by M. D. Cooper
Unfortunately, they’d not made it to the transition point that would take them to Aldebaran, instead heading in almost the opposite direction from Virginis.
Captain Yurran had expressed concern over travelling to Virginis, as it was under siege by the AST, but they had no other choice. The ship was damaged and they’d lost fuel when an H3 line had ruptured.
Upon arriving at Virginis, they’d found that the AST now controlled the entire outer system. With little choice, Yurran had directed the Garrulous Brooke to Chittering Hawk station, hoping they could hide their cargo from the AST while undergoing repairs.
Jinx had soon learned that it had been a fool’s hope—at least that’s what Trip had called it.
Not that we had a lot of options, Jinx thought as her drones finished scouting the route ahead, confirming that it was clear of both AST soldiers and any station personnel.
It surprised her that the station was so deserted. She wondered if most of the populace stayed in hiding, or if they’d fled when the AST had claimed Chittering Hawk.
She supposed it was probably a bit of both.
Living in the physical world was still taking a lot of getting used to, but Jinx found that if she treated everything like a starship’s vector, every conversation, every movement like a plotted course, then things didn’t seem so strange.
Her mobile frame’s legs, weak and clumsy as they were as compared to a starship’s engines, were her thrust, and she used them to propel herself around the corner.
They reached the intersection without any incident, and sure enough, in a recessed alcove off the adjoining passage was a hatch leading down.
She was tempted to start asking them if they knew how to carve crystal statues or cook esoteric recipes whenever they expressed incredulousness at her lack of ability in certain areas.
Luckily, this time Kally stepped forward.
Jinx tried not to take offense at Kally’s words. She knew that even for many of the humans now trying to liberate AIs, the mindset that sentient AIs were ‘people’ was a new one. They often fell back to treating them as objects. Kally fell back a lot.
The woman crouched next to the hatch’s access panel and pulled up her sleeve. Once her arm was exposed, a port slid open on her forearm and she pulled out a cable. She then reached into her pouch and removed a small cube with its own cable which she plugged into the port on the panel. Finally, she inserted her own cable into the cube.
She glanced up and must have seen the look of curiosity on Jinx’s face.
Jinx wondered what sort of traps humans would leave for other humans. She knew that most humans had a host of neural mods to help them function on the networks and to augment their physical reality.
She suspected that the types of worms and viruses that seemed to abound in dirty public networks such as the one on Chittering Hawk must somehow be capable of reaching past a human’s mods to damage their organic brains.
Malachi had taught her to be wary; he’d given her a host of tools to use in protecting herself—something she’d never had to do on the Regulan Storm.
At times she wondered if she was really better off being ‘free’. It was far more dangerous than her safe little nav system on the AST destroyer, but it was also…exhilarating.
Trip shot her a dirty look.
Suddenly frustrated by the constant bickering between the organics, Jinx reached down and clasped her three-fingered hand around the hatch’s handle and heaved it open.
It came up faster than she’d expected, and slipped from her grasp, hitting the alcove’s rear wall with a resounding clang.
“Fuck!” Trip muttered aloud, shooting Jinx a frustrated look before glancing down the corridors.
Jinx didn’t know what to say, so instead she peered down the shaft, pointedly ignoring the foul look Kally was giving her.
Jinx decided then and there that she hated the mobile frame she was in.
Though they were squishy and vulnerable, human bodies had a certain grace to them. It was clear to see they were good general-use forms, able to adapt well to their surroundings and perform a variety of tasks with either strength or delicacy.
The frame Trip had hastily inserted her core into, back when they needed her to help with navigation in the Diadem System, was utilitarian to say the least. He had told her it was a light cargo loader, and with its three tripod-like legs and long-fingered hands, she could see how the body would be useful for moving small crates around.
But the arms were long, and the head looked like a can—not to mention that the frame barely offered any protection to her core at all. It didn’t even have an outer skin, just exposed rods and pistons.
Jinx’s microdrones made it to the bottom—which opened up into another passageway—and a few seconds later she reached the bottom as well. Stepping off the ladder, she sent a drone in each direction to scout out the area, while returning the other two to her frame for a recharge.
Jinx peered up the shaft—hoping that whatever Kally had in mind would work—when the sounds of weapons fire echoed down and a dark shape began to grow larger.
Seconds later, Trip landed at the bottom of the ladder, wringing his hands from skidding down the rails.
“Which way?” he asked in a whispered hiss.
“No Link, Jinx! Which way?”
Jinx gestured to the right where the microdrone had found a long corridor half filled with crates and cargo—as though someone had been using it as an auxiliary hold.
“That way is best,” her frame said in the horrible robotic voice she hated.
Trip took off running just as loud banging began to echo down the shaft.
“C’mon,” Trip said over his shoulder, gesturing for Jinx to follow. “She sold us out, we have to run.”
ON THE TOWN
STELLAR DATE: 05.01.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, Cerka Station
REGION: Mullens, Virginis System, LoS Spa
ce
Jessica stepped onto Sabrina’s bridge in search of Cheeky, and something to cleanse the prior day’s lengthy meeting from her mind.
“Cheeky!” she called out to the pilot who was barely visible in her seat at the front of the bridge. “What are you wearing?”
The pilot leant around her seat and looked back at Jessica, a quizzical expression on her face. “Uhh…clothes?”
“Good!” Jessica exclaimed, waving a hand, to indicate that Cheeky should get up. “I was just checking. We have to head on station.”
Rising slowly, Cheeky still wore a puzzled look as Jessica made sure the pilot’s ‘clothes’ would pass muster on the station. She wore a pair of white knee-high boots, a dazzlingly bright blue skirt and a white halter top—a surprisingly conservative look, all things considered.
“What for?” she asked. “You have a funny look on your face, Jessica. I don’t like funny-face.”
Sabrina intoned over the shipnet.
“You have experience getting your nose shot off,” Jessica said, her lips twisting into a slight smirk.
“Oh no you don’t!” Cheeky’s voice held a note of defiant panic and she wagged a finger at the overhead. “Then I’d have to go to all those boring meetings.”
“Looks like you’re stuck with me, Sabs.” Jessica winked at the spot on the roof Cheeky was glaring at.
“I outrank him. He’d have to take orders from me.”
Jessica placed a hand on her chest. “Li’l ol’ me?”
“You can play cute and innocent all you want, Jessica,” Cheeky said, eyes locked on Jessica’s. “But I still don’t see any explanation for why you’re dragging me onto Cerka Station.”
“OK, Cheeks. One hint.” Jessica winked at her pilot. “What haven’t we done since Parda City?”
“Since Parda…back in Orion Space?” Cheeky twisted her lips. “Well, I haven’t been abducted by Lisas since then.”
“Seriously. I’m not taking you onto the station to get abducted by Lisas…stars, if they were here we’d’ve had a whole trifecta of baddies.”
“More like a triblechta,” Cheeky retorted. “So if it’s not abduction we…oh…shit, has it been that long?”
As she’d spoken, the pilot’s eyes grew wide and her near-alabaster white skin had begun to flush with excitement.
Jessica nodded. “That’s right, Cheeky. You and I are going shopping.”
* * * * *
In the end, Cheeky had determined that such a momentous occasion required a wardrobe change, something she also tried to foist on Jessica—who was wearing a pair of purple leggings, a loose blue camisole, and her favorite leather jacket.
“Cheeks, I don’t want to wear anything too fancy. I plan to try on a few dozen outfits and buy…well…a few dozen,” Jessica protested while she waited inside Cheeky’s cabin for the other woman to pick something out. “Normally you just wear a bikini since you say it’s easier to try things on overtop.”
Cheeky leant back out of her wardrobe—which was an entire cabin that used to belong he who shall not be named—and fixed Jessica with a brows-knitted frown.
“Huh…you’re right. Why do I have this urge to dress up?”
Jessica shrugged. “Is that a problem?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Cheeky crossed her arms. “I mean…I’m a different person than I used to be, Jess. That woman you were shopping with in Parda City is dead. So is it OK to be different? Am I betraying former me?”
It was plain to see that Cheeky was far more distressed by her consternation than she was letting on, and Jessica walked across the cabin to put a hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Cheeky…it’s not like you’re a fake, a pretend fabrication. Finaeus and Earnest are two of the smartest people in the galaxy, and Bob is probably the smartest being, period. They all worked to weave your old neural map backup and Piya’s differential backup to put you back together—but we both know that you won’t be exactly as you were when you died. You’ll be somewhere in the middle.”
“Well, plus a few bits.”
“A few bits?” Jessica asked.
“Yeah, there are some parts of Piya that got mixed in when she did her differential backup. Finaeus said he could see a few, but she and I were very similar by then—we spent a long time together—and he said that it was a bit hard to pull her out fully without affecting who I was. He said that she’d ‘grown into me a bit’.”
“Yeah, that sort of thing happens. I hear it can make neural mapping tricky,” Jessica nodded in agreement. “But so what, Cheeks? What if some parts of Piya’s neural mapping make you a bit different? She was a fantastic person. One of my all-time favorites. Let’s honor her by saying that every little bit of you that’s different is something that is done in her memory.”
Cheeky’s eyes grew wide and she flung herself at Jessica, nearly knocking her over, body shuddering as tears flowed down her cheeks.
“I miss her so much,” Cheeky whispered. “I want to tell her everything like I always did. What I did each day…who I did each day…. She always knew, of course; she’d been right there with me. But she always listened, now there’s no one to listen.”
“I know what you mean,” Jessica said quietly. “I mean…not exactly, but a little bit. I miss having Iris in my head, I know she’s still here, but now with Amavia aboard, it’s different.”
Cheeky pulled back and looked up at Jessica, still crying softly as she nodded. “Getting back to the Intrepid certainly didn’t go like we thought it would, did it?”
“Not really,” Jessica shook her head, “and now we’re back out here again and it’s like nothing’s changed—except everything’s changed. Which is whyyyyyyy we need to go out and sample whatever wares Cerka has to offer. There’s nothing wrong with a little normalcy.”
“You’re right.” Cheeky’s tone was resolute and she wiped her cheeks dry with the back of her hand before disappearing into her wardrobe and returning with a light pink, long-sleeved bodycon dress. “Piya liked this dress, but I never wore it much—too much fabric. Now that I can handle things touching my skin, I think I’ll give it some more action.”
“There ya go,” Jessica said with an encouraging smile. “Now chop chop. We saved this station, now we pillage it.”
* * * * *
When Cheeky and Jessica reached the ship’s airlock, they encountered an armed and armored Trevor who was staring them down.
“OK…first, you go shopping without me, and second, you’re going without weapons?”
Jessica shook her head and held out her hands, one crackling with energy, the other exposing the barrel of her integral electron beam. “Honey, I’m always armed.”
“Me too,” Cheeky said as she hiked up her dress, her thighs both opening—one to reveal a lightwand, and the other a tri-fire pistol. “I’m a walking armory now.”
Trevor pursed his lips. “Well, what if someone takes a shot at you, thinking you’re not armed.”
“Would you like to come along?” Jessica asked with a smile, knowing he couldn’t.
“No, dammit. Iris and Amavia co-opted me to go with them on the interviews of braincases—which you know perfectly well.”
Jessica stretched up and gave Trevor a kiss. “I’ll buy you a surprise, OK?”
Trevor’s eyes narrowed. “A surprise for me for me, or a surprise for you for me?”
“Uhh…one of each?”
“Deal.”
“Gonna buy me a surprise, too?” Usef asked as he approached, also geared up.
Jessica snorted. “No. You still owe me for that rifle you broke back on Tara. You don’t get
any surprises until you replace it.”
“Pardon?” Usef’s brow furrowed. “Wait…you mean that time you, Trace and Tanis were out partying and I had to borrow your railgun?”
Jessica nodded silently for a moment, that memory of Trace a particularly strong one. “You promised you’d replace it, but you never did.”
“Jessica,” Usef protested. “That was…almost seventy years ago.”
“Uhuh. That makes it worse, not better.”
“And you own a dozen railguns now.”
“Yup.”
Usef glanced at Trevor. “What’s my play here?”
“Dude. This one time I cracked the grip on one of her pistols and she didn’t talk to me for a week.” Trevor shook his head, giving the colonel a wide-eyed look. “The fact that you broke a railgun nearly seventy years ago and she hasn’t attempted to poison you is some sort of miracle.”
“Hey, whoa,” Jessica held up a hand, electricity arcing between her fingers, “I am not that petty. I’d just soak your armor in lithium grease or something.”
Usef gave the energy traveling between Jessica’s fingers a long look before shaking his head. “And you need a railgun why?”
“Range,” Jessica said with a wink. “Sometimes it’s nice to reach out and touch someone from a few klicks away. Other times it’s nice to do it up close and personal.”
She took a step toward Usef, who quickly backpedaled. “OK, OK, I'll see what I can find on Cerka.”
“Better be good.” Jessica winked at him. “Because I’m going poison shopping.”
Usef’s eyes narrowed and he turned to Trevor. “Somehow I feel like this is your fault.”
“Oh, don’t lay that on my doorstep. You’re the one who walked up and stepped on a landmine, asking her to buy you a surprise.”
The colonel shook his head and sighed. “Stars, sometimes I think Tanis has it in for me with these assignments.”
Jessica and Cheeky bid the two men farewell, and sent their regards to Sabrina, Iris, and Amavia over the Link before leaving the ship.