Exin Ex Machina

by G. S. Jennsen

  Godsdamn you, Nika. What could he say? He wanted to reassure Perrin, to soothe away the knotted brow and comfort her until her smile was lit by infectious enthusiasm, the way it was supposed to always be—except during operations. But what if he was wrong? What if something bad had happened to Nika?

  He should have sent a squad with her. He should have ignored her refusals and sent one on the sly—a stealth squad to shadow her. She’d never have needed to know they were there unless things went sideways.

  Dammit! Why hadn’t he listened to his gut when it might have done some good, as opposed to now, when its highest function was to spin nightmarish catastrophes for him to contemplate?

  “Jo?”

  He blinked and tried to shake it off. “You’re right. She’s probably banging him, and the less we know about that, the better.”

  “Says you. I want to hear all the details. When she gets back. Which she will.” Perrin nodded firmly enough to maybe convince herself.

  He touched her shoulder briefly. “Why don’t you come join us in the training room? I think I was a little rough on Ava in the last session. I suspect she could benefit from your gentler touch.”

  “Ava? She’d shoot me if I tried to give her a gentle touch. Thanks for the invitation, but I need to…check on the new people. I’ll be on The Floor. Or upstairs. Later.”

  “Okay. I’ll be running training for a little longer if you need me.” He wanted to add a ‘don’t worry’ and a ‘she’ll be fine,’ but he wasn’t able to force himself to do it. He didn’t make a habit of lying to Perrin.

  30

  * * *

  Parc studied the ceiling of his cell. Not that there was anything interesting about it. A dimple here, the beginnings of a crack there, but on the whole as bland as a ceiling could be. Not at all like the ceilings at The Chalet. They had character. Years of pranks that got out of hand, short-circuiting electronics—intentionally and otherwise—and the occasional detonating explosive had left their mark on the ceilings, walls and floors of his home. Former home now, he supposed.

  No, mostly he studied the bland ceiling for the lack of anything else to occupy him.

  His hearing had concluded three hours earlier. Started three hours earlier, too, as it must have been one of the shortest hearings on record. With no Rep to argue technicalities and no facts to dispute, since he’d previously stipulated to Justice’s proffered statement of events, it became as simple as a brief reading of the charges, his guilty plea being entered, and the Justice officer pronouncing sentence.

  It should worry him, getting sent to Zaidam Bastille. He’d heard the same horror stories as everyone else. But it couldn’t be as bad as they made it out to be. Most of the prisoners were on ice at any given time, making it more of a storage facility than a prison. And it wouldn’t be long before he got a little R&R and reemerged a new man.

  He’d miss all the tinkering he’d been doing lately—he figured Justice would ensure his new persona wasn’t overly interested in slicing and modding. And his buddies in NOIR…the friendly competitions, the late-night coding races, the pranks. Especially the pranks, like reprogramming Ryan’s pets and snickering at the results. Impressing Nika, or earning a big grin from Perrin. They were going to be so bored without him around, because he’d been the life of the party…

  …hadn’t he?

  “Detainee #M47011, stand and prepare for restraining and transport.”

  He looked over to see two security dynes standing on the other side of the glass wall of his cell. They might be the same ones that had escorted him to and from the hearing, but who could tell?

  It wasn’t as though he’d brought any personal possessions with him, so he simply stood and waited. “Where am I going?”

  The glass slid open to allow the dynes inside. “You are being transferred to Zaidam Bastille.”

  “Already?”

  “Your sentence has been pronounced and will be executed upon.”

  “Yeah, okay. I get that.” He winced as the restraints wrenched his arms a mite too snugly behind his back. The dynes at Justice had never seen an algorithm for gentleness.

  They led him down a couple of back hallways, then up a lift and down another hallway, before they finally entered a rectangular room. Three d-gates were situated against the far wall, and long queues of detainees snaked toward each of them. Narrow force field walls kept each queue straight and orderly—and if they didn’t, the combat-armed mecha guarding them did.

  The dynes deposited him at the end of the center queue, pivoted and left.

  The room was nearly as quiet as his cell had been. No one spoke or screamed out protests of their innocence. They merely shuffled forward, one by one, up to and through their designated d-gate.

  Parc failed to come up with a good reason to do otherwise, and the slow, monotonous pace forward lulled him into a half-asleep, foggy state.

  Before he knew it, it was his turn. He stepped through the d-gate and exited on a spaceport platform. It might have orbited Mirai or any of the Axis Worlds, or…any other world. There were no viewports in sight that might provide a clue as to its location.

  The queue continued in an unbroken line to a docked transport ship. A large one—large enough to carry the many dozens of detainees filing into its hold.

  He must have just gotten lucky with the timing, and his conviction had gone through a couple of hours before a regular monthly transport to Zaidam, because no way could there be this many new convictions in less than a month’s time. Not even in the entire Dominion.

  He hadn’t traveled in a spaceship in several generations—so far in the past that he retained only the base factual memory of it. The details of the experience were stored in a weave back in his data locker at The Chalet.

  Despite the impressive bulk of the spaceship, they were packed inside, herded into row after row of standing jump seat contraptions that kept them from being thrown around in the hold—or doing anything else.

  Much as in the transit room at the Justice Center, a subdued silence permeated the hold. No one complained about the cramped conditions. What good would it do? No one talked to their neighbors, because why bother? Most of them would be different people soon enough for it not to matter.

  Parc lost track of the hours the journey stretched across, but at some point the angry shuddering of the hull announced their docking. At Zaidam Bastille, presumably. The detainees were unloaded starting from the aft section by a whole army of combat-weaponized mecha.

  Maybe it was kind of like a prison….

  The structure they exited into was bright and sterile. It felt like the province of machines rather than criminals.

  They were taken in groups of ten down through various hallways splintering off of the large receiving dock, and from there into some sort of lab. His group was brought to a lab, anyway; as his assigned group had been determined purely by his place in line, he assumed it was the same for everyone.

  What could only be stasis chambers lined two walls of the lab, though they didn’t resemble any stasis chamber he’d ever seen. A couple of Asterions monitored various panes along the third wall, but none of them bothered to look any of the detainees in the eye.

  When he’d mused about most of the prisoners being on ice at any given time, he hadn’t imagined it would happen so quickly. But if someone had been inclined to ask what was going on, they would hardly have had the time, as they were all hurriedly force-nudged sequentially toward the next open stasis chamber.

  As soon as Parc stepped inside his designated chamber, the curving lid closed behind him, followed by a hiss of air.

  A thick, viscous fluid started pumping into the chamber from the bottom. He shivered as its clammy coldness crept up his legs. An odd odor—like orange peels and onions—arrived on new air venting in from the top. A jolt shook his body as something locked into the port at the base of his neck.

  He never knew it when the fluid reached his face and swallowed him whole.

  31<
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  * * *

  The dawn light drifting in through the window cast a shimmer upon Nika’s skin, creating the illusion of it glowing from within. Her tattoo peeked out from beneath the covers to sparkle as luminously as sunlight reflecting off water.

  Dashiel allowed his hand to hover briefly just above her shoulder, but he didn’t touch her. Let her sleep.

  It had been five years since he’d awoken with this woman in his bed. He still felt the aching emptiness of those years, but now he’d found a bridge across their chasm.

  She claimed to not be the same woman, and in some respects he was forced to agree. But here in the silence of slumber, with the cover draped invitingly across her lower back and her hair draped in tangles across the pillow, this could be any of a thousand remembered mornings.

  He hadn’t slept very much last night. And in inevitably coming to dwell on the memories and the loss as he lay there waiting on the dawn, he’d run up against the sting of his own cowardice. When she’d disappeared, he’d searched—he’d asked questions and demanded answers—but only up to the precipice of endangering his own safety and standing. Only up to the point where his personal comfort became threatened.

  At the time, he’d told himself he’d followed every lead and taken every measure possible to find her. But clearly he had not, since here she lay. In the end, she’d found him, sauntered into his office and exposed his cowardice to the searing glare of daylight. She might not realize it, not yet, but he did.

  He vowed to do better this time, to be better. To help her find her way back to her true self, and to stand beside her while she did, no matter what. To find who had robbed them of five years of their lives together, and to hold them accountable. To make certain he never lost her again.

  Her shoulders shifted as she stirred. He drew in a breath and held it, suddenly apprehensive about what her reaction would be on waking—to the setting, to him. High-minded musings aside, her new iteration was a damn force of nature, in and out of the bed, and he needed to be prepared to withstand its power if she woke in an ill temper.

  A change in the rhythm of her breathing told him she was awake, but she didn’t move for several agonizing seconds. Why not?

  Finally she rolled over to face him, an almost sheepish little smile bringing her features to captivating life.

  He let out the breath and returned the smile. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” Her brow wrinkled up unevenly in the lingering fog of sleep. “You look terrified.”

  “I am, a little. I was worried you might react…poorly to your surroundings when you woke. Jump up and flee in a panic, or maybe produce a subcutaneous blade at your wrist and aim it at my throat.”

  She flipped her right hand over to expose her wrist; the skin parted, and a sharp blade extended out of the opening. “You mean this blade?”

  His mouth opened, but no words emerged.

  She chuckled quietly as the blade retracted and disappeared, then glanced over her shoulder at the gradually brightening window. “Not to worry. This all feels somehow…right. Familiar. Not that I retain any specific memory of it, more like my body remembers it. The smoothness of the material beneath my skin and the give of the pillow beneath my head. The way the light streams in at an upward angle early in the morning on account of the building being so tall. Rolling over and seeing you lying beside me. It’s the first time for me, but I can’t escape the fact that it feels like…home.”

  More splendid words had never been spoken in the history of space and time, and the muscles of his body and the soul of his mind relaxed as one. He fought against the urge to pounce on her and wrap her up in a fierce hug, however…one step at a time. “I’m glad.”

  “You’re not going to say, ‘Because it is home’?”

  So she remained silver-tongued straight out from sleep, something else that hadn’t changed. “I…could have. To be honest, I wanted to. But I’m trying to….”

  “Not push me?”

  “Accept that you’re not the same person you were.” But you will be. We’ll find a way.

  Her lips curled up in teasing. “And how’s that going so far?”

  “Good, I think. Admittedly, I’ve only been working on it for around a minute and a half, but I’m feeling good about the process.”

  Her laugh brightened the whole damn room, and the twinkle in her eyes decorated it. “So, how different was I?”

  “When? Oh, you mean….” His eyes traveled along the curves of her body, appreciating them like the fine art they were. “A few aspects were…not quite the same, making them delightfully new. But you still sleep the same way. Facing the window so when you wake, the sunrise is the first thing you see.”

  She stared over her shoulder for several seconds before shifting back to him. “I understand why.”

  He reached out to cup her cheek. She didn’t flinch or pull away; in fact, after a second she leaned into it and closer to him. “What was our life like? Before?”

  “It was like this.” He closed the scant space remaining between them and drew her into his arms until his lips found hers.

  The bedroom was now fully bathed in light, as dawn had become day while they had enjoyed one another’s company, more leisurely but no less thoroughly than the night before.

  Even so, Nika didn’t rush to leave. She wasn’t ready to leave, wasn’t ready to face what the revelations of the day and night before, not to mention this little interlude, meant for her current and actual life.

  Instead, she rested her head on her hand and studied him, stretched out beside her and basking lazily in the sunlight. How to ask the questions she needed to ask of him? Phrasing, tone, type of approach…how to cut through his reactionary defensiveness and get honest answers?

  She believed he loved her, or at least had loved former-her. She’d been in his head and felt his startling purity of devotion. But beyond this, she still did not know what kind of man he genuinely was.

  There were cues in his behavior and in the dance of their conversations thus far—cues she wanted to latch onto and turn into belief—but her natural wariness warned her that he could merely be a skilled actor. The analysis they ran on the files from his data vault hadn’t turned up any evidence of malfeasance, but not being responsible for the virutox didn’t alone make him a good man.

  Finally she decided simple and direct yet open-ended was the best way to start. “Do you trust the Guides?”

  The corners of his hazel eyes creased as his expression grew…unsettled, but he didn’t seem shocked or even surprised by what should have been considered a heretical question. “I used to. For a long time. But since you disappeared, I don’t trust anyone.”

  “No one? That’s…tragic.”

  “Most of the time it doesn’t matter. I guess I come closest to trusting Vance, my Manufacturing Director. And I suspect I could trust Maris if I ever needed to. But the reality—”

  “The woman from the party, from your memory? Who is she?”

  His brow furrowed, and he opted to stare at her in incredulity and what might be pity for several seconds rather than answer immediately. “You truly have lost so much. I am so very sorry.”

  She bristled defensively—wasn’t he supposed to be the one doing that? But the last thing she wanted was his pity. “Who is Maris?”

  “A Culture Advisor, and your closest friend for many generations. She’ll want to know you’ve resurfaced—”

  “No. I don’t need any more strangers staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to magically transform into someone I’m not.”

  His eyes clouded over, and he studied the rumpled sheet beneath him. “We can talk about it later.”

  She reached out and urged his chin up, forcing him to meet her gaze. “No, we can’t. You have my answer, and you can confidently assume it continues to be my answer unless or until such time as I tell you it has changed. Are we clear?”

  “…we’re clear.”

  She released his chin but didn’t re
lax the challenging stance she’d adopted…naked, in his bed, but challenging, dammit. “What? Was the previous version of me not quite so assertive?”

  “Oh, you always got what you wanted. But you were a diplomat, so your methods were often more…subtle.”

  “Well, now I’m a rebel, and rebels have no choice but to demand what they want, then take it if they must.”

  “I’m starting to get that sense.” He frowned and reached over to run his hand through her hair. “So, what do you want?”

  The portentous tenor of his voice wasn’t required to imbue the question with significance, but it did nonetheless.

  “To find out who’s behind the augment virutox and put a stop to it.”

  “You don’t want to find out who’s behind your psyche-wipe and make them pay?”

  “Of course I do. But it’s a personal vendetta borne of a past I can’t change, while this virutox is endangering the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent people as we speak, including the life of someone who’s a close friend of mine today.”

  “Is that how you discovered it?”

  “Yes. One of our people bought the augment and installed it. Within days his entire personality changed, and he was arrested for burglary and attempted theft. He’s sitting in the Justice Center detention wing right now, and I’ve yet to be able to find a way to get him out.”

  Dashiel scratched at his head in what seemed like consternation. “And I thought the theft of the augments was a disaster…but if they were taken specifically to use as a delivery mechanism? It just got so much worse.”

  Abruptly he straightened up. “All right. Adlai—Advisor Weiss at Justice—is already investigating the theft. He needs to hear about the virutox. It’s an important piece of the puzzle and will help focus his investigation. Plus, he can get the product off the streets before more people are infected.”

  “The man from the party. Can you trust him?”