Somehow Iridian forced cheer into her voice and changed the topic. “And if we’re lucky, there’s something in that Biometallic haul that we can sell to pay Gavran. Is the Mayhem shielded for Jupiter?”
They hadn’t told Gavran where they’d been since they left Vesta, but he looked like he was putting the pieces together. “I’ll need to get the Galilean shielding checked at Sunan’s Landing. After Sunan’s mechanics say the shielding’s solid, Mayhem will be as ready for Jupiter as anything is. I’ll be paying for the shield check on top of the fuel to get us to the Jovian colonies, if you’re wondering whether ship modding costs money.”
“Not to mention paying to eat and drink for a few more days.” Pel was right. Necessities of living were still their major concern. They were kilometers away from what it’d cost to get Dr. Björn out of vis Oxia contract and giving ver a reason to want them on vis expedition.
In the silence that followed, Adda returned to the material Casey had sent her. The tampering trackers had highlighted a few sections. Adda put those docs into a quarantine area to examine later. The rest, though, seemed to be describing theory and some practical applications of huge machine Casey had shown her on Ceres.
Iri, Adda subvocalized.
Iridian helped Adda back into one of the beds and braced herself between Adda’s bed frame and the doorway to stay in place. Did Casey send you something nasty?
Adda shook her head. “It’s . . . Well, if Casey’s telling the truth, this is . . . I can’t even think of a historical comparison. This has literally never happened before.”
Just Casey’s name made Iridian flinch slightly. Her knuckles whitened on the cabin’s door frame. “Start at the beginning?”
Ever since that port authority workspace generator on Ceres, Adda had been searching for a way to frame her explanation so Iridian wouldn’t panic. Now she had to tell her, one way or another, with all these other people listening in. “They want to build a supercomputer.” Pel made a derisive snorting noise. “I know, that doesn’t sound special,” Adda continued, “But the awakened intelligences want to build themselves a new quantum and pseudo-organic home, and it’s massive, Iri. Humans haven’t built anything this big, even on Earth, and all the components are too tightly packed to allow human input anyway. It’s designed to be controlled from the inside.”
“Where do they want to build this thing?” Iridian’s voice sounded almost as dulled by fear or horror as it did when she was subvocalizing. Behind her, the others looked equally shocked.
“I don’t know. Nothing I’ve read so far includes a location, but they will need a lot of space. At least a major asteroid’s worth.”
“And why the hell are they spinning this fine tale for us now?” Iridian crossed her arms over her chest and lowered her head, meeting Adda’s eyes.
“They made a relatively common mistake, for intelligences.” Adda was still reading. “They think we’re the only people in the universe they can trust.”
CHAPTER 20 Days until launch: 27 (holding for mechanical issues)
Iridian’s eyebrows rose and her foot slipped where she’d braced it against a bunk in the Mayhem’s residential cabin, making her scramble to reposition herself. “Even after I tried to sic the ITA on them, the AIs still want our help?”
“I’m not sure they care about that, in your case,” Adda said. “If it were anybody else, I expect they’d be dead by now.”
“Great,” Iridian grumbled. “When you figure out where they want to build this monstrosity, let’s tell the worlds about it. We can’t let the AIs bulldoze a hab just because they’ve outgrown their tanks.”
Adda frowned. “Destroying an existing hab would make more, and more dangerous, work for them. There have to be ’jects which aren’t suitable for human habs that they could use.”
When the time came, Iridian hoped to hell Adda would tell her where this thing would be built. The damned AIs were wrong about one thing, at least. They couldn’t trust Iridian, because Iridian couldn’t trust them.
* * *
Late in the night, Adda let out a sharp “Yes!” that jolted Iridian awake.
Iridian bounced off Adda’s shoulder and thumped into the wall beside their small bunk in the Mayhem’s residential cabin. “What? What is it?”
“Sorry, everything’s fine. Well, not everything, but look!” Adda showed Iridian her comp projection and caught the datacask dangling on its short cable before it bopped Iridian in the nose. A model number that meant nothing to Iridian’s sleep-slowed mind was highlighted in green. “We’ve got it! That’s the human-readable code version of the source. I thought I’d gotten it in the generator, but now I’m sure.” She was showing Iridian the implant firmware, which Iridian was pretty sure she’d said she’d had as soon as she got out of the generator on Biometallic 1. “I’m sending notes to Kanti now.”
Iridian’s eyelids drooped and she snuggled into Adda’s side with a wide yawn. “That’s great, babe.”
“Kanti might find the vulnerability before we get to Yăo Station,” Adda said.
Half-asleep, Iridian mumbled, “Knew you could do it.” Now protecting Adda and Noor from Casey’s influence seemed not only possible, but inevitable. Iridian fell into a real sleep.
* * *
At Sunan’s Landing, Iridian offered Wiley and Rio a chance to “get off this ride” and stay. “No, I’ll go back with you,” said Wiley. “Noor might need us. That’s what teams do: help each other.”
Iridian turned to Rio. “You can’t possibly owe us anymore. We’re clear as far as I’m concerned.”
“Yeah, I don’t,” Rio said. “But you remember how the AIs hit the ZVs’ ship after they dropped you off on Yăo? Chato said they almost rammed the ship into the station. I don’t need that happening to me, all on my own way out here. Besides, I still don’t have a job until the brass says I do,” she added, referring to ZV Group officers. “Together we can hope for, what, three rooms with locking doors between all of us?”
“We can dream,” Iridian agreed cheerfully.
Two days along what Gavran called an “unreliable” route from Sunan’s Landing to Yăo Station with a cargo hold full of cheap water, he received a vid from Sloane. The captain’s muffled voice carried through the bridge door for several minutes before Gavran shared it on a wall in the main cabin. Iridian gripped Adda’s hand while Gavran set his glove in a comp cradle on the wall and fiddled with the projection size.
Adda had been unconscious or struggling to form new memories during Sloane’s betrayal, but Iridian had been painfully conscious through the whole ordeal. She would never forgive the captain for having risked Adda’s life the way Sloane did. Seeing the captain on Biometallic 1 had brought the fear and pain and betrayal she’d felt in those days after Adda’s overdose rushing back to her. The feelings had faded, but the captain had actually thought they’d rejoin the crew after what Sloane did. That still irritated her.
“Looks like a residential cabin on a ship, doesn’t it?” Iridian pointed to the curved joint between the wall and ceiling behind Sloane’s head in the paused vid. “The captain must’ve found somebody to carry them back to Vesta.” Captain Sloane held the arm Gavran had shot awkwardly, bent at the elbow and encased in a healing brace.
Gavran started the message playback: “. . . admit, you couldn’t have fallen in with a better crew,” Captain Sloane said.
Pel let out an agreeable whoop. “That’s us!” Adda shushed him, but Iridian felt the same way. Even after everything else that’d happened between them, coming from Sloane, that was high praise.
“Our new agreement is this,” Captain Sloane continued. “All of you stay off Vesta, and I won’t go out of my way to set the ITA on your trail, which I presume leads to Yăo Station.”
“Shit,” said Rio and Iridian together.
“Did the captain fucking guess that, or was it obvious?” asked Pel.
According to Adda, Yăo Station had been an obvious choice of hideouts even before th
ey’d been forced to leave Vesta. It was the closest discreet location without entering the lawless colonies beyond the Jovian orbit, where the war’s worst battles had been fought. Iridian wasn’t ready to go back to any of those ’jects.
Captain Sloane smiled slightly, said “Good luck,” and gestured at something out of frame that ended the recording.
Rio shook her massive head. Dark hair tumbled from the clips she contained it with to float around her face. “Well. I’ve never been banned from a whole ’ject before.”
“We don’t have to stay on Yăo Station,” Adda said. “I could find somewhere else with minimal ITA and Ceres syndicate presence.”
“Somewhere that’s just as safe from the gods-damned AIs?” Iridian asked.
“Nowhere in this solar system is completely safe,” said Adda.
Pel rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s encouraging.”
“It’s not supposed to be encouraging,” said Adda. “It’s a fact.”
“First, Yăo,” said Wiley. “Noor’ll be stuck in that meditation room in the temple again.” Alone, he couldn’t defend the two closet spaces off the port mod that they’d been “renting” from Yăons who wanted it just as much as he did.
Iri, Adda whispered in her ear. Give me your comp a minute.
Iridian raised an eyebrow and held out the hand with her black-and-yellow comp glove. Adda retrieved her cord from her necklace and plugged it into both comps. “It runs a debris and weather cover for one of Biometallic’s mobile diagnostics units,” she explained as the firmware transferred to Iridian’s comp. “Maybe you can use it with your shield redesign. Um. Happy birthday.”
Iridian hugged her, pulling Adda’s comp hand into an awkward position over Iridian’s shoulder, cord and all. “Oh my gods, babe. You found umbrella firmware.” Laughing, she kissed the top of Adda’s head where her highlights used to come together. “My shield’s too simple to need that, but that’s really sweet. Thank you.” Adda blushed an adorable shade of red while Pel doubled over laughing. The fact that she’d managed to find Iridian a gift while the ITA was closing in on them was, in Iridian’s estimation, true love.
* * *
By the time Jupiter had swelled to the size of Earth’s Moon in the Mayhem’s windows, they’d still heard nothing from Dr. Björn, the Vestan station council, the University of Mars, or anyone else Adda had contacted about helping Dr. Björn complete vis expedition to the new star system independent of Oxia Corporation. She’d sent anonymous messages, she’d used her own name and Iridian’s, and she’d impersonated Oxia representatives at various ranks. Those last attempts resulted in terse, negative responses from assistants.
If Adda had been able to convince one of those well-funded groups to buy Björn’s expedition away from Oxia, Iridian could’ve used that as a bargaining chip to get Björn to make room for Iridian and Adda on the expedition crew. Björn seemed to be an honorable person. But if Björn wouldn’t even acknowledge that Adda had tried to contact ver, what was the point? The astronomer would not be coerced, and they just didn’t have the resources to take on Oxia by themselves, despite Iridian’s willingness to do so.
Adding to that disappointment, Kanti, the Ceresian body modder who’d inserted Iridian’s and Adda’s comms implants, had replied to her message about her neural implant net firmware. “I’ve attached documentation that shows exactly where the problem is, so you can try getting the corp to make the change. Don’t count on them doing it anytime soon, though. I could do the update myself, but in addition to my fee”—here the vid spent several seconds flashing back and forth between Kanti’s face and an image of a humanoid robot with a grin that showed metal teeth—“you gotta get me the certificate they signed it with. The neural implant net won’t even take an update that isn’t signed. Let me know if any of that doesn’t make sense.”
Unfortunately, it made plenty of sense. If Biometallic hadn’t signed their products, then anybody could upload firmware with nasty changes that’d make the implants do things that were illegal, immoral, or unsafe. The crew had taken a gamble on the source being signed when Adda found it. According to Kanti, it wasn’t. The message tilted out of sight as Adda’s wrist drifted out of Iridian’s field of vision.
On Biometallic 1, they’d nearly gotten caught by the ITA and the AIs. If Gavran had backed Captain Sloane, the ITA would’ve had Iridian’s crew. And after all that, the firmware source was effectively useless without the certificate. They weren’t any closer to protecting the implant, and Adda’s mind, from Casey.
Iridian pulled Adda into a hug and bit her lip against the despair welling up from her chest, closing her throat. Casey hadn’t breached Yăo Station so far, except by text, but Adda kept saying it would. When Casey got through, they’d be trapped.
Adda clenched her fists and pulled her comp projection back into view, which sent her slowly tipping backward, switching to the money management software she used. When Adda finished selling the copied firmware from Biometallic, that’d pay Kanti and Gavran. If they stayed on Yăo, Pel’s savings gave them a couple of weeks of money to live on. They could probably convince the Odin Razum to pay them again too, but even that wouldn’t be enough to buy Björn’s former kidnappers a place on the expedition.
When Casey finally found its way onto Yăo, the first thing it’d do was influence Adda. As Iridian understood it, the overfitting error it’d made assured that. By that time, they had to have eliminated the vulnerability that’d allowed both Casey and Mairie to influence Adda through her implant in the past, and that required Biometallic’s certificate.
As Iridian watched, Adda composed another anonymous message to Biometallic showing them exactly where Kanti said the vulnerability was. Given the added security, returning to one of Biometallic’s stations would be even more dangerous than it’d been the first time. But if that was what it took to secure her implant, Iridian would do it.
Adda opened a new set of notes in her comp. Ordinarily Iridian would let her work in peace and go chat with the others, but dealing with Captain Sloane again had thrown her off. She’d almost lost Adda on Vesta. She didn’t want to be anywhere other than Adda’s side now. “What are you working on?”
Adda’s breathing pattern meant she’d stopped subvocalizing to her comp at a range below where she’d set her mic to pick up her words and send them to Iridian. “I’m composing some routines to crawl the Patchwork for information on where Biometallic stored its certificates. After last time, I’m not assuming they’re even in the same facility as the source material.”
While Adda did that, Iridian caught a nap. Sometime later, the residential cabin door shut with a thump that woke her. “Sorry,” Adda said when she met Iridian’s half-open eyes. “So, I’ve been thinking. We can’t keep working on both the expedition and protecting my implant. I’d thought that once we reached Yăo Station, we’d make enough money to buy our way onto the expedition. That’s not happening.”
Iridian propped herself up on her elbows. This was a huge change from Adda’s previous long-term plans. “There has to be something else we can do to get on the expedition. Blackmail somebody. Blow something up?” That tactic had moved up on Iridian’s list of go-to options since she’d been hanging around Wiley again. “It’s not too late to hit Oxia’s facilities if the CEO doesn’t turn the expedition over to U of M.”
Adda smiled. “And that is a reason I love you. But if we’re focused on the expedition, we’re not going to get the certificate for my implant firmware in time. If Casey finds me in a workspace, I’ll . . . Well, who knows what I’ll do?” Iridian had been sleeping on the bunk across the small cabin from Adda, but she pushed herself to Adda’s and pulled her close. Adda wrapped her arms around Iridian and said into her shoulder, “We have to start treating the expedition as a backup and focus on securing the neural implant nets.”
Iridian sighed. Even though this was the most practical target, and the one they were most likely to reach, giving up was a sick emptiness inside her. Ad
da would hate it as much as Iridian did. “I liked the idea of seeing the new solar system,” Iridian said. “It would’ve been exciting, even if we were just fixing the expedition toilets or something.”
“I know. After we remove the vulnerability, maybe we can . . . I mean, the launch date is still weeks away. But I think Casey will get to us before then.”
Iridian pulled away a little to look Adda in the eyes. She seemed clear and present and not experiencing any overdose-induced disorientation. “So your plan now is, what, waiting to get caught?”
Scowling, Adda pulled her comp back into view and scrolled quickly through whatever she’d been reading. “My plan is to protect myself. The next time Casey catches up with us, and it will, I’d really like to talk to it when I’m sure it can’t instantaneously influence me. I want to ask it to communicate, instead of chasing us around populated space.”
“Talking to it dropped us into a lot of shit before,” Iridian said doubtfully.
“Casey also saved our lives, multiple times. It took you across the station on Barbary when AegiSKADA was trying to kill you. Without it, we wouldn’t have broken into Oxia’s comms on Vesta. We would’ve taken significant losses without knowing what they were planning. And it’s trying to do something that I don’t think is . . . I mean, I don’t have evidence yet, but I don’t get the impression that they’d use the new quantum comp construct they keep talking about for violent or manipulative purposes. If we can get that vulnerability fixed, I’ll have a chance to find out.”
Iridian tightened her arms around Adda again, reveling in the warmth and solidity of her presence. When she’d been in the ITA’s custody, she’d missed this so much. “I’m all for fixing the vulnerability so you’ll be safe, but we don’t need to board the Casey Mire Mire to test it, yeah?” Her chest rose and fell against Adda’s in a soft sigh. “So. Next step?”
Gravity of a Distant Sun Page 28