Chip remained silent, so she found the courage to go on.
“He never talked about specific patients, you understand, but he did discuss a little of what he was doing in the broadest of terms. I knew he was working with cybernetics. I didn’t know the extent of his success, of course, but I knew when he made breakthroughs, though I didn’t know what the breakthroughs were, exactly.” She paused to think about how to express what she wanted to tell him. “He always had this theory… this dream. He thought that eventually one of his subjects would bridge the gap between technology and the human body. He dreamed of achieving true oneness between the implant and the person. As far as I know, he got close, but he never really saw that happen.”
“I’m sorry for him.” Chip didn’t seem to know what to say. “He was a good man.”
“What I’m trying to say is that my vision leads me to believe that you’re going to be that person. You’re going to be that success my husband was always looking for. You have to join fully with your implant and let it join fully with your brain in order to defeat the pirates.”
“I thought I was fully joined with it. I’ve had it for years, sweetheart. If there was anything else to learn from it, I think I would have by now.” He seemed puzzled.
“When the time comes, I think you’ll discover there is more to your implant than you think. After all this time, it needs to be part of you. Not a separate part, a fully integrated part. You must accept it when it happens, and not fight it. Unless you join with it and become all you were meant to be—all my husband envisioned—we will not succeed.”
Chip sat back in his chair, dropping his hands from the laser rifle he’d been cleaning. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
“I’m seeing many possible futures. That’s why I nearly blacked out. The human mind wasn’t meant to cope with so much all at once. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, judging by past experience, it signals a tumultuous turning point. We’re there. Right now. Like it or not, in several of the options I saw, when you didn’t give in and allow the merger of mind and machine, bad things happened. Really bad things.” She felt sick remembering some of what she’d been able to sort out from the vision that had nearly knocked her off her feet.
The lights in the bar dimmed briefly before emergency power kicked in. They looked at each other, waiting for what would come next. Sure enough, the station swayed as if someone was messing with its rotation.
“I guess it was five hours.” Chip handed her a spare power pack for the handgun and stood. “The bar has an independent power supply that will last a few days at most. I’m initiating full lockdown and sending out distress pings to Winters.” He didn’t have to say he was doing it all via his cybernetic implant. “Power to the rest of the station has been cut. Anyplace that didn’t have a backup power supply is down. The medical facilities and station police are still functioning, but they have a shorter contingency power supply than I do. They have a few hours at best. I’ll still have communication with the outside as long as the bar’s power holds.”
“And if it goes on longer than that, there’s Della’s place. She’s got dormant com systems with power backups that can be activated in short bursts.”
“Nice.” His eyebrows rose but he didn’t comment further. After a moment more of inaction, he stepped toward her until he could take her into his arms for a quick hug, followed by a searing kiss. It was fast, but that was all they really had time for. The moment to act was at hand. He kept his arms around her for a moment longer as he pulled slightly back to gaze into her eyes. “The men are beginning to report in.” He tapped the tiny earpiece he had been wearing since she walked in. “Can you handle coms from the office while I delve a little deeper into station systems to discover the extent of the problem?”
“Sure. What do you want me to tell the men?” She pulled farther away, glad to have a job to do. It would help her worry less if she was occupied.
“Get a location for each and any intel they can report. Tell them to stay put if their location is secure. If not, they should find a better place to wait until I know what we’re up against. Expect action within the hour. The sooner we strike to take back control from inside the station, the better off we’ll be. The small fighter group is already launching. Keep track of them if you can, too. I’ll be with you shortly.”
He patted her ass as he sent her off to the com panel in the office. Lila went, not happy to leave him, but knowing she had to in order to help their situation. If her vision held true, the moment was at hand. He’d have to join fully with his implant soon, or they were all doomed.
Lila had almost made it to the office door when the station alert signal sounded through the halls. Every compartment was required to have a speaker connected to the station’s C&C in case of emergency. A special tone sounded over that seldom used device, indicating an incoming message. Static followed, then a gruff voice that Chip recognized all too well after the weeks of surveillance. It was Bjornson.
“Attention!” Bjornson demanded. “The station is now under our control. Remain in your compartments. Anyone who resists will be killed.”
“Well that’s pretty straightforward,” Chip commented sarcastically while he sent tendrils of his computer-aided thoughts into the station computers. What he found wasn’t good, but he put a brave face on for Lila’s benefit. He didn’t want to scare her. Judging by the tremor in her hands she tried to hide, she was worried enough already.
Bjornson droned on but Chip tuned him out. His small team of vets had sprung into action. Reports of fighting had broken out near several police stations throughout the rings of the station. Chip sent his mind to each of the cameras near the combat zones so he could see what was going on. So far the vets were holding their own, but the small group of saboteurs they’d already identified had been augmented from somewhere.
Dismissing that troubling thought for the moment, Chip grabbed the rest of the weapons and jogged over to Lila. “Slight change of plans. Lock us in.” He ushered her through the hatch into the secure office with an arm around her waist. The tangible heat and softness of her body through her clothing grounded him to the bar while his mind was partially elsewhere, taxing his implant.
“What do you want me to do?” Lila asked quietly as he collapsed into a chair in front of the desk.
She went around the desk and brought up the hidden com station. It was set in the center of the flat surface, with several access ports so it could be worked from all sides of the rectangular desk. Chip reached across, popping open a compartment in the side of the desk while Lila tried to hide her surprise, but failed utterly. She was cute when he managed to surprise her. He hoped he’d live long enough to do it again.
She had locked down the office and switched on surveillance while he was untangling wires. She would keep them both as safe as possible in the confines of the bar. The office was the next best thing to impregnable. The bar might be breached, but it would take some serious skill to get into the office once it was locked down.
“What are you doing?” There it was. The curiosity she could no longer hide.
“Something you never saw. Top secret stuff.” He found the end of the connection and plugged it directly into the com console. The other end, he attached to a hidden port behind his earlobe. It was tiny, but it would do the trick.
“Oh, wow. You can direct link? I didn’t think they’d ever gotten beyond the prototype.”
“Honey, I am the prototype.” He spared her a grin, glad she was taking this so well.
Only Winters and the medical team knew his capabilities. They hadn’t been able to test this particular feature much. Chip had gotten to a certain point several times in direct link before his implant overloaded and they didn’t want to push him farther. Too much juice could fry his brain permanently. He’d go as far as he could, but to get into the core systems, he needed the hard-wired direct link. The station wouldn’t let him in unless he could convince it he belonged in its system.
“Keep track of Julian and the other flyers, if you can. I was monitoring action around the police stations.” He shunted the images he was viewing in his mind to the wall screen so she could see them as well. “Hank and Freight Train have them well organized. Most of the police near the core are free of their stations. The pirates were trying to lock them in, but they only trapped about thirty percent. The rest are working their way toward C&C and fighting the pirates wherever they find them.”
The wall screen split into several separate views of action throughout the station between Bjornson’s group and heavily armed station police, augmented by a few familiar vets.
“At least one docked ship was full of pirates,” Lila reported, her fingers flying over the panel, gathering information. “Julian has a fight on his hands, but he’s rallying the crews of a few other nearby ships to take over the pirate vessel while their men are fighting elsewhere on the station. Stupid of the pirates to leave their ship with only a skeleton crew. Julian’s going to have it in another few minutes.”
“Good. Can you monitor the fighting at Delta Epsilon in Core Section Five? I’m going to try something.”
“Got it.” Lila brought up the images of that area where a concentration of pirates was trying to hack their way into a vital section of the core.
The saboteurs had knocked out core defenses around C&C and while the small group led by Bjornson had already taken over C&C, there were a few more vital, secondary locations that would solidify the pirate’s hold on the station. The station police and vets couldn’t cover them all. Section Five was one of those that was relatively unprotected and under concentrated attack.
Chip sent a command from his implant through his direct link to the station’s computer network and into the secure system surrounding Section Five. He transmitted a code that was unique to the intel service. It was a backdoor that was to be used only in the direst of circumstances. Chip had been given the code only hours before his departure for Madhatter Station by General Winters himself.
Chip wasn’t one hundred percent sure it would work, but if it did… well, the situation would be very different in a very short time if he was able to get into Section Five without having to break in physically, past the pirates who were intent on blasting their way into the compartment that housed a very special computer node.
“I’m in,” he reported to Lila, knowing she was watching all the action he couldn’t monitor himself. Not, at least, until this delicate operation was complete. “Lila? There’s something…”
“What?” she prompted as his attention was snagged by something unexpected.
“There’s someone else here.”
“Pull out, Chip. Pull out now!”
“No. It’s friendly. It’s helping.”
Deep inside the station’s computer, Chip was facing something he’d never experienced before. There was another sentient being inside the computer with him. He sensed its presence, but who was it? What was it? He tried to communicate with it.
“I’m Chip,” he said tentatively, through his implant.
“She calls you Charlemagne.”
Enigmatic, Chip thought. And how could this other being know that?
“Who are you?”
“Madhatter.”
Chapter Ten
Either Chip was talking to the station itself or someone with similar cybertech to his was playing a massive trick on him. But to what end?
“You are the station? I didn’t know Madhatter Station had Artificial Intelligence built into its core.”
“It does not. I am Madhatter. Not artificial. I am me.”
Oh, boy. This was seriously strange.
“You are sentient?”
“Am I not speaking to you even as I repel the pirates who would use me for their own gains?”
“Sorry. Stupid question.”
“There are no stupid questions, but I accept your apology.” It paused. “I don’t want to be a pirate base.”
“You won’t be. Not as long as we can help it.”
“Good. I will aid you as best I can.”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Chip spoke aloud for Lila’s benefit. “The station is sentient. It’s going to help.”
“She,” the station said in his mind. “Space-going vessels are traditionally female.”
“Excuse me, she is going to help us,” he said to Lila. “Madhatter just informed me vessels are female.”
“She can hear us?” Lila looked at him with an astounded expression. He knew how she felt.
“She can,” he nodded, not daring to say anything further. A sentient station was a seriously unknown quantity.
“Hello, Maddie. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Maddie?”the station questioned inside Chip’s mind.
“It’s a nickname. If you object, I’ll tell her not to call you that.”
“No, it’s nice. I’ve never had a nickname before.” Something like satisfaction sounded through the station’s tone. Chip was going to have to sort through all this at some later date. A sentient station was something he never would have expected, but it was what he had to work with.
“All right, Maddie it is. Are you aware of what is in the Core Section Five node?” The time to act was at hand, much as he enjoyed exchanging pleasantries with an altogether new kind of entity.
“Weapons and life support.”
“Yes. That’s why the pirates want control of that node. My plan was to try to stop them, but failing that, is there anything you could do to keep them from gaining complete control of life support?”
“They already have C&C,” she said, in a tone of despondency.
“From there they can control all functions, but to completely destroy life support and be certain we can’t fire at their ships, they’d have to take out the node in Section Five. If they control that, they control every life on this station that requires air and water.”
“But if you control the node, you can work from there to shoot at their ships and restore life support if they cut it off from C&C. I understand,” Maddie replied.
“Good. Now, how do we stop them?” He had intended to go this alone, but if they had the station on their side, they had a powerful ally.
“I do not think we can. I have already deployed all countermeasures in the area. They are cutting through my blast doors and even the bulkheads. They are making a mess.”
The disgusted tone of that last statement would have had Chip laughing if he’d had time. Their conversation was happening at computer speed, so in the real world it wasn’t taking much time at all, but every second counted during a siege.
“Julian has the pirate ship under his control. He’s undocking now. The other fighters are already scrambled and on patrol at their stations. No sign of the pirate fleet yet, but I know they’re out there,” Lila reported, drawing Chip’s attention.
“They’re waiting until their people capture the node so they’re certain we can’t fight back.” Good tactics, but Chip didn’t like it. Morgan was growing too cautious. Most pirates would’ve taken the chance.
“The node is vulnerable where it is,” Maddie piped in, drawing Chip back into the computer. “But we could move it.”
“Move it? How? And to where?” Chip was absolutely floored by the idea. Computer nodes on space stations were massive. They required huge amounts of data storage and processing ability. They didn’t have anything capable of replicating that going spare.
“I can transfer it to you. You have plenty of unused storage space and you haven’t even begun to tap the range of your computational powers. You could handle that node and ten more according to my calculations. I’ve been very intrigued by your cybernetic interface since you first accessed my systems. I’ve been studying your processor and storage unit for some time, and I believe you can take over the node. At least temporarily. You understand, I would want control of my systems back when this is over.”
“Maddie, I’m not a computer. You
’re talking about my brain. Living tissue inside an organism—me.”
“I disagree. You are a computer. And you are also living tissue. You are both. It is a fascinating combination and one that has not yet fully reached its potential. You are also the only alternative we have.”
“Give me a moment to think about this.”
“Don’t take too long. They’ll be through the bulkhead in minutes. It will take almost that long to transfer all of the node’s data and functionality to you.”
“She wants me to take the node,” Chip said to Lila.
Lila looked worried, then resolved. “Take it.” Her words rang with surety. “This has to be what I saw in my vision. I know you can do it, Chip. It’s what you were meant for.”
“I don’t know if the human brain—my damaged and battered brain—can take it, Lila.”
She moved around the desk and took his hands in hers as she dropped to her knees at the side of his chair.
“You can do this, Charlemagne,” she said softly. “Your mind will adapt better than any other. Your implant was designed to merge and become one with the host. Until now, you’ve only been utilizing a minute fraction of its capability once merged with your organic pathways. I know it. And I know you, of all men, can handle the power this will give you.”
“Power?” He was uncomfortable with the notion. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Yet, it was true.
“Which is why you are the only man for this task. You will not abuse your abilities. And you can save many lives… if you’ll just allow it to happen. Allow the merger of your mind and your machine. As it was meant to be.”
“Lila, I…” He leaned down to kiss her beautiful face. If he did this, he might never recover. It might not work. He might die or be permanently brain damaged beyond repair this time. He might never see her again and know who she was, or how important she was to him.
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