Relativity: Aurora Resonant Book One (Aurora Rhapsody 7)

by G. S. Jennsen

  As a former Alliance Marine, she ought to be interested in casing the former enemy’s nerve center. But everything had changed thrice over since either of those things were last true, so instead she focused on reaching Stanley’s lab.

  Allegedly, enough functionality remained in the Artificial after Morgan had stripped it of its higher consciousness for the military to keep it in service, giving it complex calculations and such to churn while smaller, newer Artificials were enlisted to handle more nuanced matters. The old lab had been far enough below ground to survive the bombing attack with only minor damage, and the hardware for all the military’s Artificials were moved here with the rest of the fixtures.

  She wondered if Field Marshal Gianno, when she was alive, had secretly worried shutting Stanley down could kill Morgan, and this concern had led Gianno to keep the Artificial functioning when it might otherwise have been scrapped. As Brooklyn understood it, that wouldn’t have been the case—but either way, now he would bring her back to life.

  Hopefully.

  She watched until the on-duty security officer turned his back, then hurriedly entered the passcode and sneaked into the lab. Racks upon racks of uniform, identical servers and quantum boxes greeted her, along with a lab tech trying not to nod off at his desk.

  Hennessey?

  There will be an input slot on the far left, first row, eye level—because people do input.

  The snort which followed implied there had been humor, but warenut comedy was lost on her. She ignored the comment to traverse the front of the room as near to silently as possible.

  Someone who worked for ASCEND had told her the other day that Veils were going to be able to mute the sound of footsteps up to thirty-six decibels with the next firmware patch. She’d scoffed at the time, but right now, here in this hyper-quiet lab, she longed for the upgrade.

  When she found the input slot, she sent a pulse to Mia to confirm things were ready on her end.

  By now the woman should have fitted an external interface linked to a module Brooklyn carried onto the ports at the base of Morgan’s neck. ‘The old-fashioned way,’ Mia had called it, before explaining it was necessary because Morgan had physically severed her connection to Stanley’s hardware before leaving Seneca and the Federation military.

  Mia gave her the go-ahead, and Brooklyn retrieved the module from her small hip pack. She was supposed to insert the device into the input slot, or any input slot, and wait while Prevos did Prevo things.

  Now she did exactly that. The module fit neatly in the slot, and no sirens rang out amid flashing lights and slamming doors. Truth be told, it was sort of anticlimactic.

  Though operating, the hardware didn’t make any noise—hence her worry about footsteps being audible—but it did fill the air with a vibrational hum she felt more than heard.

  She rested against the wall in the silence, a hand on each weapon, as the seconds became minutes.

  Finally—twelve minutes and thirty-two seconds later, to be precise—she received another pulse from Mia.

  We’ve pulled everything we’re be able to access without tripping a bunch of failsafes. You can remove the module and get out of there.

  Did it work?

  Maybe.

  SENECAN FEDERATION INTELLIGENCE DIVISION HEADQUARTERS

  Graham leaned opposite the doorway in a calculated stance of false casualness as Tessa came around the corner to approach her office.

  Her steps slowed when she saw him, but she offered him a wide smile. “Morning, Director. What’s up?”

  He gestured her into her office, followed her and closed the door behind them.

  She sank into her chair and started toeing it back and forth as if she hadn’t a care in the world. But he had gotten very, very good at reading people over the years—that one disastrous failure with his former deputy Oberti notwithstanding—and guilt bled out from the jerkiness in her eyes and bouncing of her sandal-clad toes.

  He crossed his arms against his chest and considered her grimly. “You know I like you, Tessa. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. You’ve got balls, which I respect, not to mention a cheeky disregard for boundaries that reminds me of my rowdier days. This has made me overly indulgent of your flaunting of every semblance of regulation and procedure Division has ever put in place. But you’ve gone too far this time, and I can’t pretend to ignore it.”

  She studied him, then seemed to decide she wouldn’t try to deny her crime. “Okay, but I was saving Morgan Lekkas’ life.”

  “Which is the only reason you’re not in restraints and on the way to confinement as we speak. But it doesn’t excuse you breaking not merely half a dozen Division regulations but several national security laws along the way. If you wanted to help, you could have asked.”

  “Yeah? And what would have come of me asking, you think? Lekkas is a deserter and Marshal Bastian is an asshole, so I think a big, fat nothing would have come of it.”

  He fought back a grimace, as she wasn’t wrong on any particular point. Bastian was an honorable man, but he could be an asshole about it; Lekkas was now an acknowledged military leader for an ally, but she’d gotten there by deserting her post.

  “Regardless of what may or may not have happened had you followed regs, you didn’t. Instead you used your privileged position to flagrantly violate both laws and every ethical duty that comes with the position. Tessa, I cannot have the Division Prevo going rogue and breaking into Military HQ. Vranas will drag me to the curb by my ear.”

  She pouted. “Well, when you put it that way…. How did you find out?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, come on! If I was stupid, I need to know.”

  “Not stupid—just not a spy.” He sighed, fully cognizant she had his number. “We never stopped watching Morgan Lekkas, not completely. When she was attacked, we escalated to a more active surveillance, which means we had eyes on Brooklyn Harper from the second her feet hit dirt in Cavare.”

  Tessa peered at him in evident suspicion. “But you let her infiltrate Military HQ?”

  “Fine, so we had eyes on Ms. Harper from the second her feet hit dirt in Cavare until she veiled.” They still hadn’t successfully developed a way to detect when a Veil was in use outside of optimal, close-quarters and controlled conditions.

  “In a different way, we also never stopped watching STAN. I’m told the Artificial exhibited some highly unusual activity in its processes last night.”

  Her jaw fell open. “You didn’t know for certain I did anything wrong until I admitted it, did you?”

  He shrugged broadly.

  “So I was stupid—only it was this morning rather than last night.”

  “Good people feel and act guilty when they’ve misbehaved, Tessa.”

  “But I don’t feel guilty…I mean, I’m not sorry I helped.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She ran a hand idly across the surface of her desk. “So…what happens now?”

  “I should fire you. I should also disconnect you from Cleo, but apparently it’s illegal under H+ to do so without a court order.”

  “ ‘Should’ means you’re not, though.”

  Oh, how she tried his patience. Had he been that cocky once upon a time? Had he been that young? “Keep smarting off and I will.”

  She bit her lips together in an exaggerated expression veering toward condescension.

  “I’m permanently reassigning you to SENTRI. Go work for Richard and Will.”

  The news evoked a bright grin as her mood swung from defiance to elation. “I can live with that. I like Will. He knows how to keep it real. I mean, I like you, too. You’re not bad for an old guy, and you’re not firing me, which obviously increases your likeability. What about Cleo?”

  “I don’t see as I have much of a claim on her any longer. But you’re paying to transfer her hardware to the Presidio.”

  She quickly agreed. “We’ll be out of your way in no time.”

  “See that you are. And don’
t think I’m not telling Richard and Will all about this transgression before you show up at the Presidio. If they have any sense, they’ll assign you a full-time guard.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, then wisely closed it. He turned to go, but paused in the doorway. “What’s the word on Lekkas? Did the shenanigans you abetted work?”

  Tessa looked genuinely pained for the first time. “Maybe.”

  Her morose visage got a sympathetic smile out of him—on accident—and he hurriedly departed before he talked himself into letting her stay on.

  On his way upstairs he filed a recommendation, should Morgan Lekkas recover, for the military to donate STAN’s hardware to the IDCC, seeing as it clearly didn’t belong to the Federation any longer.

  AMARANTHE

  37

  MACHIMIS

  MILKY WAY SECTOR 36

  * * *

  MACHIMIS RESEMBLED AN OVERWROUGHT CARICATURE of a dystopian idyll. An angsty teenager’s idea of what would happen if her evil, drill sergeant teachers took control of society and proceeded to exact their vengeance upon the world.

  A sea of drab, windowless structures towered over unadorned platforms—themselves raised an unknown distance above the ground—parsed and divided into strict passages. Some type of maglev rails high above the platforms ferried equipment and crates from building to building, suggesting the structures were by and large factories rather than offices or living quarters. Of course, if they were all three it might look no different.

  Alex had been interested in the mammoth orbital modules which captured the power gathered and sent by three Dyson rings then delivered it to the surface. But Eren had muttered something snarky about Inquisitors not lolling around gaping at millennia-old technology, and given they were by that point within the purview of planetary security, she’d reluctantly passed them by to descend toward the surface.

  They weren’t yet close enough to the elevated ground level to make out any details about the swarms of people traversing the platforms, but she wasn’t going to be surprised if they all wore matching soot gray uniforms with close-clasped collars to keep their chins locked rigidly in place.

  “I take back every cruel thing I ever said about Alliance military aesthetics. This place could use a bunch of gaudy brass accents and fountain walls something fierce.”

  It wasn’t merely the architecture, either, though the ubiquitous monochrome steel was audacious in its melancholiness. Even the weather had gotten into the act. A blanket of leaden gray clouds extended from horizon to horizon, and it appeared those clouds had settled in for the duration.

  “Did they pick the planet for the climate?”

  Eren shrugged. “Probably.”

  Caleb hadn’t responded to any of her attempts at dark humor, and he didn’t chime in now. As they descended toward the sprawling Machim Central Command Complex on precisely the vector and at precisely the speed which Entry Security Control had ordered them to proceed, she studied him, already knowing what she would find.

  His jaw had locked into opposing right angles, while his eyes churned dark and turbulent. Eren had insisted they didn’t have enough crimson in them, so in a minute Caleb would add a solution via drops to heighten the effect.

  He stared stonily out the viewport, though she doubted he was seeing the view. His focus was inward as he readied himself to become the very thing he despised.

  He’d done it before; he’d played the part of criminals, drug runners and cold killers in sting operations for Division. But she didn’t dare allow this fact to discount the sacrifice he was making now, nor what it was costing him. This mission was a little more complex and a lot more personal than any undercover operation that had come before.

  She wanted to tell him he needn’t torture himself so; whatever genetic heritage he shared with them, he was not one of these monsters, and he never could be. Not because he didn’t have darkness within him, but because he felt that darkness. He knew its nature and named it so.

  If it were possible to do so, she’d take this burden from him. But instead she could only show him always how she believed in him.

  As perimeter security hailed them and Valkyrie impersonated one of the automated navigation systems Anaden ships used, Eren touched Caleb’s arm. “Okay, it’s time for everyone to get into costume. Let’s get your eyes done and your cloak on, then Alex and I need to be invisible.”

  She blinked out of the reverie and inhaled deeply. An existential crisis in the aftermath wasn’t going to matter a whit if they didn’t succeed here first. She wasn’t accompanying them, not at first, but in an abundance of caution she would be invisible on the ship in case it was scanned in some manner.

  Caleb was adjusting his trench coat per Eren’s fashion advice when Valkyrie called for him. ‘The Central Command Complex docking security is requesting your authorization.’

  He moved into the cockpit and activated the comm. “This is Inquisitor Andreas ela-Praesidis. I’m here on Assignment I-4821-F116-L024 to investigate a suspected breach of the Data Control Department server.”

  They all held their breath.

  “Clearance granted, Inquisitor. Proceed to docking berth E-51C.”

  He turned and met her gaze. What she saw in his eyes tore at her heart, but she gave him a playful smile, mouthed ‘I love you,’ activated the Veil and vanished.

  Caleb: Testing mission comms.

  Alex: Check.

  Eren: Check.

  Valkyrie: Check

  Caleb: Mesme?

  Mnemosyne: Why must I reply ‘check’? What am I checking?

  Alex: You’re checking to see if you can hear us and we can hear you.

  Mnemosyne: Ah. I am able to do so. That is to say, check.

  Caleb: Testing visual transmission.

  On one of the screens she’d opened at the data center table, Caleb’s view of the cabin sprung to life. Valkyrie had developed a ware routine which used his eVi to access the feed from his ocular implant and send it to Valkyrie, and from Valkyrie to the table.

  As a result, Alex was going to see everything he saw. Honestly, she may need a good chimeral, or at least a synthetic sedative, to avoid having heart failure.

  She returned to the cockpit as the HQ complex began to dominate the scene outside. Six hulking wings surrounded a circular, open center lined in latticed towers.

  A whoosh of movement upward corrected her assumption. It wasn’t an open center. It was a space elevator.

  The docking bays extended out from the end of each wing of the building. They’d been directed to one on their right, but from the outside each section was identical to all the others.

  The hull rumbled as they docked into one of thousands of berths.

  Caleb moved to the airlock, then took a last look around the cabin, perhaps instinctively searching for her. The expression on his face as his eyes passed unknowingly over her chilled her to the bone. But it also gave her confidence.

  He was going to be able to pull this off.

  Caleb’s pace didn’t falter when he passed through the first Vigil security checkpoint. His gait didn’t hitch when he strode beyond a Praesidis Watchman—identifiable as such by the attire Eren had described, but also by the increased hum of the diati beneath his skin—nor when multiple drones scanning everyone in the area circled him twice.

  Inquisitors did not wait for approval. They were their own approval.

  Those he encountered seemed to agree, for to a one they behaved respectfully toward him, often retreating as he passed. One young man even bowed to him.

  For the briefest moment he was back in his old life, before the Metigens, before Alex, before the Humans Against Artificials operation went south, laughing with Samuel over drinks about some goon bowing to him on a mission. It helped to imagine that; it helped to frame this as just another undercover mission, and not something far more unsettling, if also far more important.

  The mental distance allowed him to study the setting with a critical eye.

/>   Most of the staff and nearly all the visitors were Machim. The Dynasty was identifiable on sight by their stocky, muscular build, tawny complexions and always trimmed hair, which ranged from dirty blond to a dull chestnut brown.

  According to Eren, Vigil was a multi-Dynasty security organization staffed by local officers, a horde of drones and a small number of supervisors, typically Machim or Praesidis. This explained the Watchman’s presence amid the overwhelmingly Machim security officers.

  He’d yet to see a single alien—non-Anaden alien, he hurriedly corrected himself. The Anadens looked disturbingly familiar, but they were not human. They hadn’t been so for hundreds of thousands of years.

  This included his mission partner, aligned interests and tentatively burgeoning friendship notwithstanding. They may genuinely be on the same side, but Eren’s moral paradigm, social references and historical memory—not to mention his actual genetics—made him more alien than Pinchu or Iona-Cead Jaisc. Admittedly, not more alien than Akeso.

  Eren: Take a left here. Okay, this guy you’re going to have to answer to. By his uniform and accoutrements, he’s a mid-level officer, probably a ploiarch rank, and on-duty head of dock security.

  Caleb didn’t respond but came to a curt halt at the checkpoint.

  The officer frowned at him. “Inquisitor. Your entry filing states you’re here to investigate a possible data breach? I’m not aware of any breach, and I would expect such an incident to have prompted heightened security measures.”

  “Primor Machim is keeping the breach quiet due to the sensitive nature of the data which has been compromised. The investigation was instituted at the highest level, and at present no more than five individuals are aware of it. You are not one of those five.”

  The man bristled. “The fact remains I can’t allow visitors into the Data Control Department without prior—”

  Caleb flicked his wrist in a small, controlled motion, and the man blinked in surprise. He’d be feeling an unusual tightness in his chest about now.

  “Ploiarch, I do not require your blessing to pursue my investigation. The only blessing I require is that of my Primor and yours, which I carry in full or I would not be here. I indulged your inquiry for politeness’ sake, but I will be proceeding to the Data Control Department now.”