by Melissa Good
“Fill ya in later.” Jess glanced up and past them as the hall filled with guards and several proctors. She eased her way past the bio alts and Dev, putting her body between them and the guards. She let her hand rest on her blaster as they came to a halt, blocking the way.
The KayTee looked at her back. Then he moved up to stand at her side, and the BeeAye came up next to her on the opposite side, the three of them filling the tube.
“What is going on here?” the guard asked, looking at the body on the floor, well and fully trussed up in cables.
“He knifed the mech down the hall. We caught him,” Jess said. “Do we get a prize?”
The guard and one of the proctors were staring at them visibly in disbelief. One of the guards put his hand on the zapper at his chest and curled his fingers around it.
“Don’t do that,” Jess warned softly as the BeeAye and KayTee stiffened next to her. “Won’t do a damn thing to me, and I’m the one who’s going to punish you for using it.”
The guard looked at one of the proctors then slowly lowered his hand. “They told us there were some bio alts causing trouble here,” he said. “Doctor Doss sent us.”
“They’re with me,” Jess said. “So leave them alone.”
One of the proctors edged forward. “Agent Drake, you have no authority here. You’re a guest. We have responsibility for these units, so please let us do our jobs,” she said. “Don’t interfere, please. It could be dangerous for everyone.”
Jess chuckled. “A lot more dangerous for you than for me,” she said. “My authority here rests in the fact I am willing to kill everyone who gets in my way. Got something to beat that?”
“That’s not...” The proctor’s eyes widened in horror. “You can’t do that!”
“Sure I can. And I will ya know,” Jess assured her. “I just don’t care about anyone I don’t care about. I know the doc must have toldja all about that.”
“Proctor Jan,” Dev said. “In this circumstance, you are incorrect, and there is danger. Go back to the crèche, please.”
The woman stared at her. “You may not speak to me that way,” she said, turning her eyes away from Jess. “Stop it!”
Jess chuckled again, low and almost under her breath.
“I am afraid I can,” Dev said in a somewhat regretful tone. “My assignment allows it, and I do not wish to see you damaged.”
“The director was right,” Jan said. “Doctor Kurok has done something very wrong to you.” She touched the zapper at her chest and after a silent pause where no one moved, did it again. “Oh my god.”
The KayTee and BeeAye looked at each other and then at Dev. “It is malfunctioning. Maybe the system took damage,” the BeeAye suggested. “Which would be suboptimal and yet excellent at the same moment.”
Jess started laughing.
The proctor took a step back.
Then the entire station rocked, and there was sound of an explosion. Everything started to move and shimmy, and alarms and sirens started to go off. They felt the gravity shifting, and as Jess went to the nearest clear panel, she saw a large shadow coming nearer and saw a blast of energy hit the edge of the solar panel.
One of the proctors slammed against the wall. “What is that? What’s happening?”
“It’s another shuttle.” Jess started making her way along the rail. “One of ours this time.”
“Why’s it shooting at us!”
The station shuddered again and the lights went out, the hallway plunging into darkness broken by spears of sunlight as they whirled around in orbit. “Guess we need to go find out.” Jess reached behind her and found Dev already at her side. “Let’s go, Devvie.”
The proctors and guards were hanging on to the railing, but the bio alts scrambled after them. “May we come?” the BeeAye said. “We would like to help.”
“Yes,” the KayTee agreed. “Let us.”
Jess waved them forward, and they left the station staff behind without regret, holding on to the rail along the hallway as gravity started to flex.
“You will get into trouble!” Jan yelled after them.
“Hope so,” Jess yelled back. “We need some trouble!”
“Is that good?” the BeeAye asked Dev.
Dev shrugged. “It depends. We will need to find out. Sometimes trouble can be good.” She stuck to Jess’s back like a tick. “I think it depends what side of the trouble you’re on.”
THE LAB WAS relatively quiet as Kurok entered, and he paused inside the hatch to look around. Several bio alts spotted him and hurried toward him, but at the back of the section he saw a small boy playing ball. “Ah.”
A small boy, dressed as a bio alt who was no such thing, and he had a sinking feeling he was about to get yet another unpleasant surprise.
A GeeBee looked relieved to see him. “Doctor Dan. I am glad to see you well.”
“Thanks,” Doctor Dan said. “Who do we have here?” he indicated the child. “And can you tell me where Jess and Dev are?”
The GeeBee nodded. “That is a natural born child who was brought to station by Doctor Doss. His name is Tayler.”
“Tayler.”
The boy heard his name and came trotting over, carrying a ball under one arm. “Hi. Who’re you?”
He was tow haired and lanky, already showing an unusual breadth of shoulder. “Hello there. My name is Dan Kurok.” He extended his hand out.
The boy accepted the grip. “My auntie Jess was here, but I don’t know where she went.”
Auntie Jess. “Ah, Auntie Jess. Well, give me a moment, and we’ll see if we can find her, how’s that?” Kurok said. “When did you get to station, Tayler?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. I was sleepin, then I woke up and I was here. I was supposed to go to school!”
Kurok sighed a little. “Your auntie Jessie’s school?”
He nodded. “Mamma didn’t like that.”
“Well I can’t imagine why not. I went to that school myself, you know,” Kurok said, with a wry smile. “We’ll sort it all out for you, Tayler. Don’t worry.”
Tayler looked pleased to hear that. “Said I would go to school here but I don like it.”
“No, probably too much reading and not enough activity. Right?”
The boy nodded. “I like the flying,” he admitted. “That’s cool.”
“Doctor Dan, Agent Drake, and NM-Dev-1 went to mech central,” the GeeBee told him. “They wanted to see if they could get the transmitter working.”
“I see. Well, let me get some painkiller for my head, and we’ll see what we can do to sort things out.” He headed for his private, inner office. “Since some things have become a lot clearer to me in the last few moments.”
Inside his office, with the door closed, he sat down behind his desk and cradled his head in his hands. “This is so god damned out of control,” he muttered. “How did we get here? Bloody hell, me and Doss running games at each other in two completely separate directions.”
A knock. “C’mon in.” Kurok straightened up a little, leaning back and opening a drawer in his desk to remove a bottle.
The door opened and one of his lab assistants entered. “Oh, Doctor,” she said in relief. “Thank goodness I found you.”
“Hello, Cathy.” Kurok swallowed a pair of tabs dry and regarded her. “Whatever you’re going to ask me I probably can’t answer I’m afraid.”
She sat down across from him, her curly red hair bouncing slightly. “No, Doctor, I don’t want to ask you anything, I need to tell you something.” She drew in a long breath then exhaled. “They know about the programs.”
He pondered that for a moment. “Tell me exactly what you mean, Cathy. Which programs and who they are.”
“Okay.” Cathy paused to order her thoughts. One of his brightest assistants, an orphan who happened to be in the right place at the right time. “I was in med, helping out,” she said. “There were a lot of people who got banged up during the null, you know?”
“I know.” D
octor Dan smiled wryly. “I was one of them.”
“We heard that. We were very worried,” Cathy said. “Anyway, I was in one of the exam rooms, and I heard Sub-director Braedon come in and ask the desk how much trank they had on hand. He said they might need it, might need to apply it to all the sets.”
“Mmm.” Doctor Dan made a low sound deep in his throat.
“So the desk asked why not just use the biometric blocks,” Cathy said. “And the sub-director said they might not work.”
Kurok let his head rest against the back of his chair. “They could just be referring to the power outages.”
“They could.” Cathy agreed. “But then he said there had been changes made, unapproved changes, and they weren’t sure how far that went.”
Rats. “Well, that’s a bit more clear.”
“Yes,” his assistant agreed. “So I was with Douglas and Pam, and we figured we better come here and find you and let you know, and figure out what we’re going to do because, sir, we’re not just going to let them put all the sets down.”
“No, certainly not,” Kurok said. “I think it would have come to this anyway, Cathy. I had noticed the sets, the older ones in the sets, were starting to demonstrate thought independence and it was just a matter of time.”
“Yes.” She nodded in agreement. “The proctors have been talking. And then, they met NM-Dev-1 when she came back, and everyone realized.”
“Mmm.”
“At first, everyone wondered, why you were treating this unit as a natural born? And then after they interacted with her, it was, oh, that’s why. She’s really good.”
That, despite everything, got a smile from Kurok. “Thank you, Cathy. I put a lot of hard work into Dev, and it’s personally very gratifying to me to see her success.”
“But she scares them,” Cathy said. “They think you deliberately made her to be like them.”
“Well I did.” Kurok’s eyes twinkled gently. “Matter of fact I made her to be better than us, and that, Cathy, is what is scaring everyone. Because when you meet Dev, and realize her potential, it’s terrifying.”
Cathy looked worried. “If they figure out how long you’ve been making changes, it could be dangerous for the sets downworld.” She looked across the desk at him. “And really dangerous for the crèche here. They were going to vent the crèche to space, Doctor Dan.”
“They were going to try,” Kurok said. “They would have found that they couldn’t. A mechanical error.” He rocked forward and put his elbows on his desk. “I disabled the explosive unlocks on the clamps that hold the crèche to rest of station.”
Cathy looked a little surprised. “The sets didn’t know that. They thought they were going to be—”
“Made dead,” Kurok said. “Which is a lesson unto itself, Cathy. You never put a value on your own life until you understand what value others put on it. Or lack of value, as it were.”
They were both silent for a few moments. “So what are we going to do now, Doctor Dan?” Cathy finally asked. “It’s all changed, hasn’t it?”
Part of his mind wanted to deny that. Part of him wanted to think that he could, through some political footwork and lies, keep things as they were, but even as he sounded the words inside his head, Kurok knew the truth.
Everything had changed. Time to plan had ended. Time to sculpt the change was done. “Yes, I’m afraid it has,” Kurok said. “Now we have to move forward, ready or not.” With a sigh, he stood up and grimaced at now stiffened aches. “Call our lab staff back here, and we’ll get a plan in place.”
Cathy looked relieved. “Absolutely, sir.” She got up and tapped the comms unit in her ear. “Open side channel, code Delta please.” She intoned as she headed out his door into the main part of the lab.
Ah well. Kurok rolled his head around to loosen the cricks in his neck. His input screen beeped, and he glanced at it. He watched in bemusement as the systems came up and reported attempts to disable his access.
C’mon. Really? He put his hand on the auth plate. “Systems, control code twenty-seven, authorization beta twenty, twenty-six, confirmed.”
He felt the scan against his palm, and then another screen popped up. He watched lists of systems starting to scroll past, now locked under his personal credentials. A relatively simple process, especially for someone with his training.
Doss’s voice erupted in private comms, the one reserved for the scientists. “Daniel, security is coming to take you somewhere safe. Please don’t resist them.”
“Oh, Randall.” Kurok mock sighed. “It’s too late for that.”
“Daniel, please.”
“Don’t send them,” Kurok said. “I’ve locked the access into my lab and quarters, and if they insist, I will react accordingly. It’s too late, Randall. It’s done.”
He heard chaos in the background as Doss held the transmit open, hesitating. Then the key closed and he cut off his end, heading out into the lab proper.
Bio alts were pouring in, excited and alert.
Cathy called him over. “Doctor Dan, there’s something approaching station. Look!”
“Doctor Dan!” another of his assistants yelled. “Someone’s attacking the lab! They’re firing on the lock doors!”
He heard screams. “All right, people. Stay calm.” He picked up a comms set and put it in his ear. “Let’s get to work.”
THE LIGHTS FLICKERED on, then off, then dimly on again, and they were bouncing through the halls as the gravity fluxed. The shuttle bay was sealed off, and they squirmed through a maintenance tube access way as the KayTee led their way upward.
“Oh!” the BeeAye said, suddenly. “Doctor Dan’s on comm!”
“Excellent.” Dev pulled herself up the maintenance ladder with Jess bringing up the rear. “I’m glad he’s okay.”
“I think he’s in a fight!” the BeeAye said after a moment’s listening. “He’s calling everyone to his lab!”
“Hmm,” Jess rumbled under her breath. “Shit is starting to rapidly roll downhill.”
The KayTee and BeeAye paused and looked back at her.
Dev bumped them with her head. “Please proceed. Jess means incorrect things are starting to proliferate.”
Power went out again, and a moment later they were shooting upward as gravity cut out. “Well, that makes it easier,” Jess said as she had to hold herself back, her larger mass wanting to overrun her companions.
They got to the top of the accessway and faced a hatch. “Hold on.” Dev brought her scanner around and tuned it. “Stepping out into vacuum would not be optimal.”
“No,” the KayTee agreed. “But this is the service way inside the mech station. It should be pressurized.”
“It is,” Dev said. “Take care. The scanner shows some movement on the other side of the hatch.” She regarded the screen. “Null return. It cannot resolve.”
The KayTee reached for the unlock, but he was gently bumped aside. “Let me.” Jess got her hand around the latch and started undogging it. “If the moving something has a gun, I’ll do better with it.”
The bio alts drew back, watching her with respect.
Dev secured her scanner and got ready to move with Jess as she cranked the hatch open and flowed gracefully through it, one hand out and ready as she cleared the hatch door and emerged into the small, cramped mech station.
There was nothing outside, but Jess knew better than to trust that, deferring rather to Dev’s scanner. She cleared space for the rest of them to come out after her, but squared her body to them to intercept anything unfriendly.
Her ears twitched, hearing odd and discomfiting sounds as the station twisted around her, the consoles abandoned in the center axis as she turned in a circle.
Outside through the thick windows she saw the spaced chamber, bodies still floating aimlessly now that gravity had released them again, the cleanup having bypassed them in favor of mechanical concerns.
“Be careful,” Jess said as she pushed herself toward the workstatio
ns. “There’s something in here.”
Dev held a wall pole and got her scanner out again. She swept it right and left around her. “Nothing...no persons.” She read the scan returns, now echoing more clearly outside the central core. There was just a hint of a void in motion, and she recorded it to look at later.
It was cold. They could see the rip in the fabric of station where the enemy shuttle had torn out, and a sheen of ice was forming on the metal consoles that filled the mech station.
Jess felt the chill against her eyeballs and blinked. She shoved herself over to the other side where she could see the edge of the shuttle bay, with a shadowy form past it outlined against the stars.
Shuttle, ours. She recognized the outline immediately, and now that it had stopped shooting at station, she could also see the faint puff of maneuvering jets. “Can we talk to it?”
“No transmitter,” Dev responded. “I can try with this.” She drifted down to one of the seats and wrapped her legs around it to keep still while she fiddled with the settings.
“Why did it shoot?” the KayTee asked. “That’s the gamma shuttle. It’s for supply.”
“Doctor Dan is calling you, NM-Dev-1,” the BeeAye said. “Would you like comms?”
“I’ll take it.” Jess extended her hand. “He won’t mind talking to me instead,” she added, with a wry smile as he hesitated. “Promise.”
He handed over the comms and she put it to her ear. “Hey, Doc.”
A soft crackle. “Ah, Jesslyn.”
“Glad to hear your voice,” Jess said. “Dev’s tied up trying to talk to the shuttle that was trying to kill us.”
“Ah, excellent,” Kurok said. “When you’re done sorting that all out, perhaps you could stop back by here since they’re working hard to space us with cutting torches and massive amounts of idiocy. I have shields up on emergency gen here, but they won’t last forever with the power in flux.”
“See what we can do about that, Doc,” Jess said. “Spread the word I’ll be blowing heads off on my way back, huh?”
One of the hatches behind them thumped to and they all turned, Jess sailing over to get in the way as a figure entered and came toward them. “Ah.” She tumbled around in mid air. “Sorry, what was that, Doc?”