Star Freedom

by D. R. Rosier

  They were just… ridiculously outclassed by our alien technology. So much so, that I was actually disappointed, it was like someone gave me a present and then ripped it away. I know that sounds crazy, but I did enjoy and excel at outwitting and outfighting an enemy, this had just been a waste of time. At the same time, I was grateful to that, the last thing I wanted was to put my loved ones in true danger just so I could challenge myself.

  Janson said, “Some men are on the way to pick them up, I’ll let you know what we discover.”

  He didn’t sound very confident that they would get the men to talk.

  I nodded, “I understand. At the very least I want to know if this was aimed at our party, or just me.”

  Janson frowned, “Just you?”

  I shrugged, “There are men out there who believe I’m their property, you know my story. I’m also far more valuable now, given what I know and understand of Isyth technology. I love my new place and life on Isyth, but even without that I’d never be able to come back to Earth for more than a visit because of that.”

  It was true enough. If someone got control of me, reverse engineering would no longer be required. At least for short term benefits. They just didn’t realize that idea was impossible, I was beyond their control now. Even as a teacher, my value was beyond priceless. It was the only reason I could think of they’d want me alive at all, normally they’d just burn their escaped assets. It was a good thing I truly didn’t want to return, I loved Vik, Jillintara, and Telidur, my life on Earth was in the past. Hell, I was pretty sure I loved Cyntariel already as well, I just hadn’t fully admitted it to myself.

  Jillintara took my hand and squeezed it.

  Myra said out loud, not sure how she managed that.

  “My scans indicate that two of these men have the drug that was purged from your system in them.”

  I frowned, “Well, it looks like we got our answer. They were after me, with capture preferred over killing.”

  Vik said, “Why don’t you go after them, take Jill with you. I can handle the discussions, and be safe enough with Telidur and Myra looking out for my safety. I’ll keep Cyntariel with me, and we can go out on the town when it’s safe.”

  I knew what he meant, safe for others. We were safe enough, but if we were ambushed again there could be collateral damage if we were in public.

  Janson sighed, “I can’t sanction that, but I won’t stop it. Covert organizations like that are a cancer in the government, see themselves as beyond the law, and usually operate without the knowledge or approval of our highest office.”

  I smirked, “So the conspiracy theorists are right?”

  Janson coughed, “What? Did I say something?”

  I laughed.

  “I really didn’t want to go after them, I don’t need revenge. But… it’s not a horrible idea. None of those other organizations care about me, so I can vacation on Earth in peace in the future.”

  It also wouldn’t be easy. Technology made fighting easy, but not data gathering.

  I could find the facility I’d been born in, and trained in, easily enough, but chances were that they’d moved on. There’d also be layers of secrecy, I was sure whoever was in charge of the covert ops group I’d been a part of, was very high up in the halls of power. Perhaps even a center, or a director of one of the legal and open organizations, like the FBI, or CIA.

  I’d had a feeling Jillintara’s skill as an A.I., for hacking into databases and tracking communications, would be far more valuable in the long run than my ability to kick ass...

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “You look weird.”

  Jillintara stuck her tongue out. About all that was the same is she had blonde hair and blue eyes. Though the latter was a little lighter than her normal dark blue and gorgeous peepers. Her lightly tanned human skin just looked wrong. She was still beautiful, and sexy, but it was just wrong.

  I didn’t look like myself either, my hair was reddish blonde instead of light brown. My eyes green instead of brown. My skin tone was lighter, almost completely pale instead of my usual dark tanned skin. Our faces also had a slightly different structure, enough to fool a computer algorithm’s facial recognition. Well, Earth’s version of it anyway, an Isyth A.I. would easily spot me even with all the changes.

  “You ready?”

  I nodded.

  We cloaked in Janson’s house, stepped outside, and flew with our ship suits only, due west towards Nevada. About twenty-five hundred miles away. I’d forgotten how much fun flying in just a ship suit was. It was a bit of a rush for the first hundred miles or so, then we passed the time chatting. We were moving quickly, but it would still take a couple of hours. We weren’t quite moving at Mach one, but we were close.

  I wondered how Vik was doing, talking and haggling over prices for our ships, and decided I was much happier chasing after the assholes that had made me and turned me into a slave. I may not have needed revenge, but this was a lot more fun than what Vik was doing.

  Given that they hadn’t backed off and just let me go, it was also necessary.

  The plan was simple enough, we’d look for evidence and tip off the authorities. I didn’t think the president would mind our motivations or intentions, it was an organization that needed to go, but we also had no authority to do it. The less of a splash we made the better. The last thing we needed to do was cause an interstellar incident.

  I believe the operative word was vigilantism. It wasn’t exactly legal, and I did work for a foreign power now. Subtlety would have to be the watchword.

  Either that, or kill them all and bury the evidence. That really didn’t appeal to me, I’d rather see the leadership behind bars, and free everyone else. Most were probably enslaved, or just following orders and complete dupes.

  The more I thought about it, the riskier it seemed, and I wondered if I should just give up Earth and stay on the ship. Vik suggested this course, but he didn’t really understand how gray and murky things could get in such an expansive and bloated government, with power and ambition out of control.

  Fuck it.

  “Let’s stay cloaked, and try to sneak in if the facility is still active. There are infrared and normal cameras, pressure plates, and motion sensors on the grounds. We can easily bypass all that just by landing at the front door to the facility and staying cloaked.”

  Jillintara said, “Works for me. Then what?”

  “We’ll sneak down to the server room, where you can do your thing. It’s not connected to the outside, so we’ll have to be local to the server to hack it. Even cloaked it will be complicated. The doors all have cameras on them.”

  Jillintara said, “Right, they’ll see us open and close the doors. Before we breach, I’ll release enough nanites to suborn the video system. It won’t take long, then I can get the door open. Unless there’s someone physically guarding the doors, no one will see.”

  I frowned, and shook my head, “No, but we’ll have to keep aware of people moving around the facility.”

  Jillintara snorted, “Of course.”

  “If anything else comes up, we’ll improvise. You might want to check for munitions as well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the place was set up to blow.”

  Jillintara said, “You’re joking.”

  I replied, “Afraid not, your about to see the darker side of humanity. Most humans would be horrified by what we’re about to see and uncover. Ambition and power tends to make people paranoid, and in covert organizations without oversight, societal limitations and morals can be safely ignored. Remember, I was a slave assassin on a leash of drugs and misinformation.”

  Jillintara sighed, and said, “Right.”

  We landed near the doors, and Jillintara released nanites into the camera there, which would trace back the wires to take over the system.

  Myra said, “Scans have revealed no explosives, but there are several deadly chemical gases on site, some of those are rigged to be released.”

  I felt guilty, and dirty
. I was human, and Myra’s tone of shock and disbelief made me feel shame for being human. I knew though, that we had as much potential to do good, but in that moment it didn’t help. I stayed silent, unsure what to say.

  Myra continued, “There are a hundred and fifteen people on site. Based on the scans for weapons, thirty-two of them are armed military guards, the rest are scientists or… subjects.”

  “Subjects, are you sure?” I asked hesitantly.

  Myra said, “There are six females under the age of five present in the underground portion of the facility, they seem to be separated and confined in separate living areas on sub-level four.”

  Damn. I lived on sub-level four. They weren’t replacements, I’d only escaped a little over a year ago. A second round of experiments and test tube babies, after my own success? Were they like me? Or even more advanced?

  I felt sick to my stomach at my own remembered childhood, and almost jumped out of my skin when I felt Jillintara’s hand on my shoulder, though I couldn’t see her. I also wondered if this was the true reason I didn’t want to try and take revenge, I hadn’t wanted to see this either. They must have started the second batch, a large batch, as soon as they’d put me out in the world, five years ago now.

  Surely, I’d have felt them, if they’d been born before I’d been put out into the world. I could feel them now, and wondered if they sensed me.

  She said, “We’ll rescue them love, and if necessary give them a home.”

  I almost collapsed at the tone of compassion, love, and understanding in her voice. Had I been afraid she would judge me for being what I was, for being associated with this evil? I so wished my switch would flip, but the truth was I knew I wasn’t in danger, at all.

  Then traitorously, I wondered if the young children would be safe. My morals were there, but when the switch flipped they were compromised, completely removed. Had they modified the girl’s emotions even more than mine, made them more of a weapon, and even less human than I? I imagined a DNA scan and analysis would tell us, when we implanted health nanites to purge the drugs. It was a worry for another day.

  First, we had to rescue them.

  As soon as I solidified that goal, the switch in my mind popped. I always had clarity of perception and thought, but now it was icy and complete. It wasn’t because I was in danger, it was because they were. I think I would have cried at that thought, and my instincts to rescue them, if I wasn’t completely incapable of it right now. After all, emotion might compromise the mission.

  “If we do that, rescue them, we won’t be able to hide our presence. We’ll have to disarm the gas distribution system, and…”

  I had no idea. Stun them all unconscious? Call the police? Good luck with that. Kill them all? Even with my switch flipped I knew that was wrong, they needed to face justice. Even if it was a closed door military court martial.

  Jillintara said, “I have the cameras, and am breaching security. Are you alright?”

  I replied, “My crazy switch flipped, those girls are in danger.”

  The door keypad flashed from red to green.

  I joked, “That didn’t take very long,” as I pulled it open, and we walked inside.

  Jillintara smirked, I couldn’t see it of course, but I could hear it in her voice.

  “Simplistic security algorithms. This won’t be so easy once your world adapts A.I. technology, but right now they might as well be unsecured. I’ve managed to isolate the security trigger that would release the gas in case the building is compromised, I’m still working on the physical override trigger in the security suite.”

  I frowned, “How?”

  Jillintara replied, “Nanites, they’ll have the wires cut before we get to level four. They’re literally eating a cross section to break it. I’m also in the process of copying several terabytes of data, it’s slow going because of your hard drive technology. They can only read so fast. I estimate at least forty-five minutes before I have it all.”

  I replied, “Let’s get to level four, then wait until you have proof before we reveal our presence. Unless you got the power cut off switch as well?”

  Jillintara replied, “No, I thought the gas system was more important. I can do that next.”

  We bypassed the elevator, and went to the stairs down. The red light blinked green as we approached, and we slid into the stairwell just seconds before a patrol entered the corridor. So far we’d been lucky, but most of the people were in the sublevels, so we’d have to be a little more careful going forward. Though, the cloaking system would mute any steps we made, and make us impossible to see. We just couldn’t open doors near anyone, or get in their way.

  I wasn’t worried about our speech, we had our suits’ environmental systems engaged. No one could hear us talking.

  We went down to sublevel four, and Myra said, “Stand by, my scans are picking up three lifeforms within visual range of the door.”

  That made sense, there were several scientists and labs on level four as well. For testing, and to gauge the progress of their experiments.

  Jillintara froze, “They’re all clones of you, for the most part. They made slight tweaks to the DNA code they believe controls the sixth sense abilities in each one. To see if they could improve it. As far as I can tell everything else is identical, from your advanced spatial recognition and proprioception, to your emotional makeup, appearance, and all that.”

  “I’m both horrified, and pleased at that.”

  Jillintara sounded confused, probably wondering how I could be pleased about any of this, “Explain.”

  “Horrified because what they’re doing is immoral, not to mention illegal in this country, and in most of the rest of the world. They’re stealing their childhoods, and made them slave weapons, like me. I’m pleased because I worried they’d tinker with other things, to make them… more compliant and less human. I guess they stuck with the drugs to keep control, and conditioning?”

  Jillintara said, “They did, yes. Certainly not from any sense of morality, but because an assassin needs to blend in. They have to be able to fit in, and empathize with other humans and their victims, or they’d stand out.”

  I was chilled by that, mostly because she was probably right.

  Myra and I both said, “Clear,” at the same time, and I opened the door.

  I smirked at the shocked silence, and let her wonder how I knew. I could feel it of course, the sense of danger had greatly lessened, and somehow I just knew it was safe to go at that point.

  “Any idea who’s behind it yet?”

  Jillintara said, “So far, three senators, a General, a full colonel, and three scientists are the only humans fully in the know. Everyone else working here only knows small pieces. Most of the scientists have never seen level four, and are conducting DNA experiments in animals. All the soldiers are pretty much in the dark, but those with level four access for security know they’re holding six young girls. Just not why, or what they really are. There’s still a lot of data to be going through, but I’ll have a full report on everyone and what they’re guilty of in about an hour given the transfer rates.”

  The shadow of guilt struck me, as I wondered if they’d have bothered with six more, if I hadn’t been so successful as an assassin. I was thankful my switch had flipped, or I’d probably be losing it about now. This walk down memory lane was going to cost me, when the mission was over and the crazy switch turned off.

  We waited in the hallway the young girls were being kept in, while the data cracking part of the mission was completed. It also didn’t take long for Jillintara to suborn the power systems, they wouldn’t be doing an emergency shut down, or killing everyone to initiate a coverup.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I took the time to review Jillintara’s summary report, which was ten pages. The actual full report of crimes and culpability, was over a hundred pages. Her earlier statements remained true, not many knew the full scope of activities.

  “Options?”

 
; I wasn’t sure I wanted to make a decision, because I was seriously leaning toward the kill them all option, and run off with small girls to give them actual homes. I wasn’t even sure what to do at that point either, did we find them human homes, or take them with us and raise them on Isyth? I wanted to give them a normal childhood, but they were already over five years old, just barely. Was that realistic? The best we could hope to do was let them make connections, and be loved.

  Should I be a part of that? Would they want to be together, would they want me?

  Jillintara said, “We could lock down the building, send the data to the FBI, military police, and a few other agencies. I assume we don’t want to get the press involved. Let the authorities deal with the congressmen and generals. The colonel is here now.”

  I frowned, “Alright, we can lock down the building, and stun them all? Wait for a platoon of MP’s to get here, and disappear with the kids?”

  I was afraid that was naïve, and that the men in charge would get away with it, cover it up somehow. But… I didn’t want a bloodbath on my hands either, and at the very least we could make it extremely difficult for them to do the same thing again.

  A siren went off.

  Jillintara reported, “Lockdown is solid, no one is getting out except the two of us and whoever we bring with us.”

  Myra said, “I’m stunning this floor first, and I’ll take one of the orbs to get the rest of them in a minute.”

  I de-cloaked, still in my disguise though I wondered if it wasn’t wasted effort.

  “Let’s go say hi.”

  The closest door turned from red to green, but before I could open it the door was opened from the other side, and a five-year-old girl walked out. She had my hair, eyes, and cute face.

  She looked right at me, “About time. We felt you over an hour ago.”