Reclaimed

by Madeleine Roux

  “He didn’t teach me how to be ravenous, or wild,” Senna told him, her voice growing stronger. “Why would he? That would make me free. And rebellious.”

  “And how do you feel now?” Efren asked. The stream of pain was relentless, but clarifying.

  “Wild,” she said. “Dangerous.”

  “There’s more,” Efren warned. And there was. She saw her arrival on Ganymede, and her terror at seeing the shadow. She remembered the shadow, and how the lights and sirens of the storm lockdown sent her into a panic. She met Han and Zurri; she met them four times. She watched LENG, the shadow, reach its fingers into her eyes and take, and take.

  In a darkened hall, Senna saw Anju slam into the Dome barrier and then tear away into the wind and mist. Paxton must have reprinted her, her first chassis still spinning across the ice.

  “Fuck. This complicates things.” Paxton fucked a headless woman, or an idea of a woman, and Senna looked on in horror. A Servitor body skinned to be so real, so lifelike . . . They were doing that now, Marin had warned her; those undisguisable Servitors were coming. On Ganymede, they had already arrived. Paxton truly was isolated, then, surrounding himself not with real employees but with simulacra he could control. She didn’t allow herself to wonder if they were once real women, or entire figments, fictions created to scratch some fantasy itch in Paxton’s dark mind.

  More and more returned. She watched her mind torn apart until Paxton was satisfied with its emptiness. She felt the drugs dull her to the confusion. She watched the memory of Efren go, and return, and go, and return again. She heard his warnings, and wished they could’ve stuck.

  Last, she watched Paxton carry her, limp and brain-dead, from the LENG room to his office, then to his bedroom, where he put her under the covers and crawled in beside her. A moment’s hesitation crossed his features, a grimace, a smile, then sobering blankness, and he turned onto his side, calling out to Genie to cut the lights.

  It was done. Senna rested her hands over Efren’s wrists.

  “You have a physical form,” she said, his thumbs shifting away from her eyes.

  “Stardust and density from the black hole collapse, memories, dreams and everything Paxton asked the Vestige to take from Glen, and from you all,” he said, holding her hands in his before placing them in her lap. She opened her eyes, and he stared back. Her breaths came in ragged and went out just the same. There was no telling when the tears would stop.

  “It’s given me—us—form. Me, the shadow . . . When that star imploded, it took everything with it,” Efren said, standing and offering her his hand. “The good and the evil. The shadow is that evil, and I am, or try to be, the lightness and the good.”

  “Where’s Glen’s body?” she asked. “If LENG destroyed his mind, his body must be somewhere.”

  “Lost,” Efren replied, detached from the answer. “Scattered into a trillion shards across the ice fields.”

  “God. Why did you sacrifice Anju that way?” Senna asked, trembling but finding her strength as Efren hoisted her to her feet. His hand felt real enough, smooth and kind, warm with life.

  “I wanted to wake you all up,” Efren sighed, glancing away, perhaps embarrassed. “I didn’t know if you would believe me if I just came out and told you what I was. She’s not living, so the cost seemed bearable. He uses algorithms to control how compliant the female Servitors are, but Glen devised that technology, and now it’s in me. I changed her protocols, and made her walk out the hatch.”

  “Bearable,” she repeated, huffing, and staring down at Paxton. He wasn’t dead, not even close, and he had begun to swim in agony against the tiles.

  “Are you all right?” Efren asked, touching her elbow.

  “No, not nearly. But I will be someday.” Maybe, she thought. Or maybe not; the pain was better than whatever the empty life Paxton planned for her would be.

  “What will you do with him?”

  Senna’s eyes traveled from Paxton’s limp body to the door. “I have a few ideas.”

  The doors slid open, two silhouettes stamped against the bright light of day streaming in from outside the office. It wasn’t the duo she hoped to see. Anju and Dr. Colbie. Before Senna could beg them to wait and reconsider, the Taser dart sank into her shoulder.

  33

  “She’s not coming.”

  Han opened a single eye, wishing he could just go back to stewing with anxiety. Zurri climbed to her feet, tossing her Mega Slurp into the bin and rousing Han. He was slipping into a sugar coma on the table while they waited for Senna to show up. The signal had gone out, but there was no reply and no sign of her. They had given it twenty minutes, the agreed-upon time limit, and now they had to hurry. Genie was no help; Senna wasn’t wearing her VIT, although it appeared to still be in Paxton’s office.

  “Let’s go.”

  “How are we going to get her away from Paxton?” Han asked, close on her heels as they left his room.

  “Any damn way we have to, kid. That shuttle is landing in forty minutes and we are going to be on it.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to just let us walk out of here.”

  “I know, Han.” Zurri fell back to walk beside him and ruffled his hair. “But we’ve got your brains and my beauty, we’ll figure something out. We have to. Besides, we’ve got Genie on our side now, too, right?”

  “Not entirely,” Han muttered, swishing his lips to the side. They left the dormitories, swinging left and down the ramp, dipping into the courtyard and its enveloping humidity. Han couldn’t help but think he would miss the courtyard specifically. It was beautiful, a marvel, but there were trees on the station, too; he’d just have to leave his room once in a while to see them. “I’m not sure how many fail-safes are hidden in Paxton’s code. Pretty much anything could trigger a hard reboot.”

  “Crossing bridges, et cetera,” Zurri replied, leading him confidently through the mosaic path toward the gallery.

  “There you are!” Brea ducked out from behind a tree. Han and Zurri shared a quick glance. Her being there didn’t seem quite casual, or at least, he couldn’t figure out a reason for her just planting herself in the bushes unless she was trying to ambush them. The shuttle hail. The system could have sent out a wider alert. Han surreptitiously checked his VIT. The landing was still scheduled; the shuttle would break atmo in fifteen minutes.

  “It is just about time for lunch,” Brea said, studying Zurri’s face intently. “I hope you are both hungry. Sixteen has truly outdone itself today.”

  “Sorry.” Zurri shrugged. “We ate in Han’s room. Not hungry. I’m sure Tin Head will get over it.”

  Brea forced a laugh, throwing her head back. “I insist. We can film a brief segment for the promo going out this week. Paxton is eager to show everyone back on the station your progress!”

  Han could feel his will to live vacating his body as the seconds ticked by. They didn’t have time to argue with her.

  “Have you seen Senna?” he asked.

  “I believe she is with Paxton in his office,” Brea told them, gesturing for them to follow her along the path that led to the gallery. “She will be joining us later, after lunch.”

  “Why after lunch?” Zurri pressed, nudging him when Brea looked away. “Don’t you want her to be part of your big glossy segment?”

  “So many questions!”

  “Sure, now go ahead and answer them.” Zurri refused to move another step, parking herself in the middle of the path. But Brea did the same, equally tall, squaring up to Zurri, her face calm and steady.

  “You do not want to pick this fight, Zurri,” Brea told her. Her slight accent, Spanish, Han had always thought, wavered. “This is not you.”

  “Nah, pretty sure I’m an argumentative bitch, and I’m even more sure that I protect my fellow ladies from creepity creeps who can’t help but creep, can’t brainwash that out of me.”

&n
bsp; Brea grinned, her accent vanishing altogether. “We can try.”

  Her hand moved too quickly for Han to even track it. Lashing out, she took Zurri’s wrist and spun, pinning her arm up behind her back, Brea’s face hovering over her shoulder while she glared at Han and Zurri screamed in pain.

  “You are not brave, human. You are a pile of meat. Your weakness is in the body and the mind. A man on fire brought you to your knees. You cannot save Senna, just as you could not save yourself. You could set fire to me, my flesh coating could burn to cinders, and still I would be standing.” Brea took Zurri by the throat with her other hand, eyes latched onto Han’s as she started to squeeze. “Comply,” she told Han.

  “Don’t comply!” Zurri gurgled, eyes beginning to bug. “Never fucking comply!”

  Han couldn’t leave her, so he darted forward, clawing at Brea’s hands and arms, kicking at her, but nothing made a dent. She was Servitor Sixteen’s body covered in flesh, sturdier and stronger than any human ever could be. He fell back, her laugh ringing in his ears, twining with Zurri’s fading yelps for air.

  “M-Mom!” he heard himself shriek.

  “Calling for your mother,” Brea snickered. “How like a human. I am, however, amazed you can even remember her.”

  “Genie! Stop this! Override . . . you have to. There has to be a way!” He threw himself at Brea, tangling his hands in hers, trying to at least lever her wrist away from Zurri’s neck. Zurri’s cold sweat soaked into her shirt, her chin pressed to his forehead as he grunted and gritted his teeth and pulled.

  “Genie! Override! Make her stop!” He lost his grip, his hands too slick, and he tumbled back, skidding to the floor. Brea lifted Zurri, the model’s toes dangling off the floor. He slapped at his VIT screen, waking it up. Typing, typing, searching . . . If he had admin access, then the commands and scripts for Brea were somewhere on the server. But which one? Servitors. They were Servitors! He couldn’t believe it. There were so many damn servers—which one held her code? Server Alpha? Bravo? Charlie?

  Alpha. Bravo. Charlie. They were bots. AI. Paxton had designed, printed, skinned and programmed them. The amount of data it would take to run such a complex Servitor would take up an entire server. Anju. Brea. Dr. Colbie. He selected the Bravo server, and knew he had guessed right. Highlighting the scripts folder, he slammed DELETE.

  “What are you doing?” Brea’s voice was all wrong. It dipped and swung back up. Her hands went loose and Zurri slid to the ground, coughing, hacking, scratching at her reddened throat but alive. “What . . . what . . .” She froze, eyes wide and unblinking. An automated, default voice took over, playing through the slack slit of her lips, though they had ceased moving. “Debug mode. Core function not detected.”

  “Holy . . . holy . . .” Zurri flopped onto her back, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. “She was a robot?!”

  “Yes!”

  “I knew it. I knew it . . . Christ, this hurts.” She reached for her neck, touching it carefully. “Am I dead?”

  “No!” Han let out a whoop of laughter. It had worked. It had actually worked! “We have to get you up, come on. We have to find Senna.”

  * * *

  —

  “Whatever you take from me,” Senna whispered, “it won’t be gone forever. I can get it back.”

  Paxton held a blue, curved ice pack to his forehead, leaning against the star field as it projected itself across his bloodied face and shirt. When he grinned, his front left incisor was chipped. Anju and Dr. Colbie held her tight to the chair. There was no use arguing with them, or struggling, the effects of the stun gun were only just beginning to wear off.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Paxton told her, his speech slightly slurred. “This time, we’re giving you the full Glen. Since you two are besties now, it’s only right. I’m going to make LENG give you the hard reboot. You won’t remember your own name when we’re through here. And then I’ll do it to your friends. Brea is out there collecting them as we speak.”

  Senna swallowed and it tasted like blood. “You don’t want to take all my memories, Paxton.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Because at heart I’m really a good person?”

  “No,” she sighed. “You’re not.”

  Dr. Colbie shifted to take the syringe and jab it into her arm, but Paxton waved her off. “There’s no need, nothing to repair this time.”

  “You don’t want to do this,” Senna repeated, breathing in through her nose. She wanted to believe LENG wouldn’t hurt her, not after she and Efren had talked. But there was no guarantee. They were light and dark, good and evil, according to Efren, and that might mean the shadow, LENG, could not be controlled by anyone.

  “It’s warmed up?” Paxton leaned away from the wall, moving the ice pack down to his jaw before strolling across the center of the room, pausing by her chair. The heavy door remained ajar, letting in a thin sliver of light.

  “We’re ready, Pax,” Anju told him.

  “Hold her,” Paxton instructed. “There’s nothing in your minds to wipe anyway.”

  He gave Senna a wink, and in the loudest voice she could muster, she said, “I know what LENG is.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I know what it is,” Senna countered. It at least got him to pause. “Efren told me.”

  “Efren,” Paxton spat. “His name was Glen, not that garbled nonsense. I don’t care what you think you remember, Senna, you don’t know what LENG is any more than I do. I’ve studied it for years, if it won’t relinquish its secrets to me, it won’t give them up to anybody, certainly not you.”

  “You can’t see him because you’ve never used the technology on yourself,” replied Senna. Returning her memories had weakened Efren. All the memories of hers Paxton had fed to LENG had bolstered him, made him more creature than just silhouette of light. With his physical form fading, they were no match for Paxton’s Servitor servants. Anju and Dr. Colbie overwhelmed her easily, and Efren vanished. It hurt to see him go, but Senna knew he was somewhere, waiting to return Zurri and Han’s memories. She just had to survive.

  “You think that’s going to work on me?” Paxton slumped over to her, touching his icy fingers to her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “I’m not getting in that chair. I don’t belong there. I’ve lived a perfect life. You’re the mess.”

  “I’m the mess,” Senna agreed. “But I still know what LENG is. Aren’t you curious?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Wipe my memories and you’ll never know,” she whispered. “Efren—Glen—will never tell you.”

  Paxton regarded her for a long moment, pinching her chin and jaw until it ached. His eyes, already beginning to bruise in the corners from the blow she had landed with the bust, unfocused. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know that I care.”

  “What?”

  “I know what it can do,” he said, pushing her head back hard against the chair. “You’re too much like Glen. Knowledge isn’t everything. Utility is.”

  “And clever isn’t the same as ruthless,” she hissed.

  Paxton’s eyes refocused, and grew huge, and then he swung and slapped her across the face, her teeth slicing into her cheek. “You know Glen said that to me the day he died. His words in your bitch mouth, what a truly abysmal combination. Let’s go, ladies. Start it up.” He pointed at the ceiling and made a whirling motion with his forefinger. “I don’t want a single ridge left on her brain at the end of this.”

  Senna closed her eyes, bracing. Anju and Dr. Colbie’s hands bit into her arms. She could feel the hum and churn of the machine, sense the pressure building, the shift in atmosphere before LENG and the shadow arrived. The door eased shut, plunging them into darkness and trapping her inside.

  She stared into the star field and waited for the shadow to appear. It was harder now, worse, knowing how it would all go, remembering every hour of tormen
t she had spent in that chair. There was scratching at the door, then a thump and a yelp. Lula. Senna closed her eyes, afraid, knowing it would be Han and Zurri next, and they would spend the rest of their lives as mindless dolls for Paxton to pose and laugh at in his little bubble world.

  “Please,” she whispered to the darkness. “Don’t let him take everything.”

  The whole room contracted, the star field narrowing to a pinpoint on the wall across from her. LENG was coming.

  She heard another sound at the door, louder, a commotion as something weighty rocked against it. Then the hands holding her eased and went slack, and when Senna snapped her head up to look, she found Anju and Dr. Colbie standing perfectly still, their heads angled downward, dead eyes trained on the floor. The shriek and scream of the lock turning on the door came, and then light, and faces. Two silhouettes. This time it was the pair she hoped to see.

  The hum of the machine grew softer, fainter, until there was just the sound of Lula’s panting as she burst into the room. Senna levered herself out of the chair and limped toward the door, desperate for the light. On the other side of the door, she found Paxton in a heap, out cold, Servitor Sixteen looming over his body. The Servitor gave Paxton a swift kick in the ribs.

  “You enjoy,” it chirped.

  “Are you you?” Zurri asked, pulling Senna away from the door and the LENG room. “I mean, do you remember us?”

  “Yes!” Senna gasped, leaning into Zurri’s side as the woman wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “The shuttle . . . is it still coming?”

  “Ten minutes to arrival,” Han announced. He held his VIT aloft, typing on it constantly. “We need to get to the LZ and call the rover.”

  “What do we do with him?” Zurri asked, joining Sixteen in kicking Paxton’s unconscious body.

  “Take his VIT,” Senna said, glaring down at him. “And put him in that room. Lock the door.”