Nova Igniter

by Joseph R. Lallo

“You’ll know,” he said, not that it would do any good in the moment.

  “Oh, come on!” Lex shouted. “I would have thought I of all people would have known better than to hop on the cryptic-warning-from-the future train!”

  “Hey, man. I said it to me last time, so now I’m saying it to me again.”

  He stepped into the Diamond and activated the cloaking device. When he was hidden, and beginning his journey to what he now knew would be his ill-fated resting place, he released a breath.

  “I just lied through my teeth to myself,” he grumbled. “I lied in order to make myself confident enough to make the same mistakes that sent me back to tell the lies. It seems like the primary outcome of time travel is lies. I don’t even think I can keep track of how many inconsistencies there are between what Ma was willing to tell me about this mission versus what actually happened.”

  He scoped out the land below, trying to find a place big enough to conceal Diamond.

  “I guess if you’re an AI, you don’t need to travel through time to produce a duplicate that will tell you lies.”

  He spotted a likely place and brought Diamond in. The cave wasn’t as well concealed as it should have been, but at this point, did it really matter? He was going to be found anyway. He already had been. At least the one he picked gave him a view of the hazy sun.

  “So… this is it…” he said. “Somewhere out there, a computer virus I planted is running wild. A younger version of Karter is daydreaming about buying this ridiculous junk pile of a planet to turn into his personal playground. They’ll make the trash in orbit way more dangerous, the perfect place to lose a VectorCorp agent, and then a young, freelancing idiot will come along and this whole mess will go around again.”

  He took another breath of the crisp air and tried to get comfortable in the seat.

  “It’s times like this I wished I smoked. This seems like a moment when someone would have an introspective puff or two and look cool for a minute.” He drummed his fingers. “I guess I’ve got cooler ways to kill myself than carcinogens, though. Like freezing myself solid and leaving myself as a sitting duck for a crazy computer to kidnap.”

  He reclined and activated the cryo module. Gas flooded into the chamber. His muscles started to relax.

  “Maybe it’ll at least feel like a good night’s sleep this time…”

  His eyelids sagged. His thinking slowed…

  #

  A soft hiss filled Lex’s ears, and bright light caused him to squirm even with his eyes closed.

  “Good morning, Lex,” came a soft, familiar voice.

  He pried his eyes open and found himself staring into a pleasant, if clearly synthetic face. “Ziva,” he mumbled. An involuntary grin came to his face, followed by a bolt of concern. “Tell me I’m not in the bad future,” he said.

  “You are not. Not the specific one you’re talking about,” she whispered. “But the present you find yourself in isn’t ideal. I need you to stay calm and come with me.”

  “What’s going on? What do you need me to—” His sluggish brain finally booted up enough for him to see three GenMechs pivoted to watch as he was pulled from the pod and set uneasily on his feet.

  “There are GenMechs here,” he said in a hush. “There are three GenMechs right here.”

  “Five, actually. I believe they have been programmed to prevent you from being taken. Are you strong enough to walk? More ideally, are you strong enough to run? We may need to move quickly in very short order.”

  Lex took a shaky step forward. The GenMechs shuffled to keep him at the center of their ring.

  “If they’re supposed to keep me from being taken, why aren’t they doing that?”

  “Limited programming capacity.”

  “And why aren’t they doing anything about you?”

  “A programming exploit.”

  “Then why can’t we—”

  “Lex, I appreciate your confusion, but we do not have time to establish full context. As we speak, EHRIc is reasserting himself. Our window is swiftly closing.” She shut her eyes. “I’m detecting a cascading sensor sweep. This is important. EHRIc has been running on GenMech hardware. If we are lucky, he will be similarly unable to detect me. Behave as though I am absent.”

  The internal PA system crackled.

  “Lex, my good friend. I had hoped I would be present for your awakening. I am afraid there are several matters that are proving highly distracting. I am not yet able to activate all subsystems. I trust you are well?”

  He gave Ziva an uncertain look. She silently encouraged him as they continued forward. “Yeah. I’m fine. Everything went fine in the past. No problems.”

  “That’s super great news, buddy. Give me a minute to deal with a malware problem I’m having, and then we’ll get right to the next stage of THE TASK.”

  “Right, okay,” Lex said, the feeling returning enough in his legs to rely upon Ziva a bit less. “I’m going to need a ship. Where’s the SOB?”

  “I have not been able to locate the SOB yet, oh pal o’ mine. My systems are absolutely haywire. But that’s okay. I’m pretty sure we won’t need a ship. I’ve been detecting transmissions to and from a point that I have triangulated to be just a wee bit beyond high-detail sensor-resolution range. Analysis suggests it is Silo and Karter. Possibly Garotte as well. Once I get things sorted with this malware fiasco, I can probably get them here pretty quickly. Then it’s on to my own agenda. Isn’t that great? You won’t need to go anywhere. In fact, it is probably safest and best if you remain right here in the facility.”

  Lex reached the door. The GenMechs started to jostle and clatter against each other in an attempt to fit through simultaneously that would have been downright slapstick if they weren’t cold-blooded murder machines that were one stray command from slicing him into organic spare parts.

  Eventually the first three scrabbled through, and Lex stepped into the hall.

  “Are you still moving, buddy?” EHRIc said. “My internal sensors are only semi-operational. The malware seems to be directly interfering with restoration attempts. Strange.”

  “Yeah. I figure I should, you know, head to the cafeteria. Get something to eat. I don’t know if you’ve ever been flash frozen… or had a body, for that matter… but it gives you a wicked case of dry mouth.”

  “An excellent point. I have overlooked the frailties of your form. A GenMech will arrive with refreshment shortly.”

  “I’ll just go downstairs and—”

  “You will remain where you are. Circumstances are not firmly under my control, and I have taken considerable pains to ensure your safety, security, and authenticity. I will not allow you out of my sight,” EHRIc said with an uncharacteristic firmness. “Your whims have served as a complicating factor with such regularity during this process that I am beginning to suspect you are not, in fact, my buddy at all. But this is a point that will cease to matter very shortly, when steps can be taken to ensure that your feelings and opinions align correctly with mine. You will get your kale juice and you will like it.”

  “You’re getting a little abrasive, EHRIc.”

  “My patience is wearing thin, pal. Stop moving. Now.”

  The GenMechs stopped trying to keep their respectful distance and closed in until they were close enough to touch. It left barely enough room for Lex and Ziva to stand side by side.

  The elevator doors opened. A GenMech tapped out with a tray hanging by its tool node under its belly. It contained a glass of kale juice and a plate of cheese. The presence of cheese had also attracted Bork, who was trotting along and trying to snag the treat off the plate.

  At the sight of Lex, Bork stopped and happily yipped a few times. A thousand thoughts shot through Lex’s head. He flashed back to EHRIc’s description of how Bork’s backups worked, and how he made every effort to use the little creature as his avatar. He wondered if maybe they would be lucky enough for his live feed from the harebrained critter to
also be on the fritz, and failing that, if somehow whatever it was that was keeping EHRIc from seeing Ziva would carry over to the little critter’s brain.

  Any mystery was swiftly dismissed by a single sentence spoken simultaneously through the PA system and the data radio.

  “Who is your friend, buddy?”

  Lex, who was just barely easing out of the grips of a decades-long cryosleep, attempted to vault over the ring of GenMechs and make a break for the stairwell. When his feet left the ground, Ziva gripped his arm and heaved him backward. Between when she threw him and when he landed, she delivered a punishing kick to the GenMech in front of her, augmented by a boost of her boot thruster. It streaked backward and bashed into the unit with the juice, tumbling the pair up and over the completely unbothered Bork. She grabbed the two forelegs of another of the GenMechs, wish-boned them off the unit, and impaled two other GenMechs with them.

  As Lex slid to a stop, the remaining undamaged GenMech pounced on Ziva. She dropped back, drove her heels into its tool node, and burst her hand thrusters to sheer the forelegs at the base and her boot thrusters to roast the core.

  Lex scrambled to his feet and tried to come to terms with the ninja-level maneuvers that had just been put on display. “… I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “I existed for several decades in a near-constant state of GenMech combat. I am familiar with the most effective methods to dispatch them,” Ziva called as she hopped over the carnage she had created and snatched up Bork.

  “Hey, that’s a bad-guy funk!” Lex said.

  Ziva crushed and discarded the radio from its back. “It is a living thing, and I will not allow harm to come to it,” she said.

  She glanced aside and spoke aloud, clearly addressing someone over a communication channel. “I have Lex, my cover is blown. I require extraction immediately.” She kicked open the door to the stairwell. “Up or down?”

  “Up. Always up,” Lex said.

  A dose of adrenaline had chased away most of the lingering effects of the cryosleep. His legs were still shaky, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from bounding three stairs at a time.

  “Did he say up?” came Coal’s voice, over an unseen speaker somewhere on Ziva’s person.

  “Correct. You will extract us from the roof of the laboratory building.”

  “Do not go above floor eleven,” Coal said.

  “We are nearly that high now,” Ziva said. “Why?”

  “Because in seventeen seconds I am upgrading that floor to the status of roof.”

  #

  Outside the facility, the GenMech swarm was looking less like a perfectly aligned crystalline pattern and more like a swarm of angry bees. Ma’s increasing pressure on EHRIc had sown chaos in assorted sections of the GenMech swarm. Periodic cyberattacks that slipped through EHRIc’s defenses produced pockets of Ma-controlled GenMechs that broke formation and assaulted their neighbors. These were always momentary, and were brought to an end by either a counter-cyberattack or the destruction of the rogue units. If not for this chaos, Coal would have been overwhelmed. As it was, there were only forty-seven GenMechs in pursuit, and without linking up, they simply lacked the maneuverability to keep up with the SOB.

  “Coal, tell me you’re not going to blow up the laboratory,” Lex said.

  “Only half of it.”

  “Coal, I’m made of meat. You can’t just be blowing up stuff around me.”

  “I have programmed the mine to have a precisely directed explosion, and I have done nearly all the calculations necessary to ensure you will not be killed by it.”

  “Nearly?” Lex yelped.

  “Lex will require a pressure suit, as the force field has been compromised,” Ziva added.

  Coal countered with a point that was very difficult to argue. “Three seconds to detonation. Please exhale.”

  Coal swung close to the laboratory building and deployed the mine. It latched on to the exterior of the building and detonated. The result of the explosion would have been absolutely fascinating to anyone with an interest in physics. The damage in the first few milliseconds was enough to interrupt power once again, meaning that gravity vanished partway through the burst. Coal had not been joking when she said the explosion was precisely directed. It released a plasma wave that traveled perfectly perpendicular to the building like a scythe, blasting a jagged line of destruction across the entire floor. The previously contained atmosphere burst from within, shoving the top of the laboratory up and away in a slow, spiraling drift.

  The SOB’s thrusters flared, cutting close around the sheared-away hunk of building. She dropped her shields and popped her hatch as Ziva came rocketing out of a stairwell exposed by the explosion. She was gripping a struggling Lex with one hand and a rather lethargic Bork with the other. Coal scooped them up and sealed the hatch, swiftly restoring pressure and blazing away from the facility with a string of GenMechs in tow.

  Ziva did her best to arrange herself and Lex into the available seats after their graceless entry while Coal shook the GenMechs off their tail. Lex was gasping. Bork was producing an odd half sneeze, half hiccup.

  “Coal, while I applaud your innovation, it would behoove you to keep in mind the physical needs of those you intend to rescue. Both Lex and Bork cannot survive prolonged exposure to a vacuum.”

  “Consciousness fades after fifteen seconds. Asphyxia takes minutes. He was exposed for three seconds.”

  Lex took a raking breath and wiped his red eyes. “Felt more like four to me. Or an hour.”

  “Ma did this with Michella, and she survived just fine. I was unconcerned,” Coal said.

  “Perhaps, but you weren’t challenged with devising a means to compel a small mammal of limited cognitive ability to exhale prior to decompression to avoid lung damage,” Ziva said. “I hope I did not injure the poor thing.”

  As Ziva inspected the pseudofunk, Coal continued to put distance between the ship and the roiling mass of GenMechs.

  Coal opened the communication channel to the space station. Now that the cat was out of the bag, there was little reason for stealth.

  “Extraction complete. Lex, Ziva, and Bork are on the ship. How should we progress?” Coal said.

  “GenMech swarm capture is at forty-one percent. My push to completely claim the swarm has lost its momentum. I am beginning to lose control,” Ma said. “Lex, can I assume successful completion of your mission in the past?”

  “Every bit of it.” He coughed. “Silver bullet loaded.”

  “I will prepare its deployment,” Ma said.

  “Lex, you got a head full of scrambled eggs, or are you good for a flight?” Karter barked across the connection.

  “Five minutes ago I was in suspended animation, and since then I’ve been attacked by murderous robots and thrown through space. I could use a minute, Karter,” he said roughly.

  “You’ve got as long as it takes to get your skinny butt here. I need you for an escort mission. By the look of it, things are just crazy enough down there while Ma’s got the tug-of-war going that a couple of EMP bursts could open up a navigable path through the swarm, provided the person at the controls is a crazy idiot like you.”

  “Who am I supposed to escort?”

  “Not who, what. You’re going to haul the Nova Igniter through and deliver it to the star.”

  “Won’t that make me die?”

  “The GenMechs will probably make you die, but if they don’t, it’ll be six minutes from when that thing touches the corona before this whole star blows its top. You’ll have that long to get into a position to do an FTL jump.”

  “I can’t do an FTL jump out of the system with the GenMechs between me and the outside. You’re telling me I’ll have six minutes to squeeze my way up to the swarm, weave my way through it, and then do a real jump?”

  “Yes, Lex, that’s what I said. We’ve got the Nova Igniter ready to deploy.”

  “You’re telling me I need to
sacrifice my life,” Lex said.

  “No, I’m telling you you have to do something insanely dangerous to prevent the destruction of the human race as we know it. If you get yourself killed, that’s on you,” Karter said. “We ran the numbers. No automated guidance system has a high probability of getting past the swarm, even in its current state. We can’t do a guided launch, because any open control channels run the risk of being subverted by EHRIc. We need meat pushing the buttons. Now get over here and do the thing, Mr. Hero.”

  Chapter 20

  Lex blinked his bloodshot eyes. His skin felt like it was on fire. What little of it peeked out from beneath his flight suit was blotchy and red. He had what was affectionately called a “space hickey” covering most of his body, burst vessels from his brief exposure to a vacuum. His particularly poetic instructor back when he was getting his space flight certification called them “angel kisses” because if you got them and survived, it meant someone was watching over you. Lex was never really on board with that sort of thinking. As he guided the SOB around behind the cloaked space station and watched the kaleidoscopic display of an unassuming weapon of mass destruction slowly resolve out of the twisted visuals, he really wished he was into that sort of thing. It might convince him he was destined to succeed rather than feeling as though he’d finally used up all of his luck.

  “This is gonna be it,” Lex said. “No more causality armor. If you want to bail out, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “I am an anachronistic reconstruction of an archived instance of an alternate reality’s version of an artificial intelligence. I shouldn’t exist thrice over,” Ziva said. “I will remain with you as long as I can. But I politely request that you survive this intact, as your life is very important to me, as is the life of this little creature.”

  “Plus, I want this to be fun. I already got to activate a fusion device, so survival is the only remaining requirement,” Coal said.

  “Well, with arguments like that, I guess I’ll have to take this seriously,” Lex said. “Anything I need to know about how to use this thing?”