Richard pinched the bridge of his nose. “With David. They hit it off instantly, because of course they did. I’m doomed.”
“Very possibly.” She regarded him soberly. “David. Now we’ve both uttered it aloud, so no more tiptoeing around the edges as though we’re afraid if we speak his name he’ll vanish. You’ve seen him. Talked to him. What do you think?”
Richard searched the room for an answer, but none were forthcoming from the neat and ordered walls of her office. “He talks like David and acts like David, as surely as a damn ghost risen straight from the grave. I didn’t expect him to be like that. I…I don’t know what I expected. An android or an Anaden wearing his skin, maybe.” He frowned, watching her as she calmly retrieved her teacup and brought it to her lips. “Miriam, you’re acting as if everything is normal—as if nothing has changed.”
She took a sip of the tea before responding. “Am I? Clearly everything has changed.” She studied the cup hovering in her hand midway to the desk; a tiny smile crossed her features as she set it down. “I suppose I cling to the familiar, to the routine, in an effort to stay sane when the world has transformed around me. I still have a war to win, and the fact my husband is back from the dead doesn’t change this reality…even if it changes every other reality.” She chuckled, then let it escalate to full-throated laughter. “Or perhaps I’ve already gone insane, in which case the tea and the war are both irrelevant.”
“If you’ve gone insane, I’m right there in the padded room beside you.”
“And I’ll take some comfort from it.” She eyed him speculatively. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I know I didn’t. Do you believe it’s truly him?”
“We’re both asking a lot of questions without providing many answers. But we’re in uncharted waters here, so I guess we can’t expect anything so straightforward as easy answers. I keep coming back to…does it matter?”
She dropped her elbows to her desk. “And it sounds more like a copout each time I say it. But it’s not…what I’m trying to grapple with is the assumption behind the question: what does it mean to say it’s ‘truly him’? I’m not convinced I believe in the existence of the soul—how can I judge if this man bears the same one as the man who died?”
Richard nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I do believe in the existence of the soul. Not that I’m in any way qualified to pass judgment on his, but give me a little time with him. Like you, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. I do worry—or maybe I hope—that what I want to see will crowd out what I should see. Honestly, is there anything in the world either of us want more than for him to be the man he was?”
Her gaze again dropped to the teacup she’d slid back in front of her, and her voice fell to a faint whisper. “If he’s not, I’m not certain I’ll survive the loss a second time….” Abruptly she turned the cup up and emptied it in a long sip before quickly putting it down. “But it is what it will be. Meanwhile, multiple universes continue spinning, and the one we’re currently in threatens to spin out of control unless we can steady it.”
He’d known her too well for far too long to press her on the brief display of candid weakness; mostly, he was grateful she’d allowed him to see it. “So, business as usual then. Now you’ve got me here, and I shouldn’t spend all my time gaping in stupefied disbelief at David. What can I do to help?”
She perked up and opened several files. “I’m glad you asked. It so happens that our anarch colleagues declared public war on the Directorate yesterday and invited everyone to the revolution. From an operational perspective, this war just got a great deal more complicated.”
Richard found Devon in what had been a security monitoring room the last time he was onboard the Stalwart II. He knew the ship’s layout well, but he hardly recognized the room, so thoroughly had it been transformed.
A full slate of new generation quantum server boxes were installed in an embedded rack on the left wall. Threaded strands of photal fibers had been bundled up and hung from the ceiling to wind into the rack and two unfamiliar pieces of hardware secured to the center of the room. Anaden tech? Additional fiber ran from them up and across to the servers that had been here before. Three new screens added to the three previously in the room—plus the unfamiliar hardware came with its own style of screens. Assorted additional equipment was rigged up along every meter of free wall space.
Devon swerved past him in a mobile chair, skidded to a stop using his heels and scooted back toward him. “Richard!” He leapt up, sending the chair wobbling across the floor, and offered a hand. “Welcome to Amaranthe. Glad you got here.”
He shook the young man’s hand. “Thank you, I think.” He hadn’t spent much time with Devon since the strike against Olivia Montegreu’s Artificial. Devon seemed to have bounced back fully from those trials, but first impressions could be deceiving. He hoped it proved to be true.
“You’re here because of…” Devon cleared his throat melodramatically “…Commander Solovy, I assume?”
“Among other things.” While he held a fatherly affection for Devon, his feelings about David were very much in flux and also best kept to himself for now. “I’m here in this room because I was told you have made yourself the go-to man for inside intel on this highly peculiar universe.”
“Yup.” Devon went over and grabbed the chair from where it had finally landed and dragged it to the conglomeration of screens, then motioned him over. “I didn’t set out to be Mr. Go-To. I was simply the first one—and still kind of the only one—to figure out how their data tech works on a structural level. This gave me direct access to all the anarch files, whereas before I, and everyone, had to come up with a specific question to ask, ask it, and wait for an anarch tech to find the answer.”
He gestured toward the rack of new equipment to the left of the door. “I wrote a couple of routines to automate the translation of their data files into our format, then more routines to write the data out onto those servers. We had some good analysis programs installed from your guys at SENTRI, but the trigger terms were all wrong. Everything’s called something different here, even the things that aren’t actually different. So I adapted the routines for Amaranthe-speak. I made a few enhancements here and there, too. If this circus ever wraps up, I’ll pass them along to your programmers.”
Yep, he’d definitely bounced back. “I’m sure they’ll be appreciated.”
“Should be. So…” Devon kicked the chair against the shelf behind him and clasped his hands behind his head “…what do you want to know?”
Richard leaned on the shelf beside Devon. “Miriam said this ‘revolution’ is going public. Since I’ve heard the authorities here aren’t the permissive type, I assume they will move swiftly and forcefully to stamp out any rebellious behavior before it gets out of hand. Talk to me about the law enforcement here.”
“Vigil?” Devon spun the chair around, and the screens burst to life. “You got it.”
6
SOLUM
PRAESIDIS COMMAND
MILKY WAY SECTOR 1
* * *
“DOWN WITH THE DIRECTORATE!”
A raging Naraida man slammed a pipe against a glass barrier until it shattered. Protestors scampered through the opening in fevered waves, turning its jagged edges red from smeared blood. Undeterred by their injuries, the mob soon overwhelmed the Vigil officers on duty.
Vigil drones arrived inside a minute, and the reinforcements neutralized many of the frontline rioters in a sweeping burst of weapons fire. Those who found cover sufficient to withstand the initial barrage, however, soon acquired firearms from the fallen Vigil officers, and a more sustained firefight ensued. Some of the rioters ripped apart fixtures to serve as makeshift shields, and slowly but inexorably the drones, too, were overwhelmed.
And with that, the rag-tag mob of rioters took control of the entry wing of MW Administration 41.
They weren’t even proper anarchs—they’d entered the station legally, carryi
ng approved credentials and citing sanctioned business to conduct. Surveillance cam footage needed to be reviewed to determine what incident set off the riot, but Praesidis doubted it was a random, spontaneous confluence of events. It felt staged.
Damn Corradeo and his brazen call to arms.
His father was the leader of the anarchs. His mind refused to accept it, though he hadn’t found a sane way to deny it. His father should be six hundred thousand years dead. Buried deep beneath the ravages of ice and time and history. Forgotten.
The questions jostled up against one another in a restive queue to disrupt the normally immutable calm of his psyche. How had his father survived the attack—the plummet into the abyss—in Antarctica? Where had he hid all these millennia? Why had he never returned to challenge Renato publicly or even to take private revenge? Why had he instead chosen to lead the anarchs? Had he always led them? Why incognito? Why had he not revealed his true identity during his manifesto broadcast? What did he want now? Was his goal merely the toppling of the Directorate as he professed, or did he have more devious designs? Corradeo Praesidis was nothing if not clever, and a single, straightforward goal would not be enough for him.
Watchman Tovald ela-Praesidis, MW Administration 41 Vigil Supervisor: “Sir?”
Renato blinked. “What?”
“I asked for your orders regarding the situation on MW Administration 41, sir.”
“Yes, right. Lock down all entries and exits, then gas the whole level. Execute anyone who survives, then clean up the mess.”
“Understood, Primor.”
All these years, centuries, millennia, he’d believed himself safe. Untouchable. His head swam, pitching him toward dizziness on contemplating the notion that his damnable father had been out there this entire time, lurking. Watching. Judging.
Only when a crimson aura reflected back at him in the glass wall did he realize it had materialized. He tamped down the flaring diati and tried to focus his thoughts. He would not be provoked by what, objectively, was nothing more than a temporary, minor complication.
It didn’t matter that his father lived. Let Corradeo come for him. He was the Praesidis Primor. He ruled over the greatest and most commanding Dynasty of the greatest and most commanding species in fifty galaxies, and nothing and no one could take his power or position from him.
He attempted to focus enough to follow the progress of the crackdown at MW Administration 41, as slip-ups could not be tolerated in the current environment. He was on the verge of succeeding when a new report arrived to draw his attention.
Flagged the highest priority, it contained an update from one of the scout ships investigating the region where the tracking dot placed on the Human vessel ceased transmitting. He perked up as he absorbed the information it held.
Artificially generated activity and multiple structures had been detected on a small planet in one of the systems near where the tracking dot failed. The planet registered on the edge of Anaden habitability parameters, and the structures were located in an arctic, mountainous region. No sanctioned uses of the planet were on file.
Everything would certainly become easier if his father happened to be in residence when the base was annihilated, which was precisely what he intended to do to it.
Renewed energy drove his purposeful stride as he crossed the room. Machim, I need two regiments for a mission.
The silence had neared an unacceptable length when Machim finally responded. My forces are currently engaged in multiple offensive missions, as am I. It must wait.
I realize you have taken losses, but do you not continue to command some fourteen million vessels?
I do. However—
Do you not want to exact revenge on the anarchs for pitching your homeworld into darkness?
Another lengthy delay. No, I want to exact revenge on the Humans for doing so.
Praesidis scowled. If we remove their anarch support structure, the Humans will be helpless. Further, they will be cowed into submission, left trembling in fear at the magnitude of our ruthless annihilation of their anarch friends. They will then make for easy pickings for you to ravage at your leisure.
But your motivations matter not—only your firepower. I have a mission, and it will not wait.
TELLUS
ORGANIC MATERIALS LAB #8
MILKY WAY SECTOR 60
In the deepest bowels of Organic Materials Lab #8, amid dimly lit storage closets and unshielded power distribution junctions, hid a small, cramped laboratory. The two-hundred-meter journey from the nearest transit tube revealed no signs of life, only the occasional whir of a passing drone. It was for the best, given her purpose here today.
On stepping through the lab’s barely labeled door, Nyx elasson-Praesidis wrinkled her nose. Though the room was surely clean in the technical sense, the dank stench of grease and pseudo-organic lubricants permeated the air.
MASK NONSTANDARD ODORS
She inhaled deeply as the diati filtered out the offending malodor. The remaining air was sterile and artificially dry, as air in a lab should be.
Logiel ela-Erevna wandered into the far side of the room through a doorway in the rear, head buried in a display, and didn’t notice her.
“Logiel.”
He jumped back half a meter in surprise and brought a hand to his chest. Then his eyes landed on her, narrowed in instant displeasure. “You. It isn’t polite to sneak up on people you’re not intending to incapacitate.”
“I did not sneak. I was merely standing here in the open, in full view of anyone who might happen by. It’s not my fault if you’ve forgotten how to be observant of your surroundings.”
He sniffed and closed the display he’d been studying. “If you are here to ruin my life further, I’d ask you to consider whether you instead have some more fruitful errand to pursue.”
She took in the details of the lab, where alien biomass was studied for potentially useful properties like electroconductivity and, evidently, lubricity. “I also did not ruin your life. If it is ruined, you will have to search for an alternate perpetrator of the vile crime. This posting is, I presume, a punishment from your Primor for the destruction of Exobiology Research Lab #4?”
“It is. And for losing the Kat subjects, and for allowing other subjects and data to fall into the hands of the anarchs. Or the Humans, or whoever is running their catastrophe of a revolution. I believe she would have demoted me to asi had my regenesis process not already completed by the time she learned of the incident.”
“It seems like a disproportionate reaction, considering you are neither Praesidis nor Machim and the lab maintained minimal defenses.”
“Yes. My explanation of the litany of mitigating circumstances fell on deaf ears, however. Perhaps in another month or two the Primor will be in a more reasonable mood and I can renew my plea. Now, are you here to gloat, then? Because I actually do have a great deal of work to do. Dreadful, mundane, mind-numbing work better suited to a drone than a scientist of my skill, but work nonetheless.”
She ran a fingertip along the cool metal surface of the countertop beside her. “I have a question.”
He didn’t respond, and she looked up to find him glaring at her. “I’m waiting.”
Still, she hesitated. This was the precipice. Another step and the future became an unknown quantity, every further step a leap into an unexplored domain. Did she genuinely want to veer down this path?
But it wasn’t a matter of wanting; it was a matter of necessity. As an Inquisitor, she must find answers, and to find them she must do this. “Is there a manner in which one can implement a…buffer of sorts between one’s own thoughts and delves from the integral? Specifically, delves from a Primor?”
He arched an eyebrow. “That is a most unusual question, Inquisitor.”
“I am aware. Will you answer it?”
“For the masses, no—that is to say, no, it isn’t possible. If ‘one’ is you, on the other hand? Perhaps. An elasson enjoys a fair degree of control over the
ir interaction with an integral, so the framework is in place upon which even greater control can be grafted. May I assume ‘one’ doesn’t wish to disconnect entirely and run away to become an anarch?”
She gave him a blank expression. “You may so assume.”
“Then why do it?”
“My motivations aren’t your concern or your business. There are simply some matters my Primor doesn’t need to…trouble himself with until I’ve brought them to a resolution. If he were to learn of them prematurely, he might…suffer an incorrect perception of them. Of my intentions with respect to them.”
“So you’re trying to protect him from himself.”
She hadn’t meant to answer his question, immediately after having told him she didn’t intend to answer it. Small consolation that she’d answered with a lie—or a truth that could soon become a lie. “I am serving him in the best way I know how, as ever.”
“Of course.”
She swallowed vocal annoyance at his continued peevishness. “What would doing so involve?”
“We are talking about your neural architecture here, which means it would involve a very delicate medical procedure.”
“But you are capable of performing such a procedure.”
“For the right price.”
Such a vain, petty man. “Name it.”
He paced between two long lab tables, a new vigor animating his steps. “I want out of here. I want an assignment commensurate to my intellect, experience and skills. I don’t particularly care how you accomplish it, but make it happen.”
“I can send a formal communique to the Erevna Primor, through proper channels of course, taking responsibility for the destruction of the lab—”
“You were responsible for the destruction of the lab.”
“Only in that I didn’t stop the incursion. I will explain to your Primor how allowing the enemy to succeed was crucial to a larger strategy, and you were most helpful in assisting me in this regard.”
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 84
