by M. D. Cooper
The words were caustic, full of anger. They cut into Tangel, but she ignored the pain. This wasn’t about her, it was about her daughter.
“For going through this change so soon. We all knew it was coming—but I thought I’d have decades still. I don’t want you to feel like you’ve lost your mothers.”
Cary turned her head, and Tangel looked up, meeting her daughter’s eyes, blue and set into a face that looked so much like her own. The same cheekbones, the same eyes—Joe’s brows and lips, though. A bit of both in the nose.
“Have I?” Cary’s voice rasped as she breathed the question. “Are you still there?”
“I am,” Tangel replied. “I know this feels like a big change, but, in all honesty, it was a very small step.”
“Mom,” Cary snorted derisively. “Ascension is not a small step.”
“Well, I was referring more to Tanis and Angela becoming one person. Though it was the catalyst for ascension…it’s a different thing.”
A tear slid down Cary’s cheek. “When you came down off the ship…when you spoke…I hoped you were still you. But you were lying to us.”
Tanis shook her head. “No, I was lying to myself. I know I put on a brave face—that’s sort of my thing—but I was scared, too. I don’t—didn’t—want to change….”
“Which is it?” Cary whispered. “Didn’t or don’t?”
“Well, the ship’s sailed, so it doesn’t matter much anymore. I didn’t want to do it so soon, and I don’t want to do anything that hurts you. That’s the very last thing I ever want.”
Neither woman spoke for a minute, then Cary said, “Faleena says that you seem ‘correct’ now.”
“Oh?” Tangel cocked an eyebrow, glancing at Faleena’s still mind, where it lay nestled within Cary’s. Her other daughter was doing her best not to intrude on the conversation, but Tangel could tell that it was difficult for her. “Is that the case, Faleena?”
Faleena replied hesitantly.
“Meant to be?” Tangel asked with a single laugh. “I don’t think there’s any guiding force in the galaxy driving what we should and should not be.”
“Right,” Tangel nodded thoughtfully. “What Katrina said about my past. How the AIs made me—us.”
“Doesn’t that bother you, Moms?” Cary asked. “I mean…they shaped you into what you are.”
Tangel shrugged. “Not really. I hashed this out with Bob, and he helped me understand it. People like to think they can control their surroundings, shape the future to their liking. But they can’t…and if all the ascended AIs out there were to be honest with themselves, they’d realize that they too are products of their environments. My ‘luck’ is evidence of that. Not only can they not control me, they can’t even tell what I’m going to do. I’m like the ultimate variable. The variable variable. Which, honestly, always seemed strange to me.
“Everything I do in life feels like the next logical step. The obvious thing to do. Yet somehow, it seems to always thwart the AIs’ ability to predict things.” Tangel winked at Cary and Faleena. “If you ask me, I think that it’s the AIs that have some sort of cognitive dissonance.”
“So you’re just going to brush off what’s been done to you?” Cary asked. “They may have even set you on the path that made you merge with Angela.”
“They may have,” Tangel agreed, deciding not to reveal all the nuances to her progression. “Bob suspects as much. Maybe when I finally come face-to-face with the Caretaker, I’ll ask him. Right before I kill him.”
Tangel saw Cary’s eyebrows rise, the expression echoing Faleena’s question.
“I doubt it. There’s at least one that I like.”
Tangel glanced out toward the lake before continuing. “But what I really want to learn before I become judge, jury, and executioner, is why the core AIs are doing what they’re doing. If they feared humanity, they could have wiped them out at the height of the FTL wars. Is it really what they want, to keep everyone balanced on the knife’s edge? It seems impractical to me.”
“You said ‘them’,” Cary stated tonelessly. “Are you talking about humans or AIs? You’re not really either, anymore.”
“Both?” Tangel asked with a shrug. “Neither? I don’t know that it matters.”
Faleena said in a wistful tone.
“Don’t be so sure,” Tangel replied. “Space and time are vast. Could be another Star City out there, filled with human-AI merges that are all ascended. You know…I really don’t like that word.”
“Merges?” Cary asked.
“ ‘Ascended’. I didn’t elevate, I just became more perceptive.”
Faleena chortled.
Tangel waved her hand dismissively. “I imagine you’ll figure it out soon enough. You just have to come at it from a different angle.”
“What do you mean?” Cary asked, her voice almost frantic.
I’m such an idiot, Tangel chastised herself. So much for being more perceptive.
“Cary, I just realized…you’re worried about merging with Faleena, aren’t you?” Tangel asked quietly.
A sharp sob escaped Cary’s lips, and she nodded as tears slipped onto her cheeks.
“Oh, Cary,” Tangel slipped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “I don’t think you’re going to merge. Not unless you do something stupid like I did back in Sol with those fighters.”
“I don’t want it, but then I feel guilty about it at the same time,” Cary whispered. “You mean so much to me, Faleena, but I don’t want to merge with you. And I feel horrible about that. I mean…Moms’ mind is so beautiful now. Why wouldn’t I want that?”
A shuddering breath escaped Cary’s lips.
“I’m so selfish.”
Cary shook her head. “Now I feel horrible for being glad that you don’t want to stay in my head forever.”
“Do you think, Faleena,” Tangel ventured carefully. “That maybe it’s time for you to come out of Cary?”
“Cary?” Tangel asked.
Cary straightened her back and wiped her cheeks. “Sorry I’ve been so…whatever about all this.”
“Don’t apologize,” Tangel replied, brushing Cary’s hair back from her face. “Everyone processes things differently. Not only that, but we’re all going through things that no one has imagined. Remnants, Xavia’s memory, making shadowtrons, dealing with the threat of the core AIs, my changes....”
“Don’t forget the massive war we’re embroiled in,” Cary added with a smirk.
“That too.”
Cary sighed. “I know that ‘yes’ is the right answer, but the last thing I want is to lose you.”
“Oh yeah?” Cary asked. “You going to hit on the guys I like back at the academy?”
“Guys?” Tangel asked. “What guys?”
Faleena laughed, a sound like leaves rustling in the wind echoing in their minds.
Tangel almost choked. “Sabs? You’ve only met her the once.”
“Well I’ll be,” Tangel said with a shake of her head. “Maybe once you’re done at the academy, you can get an assignment there.”
“What?” Cary nearly shouted. “What happened to being my doppelganger?”
Tanis shrugged. “You’re a year out from that. And nothing says you couldn’t both go. At some point, Amavia is going to want to return to New Canaan, and I’m in a never-ending need for more high-ranking fleet commanders that know what the hell they’re doing.”
Tangel rose and offered Cary her hand, pulling her daughter to her feet.
“If she wants to. Sabrina has been her home for a very long time now. If she wants to stay, I won’t stop her, but I could really use her in an admiral’s chair.”
Cary whistled as they began to walk back toward the house. “What about Cheeky? I can’t imagine Sabrina without Cheeky.”
Tangel laughed. “Neither can I. But now that she and Finaeus are married, it feels wrong to keep them apart.”
Tangel laughed, shaking her head at the thought. “Well, your father and I aren’t exactly newlyweds. As for the uniform…I suppose we’d have to make an exception for her. Though it’s not like the ISF really needs to adhere to a physical dress code to show our common bond. Maybe we can come up with some more options.”
“Whoaaaaa,” Cary leant to the side, looking Tangel up and down as they walked. “Up until now, you still sounded like some combination of the Moms. But this? Flexibility in the dress code? ‘Options’? Hmm…maybe you’re an alien.”
Tangel pulled Cary close and kissed the side of her head. “There’s my girl, sarcastic sense of humor and all.”
“I got it from you.”
LUNCH AND FATHERS
STELLAR DATE: 08.29.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sear, Keren Station
REGION: Khardine System, Transcend Interstellar Alliance
“Gotta say, President Sera,” Mary said, as she sat down at the table across from the woman she was addressing. “I didn’t expect to get an invite to join you at one of the station’s fancy restaurants only a day after nearly running you down in a stairwell.”
Sera looked around the restaurant, named ‘Sear’ after its reputation for serving the best steak around. “I guess it is on the fancy side. Honestly, my guards have a short list of restaurants they consider to be ‘safe enough’, and this was the only steakhouse on the list.”
Mary snorted as she looked at the list of specials hovering on the table between them. “Talk about presidential problems. And inviting me?”
“Well…” Sera shrugged. “It seemed like you could use a friend. I checked the duty roster, and Leeroy and your son are both pulling double shifts—heck, even your dog, Figgy, is working with cargo crews to sniff out any contraband.”
“He loves it,” Mary grinned. “Poor Figgy spent years fending for himself in the bowels of Airtha. Who would do that to an uplifted dog? People can be cruel.”
Sera nodded slowly, her mind turning to the ring and its inhabitants. “What do you think it’s like there, now that Airtha is in control?”
A pained look filled Mary’s eyes, and she shook her head. “Stars, I try not to think about it too much. I’ve a lot of friends there…. All I can do is hope that Airtha hasn’t seen fit to do some sort of mass mind control on them all.”
Sera pursed her lips, and Mary’s eyes met hers for a moment before she asked, “Could she do that? People have protections against mental breaches, but….”
“But ascended AIs don’t seem to play with the same rulebook we have,” Sera completed for Mary.
“Right…so you’re saying she could have subverted the entire population of humans, just like she did to the AIs?”
Sera nodded slowly. “It’s a fear I have. I have a lot of friends there too, you know. But I have to wonder if they are really friends now, or something else.”
A servitor set the women’s drinks on the table, and Mary stared into hers for a half-minute before looking up apologetically. “Sorry about this. I’m usually better company. Sometimes it just feels like I cheated somehow.”
“In getting away?” Sera asked.
“Yeah.”
“Except that your escape saved people’s lives. Leeroy, your son, David. Heck, even your dog.”
Mary snorted. “The first two, sure. But I think Figgy would have been fine. Take a lot more than some prissy ascended AI and her weak-assed clone of you to take that dog out.”
“Don’t go disparaging my clone’s ass,” Sera chuckled. “I’m told she looks identical to me, and my ass is a work of art.”
“Wouldn’t know,” Mary laughed. “Since you’re apparently my adoptive sister, I can’t check you out—not to mention you’re the freaking president. Which is just a bit surreal.”
“I’m not really that different from anyone else.” Sera took a sip of her brandy. “Just a girl, trying to make it to tomorrow.”
“Right, and you put your pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us,” Mary snorted.
“Well, I would if I wore pants,” Sera agreed.
“Speaking of which…” Mary began, leaving the words hanging.
“You still want skin like mine?” Sera asked. “Like I said, it’s semi-permanent. Plus…there’s a risk that your father may dismember me.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Sera. You’re the president of the freaking Transcend, and I’m a grown woman. Flaherty has no say in this.”
“Right,” Sera snorted. “You and I both know that, but your father doesn’t—and I doubt we could convince him.”
“Well,” Mary gave Sera a conspiratorial look. “What dad doesn’t know—”
Sera pointed to her right. “He’s sitting at the bar, watching us.”
“What the fuck?” Mary muttered, her eyes darting to where her father sat. She made to rise, but Sera put a hand on her arm.
“If you make him leave, he’ll just take up a position somewhere else, and we won’t see him that time. He’s sitting there as a courtesy, to let us know that he’s here.”
Mary gritted her teeth and shook her head. “I love my father, I really do, but that man’s infuriating sometimes.”
Sera chuckled, nodding in agreement. “Just think, though. Without him, we’d both be dead—in my case, several times over. I figure that earns him some leeway.”
“Now I want your skin even more.” Mary’s eyes glinted as she spoke. “If dad gives me a hard time, I’ll tell him that it makes me safer.”
“You know,” Sera said, touching a finger to her lips. “That angle may just work. Heck, I should make him get it, too.”
Mary giggled and rubbed her hands together. “Only if you give me control over it. I’d prank him constantly.”
“OK…now you’re talking,” Sera said with a laugh. “I’ll reach out to Finaeus and see if he can hook you up.”
Mary raised her glass and tapped it against Sera’s. “I’ll drink to that.”
THE PRAETOR
STELLAR DATE: 08.29.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Palatine, Euros
REGION: Earth, New Sol, Orion Freedom Alliance
Garza checked over his uniform, ensuring that he was the picture of perfection. Not that Praetor Kirkland was a stickler for tidiness, but he did pick on imperfections when he received bad news.
No AI assistant for the praetor, Garza thought as he rose from the chair he’d been waiting in. He pretends that he’s a pure human, that he doesn’t use AIs, ignoring the hundreds of AIs in New Sol that keep the system and his empire in order.
It was an old gripe of Garza’s—one he liked to sink his teeth into and revel in before entering the praetor’s chamber. The fact that the man he was about to see believed himself to be the savior of a pure human race was laughable. Garza had to get it all out of his system before speaking with Kirkland, or he was bound to snicker in the man’s face at some point.
The truth of the matter was that Kirkland was a man of ideals, but one who lacked the conviction to execute on his vision.
That was where men like Garza came in. When he had taken command of the Inner Stars Division of Alignment and Control, it had been a joke, barely able to make any inroads against its Transcend counterpart, the Hand.
Personally, Garza liked the name his enemies used for his division: ‘BOGA’. It sounded like the name of some insidious shadow organization from an ancient vid. Certainly a step up from ‘ISDAC’.
During Garza’s tenure as its leader, BOGA had become a force to be reckoned with, pushing the Hand out of many regions of space, even going so far as to gain control of the Hegemony of Worlds. The Hand still held sway in the vast majority of the smaller interstellar nations, but Garza had scored major wins in gaining allies like the Trisilieds and the Nietzscheans.
Gains that Kirkland barely acknowledged.
All the praetor cared about was crushing the New Canaan colonists, constantly bringing up the loss Garza had suffered there two years before.
It was getting old.
Garza stopped at the unadorned double doors leading into Kirkland’s office. He drew a final calming breath before pushing them open and entering the praetor’s lair.