by L B Garrison
The doors flowed open to the silence of a vast room, like a hollow skyscraper. Multi-tiered terraces with empty shops, gardens and restaurants made up one side, while glass panels and silver metal beams composed the opposite wall. Tapestries hung from the vaulted glass ceiling. The space elevator ran through the center of it all.
Lieutenant Liu trekked onto the navy carpet and motioned for them to follow. “The remaining evacuation ships are space liners too large to land. We’re packing civilians into the hallways and cargo bays. Cramped luxury, but better than staying here.”
Alex followed Liu and the crowd of machines through the doorway. Bailey headed straight for a juice cart.
Various shades of gray painted the sky. The fat golden handrail chilled Mandy’s fingers as she stared into the vast room. The bottom of the space elevator lay about two hundred feet below in the open area of the main room. Its glass and black framework reached up to pierce the ceiling, soaring toward Asgard station somewhere beyond the sky.
Cisco touched Mandy’s shoulder, interrupting her musing.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
Mandy nodded. “I’m sorry about before. It was just such a shock—”
A wall of sadness slammed into her. She gasped and clutched at the fabric covering her stomach. Emotion pulled at her insides, yanking her around.
Rin stared into the empty room, her skin pale as porcelain and her hands clasped over her mouth.
Mandy gently touched her shoulders. “God, Rin, what happened?”
Rin grabbed Mandy’s arm, leaning against her.
Memories swept reality away. A snowflake melting on her nose in a forest lined room so big it made its own weather. Skipping along a brick path beside Jazz-mir as a jealous Atropos lagged behind. Rin crying alone, while the other machine children played.
A vast wheel of indigo metal spun majestically in the blackness of space. Thousands of tiny specks, each a large ship, streamed about the wheel like dust motes. Rin was nearby, though her presence was little more than a feeling.
“I know this place,” Mandy whispered.
“The Einstein-Rosen complex. It’s home,” came Rin’s strained voice.
“This is where you were born.”
“Where I was built. Where Jazz-mir taught me to feel and I learned that feelings were liabilities. A ship weaver captured this image, twenty minutes ago.”
The null shield around the complex sputtered to life, but too late. Empty space blistered and Kinderen ships swarmed through the lesions. A barrage of miniature black hole pairs sent gravity waves tearing through the complex. The wheel hemorrhaged fire and water from internal oceans, shrouding the destruction from the unblinking stars.
More memories rushed over Mandy, names, faces, walks through 3D videos and thousands of conversations with avatars in fantasy worlds. The avalanche of loss threatened to bury them both.
Mandy faltered as the memories faded and she stood on the terrace again. “Some kind of high-tech social media. You pretended to be human?”
Rin released her hold. “I began doubting my orders and my purpose. I sought to redefine myself and came to know these people. What they were and hoped to be.”
The Lieutenant and the bronze machines stared at Mandy, like she had just declared gravity was for losers.
“Eccentric performance,” the Lieutenant said. “Are you conversing with Rin?”
“Yes,” Mandy said. “Something’s happened. But, I’m not sure—”
Alex turned and pushed through the group of G-mechs, casually shoving aside the heavy machines and causing them to stumble. Cisco hadn’t mentioned Alex having strength enhancements and she hadn’t seemed especially strong at the Biblioteca when it would have come in handy. Her aggression was uncalled for and uncharacteristic. A little tingle wormed its way down Mandy’s spine.
“Alex,” Mandy said. “When did you get so strong?”
“I had to have the weapon, you see,” Alex said. “The Jinx engine. That is why I raided Einstein-Rosen.”
“What’s going on?” Liu asked.
“Collywobbles,” Bailey murmured as Alex strolled passed.
Mandy grabbed Cisco’s arm. “In the wreck, how long were you separated?”
He watched Alex walk to the edge of the terrace.
“I don’t know,” he said. “A few minutes.”
“Stay here. All of you,” Mandy said to the others and followed Alex.
The Lieutenant opened her mouth, probably to object.
Mandy gave her the most intimidating look she could muster. “Stay. Here.”
Liu nodded.
Alex pressed her belly against the guardrail and extended her hand towards the space elevator. Black lightning played between her fingers. “Modifying this body required base material. I had to swallow small instruments and many unpleasant things. An interesting experience.”
Mandy slowed to a stop. Her skin prickled. This was a stranger’s soul in a familiar body. “Alex, I know you’re in there somewhere. You have to fight this. Please.”
A swarm of brilliant orbs erupted from the empty air around Alex. They flashed across the room to punch through the central elevator, shearing cables. Free of its moorings, the taut negative-matter cables unwound and fell upwards, slicing through the elevator casing and striking the glass walls. The floor shuddered.
Alex turned and leaned against the rail. “Alex doesn’t live here anymore.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
T
he bronze-colored G-mechs spread out in a semi-circle facing the Kinderen, their arms with large caliber railguns aimed and ready to fire.
Rin dodged between them. The Orions lacked the power to deal with this situation and Mandy lacked the will. Only Rin might be effective, but that depended on Mandy’s cooperation.
Local reality bubble below the surface. Alex’s power was orders of magnitude greater than Razors. It had assimilated Mark II Jinx technology. A flurry of messages passed between the minds of the machines and Lieutenant Liu. Idiot. The Lieutenant had only considered Mandy’s warning a moment before calling for backup and directing her G-mechs to contain the threat. The standard urban war machines would be useless. At lease Cisco had enough sense to pull Bailey behind a marble counter in the food court.
“Mandy, for your safety, move aside,” Liu ordered. “We will manage this.”
Mandy gave Liu a fleeting glance over her shoulder. “We all just need to calm down.”
Alex looked unconcerned.
Trillions of quantum threads linked Alex to the other Kinderen. She had become a control center and had revealed herself, knowing that Rin would consider her a prime target. A trap, obviously, but Rin would be a formidable opponent—at least she should be. Unfortunately, she still depended on Mandy for permission to use her own body.
Rin condensed an image beside Mandy. “It’s improved on Razor’s technology and it won’t underestimate you again. I have to be the one to stop it.”
Mandy’s eyes shifted to Rin. “You’re angry. I don’t trust you to show restraint.”
“Restraint? It has the power to shear the top off Midgard. If it isn’t stopped, you’ll lose Cisco and Bailey too. Thousands might die. Or do you think you can fight it?”
Mandy sighed and opened herself to Rin’s influence. “I’m not stupid. I just want you to remember, it’s still Alex. Talk to her first.”
The air around Alex hissed. Hundreds of burning spheres burst into existence.
“It isn’t Alex.” Rin pushed Mandy out and took control.
Alex laughed. “I recognize that swagger.”
The spheres scattered.
Rin shaped empty space into wisps of darkness to protect herself and the humans. Mini-stars splashed against murky shields. Rin should have easily stopped them all. She missed several.
Two of the G-mechs vanished in a purple flash. More orbs struck the space elevator.
The Orions fired. Flechettes splintered against the invisible bar
riers around Alex. Fire roared and spread from the graphene superstructure of the ruined elevators, igniting the hanging tapestries. Burning cinders whirled through the air.
A brittle crackling echoed through the room. Fractures ran across the transparent ceiling high above. Air whistled into the relative vacuum of Demeter’s upper atmosphere. Thick chunks of green glass tumbled down, smashing tables and sending the machines scattering like roaches.
Rin knotted broken physical laws into a blazing plasma orb and hurled it at the Kinderen.
Alex vanished in a puff of darkness.
A quantum skip?
The bolt shattered the terrace wall, sending fragments of white stucco ricocheting across the balcony.
Rin spread her awareness to search for Alex. Nothing moved through the swirls of bitter smoke. It should be impossible to house a Jinx engine in something as small as a human, but the Kinderen had done it.
A form flickered to the right.
Rin managed a partial shield before Alex popped back into reality with a smile and a plasma bolt. Even for Rin, the flash was blinding. The concussion tossed her over the terrace wall. Smoke, cloudy sky and garden vistas flashed by. She fell two hundred feet to the space elevator staging area below. This could be problematic.
Tile shattered against her shoulder. Rin used the momentum to roll to her feet. She slid to a stop. Blisters sizzled across her hands where the blast had leaked through the imperfect shield.
It shouldn’t have happened. Rin’s thoughts were instantaneous and her actions nearly so. But now a deadly gap of milliseconds existed between the two. She controlled the body via Mandy, rather than directly. Without the latency, Rin would easily outclass her foe.
Mandy stood beside the burning space elevators, her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”
Rin slowed local time, but it didn’t make any difference.
Alex surged through the boiling smoke, crushing Rin against the wall. Rin calculated. Shadows whirled. When they cleared, she stood in the heat of the raging fires by the elevator. Alex shouldn’t be able to move so fast.
Liu had begun herding Cisco and Bailey back to the elevator on the terrace above. They would never make it. While the others ran, a lone figure walked among the broken walls and burning tapestries.
Heat rippled the air. A broad probability wave had the best chance of destroying Alex, thus damaging the enemy control network and crippling the Kinderen. It would also obliterate much of Midgard and kill everyone Mandy cared about. The choice was a simple one.
Rin leaped. This was Mandy’s fault. Even a few days ago, Rin would not consider risking a future victory for the sake of a few humans. But, she hadn’t known them then. Killing strangers was much easier.
Columns blurred as she traveled in a high arc and plunged through billows of smoke, driving the full inertia of her 30,000 metric ton mass into the blow.
Shadows flickered and Alex vanished as Rin came down on her from above.
The deck gave way like paper. The tower rumbled and glasses shattered against the floor by the bar.
Alex reappeared from a clot of shadows a hundred feet away. “Too slow. You should look into that.”
Anger warmed Rin’s skin. “What is the point of this game?”
“If I told you, I wouldn’t be inscrutable, would I? That’s no fun.”
A black flash of dark energy shattered the world. Rin had no sensation from anywhere, even within her body. All was calm and nothingness.
The room exploded into focus. The concussion hurled Rin through smoke and roaring fire. She bounced and struck the thick glass wall. It reverberated from the impact. A lacework of fractures raced across the surface. The pulse had driven the local dark energy from the area. The Kinderen had devised a new tactic. Rin’s Jinx engine had no fuel, but neither did the Kinderen’s.
Alex seized Rin by the shoulders and slammed her back against the wall.
Alex pressed close to Rin. “No shields. No teleporting away. Let’s see if you can fly without fuel.”
The Kinderen pushed against Rin. Glass crackled. Air whistled through the fissures.
Rainbow arcs popped into existence behind Alex. On the other side, gray clouds rolled and weavers rustled. Kinderen reinforcements would flood the tower.
Rin shifted and Alex’s grip gave, just a bit. Enhanced with alien tech or not, Rin was still stronger. “You miscalculated.”
“Are you sure?”
Rin pivoted to the left and swung her arms down, breaking Alex’s grip. Rin grabbed Alex by the throat, spun and slammed her against the glass. Killing the Kinderen as a whole was impossible, but she could give it a memory of suffering. Rin shivered. She was losing her humanity, like Atropos.
Alex’s knees buckled. They slid down the window and dropped to the floor with Rin on top. Alex squirmed, but couldn’t get away. It took more pressure than it should have. The Kinderen had built in considerable structural reinforcing, but not enough. The rainbow portals around them sputtered and faded.
Alex pushed weakly against Rin’s chest and bucked, but Rin would not be moved.
Emotions and half-formed words surged through Rin’s mind. Anger. Sadness. Mandy’s emotions.
Mandy’s image knelt by the broken wall. She didn’t scream or cry, but she took a shaky breath. “You’re going to stop when she’s unconscious. Right?”
“This isn’t Alex anymore,” Rin said. “War is unpredictable. I have to deny it any advantage to improve our odds. Unconsciousness won’t prevent Alex from acting as a router. For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
Mandy attacked. Memories of broken worlds and chocolate pudding smeared together in a twisted mix of thought and sensations as Mandy’s hot emotion pushed against Rin’s cold determination. A second became an eternity as they struggled and their shared body convulsed. But Rin was ready. Complex ciphers entangled Mandy’s personality, pulling her down into darkness. It wouldn’t last, but murdering one human wouldn’t take long.
Alex’s struggles snapped Rin back into the present moment.
The Kinderen had abandoned her to die in her own body. Staring into those green eyes made Rin’s stomach squirm. Tension stung the corners of her eyes. Her heart thumped in her chest. But, it was all a lie. Machines didn’t breathe, didn’t have hearts that beat and monsters never cry.
Alex’s pulse thrummed beneath Rin’s fingers as her heart searched desperately for oxygen. A human life slipped away beneath Rin’s grip. In moments it would be finished. One more murder.
Alex convulsed.
Images of a dead world flooded Rin’s mind.
No.
One more was too much.
Rin let go. She climbed off Alex to ease her breathing. She faced the rainy sky and released Mandy too.
Mandy’s image formed by Alex. Hesitantly, she reached out, but her hand only passed through Alex’s shoulder. “I know you didn’t spare her for me, but thank you.”
Alex rolled over and sat up, staring into the gray sky. Her movements were very precise. The Kinderen was back in control. “In Orion’s Nebula you were glorious, like an avenging angel. I knew then that I had to possess you.”
“I was fighting for the survival of the fleet,” Rin said. “For my family.”
Alex’s eyes shifted to Rin. “You are no rider of the apocalypse.”
Thunder rumbled the fractured walls and rain thumped against the glass. Rin touched the cold window. Clouds swirled beyond her fingertips. “I never wanted to be.”
All the people the Kinderen had killed at Einstein-Rosen, all those Rin had slain at Ange Noir had wanted to live. There was no difference between the killers. Mandy was right. People aren’t interchangeable commodities. They were irreplaceable individuals.
Rin couldn’t ever save enough to make up for what she had done, and killing an innocent would certainly not help her atone. She had fooled herself these long years. There could be no forgiveness for the horrors. No salvation.
“The
Orions can remove you from Alex’s body,” Rin said. “It should be possible to do this before your forces can attack. It is the riskier path, but I believe the right one. If you resist, I will make you regret it.”
Alex stood. “Once, you took millions of human lives. Now you can’t take one when strategic need demands it. Disappointing, but expected. You’ve lost your edge and I’ve no use for a dull sword. Like Razor, there is too much of Mandy in you. Another warrior must be found to wield the Jinx engine. What happens next is on your head.”
A crackling black outline formed between Alex and the background as she sundered reality. Dark energy was still too thin. She shouldn’t be able to quantum skip. Rin struck at Alex’s throat. Alex stepped back into the fracture and vanished. The space-time fissure closed with a pop.
In the city far below, gateways opened. The Kinderen offensive had started. It had only feigned weakness to gage Rin’s willingness to take the life of someone she knew. The decision to spare Alex had been foolish after all.
Mandy stood on the ruined carpet, her fingers knitted together as if in prayer. “You struggled to fight her because of me, didn’t you? They’re coming. Lots of them. What’ll we do?”
Rin opened her hand. Smoldering cloth turned to ash, leaving behind a broken chain and Alex’s Tamashii. “We’re going to try something different. Working together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
R
in measured fifteen feet from the glass wall and turned. This would be far enough.
The humans gathered behind her. Bailey connected to the tower’s security systems and continued to scan Rin with every resource available. This wasn’t general curiosity. Her scans were specific, as if she sought to fill in missing information. Lieutenant Liu argued to convince Colonel Fischer that Midgard tower had to be evacuated. Cisco just stared.
Beyond the cracked window, wind drove heavy rain. Rin stretched and rotated the ship portion of her body out of the elsewhere. Globs of black quantum armor gushed and spread in the tempest, flowing to form her manta-ray-shaped hull. The dark energy density was still low. Rin struggled to hold her three hundred foot wide body steady against gravity and the unruly air.