by M. D. Cooper
Jirl pointed at the map and eleven points glowed in prominence against the others. One was near Mars, one in vicinity of Venus, and the others in the scattered asteroids preceding and trailing Jupiter.
“These are the remaining Weapon Born research clinics. I know you helped secure them. We need to know which one has the largest reserve of Weapon Born seeds.”
“Why are you asking me that? You know that as well as I do.”
“I don’t,” Jirl said.
Brit watched the woman’s face as Kraft gave Jirl a confused look. She was tense but reserved. If she was lying, she was very good at it.
“I don’t have the supply levels, Cal. Arla certainly doesn’t have that kind of information. It’s operational. That protects the organization. You know that. Which clinic was supplying the Terran and Marsian contracts?”
Brit glanced at Yarnes but his expression didn’t change.
“Venus,” he said. “The others are research centers. Clinic 13 and 46, which is now destroyed thanks to Brit Sykes, are the two storage sites.”
Ngoba stepped a little closer to the restrained man. “If you’re lying to us, Kraft, it will be hard for you.”
Kraft snorted. “Everybody keeps threatening to kill me. How about some positive reinforcement? You know what I’d give for whatever you want? A bourbon.” He looked around the small room. “Anybody got a drink in here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
STELLAR DATE: 11.07.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Between Uranus and Neptune, OuterSol
The boy who appeared in front of her was Tim but also wasn’t somehow. He had Brit’s hair and Andy’s eyes but maybe the fact that she knew he wasn’t Tim made him different. She smiled at him, anyway, because she wished someone had greeted her with a smile when she woke.
Lyssa breathed deeply of the forest air, smelling the scents of pine needles and moss. The air tasted wet and full, as if the trees were stopping the rain high above and only allowing mist to fall on the floor below.
All around her stretched a hillside covered in massive, pillar-like fir trees, their branches filtering the light far above. The forest floor was covered in the fallen trunks of the great trees, blanketed by moss and hummocks of deep green fern. The ground was covered by a thick layer of dry fir needles, small green-leaved plants growing in places, with carpets of clover and bright green moss rolling out between outcroppings of rock.
Where did this place come from, and why did she feel drawn to it? This was the place she created inside her when she couldn’t think of anything else. This was her expanse. She knew she would find a beach on the other side of the hill above her, and if she walked downhill she would find a cold, fern-lined creek with trout in its deep pools.
Something about this place mixed with the shock of the imaging room. Lying down on the couch before the machine went to work felt somehow the same as lying down on the pine needles to look up at the glowing-grey sky between the leaning fir trees.
“Where are we?” the boy asked.
“I was just trying to decide. It’s a place I don’t remember but it’s inside me. You’ll be able to make a place like this too, someday.”
He looked around, sniffing. “It smells like dirt.”
The boy was wearing one of the faded grey shipsuits from Sunny Skies, legs and sleeves rolled up. Andy had since bought the other Tim a suit that fit, so she wondered where this choice had originated. Had she chosen how he would appear since she had brought him into her space, or was he able to choose? She considered trying to test her question by changing what he was wearing, then decided against it. She didn’t want to frighten him. She had brought him in first before anyone else so she could talk to him, help him understand what he was.
“Dirt and moss and water and the ocean, I think, a long ways off.” Lyssa pointed uphill. “Do you want to see the ocean? There are going to be some other people down on the beach for us to meet, but before we go there, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Talk to me about what?”
“Do you know your name?”
The question caught him off guard, as if he had known the answer until she asked. He looked at her in confusion. “Why don’t I have a name?”
“You have something better,” Lyssa said, trying to soothe him. “You can have whatever name you want.”
“But I had a name, didn’t I? I didn’t think about it until you asked. Now I don’t know.” He looked around, growing more agitated. “Where are we? Who are you? What am I doing here?”
The boy took a step backward and stumbled on a fern hillock.
Lyssa leapt toward him and grabbed his hand. She held him from falling, then pulled him upright.
“Can I give you a hug?” she asked.
He looked at her with tears in his eyes. When he didn’t answer, she drew him closer so she could wrap her arms around him. He didn’t fight her.
When she asked Andy if she could bring Tim’s seed into her expanse with the rest of the Weapon Born, he had shown her the same uncertain, hopeful expression. None of them knew what this Tim was, if he would be like the other version of himself, or instead something else completely.
“That seems like the best thing we can do,” Andy had said, followed by, “Thank you, Lyssa.”
“You don’t have to say thank you,” she had told him. “I think it’s the right thing to do. All this happened because you were trying to help me, after all.”
Andy had nodded, though he didn’t seem completely sold on her reasoning. If they were family like he had said, then it was her place to help this version of Tim. It was something she had to do, even more important than coming to an agreement with the other Weapon Born. She had to help Tim.
She held him, feeling him trembling against her, then took his hand and led him slowly up the hill. They wound between the fallen trunks, light shining down in bright shafts from the bright grey sky. Birds sang to one another in the distance and she heard chipmunks chewing fir cones high up in the trees.
“You were made like I was,” she said eventually. “We were copied from someone else, so there might be memories, thoughts, feelings. You’re special because we know the person you were made from. Me, I will never know.”
“So I’m not a real person?”
“You are a real person. You’re a seed, right now. But you’re not really a seed anymore. You’re already growing. You’re more than you were before you woke up just a few moments ago. Does that make sense to you?”
He let go of her hand and climbed to the top of a fallen tree, spreading his arms for balance as he walked its length.
“What kind of trees are these?” he asked.
“Douglas Fir, I think. That one might be a redwood.”
“Is the boy I was made from—is he a nice boy?”
“I think he’s a nice boy. His life has been hard. I think he gets angry about that sometimes, but he’s also been different since you were made.”
“Different? Did I hurt him?”
“Whatever happened to him wasn’t your fault. You should remember that.”
“Am I going to get to meet him?”
“Maybe,” Lyssa said. “I think you might.”
The boy lifted his face and squinted at the silver sky. “It’s pretty here,” he said. “It’s very nice to be alive, isn’t it?”
Lyssa found herself smiling. “It is very nice to be alive, you’re right.”
“So it doesn’t matter how we came to be alive?”
“It matters to some people.” She took a few steps up the hill. “Come on, we should keep walking.”
The boy stared up at the sky for another minute before jumping down from the tree. He landed on a fern hummock and ran forward, laughing. “That was fun!” he shouted.
“We should choose you a name before we go over the hill,” Lyssa said. “Have you had any ideas?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know any names. What if I choose the wrong one?”
“It can’t be wrong if you choose it. But I understand.” She thought for a second. “What if you choose a name now, with the promise that you can change it later if you find something you like better. How’s that?”
“How did you choose your name?”
“I didn’t. It was given to me.”
“So are you going to change it eventually?”
Lyssa chuckled. “I hadn’t thought of doing that. I like my name. Or I’ve grown to like it.”
“Lyssa means rage,” he said. He looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t know that, and then I did. Where did it come from?”
“It’s one way you’re different from…” Lyssa searched for a metaphor that wouldn’t make him feel like a copy. “…the tree you branched off. You are here with knowledge already available to you. You can walk, you can see, you can speak and ask questions. But until you know to ask the question, the knowledge won’t simply be there.”
“That’s why I’m a seed?”
“Partially. You’re different. We’re alike this way. I’m just farther along with the growing than you are.”
“Does your name make you sad?”
“It’s my name. It doesn’t decide who I am.” Lyssa gave him a secret smile. “Besides, maybe I’ll want to be a fury someday. Then it’s going to fit just fine, won’t it?”
“Furies are scary. They wreck ships and drown sailors.”
“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I’m not going to do those things anytime soon. So, do you have a name picked out yet? A practice name?”
“I want to be big like the trees,” he said. “What were they called?”
“Douglas Fir trees.”
“I want to be Douglas Fir.”
“Why don’t we call you Douglas, for short?”
The boy looked back at her and nodded. “My name is Douglas.” He cocked his head as the name sank in.
“Do you like it?” Lyssa asked.
“Yes!” he shouted, running up the hill. He leaped between bunches of ferns and scrambled over another fallen log, shouting, “Douglas! Douglas! Douglas!”
Lyssa met him at the crest of the hill. He came charging up the slope and stopped in surprise when he spotted her waiting.
“How did you do that?” he shouted, struggling to catch his breath.
“This is my place,” she said. “I can do whatever I want here. I’ll show you how it works in time. Someday you’ll have a place like this too.”
The forest floor leveled out at the top of the hill, mellowing into a slow rise covered in trees that showed wear from the sea wind, their branches stretching inland, shaped by storms. The light grew brighter as they neared the crest, until they walked around a wide tree-trunk to find themselves looking out at the silver-white horizon.
“What’s that?” Douglas shouted into the wind. “What is that, Lyssa?”
“It’s the sea,” she said, crossing her arms against the wind. The bright grey sky filled their view, with a thin strip of ocean that grew larger as they walked downhill, until a rocky beach was visible, swept by blue-grey waves tipped with foam. A rocky promontory with a thin strip of trees along its back stretched into the ocean on their right side, like a dragon’s head thrust into the sea. On their left side, another rock formation closed off the beach below. As the waves receded, a field of tidal pools appeared at the foot of the rock formation, bubbling with white foam.
“Are we going down there?” Douglas asked, hair whipped by the wind.
“In a minute,” Lyssa said. “I want to invite some friends first.”
“There are going to be other people here?” A note of anxiety entered his voice, sounding for a second like Tim.
“Yes, but they’re friends. Eventually, there will be many people. That’s why we’re here. I wanted to bring you first, so we could meet, and so you could choose your name. But we have work to do, Douglas. We have many people to meet.”
“Will they be our friends, too?”
“I don’t know yet,” Lyssa said. “I hope so.”
“Can they hurt us?”
She studied him, wondering how the concept had entered his mind so soon. Was it the trees that looked abused by the wind? Had he seen some worry in her face?
“They can’t hurt us here,” Lyssa said. “And I’ll be right here with you. You don’t need to worry.”
With a thought, Lyssa brought Kylan into the expanse. The gaunt, grey-eyed young man appeared, blinking in the silver sunlight.
“Lyssa,” he said, looking around. “Where are we?”
“My place. I’d like you to meet Douglas.”
Turning, Kylan looked down at the dark-haired boy.
“You look like someone else I’ve met,” Kylan said. He offered Douglas his hand to shake.
“You take his hand,” Lyssa said. “Like this.” She offered her own hand to Kylan and they shook.
Kylan’s hand felt cold, his bones thin, but he gripped her hand firmly and let go, offering the same greeting to Douglas. The boy shook his hand and laughed.
“You feel like a skeleton,” he said.
“Douglas, that’s not polite,” Lyssa scolded.
Kylan waved a hand. “He’s right. I do feel—thin.” He looked at Lyssa. “Are we—? Is everyone all right? The last thing I remember is the Resolute Charity. I guess I’ve been in stasis.”
“You have. Everyone is all right for now. We’re here because I want to wake the other Weapon Born. I want them to know what we’re going to do when we reach Proteus.”
“What if they don’t want to listen to you?”
Lyssa smiled. “I won’t know if I don’t ask them. Come on. We’re going to meet them down on the beach.”
Kylan nodded, taking in the sight of the ocean and the windswept trees behind them. He took a deep breath and seemed to grow more solid as she watched him.
Lyssa moved them down to the beach. Douglas shouted in surprise and then joy, immediately running toward the water. He stopped before he reached the line of the wave coming toward him, shrieking with pleasure as the water covered his feet and quickly rose to his knees. He pumped his arms as he ran back toward Lyssa and Kylan, the wind plastering his shipsuit to his back.
“I love the ocean!” he called. In another minute he was drawing lines in the wet sand with a piece of driftwood.
“Don’t run too far,” Lyssa called back.
With Douglas occupied, she led Kylan to a bank of sand about fifty meters from the water. Below them, the beach spread out in bands of broken shells, agate and wood pushed up by the waves. Above them, seagulls wheeled against the silver-grey sky. Despite the bite of the wind, the air didn’t feel too cold. Lyssa liked the feeling; she felt sharpened by the wind, lifted up.
“What are you going to say to them?” Kylan asked. “We don’t know what any of them were made to do, what they could be ready to do.”
Lyssa gave him a slight smile. “We were both made to be killers and we’re all right, aren’t we? I plan to say hello and see if they answer back.”
“What if they attack you?”
“Nothing can hurt me here. This is my place.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Lyssa turned to face him. “Try then. Attack me.”
Kylan took a step back, looking at her. He raised his hands and a projectile rifle appeared in his grip. “Did you expect me to do that?” he asked.
Lyssa shook her head. “No. Pull the trigger.”
He shouldered the weapon and fired.
Lyssa stopped the bullet between them. The shimmering metal slug floated in a quivering stasis until she made it fall.
Kylan shot forward, shifting the rifle to strike her face with its plas stock. She stopped him in place.
“Does that hurt?” she asked.
Kylan shook his head. “No.” He stepped back and let the rifle drop before slinging it over his shoulder. “I suppose I have some control, but you have the ultimate authority here. I hope that’s true.
I don’t know enough about how this works. How did you learn to do this?”
“The AI on the Mars 1 Ring showed me. He wasn’t Sentient, I don’t think. Not like us. But he had a place. It was just an ocean, really, the way he viewed his mind. He invited me in and there we were, floating over it.” She looked around, taking the view, breathing deep of the salty air again. “I like this better.”
“Are you sure you should invite more people in if you don’t understand it yourself?”
“We need to do this. I can’t just hand all these living things over to Alexander without giving them the opportunity to choose for themselves.”
Kylan nodded. “Alexander. I’d forgotten that name while I was sleeping. That’s where we’re going. Why?”
“To be free,” Lyssa said. “At least I hope so. I want to make sure everyone that goes with us does so by their own free will.”
She turned back to face the water. There was no fanfare as she invited the two hundred and fifty other Weapon Born. There was no one on the beach, and then it was filled with people standing in the wind. In the distance, Douglas still shouted and laughed, a ten-year-old boy chasing the waves.
“Well this is exciting,” Xander said from behind her.
Lyssa turned, shocked. “What are you doing here?”
The slim man in the purple suit smiled at her. “You just invited me in.”
“I didn’t invite you in. I invited the others.” Lyssa felt a cold feeling seep down her back, the fear that things weren’t in her control after all.
“You extended an invitation to the Weapon Born, I came along with them.” He spread his hands, looking at the beach and the surrounding hills. “Such a beautiful place. I wouldn’t have considered you a nature girl, but here we are.”
“I want you to leave,” Lyssa said. Could she make him leave? What if she tried and failed? She took a deep breath, preparing to end the simulation.
“Wait,” Xander said. “Please. I’m here to help. Besides, everyone behind you is watching. You should talk to them, shouldn’t you?”
Seething with anger she could barely control, Lyssa turned to face the people on the beach. Three people had stepped to the front of the crowd. Lyssa recognized them as the three Weapon Born Fugia Wong had brought to Sunny Skies when she arrived. One was tall and muscled, with fiery eyes and spikes of white hair on her head, the second a small woman with dark hair and an assassin’s grace, while the third was a malnourished-looking boy with a withered arm he held close to his body. The other Weapon Born stood behind them, as if automatically accepting them as representatives.