Point of Origin (War Eternal Book 4)

by M. R. Forbes

  What was he talking about?

  "So stupid of me to have waited this long. Well you know, I've been preoccupied with the data upload and the search." Was he talking to himself or his secondary? "Yes, yes, we'll break the Knife's encryption soon. I need the neural chip. No, not for that. I don't need that anymore. Something the parent left me. Something we have been working on for a long time." A twisted smile cracked his face. "Something fun."

  Watson removed his hand. He looked down at Tio one more time before a tendril dropped from above, wrapping around the ankle of the corpse and lifting it out of sight. It would be broken down, the raw materials processed for reuse.

  Kathy didn't see it happening. She had already slipped away from the core.

  She had to get to Mitchell's locker before Watson did.

  5

  Steven caught up to Mitchell as he left the meeting room, breaking off a side conversation he was having with Calvin Hohn to catch up to his brother.

  "Mitchell," Steven said, coming up beside him.

  Mitchell kept walking without looking at him. "How did you know I wanted you to follow me?"

  "Lucky guess. So where are we going?"

  "Tio's home. Thomas told me Tio has some equipment there that will help us search the data for Kathleen Amway. The whole thing is supposed to be secured, but apparently Tio never had a chance to lock it down. He and Millie were in the middle of using it when Watson went rogue."

  "I barely had a chance to tell you how sorry I am about Millie," Steven said. "How are you feeling?"

  Mitchell bit his lip and shrugged. "I appreciate that you care, Steve. I'm okay. This isn't the first time I've lost someone I've cared about to conflict. It sucks, but I know how to deal with it."

  "Do you?"

  Mitchell stopped walking. "What do you mean by that?"

  "I can see how pissed you are. I know it's eating at you."

  "Yeah. So? What am I supposed to do about it? I talked her out of killing Watson months ago. This is my fault."

  "Come on, Mitch. You have to know how stupid that sounds. Like you could have known he was a Tetron?"

  "It wouldn't have mattered. He was a frigging pedophile, and I didn't let her airlock him."

  Steven didn't say anything.

  "Keep trying to defend me," Mitchell said.

  "You were on a ship of criminals. What else were you supposed to do? Kill all of them? You did what you thought was right."

  "The road to Hell," Mitchell said.

  "Fine. If you want to glower and beat yourself up for not knowing the future or being able to sniff out a bad guy, keep hitting the buffet at the pity party. I'm sorry she's gone, Mitch."

  Mitchell sighed. "Me, too."

  They passed a few techs in the corridor leading out to the large, open chamber that served as a false outside area, where most of Asimov's inhabitants lived. It had done poorly in the attack, over seventy percent of the buildings destroyed by the mech Watson had taken control over, and a few more damaged in the fighting that followed. Tio's large home near the center had remained relatively unscathed, as Watson had wanted to take him unharmed.

  Steven let a few silent moments pass before bringing up the next topic.

  "So, Mitch, we just had this whole meeting, and we talked about a lot of stuff. You mentioned Katherine and the Construct. Why didn't you say anything about the information you were given there?"

  "What's the point of adding yet another variable?" Mitchell said. "Right now we need to find Tio's brother before Watson does, or whatever Origin left might not help. Besides, even though I'm not in favor of trying to out Tetron, it isn't because I don't think there may be more of them hiding among us. Can we be sure everyone in the meeting room was human?"

  "You're saying you don't want it to be common knowledge?"

  "Not at the moment. We have a mission already. Without Goliath, we have almost no chance of taking out the Tetron. Not unless the Knife's brother did create them, and unless he can do something to shut them down. Talking about it is only going to open us up to getting screwed by it."

  "How do you know I'm not a Tetron?"

  Mitchell glanced over at him. "How the frig would a Tetron know about Dawn Cabriella?"

  Steven laughed at that. "Good point. I can see where you're coming from."

  "But?"

  "But I don't think we're going about this the right way. There may be something out there that will help us get Goliath back, or at the very least help us fight the Tetron without it."

  "You think we should send a team to check it out?"

  "Yes."

  "And you're volunteering because you know I trust you."

  "Or you could go yourself while I take care of things here."

  "I can't leave," Mitchell said. "Tio's people trust me because Tio supported me. They don't know you and they might not follow you. You saw what happened during the fight against the Tetron."

  "So I'll go. I can take a jumpship and see what's out there."

  Mitchell thought about it for a minute. The idea had an appeal to it. At the same time, he didn't want to break up his forces again.

  "We can't stay on Asimov. As soon as we get a lead on Pulin we're going to evacuate and be on our way. What happens when you come back, and we're gone? How are you going to share whatever it is you find when you won't know where we are?"

  Steven rubbed at his beard, thinking. "How about this? Give me the coordinates and I'll find out how far it is to make the jump. If it's close and I can be there and back before you might leave, we're good. If it's further out, we can see if we can work out something that sits well with both of us."

  "You've always been a good negotiator," Mitchell said.

  "And you haven't," Steven replied. "You can't stop me anyway, you know. I'm the Admiral here."

  "I know. I appreciate that you're following me on this."

  "It doesn't help anybody for me to be shaking the starship over rank. Tio's men follow you, and they outnumber Alliance ten to one. Besides, you made sure to brag about your scores to me. I know you've always been capable. The only question was whether or not you would rise to the occasion."

  "You were always happy enough that I didn't."

  "I've always been jealous. You're better looking, too."

  "I won't argue with that. I love the beard by the way. It suits you, especially when you wear your Admiral's hat."

  "You've never seen me wearing the hat."

  "I can picture it in my mind."

  Mitchell and Steven shared a laugh. Mitchell was grateful to have Steven with him. It didn't matter that they had drifted apart over the years. When the shit hit the repulser, he knew where Steven's loyalty was.

  "In all seriousness," Mitchell said a moment later. "Do you think I've risen to the occasion?"

  Steven stopped walking, turning to face Mitchell. "You shouldn't need me to tell you that you have. The last time I saw you, I saw an arrogant, cocky, immature Marine jock who would rather get laid than visit his family. Now, I see a leader. A man that soldiers look up to and respect. A man that they're willing to follow to their deaths."

  Mitchell froze, unsure how to respond. He hadn't given much thought to his actions while he was taking them. He was doing as he had seen the people he respected do; that was all. To hear that Steven had noticed it, to have his brother praise him for it was enough to leave him speechless.

  "Don't worry," Steven said, saving him. "I'm sure you're still an asshole when the uniform comes off."

  6

  They reached Tio's home a few minutes later. The door had been shredded by gunfire, hanging from its hinges as a mess of punctured metal and slag. Just inside the entrance rested two of the machines Watson had built to attack Asimov - simple four-legged things with an assault rifle mounted on top and a mechanism to carry and change the magazines. These two were in pieces, torn to junk by rifle fire, though there was enough battery power and functional parts that they twitched and skittered in place on the floo
r.

  "Freaky," Steven said, watching them move in a repetitive motion. "I think I saw a horror stream once that was kind of like this."

  "I think I saw that one, too. Who ever thought it would turn out to be a documentary?"

  Mitchell felt his stomach clench when he saw the drips of blood on the floor beyond the machines. Thomas had told him how Millie had fought her way out of the house, losing enough blood that he was sure she was going to drop any second. That she survived for days after only proved how tough she had been.

  "The study is this way," he said, leading Steven through the home.

  Watson's machines hadn't gotten the chance to destroy the equipment Tio used to query the data he had collected over the years, which was good for them. It was a second bit of luck that the system hadn't locked when Tio never returned to it. He could only imagine Tio didn't bother with anything like that because he never forgot to lock it.

  Except when he was under attack and his daughter's life was at risk.

  Of course, the system would detect them as unauthorized users. The good news was that Digger knew the key code to get them through that bit of security.

  They entered the room in silence. The whole house was still dark, with only emergency lighting active anywhere on the base. Watson's efforts had burned the reactor down to dangerous levels, and without supply lines running to refuel them they had to conserve until they could get off the site.

  "How does this thing work?" Steven asked, looking down at the ring on the floor.

  "From what Digger told me, it's like a p-rat, but everything is external. The projectors give a full view of the interface, and it responds to voice commands and motion to control it."

  "Didn't dad have something like that in the basement?"

  Mitchell laughed. Their father had been into classic VR gaming, and he had owned an ancient machine he'd salvaged from a recycling yard somewhere and managed to repair. The system originally had over a thousand games published for it, but he had only been able to find one that still functioned properly.

  A war game.

  Fighting aliens.

  Truth really was stranger, and often shittier, than fiction.

  "I don't think we need to worry about any giant eyeballs or tentacle monsters," Mitchell said, entering the circle.

  "Not inside the circle, anyway," Steven said.

  "Unauthorized users detected," the computer said. "Please authorize."

  Mitchell approached the touchscreen and typed in the code Digger had given him.

  "Users authorized."

  "It sounds like that gaming rig, too," Steven said. He mimicked the stilted, synthesized voice. "Ready, Player One?"

  "Look at this," Mitchell said. The folders Tio and Millie had created were floating in front of them. Mitchell navigated to the "Yes" folder and played the videos he found in there.

  "That's Katherine?" Steven asked.

  "Yes," Mitchell said, feeling a chill at the sight of her and Christine together. "And Christine. Origin."

  "She's very pretty. Not as pretty as Laura, but I can see why you're attracted to her."

  "It's not that kind of attraction," Mitchell said. "I mean, it is in part, but there's more to it than that. A lot more. Ever since M shot me, I've felt this connection to her, as though I know her intimately even though we've never met. It's like there's this thread that binds us across eternity."

  "I'm not used to you sounding so poetic," Steven said.

  "I'm still not used to feeling like this. When I met her representation in the Construct, I could barely think straight. I was so filled with excitement and joy and passion at the sight of her, even though I knew she wasn't real. All I wanted to do was put my arms around her, kiss her-"

  "I get it," Steven said. "You've always wanted to sleep with women you thought were attractive."

  Mitchell shook his head. "Stop being shallow, Steve. I told you this was different. A feeling I've never had before. I cared about Ella. I cared about Millie. I told them both I loved them. This was something else."

  "And all you wanted to do was have sex with her?"

  Mitchell clenched his fists in frustration. "I wanted to be close to her, to be near her, to just have her be right here." He held his arms tight across his chest. "It wasn't about sex; it was about that connection. As if I could make sense of it if we were together."

  Steven shrugged. "Okay, Super-casanova. The video shows the two of them together, buying a corporate access badge."

  "I assume the badge says Kathleen Amway on it," Mitchell said. "That's why Millie told me to remember the name."

  "So how do we search the system for the name?"

  "Tell the computer, I guess. Computer, search for Kathleen Amway."

  "Querying Kathleen Amway," the computer said.

  "This may take a while," Mitchell said. "I would guess this thing can multitask?"

  "It doesn't hurt to try."

  "Computer, plot the coordinates 16-28-47, 18-52-9," Mitchell said, the position a memory forever burned into his mind. "Estimate distance from Asimov."

  "Plotting coordinates," the system said. "Action complete."

  The star map appeared in front of them, showing Asimov on the left and the point in space on the right.

  "Ouch," Steven said. "Three weeks."

  "It's past the Rim, well into unexplored space," Mitchell said. "If it takes us that long to get something on Pulin, we've already lost. It's also going to put you almost three months behind the Tetron. What do you think Earth will look like by then?"

  Steven shook his head. He had been hopeful the location wouldn't be so far out. "We can't beat the Tetron as we are now. Does it matter what home will look like in that case?"

  "It's too far, Steven, and you know it. We should try to get a jump on Pulin and see if there's anything he can do. If we're still shit out of luck and totally out of options we can head out there."

  "You don't know how far getting to Pulin will carry you. We could end up doubling the travel time or more."

  "I know. I appreciate that you want to go there, but no. If you head that way, for that long, you'll never catch up. If you never catch up, it doesn't matter what you find because we won't be able to use it."

  Steven and Mitchell stared at one another. Steven knew he was right. There was no way they could stay in communication at that distance. Whatever was out there, it would have to wait.

  "Yeah, okay," Steven said. "Damn it."

  "Agreed." Mitchell squeezed Steven's shoulder. "Don't get down on me."

  "I'm okay."

  "Query complete," the computer said. "No results found."

  Mitchell felt his heart fall. That couldn't be right. Tio had one of the most complete data archives in the universe, and it didn't contain a single reference to Kathleen Amway? Had Digger been wrong about Watson's inability to remove data? Or had the information been removed from existence by someone else? Origin, maybe? If so, why?

  "Well, shit," Steven said. "I wasn't expecting that."

  7

  They spent the rest of the afternoon in Tio's study, trying every query they could think of to connect to Kathleen Amway. While they failed to find mention of her anywhere in Tio's archives, they did learn that the company, Nova Taurus, had been a pharmaceutical corporation based out of New York. They traced the name forward through mergers and acquisitions, covering the centuries until they eventually came to a head with the name of a mega-conglomerate: Newterra Bionetics, more commonly known as the company that had sponsored the colonists who had founded New Terra.

  Was it a coincidence? Mitchell didn't think so, considering that Watson was a New Terran. Somehow, Origin, or Kathleen Amway, had discovered a connection there. Did that mean the Tetron had embedded themselves into that nation all of those centuries ago? Did it mean that the New Terrans on Asimov were the ones they needed to be concerned about?

  Did they even have any New Terrans on Asimov?

  In any case, the best they could do was spe
culate. There was no other information to go on, and nothing else to suggest or strengthen the Tetron's tie to New Terra beyond that single instance. There was also no obvious reason to believe that Nova Taurus' absorption by that specific mega-corp was anything more than coincidental. They could have been bought out by any of the founding companies of the Frontier Federation just as easily.

  "So where does this leave us?" Steven asked as they stepped out of the ring.

  Mitchell was tired, and his head hurt from the hours spent sifting through the data. "The same place we already were. I was hoping to find some answers about what happened all of those years ago, but they seem to be answers that don't want to be found."

  "If you had, do you think it would have helped us with the war?"

  "I'm not about to rule it out. Kathleen Amway vanished, though. The only explanations are that Origin wanted that name to disappear, or that name was only used the one time to get into Nova Taurus."

  "Should we keep looking? Maybe search on other variables? I noticed that the initials they use are almost always K.A. Do you think there's a reason for that? Maybe we can query for names beginning with those letters plus the right age and appearance?"

  Mitchell nodded. "It isn't a bad thought. Let's pick it up in a couple of hours. I'm spent, and I need to check in with Aiko and Digger."

  "I can keep going," Steven said. "I'll run the queries for you and let you know what I find."

  "You aren't tired?"

  "I'm a dead man walking. I'm also not about to quit on you. If you think this information might help, I'm all in."

  Mitchell considered it for a moment. If Steven wanted to keep going, there was no good reason to stop him. "Okay. Just make sure you take a breather to piss."

  "Roger."

  Mitchell put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Thank you, Steven."

  "You're welcome."

  Mitchell retreated from the room, and the home, heading back towards Operations. His entire body felt numb, and he hated himself for being tired. Not that he had any time or intention to sleep. He had to get his eyes off the projections of images and videos and old databases. He had to think about something other than the past.