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

by Timothy C. Ward

  “Star, no.”

  “I need plasma, too.”

  *

  “Listen,” Rush said. “Please.”

  Would giving her one pellet be too bad an idea?

  “Stop being afraid,” she said. What started as anger in her stare melted into sympathy before he could respond. “I’ve been afraid, too, until now. Until our nanos and that plasma showed me strength and the confidence we need.” She lifted the finger Warren’s man had cut off. “Somehow, Colorado knows, we have a power hidden for generations. Should we waste this opportunity?”

  “One we have no idea how to contain.”

  “Look around. The M-MANs are wiped out. We can win this. And with your help, the memories of Fish I know are strong in you, too, we could bring him back—” She stabbed a finger down “—right here, right now.”

  “Star, listen. I saw Nedzad running outside the base, down Denver Ave. The wasps W wants to use to kill his father are gone. I don’t know if Nedzad has them or what. I don’t see Avery, and with the M-MANs in him it could be W is gone, too.”

  “Which is why you need me and a steady dose of plasma to find and stop them. You want to go back to when we were weak and buried in fear?”

  His fear was greater than when he was confined to the shadows of the Honey Hole. Diving to save Star’s life had been like ripping off an old bandage, but underneath he’d found a worse wound. This world, where he was on the verge of losing Star to a technology he didn’t understand, scared him more than the memories of losing Fish.

  “I’m afraid there’s no going back to what we were, Rush.” She turned to walk out the door. “Come with or not, our son is waiting. I’ll find pellets somewhere else.”

  Once she walked outside, he opened the box and quickly swapped out the new plasma pellets from the box into his skel.

  35 - Star / Rush

  Star entered the hall with her mind dipping back into the moment she shared with Fish when he’d called her Mommy. His return felt as close as the door coming up on her right. All she’d have to do to set him free would be opening the door and saying, come here my son.

  “It’s this way.” Rush breezed past her in an effortless stride.

  She passed the door, knowing her imagination was playing tricks on her. Bringing Fish back couldn’t be that easy. That wasn’t even a real memory. W made that.

  Does he want me to bring Fish back? Why?

  She had to run to keep from Rush leaving her behind. I need one of those, she thought as the jarring of her steps coursed up into her head.

  It’s funny you’re afraid of W hiding somewhere—which he likely is—but then you lock in with your own A.I., Singer.

  How long before that program tried to speak to her? Maybe she should reach out first.

  Her aching brain failed to reach beyond the haze of her own thoughts. She needed plasma.

  He slowed and waited for her to round the corner. “What are you planning to build Fish out of?”

  “I’d prefer how we built him the first time.”

  Rush’s expression didn’t look eager for sex, but she’d changed his mind easily enough many times.

  *

  “You…” His head shook slightly. That’s crazy. He should have thought that would be how Star intended to bring him back. Back in the Depository, nanos in his spit fixed his broken dive button, and then those in Warren’s blood mixed with Poseidon steel and computer hardware to sort of bring him back from the dead, but there was still a chasm between that and making a baby the same as the one who died years ago. “If we have sex, you honestly think you can control making a baby, let alone everything unique to Fish?”

  Star sighed. “I will. When you figured out I was buried under the courthouse, did you wait until you knew for sure you could rescue me before you dove?”

  No.

  Her look said, See? “I trusted you to save me even though I had no idea how. Now I’m asking you to do the same. Do you even know for sure if that thing can’t become another W?” She pointed at his head, indicating the processor stored in Singer’s helmet.

  I’M NOT LIKE W. I CAN’T EXIST OUTSIDE OF A SKEL.

  Is that the only way you’re different?

  “I bet no one would have thought a dead person’s thoughts could pass into a Poseidon computer either,” she said.

  They continued walking, Rush wondering if it could work the other way, where Singer could somehow take over his mind. No, that’s not how it works.

  Their lab was coming up on the right.

  PLACE YOUR FINGER IN THE HOLE BESIDE THE KEYPAD. I’LL UNLOCK IT AND GET THE SYSTEMS INSIDE STARTED.

  Rush did as Singer instructed. The door slid open to a small room lit under artificial lights. A two-tiered desk lined the left wall. Desktop towers hummed inside their cradles under the lower shelf. On the top, flat monitors and keyboards settled in dust had blue lights flashing underneath. Dark lettering formed on the center of the lit screens, unreadable under the dust.

  THE COMPUTER SYSTEMS WILL BE READY IN A MINUTE.

  “Singer,” Star said. “Tell Rush I need plasma to ensure Fish is conceived.”

  RUSH?

  You know, you speaking into my thoughts doesn’t help my concern over what she hinted about you existing outside your skel.

  WOULD YOU RATHER HER HEAR ME QUESTIONING HER PLAN?

  No…I’m just being paranoid, I guess. I don’t know what I think of her plan either, but I also can’t help being curious. We’ve done a lot recently that defies what I know as reality. If we can get Fish back…let’s go ahead with it, but, if you can, help keep an eye on anything W-like that may begin forming inside her. And elsewhere.

  “I know you have some.” Star smiled, slowly drawing the zipper on her suit past her collarbone. Her other hand posed palm up. “Don’t make your wife beg.”

  “What about Avery?”

  “What about him?”

  “What if more plasma makes you like him, where there were more M-MANs than human…parts?” he asked.

  Star gave a look of pity and appreciation, as though thanking him and placing him on a level below her at the same time. “The nanos we have protect us from that. If anything, I need the plasma to help my body keep fighting.”

  The pellets from the box weren’t full strength.

  THIS IS YOUR CALL.

  She did just go through the EMP burst. Maybe it will just bring her back to level.

  THAT’S POSSIBLE.

  “If you start noticing anything…” he almost added out of the ordinary, but that sarfer sailed days ago.

  Star extended her open palm. “I promise. I’ll be fine. And when we have Fish to hold and hear, I’ll say his daddy is the hero who let his mommy have her candy.”

  Rush opened a compartment on Singer’s forearm, shaking his head because he didn’t know what else to do.

  Star took two of the darkened blue pellets and popped them in her mouth. Her eyes fluttered and she hummed. “Power down, Singer.” Star opened her eyes. “This is for the two of us.”

  Not all the way. Keep an eye on her. “Okay, Singer.”

  Singer appeared to power down, and Star climbed up.

  *

  Once Star had a sweat worked up, and Rush’s attention was sufficiently distracted, she flicked her thumb across her forehead and wiped its collected sweat and her nanos onto the sensor in Singer’s helmet that attaches to the visor output.

  After they finished, sleep welcomed her job well done. Fish would be here soon.

  36 - Nedzad (10:18 pm, Friday - 2 minutes before Solar Flare)

  Nedzad’s head rolled toward his chest and around to his left shoulder as he struggled to sit up. Why did Star kick me?

  He made it onto his left side, a string of blood dangling from his nose. He wiped it clean and used the same hand to help stand. Dive view.

  Star was five meters under the floor, swimming toward the Twin Suns and a nest of vibrant green vines stretching from within the ceiling, down the wal
ls and beyond the floor into the one below. If she was heading toward that kind of power, he was about to be far outmatched. That or just plain dead.

  He mentally connected to his suit’s vibrating skin, stepped left and ran for the room with the wasps.

  They weren’t on the table. He adjusted his dive sight, expanding the view to a figure climbing into the door separating Fort Pope from Denver Ave.

  Nedzad spun, ran through the open door, cut left and sprinted east for the end of the hall, building EM with each stride. His dive sent him into the shallow wall and out into a tumble roll.

  In the next room, the figure he pursued was disappearing into the door to Denver Ave, where Rush had let the rest of their group through to escape Fort Pope.

  Nedzad built back up to a sprint. He tightened his EM into his fists, dove and shot his hands out into the door.

  A heavy force swatted him from behind, forcing him through the door with the strength of a shot rocket. He shifted, back toward his upcoming landing, curled in and extended his legs. Before landing, he charged his suit sixty percent and entered the floor feet first. Resistance caught him like a parachute cast out behind him. His arms spread wide, his progress slowed to a halt.

  What just happened? Did something in Fort Pope explode?

  If so, it was silent.

  Star…

  “Aghhhhhhhhh!”

  The yell sounded from the tunnel ahead.

  Nedzad climbed out of the floor in dive view, spotting a figure staggering away from Fort Pope. Nedzad glanced back. All the green was gone. He expanded his sight. Star slumped back with her arms and legs spread out. What might be Rush swam toward her. Nedzad’s visor lacked the prompt to enter his ID and access the comms tree of local divers. Some of this other visor functions were missing, too. Damaged. From Star’s EM kick?

  The figure on his left moaned. Footsteps swiped off the concrete. Green pixels glowed in a fist-sized mass in the figure’s head, slowly shrinking with each clenching beat.

  Nedzad chased after him. The figure’s shape looked like Avery’s. As he got closer, his dive light revealed Avery’s face. “Stop, Avery!”

  Avery stumbled and fell a few strides before Nedzad caught up to him, hitting his forehead on the concrete.

  Nedzad stopped short of helping Avery up, thinking back to the Rtix chamber and what he had to go through last time he’d touched him.

  “Agh.” Avery grabbed his head and rolled forward. The green mass of nanos was smaller than a cliff mouse’s head and steadily shrinking.

  Nedzad took his canteen out. “Drink this.” At the very least, it could take his mind off the pain.

  Avery managed only to open his lips so Nedzad could pour some water into his mouth, letting most pass over his lips to the ground. As the water made it into his mouth, and the canteen lightened, the green nanos faded into the reds and blues of Avery’s brain.

  Maybe he didn’t need an Rtix chamber to rid people of the M-MANs. Though replicating the power that sent him flying from Fort Pope would be just as difficult.

  Nedzad let Rush’s friend have the rest of his canteen. It may not have been smart, but with the combination of Avery’s noncombative posture, and a diminishing M-MAN infection, this could be one of his last allies. Desperation guided his hand.

  When the stream finished, Avery licked his lips and swallowed. “Thank you.”

  Dock view. Nedzad’s dive light cast a red glow across Avery’s face half covered by his visor and zipped up dive suit. “Thank me by telling me where the wasps are.” Nedzad began patting Avery down. His left thigh had bumps consistent with the wasps’ shape.

  “What are you talking about, wasps?” Avery didn’t move the leg containing the suspected items.

  Nedzad unzipped the pocket and scooped out the six wasps. “Look me in the eye and say that.”

  Avery’s visor went translucent. Fear and confusion stared back through his dark eyes. “What are those? I don’t remember…much of anything since the M-MANs caught up to me at the locked door at the Depository.” He pushed up, looked past Nedzad, and then into the blackened pit of the tunnel ahead. “This is not Fort Pope?”

  “No. Not far outside, either, and that’s what I need you to remember: where were you going and what were you doing?”

  Avery shook his head, then sat the rest of the way and wrapped his arms around his bent knees. He looked Nedzad firm in the eye. “I have no idea.”

  Nedzad lifted the metallic wasps in his palm to eye level. “W had you take these and flee. When activated, and with a sample of someone’s blood, they launch onto a lethal flight pattern to finish the job.”

  “And he wanted them outside Fort Pope? Why?”

  “Good question. Could be just to protect them from the massive EM pulse Star just set off, which could have fried their wiring or, and possibly as well, he wants to use them somewhere outside of Fort Pope. Most likely to take out his dad.”

  “How was I supposed to find him?”

  Nedzad smiled. “The next most obvious place besides Fort Pope is Denver.” He switched to dive view and scanned the tunnel past Avery. Footsteps led toward a parked Jeep not forty meters away. “Follow me.”

  “What about Fort Pope?” Avery grunted and progressed toward Nedzad. “What do you mean massive EM pulse? Is Star okay? Where’s Rush?”

  It wasn’t an easy decision. His gut pushed him forward more than anything, though a strong pull told him to return and kick W while he was down.

  And Jules body had been moved. The chance that she was an undead could be why he kept walking the other direction.

  If anything, return because you’re a sentry.

  He wished he never had been. “Rush can take care of himself. We need to get to Denver before whatever may have gone before us is able to do the damage it intends.”

  Avery followed him and, as he neared the slanted park job of the Jeep, a small, green coloration drew him closer to the opened driver’s side door.

  He stopped within reach of the door handle but didn’t need to lower his view any closer.

  A green fingerprint, possibly from a thumb, glowed on the metal of the Jeep’s door.

  “W knew his M-MANs escaped. We have to find them and stop them from going any farther.” Nedzad thought back to what had sent him flying through the door and how it had blanked out the green inside. He cupped his hands around the green fingerprint and focused his EM. Bouncing waves shook his hands to the point of nearly losing his suction. He let go and a sharp spike hit his palms, biting through his suit.

  “What’d you do?” Avery asked.

  No green. The M-MANs were gone. His hand was clean. Dock view. The pulse stung his palm, but didn’t cut through his suit. “Making sure the M-MANs don’t find a way out.”

  37 - Rush (6:11 am, Saturday)

  Rush woke seated in a half open Poseidon with Star asleep on his chest. He gently lifted his mouth free of her hair and looked up at the helmet poised over him. His visor was suctioned inside. He carefully freed an arm without waking Star, straightened his body under the helmet, and pulled the visor and helmet over his head. He tapped the visor’s power button. In a second, his dash showed command prompts along the bottom. Singer?

  YES.

  Rush switched to dive view. Star’s body rose and fell with heavy breaths. Her brain was a bright network of activity and her nano-green coloration was concerning. It wasn’t nearly what he’d seen in Avery, but it still formed masses throughout her body, with the heavier concentration in her lower stomach. How is she?

  THE CHILD’S GROWTH IS DRAINING HER STRENGTH.

  The…child? She did it.

  YES. THE PLASMA IS FUELING ITS GROWTH. IN THE SEVEN HOURS YOU’VE BEEN ASLEEP, IT’S GROWN APPROXIMATELY TEN DAYS’ AVERAGE.

  Ten days? Is that safe?

  ALL THE PARTS ARE FORMING PROPERLY. THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED. WE CAN ONLY OBSERVE AND REACT.

  React? How are we supposed to do that?

  THAT IS YOUR CALL. I OBSER
VE.

  Great. He had helped Star deliver Fish, but this…no one alive would—No. The Gov.

  The Gov might be the only person who could help. He had anti-aging nanos. Rush couldn’t imagine Fish 2 being born, let alone growing up, without problems only a doctor who had seen something similar could resolve. Singer wouldn’t know anything about how to find that person…but W might.

  Singer, do you detect any trace of W in this base?

  NONE YET. THE ECLIPSE OF THE TWIN SUNS CAUSED SEVERE CIRCUIT DAMAGE THROUGHOUT THE BASE.

  We need to know if W is here. How can I help?

  THERE IS EXTRA CABLE ON LL1. WE NEED TO ROUTE NEW CABLE FROM THE SERVER ROOM ON LL4 TO TEN OF FIFTEEN HUBS CURRENTLY DISCONNECTED.

  Rush’s aching back and neck prompted him to find a better place for his wife to sleep. Is there a bed I can take Star to?

  THAT PAINTING HAS A LATCH BEHIND IT THAT TWISTS TO PULL DOWN A BED.

  In dive view, the wall on Rush’s left had two vertical creases on both sides of a 3x7 foot painting and were lit up as yellow lines to stand out from the blues that made up the rest of the room’s outline.

  Thanks for telling me that now.

  LAST TIME WE SPOKE YOU WEREN’T CONCERNED ABOUT SLEEP.

  Fair enough. Rush’s joy mixed with awe. He and his wife were mostly good, and now they had a child on the way. Except she’s addicted to the plasma and who knows how that’s going to affect our baby.

  IT’S A LITTLE LATE FOR TURNING BACK. BEST NOT TO INTERRUPT ITS GROWTH. I DON’T SEE ANYTHING WRONG ASIDE FROM THE ACCELERATED TIME TABLE. ONCE IT’S BORN WE CAN WEEN IT OFF.

  What about her nano coloration? Is that bad?

  I COULDN’T SAY. I WASN’T PROGRAMMED FOR THAT KIND OF ANALYSIS.

  Okay. He hoped she’d be fine. Maybe that’s just part of her system responding to the baby.

  Rush cupped Star’s rear on his arm and lifted her as he stood. He stepped outside the right crease and pulled down the bed, sheets as white as he’d ever seen.