Pitch Dark

by Courtney Alameda

  USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

  CONTROL ROOM

  LAURA

  Faye scrambles away, almost tripping over me. Her eyes widen as she gazes at something outside the room’s windows.

  I turn my head. An enormous tentacle presses itself against the control room window-glass—only about a meter away from me—each one of its suckers larger than my head. They squeal as they scrape past, scratching the glass.

  I recoil from the window. For the space of a whole second, all I can think is, Oh god, those suckers have teeth.

  But they are also the perfect distraction.

  Pushing to my feet, I charge at Faye and tackle her to the ground. We both grunt as we hit the floor, the breath going out of her. Faye drops her gun. It skitters under a desk and out of sight. Pulling an arrow from my quiver, I clutch it in my fist and jam its tip into her EVA’s external speaker, right under her chin. Sparks erupt into her helmet. As they cascade over her cheeks, her mouth opens in a soundless scream.

  The speaker is an exploit, the loophole Faye failed to secure. Without her external speaker, she has no voice; without her voice, she can’t command my subjugator. And Faye must have forgotten to extend the Smithsons’ self-protections to herself, since I can attack her verbally and physically. It’s not much, but it’s something.

  Shoving off Faye, I vault over a desk. Brittle old papers spill off the surface in my wake. I sprint for the server room. I can see the control room windows on the periphery of my sight—they’re full of twisting, writhing shadows. I don’t give them even a second thought. The EDDA’s nanites have already shifted along my fingertips, mimicking Dr. Morgan’s own.

  And we don’t have much time left.

  I slap my hand against the server room’s touchpad. The door opens again, its panels sliding back into the wall. I scramble inside as Faye gets to her feet, pulling my arrow out of her EVA suit.

  If Faye wants to command my subjugator now, she’ll need to remove her EVA helmet, which, of course, will make her more vulnerable to attack. In retrospect, I suppose I could have jammed the arrow into her throat—but I’m not certain I could hurt Faye. Not like that, no matter what she’s tried to do to me. Even as we stand upon vastly different sides of a polarizing gulf, Faye could never be my enemy. She’s my sister, my pachanguera; the artist who taught me about color, and brushstrokes, and beauty; the one who filled my childhood with laughter.

  She isn’t my enemy … but I also cannot let her win.

  As the door slides closed, our gazes meet for a moment. Faye’s eyes narrow, lips turning up in a twisted sort of snarl. I’ve bought myself minutes, but no more.

  Turning to face the servers, I find myself in a labyrinth of towering computers. Their humming fills my head, and the tang of electricity dances across my tongue. Shadows fill the room like smoke. The temperature’s warm here, almost balmy on my bare face. The servers’ dark facades twinkle with lights. Every few seconds, the floor shakes and great, thundering booms roll through the ship.

  Hands trembling, I locate Dr. Morgan’s map in my bioware. As I pull it up, a ping from Faye resounds through my arm bones: Don’t think you can win this, Laura, she says. I can turn your bioware against you, as easy as you turned mine against me.…

  Ignoring her message, I hurry into the labyrinth, my heart pounding on my eardrums. My footsteps ring off the dusty linoleum floors. The farther I move into the server maze, the higher my shoulders hitch, inching toward my ears, as if I’m retracting into myself.

  In so many stories, the heroine strides toward certain death without fear. But in reality, I am very much afraid to lose this battle of wits. I’m terrified I’ll botch this chance to save my world; or that I’ll never get to make tamales with my mother and tías again; or to tease Dad about his calligraphy projects. What if I never witness Alex fly his first starship, or watch one of those old movies with Tuck?

  I don’t find courage in the act of sacrificing myself on behalf of the people I love; rather, I find my strength in hoping I’ll still have a life to share with them.

  How are you feeling, cari? Faye writes, her ping glowing over my wrist.

  The world reels a little.

  She continues: Remember how the ship’s doctors uploaded antidepressant codes into your bioware after Launch Day? Apparently they don’t mix well with the post-op painkillers you’re currently on. The cocktail is actually quite toxic.

  Tremors roll through my body.

  Game on, Lalita. Faye ends the message with a smiley face. In no scenario can we both win—she wants to destroy the John Muir, and I want to save it. We cannot compromise. Either I install Dr. Morgan’s consciousness into the ship’s systems, or Faye gets what she wants, and we all die.

  I follow Dr. Morgan’s map through every twist and turn, stepping over piles of exposed wires that spill from one of the servers like entrails. I pass under a cooling duct, which pushes wisps of hair into my face. I wipe them back, leaving trails of grit on my skin. My forehead burns.

  As the EDDA’s powerpac burns down to 2 percent, I round a corner and find myself on the server room’s far edge. A long line of massive supercomputers marches along the wall. I press my palm into their facades as I pass. These machines are more than just the brains of the John Muir, they are the guardians of her secrets, too.

  And there, some ten meters away, lies my final destination: an unmarked, unassuming machine, one among thousands. Were it not for Dr. Morgan’s map, the system might have been nigh unto impossible to locate.

  I stumble forward, bracing myself against the servers. My muscles ache as Faye’s cocktail poisons me slowly, and my stomach feels like someone’s drawing a rusty saw in and out of my gut. My breathing labors.

  Just a few more meters. A few more steps. No pasa nada, I tell myself. I can do this.

  When I reach the map’s destination, I sink to my knees in front of the machine, so relieved I could cry. Colored lights wink across its surface. The EDDA shifts on my right forearm, opening up to reveal a midmodern computer chip, one plugged straight into the suit. It pulses with blue light, a tiny container for a whole human consciousness. My fingers quiver as I pluck at it, my movements unsteady.

  In the distance, a door depressurizes.

  Pausing, I listen for the sound of footsteps. My head feels like my brain’s gray matter has been pumped full of air, all its substance evacuated.

  The EDDA suit drops to 1 percent power. I’m running out of time.

  “Laura, cari,” Faye calls out, her voice difficult to hear over the roar of the HVAC systems. She must’ve removed her helmet. “Let’s play one last game of escondidas, ay? I won’t even use your subjugator to track you, to make the game more … authentic.”

  I swear in my head, picking at the chip. On my fifth attempt, it pops free in my hand. The chip looks like it needs to be installed directly onto the computer’s motherboard—at least I think that’s what the devices were called. I run one palm along the server’s outer casing, searching for a latch. The system’s facade, however, appears smooth. I rifle through my memories, trying to find something about opening cases like these. I need to access the server’s hardware without damaging the computer itself—

  “Oh, and I hope you don’t mind that I brought a few new friends,” Faye adds. “And let me tell you, they’re really gunning to meet you.”

  This is a game to you, Faye, I think, but only because you believe you’ve won.

  My hand brushes across a slight rise on the server’s case. Something clicks under my shaking fingertips. The machine whirs, a cross of blue light pulsing over its face. The server’s facade cracks into four quadrants, which retract to reveal its motherboards.

  Plural.

  There are twenty motherboards, neatly stacked in roll-out trays. Some bear labels, others stand unmarked. Without the EDDA’s helmet display to guide me, I slide the trays open, comparing Dr. Morgan’s chip to various others installed inside. Mierda.

  The echoes of someone’s foo
tsteps crawl up behind me. I freeze. A drop of sweat rolls off the tip of my nose and splashes on the server, which steams. I glance over my shoulder, but there’s nobody behind me.

  I don’t move until the footsteps fade away.

  Finally, on the eighth drawer down, I find a chip sized like Dr. Morgan’s. The drawer is labeled Dejah, and while the name sounds familiar, I’m not certain that was the name of the John Muir’s former AI. Here’s hoping.

  I remove the old chip, and then install the new. Gently, I slide the tray back into the case, and then tap one of the facade’s quadrants. The server closes back up, whisper-quiet.

  Inside the maze, men call out to one another:

  “Any sign of her?”

  “Not here.”

  “Little bitch.”

  “Now, now,” Faye says. “Where’s your sense of sportsmanship, boys?”

  When I get to my feet, my world tilts sideways. I lean on one of the servers, pressing my forearm against my stomach to keep it from wrestling with my other organs. The EDDA shuts off, some of the nanites cascading off my forearms like sand. Reaching down, I peel the EDDA’s thick boots off my feet, leaving my soles bare. The lights on my shoulders flicker off, leaving me hidden in the shadows.

  A new ping message pops up via my bioware: Good work, kiddo. I need five minutes to take control of the ship’s main systems. Stay alive.–KM

  A clock appears over my left bioware node: 5:00. And counting.

  I need to keep Faye distracted and draw her away from Dr. Morgan’s server location. But I’m outnumbered. With the EDDA deteriorating, I can’t even flee into the deepdowns, hoping they give chase. I’m limited to the pressurized control and server rooms, unless I want to die swiftly, painfully, in a frigid, low-pressure environment. All I have left to me are three arrows, my wits, and the things Tuck taught me in the deepdowns.

  Hurry, Dr. Morgan. Though, to be fair, I’m not certain how she plans to save me, either. She’s a ghost in the machine, not one of Tuck’s midmodern superheroes.

  Taking my last few arrows, I enter the labyrinth. I walk like one of the John Muir’s curators, placing the outer edge of my foot down before the heel. Quietly. My heart throbs, and my breath comes in great, dizzy gasps. Every other step, the world rolls a little underfoot. I keep one hand on the servers, which feels more like an anchor than a brace.

  My countdown clock now reads 4:13.

  Ten meters ahead, a man in an EVA suit passes between two stacks of servers, pale as a demon.

  I backpedal before he can turn his flashlight on me, slipping behind the end of a row of servers. Even at this distance, I strain to hear his footsteps—the servers’ humming and the HVAC’s dull roar coat everything in sound. The men’s flashlights, however, leave smudges of light on the ceilings over their heads. From where I stand, I count lights from five searchers, though there might be more.

  Where are you, Laurita? Faye says in a ping. Come out, come out.

  Someone moves close, stalking me on the other side of the server wall. Taking an arrow in hand, I toss it over the servers like a dart, as far as I can. It clatters against a procrete pillar several meters away, the sound ringing through the server room.

  Several lights change direction, converging on my arrow.

  3:27.

  Despite the worsening anguish in my body—a pounding heart, dizzy vision, and convulsing lungs—I head left through the maze, pausing when I hear someone’s shuffling footsteps. The longer I dodge Faye’s men, drawing them farther and farther away from Dr. Morgan, the more my condition deteriorates. My body quivers and twitches. I trip over my own feet, ankles wobbling.

  I won’t be able to play this game much longer—I need to find a place to hide, just until Dr. Morgan manages to install herself in the ship’s systems.

  Just until we win.

  2:45.

  “Laura,” Faye calls out, her voice far away. “Stop.”

  No.

  My muscles lock up. I count backward from ten, my head swimming. My legs tremble, calves and knees ready to collapse. So much for playing fair.

  Before I have the chance to break free of my subjugator, someone grabs me by my ponytail, and then shoves me into a set of servers. With a cry, I drop to the floor, scrambling backward on my hands and feet.

  A man in a moth-eaten EVA stands over me, an ouroboros symbol on his shoulder and a gun in his hands. Fear turns my throat into a vise, making it difficult to breathe.

  With my failing strength, I jam my last arrow into his leg, right under his kneecap, which dislocates under pressure. Hot blood spatters over my hand. The man screams, stumbling into the servers. His helmet strikes the metal cases like a gong, gun clattering to the floor. I snatch it up. It’s heavier than I expected and clumsy to wield. My fingers barely know how to wrap themselves around the stock and trigger, and they still tremor with sickness.

  Keeping the weapon aimed at the man in the EVA suit writhing on the floor, I back away until Faye says, “Stop, Laura,” from behind me.

  My body obeys, muscles turning still as stone. Faye’s footsteps pound closer.

  1:58.

  Then, “Drop the gun, Laura.”

  My fingers relax, letting the weapon fall to the floor. Something cold and hard presses against my spine—the circular curve of its lip matches the barrel of the gun on the ground.

  1:45.

  “On your knees, Laura,” Faye says.

  I obey the order, exhausted. My personal history doesn’t flash before my eyes, like the clichés promised; instead, through the haze of pain, I’m trying to figure out how to give Dr. Morgan the last minute and a half she needs, and to distract Faye long enough to keep her from pulling the trigger.

  People in EVA suits surround me. Four, no, five. From my place on the floor, I’m only able to see their boots—some Conquistador issue, some John Muir. Traitors, all.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t kill her?” Faye asks one man in an EVA suit, her voice lilting, teasing. “After all, she has skills we can use and a trusted family name. She would make an excellent operative.”

  I laugh, but the sound crackles with pain. “I would never betray my family.”

  “I know you wouldn’t, Lalita,” Faye says airily. “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t make you. After all, you’re still one of my favorite people, and I don’t want to have to shoot you. So you can come with us by choice, or by force. Either way, welcome to the resistance.”

  1:08.

  Somewhere in the multiverse, there may be a Laura Cruz who embraces this offer; one who treasures her own existence more than the lives of her family and friends. Whether she does it to infiltrate Pitch Dark to destroy the organization, or simply to save herself from a gruesome fate doesn’t matter.

  And I admit, it’s a relief to think about the salvation Faye’s offering. Or requiring, really. A numbness spreads through my fingers and toes. The edges of my sight darken. Death lurks nearby, wearing an ally’s colors and a friend’s face. But not all deaths are physical ones, and if I’m going to die here and now, I’ll die on my own terms.

  “No,” I say, half gasping the word.

  “What?” Faye says with a laugh. “You can’t say no, loca, not when you’re wearing a subjugator. I own you.”

  “I told you … back in the medbay,” I say, breathing through a spike of pain. “You can’t own a person, Faye.”

  Pushing my palms into the ground, I rise despite the agony echoing through every extremity. My right elbow gives out, spilling me back to the floor. I try again, then again, feeling like I might shake apart before I can stand again.

  0:26.

  “Laura,” Faye says as I turn. The spark burns left red welts on the bottom half of her face. “Kneel.”

  “No,” I say, louder this time, my voice rasping. I hunch over, bracing myself with my hands on my knees. The subjugator wants me to kneel, the nanobots digging into my calves and thighs, but I fight to remain standing. The pain burns so bright through my veins, i
t blinds.

  I refuse to let the last choice I make in this life be dictated by someone else.

  “No,” I repeat, shaking my head.

  Ten …

  Nine …

  Eight …

  Dr. Morgan’s countdown clock ticks in tandem with my subjugator’s release.

  “Don’t do this, Laura,” Faye says. “Don’t make me kill you, I don’t want to kill you.”

  “Mentirosa … mentirosa,” I say, still counting down in my head.

  “You’d rather die, here and now?”

  “I don’t want to die today,” I say, gasping through the pain. “But I would rather be dead than live someone else’s lie.”

  0:00.

  A ping appears on my screen: Done. Hold on, Laura, just stay still no matter how crazy things get. I’m not used to driving this old girl.–KM

  She’s in. I sink to the ground, relief spreading through my body. It does nothing to assuage the pain. Faye calls my name, my subjugator twitching in response, but my exhaustion’s so heavy, it smothers all instructions.

  The server room door opens with a hiss. Air roars out. Several of the people in EVA suits turn, cocking their heads and looking at one another. I can’t see their faces due to their helmets, but their body language speaks to their surprise.

  Faye glances at the woman beside her. “Did Samuels send an additional team? And why does it sound as though the control room has been depressurized?”

  The other woman shakes her head, motioning for two men to go check it out. They slip away from the group, disappearing back into the black maze of servers surrounding us.

  Seconds later, gunshots ring through the room. Something flings a man, bodily, over the tops of the servers. He crashes into one of the machines and tumbles from sight. Huge white tentacles crest over the tops of the server towers, moving toward us, their festering skins leaving grimy trails on everything they touch. Their suckers rasp against the metal.

  “How did that … that thing get in here?” Faye half shrieks, firing her rifle at the beast. The shots pound against my eardrums. One tentacle rears up overhead, so pale it almost glows in the darkness, and slams down into the floor, knocking everyone off balance. Another tentacle bashes one man into the servers with such force his helmet cracks like an egg. A third wraps someone up and squeezes till gore spills on the floor. A fourth takes a woman by the ankle and swings her around, breaking her body against a procrete pillar.