They were two days out from Amphictyon when Sparrow began roaming the ship. Xavier, Oona, and her crew were on high alert. Sparrow took her tools and overrode the blocking mechanism on the lift. Entering the scuffed-up space, she squatted down and removed the panel behind which the lift’s mechanisms were enclosed. Then, she propped the panel against one of the lift’s walls. Marks from rubber-soled shoes, weapons, and cargo gave the lift a grimy look that complimented the rest of the bounty hunter ship’s décor. Sparrow hoped that with some of the credits Xavier had paid Oona, she would buy some paint or plasti-seal to spruce up the ship. An eroded connection was the lift’s problem. Sparrow disconnected it, cleaned it, and reestablished the link. Then, she continued to search for other weaknesses. After a little more work, Sparrow was confident the lift would function without further difficulties. Before replacing the panel, she took the lift to each deck to give it a little test. Luckily, the doors were closed when she replaced the panel because the ship jerked to the side throwing her from her crouch to lay sprawled out on the floor of the lift. Red lights flashed above her head.
“Stay put,” Xavier ordered telepathically.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve got company.”
Sparrow heard the high-pitched scream of tearing metal. The ship seemed to lift up and then drop as if Paco were attempting to shake something free of the ship. Through the lift doors, Sparrow heard blaster fire. Sweat trickled down her sides, and fear made her heart speed up. Above her, sparks rained down right before a pair of feet hit the roof of the lift. Expecting to see Xavier, Sparrow screamed at the yellow shining eyes peering down at her just as the circular portion of the ceiling above her dropped down and clanked to the floor.
Sparrow scrambled over to the side and tried to override the lift door to force it to open, but the ship’s security measures were too secure for her to breech in the seconds before the AI dropped down beside her. Crouching, it got within an inch of her making her shrink away from it and press herself to the side of the lift. Sounds of inarticulate fear bubbled up from within her.
The AI brought its yellow glowing eyes and face so close to hers that they almost touched. Its white, unmoving, manikin-like face didn’t move when it said, “You’ve been a very bad birdie.” As the AI grabbed her, an injector shot out of the tip of one of its fingers and into her arm. As her body floated away and the lift faded from view, she slipped from consciousness.
Chapter Eight
Sensors hadn’t detected any approaching vessels because the AIs had left it well out of range and used propulsion packs to fly to Oona’s ship. AIs didn’t need oxygen. Security systems had begun blaring after the robots had attached themselves to the hull and had begun cutting their way through.
“Seal off that section before we are all sucked out of the ship!” Oona yelled while grabbing weapons. She ran for the ladder, following on Xavier’s heels. “Was this part of the plan, and you just didn’t trust me with it?” she asked as she cleared the ladder and covered Xavier’s back.
“No. Do you have a reading on their locations?”
Oona concentrated on what she was hearing through her earpiece. “The AIs have split up. They are attacking on each deck. Davalynn is holding her own against one outside of engineering. Bridge secure. Two men down on habitation deck.”
“And two coming for us,” Xavier said as he opened fire on the robots coming at them like speed skaters with their plasti arms swinging.
Blinding light shot out of the robots’ eyes to disorient and confuse Xavier and Oona. Pain seared through Xavier’s skull. He continued firing even though all he could see were spots. A robot drove into Xavier shoving him backwards along the corridor. After skidding a few feet unable to stop its motion, he went loose and pivoted to the side. The robot’s momentum carried it to the end of the corridor ending in a crash that left a deep dent in the metal wall. Xavier turned to help Oona.
The bounty hunter had a metal garrote wrapped around a robot’s neck. Fiercely gritting her teeth, she depressed the grips in her hands, pressed her thick-soled boots to its torso, and sent a circuit frying charge through the robot. The AI’s glowing eyes went dark. Oona fell to the deck with the robot’s hands still clamped tightly onto her thighs.
“Watch out!” she yelled.
Xavier ducked as the blades protruding from the returning AI’s hands viciously sliced through the air where his head had been seconds before. Instead of the blades, Sparrow’s fear slashed at him. “The lift!” he yelled at Oona as he blocked and deflected the blades aimed at his face.
The knives raked down the wall beside him with an unnatural screech that raised the hairs on the back of his neck and ripped through the metal. The AI struggled to free its blade-tipped fingers from the tortured metal. Xavier planted his foot on the robot’s thigh, leaped up, grabbed its head, and gave it a fierce twist as he came down behind it with a loud bang of his boots to the decking. Tossing the head, he ran after Oona to the lift. He heard the AI collapse behind him.
Oona used her command codes to force the lift doors to open. It was empty. Unable to sense his mate, he knew she had been drugged. Seeing the hole in the lift’s ceiling, he stepped out into the corridor, turned, and sprinted back into the lift using the force of his momentum and his boots against the walls of the lift to jump up into the opening in the ceiling. Above him, he could see the AI climbing to the deck above with Sparrow thrown over its shoulder.
“Take us up!” he yelled down to Oona who looked up at him from within the lift.
It began to rise, and soon Xavier had a hold of the AI’s ankle. Xavier refused to be kicked free. However, when the robot brought its other heel crashing down against his skull, blackness took him. He came to on his back looking up at Oona’s leather-clad ass as she fired blast after blast up at the AI.
“No! You might hit Sparrow!”
“It’s getting away! Come on!” She left the lift and climbed up into a service shaft. Xavier got to his knees, battling dizziness, and followed.
They arrived at a crawl space near the outer hull in time to see two AIs placing Sparrow into a capsule. Then, the AIs took Sparrow from the ship, through an airlock, and out into space. Xavier yanked Oona to safety and slammed the hatch shut moments before the ship’s air got sucked out into the void.
“Hull breach!” Oona yelled.
“On it, Captain!” Davalynn yelled through ship’s communications.
“Roll call!” Oona ordered.
“Paco!” the pilot called out.
“Davalynn,” yelled the busy engineer.
“Bo,” a hunter yelled.
“Glass,” another male voice answered. “Asmina is down. Request assistance. Habitation deck.”
“On my way,” Bo called.
“Paco, pursue,” Oona ordered.
“Not until these hull breaches are sealed, Captain!” Paco said.
“How long, Davalynn?” Oona yelled as she ran for the lift with Xavier’s boots pounding a staccato rhythm against the floor panels at her side. They exited onto the bridge.
“With help, I can have us moving in ten,” Davalynn answered.
“I’m on it,” Xavier said as he rushed to help the engineer.
Bright lights created an ache in Sparrow’s eyes as she managed to open them. She immediately recognized the ceiling above her.
“Explaining to you my immense displeasure with your behavior would be an inefficient use of time. You are now several days behind schedule. What you thought to accomplish with your unsanctioned adventure is also irrelevant.” Bishop leaned over to stare into Sparrow’s eyes. Below his short black hair, blue eyes peered down at her. However, Bishop’s left eye was robotic. Metal surrounded his eye socket. It had been designed to be aesthetically pleasing with a blue polymer iris on a white disk, but the pupil within the center led off into processors and not a soul. Sparrow had no difficulty looking into the robotic eye. “The same opportunities will never again present themselves, l
ittle bird.”
Sparrow’s escape from Bishop had been her birth. She had broken free of her egg and was determined to leave the shell behind. Xavier was her wind and sky. However, Bishop intended to lock her back inside of her cage. Fury brought her right hand up to slap his face, but he caught her wrist. Sparrow stared at the fingers that squeezed her wrist so tightly that prickles filled her hand. They were the fingers of an AI. Her eyes followed them to the metal hand and white polymer wrist until it vanished from her sight within the sleeve of his expensive suit.
“Finally, the day has come. The physicians all suggested over the years that you might one day evolve beyond the disconnect you have with people that makes you so special. I found you alone in the streets playing with a broken blaster. You were trying to repair it with a discarded crate opener. I saw your potential.”
“You kidnapped me! I’m your slave! I want my life! I want my freedom!”
Bishop leaned down closer to her. Sparrow turned her face away from the eyes that were too close, judging her. “I didn’t kidnap you, Sparrow. I adopted you. You were your mother’s failed attempt to trap herself a husband. She was poor, struggling to survive, and couldn’t work and watch you at the same time. You had learned to unlock the door to her one-room apartment and were always wandering off. She told me this when I returned you to her. I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”
“You’re lying.”
Bishop released Sparrow’s arm and pulled out his vid-screen. She rubbed at her wrist with her right hand to restore her circulation. He tapped at the screen a few times before tossing it to her.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why my humanoid employees tend to avoid you?”
Sparrow stared down at the adoption contract. Her legal name was Sparrow Bishop. Her father was listed as Parker Bishop. Her birth mother was listed as Kris Roland.
“Your mother’s poverty made caring for a child difficult enough, but then there was your condition.”
The knowledge that her mother had given her away and Bishop hadn’t abducted her didn’t want to sink into her brain. Instead, it wanted to scratch at her skin like dry, dead branches while she tried to run away.
“What condition?” Sparrow asked.
“You are a very intelligent girl. In fact, where weapons are concerned, you are a genius. You have far surpassed my own skill and haven’t blown yourself up as I once did to myself.” Bishop moved to sit beside her on the bed. “When I allow you to work with other sentient beings, do you ever feel comfortable around them?”
Sparrow sat up and pushed herself back to sit against her pillows. She shook her head.
“Do you always feel awkward around them, never knowing what to say or how to act?”
Sparrow looked up at Bishop’s robotic eye and then back down to her lap. When he took her hands into his own, she concentrated on his robotic hand.
“You are at ease when you are concentrating on a task, such as programming your nanites or making weapons. You find more comfort in repetitive tasks than in people. When I first saw you, I saw a kindred spirit. I recognized myself in you. We both have a condition that makes us unique. We focus all of our intellectual abilities on one area of specialization and excel at it while paying little attention to the confused minds and emotions of others.”
Whispering, Sparrow asked, “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing. You are perfect. The physicians will tell you that you have an autism spectrum disorder, but that is what makes us brilliant. We are creative and innovative. You and I thrive on order, continuity, and things we can understand. People are irrational and ever changing. The only way to understand them is by learning their motivations. I understand you, Sparrow, because I am like you. I have provided an environment where you have been able to thrive. You have AIs who care for you. They never make you feel uncomfortable. You have specific times to eat, sleep, exercise, and work. Don’t you like that?”
Sparrow nodded.
“Sparrow, this young man of yours, do you think he will still want you once he learns of your disorder? Would he want to risk bringing autistic children into existence? We both know the answer to that question. You need to put thoughts of that life behind you. Let me protect you and keep you safe.”
Bishop patted Sparrow’s knee, stood, and left her room. The door locks clicked into place behind him. He had purposefully left behind his vid-screen. Open upon it were her medical evaluations and various articles about Asperger’s Syndrome. After a few hours of reading, Sparrow laid her head down on her pillow and cried. Bishop was right. Xavier could never want her. They could never have a normal life. She was broken and couldn’t be fixed. Now, Sparrow sobbed herself to sleep. The sounds she made were reminiscent of those she had heard through the wall from the room beside her own. She had tasted of freedom and now found its taste to be bitter.
The next morning, her AI brought her breakfast. Sparrow ate, showered, dressed, and was escorted to the lab. She didn’t look at the other tech slaves who cast knowing glances her way. Instead, she focused on her work. Periodically, she wiped away her tears when they blurred her eyes. Her emotions were making her inefficient.
During the exercise period, Sparrow wasn’t allowed to go outside. Instead, she was taken to an exercise room in which she was the only occupant. Rather than engaging the treadmill, she sat down in a corner and held her knees to her chest. At once numb and full of pain, she could only stare at the carpeting.
It took longer than ten minutes to repair the ship. The AIs that had attacked had made sure of it. Oona and Paco stared at him expectantly. Hours had gone by, and the trail had gone cold. Luckily, Asmina hadn’t gone cold from her injuries, but she would be spending the remainder of the mission in her bunk. They had managed to stop the bleeding in time. The AI soldier had gone for her throat. Oona’s crew was rabid with the need for revenge. Bishop had been planning to double-cross the bounty hunters all along. They weren’t the kind of folks who were amicable to renegotiations.
“Any ideas, hybrid?” Oona asked. She had an angry, sullen expression and would only be cheered by retaliation.
“Yes, go that way.” Xavier pointed.
“Go that way?” Paco asked.
Xavier handed Oona one of Sparrow’s modified dispersal blasters. “There is nowhere she can be hidden and no technology that can hide her from me. There is no one I won’t kill, and nothing I won’t destroy to get to her. Sparrow is the voice in my mind that calls for restraint and the empathy in my soul that begs for mercy, but now her voice has been silenced by shame and fear. She has withdrawn into her own despair, and I am not there to comfort her. What I intend to do may be too much for you and your crew to witness.”
Oona snorted at Xavier and turned to Paco. “Arrogant little prick. Ain’t he?”
Paco laughed. “Can you give me any better headings than that way?”
“Yes, I’m sure Mrs. Hybrid misses her creepy-eyed fucker and would like to be rescued,” Oona said.
“You intend to assist me. However, I require nothing more than an escape pod,” Xavier said stoically.
“I intend to get paid what I was promised. It can be in credits or merchandise,” Oona said.
In a no-nonsense tone, Xavier replied, “The weapons will either be destroyed or turned over to the Militia.”
“Don’t be as stupid as you look. Are you really going to turn a weapons cache over to the Militia that they could turn around and use against the Empire? We all hear the talk about these Earth Loyalists. How long will peace with Parvac last?”
Xavier didn’t answer her.
The AI returned for Sparrow and took her back to the lab. Her tears had nurtured her determination and made it sprout. Then, her anger had provided the heat to make it grow. To send or receive a message would be impossible. Anyone who had ever tried had failed. Sparrow considered coding a viral message into a nanite and having it inject that message into an orbiting communications relay. However, she didn’t have the necessary ca
sings or propulsions to make it work. What she could scrap together would burn up in the atmosphere. Her thoughts were interrupted by a person who stood too close to her.
“Are you alright?” she whispered.
“No,” Sparrow answered.
“I thought you were content to remain here. We all did,” the woman said.
Sparrow looked at the woman from the corner of her eye, taking in as she did so her blue lab jumper. Then, she made a monumental error by risking a glance at the woman’s eyes. The commiserate misery she found there forced her own eyes back down to her work.
The woman whispered, “I guess we were all wrong. The next attempt you make, I want in.”
“Alright,” Sparrow mumbled to her.
The woman left before the AI overseeing their work could reprimand them. At lunch, Sparrow’s favorite foods were served, but the pasta seemed bland when compared to the spaghetti dinner she had shared with Xavier. She thought of his eyes, one like night and the other like a brilliant star. Had he and the bounty hunters been able to escape the attack, or had they been destroyed?
“You will eat,” her personal AI ordered.
Sparrow picked up a salt shaker and sprinkled it over the sauce. She held the salt shaker in her hand as an idea formed in her head. Slowly, she ate and gave her mind time to digest her plan. Through their shared wall that night, Sparrow told the woman what she needed.
Throughout the next day, when the other tech slaves delivered to her their contributions to her work, they passed her small packets either hidden in their pieces or discreetly placed against her palm. Instead of filling her nanites with combustibles, she filled them with copper chloride compounds. Once a batch was complete, she passed it along. Strontium and lithium salts went into her next batch of nanites. Calcium chloride, sodium nitrate, and barium chloride filled the others.
Rather than weapons, the tech slaves worked on their plan to battle their silent slavery. After all of her spare nanites had been filled, she had to trust the others to do their parts. They couldn’t draw attention to themselves. The woman was in charge of setting timed fuse explosions within the nanites that would be triggered by atmospheric pressure. The others were working on propulsions and launchers.
Xavier: An Omnes Videntes Novel Page 6