Coalescence (Dragonfire Station Book 3)

by Zen DiPietro

  “See, Sarkavians are distinctly lacking in stories. We have tons of poetry. But we don’t have a great tradition of literature.”

  “So it’s a trade-off.” Fallon couldn’t remember ever having a conversation quite like this with Wren.

  “All things are.” Wren nodded sagely.

  “What’s your trade-off for being with me?” Fallon wasn’t sure whether she was a good thing with a negative trade-off, or vice versa.

  Wren sat up and turned to face Fallon, her expression serious. “That we’re mortal, and one day, you might die and leave me alone.”

  From Raptor, those words would have simply been pragmatic. From Wren, they were romantic.

  Fallon didn’t stay the night. She needed to hit the ground running the next day, and knew she’d have a hard time doing that in the coziness of Wren’s quarters.

  So when her alarm sounded, she jumped out of bed and got going. Excitement crackled through her. She was getting close to finding Krazinski, she was sure. And close to setting the trap to bring Colb in. Then she could finally fix the PAC, and life could go on the way it should.

  She met Brak for their run, bursting with questions. Once they got up to the track and began, she restrained herself to one word. “Well?”

  “Good news and bad news. I asked Lim to meet us in an hour in the infirmary.”

  Fallon knew she’d have to wait for specifics. “That’s cryptic. And doesn’t give me much time to exercise and deliver my morning report to the captain.”

  Brak shot her a sidelong look. “I guess we’d better run faster.”

  Lim wore an odd expression that seemed to be a combination of eagerness and dread. It turned out that he was right to feel both.

  In the private room of the infirmary, Brak pulled up brain images on the voicecom terminal. “On the left side, we see Fallon’s brain. On the right, we see Lim’s.”

  Fallon squinted at the images. “Reading brain images is not my strong suit.”

  “Mine either,” Lim echoed.

  “Okay. See this small dark spot?” Brak pointed to Fallon’s brain. “That’s the implant I put in.” Then she pointed to an area in Lim’s brain. “This large gray area is Lim’s implant.”

  It was huge. Fallon stared at the expanse of brain that had been taken away from him. Prelin’s ass. Her stomach clenched.

  “What does this mean for me?” Lim asked in a soft voice.

  “With the implant, you’re able to retain as much new information as any highly intelligent person. Your IQ is very high, and your mathematical skills are fantastic. Further, you’re not in danger of losing anything you’ve experienced in the past eighteen months.”

  “Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?” he asked in a stronger voice.

  “A great deal of tissue has been removed. I could possibly regenerate some of it, but it wouldn’t return any prior memories. I’m very sorry.”

  Lim’s back bowed, and he stared at his lap. “I see.”

  “I can upgrade your implant, though. The one you have isn’t meant for long-term use. I can give you one that’s made to last, and will transfer the memory you already have. The new implant will be smaller, which means there will be room for me to see how much of your brain tissue I can regenerate.”

  “I like the idea of getting my brain back, but changing out the implant sounds scary. I don’t want to start over again.” Lim didn’t look optimistic.

  “I know, but it’s actually a simple process. Just a copy and transfer of data from one device to another.”

  “Is there a risk of me losing my memory, though? That’s my main worry.”

  “No. You already have a device. I won’t be doing anything that hasn’t already been done in that regard. I’ll just be improving the technology. As for the brain matter, it’s essentially like any wound repair. The tissue will be brand new. The great thing about brains is their remarkable ability to rewire themselves in the event of damage. My hope is that once you have that tissue back, you can transfer what’s in your implant into your actual brain matter. If that happens, we can eventually remove the implant entirely.”

  “I do like the sound of that.” He seemed slightly more encouraged by the idea. “Will it be painful?”

  “You can expect to feel fine after, except maybe a slight headache from the surgery itself.”

  “When does it have to be done?”

  Brak tilted her head. “There’s no rush. I wouldn’t recommend waiting more than three months, though. Like I said, that implant wasn’t built to last.”

  “Right.” Lim sat up straight. “When can you have the new implant ready?”

  “Probably four days if I start immediately. That will give me time to manufacture it and run extensive testing. Plus, Jerin will be back to lead the regeneration of your lost tissue. Hardware is more my specialty, while the squishy bits are hers.”

  “Squishy bits.” Lim smirked. “Right. So message me with the time you’ll want me here. The sooner this is done, the sooner I can move forward with my life. Such as it is.”

  “Of course. If you have any questions—”

  He cut her off, jumping to his feet. “No. You do what you do, and I’ll do…well, I’m working on figuring out what I do. But I’ll leave this part to you.” He took a breath, seeming to rally himself. “I know I’m incredibly lucky to have your help. And I appreciate it.”

  “I could not be more glad that I’m able to help,” Brak answered.

  He bowed to them, then left.

  “He took the news well, considering.” Fallon wasn’t sure how she’d have handled knowing that she’d never get her past back. Especially since Lim seemed to have none of the retained skills she had.

  “They made him into a blank slate. Wiped clean. Probably multiple times. It’s horrifying.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  Brak growled softly. “I’d like to take the doctors who did this, tear their heads off, and feed them to mandren.”

  Fallon blinked. “Wow.” She’d never heard Brak say anything violent or threatening. “So how can we help him?”

  “Make sure his health is good. Support him emotionally. Help him rediscover himself. Or develop a new self.”

  Fallon suspected she knew the answer to her next question, but she had to ask it. “Could you give him back his lost memories if we could reconstruct them from fact? If we found out who he is?”

  “I could give him data. Facts. Images. I couldn’t give him skills. But I don’t believe it’s ethical to give someone memories, even if they’re based on fact.”

  “He’d experience those things as real memories?”

  “Yes. But as I said.” Brak clearly didn’t like this line of thinking.

  “I’m talking theory right now. That’s all.”

  “It’s a slippery slope. It worries me.” Brak’s discomfort was clear by the way she ducked her head.

  “I know. Don’t worry. I’m just curious about the mechanics. Strictly hypothetical.”

  Brak’s jaw clenched and released. “Okay. Theoretically, yes, it might be possible to plant believable images. But they might also appear as nightmarish and be ultimately traumatic.”

  “Let’s definitely not do that, then.”

  “Believe me, we won’t.” Brak returned to the voicecom display. “There’s something else. I didn’t want to talk about it with Lim here.”

  Fallon stared at the display. “What is it?”

  “I know how to put your head to the ground.”

  Fallon waited, but Brak said nothing more. “Well, how? You can’t say that and leave me hanging.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to call everyone together first.”

  “Nope. I’ll fill them in. I want to know now.”

  “Okay.” Brak pointed at a dark area on the image of Lim’s implant. “See that? That rounded dark bit?”

  “Kind of.” Fallon tilted her head, as if a different angle would make it more apparent to her.

  “That
’s a router for a private network. It encrypts data, encapsulates it so that the data has a means of travel, then sends it across the network. The hardware is all right there. My guess is that this implant has a built-in way of communicating outside of the datastreams, to keep it completely secure. It’s turned off right now, but I’m guessing it was used to load information into Lim’s brain, like you’d upload any other data.”

  Fallon felt light-headed. “Did I have one of these? In the implant Colb gave me?” If so, Krazinski would expect her to have access to it.

  “Based on the research you took from the lab, I’d guess that you did. All the successive designs included that feature.”

  Fallon had a moment of clarity. Krazinski knew about Colb’s attempt to implant her. Krazinski expected her to have a means of communicating with him inside her head. Without it, she’d never be able to find him.

  “Can you copy the network component of Lim’s device and add it to the implant you created for me?” A thought occurred to her. “Or better yet, use the research records we took from the lab to create a more advanced one?”

  Brak clicked her teeth. Clearly she didn’t like the idea. “The creation of the device would not be very difficult. Since it’s very small, adding it to your inducer implant would be relatively simple. But creating an open gateway in your brain could have any number of unintended consequences. Remember what happened the first time someone put something in your head.”

  Fallon ignored that. She was solving a puzzle. If she took time to think about it from a personal perspective, it would only make doing what she needed to do difficult. “How would the information be transmitted without a hardline between me and Krazinski? How would I get it where it needs to go?”

  “I don’t know. All I have is the hardware. But if what you say is true, I’d expect that Krazinski knows exactly what he’s looking for, and you’d just need to supply it.”

  Fallon hoped so. “Right. I’m guessing the message travels via photonic energy.”

  “Why?”

  Fallon touched the side of her head, thinking about the implant inside. It wasn’t the implant Krazinski expected her to have, but she hoped it could do what she needed it to. “Because that’s how I’d do it. Assuming there were no black holes or other interference in the path, it could work. Which means that Krazinski can’t be too far away, if he’s expecting me to be able to contact him.”

  “I don’t care to cut open a person’s head on the basis of that much conjecture.”

  Fallon had gotten so caught up in her discovery that she hadn’t considered that Brak might not cooperate. “Are you saying you won’t do it?”

  “Why not use Lim’s implant? He already has it.”

  “Krazinski’s waiting to hear from me. He may not even know who Lim is. He hasn’t turned up in any searches we’ve done.”

  Brak turned her back to the image of Lim’s brain. “How can you even consider this, after everything you’ve been through?”

  “Two things. First, it’s my job to do what needs to be done. Second, I trust you to do what you do. You’ll get it right.”

  “Shouldn’t you consult with your team?”

  Fallon didn’t even have to think about that. “No. It will cause unnecessary delay, and opinions will be mixed. In the end, I’ll end up making the decision anyway.”

  “But they’re your team. Your family, for all intents and purposes. Shouldn’t they get a say?”

  “Sometimes. Not this time. Being in command sometimes means making unilateral decisions that may prove unpopular.”

  Brak rubbed at the scales on her head. Fallon had never seen her so agitated. “You’re sure there’s no other way around this?”

  “Can you make an implant that doesn’t need to be inside a brain to work? Because that’d be nice.”

  Brak shook her head. “No. They require neural feedback and electricity to be fully functional.”

  “Then I don’t see any other way.”

  Brak looked like she was about to refuse. Fallon held up a hand before she could. “Look at it from my perspective. I have my team to protect. Plus all of Dragonfire. Plus all of the PAC. If I’m the only one who can get this done, then I’m going to do it.” She closed her eyes, letting herself think about Brak’s concerns. “I know it’s a risk to me. I don’t want anything else happening to my brain. But I really need to not think about that because if I do, it will make what I have to do a lot harder.” She opened her eyes and fixed them on Brak. “I’m not going to watch the PAC fall apart and spend whatever’s left of my life knowing I could have helped, if I hadn’t been so worried about myself, or how the people who matter to me will feel about it. Please. Help me do this.”

  Brak stared at her, unblinking, for several long moments. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll do it. On one condition.”

  “What?”

  “Once all this is over, you have to get PAC intelligence to issue me an official commendation for saving the PAC with my cybernetics expertise.”

  The demand was so unexpected, Fallon laughed. “Okay. Why?”

  “I want to take the commendation home to Briv and show it to my parents. Either they will recognize my honor, or they will shun me, but it’ll be my chance to be a part of my family and my world again.”

  “Wow. All right. Pull this off and I’ll do whatever I can to get you that commendation.”

  Brak dipped her chin in agreement. “I can have the device ready in a day. Two, if we want to be sure it won’t make your head explode.”

  “Let’s make it two.” Fallon had always appreciated Brak’s brutal sense of humor. “This won’t delay your work for Lim?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” Fallon didn’t want to prolong his wait. “We won’t mention this to anyone.”

  “You’re going to pay for that later, but I’ll go along with it.”

  Fallon’s amusement faded. “I’m always paying for something. It might as well be for something that might save us all.”

  In the team meeting the next day, Fallon explained that Brak would create a duplicate of the router in Lim’s brain. The others seemed encouraged by the possible step toward contacting Krazinski. She said nothing of her additional plans to have it put in her head. She let them think it might be possible to activate it in some other way.

  After the meeting, she tapped several people to befriend Lim. She knew that he had the temperament and eye for detail of a BlackOp. He wouldn’t have survived the past year and a half if he hadn’t. But she also knew from her own experience that Lim needed people he could trust. He needed to feel like someone cared that he existed.

  So she asked Arin and Kellis to seek him out. Both had overcome difficulties in their pasts, and that could serve as a bridge to common ground. They also were in the early stages of BlackOp recruitment, and if, as Fallon suspected, Lim had been a young BlackOp before his memory loss, he’d have two contemporaries. If he chose to continue in that line of work, anyway.

  She also tapped Wren to befriend him. Fallon couldn’t think of anyone with a bigger heart, or more love to give. Since Wren had experienced a situation similar to Lim’s but from the other side, she was in a unique position to offer support.

  Another day passed, and when it came time for her to lie down on the techbed, she did it without reservations.

  “You’re sure about this? It’s a much simpler procedure than your last one, but there’s still a risk.” Though Brak remained perfectly professional, Fallon saw her personal concern as well.

  “Completely.” She positioned herself and waited for the restraints. She’d been through this drill before and looked forward to waking up to some results.

  Jerin looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. She’d only just returned to Dragonfire, and had gotten an earful of a briefing upon arrival. Fallon knew she had reservations about this procedure, but Jerin merely rested her hand on Fallon’s forearm for a moment, then stepped to the techbed contr
ols.

  Brak joined her and a moment later said, “Applying the restraints.” Then she added, “Administering the sedative.”

  “See you on the other side,” Fallon said before the stuff took effect.

  “Count on it,” Brak answered.

  Confusion swirled through Fallon. Lights and sound were a jumble. She opened her eyes, unsure where she was. She saw a Briveen face above her, watching. Just behind her, Jerin stood, looking unusually concerned. But she’d looked that way before the surgery too, and Fallon decided not to take it as a bad sign.

  “How do you feel?” Brak asked.

  “Groggy, but it’s fading.” Fallon struggled to pull herself together. “How did it go?”

  “As planned. All that remains is to rest until you’re fully alert and give the router a try.”

  “So soon?” Fallon had thought they’d need to wait for her to heal, or something.

  “Yup.”

  “In that case, bring me some coffee,” Fallon joked.

  “No stimulants. Give the sedative some time to leave your system.” Jerin’s voice was gentle but stern.

  “Sure. I’ll hang out. Catch up on some deep thinking.” Fallon stared up at the ceiling tiles and remembered counting and mentally measuring them before and after her previous surgeries. She seemed to be developing quite a history of having her brain operated on.

  Fallon had no way to measure time, but after a while Brak asked, “How do you feel now?”

  “Fine. Clearer.”

  “Good. Wren and Raptor are outside.”

  “What?” Fallon bolted upright.

  “Just kidding. But you seem alert to me.”

  “Dirty trick.” Fallon had to smile. It had been a good dirty trick. “So what do I do now?”

  “You should be able to intentionally access the router and send a message. The message will automatically be encrypted and encapsulated. Once it goes out, all you can do is wait for a response on that same network.”

  What did she want to say? Well, not much. If someone had commandeered Krazinski’s side of the gateway, she didn’t want to be throwing information at them.

  Head to the ground, she thought. The chief is online.