by Nathan Jones
Aiden swore and slammed his fist into the bulkhead beside the window, ignoring the momentary flash of pain that jolted up his arm. “So she's been lying to me this entire time! Pretending to be my friend, even more, gaining my trust. Was she a Blank Slate at all?”
The Caretaker hesitated. “I think so. And I don't believe she was deceiving us, either. From what I can infer from the patterns of her spying and attempted sabotage, her brainwashing took effect infrequently, trying to accomplish its objectives. Usually late at night, when she was in deep REM sleep. But it always erased her memories of what she'd done while under its influence. I think that aside from those times, and of course when the Vindicator's signal triggered her, she really was a Blank Slate, acting mostly of her own volition and in good faith.”
“So whenever I was teaching her to fly, that's when she was acting like a Dormant?”
She shook her head. “No, not even then, I don't think. I believe that rather than frequently asserting direct control, in most cases the brainwashing indirectly manipulated her with strong impulses and urges, ones she might not've agreed with or understood the source of.
“It would explain her insistence on visiting Midpoint Station without accompaniment, even though that was a very foolish decision . . . she was probably being urged to put herself in a position where she could report in. If that's the case, then when the brainwashing urged her to do something she already wanted to do, such as spend time with you flying, she would've gone along with it even more easily.”
Another uncomfortable thought occurred to Aiden. “We've been pretty much cut off from the allnet and other forms of communication ever since Brastos 4, when I assume it was her who sent that transmission to the Deeks. If we hadn't been, she probably would've done something to screw us over sooner, wouldn't she?”
“Likely. The task force hunting us managed to predict our movements with surprising accuracy based on whatever information she gave in that first report on Midpoint. With further updates it's almost certain they would've found us sooner, and with more than just the Vindicator. Which, if Elyssa is to be trusted, was in this galaxy for an entirely different reason.”
“Defeating that cruiser while Lana was wreaking havoc in my ship was a miracle on its own,” Aiden said heavily. “If this task force has more surprises to throw at us, we're in trouble.”
He could almost see the AI straining with the desire to mention joining HAE and the Caretakers again. Thankfully, she didn't, simply rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We've pulled through every challenge we've encountered yet,” she said.
“The last one has a way of getting you,” he shot back, trying for wry but coming closer to bitter. He looked through the window again, blinking as his eyes blurred. Sweat, probably, or bleariness from being up so long. Had to be.
Void, he wasn't sure when he'd ever been this tired. Not just of body and mind, but of soul. Maybe when he got the news that the Preservationists had surrendered, and were calling for all their troops to throw down their weapons and turn themselves in.
That had been a dark day. And yet somehow, it didn't cut as personally as today. “How did they win?” he whispered, staring at Lana's heavily shackled, unconscious form.
“The war?” Ali asked gently.
He nodded, bitterness churning in him. “I've met enough Deeks to know their strength of character. Or lack of it. Most of them are petty, selfish, treacherous, with no loyalty even to others within their Movement. Many have no loyalty to the Movement itself, simply use it for personal gain.”
Gesturing angrily at the young woman in front of them, he raised his voice. “Not only that, but everyone knows they're the sort of monsters who do things like this to innocent people. Who twist human compassion and mercy and friendship and love into weapons to use against their enemies. And yet even so, they get to win. The roll forward unopposed. Why? Is their ideology that strong?”
The Caretaker shook her head sadly. “It's the exact opposite, my love. It tells people what some part of them desperately wants to hear. That the responsibility isn't theirs. That they don't have to work hard, don't have to strive with every ounce of strength to excel and grow. That their basest, most selfish desires are not only not shameful, but admirable and something to strive towards. That being helpless and blaming others for their failures makes them heroes to be sympathized with and celebrated.”
She looked at Lana as well, and her ravaged features hardened into an ugly mask of disgust. “Deconstructionism is the worship of weakness. It caters to the failures, the lazy, the corrupt, tells them that they're already as good as they need to be, that they ever could be. That humanity has already progressed to its apex, and they don't need to strive for any more.
“It fills its ranks with everyone who's ever tried and failed, every person who's ever looked at the unforgiving place the universe can be and despaired at ever succeeding through their own merit. Everyone who would rather take the easiest course, enjoy the bare minimum given to them by the fruits of other people's labor. It will fail, like such belief systems always do. But not until it's dragged the rest of society down with it. Like its predecessors have countless times in the past.”
“This time into humanity's extinction, the way things are going.” Aiden snorted, clenching his fists in helpless rage. “And yet we never seem to learn.”
“One of the Movement's first acts was destroying historical records of “inferior” belief systems,” Ali pointed out grimly. “But I could point out that the Caretakers would never forget, or let ourselves repeat the same mistakes.”
“You could,” he muttered. “But don't. Not right now.”
“I know, my love, I'm sorry,” she whispered. Then she pressed against him from behind. Aiden flinched as if burned by that comforting contact, but in spite of his reaction she still wrapped her arms around him and rested his head against his shoulder.
He had to push her arms aside and step away, unable to look at her and his eyes skittering away from Lana's bound and comatose form on the medical cot. It was too much. Just, just too much. “No, Ali.”
The once-beautiful woman hovered at arm's length as if she wanted to approach again, voice measured. “Is it because of the damage I've suffered marring my appearance?”
That certainly didn't help. But even if she'd still looked like the old Ali, before she synced, before she betrayed him, before she became someone completely different that he couldn't bring himself to trust, he wouldn't have cared. “What do you think?” he snapped.
The Caretaker misunderstood him. “I can do more to repair myself. Enough that you don't recoil in horror.” She smiled weakly. “We do need to do our after-combat routine, don't we?”
Aiden suppressed an involuntary shudder. She really didn't get it. This was the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong person. Why couldn't she just be the companion he'd loved and depended on for the last year? “No, we really don't,” he said, words coming out cold and flat.
Ali's voice became anguished. “You're hurting, my love. More than I've ever seen. I want, I need, to comfort you.”
“You can't!” he shot back harshly, frayed emotions on the verge of overwhelming his control.
She leaned forward just a bit, voice hesitant. “I know it feels that way, but just letting me be here for you will help. It's human nature to want someone to hold at times like this.”
Aiden finally allowed his eyes to settle back on Lana, unable to bring himself to look at his lover. “You're not understanding me, Ali. You can't. Whatever I need, it can't come from you.”
The Caretaker's voice became even more anguished. “Aiden . . .”
“Don't you get it?” he whispered, his sight of the Blank Slate, the Dormant, suddenly obscured by tears he had to blink away. “She was my friend. I trusted her. I trusted her! I brought her aboard this ship, came to care for her like a daughter, and she betrayed us and nearly killed us all.”
“It wasn't her, it was what they did to her,” A
li said, gently but firmly. “She's still-”
“Would you listen to me?” Aiden shouted. “I let a complete stranger into my circle, and this is what happened. I'm not going to do it again.” He finally found the courage to meet his lover's, his former lover's eyes, refusing to be drawn into their deep blue depths. “Whatever you are, Caretaker, you're not Ali. It was stupid of me to try to pretend otherwise.”
He turned away from her miserable expression, suddenly needing to be away from here. “I let my pilot's yoke do my thinking for me, but it won't happen again.”
Without waiting for a response, he stalked down the corridor. But after a few steps he paused and looked back. “I mean it, Ali. Quit trying to “comfort” me, quit throwing your body at me. In fact, why don't you change your appearance to reflect what you've become? Either way, stick to being a crew member and representative of your precious Caretakers. If I can even trust you that far.”
The robot nodded, expression becoming reserved and professional. “I understand, Captain Thorne. If this is what best ensures your continued wellbeing, of course I'll do it.” She hesitated, then added. “Although I . . . regret this outcome.”
No more than he did. But what other choice did he have?
After a brief pause Ali spoke up again. “At some point, we're going to need to talk about what the Caretakers expect from you, now that you've aligned yourself and this ship with them.”
Of all the things she could say after he'd just rejected her . . . was she completely heartless? Well yeah, actually, she was. Just so convincing it was easy to forget that. “At some point,” he growled. “Not now.”
He continued down the corridor, leaving behind two of the people he'd cared about most, now untrustworthy strangers who could betray him at any moment.
Who next, the gunner? He'd been conditioned by the twins, after all, so it was anyone's guess how deep his loyalty ran. And speaking of the Ishivi, he already barely trusted them as far as he could throw them, their tiny rodent-like size notwithstanding.
But this was nothing new. He'd been alone on this ship before Ali came, then Lana. And now he was alone again. Everything else was just a distraction from his war against the Movement, anyway.
That was what mattered. The only thing that mattered.
Chapter Eighteen
Second Awakening
Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked around, recognizing the instruments around her as being medical in nature; not what they did, but what they were called.
This all felt very familiar, although in her fuzzy state she couldn't remember why. In fact, she couldn't remember anything, wasn't really aware of anything but a distant throb of pain in her right hand, heavily dampened by painkillers.
Then the drug that had been used to keep her unconscious finished clearing from her system, and with it her mind cleared as well. And then, against her will, her memories returned. Not all of them, of course, but everything since coming aboard this ship.
Especially the last moments she remembered before waking up here.
Lana bolted upright, or at least tried to, realizing with horror that she was completely restrained with straps. That shattered her hopes that it might've all just been a bad dream into the awful realization that it wasn't.
She really had done all those things. Or, well, not her but something inside her, controlling her like a puppet. She'd sabotaged the shields, and hit Belix, and sent Ali into space. She'd tried to kill-
“Dax!” she screamed against the gag she'd been fitted with, thrashing against the straps and struggling to turn her head enough to look around. Hoping against hope to see him standing there beside her, back ramrod straight and disciplined expression belying the warmth in his eyes.
What had she done to him? She couldn't remember! If she'd hurt him she'd never forgive herself.
A familiar voice from somewhere past her head spoke gently. “I believe you were trying to call for your loved one? He's already back on his feet, broken arm set and on the mend. I'm reasonably confident he'll regain full use of it, in spite of the severe damage to the elbow joint.”
A shape, equally familiar, moved into view, and Lana felt a massive surge of relief that left her limp in her restraints. Not only was Dax alive, but so was Ali.
Although the Caretaker's features were ravaged, probably by exposure to vacuum: her skin showed numerous small fissures and scars, and was now slightly waxy. There were also hints of worse scars and disfigurations on her arms and around her neck and shoulders, when her movements shifted her sleeves and the collar of her uniform enough for Lana to see.
Ali wasn't impossibly beautiful anymore, and in spite of obvious care to repair the damage her face was now scarred and unsettling.
Or at least, it was to Lana; the sight of what she'd done to her friend made her sick to her stomach with shame and horror. She tried to speak around the gag. “Ali! Are you okay? Did I damage you beyond repair?”
“I'm still functioning, if that's what you were trying to say,” the Caretaker replied with a strained smile. She began checking something below Lana's line of sight, and Lana felt the distant throb of pain in her hand increase in intensity. “As for your own injury, healing will be a slower and more difficult process than for the gunner. Your cauterizer was melted in your hand when he disarmed you, severely burning your flesh. All the way down to the bone, in some places.
“The damage was further exacerbated by molten fragments cooling and becoming fused to your tissue, requiring delicate care to remove them. It will take a great deal of time to regrow the damaged tissue, particularly the nerves, and extensive rehabilitation to restore full dexterity, if that's even possible. The procedures will be painful, so I'll try to do them during your periods of enforced unconsciousness.”
Lana barely heard Ali; her eyes were drawn to her friend's other hand, the one holding a medical sensor; rather than the usual long, elegant fingers and flawless skin, the wrist ended in a large, coldly gleaming mechanical hand with two fingers and a thumb, like what combat androids had. Ali obviously hadn't been able to recover the hand Lana had shot off, and had settled on a temporary solution.
Ali must've noticed where she was looking, and her stricken expression, because she patted her shoulder in reassurance. “The replacement hand doesn't hamper my functioning too badly, and I can take it off and cover the stump with a cloth cap when I want to blend in better.” Her full lips pulled back in a wry smile. “Barix keeps joking I should get a hook.”
Far from easing her guilt, that just increased it. Since Aiden seemed to have no desire to have anything to do with the Caretakers, they couldn't exactly saunter back to HAE's secret base and ask for repairs or a replacement hand. Which meant Ali would be stuck with that prosthetic for the moment.
Suddenly it all crashed down on Lana: what she'd done, her failure to stop herself, the horror of seeing the looks of wounded betrayal on the faces of her friends. On Dax's face. She closed her eyes as her vision blurred with tears, which slipped free and slid down her cheeks, starting hot but cooling quickly.
The Caretaker patted her shoulder again. “I'm going to take off the gag so we can talk, Lana,” she said gently. “But fair warning . . . I can read microexpressions as well as your vitals to determine if you're attempting deception, and I'll respond instantaneously if you attempt to trigger any programs you have hidden in the ship's computer or any of this ship's systems or instruments. Understand?”
Lana nodded, a bit miserably. She had no way of knowing if she was going to try anything, since she had no idea what had taken control of her and when or if it was going to do it again. Still, that seemed enough for the Caretaker, who removed the gag with light fingers and offered her a glass of water.
She was desperately thirsty, but she ignored the offer for the moment. “I'm so sorry, Ali,” she whispered, blinking away more tears.
“I believe you really are, or at least this part of you is,” the other woman replied.
This part? T
he part that didn't take control of her and try to kill her friends? “I had no idea anything was wrong with me until the Vindicator came and played that awful signal,” she whispered. “Then it was like I was a prisoner in my own head, unable to do anything but watch in horror as I did those terrible things to you, and Belix, and-” the words caught in her throat, and she continued in a miserable voice, “and Dax.”
Ali nodded, eyes full of grim sympathy. “Your hidden side has been operating almost from the beginning. Engaging in small sabotages, hacking Fixes and the ship's computers, sending information to your handlers, planting a beacon to help them find us. Subtly nudging your every decision to accomplish your mission.”
Lana didn't want to believe any of that, but if it was true then a lot of things made sense. Like her insistence on disembarking at Midpoint and going off on her own, even when everyone thought she was insane. Or how she'd genuinely wanted to stay on Callous, but had out of the blue changed her mind.
“I don't remember any of it,” she whispered. “Anything I did, I have no idea.” She jerked her head against its restraints, as if trying to dislodge some painful thorn stuck through her brain. “But I remember everything I did during that fight with the Vindicator. Why?”
“Because you were triggered,” the Caretaker said gently. “At that point you either accomplish your mission and return to your handlers, or you die in the attempt, so there was no more need to keep your brainwashing hidden from your Blank Slate consciousness. It's very rare for someone in your situation to be caught alive.”
“What situation?” Lana nearly pled. “What's wrong with me? Why did I do this?”
Ali hesitated, then settled down on the bed beside her with a sigh. “You're what's known as a Dormant, Lana.”
Unfortunately, like with so many other things she wasn't familiar with, she recognized that term, at least superficially. “A sleeper agent employed by the Deconstructionist Movement.”
“That's right,” her friend said, looking sad. “Deeks take Stag prisoners, political dissidents, and criminals, and subject them to intense brainwashing to embed hidden abilities, standing orders, and triggers that can be activated remotely. Dormants are created for the specific task of infiltrating enemy groups to spy, sabotage, or assassinate important leaders or assets. Or all of the above.”