by Chris Reher
“I asked if you were able.”
“Answer her, Jex,” Ryle said.
“I am.”
Laryn held Ryle’s gaze for a long moment. The conflict she saw there was probably written on her face as well. He risked everything by revealing the scope of the Nefer’s sentience but, if her suspicions about Jex were confirmed, where would that leave her? Was her commitment not to the laws that governed not just this station but Earth’s most urgent directive for any artificial neural network? She pushed the thought aside. “Trust me,” she said finally.
He nodded after a few more seconds of internal deliberation. “Jex, recognize my interface.”
“Captain Ryle Tanner, interlink JX.9 3922-2 confirmed.”
“Add command control to Agent Laryn Ash’s current profile.”
“Access level confirmed.”
Ryle exhaled sharply. “Lovely, now I’ve given my ship to a damn Pendra agent.”
“I’ll try not to break it. Give me your jacket.”
“Huh?”
“I need an antenna for Jex. I’m guessing you’ve got a receiver built into it, since your skin job’s covered by the graphene lining.”
He removed his jacket with obvious reluctance. “First my ship, now my favorite coat. You’ll have to buy me dinner before you get anything else from me.”
“Can we use sound waves, Jex?” she said, rolling her eyes at Ryle’s joke as she turned back to the waiting guard. The jacket was too large and too heavy but putting it on, still warm from Ryle’s body, felt wonderfully reassuring.
“Yes, I can modulate a frequency to engage your implant.”
Ryle turned his head to focus on the guard, showing Jex that they were no longer alone. “Discuss that later. Let’s do this before we run into another Kalon. I’m returning to the Nefer, Jex. Tell Nolan to get ready for launch.” He put his hand on Laryn’s shoulder. “Can you do this, Agent? I…” He seemed to look for words. “I mean, I worry about you heading down there on your own.”
“Thanks much, Captain,” the guard grumbled, hefting his gun as if to remind them of his presence here.
Laryn looked up into Ryle’s worried face. “We’ll be just fine,” she said, her smile only for him. “I know the way.”
Chapter Fifteen
Of course, the moment Ryle disappeared around the bend leading toward the docks, Laryn lost confidence in being just fine. Knowing the way to the access port she needed to then find the guidance system was the easy part. Getting there was quite another.
She followed Jagger down the ramp that ultimately led to the plaza. “There should be a door to the delivery corridor over there,” she said, keeping her voice low and her gun high. “It’ll bring us around to the observation concourse.”
“I thought we’d be heading up to the research sector,” he said.
“The main gate will be locked down. I won’t be able to override that. But I think we can use the rail conduit used by the staff.”
He nodded. “There’ll be Kalons hanging around the gate, I’d bet.”
“Likely.” Laryn didn’t bother to mention that there was little in that sector that would interest the Kalons today. But in a crisis Pendra’s research module, also containing the Ministry offices, received priority service and more guards would attend to it than the civilian areas. And removing the station’s armed guards would be a priority for the invaders. “There’s the door.”
She felt a little less exposed once they had left the ramp and made their way down some steps into the dimly-lit service corridor. They hurried past the back entrances of Rose’s Pretty Things, Toko’s Diner, a sweets shop, the small stall selling fresh fruit from Terrica, the agent arranging passage aboard the outbounder vessels, and dodged around carts of refuse waiting for pickup. Jagger halted near the Pendra Spa to peer around a sharp bend in the passage.
“Shouldn’t be too much farther,” Laryn said, like him listening for footsteps in the inadequate light. The silence back here was absolute. She frowned. What happened to the people who, as fortune would have it, were sitting out the lockdown in the tavern? They had heard their voices on the way through here earlier, along with laughter and music. There was only silence now. Had the Kalons found them?
“Quiet back here,” Jagger said as if reading her mind.
“Too quiet.” She looked up. It wasn’t the lack of footsteps or voices that seemed so unnerving now. It was the absence of the sound that permeated the entire station so continuously that no one heard it any more.
“The ventilation,” she said. “There’s no ventilation! I can’t hear the air moving.”
He walked a few steps to look up at a grate in the ceiling and raised his hand toward it. “You’re right. Damn!”
She perched on some stools stacked here and tapped her com. “Jex, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“The damn Kalons shut down the life support system. At least the ventilation. Or it failed. Whatever. We’re going to run out of breathable air.”
A moment passed. Then: “Ryle has responded with words that may not be appropriate.”
“Never mind that. How much time do we have?”
“Each isolated module will have varying amounts of air, depending on its size and the number of people locked within. It’s impossible to say. Some units will have emergency backups or portable air, but not enough to support the current population for long.”
She closed her eyes.
“Laryn,” she heard Ryle’s voice cut through her com.
“Don’t shout,” she said dully. “I can hear you.”
“Keep moving.”
“Your concern is touching, Captain. I’m just a little overwhelmed right about now, if you don’t mind.”
“I thought they might try this,” he said in a gentler voice. “The Kalons don’t need oxygen in the mix. And certainly not the Br’ll.”
“Well, we do. By the time the rest of the Kalons get here all that’ll be left to do is to space the dead bodies.”
“Yes. Please keep moving, Laryn. You can do this. Life support and the transporter guidance system should be part of ANN-E. The com system can wait.”
She pushed away from the wall, feeling like it took all the effort she was able to muster. “Right. Keep moving. This way.” She waved to Jagger, who had been following their conversation with an expression that grew more alarmed by the moment. “You heard him,” she said. “We’re moving, Ryle,” she added. “I’ll contact you when I get there.”
“Are we going to suffocate?” Jagger asked when she had closed her com link to the Nefer.
“Not if we—”
A door slammed, far too close to this spot, and the jittery squeal-whistle of Kalons filled the air loud enough to hurt her ears.
“Kalons!” she cried. “Run!”
They raced onward and Laryn envisioned the rubbery threads flung by their weapons descending upon her. Irrationally, she wondered how Ryle would feel about another hole in his jacket.
Jagger flung out his arm to stop her when they saw the door at the other end of the corridor open to admit two more of the aliens. Laryn looked back but the other Kalons had not yet rounded the corner, surely just moments away from doing so. She turned to fire her gun at the rear door of the spa. Jagger kicked it when a blast from a laser weapon scorched the wall beside them. He kicked the door again and this time it sprang open.
“Go!” he yelled and turned back to the Kalons, firing back into the corridor.
“Come on!” she urged just as a glistening rope lashed across his shoulder and arm and he froze, wide-eyed as the effect of the Kalon weapon worked on his system. He convulsed briefly and Laryn did not wait to watch him fall. She slammed the door shut and then looked around the untidy storage room. A rack of crates, probably towels, stood here, awaiting the arrival of the wealthier migrants who augmented their mandatory decons with a hot bath before moving on. She tipped the rack until it crashed down to brace the door to the hall. Almos
t at once, she heard someone pounding on it, along with more Kalon screeches.
She ran into the spa’s public area, as clean and calm and elegant as it always looked. The pampering she had received here seemed a lifetime ago. Without hesitation, she went to the brightly outlined cabinet near the reception and retrieved a portable air tank. With luck, she thought, it would have been maintained over the years where nothing ever happened here to require the use of it.
The glass front overlooked the plaza and, seeing no one outside, she tore through the entrance and raced along the artificial cobbles that lined the shop fronts until she reached the path leading across the green. She dove into a rumpled stand of fronds and shrubbery and lay still, gasping into the elbow of Ryle’s jacket to mask the harsh sound of her breathing.
A door slammed. High-pitched vocals hissed all around her. Someone ran past her at an odd pace that didn’t sound Human. She waited for those steps to return, waited for the Kalon weapon to find her lying here in the damp mulch covering the hydroponics grid. She wanted to cry.
The sounds faded. She raised her head to squint through the rough foliage of her hiding place. The plaza lay before her in a pleasant twilight that announced the end of more ordinary days before the street lanterns took over. No one seemed about and she heard nothing from the shuttered shops and gathering places that made the place seem like a little town had somehow landed up here.
She rose up onto her hands and knees and to creep forward, staying within the shelter of the greenery along the path. She passed the still-open door of the deserted spa and then a tavern, likely the one that had annoyed her earlier. Finally, the plaza’s row of shops gave way to the promenade along the magnificent window overlooking the Hub where she had stood not so long ago with Ryle. To her left would be the entrance to the conduit connecting the main station with the research center.
The plate-size leaves of some tropical growth hid her when she peered out from it to measure the distance to the tunnel. Someone had left a service tram parked near the airlock door. A few more quick dashes from one shrub to the next would let her cross the cobbled path to shelter there.
She ducked when a shout rose in the distance. It was not a hail or greeting, or even some demand to know what the hell was going on. This shout was one of terror.
A man slammed through a double-door at the far end of the observation window. A moment later she saw his silhouette outlined against it and then one of a woman following. She was crying for him to wait but he seemed deaf to her plea. Laryn’s hand covered her mouth when two Kalons burst through the doors, stalking with long legs after the fleeing couple. She watched as first one, then the other, swung their horn-shaped weapon to fling its deadly substance. Long threads shot out to capture the woman who tumbled to the ground, instantly motionless. The strands barely grazed the man ahead of her but he spun, slapping at his clothes as if on fire. One of the Kalons caught up to him and fisted him aside with a casual sweep of his long arm. The man slammed into the observation window and then fell, motionless.
Laryn squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, motionless, holding her breath for fear of discovery. She recalled the auditory pads on Toji’s forehead, able to hear things the Humans did not.
When nothing happened she opened her eyes to see the Kalons stride across the green toward the gate to the residential levels of the station. She hefted the gun in her hand. Perhaps she could take one of them out from here, and perhaps that would only betray her presence. Did she dare take that chance?
Someone emerged from the ramp to a lower level. A civilian who, maybe caught outside a locked area, had come up here for information. He hailed the Kalons and she heard him speak, his words audible in the domed, utterly silent plaza but too indistinct to make out. Neither Kalon stopped. One of them grasped the man in passing and, with his other hand, snapped his neck.
Laryn balled her fist until her nails dug into her skin to keep herself from succumbing to panic. Or from firing in rage at the aliens. That man’s fate awaited them all and hunting a single Kalon or two was not her mission.
She waited until the aliens were out of sight and then, after scanning the open space around her, dashed to the tunnel entrance. She scrambled behind the tram and drew up her knees as she sat on the ground, hugging the bottle of air she might need to use all too soon. Her eyes shifted to the conduit door and a silent curse formed on her lips. The doors had sealed in response to the lockdown, and the travel pods themselves would be inoperable. Why had she not thought of this?
But Ryle had. Or maybe it was just his habit to walk about with lockpicking equipment on hand. She patted the pockets of his jacket to find the spool of metallic tape he had used earlier. It seemed that the Nefer’s crew, perhaps the rest of the outbounder companies as well, had some interesting stories to tell.
She rubbed the grime from her hands and unspooled some of the tape, recalling how Ryle had used it. After another quick look around the front of the cart, she scrambled to the door and reached up to slap the sticky side onto the access panel. She completed the circuit and then flung herself through the door as it opened. As Ryle had done, she stripped the tape from the panel before it closed again.
She sat with her back to the waiting and inoperable travel pod, catching her breath and feeling almost safe in here. A weak emergency strip illuminated the tiny platform and starlight seeped into the space from the conduit. Her first thought was to tap her com tab to contact Ryle if for no other reason than to hear a friendly voice. Instead, she dropped the frequency to alert Jex.
“I’m in the conduit to the research sector,” she said. “I’ll show up like a beacon in here.”
“Do not use your open com link to the Nefer,” Jex advised. “The modulation I am using will be harder to detect. Ryle and Nolan worry about you.”
“So do I. Had to cross the plaza,” she said. “There are Kalons here, killing people.”
“We have reports from some of the guards. It appears that the Kalons are aware that we have overcome their scramblers. It has made them more aggressive.”
“How are things with the platform?”
“We are almost there. It has not drifted far but we will need the precise coordinates soon.”
“All right,” Laryn said, perhaps more to herself than to Jex. She came to her feet and tried the door panel on the pod anyway, knowing it was dead. Resigned, she walked a few steps to the conduit and then ducked into it, stooping a little beneath the curved ceiling. She stopped when she reached the first transparent segment and peered outside. “Are you sure this is safe?”
“Certainly. It is solidly built and frequently inspected.”
“Feels weird.” Who had decided to make this section of the conduit transparent, anyway? Sightseers weren’t allowed into this chute, so why even bother? She resolved to keep her eyes on the magnetic rail but couldn’t resist a peek outside. “Awesome,” she whispered when she saw infinity on both sides of the chute. Looking out of the travel pod’s windows had always thrilled her - standing here with a clear view from floor to ceiling took her breath away.
“Laryn?” Jex said.
“Yes, yes. Stargazing.”
“Ryle said—”
“Tell Ryle I’m moving,” she interrupted, and began to walk, using the rail supports on the floor like stepping stones. Not a long crawl through here, she told herself. The bend into the clinic segment lay just ahead. She shivered, reminded that, while the travel pod was heated, the conduit itself depended on air piped from the station to maintain its temperature. “Getting steep here. This gravity makes no sense at all.”
“Ryle said you’re aware of my design,” Jex said, startling her.
“Huh? Yeah, I figured it out. You know you’re not supposed to exist, right?”
“I do. Ryle’s father hid me aboard the Nefer when the edict was passed. Inactive inside a JX.9 shell. I suppose that’s a lot like Humans hiding inside the crawlers on Torren. Ryle found me when the ship passed to him after Mark T
anner died.”
“And decided to keep you?” Laryn’s eyes shifted again to peer out into space, looking for the Well to orient herself, but it was hidden behind the bulk of the station. Light shone from windows above her and she wondered if someone might see her out here. She had reached the bend and, a little braver now, increased her pace toward the platform waiting for her.
“Yes, I suppose he feels that I am part of the Nefer. That his father wanted me there. Or maybe he just finds me useful. He changed my interface parameters but left my programs as Mark Tanner designed them.”
“How do you get by the snoopers?” Laryn asked, referring to the mandatory scans performed on all AIs to ensure compliance. Is this what her Pendra supervisor had suspected of the Nefer’s crew? Ryle was correct – what Jex revealed would end his ownership of the Nefer along with his relative freedom here. It would probably get Shelody himself thrown off the station. A feeling of guilt nagged her for taking advantage of her command access to squeeze Jex for information. Then again, it was Jex who had started this conversation.
“Mark built the program,” Jex said. “It presents a JX.9 image to the detectors. I think he had a better understanding of the JX.6 than most. I admit that I helped him code it correctly.”
“That doesn’t sound legal, either,” she said, finally stepping off the rail and onto a platform. “You’re not supposed to write your own code.”
“I know.”
An uneasy thought came to her and she dropped the hand she was about to place on the door’s sensor panel. “Are you alone, Jex? Or are there other JX.6s out there? Did Ryle share you with the other outbounders, maybe?”
“No.”
“You’d be worth a fortune to the wrong sort of people.”
“I know. Mark Tanner ensured that my program is tied to the Nefer’s firmware. It will not function in another environment. I rely on the ship’s welfare as much as Ryle and Azah’s. I frequently remind him of the Nefer’s maintenance schedules.”