoid in front of the closest terminal, and when he, or possibly she, slumped over, he eased them clear of the terminal. Incredibly, he still hadn’t been seen. He made physical contact with the terminal, so Nelson could use the contact for fast access, then he rose and started targeting the other humanoids in the room.
Watch yourrr baccck…
Rap spun and shot the access panel. It wouldn’t keep a robot out for long, but it would hopefully get them the time they needed to win the viral battle. Now the techs started to notice him. Some kept working frantically at their terminals, while others dove under the tables. He jumped up on one of the tables and kept firing.
Robots incoming.
You and Luke should form a support group for kids with crap dads.
Luke? Ale asked the question vaguely. Whatever had her in thrall was dragging her back, back into the past. Someone was crying, a lost and lonely sound that made her heart hurt.
I think you might win the crap-dad contest.
Ale knew what crap meant though she could not see the face of the person who’d taught her this.
Something weird is happening in here. We need Rap.
Rap. She knew that name, or she had known him. But something held her back from thinking about him, and besides, thinking of him made water try to leak from her opticals.
Eyes, sweetie. There was a pause. Okay, something seriously freaky is happening inside your brainbox—
Jett gave a startled sound. It was the only warning Ale had as a dam inside her head broke. If she could have screamed, Ale would have. As it crashed over her, it shattered the one called Ale, leaving the daughter of Erume standing in the wreckage with pain dripping off her. The daughter of Erume. What—she’d had no other designation. No name. Nothing to tell her apart from the others. There had been others. Sisters. Where were they now? One by one they’d left…
You are Ale.
The voice was so faint, she strained to hear it. Who—?
I am Jett.
Jett. She knew Jett. Jett was—better than this. She needed to leave before the—seliks happened, whatever that was. She knew but she didn’t know. Forming the words in her mind took effort. Cold crept out from the memories, like V’ruwak’s claw fingers, seizing up muscles and biting deep into bone, stealing her voice.
I don’t want you to panic or anything, but Rap could probably use our help. Just a bit.
Rap? Memories stirred but she ignored them. Regret only increased the cold. He deserves better.
Daughter of Erume, hear me.
She frowned. It was her…mother’s voice. More memories rushed out. Of being dragged from her mother’s arms. Brief contact via vids once a year. And always with that look in her eyes that said, remember. Remember your promise.
What promise?
At the fullness of your power, when you come of age, you will gain the power of the seliks. Use it to avenge me.
His face, from the past, grew in her mind until she struggled to escape, to scream. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. Only she knew she wouldn’t get to leave to get away from him until she kept this promise. Had she made a promise?
Swear to me on your life that you will do this for me. Promise your mother!
And in a distant echo in her mind, she heard a child’s voice say, “I promise, my mother.”
Ale! Your mother is as bad as your dad! Dig deeper into your memory and you will see!
On some level Ale was aware that the robots pushed her into a room, an office? V’ruwak, this old version with the same eyes, waited for her in front of a large desk. They were the same shade of gray, she noted vaguely. She felt pressure on her
shoulders to sit and then was aware that the two robots positioned themselves on either side of her. It felt not real, like a dream.
A nightmare!
With an effort, Ale thought it again. Leave me.
I’m not leaving you. Hang on. Hang on to me!
Ale felt worry breach the ice, but not enough to let her move. Rap needed to stay away, too. He needed to forget her, to do the mission and leave…mission? She’d come here to do something important. Had she imperiled the mission? For a moment Ale pushed out the cold.
“If she moves, rip her head from her body,” V’ruwak said, almost indifferently. But his avaricious gaze betrayed him.
Wow, not feeling the daddy love from the—
Jett used a word that Ale did not recognize, yet knew was not a compliment. If she could have smiled, she would have. She still couldn’t move, but something stirred in the depths of her memory. She glanced down at her hands, resting quiescently on her knees. She was perfectly aligned again. She looked up, meeting his gaze. She refused to name him Father—again. The sight of him made the something hot flare higher.
Um, it’s getting warm in here. Weirdly warm.
Warm? But she felt ice cold.
V’ruwak straightened and paced briefly in front of the desk before coming to a stop in front of her again. His dead gaze finally settled on her face. “I wonder which one you are,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “And who made you into this.” He touched the skin again, there was a sizzle sound and he yanked his hand back, startled. He flexed the fingers. “Interesting.”
He is our enemy! Fulfill your promise!
She didn’t know how to do it.
I have a bad feeling about this seliks thing. A really bad feeling. A smoking-hot bad feeling.
“He took me from my mother.” Ale was surprised to hear the words echoing around the bleak room. Had she meant to speak them out loud? The only other time she’d felt this out of control—she flinched from the memory but had no power to escape it. CabeX had offered to carry her dead body back to where she’d done it. It was necessary to conceal the consciousness transfer from V’ruwak and others. She’d set herself—her body—back down in the blood. There’d been so much blood for two wounds. They didn’t give slaves like her knives, so she’d had to create her own. She’d explored the room inch by inch until she’d found one rough spot. She’d worked on it for years. She knew what was coming and prepared to take it from him at the last minute.
But CabeX had offered her an alternative. If she’d known she’d find herself back in the same place—but she was not the same. The time with her crewmates had changed her. She had learned things that this man, that her mother had not wished her to know. Things like loyalty and friendship. Compassion for others, but also for herself. And love, she’d learned to love. This man would never know love.
Kill him!
Kill? Inside Ale shook her head. She’d fought beside her crewmates, she’d fought for them, but they tried not to kill unless it was in defense of themselves and the defenseless.
He’s not worth killing.
Her suit concealed one weapon, but against two robots…
I’m so glad you’re thinking again, but it’s still heating up in here.
Now Ale felt it, felt the burn of it along her veins. She did not know where it was being controlled. She’d been a human back then. There was no way anyone could have programmed her.
There is a thing called mental conditioning. Mind control.
Someone—no, her mother—was trying to control her. More of her memory of the past opened, and she saw, not the mother who clung to her crying, not the mother who appeared on the vids saying how much she missed her, but the real person. Now she saw the same lack of feeling in her mother—no, Erume’s eyes.
“Was she really my mother?” Again the question broke the silence of the room.
V’ruwak started, as if his thoughts had been far away.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “I’m more interested in these enhancements. Who made them?”
He didn’t make the mistake of touching her again.
The heat was building and with it a wave of…pain?
Grief, sweetie. But I think it is healing grief. I really hope because we’re not going to last much longer if you can’t get this under control.
Did she want to stop it? The fire hurt but the grief was worse. She needed it to stop.
If you kill him, the pain will be gone, her mother’s voice said.
She’s lying! You’ll be dead. And Rap will be dead, too. He’s in trouble!
Rap? Something cool and healing began to rise against the heat. She felt as if she hung between both, trying to decide what Ale needed. What Ale wanted.
Choice. Neither of them had given her choice. That had come from CabeX and the others. She could give into the past, or she could live—she could live—in the present and have a future. All she had to do was let go. All she had to do was choose.
And defeat a couple of robots…not that I’m trying to be negative.
Rap heard the robots assaulting the door at his back. He managed a quick look. They weren’t through yet.
In an ironic twist, they fortified this door in case the robots ever went rogue.
It was always a nice bonus when an adversary contributed to their own destruction. He targeted the last few techs still trying to fight the virus, but he did not delude himself that this was the only place that techs—under penalty of death most likely—were fighting back. He dropped into the seat in front of the last working terminal and joined the systems battle. Thanks to Nelson, he could see where Snake was still dropping packets of virus using the venting system. But if someone realized what she was doing, it could get dicey for her.
You should start heading back to the ship, he directed her.
As they’d expected, the Q’uy counterattack had a specific module to attack rogue robots. Either they had acquired a version of the virus Savlf had used against CabeX, or they collaborated with the spider pirate to create it. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that they had been working to boost its effectiveness since, based on what he saw in the data streams. If he’d still been a robot, he’d already be down. It was only the nature of his cybernetics that had protected him so far, but the nanites were computers, too. The countervirus appeared to be at least as adaptive as the one CabeX and others had developed for this attack. They were attacking him with almost everything they had, which left an opening for his virus to do some damage.
It is affecting the robots and shipping, but the main system is still capable of maintaining the counterattack.
Affecting the robots was optimal for Rap. He could withstand a lot, but not a combined robotic assault.
How many is a combined assault? Not because I’m worried or anything. Just for purely informational purposes.
What? Rap glanced back, saw the first signs of a breach in the door. A red line cutting through the metal. He released more strands of virus into the system, sending them against the program trying to breach his cybernetics. As a human, his response time was slower. He assumed this was the case for all the humans driving the counterattack. There was an upside. A human could come up with a save that a system didn’t. It was the human factor that had saved CabeX when he was attacked by a version of this virus.
But they had more humans on their side than he had on his. He did not let himself consider Ale in this calculation. He did not know what had happened to her. He did know that if he let worry overtake him, he would lose—all of them would lose.
Have we lost all hope yet? Because this would be a good time for the desperate saving play.
He did not have an answer for Nelson. He did not have an answer for his question either. Was he human enough to conceive of that desperate saving play?
The virus is still our best chance.
Ale thought about telling Jett—again—that she should go, she should flee her body, but she figured Jett was in there and already
knew her options. So she didn’t waste energy on futile thoughts. The virus—they needed to deliver something updated and new—and they needed to do it fast. If I can get the robots to touch me, could you whip something up? Something they aren’t expecting? Ale asked.
Already whipping—wow, that sounds kinky.
Ale lifted her chin so that her gaze met V’ruwak’s and she gave a slow smile, one she’d recently learned from the woman she’d called Mother.
“You are like her,” V’ruwak said, wariness altering his gaze.
Ale brought more of her cybernetic skin up, until only her head was visible. “You can touch it. It won’t burn this time.”
He eyed her for a long time, then he straightened abruptly. “Hold her.”
Bingo. He’s so predictable. I don’t why he lasted this long.
At contact with her cybernetic skin, Jett sent a variation of the virus into both robots.
They are already weakened from fighting the virus. It’s not a walk in the park, but it’s not impossible.
The claw hands cautiously touched her skin then spread out, stroking it.
Ale’s stomach roiled and she felt the heat try to break free again.
How about a little jolt of something? Can I, huh? Can I?
Yes!
Jett felt Ale’s emphatic assent and acted.
V’ruwak’s eyes widened, and his grip tightened painfully, but then his face went slack and he dropped at her feet. The robots’ hold on her was pulsing as they fought the virus. Ale waited for a slack moment and yanked free. They didn’t move and neither did V’ruwak. She didn’t realize she’d gone for her weapon, but it was in her hand.
Her fingers trembled with the longing to fire it.
Kill him.
Ale took a long slow breath, switched her weapon to stun, and fired it on the slack body.
Why?
Ale wasn’t sure who asked the question, Erume or Jett, but she answered it. “He will suffer more from failing. His enemies will rejoice over him. Dying would be too quick, too easy.”
Well, we’d better hurry or Rap won’t have a choice. He’s got a bunch of semifunctioning robots about to bust in on him.
