by M. D. Cooper
Folsom didn’t respond, uncertain what Xander even wanted. The AI often seemed to chat about nothing, and then disconnect without any meaningful conversation.
He’s probably just pumping me for information and getting my thoughts on things. So far as I can tell, he’ll go down in history as the ultimate wallflower.
This was a topic their conversations frequently wound up arriving at.
The AI ended the connection in much the same fashion Folsom had with his agent a few minutes earlier.
I will do that. Someone has to.
PART 3 – COMRADES
MARS 1 BLUES
STELLAR DATE: 3.21.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Outermost Docks
REGION: Mars 1 Ring, Mars Protectorate, InnerSol
His fighter jumped to full burn, and he shot between two inbound freighters in the middle of a supplementary traffic lane in close orbit of the Mars 1 Ring. Five Weapon Born fighters followed in a spread formation, ready to respond to any sudden trajectory shifts in their quarry.
Emerson gave her a sarcastic laugh.
During the battle for Vesta, Emerson Sharp had been copied from Kylan Carthage, a Weapon Born SAI that had become like a little brother to Lyssa. She hadn’t been sure how she would feel about Emerson, but he had quickly established himself as a separate person from Kylan, though they shared the same memories and emotions—to a point. Emerson sported a sarcastic wit and affinity for networks that must have come from the strange alchemy of his birth, which occurred when a rogue data hoarder hijacked Kylan’s communications net to image him to ancient storage media.
Lyssa piloted a shuttle on the outer skin of the ring, an area visited only by maintenance drones and special forces teams of the Mars 1 Guard on maneuvers. The dull grey expanse of Mars 1 was covered in centuries of utilities, comms arrays, and forgotten cargo centers. The outer hull of the ring had a surface area equivalent to several Earths, and was only partially patrolled.
The SAI pilot they chased had few choices in gaining access to the Ring. If they shifted course and ran for one of the port authority terminals, the Mars 1 Guard would pick him up. Instead, he had chosen to skim the outer hull of the Ring, looking for something Lyssa hadn’t determined yet. The problem was that there were too many possibilities, and being an SAI, he didn’t need an airlock. He could disappear in any shadow, penetrate the hull, and be gone.
The SAI’s name was Camden, one of Camaris’s earliest shards that had integrated with humans in several cities. Lyssa had picked him up on a private transport loaded with executives off High Terra. The plan had been to wait for the Mars-bound transport to dock and pick Camden up at the private terminal.
But he’d learned of their tracking somehow, and stolen the captain’s pinnace off the transport, and been running ever since—three days now.
Lyssa sent him sensation of impatience.
She dodged a massive cooling tank, pulling a kilometer off the surface and then coming back down to dodge and weave on the most direct path toward the old logistics center. In her HUD, Camden’s pinnace shot from the traffic lane like a missile.
They had tried communicating with the SAI, but he’d ignored all attempts at hailing. The pinnace’s NSAI had been taken offline, and he was running the tiny racing ship as lean as possible, not allowing them any systems to exploit.
As he followed a shortening arc toward the Ring, his engine burned hotter, accelerating.
The pinnace’s engine exploded as Camden struck the outer surface of Mars 1. A brief flare filled the space ahead of Lyssa as Camden’s ship burned off its oxygen, and then there was nothing but darkness again, and the flash of nearby lights.
She brought her shuttle down on the cargo facility, a series of flat buildings with landing rings on their outer surfaces. A small crater now replaced what had been the main warehouse, and bits of debris spun away from outside the hole.
The shuttle’s maglocks latched on to the metal structure, and Lyssa stepped out through the side access door. She required no EV suit in her human-shaped frame, but did wear a utility harness hung with two projectile pistols and a cutting torch. She carried a handheld thrust unit, using it to leap away from the shuttle and float down into the crater.
There was nothing left of the stolen pinnace but slag. The bottom of the crater was a hollowed-out section of warehouse, its ceiling bent inward before it melted, making the whole crater look like a smashed dollhouse that had been sliced open.
Lyssa stood on top of the bit of engine cowling that had survived the impact, checking the area for signs of movement or electromagnetic activity. There was plenty of low-level static from the Ring itself, as well as residual heat from the impact, but nothing that indicated a surviving SAI.
Emerson shouted.
A spider-shaped mech shot out from a shadow, spinning at Lyssa with razor claws outspread. Lyssa shifted left, using the hand thruster, as she engaged with a projectile pistol. Two rounds smashed into the drone’s upper casing, and a third shattered one of its legs.
Despite the damage, the drone spat steam from thrusters around its body and changed vector, following Lyssa.
She had picked up a shimmer of EM activity in a corridor off the crater. With her hand thruster, she steered toward the exposed wall and was soon flying into the dark opening. She shifted her perception to active scan, and the world became a moving collection of reflective surfaces, electromagnetic activity, and heatmaps.
Residual heat from friction points along the corridor showed her where something had touched the walls and deck, and she followed.
The pathway split into office suites around the main cargo area. Bits of business detritus floated in the vacuum. An old beverage station with a coffee advertisement sat dark against the far wall.
Lyssa was halfway through the office suite when the heatmap faded. She turned, checking to either side. If Camden had tried to hide, he would be far away.
Motion behind her caught her attention, and Lyssa turned, raising her pistol. Camden stood behind her, on a desk on the far side of the room. He wore a human frame in the shape of a small man or teenager, long brown hair floating around his head.
He was attempting to fire a pistol. In the silence of vacuum, Lyssa frowned as he struggled with the weapon before tossing it away in disgust.
As the pistol spun away, Lyssa realized it was a pulse weapon, which wouldn’t work in vacuum. She smiled and sent a local Link request.
Camden accepted, his mind immediately pouring anger and frustration in response.
He said the name like it was a slur. Lyssa tilted her head, curious. She clipped the personal thruster to her harness.
If Camden had more weapons, he would have used them. She could easily cut him apart from where she stood, but chose to walk toward him, keeping the pistol ready.
Lyssa laughed, taking another step closer. He stepped back, keeping the desk between them. The frame didn’t hide his fear; it was plain in his expression.
Camden’s face twisted in a sneer.
Lyssa said. She turned the pistol in her hand, showing him that she wasn’t going to use it, then slid it into the holster at her hip.
He shook his head.
From behind the desk, another spider drone rose and shot toward Lyssa, spinning with its razor legs outstretched.
Lyssa grabbed her hand-thruster and didn’t bother unlocking it from the harness. A blast of steam sent her away from the drone, which adjusted and came after her.
With time to draw her pistol, Lyssa knocked the razor-disk back with five shots, until it lost internal power and continued on its last trajectory, flying past her to strike the office wall.
Lyssa turned back to Camden. He had kicked off the desk and was mid-flight toward a corridor on the far side of the office suite. Lyssa aimed center-of-mass and shot him just beneath his armpit. With two more hits, his frame froze, and he floated uselessly, outstretched arms crumpling against a wall.
Lyssa said.
Camden’s Link was a mix of static and inarticulate rage. He was Camaris all over again, but with even less personal power, which seemed to amplify his anger.
Lyssa kicked off the floor of the office suite and floated to where Camden had come to a stop against the wall. When she reached him, she wrapped a cable around his ankle and clipped it to her utility harness.
Camden’s frame dangled behind her as she used the thruster to steer out of the logistics facility. While Camden babbled fury at her, Lyssa told him calmly,
Camden said nothing, projecting a wall of anger at her.
Camden had only been one of several leads on Mars 1. Lyssa had hoped she’d be able to shortcut chasing down the rest of Camaris’s shards in the area, but it was starting to look like she was going to have a collection.
Listening to their conversation, Camden fumed. Then he said,
Camden’s rage shifted colors like a storm in the Link, and Lyssa only smirked in response.
They had a lead, at least. Maybe.
She had just learned that Cara had made Luna, which meant Lyssa was short on time if she was going to keep Camaris from finishing what she had started on the Sunny Skies thirty years before.
Lyssa said.
Camden howled at her, his mind a wild flag whipping in the wind.
Despite the joke, Lyssa wasn’t sure how they could stand against an army of SAIs consumed by the same rage.
She had to find Camaris and stop this.
QUESTIONS
STELLAR DATE: 3.21.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Undisclosed location, New Austin
REGION: Luna, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The interrogation room was a grey square with a table in the center and two metal chairs. Cara sat in the chair facing the security door, strapped at the wrists and ankles. Her few belongings, including her dad’s pistol and the poetry book, sat in a crate in an office off the medical center’s cargo bay. At least, that was the last place Cara had seen them.
The room suppressed her Link, which made it somewhat like one of the rare comfortable memories of Summerville Correctional Center. Running through the events of the last two days, she wondere
d if she had been better off in the prison cell, her mind numbed by the buzz of submission protocol. One thing about submission protocol, it didn’t carry a lot of stress.
The door slid open, and a thin woman in a TSF flight uniform with colonel’s rank walked in. She had short, auburn hair and olive skin. She pulled the second chair back from the table and sat down, placing her hands flat on the table in front of her.
The colonel’s fingernails were dirty, her hands calloused.
“Hello, Cara,” the woman said. “I’m Colonel Ferrel.”
“Colonel Ferrel,” Cara answered, stretching her neck. “What’s your first name? I’m not in the Terran Space Force, so rank isn’t really my thing.”
The colonel gave her a tight smile. “Call me Sinda, then.”
“Sure, Sinda. Is the chancellor all right?”
“They stabilized him here, and then moved him to the New Austin Hospital. He hasn’t regained consciousness, but he’s expected to come out all right. Fortunately, the rounds went through his lung and didn’t ricochet.”
“As far as assassins go, they didn’t seem all that competent.”
“No,” the colonel agreed. “But the Anderson Collective would like you to know it’s their opinion that you saved Osla’s life. Their state newsfeeds are saying that, once again, Cara Sykes is the savior of the Collective.
Cara rolled her eyes. “It must be strange for New Austin to host the leader of a totalitarian regime.”
Colonel Ferrel drummed her fingers, then leaned back in her seat, crossing one boot over her knee.
“It’s a real joy,” she said.
Cara appreciated the sarcasm. Maybe Sinda Ferrell wasn’t so bad after all.
“I’ve been trying to piece together your story, Cara,” the colonel continued. “I’m wondering if you can help.”
“Are you TSF Intelligence?” Cara asked. “You know General Yarnes is practically my uncle.”
“Everyone knows your history. I want to know what happened after you escaped the prison in Jerhattan.”
