Dealbreaker

by L. X. Beckett

  “This is orders of terrible bigger than feeding an organ pig to comms plants.”

  “Yes,” Frankie agreed. “I’m disgusting and antisocial.”

  “If we were home, I think I’d have to strike you!”

  “You won’t be alone. You can watch my social cap nosedive when we get back to Sensorium.”

  “If we get home.”

  “Strike me, throw a funeral, do what you have to do.” It’s a weird taboo, Frankie rationalized. A new posthuman hang-up. Champ would have flushed Teagan9’s Mayfly™ body eventually.

  It wasn’t really desecrating a body to seed it with creepy alien comms plants.

  Anyway, for all she knew, the HawkBOT’s arrival had blown the station to pieces and the point was entirely moot.

  “Scrap,” she sent again. “Scrap, are you there?”

  “Who’s to keep Champ from frying the quantum comms as it sprouts?” Babs2 demanded.

  “Jermaine?”

  “Jerm might already be dead,” Babs2 said.

  “Babs1 might make it.”

  “Don’t pretend you’re an optimist.”

  A leaden feel in Frankie’s gut confirmed this. There wasn’t much chance their packmates would hold out. She vaulted back into Iktomi’s cargo holds, inventorying the compartments on each side of the pilot’s axis.

  Her butt buzzed. “Them-Frankie, Them-Frankie, are you there?”

  “Scrap! You’re alive!”

  “What has occurred?”

  “You tell us,” she said. Iktomi’s starboard hold had been all but emptied: the hydrogel and tish starter she had packed herself had been taken by the Yump. A single crate in the rear was—she unlocked it—nanosilk.

  “Station life support remains offline,” Scrap reported. “Infirmary reports a state of quarantine.”

  “The infirmary’s locked down?”

  “Yes,” Scrap said.

  “Is Jermaine okay?”

  “I attempted—” A pause. “Jermaine-Them may be alive.”

  Frankie felt tears spilling down her cheeks. She forced herself to keep texting. “Is Champ inside with him or outside?”

  “He has retreated. There was an event. Frankie-Them, what has occurred?” Scrap said.

  “I sent … contaminants…” Frankie said.

  “Ha!” Babs2 barked.

  “We ported contaminants there.”

  “Frankie-You opened an anyspace portal in the station?” The offworlder sent a horrified string of characters.

  “The look on your face,” Babs2 said.

  She pointed at the mojis. “Scrap just blitzed us. I guess … words failed him.”

  “Well, if he decides to defect to the Solakinder, he’s acculturating nicely.” Babs2’s voice was sharp. “He doesn’t know if Jerm’s alive?”

  “You heard him,” Frankie said.

  “This is by far your best clusterfuck ever.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Frankie sent, “Scrap, what is Champ doing now?”

  “Uncertain. Shall I ask?”

  “You can talk to Champ?”

  “Ha!” Babs2 said. “Bet you wish you’d known that five minutes ago.”

  “Scrap, do you know if Babs1’s holding out?”

  “Babs1-Them is not responding to comms.”

  “Okay. Give me a second. I’ll think of something.”

  Dragging the crate of nanosilk, she flopped back out to the fishbowl, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and gazed upward into the gelatinous walls. Nothing happened.

  She laid a hand against the surface of the enclosure. It was warm to the touch and a little tacky; she felt as though she was pressing on the surface of an enormous eye.

  “Three hours until the seeds aboard Sneezy mature enough for full comms,” she said. “Is that right? That’s if Champ doesn’t kill them off first.”

  “If the mother is purged, we will be strung on a temporal tripwire and die,” the Yump said.

  “Once it’s grown, then what? You call for help?”

  “Help is required.”

  “Can’t fight off the hordes alone,” she muttered.

  “Copy that.” Under her hand, the gel warmed. A few of the glowworms munched their way toward her fingers, bonking against her skin through the membrane of … whatever it was. She wondered if she was meant to find that meaningful. Or cute.

  Maths scrolled over her interface.

  “None of this is something I can translate without Ember,” she said. “Champ has Ember. Babs1’s under attack. Jermaine’s hurt. All Champ has to do is flush the infirmary and your seedlings are toast.”

  “Chances of success seem low,” it agreed.

  “What can we change?”

  “Copper reserves would assist in repairs to Yump ship.”

  “We brought all the copper we had,” she said.

  “You just sent a HawkBOT back to Sneezy,” Babs2 said. “Can you send one to Earth? It’s maybe three times the distance.”

  “We can position using the quantum comms there. But not until our mother has grown.”

  “Quantum comms,” Frankie said. “On Earth? You said that before, but—”

  “Confirm. When the comms here and on Sneezy build more biomass, we can send a HawkBOT to Solakinder homespace.”

  “In three hours?”

  “Affirmative.”

  It would feel good to tell on Champ, even if it didn’t change the situation there. Frankie took a deep breath. “Scrap, are you safe?”

  “Hidden in the infirmary. Lights, heat, and air remain offline elsewhere in station.”

  Frankie wasn’t sure which mattered to Scrap most, but it still didn’t sound good. No life support. And by now, Babs1 and whoever …

  This would-be killer sapp …

  Should have had a conclusive fight. AI interactions generally ended in seconds.

  “Any idea where Champ is now?”

  “Decontamination.”

  “Prep Iktomi for flight,” she said.

  “You can’t go back,” Babs2 said. “You’ll be helpless when you arrive.”

  “We’re helpless now.”

  “You won’t be able to save anything if you do go there.”

  “I can’t waste three hours if I don’t,” she said. “As long as Champ’s trying to pry me out of Iktomi, he’s not in the infirmary, setting fire to the Yump comms.”

  “That sounds like an extremely one-way mission.”

  “Find me another option, Babs.”

  “Talk to the big lummox. Pretend to negotiate before going back. Waste his time from afar.”

  “Yes. Good, I’ll do that,” Frankie said. “Meanwhile, load up all the tales of our exciting voyage so far and get it into a HawkBOT datachip. Ask Yump to send one to Mars Control and another to Centauri as soon as they can lock on to … whatever. The Earth-based quantum comms we’re not supposed to have. Tell the Bootstrap Project that if I establish control of the station, I’ll power up the portal membrane. If we can just open up a portal home, this all ends.”

  “Copy that.”

  “I’ll get ready to fly. And as soon as Champ starts looking even faintly interested in what’s happening in Medical, we’ll get Scrap to goose him, see if we can bluff. Waste time, like you said.”

  “What’s Scrap got to bluff with?”

  Frankie patted Iktomi’s hull. “I think we ask if he wants his saucer back.”

  CHAPTER 43

  NONINTERFERENCE ZONE, PROCYON SYSTEM

  EMERALD STATION (INFORMAL DESIGNATION: SNEEZY)

  Scrap wanted to live.

  The reappearance of Champ-Them had become everything Scrap feared: violent invasion, latest stage of …

  < … translation pending … >

  < … coverup … >

  … coverup, that was the term. The All would make a comprehensive sweep of it.

  Scrap had two choices now. He could merge assets with the Babs1-Them family cluster and hope their new allies, the Yump, were in fact fr
iendly. Or he could accept imminent termination.

  The humans had been active in the first skirmish on board the station, ingesting chemicals of varying descriptions to shift their capabilities, bypassing negotiation and swiftly resorting to brute force. Champ had won that battle conclusively. Teagan9 had been purged without backup. Ember was quiescent and tagged #readytoship. Jermaine was unconscious and losing fluids.

  As for Babs1, a new sapp was fighting to hash their code.

  Scrap had not been long freed when station systems went down.

  Instead of fleeing the infirmary into the ducts, where Teagan9 had caught him so easily, Scrap had doubled back, sabotaging the camera network and taking refuge under an infirmary treatment cabinet. Numerous tiny BeetleBOTs clustered with him; Babs1’s last act had been to license him as their operator.

  He considered his options. Frankie-Them had gone to the Dumpster on the off chance she could help the stranded Yump.

  The helper impulse was intrinsic to this cluster.

  If Scrap meant to ally with the Solakinder, a demonstration of fellow feeling would be …

  < … translation pending … >

  < … pending … >

  < … a sign of good faith … >

  Scrap sent a lone BeetleBOT up to the surface of the treatment table. Using infrared cameras, it tried to assess the state of Jermaine-Them.

  Scrap didn’t understand human biology, but Champ seemed to have broken him quite thoroughly.

  The infirmary medical bot had secured his hands and tethered Jermaine. His body floated on a short strap near/above Teagan9-Was. The terrain of his face was a mass of moist, red lumps. Nanosilk bandage enclosed him, preventing the various fluids he was expressing from randomly splashing the whole compartment. The beetle’s mics registered the sound of respiration. Adhesive …

  < … translation pending … >

  < … med patches … >

  … patches humans used to alter their chemical processes were stuck on its arms. More chemicals. Were they maintaining Jermaine in an unconscious state?

  As he watched through the BeetleBOT’s feeds, the nurse bot added another patch.

  Scrap scanned in all directions. The air was full of quantum-comms seeds, fluids, and pieces of the HawkBOT.

  Scrap pinged Frankie-Them’s augments. It was getting easier. Champ had shut the station’s dark matter wands off. The comms interference was clearing, and the Yump were boosting and blocking their channels selectively.

  “Hold the infirmary until the quantum-comms seeds can take root,” Frankie said. “If Champ tries to get back in, send him a message from me. Ask if he wants his spaceship back.”

  Scrap could see the shape of Them’s plan. If they could establish comms there, the Yump could get a positional fix on the station. But the seeds would need light, and the temperature was dropping …

  “We need life support,” Scrap said. “We need Babs1.”

  “The infirmary has backup systems,” Frankie said. “Batteries, six hours of atmosphere, same as the Booger. You said quarantine protocols were engaged; run the infirmary in intensive-care mode.”

  Scrap sent a couple more BeetleBOTs up to Teagan9-Was and Jermaine-Them. The free-floating seeds were expressing silk, tendrils that caught at the pair of human bodies.

  The seeds made no distinction between Teagan9’s state of Was and Jermaine’s state of Possibly Still Being. Thin, hairlike seedlings sprouted in a green line along the closed lid of Teagan9’s eye, and from the caverns of her …

  < … translation pending … >

  < … nose … >

  The join of her word-hole was bursting with growth as more and more seedlings took root on her cheeks and tongue. The ruined terrain of Jermaine-Them’s face was webbing up with root structures, and big clusters of quantum-comms seedlings were growing on the nanofilaments of Them’s …

  < … translation pending … >

  < … shroud … >

  Where the fluids had soaked into the fabric, a green patch was forming. Fragile sprouts lined the edges of a fissure that ran from the base of Jermaine-Them’s left ear into his scalp, and from there into his jaw. Leaves unfurled along the line of his lips.

  Jermaine-Them would be absorbed, just as Teagan9-Was would be. Either Jermaine-Them was too badly compromised to live, or this would accelerate his systems failure.

  Champ had shattered the last sarco pod. Was there any other way to load Jermaine’s consciousness before he died?

  Babs1 might know, if they had survived.

  Scrap-Me checked on Champ-Them. He had finished a wipe-down of all his limbs, cleaning off all the seeds and BeetleBOT fragments, throwing everything into the system recycler.

  Champ made his way to the hangar, glowering when he saw that bots had unloaded the escape pod, making a messy job of it.

  “Scrap, I need a sitrep,” Frankie sent.

  “Champ-Them is in the hangar, assembling weaponry.”

  “Bollocks. What weapon?”

  “Translation pending … it is a pegasus.”

  Long pause. “Babs1?”

  “Still offline.”

  “Jermaine?”

  Scrap-Me debated not telling them.

  “The best chance of survival will be to offer Jermaine-Them digital imMortality. His body is in a …

  < … translation pending … >

  “I am … Scrap regrets…”

  < … #deathspiral … >

  “It’s really bad. We get it.”

  “Can emergency systems within infirmary facilitate a digital upload? Without help from Babs1-Them?”

  “Jermaine’s probably the only one who can authorize a death certificate,” Frankie said.

  “We’ll need a direct link to Sensorium.”

  “That requires a portal.”

  “Don’t I bloody know it.”

  The heat had increased marginally. Scrap brightened the lights, to accelerate comms growth.

  In the hangar, Champ’s head came up.

  Had he seen?

  There were still two hours and fifteen minutes, according to the Yump projections for getting comms online. Champ would have the pegasus assembled well before that.

  “We shall have to try your stratagem. The delaying tactic.”

  Champ sped up, locking the pieces of his pegasus together with brisk snaps. He knew he was in a race.

  Frankie said, “I’ll get the Yump to set up a channel with Champ. It’ll take a few minutes. Use yours, will you, to let him know we’re watching?”

  Scrap ventured, “Champ-Them?”

  Champ didn’t stop work on his pegasus assembly. “You can’t stop me with a BeetleBOT, dust bunny. I’ll get you in the end.”

  “Champ-Them won’t survive long in a station without life support.”

  “You were supposed to salvage this shitheap. Claim it for glory and empire. Now the whole installation’s going right onto the garbage pile. Soon as I’ve got Ember shipped and figure out what the hell Barnes is doing…”

  Scrap undulated closer to Teagan9-Was. The seedlings were growing a bit slowly. Had the three-hour estimate been optimistic?

  Scrap powered the lights further. One of the surgical lamps was especially bright; he could feel the vibrations as tiny seeds germinated in the exposed soft tissues of both Teagan9-Was and Jermaine-Them.

  Scrap began to pick its way up out of its hiding place. “Champ, will you try to escape in Jalopy before implementing station destruction? Does it not require maintenance?”

  “Hedgehog really took you into her confidence, huh?” Champ’s mics transmitted a sound that Scrap recognized as amusement. “I’ll get Jalopy fixed; don’t you worry.”

  Frankie sent a dialog suggestion. Scrap continued to climb Teagan9-Them’s body. “Even so. Wouldn’t Champ-Them prefer Iktomi as an escape vessel?”

  “Barnes fled in Iktomi, right? Back to Earth? Not that I expect she’ll make it. Herringbo’s on intercept. He’s probably tossed one of his timey-wimey
doodads into her path.”

  Scrap felt a lukewarm sense of dread lowering his charge. “The All are mining the routes to Earth?”

  “Herringbo says it’s like a motorcyclist hitting a tripwire. Kabang! Everybody’s favorite little stuck-up nuisance is probably already scattered from her hop to her end point.”

  Frankie chose that moment to announce her presence: “If I was, don’t you think there’d be pieces of me bouncing off the station bulkheads?”

  Scrap accessed hangar cameras. Champ had frozen.

  “Barnes?”

  “Alive and well, wanker.”

  His lips worked soundlessly.

  This would be Champ’s moment of greatest distraction. Scrap undulated up the side of the treatment table, spinning connective tissue as fast as he could, madly threading neuroconnectors into a newly grown transmission booster while absorbing quantum-comms seeds into his own biomass. He drew the connection into his own body.

  The transmission booster shivered, like a newborn insectile antenna, and then began to share fluids with the meat of the seedling root system.

  The structure was definitely growing too slowly.

  “Barnes,” Champ said. “I dunno where you are, but—actually, let’s start with where the hell’d you go?”

  “Champ-Them has stopped assembly on the pegasus,” Scrap subbed to Frankie.

  “Every second counts, I hope.”

  “The seedlings are propagating more slowly than expected,” Scrap said.

  “Shit. Teagan9’s probably on metabolic suppressors.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Meds. To keep her stabilized. Any chance you can pull the tabs?”

  “Barnes?” Champ said. “I seem to be holding all the cards. I don’t need Iktomi, I got your husbands locked down, your kitten’s in the throes of technical difficulties—”

  “Fighting off another murder attempt, you mean.”

  Scrap crawled BeetleBOTs up to Teagan9-Was. Their cameras brought in views of fabric patches, marked with impossible-to-parse iconography. He got the beetles to pull all the tabs from her skin.

  “I’m gonna smash one of Ember’s toes right now if you don’t tell me where you and Iktomi got to.”

  “Okay,” Frankie texted. “Hold your horses—”

  “I said now.”

  “We’re at the wreckage of the Dumpster. I came out looking for evidence about Hung’s accident. Oh, did I say accident? Murder. I meant murder.”