by Bill Denise
An argument with her spiritual leader no less. What she would have given to be present for those fights.
In the end, Dr. Baksa relented and implemented the controls. What Renard Trueblood would never understand is that such systems degrade the performance of the individual. Through the very act of control, a portion of the instantaneous unconscious reaction is compromised and the mind loses some of its “edge.” It means giving up a part of what makes the human mind a better weapon than any computer. In all the thousands of years studying the human mind, no one has been able to isolate that “edge,” much less reproduce it. In modern Biolectronics it was treated as a given fact.
Nonetheless, the performance of the Augies was stunning. They were fast, so fast it was hard to comprehend. They were strong, although not as strong as the Demon. Their true advantage came in their redesigned joints and musculature. They were no longer confined by the limits of human joints, and they could rotate their arms, shoulders, hips, and legs in almost unlimited directions. The regular humans trying to train them to use their new bodies were quickly left behind as the Augies found their own methods to use their new flexibility. Humans simply could not relate to the freedom of motion. After only a few weeks, what seemed physically impossible became commonplace.
The Augies stopped using furniture altogether since they could bend their knees backwards and swivel their hips to the side to create a sitting position that they claimed was comfortable. It took the technicians a long time to get used to the sight, the position looked so unnatural it made some people nauseated.
Their powered weapons were adequate, but they did not have the excessive firepower of the Demon. In hand-to-hand combat they were absolutely phenomenal. Human trainers, again, could not teach them anything past the first couple of sessions, since their physiology changed everything.
Making an Augie lose his balance was practically impossible, so feints and misdirection tactics were nearly useless. Soon they had developed their own style of fighting that was often too quick for the observers to follow with the naked eye. The matches had to be replayed in slow motion to be evaluated, and still it was difficult for a normal human to think in the different degrees of freedom allowed by the modified joints. More than one of the trainers volunteered to be “next in the vat.”
Soon, they needed to get out of the Spire and begin training in the field. It couldn’t be done on Havyn, though, the risk of espionage was too great. Renard didn’t want the true capabilities of the Augies to be known by anyone other than his trusted inner circle.
Therefore, the entire lab, its staff, the scientists, and the Augies were packed up and sent to another unnamed planet to conduct further training and evaluation.
Joann could hardly contain her excitement once they arrived at the new training facility, such that it was. It didn’t bother her to live in tents and work from a semi-permanent building. She was enjoying the new-found freedom. Outside of the super-secure network surrounding the Spire, she felt safe enough to contact Ted. She desperately wanted to tell him about the danger and have him spread the word to her other friends. She was confident in his ability to hide them from Reave, should the need arise.
She waited until mid-morning a few days into the excursion to make the attempt. Unlike her previous skulking around the lab, she wanted to do this while communication traffic and general noise was at its height. Shaking, she punched up the private emergency codes given to her on the last night she saw Ted and the others.
“Kyndra’s cold clutches! Joann! I can’t believe it!” Ted came on the line almost immediately, picture and all.
“Hi Ted, I’ve got some amazing stories to tell you, but now is not the time.” Joann’s knees sagged and she had to sit down on a nearby chair. Relief suffused her boy, and she trembled uncontrollably.
She’d been so alone for so long.
“Are you OK?” Ted asked with heartfelt concern.
“Good enough. Now, all I can give you is that the group is in danger. Get them safe, as deep and quiet as you possibly can - yourself included.” Ted knew better than to interrupt, the safe time on this link was dwindling quickly.
“There’s a man you need to be afraid of,” Joann continued, “Reave Nachman—he’s a Trueblood agent. He’s the one who killed Kevin, Lauren, and the kids. There’s nobody out there more dangerous than this lunatic and he’s got it in for me and all of you. He’s threatened to use you and the others as leverage to get what he wants. Please, get everyone safe.”
“I’m on it. We’ve got to break here, but trust me, I’ll take care of it.”
Relieved, Joann went back to work.
The next few weeks went by quickly and the Augies continued to improve. Their abilities were uncanny and frightening, and there were many times Joann caught herself gripping the canisters of her virus in the pockets of her coat.
Reave had not spoken to her since the tank, and she began to wonder if the control system was actually working. She could not allow herself to believe it, but as time wore on she became less diligent in her denial.
Joann woke with a start and sat up quickly trying to get her bearings. A moment later she realized a priority message had awakened her, setting off an alarm on her screen, which now sat waiting and flashing on the desk at the foot of her bed. Not surprisingly, it was from Ted.
She sighed and she rubbed her eyes in an attempt to wake up and focus. “This had better be something important,” she said to the darkness.
She pulled up the message and was piqued to find it was text-only. Ted never used text only—he felt it was amateurish. He must have been in a real hurry, Joann thought, and a chill prickled along her neck. Her eyes scanned quickly, and grew wider as she read the short note.
“Sweet Savior’s Tears” was all she could say as the chill turned into a cold sweat over her whole body.
Dearest Joann, please forgive the mode of communication, but I have no other choice. The name you gave to me, Reave Nachman, turns out to be much more interesting than you may realize. Once I dug into the details on him, I found some anomalous data. Nothing terribly unusual about that in and of itself, but of course I couldn’t just let it lie. The deeper I went, the more confusing it became. Finally, I found the answer, even though it was extremely well hidden. Turns out that your friend Reave is not actually a Trueblood. In reality, he’s a very deep agent for the Pryke dynasty. Watch out, he’s probably got something very bad planned.
Fully awake now, Joann found her hands shaking as she soaked in the implications of what Ted found. I have to tell someone, her mind raced, thoughts spinning chaotically, but who?
She knew she couldn’t trust just anyone with this information, she needed to get it to the top, immediately. She also realized that her accusation would be met at best with skepticism and doubt. It would be especially suspicious since she had chosen Reave for the program in the first place.
Dr. Baksa. It has to be her. She can take it directly to Reverend Trueblood and he’ll listen to her. This plan raised another issue, since Dr. Baksa was back at the Spire. Joann doubted that Reverend Trueblood would ever let her leave the Spire again.
Joann spent the last week floating in a fog of anxiety. She continued to watch Reave, but he showed no alarming signs.
Finally, the day came that they were to pack up and head back to the Spire for deployment into “defense of the Consensus,” as Reverend Trueblood said in his remote address to the group.
The night before their departure, she was awakened by another priority message. This time Joann came awake immediately. She hadn’t been sleeping well since the prior message.
Joann, since our last revelation, I’ve had a tracker on the subject and I thought you should know that he sent out a heavily encrypted message this morning. I was able to break it, although I could not identify the target yet. It reads simply this: “We’re moving, four days.”
Apparently Reave was a good actor, and much smarter than she realized. She kicked herself for becomi
ng complacent, and for lacking the will to finish him off earlier.
She assumed Reave was going to kill Reverend Trueblood or something equally nasty, but again she felt outclassed and helpless. She had no idea what to do with her information.
Damon. The thought came suddenly into her mind. If he’s alive he may be the only one who can stop Reave one-on-one. She hesitated only a moment before risking a return message to Ted.
Ted, thanks for the intel, you’re a godsend as always. You absolutely must get this information to the Demon. I don’t know how you’ll find him, but you can start by tracking down Ken Westron, he should know something.
Joann got up and started packing, realizing she wouldn’t be able to sleep any more this morning.
**** ****
Damon and Leland McKrae had been spending a lot of time together over the past few weeks, finding more in common than Damon ever suspected. It was not unusual for them to linger on the mess deck well after the crew had cleaned up and moved on.
Most of their discussions focused on theology. Not the theology of Kydraism that Damon had been raised in, but in the theology of the ancient Christian religion that Leland espoused. Damon found it not much different overall, although Leland insisted that the apparent small differences were indeed quite significant.
They’d been discussing forgiveness, a subject Damon struggled with constantly. He liked the idea, since he felt the need for it so acutely, but he could not comprehend how Leland’s people could express it so freely. Damon was still afraid to go planetside with Leland to meet the others. He simply felt that he could not face them.
At least not yet.
Leland assured him that the time would come when he would be able to accept their forgiveness. In fact, Leland said many times, the acceptance of forgiveness is oftentimes more difficult than the offering.
Ken Westron walked into the mess, moving quickly and muttering to himself. “There you are,” he said to both of them.
Neither Damon nor Leland felt obligated to respond, especially since Ken continued talking without pause.
“I just received the most interesting communication. Damon, you’re friends with Joann Tashus, yes?”
The name made Damon flinch, and he sat up, suddenly attentive. “Yes I am. What have you heard?”
“Can you tell me,” Ken continued, ignoring his question, “how you came to know her?”
Damon cocked his head, “Is this a test?”
“Yes, it is,” Ken answered, “A test of a prospective informant. I need to know if his story is true, and therefore I need your clear and unsullied answers.”
Damon explained how Joann was the one who met him, convinced him, and took him to become the Demon. Ken asked a series of detailed questions, and Damon answered them as best he could remember.
Apparently Ken was satisfied with the story provided by his mystery contact, and Damon could see that he was calculating and plotting in his mind.
“Would you like to let us in on anything?” Damon asked sarcastically.
Ken’s eyes refocused on them and he smiled. “We’ve got work to do. We’re being drawn into a war.”
Ken laid out everything he’d learned from Ted Khasan and Joann. He explained what he learned about the Spire, the Trueblood military, and the infiltration by Pryke agents. He told them what he knew about the Augies, but it was very little information and of questionable value.
Finally, he described what they knew about the communication by the Pryke agent, and what they interpreted as an assassination attempt or similar attack planned by the Prykes.
“Four Kyndra-kissed days!” Ken exclaimed after finishing the story. “How are we supposed to get something put together in that amount of time?”
“Organizing a response to be in position in four days is going to be extremely difficult,” Leland said. “Not to mention that we really need to be there in three if we want to have any kind of advantage.”
“Wait a minute,” Damon waved his hands as if clearing the air. “Tell me why I would try to save Reverend Trueblood—who, by the way, tried to kill me? I say let him die!”
Ken said, “Honestly, I considered it. However, if the Prykes take over the Consensus it would be a true nightmare. Things aren’t that bad right now—of course I’d like to make some changes in policy and regulations, if only we could be given more freedom to pursue—”
Leland cleared his throat to interrupt the runaway train of thought.
“Yes, well,” Ken continued, “if the Prykes took over it would be full-on tyranny of the old-fashioned kind. Rule by terror, most likely—”
Leland spoke over the top of another growing rant, “We really do need to prevent the Pryke takeover. I know the Truebloods aren’t great, but they are far more reasonable than the Prykes.”
Ken added, “It’s true, we might be able to work with the Truebloods.”
Damon considered, glancing between his friends.
“Fine,” he sighed. “Taking orders again.”
“Now, about those Augies . . .” Ken said.
“Just get me there, I’ll take care of them,” Damon said brusquely.
“Weren’t you listening?” Ken said in exasperation, “You can’t take them on, they’re too tough, and there’s too many of them. Not to mention we have a very limited supply of your expensive missiles and weapons. We can barely fill your slugs!”
“But you’ve improved my controls, and reworked the operating system, and created the mobile power station to support my energy weapons. I’ve never been faster or stronger!” Damon countered.
“Not good enough. They’ll kill you easily.”
“It’s not so easy,” Damon growled, his eyes narrowing.
“Enough,” Leland interjected. “We’re wasting time. Damon, you can’t do it alone, that’s simply a fact, not an insult. We need help. I’m sure Ken has contacts, and I’ve got a small army I can call on planetside.”
Ken laughed derisively, “Seriously? Your Christians?”
Leland merely smiled. “You might be surprised, son. After all, these are the men who killed armored infantry bare-handed, and carried Damon twenty floors up through a collapsing factory. They’re tougher than you think. And those were the untrained ones. I’ve got fifty veterans available as well.”
No one argued.
“Right,” Leland continued. “Ken, can you provide some ships for transportation?”
This time Ken laughed in true humor, “Now you must be joking! How many do you need?”
“There’s another problem,” Leland tapped his finger on his lips as his eyes went unfocused. “No matter how we approach this, it’s going to be interpreted as an attack.”
“We can contact Reverend Trueblood and explain . . .” Damon started.
“No,” Ken stopped him. “We can’t do that. Literally, there is no way to contact him. Even if we could, why would he take us seriously?”
All three men were quiet, lost in their own thoughts.
Leland spoke first, “Then we attack.”
“What?” Ken exclaimed, “You just said . . .”
“Yes, I did. Since there’s nothing we can do to change the appearance, we’d better treat it as an attack and plan accordingly. Once the Augies show up, hopefully they will take advantage of our distraction and proceed with their plans, but we’ll be ready and in place to stop them.
“The only problem is that we may never be vindicated, and could be tried as rebels. If no one knows what the Augies were up to, and we stop them, we will always look like the enemy.”
Ken was nodding and biting his lower lip. “I don’t like it,” he said quietly.
“I know,” Leland agreed, “but there’s no other way in the time we have. Whatever happens to us, the Consensus would be saved from a brutal Pryke tyranny.”
“Wait,” Damon said, “I can explain it to him.”
“How?” Ken protested, but Damon didn’t let him continue.
“If I can talk to him, fa
ce-to-face, I’m sure I can convince him of the truth.”
All three exchanged glances, waiting for a better idea to surface.
“Well,” Ken said, “let’s get started!”
They discussed strategy and tactics for another hour before breaking up to coordinate their individual pieces of the operation. Damon left on a small, nondescript civilian ship to Havyn, so he would be in position as early as possible. Leland went down to the planet to recruit and outfit his troops. Ken had a lot of contacts to make: mercenaries, arms dealers, and his favorite specialty salvage group. He also wanted to discuss more details with Ted, who sounded quite useful.
**** ****
Damon enjoyed the view of the Spire ensconced in its caldera. He couldn’t get close, of course, but the tourist aircraft gave a decent view to both the naked eye and low-power binoculars offered by the tour guides. Using his implants, he was able to get a much closer view. He itched to send out an active scan, but it would bring down quick retribution. Resigned to passive sensors, he found very little useful information. He could detect multiple Debar reactors deep underground, along with permanent wormhole signatures that he could not resolve with any accuracy.
As far as guards, there were constant ground patrols all around the caldera and the lake below. Aircraft patrolled the skies, though not as often as their earth-bound counterparts.
Feeling wholly unprepared, Damon missed the briefing packet he always received for Council missions that told him all the details of his upcoming target. He had never truly appreciated the comfort such intelligence had given him. Even then, when he rarely had to worry about dangerous opposition, it still calmed him to know details about the environment.
He searched for a possible path to the Spire that would allow him to arrive undetected, but he found nothing in that approach. He had hoped to come up with his own plan, but instead he would have to rely on Ken’s crazy scheme to get him there.