Scavenger: A.I.: (Sand Divers, Book Two)

by Timothy C. Ward

  But he hadn’t, and Fisher had died, leaving Star with nothing but an ever boiling stew of anger in the pit of her stomach.

  A boy she hadn’t noticed was there sitting in the corner stirred as a stream of water spilled past his foot and into the crevice between wooden floor and cement wall. His golden blond hair curled in the back. His oval shaped head and angle of his cheeks reminded her of Fish, but in an impossible, don’t-be-crazy-lady kind of way.

  Still, what was he doing in Oya’s apartment? Did they have another son besides Kevin? How old was he, two?

  “What’s your name?” Star asked, hoping her eager tone didn’t scare him away.

  He kept his head down as though convinced he were part chameleon and, if he were still enough, she might not notice him.

  “I had a boy as handsome as you once.”

  That perked his chin an inch her way.

  His eyes…

  Star’s heart broke like a dam. Her chair squeaked as she rocked to her heels to stand.

  “What do you know about Justice Stone and a woman named Jules?” the boy asked, almost too serious for his age.

  A twister of sand swept in through the doorway to her right, swirled in the center of the room and arced Star’s way. The gristle pelted her skin, forcing her hands up to shield her face. With her eyes closed, the density of wind and sand became a rumbling storm around her. She squinted through her arms to see darkness and a distant bulb of light. Her arm brushed over her visor. She slid it over her eyes, her fingers concealed within the dive suit she was suddenly wearing. It hummed under the whooshing wind. In dive view, she saw the yellow and reds of the sarfer she had borrowed from the court’s dock, a more familiar presence than she’d had in Oya’s room. She’d left with an urgent message for Justice Stone, she’d told them. In truth, she couldn’t sleep without knowing if his weekend trips were as Dilla suspected, to see a woman.

  A weak voice asked if it was right to be jealous for a man aside from Rush, but after nearly two years of ignoring her—and probably getting free rides at the Honey Hole for his services—his hold on her loyalty had as much as a grip as she did on the sand that gusted by.

  Jet—Justice Stone—was there for her when Fish died and had been since. Rush…Rush was too consumed with himself and pointing the blame for her to get anything but anger and guilt from his presence.

  The bulb of light illumined the yellow shape of a tent tucked on the western lee of a dune fifty meters ahead. Star sapped the suit’s power to see inside. Two figures shaded in the green of life sat on either side of the lantern. Their heads were bent down, possibly reading what the shorter one was pointing at on the floor.

  Her heart fluttered with relief that they weren’t having sex.

  Her visor showed 88% power. She eased up on the distance of her sight and set to work on sailing the rest of the way.

  She docked on the eastern side and crept through the creeping tilt of sand until she could see the tent. She left her suit on standby just in case, but saw through dock view. She’d only appeased Rush’s desire for her to learn sand diving by harnessing the basics.

  Her foot landed with fifteen feet between her and the tent when both figures jerked toward her. She crouched. The taller one pulled out a pistol and turned for the flap as the other doused the light. Was it Jet? Should she run or announce her presence? She could dive but that would make it harder to tell him not to shoot.

  She powered on, switched to dive view, illumining both figures nearing the flap. “Jet, it’s me!”

  Jet stopped with his pistol half raised to her chest, his and the other person’s suits charging their forms into a solid, bright green. “Star?”

  “Yeah.” Her racing heart eased. “Don’t shoot?”

  He smiled, lowered his pistol and tapped his dive button to power off. He mumbled something and pointed back inside the tent.

  The other person powered off, walked inside, and clicked a lighter until it caught flame and lit the inside of the tent.

  Star walked to Jet, switching her suit back to standby and raising her visor.

  Jet raised his to share his curiosity at her approach. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  Guilt slowed her steps. In her desperation to see if Jet had a girlfriend, she hadn’t thought about a cover story in case she was caught snooping. Maybe she hadn’t cared to make one, to conceal her crush any longer. “Uh, yeah. I mean…” Courage fell away with the appearance of the attractive woman outside the flap beside him.

  “Who’s this?” the woman asked. She had a different accent than Star had heard. Her body was lean and her face matured enough to be five years older than Star. Closer to but still not Jet’s age.

  “This is Star Stenson, a court reporter I work with.”

  The simplicity of her role in his life, and its shallow, work-only nature had Star tempted to leave without a word. This was a big mistake.

  “You lost?” the woman asked, as apt to lift the pistol at her side and shoot Star as she appeared willing to give another three breaths for Star to answer.

  “No,” Star said. She was reminded of the inadequate feeling she had the first time Oya introduced her to her tower friends. She shook her head and half turned.

  “Jules, give us a moment, would ya?” Jet’s voice closed in. Star looked back to see him approaching. Jules’ guard remained as she ducked into the tent, watching Star.

  “Is that one of the court’s sarfers?” Jet placed a hand on Star’s back and walked her the way she had come.

  “Yeah.”

  When they had enough space to speak in private, Jet stopped and faced her. “What’s going on, Star?”

  There was no way around it. She’d waited too long to share the truth that had slowly grown since the morning he lifted her from the floor. “Dilla said your weekend trips were to meet with a woman.” She tucked her lips closed and tried not to let the swell of emotions release tears. She exhaled a stronger woman, looking Jet in the eye. “I want to be the woman in your life.”

  Jet’s eyes widened and rolled as his mouth opened in an inhale. “Oh.” His glance returned. “Star. I know you and Rush have been having a hard time since the accident. I visit with him on occasion. He’s in a rough place, as are you, but I don’t think he’s given up on you, even if he’s done a crap job of showing it.”

  Star felt worse with every word. She’d been stupid to sail so many hours for this. What was she going to do now? Sleep in her sarfer on the other side of the dune, knowing Jet was twenty meters away thinking her an idiot in need of talking to her jerk husband?

  “I don’t care if you think he hasn’t given up,” she said. But that wasn’t true. She was trying to convince herself. “You…”

  “I’m not who you need. I’ll be your friend. But that’s it. That’s all I ever meant to be. I’m sorry if I mislead you.”

  “Is Jules…”

  “No. Star, I wish you hadn’t come. It’s not safe.”

  She knew that eight hours ago when she passed the cactus marker where Rush had told her meant entering brigand territory.

  “I’m sorry.” Star looked at the sand packed under her suit covered feet. “I didn’t realize you’d go so far from Springston, but as I went on I felt less and less reason to go back.”

  She looked back up and tried a smile. “I’ve been calling myself an idiot long enough. Can you not do the same?”

  “Oh, Star. I’m not. I just don’t want you mixed up in this. I don’t think I can take you back.”

  “Why? I mean, you don’t have to…mixed up with what?”

  “You two aren’t doing a great job of creating privacy.” Jules stepped out behind Jet, as quiet in her steps as a cat in the night. “The less you know the better,” she told Star. “And he’s right. We don’t have time to escort you back. You have to go now. If you see anyone on the way, you never saw us. And you’ve surely never heard my name.”

  Star’s visor cracked. Jules gasped, swatting at he
r collarbone as Star reached for a gash on her cheek.

  Jet pushed Star and tackled Jules. “Get down.”

  12 - Rush (9:15 pm, Friday)

  Hot knives stabbed into every portion of Rush’s body he could think of, overlapping in unrelenting waves. The pain blinded him. He squirmed and thrashed. Singer?

  When he’d dove through the floor, there hadn’t been any M-MANs below him. He didn’t know why—hadn’t thought of it. I should have!

  He tucked in at the waist. Knives became saws, grating back and forth on his insides. Bright green filled his view, disorienting him to which way was up. The pain cut in and out in surprising locations and intensity such that he couldn’t focus an EM response. He grabbed his left thigh and its white hot agony. Cleanse!

  The burn faded into tremors down his leg. Cleanse. Cleanse. Cleanse! The shock knocked his lights out.

  Sometime later, his body wavered in the thick soup holding his numbed limbs afloat. He blinked. His eyes were open, but the space around him was pitch black. His visor and Poseidon had been turned off from the cleanses. Idiot!

  You spazzed! he thought. Now look at you.

  Nedzad’s suit whipped free from his grasp.

  What was he going to do now? He couldn’t even surrender. Zap. New pain shocked and ripped into him. Tiny insects crawled in through tears in his suit. Rush clawed and kicked but their progress deepened inside him, out of his reach.

  Star said you didn’t want my kind, or something like that. What happened? Did she lie? Is it just because of Warren?

  Whatever it was, the deep burn was back and eating him alive. All he could do was shake and growl. He’d failed. He wasn’t cut out for saving the world, let alone his wife.

  A shifting surface under him supported his weight and lifted him. In a moment of surrender, the fire left. As he clenched his stomach to sit up, a blow of flame knocked him back down. Up and down he fought until his only recourse was to remain still and wait for a plan to arrive. All the while knowing he was being served on a platter for Warren. Rush could picture that bastard’s gold molar as he laughed in victory.

  Rush clenched his neck to keep his head upright, bearing the onslaught of fire as one consumed and devoid of choice. The ceiling pixilated out from the center, rolling under itself as it forming an oval wide enough for him to fit through.

  “I can help you,” Warren said from a speaker somewhere close and above. “Or I can hurt you.”

  M-MANs lifted him with soft hands, while their fire ants ate him from the inside out. Rush tried painful the balance between relaxing and looking up toward what awaited him. The three brigands stood around the opening, hands out, palms up. Red eyes like flame rimmed circles. Rush couldn’t stop fighting the fire enough to make a concerted movement to get free, even if he thought the M-MANs would be that easy to roll off of.

  “If you relax, I’d like to show you something. Or I can add Star’s discomfort to your punishment.”

  Rush still couldn’t believe she’d cheated on him with Stone. He couldn’t let Warren hurt her, though. What if he’s lying about everything? Maybe she’s on her way to save me.

  The cushioned pillars raising from the floor stopped. The three brigands with melting ruby eyes reached their hands under his back and lifted him away from the hole. Every cell in Rush’s body became embedded in stone. He couldn’t roll over even if a sword dropped from the ceiling.

  Charles and his dented head took Rush over his shoulder. Arching forward intensified the burn down to his feet.

  “My cells can’t manipulate yours, Rush,” Warren said from the radio on Charles’ hip. “So, if you continue to fight, and it causes an aneurysm, I won’t be able to stop it.”

  “What…do you mean?” Rush gasped through the pain.

  Charles carried him toward the hallway, stuffed with rubble from the earlier avalanche. Rush couldn’t see forward, but he knew the direction.

  “My father’s design made his nanobots act as either magnet or repellent, and both ways incompatible for the M-MANs to dominate his programming. It’s why he had your wife set us free.”

  Us?

  Charles’ steps rose at an incline. Rush’s neck hurt too badly to move.

  “What do you mean, us?”

  “It’s better if I just show you.”

  Charles climbed up to LL4 and entered the brightened area of the Twin Suns’ glow. He took Rush to the door Nedzad had opened when he’d given Rush his manual for Fort Pope. The door unlocked before Charles stopped walking. He opened the door, carried Rush inside, and set him on his rear. On the wall opposite Rush was a computer screen with Warren looking like he did when they first met. The dim lighting in the Honey Hole barely masked the marked difference of sunburn to white skin surrounding Warren’s eyes, nose, and mouth.

  He looked exactly as Rush remembered.

  How is that possible?

  “What am I looking at?” Rush asked.

  “Your memory.” Warren’s facial movements were as real as ever. “Enhanced a little as my soldiers whisper my intentions.”

  “Okay. Beyond how, why?”

  “I can’t do this with just anyone; well, I couldn’t before. First off, Warren is dead, but his nanos passed on from his blood to the Poseidon metals. I have his memories because he had The Sight program he developed to spy on his father. One aspect to that program is a recording of thoughts as images and sound. We’ve read your memories as well and find you a more honorable specimen. That’s why we desire to work with you, if we can come to acceptable terms.”

  Rush tried to picture nanos modifying Poseidon metal and where it would have gone to reach the walls around him. It would need power and could have used pellets stored inside the Poseidons.

  What did it mean by, “My father’s design made his nanobots act as either magnet or repellent, and both ways incompatible for the M-MANs to dominate his programming. It’s why he had your wife set us free.”

  “You still with me?” Warren asked.

  “Yeah. It’s just a lot to take in. I read some of Nedzad’s book on this base, but this technology is generations beyond my understanding. Maybe before to put it better.”

  “I’m just the closest thing to reality your brain can handle. People like to put faces on their fears.”

  Rush imagined Warren’s face disappearing and it did, leaving the background of the Honey Hole’s dimly lit tavern tables and ale drinking patrons.

  “We’ve never known humans as well as we are learning you now.” His words came from speakers below the computer screen. Like they had before, he realized. “We’re learning about you and Star. Both of you have imperfections, but also qualities that could rally support for an alliance between our kinds.”

  “What kind of alliance?” Rush’s eyelids twitched as a spasm traveled down his neck.

  “Would you please relax? You’re dangerously close to hurting yourself. If it helps, I have good news from Star’s memory.”

  Rush looked at the floor. Better that than remember the Honey Hole. Sweat dripped off his forehead and cheeks and left a sticky film over his neck.

  “No? You don’t care that it turns out she never actually did anything with Justice Stone?”

  Rush looked up at the screen.

  Warren’s face was back, sporting a small smile Rush guessed was rarely used. He shrugged. “You two can talk about the details if you both behave and we work something out to let me give you back your freedom.”

  It was a relief to hear that, even if he wasn’t sure it was true. Could be just what the program thought was the best response to elicit his relaxation. Remember, he said Warren is dead.

  “If you want me to relax, get your soldiers out of my body.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  The heat dissipated from his eyes, nose, and forehead, leaving his skin soaked in sweat as it cooled underneath. He brushed his eyebrows and pushed into his eyes to ease the sting of salt.

  The heat transferred to his blad
der in a pressure he couldn’t avoid.

  Warren nodded his head to Rush’s left. “You can use that.”

  A tunnel hollowed out in the wall, just below waist height.

  Rush zipped his suit, relieved to have his arms and legs working again, but antsy to get the zipper down in time before he pissed himself. He made it out and rejoiced in the release.

  When he finished, it took all of his strength to remain standing. He zipped up and turned back at Warren and his cocky grin.

  “You ready to hear my pitch?” Warren asked.

  Rush folded his arms. He could really use a canteen and some meat, but he refused to show anything but an ability to fight if Warren prompted. “Have at it.”

  “The Gov, Phipps, Friedman, and any other aspiring leader searching for the key to controlling this country have no idea what they need to accomplish anything close to restoration to your country’s former glory. If I let all of them have the Twin Suns and her plasma, it would cause more bloodshed than anything. Believe it or not, now that I’ve tasted the complexity and imagination within the human brain, we don’t want to lose a single one.

  “Some of them, be it The Gov, Warren, or the doctors they blackmailed into helping them, learned some revolutionary innovations, but the information I bring to the table, if set free, would be your only chance at figuring out how to recreate the manufacturing, resource management, and weather readjustment that you’d need to make any kind of progress in your lifetime.”

  Why was he asking to be set free? The containment sequence had been shut down by Star. And neither she nor Rush seemed in a position to stop him.

  “So you want to help us rebuild our country without bloodshed because you enjoy playing around in our brains?”

  “Yeah, that’s essentially it. I’d enjoy rebuilding as well. It would be a fun challenge.”

  “And in return, you want me and Star to tell people there’s nothing wrong with letting nanobots creep around in their brains.”