by Bear Ross
The Ascended closed his eyes after the fourth or fifth near miss with other flying vehicles. They were in the common altitudes, where non-Gatekeeper, non-Enforcement Directorate vehicles were thrown together at random, left to fend for themselves. The proximity alarm beeped and blurted in a disconcerting manner. The Niff's atrocious taste in music was not helping.
“Are we being followed?” she asked, brushing away a swinging set of spare cables.
“You're being paranoid, pilot,” Prath said, peeking from between his fingers.
“I think we've been through enough weird dung lately,” she said, “that paranoia might actually be a good thing, ape.”
She wanted to grab the controls from Kitos when he cut off a being-laden grav-bus, its running lights strobing in angry patterns. The Niff was concentrating more on singing along with some audio playlist than on his vector.
“Gate-damn it, Kitos,” Jessica said, fighting a combination of nausea and terror, “keep your eyes open, would you?”
“I-I am sorry, pilot,” Kitos said, turning back to her and taking his eyes completely away from the screen in front of him. “This song reminds I-I of times with lifemate. We would sing it together while clutched in the frenzy of—”
“No, really, Niff, I don't need to know,” she said, putting a hand up.
“It's really quite beautiful, pilot,” Kitos said, still not looking through the front window. “We Niffs do not just use our fluids for self-defense. They also serve to lubri—“
“Kitos, perhaps,” Prath said, one hand over his eyes, the other tapping the side of his head, trying to get the imagery of Niff loveplay out of his skull. “Perhaps this is not the most appropriate conversation under these circumstances. Are we nearing the old Kramer compound, yet? Please, say yes.”
“Yes, Master Prath,” Kitos said. “I-I am on final descent now. Street appears to deserted. Strange.”
Jessica craned her neck to see past Kitos at her childhood neighborhood.
“Oh, they closed the noodle shop on the corner, Prath,” she said. “I loved that place. Miss Dortha and that Larka she had cooking in the back... what was his name?”
“Hmm... 'Oorus.' Personable fellow, for a Larka,” Prath said. “He made a wonderful sturgeon and squash broth, with these wondrous noodles, as thick as your thumb. Your father and I would take our lunch breaks there...”
“Yeah. This whole place seems haunted, now,” Jessica said somberly. “Too many memories, huh, ape?”
“Yes, little human,” Prath said. “Too many memories.”
She remembered the armada of drones when the Enforcers pulled her out of the habitat’s living room. It was the day Jered died in the arena.
The Enforcers never did give me the details of what happened to Mom and Dad, she thought. Maybe that’s why I’m here. Not for the node. For the full story.
“Navigation console says we are here,” Kitos piped up. “This was home of Fourth Gate Kramers?”
The Fourth Gate dominated the view, a pulsing spiral of orange and yellow bathing the neighborhoods and commercial districts around it in a pale glow.
“Pop the back doors, Niff, and let us out,” Jessica said. “Let's get this over with.” She felt a strange mixture of dread and hope.
The blue-furred technician opened the rear double doors of the utility vehicle. Prath pulled himself out of the van, visibly ill from the nauseating ride.
The Ascended steadied himself on the compound’s tall, welded fence made from cast-off armor parts. It was rusted, in spots. Still gleaming, in others. Jessica remembered playing in the street with her brother and sister, beating the mech parts like drums, or hopping from hull fragment to hull fragment like swamphoppers.
“Your father loved this wall... fence... thing,” Prath said, his eyes drifting as more memories came back to him. “I helped him put it together. There are some of his old mechs mixed in there, as well as some conquests. Look, here's part of that infamous hit-bot, StellarSonic. Someone was dumb enough to pay that Unlimited assassin to take your father down.”
“The hit-bot was dumb enough to take the contract,” Jessica said with a small amount of pride in her voice. “Dad was brutal in the arena. I've seen the replay.”
“Look there,” Prath said, pointing at some laser-carved graffiti on the wall of armored parts.
“’The Headhunter is the Future. The Headhunter is the Way,’” Jessica read aloud. “Nolo said that, before. What the void does that dung even mean?”
“Language. Your big, red friend is planning big things, love,” Prath said.
“But... how?” Kitos said, his ears now flat against his skull in fear.
“The Centurion and Warlord is a whispered legend among the Nines,” Prath said. “He’s like your father, Jessica. He’s a slave who has turned on the Gatekeepers. Only he’s too hard, too vicious for them to try and take him on. They made him unstoppable, almost without weakness.”
“Yeah, no lie,” Jessica said. “He even had a pair of dead Gatekeepers in this big, smelly trophy room of his, back at his little clubhouse. Skulls everywhere.”
“I am not surprised,” Prath said. “You won’t find those two Gatekeepers in any history or record. They were defeated by the Headhunter, and any memory of them was purged to hide their shame. To acknowledge he even exists would be an admission of weakness to the Gatekeepers, under their code. So, they ignore him, hoping that he’ll fade away. As you both know, it’s not working. He’s growing ever-stronger.”
“I mean, he’s big and bad, yeah,” Jessica said, “but he’s just one cyborg. How’s he going to do it?”
“I have heard things,” Prath said. “Rumors and innuendos, mostly. The Nines may seem servile, mindless warrior slaves, but as the Headhunter shows, they are capable of more.”
“I-I dislike being here, in open,” Kitos said, interrupting the Ascended crew chief. “Exposed. Can pilot or Master Prath please make entry into compound?”
“Of course, Kitos,” Prath said. “Pardon an old ape for prattling on. Jessica, dear, do you see any Enforcer security systems still active?”
“I don’t see any drones keeping station over the place,” Jessica said.
“Hmm. The reputation of this place,” Prath said, “of what happened here, is enough to keep most intruders away.”
A small holo-projector emanated from the palm of Kitos’s prosthetic hand. A readout and directional arrow glowed in mid-air.
“That’s a nice piece of kit, Kitos,” Jessica said. “The Headhunter really went all-out with that hand of yours.”
“Yes, Pilot, but I-I would still prefer to have original, organic manipulator attached,” Kitos said. “Missing Arkathan circuit node is inside large hangar, according to the readout data I-I downloaded. Do any beings reside here? Will they let us in?”
“No one's lived here since... since things went wrong,” Prath said. “The Gatekeepers derive some sick pleasure from letting the place founder and rot.”
Prath reached out to touch the scorched remnant of armored chest plate near the front gate. He ran a finger along an access panel's outline on the piece of welded wreckage. The panel popped open with a bit of effort. A glowing button was inside.
“I didn't know that was there,” Jessica said.
“Of course, you didn't,” the Ascended said. “You were probably too busy making googly eyes at Tevren about the time I installed it. It was towards the end.” Jessica stuck out her tongue to retort.
“It's kill switch for the entire facility,” Prath continued. “The place looks abandoned, but there were back-ups to the back-ups when it came to sensors and countermeasures. Your father was worried we would have to fight our way back in, if there was a hostage situation.”
“Gates, Dad really was a raging paranoiac, wasn't he?” Jessica said.
“You don't know the half of it, love,” the Ascended said. “He went through a lot in his life, though. As you know, the Gatekeepers do not forgive or forget. That doesn't exc
use what he did, but... it provides some perspective.”
Prath pushed the concealed button. A small gap appeared in the armored gate as its magnetic locks disengaged.
“I-I nervous,” Kitos said. “Want to evacuate emergency defense bladder.”
“Put a cork in it, Niff. We're going in,” Jessica said, pulling her pistol.
They followed Kitos through the dilapidated property, his hand’s holographic projector leading the way. Prath held Jessica's hand as they walked. Every door they encountered swung open without resistance. The easier they made progress, the farther they went, the more Jessica’s apprehension grew as they came closer to the main habitation module.
She breathed a small sigh of relief when Kitos's holographic indicator pointed them to the side door of the main hangar, away from the dark memories contained inside the housing pod.
A blue and silver cloud of webbing covered one half of an old, dented workbench and stretched to the ceiling, radiating in strange patterns.
“Arkathan circuitry, gone feral,” Kitos said.
“Feral? As in, gone wild?” Jessica asked, holding her pistol at the ready.
“Yes, pilot, wild,” Kitos said. “Not dangerous, just unguided. Arkathan circuitry can survive variety of conditions without losing integrity, but need power source to tap into. Look. Branched into... security and internal surveillance systems, I-I think. Confirm, Master Prath?”
The Niff traced the wires up the walls into junction boxes above the workbench. Kitos’s slender blue fingers guided Prath’s gaze as they followed the hangar’s conduits and terminations.
“Yes, it appears so,” Prath said. “Those systems were wired into those boxes. An old section, but yes.”
The web of wires originated from a drawer in the workbench. Jessica pulled it open. Hidden among the loose bolts and tools, deep in the back of the drawer, sat a marble-sized control node. It glowed red when her fingers came near it.
“He threw it in the gate-damned junk drawer,” Jessica said. “The junk drawer, Prath. They probably looked at it a dozen times while they hauled all our stuff away, and it here it was, hidden in plain sight. All this, for a nugget of nanocircuitry.”
She grabbed Kitos's prosthetic hand with the holographic projector attached to it, and laid it on the table. The Niff protested.
“Pilot, what—” Kitos tried to say.
“It's glowing because it recognizes my biocode, doesn't it?” Jessica said, a sudden frenzy overtaking her. “I bet you don't have to circuit-dive, Kitos, just broadcast the feed through your hand’s projector, there.”
“Jessica, this is not the best—” Prath said, holding up a hand.
“No, ape, I need to know. Now,” Jessica said, her dread and anxiety galvanizing into a manic desire to know the rest of the story.
The Arkathan node glowed even brighter when Kitos produced a data cable from a pouch. He gulped, looked at them both with huge, worried eyes, and connected his new hand to a small port in the awakened component.
A high-pitched whine filled the air. Kitos's eyes rolled back, and Prath and Jessica had to steady him. An old chair next to the workbench was pressed into service before the Niff could collapse.
“He's overloaded,” Prath said. “This usually takes a separate diagnostic computer along with some other support tools. I told you, this is a bad idea. We should handle this back at the shop.”
“No, Prath. I don’t need protection, or babying,” she said. “I want the truth. After all these years, I deserve it.”
Blurred, sped-up images of life in the Kramer household and hangar flashed across the far wall, switching camera viewpoint to viewpoint at random intervals. They watched in silence. There was no audio.
“This starts the day Solomon took the node from the Judah module,” Prath said. “Look at the time-stamp, there, on the security camera feed. It must have branched out right away, through the back of the drawer. Amazing.”
“Kitos, if you can hear me,” Jessica called into the Niff’s ear, “see if there are any... any logs from around the time of—”
The Niff's lip curled, and his eyes rolled side to side. A low moan escaped him. A younger Jessica was on a couch, fitting firearms parts together. Her brother’s death played on the living room’s main viewing screen.
The screen blurred, then an image of Solomon Kramer, dead on the floor of his upstairs bedroom, appeared frozen on Kitos’ projected image. Jessica’s mother, Consuelo, stood over him. She held a smoking gun to her own head. A pool of blood lay beneath Solomon Kramer's body.
“Oh, void,” Jessica said, unable to look away.
“Kitos, whatever you do,” Prath said to the semi-conscious Niff technician, “do not play the rest of that video feed. The motion capture is more than enough, thank you.”
“Mom... killed dad? Then herself?” Jessica said, her burning need for knowledge now turned to shock. “The Enforcers said it was a murder-suicide, but, that's—”
“No, it makes sense, love,” Prath said, reaching a comforting hand out to her. “The Enforcement Directorate only told us the result, but they never did say who killed who, did they? The records were sealed. Everything was left to rot. And, let's face it, Nines, even Ninety-Nines, aren't exactly forensic specialists.”
“But if he killed Jered...” she said, her knees weak. “They were arguing upstairs after Jered died, and then there were gunshots.”
“Then Consuelo must have found out,” Prath said, holding her. “Solomon might have confessed. This is not how I wanted to discover the truth, love. Either way, we can only guess, at this point.”
“Yuh... yes,” Kitos said, lifting one of his hands.
“Oh, he can talk,” Prath said, bending over to examine Kitos. “It must be because the feed is paused. Come out of that data-feed sequence, Kitos. I think we've seen enough. We need to get this node back to the shop for integration with the main module.” Jessica remained silent as she fought the swirling storm of feelings inside her.
Kitos opened his eyes, disconnecting the cable to his hand and the projector. He had trouble focusing, shaking his head to clear the bombardment of stimuli. He turned to face Jessica. His ears were flat against his skull.
“I-I had access to full audio feed, Pilot Kramer,” Kitos said. “Full playback, all contained on the node's memory. Suggest purge and reformat. Very unpleasant.”
Jessica leaned against the workbench, the control node now glowing in her hand.
“Go on, Niff. I can handle it,” Jessica said with a glaring lack of emotion in her voice. “You accessed the full audio and video, right?”
Kitos nodded in the affirmative.
“Jessica—” Prath said.
“No, Prath, I need to know,” she said sharply. After hearing her severe tone, she tried to relax, to not lash out. “Please. Please, ape. Kitos?”
The Niff held his head in his upper set of hands, trying to calm himself.
“Solomon Kramer confessed to lifemate Consuelo about involvement in death of Jered offspring,” Kitos said with worried hesitation. “Said it was... accidental. Unintended. Meant only to cripple Judah machine, to cause disable result, not death. Force errant offspring to return back home. Pilot Kramer's maternal unit enraged. Pulled weapon from hiding place. Fired weapon twice. First time into paternal unit. Second time... I-I... sorry to relay this, pilot.”
Jessica closed her hand around the red node. Her posture and facial expression were cold, rigid. The glowing marble pulsed, shining between her clutched fingers. Her numbness dissolved, and she began to shake.
“No... no, it's over, now,” Jessica said, sniffling. “The big gate-damned mystery about the last days of the oh-so-mighty Fourth Gate Kramers is finally revealed, right? The curtain’s pulled back. I... I think I know what I have to do, now, ape,” she said, wiping back tears as she unsnapped her holster.
“Jessica, love, what are you—” Prath said, reaching for her.
Jessica Kramer pulled her 20mm Mattis r
evolver from its holster. Shots rang throughout the hangar bay, shattering the tomb-like silence.
Chapter Forty-Three
SIXTH GATE ZONE
VERVOR’S FABRICATION WORKS
Jessica Kramer stirred as Vervor's shop van cruised in for its final approach landing. After skirting around Central Data’s flight exclusion zone, they were now over their portion of the Sixth Gate Zone. The ride back was cramped and erratic in its flight path, but quiet.
Jessica kept her arms crossed, her head down. She'd not uttered a single word for the last half hour. Not that the Ascended across from her had any interest in what she had to say.
“That,” Prath said, “was possibly the stupidest thing I've seen you do in the last few weeks, little human, and that's saying a lot. We needed that node.”
“No, we didn't, ape,” Jessica said, morose and sulking. “Bad enough I saw the still image from the hab’s security cameras. I don't need the live video riding along with me for the upcoming fight. Kitos, when we get back, I want everything my dad's damned 'security ghost' touched to be purged from the other seven components in that module.”
“I-I understand, pilot, but it will not be easy,” Kitos said from the front of the hover-van. “Pilot’s presence required while I-I perform circuit-dive, because of biocode lock. Task probably take hours. Days, possibly, depending on depth of code infiltration.”
“I don't care,” she said, keeping her head down. “I want it gone.
“Understood, Pilot,” the Niff said.
“Prath... I don't think I have this fight in me,” she said, turning to her Ascended crew chief. “I don't know if I even want to be a Kramer, any more.”
“That’s quitter talk. Snap out of it, girl,” Prath said, trying to rub the high-pitched aftereffects of her gunshots out of his ears. “I understand why you wouldn’t want Solomon’s digital avatar coursing through your console, but we could have used the processing power from that node. And you could have warned me that you were going blast that thing to pieces, you know.”