Help me.
12
Sir Rupert broke up their stare-fest by landing between them and then tucking his wings neatly into his sides. They both might have flushed, okay, she did. Who knew if Valyr did with the blue stuff still tracking across his skin. She’d mostly gotten over being freaked out by it since it didn’t seem to be catching. Their clasped hands had that been a study in contrasts.
Now she leaned back, giving her abruptly freed hand a surreptitious look. No blue things. And no more warmth…
Sir Rupert gave her a look that might have been exasperated. He didn’t outright nod at the screens, but the non-order was clear. Get back into the systems.
Because it was going to be so easy to hack into a sentient system. Something about her expression must have indicated compliance, however dubious because he turned toward the little robot.
“Siru?”
The robot spun his head, not his body, around. “Yes?”
“Do you have the ability to shine a directed light beam?”
Did the little robot perk up?
“I do.”
“I was wondering if you and I could look around? I am seeking information about my kindred, my species. We had identified some places to look, but did not get very far in our search.”
Siru considered this request, based on the humming sounds.
“Your request is reasonable, but I do not have these locations,” Siru pointed out.
Sir Rupert looked at Rachel.
Her fingers had been tapping while they’d been talking and now she held up the digital map she’d created on her tablet just before they found Valyr. Siru rolled closer and studied it and then gave a robotic nod.
“I have saved those locations.” He turned toward the hallway, and a light beamed out of his forehead. “Is this light acceptable to you?”
Sir Rupert fluttered to a landing on top of his head. “It is acceptable.”
“There is, or was, a public address system if you need to ask me something,” Rachel called after them as they rolled away. She figured he’d know how to tap into it. Siru lifted an arm in what she assumed was an acknowledgement. The murmur of their voices—it sounded like they were chatting—faded away as they made the turn out of her sight.
“How ambassadorial of him,” she muttered.
“He is an ambassador?” Valyr didn’t sound startled or even slightly surprised. It was possible he’d met some unusual ambassadors working in this place. He tipped his head to the side. “You look concerned?”
“I had reasons for coming here and I’m not getting very far with any of them,” she admitted. She didn’t have answers to the questions she knew, didn’t know the questions she needed to know yet, so all she could do was follow her gut. It had gotten better at leading as she got older. She just hoped it didn’t let her down now. If the system was truly sentient…well, this could get interesting in ways bad to her and her gut.
“Perhaps I can help,” he suggested.
He looked like he meant it. She indicated her dark console. “Could you help with that? I got shut out for some reason.”
“The system is updating. It has been alone for a very long time.”
“But we have a probe and a ship with unknown intentions heading this way,” she pointed out. “Some of my people are headed this way, but I can’t update them on conditions. Or anything.” Had the Kikk Outpost been kicked offline, too? If it had, she was in so much trouble. She hadn’t pushed the button, but she had a feeling that their arrival had knocked over a domino that had started it all. “Are you sure the system didn’t, you know, wake you up?”
He started to shake his head, then stopped. “I can not be certain.” “He frowned. “I thought one of us was trying to form the tangram, but now I’m not sure.”
“This worries you?”
“The proper protocols have not been followed, so yes, this worries me.”
He did look worried. She tried not to notice how cute he looked with the tiny wrinkles between his brows because it was so shallow to notice when he was so worried. And she was worried, too. So yeah, not the time to go shallow. It was a pity because she’d never wanted to go shallow before. She’d never had the chance to look over a cute guy and go all girl. She kicked shallow back in the, er, shallows and focused. After a moment’s deep thought, she asked, “You think it might be a trap?”
“I did not think it was possible, but,” his lips curved wryly, “much has changed. I have slept a long time.”
Rachel hesitated, but this wasn’t her circus anymore. “There are others in…cold sleep back there.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
Did he know about the other him?
He stared at her, his gaze troubled. “It should not be my decision—it was never meant to be…” He looked down, the line of his mouth a taut line, one finger tapping the surface of his console. “If I wake them, they can not go to sleep again.”
Rachel inhaled shakily. “So you can’t go…back in either?”
He looked up once more, his mouth twisting wryly. “I do not think I could do it again.”
She wanted to reach out to comfort him. She had a degree in loss, a master’s in reluctant acceptance, but she didn’t know how to cross the small divide. How could she comfort him when she didn’t know—
He leaned forward, covering hands she hadn’t realized were clenched into fists.
“What troubles you, Rachel?”
Where did she begin? It was her turn for wry to twist her lips. “I want to help you, but I’m not sure I can help myself or my—Sir Rupert.” Why had she really joined the Expedition? To seek out new life and ideas? Or to run away? They’d grilled her hard about that, but she didn’t know which was her main goal, so she passed. Or lied as well to them as she had to herself.
“If I make it back to Kikk, well, I’ll be in a lot of trouble.” Would they send her home? Home. The silence there was different from the silence here. That silence was thick with memories and—yeah, she didn’t want to go home. If that was running, so be it.
“Why would you be in trouble?” His grip tightened.
“When I used the transport cubicle to come here, I,” she looked away, color staining her face, “I didn’t realize it would take us to another planet.” She forced herself to look at him. “Stupid, huh?”
He chuckled. “Not stupid to do something that should not have been possible. Only those who knew the exact pattern should have been able to access that particular portal.”
He looked impressed, which was both nice and a pity because she’d never been able to manage it without the bird’s help. It also meant that no one else would be able to use it to send her aid or guys with guns. Unless…
“Is that only here from there?”
He nodded, but absently. “All access portals have been deactivated in any case.” He tried to sound reassuring. “The access from the surface as well.”
“See, I don’t think those guys will care. The access tunnel from the surface is clear, so they will be able to get in.” He looked skeptical. “I ran a diagnostic, and it’s clear all the way to the top.”
He looked puzzled, shaking his head.
“They won’t need a code to get in here. They drop down the shaft, apply some explosives to that door, and they are in.” He still looked a bit skeptical, so she freed one hand and started to work on her tablet. “Those guys used force to enter the border outpost, grant you, not as much as it looked like they could use, but they didn’t need to go crazy on it. There was no one there.” She found the video, thank goodness she’d saved it to her tablet.
She held the table so he could watch the robot intrusion from this different angle.
He took the tablet from her hand, set it aside, and then clasped both of her hands in his, his sigh big enough to distract her attention to his chest. A little, and only for a few seconds.
“We became very dependent on our technology at the end. Perhaps we had lost the ability to think strategi
cally. What will assist us strategically?”
“We need real-time tracking, eyes out there watching what they are doing. And we need to know…” she almost said they needed to know what defenses this place had, but he probably already knew. “We need to know what other defenses this outpost has that are still in working order. We don’t know what they want here or what they’ll do to get it.” She paused. “If we can’t retreat, then we need to be prepared to protect ourselves.”
“And?” His head tipped to the side. “There is and, is there not?”
“Contact, with my people on Kikk and the squadron out there. I’m guessing they are cut off from the outpost tracking. That puts them at a disadvantage. They need to know our sit-rep.”
“Sit…rep?”
“Situation report.” They’d need intel, too. “They’ll be…worried about us.”
Did anyone know they were here? Their presence would seriously complicate any response the squadron might make. Hostages. It was an ugly word with a lousy prognosis. She glanced at her dark console and smiled wryly. “I’m used to being connected.”
At least to a net, a system. People, not so much. She glanced at their still connected hands and felt her color rise again. He made her feel not so alone, but could she trust him? This was not just about her and this moment. If she made the wrong choice because her heart was jumping at the sight of him, she could put the whole Expedition at risk.
The blue tracks were teaching him who he was, but they weren’t telling her anything. She was a doctor, a researcher, not an interrogator.
He glanced back at the screen and dropped his voice. “Perhaps there is a…back door access?”
She felt her lips curve up. He was a hacker, too? Oh man, she could so fall for this guy, blue bugs or not. She glanced at her tablet, her brows arching. He nodded, shifting his chair closer to hers. Their shoulders brushed against each other, and she took a shaky breath. She wished she had time to hack his code. Like she knew how. Okay, time to focus. This could be the hack of her life. She flexed her fingers. They felt stiff and stupid. She needed music.
“What?” he asked.
“I work better to music,” she admitted. She peeked at him. He was so close, she could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. She could smell him. The chemicals were gone as if the blue bugs had cleaned up his inside and his outside. He smelled clean, crisp and very guy. Because she’d know what guys smelled like, other than that locker room smell of been-at-it-too-long geek central. She would have rolled her eyes, but she was still gaze locked with—the alien. Reminding herself of the salient fact didn’t help as much as it should have.
“That loud sound?” His look was dubious.
She nodded, deploying a look she hadn’t used since her parents—
His face softened. Wow, it still worked. If only she’d known this sooner—she still wouldn’t have had anyone to use it on.
“I can use my headphones,” she offered. Before he could agree or disagree, words formed on her tablet.
I like your music.
The words came through the outpost speaker system and appeared on her tablet screen.
“Really?” She looked at Valyr. He looked startled, too. So apparently he and the computer weren’t, um, intimately connected, despite the blue bugs. She glanced around, not sure where to direct the question. “Any, um, preference?”
Could it hear her?
May I choose the playlist?
“Sure.”
The song she’d been playing right before she met Valyr filtered out the outpost PA speaker. So that’s a yes. The volume was a little low, but before she could fix that it was adjusted to the perfect volume.
Valyr’s brows arched. His eye might have twitched.
So, no one was perfect.
I am Bangles.
“Bangles?”
I wish to be addressed as Bangles.
“Bangles, plural?” Rachel asked. Bangles? Had it picked the name because it liked “Walk Like an Egyptian?”
I am singular.
“Bangle is singular.”
Then I am Bangle.
She licked her lips. “Pleased to meet you, Bangle.” Her brain spun with questions, but there were so many urgencies, the main one, was Bangle going to go all Colossus on them and take over all the things? Funny how she wasn’t finding any Hallmark movie analogies—well, she gave Valyr a sideways glance, not many.
I am pleased to meet you. I have many questions for you, but they will have to wait until I am updated.
“Of course. Updating is important.” That sound weak, a bit gobsmacked. Which she was. So gobsmacked. The voice over the PA was less robotic than the words she read as they flowed onto her screen.
She glanced down. Did she dare try to hack in when Bangle seemed to be plugged into her tablet? Or maybe she didn’t need to hack in? If her music was playing through the PA system, then she must be connected again. Valyr touched her arm and when she looked up, glanced toward the screens over his station.
One showed all the outposts. Lines tracked between them from this one. Some lines were yellow, some green. Two were red—one of the red lines led to the Kikk Outpost and the other to the border outpost the robots had accessed. She could be wrong, but it looked like Bangle had blocked those two. And isolated them?
You are not moving to the sound.
“Sorry, I was…I am worried.”
What concerns you?
“There is the bogey incoming and the probe it fired at—here.”
What is bogey?
“That’s what we call something we can’t identify, something that is unknown to us.”
It is known to me.
“Really?”
An image of a ship formed on her tablet’s screen and spun several ways, Garradian labels forming around the 3D image. All of it too fast for her though she did recognize the Garradian word for “weapon.” She took a gamble.
“It appears to be well defended.”
Yes. Its defensive systems are impressive. Its firewalls are—
“Epic?” Rachel suggested. A pause.
Yes. Epic. It is a very epic ship.
Great, she’d taught Bangle a new word. “How are your defenses? Can you protect yourself from its…epic-ness?” And them? When Bangle didn’t respond right away, she added, “It fired a probe at the perimeter outpost and extracted data from it by force.” If Bangle was getting a computer crush, the reminder might mute some of it.
That is why I have isolated that outpost from my system. The code it used in the probe is quite interesting.
“It was very pretty,” Rachel admitted, “at least the little I was able to see.”
Pretty?
“Beautifully designed.” She hesitated. “It looked like it helped them get easy access to the system.” She might have emphasized easy just a bit.
It nullified its protection protocols.
Was it a BFF? Now many outposts had sentient systems? Or were they one system to rule them all? She wondered, but she didn’t ask.
She saw Valyr’s lips twitch a little as if he found the question amusing. It was her turn to draw her brows in. “Is this, is Bangle your—do you know each other, Valyr?” She wished he looked like a nickname kind of guy. Valyr didn’t slide easily off the tongue.
Of course, we know each other.
Did Bangle sound a bit snippy?
“I wrote, um, Bangle’s original code,” Valyr admitted.
“Can you protect yourself from the incoming probe?” she persisted.
I analyzed its code. Its attack will fail.
Bangle sounded a little annoyed. Well, she—was it a she?—had that updating to do.
“It’s probably analyzing what it took from the other outpost so that their attack on this outpost will be more effective,” Rachel felt bound to point out, hoping she was rooting for the right side here. Ricardo Montalban had seemed pretty heroic until he unleashed his wrath. And Benjamin Cumberbatch…she might have sighed at the
thought of him as anything and everything. And she tried not to think at all about Colossus and the computer winning in the end.
It was reassuring that Valyr looked like reboot Bones though she knew her logic was flawed. How sad was it she knew more about movie characters than real people?
I have the ability to adapt quickly—when I am not constantly interrupted.
Yikes. That was testy.
Valyr bit his lower lip. “Perhaps we can assist you, um, Bangle.”
It was clear he had trouble with that name. He’d have worse if he ever found out it most likely came from a girl band.
The silence was long enough, she thought Bangle was going to ignore them both. Almost unconsciously, her shoulders began to move to the music. Her fingers tried the tablet. She’d claimed she could hack blindfolded. Well, this was her chance to prove it. She tried communications. It was locked out.
What skill set does she have that you believe will be helpful?
Ooh, that was mean. Valyr looked at her. For a minute her mind was blank.
“Well, my skill set is pretty broad. I can code, and I’m good at analysis. I could assess defenses?” It was obvious Bangle wasn’t ready for her to get in touch with Kikk, but she’d feel better if she thought they could defend themselves until help came or they were able to leave. Or she could look for places they could hide since they had nothing to shoot with. “I’m particularly concerned for the Cryo-chambers like the one Valyr was in. If they brought down your system or damaged it…”
I have protected them for longer than you can understand.
“And done a great job of it,” Rachel agreed. “But this is…the first time you’ve been under attack?” Another long silence while “Killing the Blues” filtered gently out into the room. Bangle’s taste in music was interesting. Of course, since it was accessing her music…
She noticed Valyr was tapping his fingers on his knees in time to the music and bit back an inappropriate to the circumstances grin.
Why was it—was she a she?— why was she hesitating now—was she curious about the robots? It was possible. They probably felt less alien to Bangle than a couple of humans and a bird.
Lost Valyr: Project Enterprise 7 Page 14
