Lyssa's Flame - A Hard Science Fiction AI Adventure (Aeon 14: The Sentience Wars: Origins Book 5)
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Recovery was like the fugue state. Kathryn hung in the dark, her thoughts suspended and drifting. Sometimes she woke to basic sensations like thirst or pain, each addressed by the NSAI monitoring her needs. Most of the time she dreamed.
She saw the demon who had attacked her. She saw her children. She wandered the corridors of her corporate headquarters, the place where she had spent most of the last quarter of her life. She dreamed about all the Carthage ships out in Sol, following the trade routes like cells in a great vascular system.
One domed chamber in the Carthage Logistics Headquarters was devoted to a real-time model tracking every owned or controlled vessel in the Solar plane, fireflies traveling long arcs of light. She liked to sit in the room and watch the movement.
The fallacy of being small, in standing on an object and only seeing with your own eyes, was that one lost sense of all the motion taking place continuously. Everything was spinning in successive orbits, drawn together and pushed apart. While the bodies in motion might follow predictable patterns, everything between, from the ships to the people and things occupying their surfaces moved in terrifying chaos. There was science to observe and predict the behaviors of humanity, but at a certain level she trusted none of it. Someone might act in their own self-interest, but they still attacked children. They still punished the weakest among them for no reason than the perpetrator’s pleasure.
Kathryn writhed against her wounds, climbing out of drugged euphoria into memories equally painful. Daniel coughing blood on the floor. The explosion that set bodies on fire in a ring of light.
She surfaced from a long fugue state to a presence. At first Kathryn thought she was imagining the NSAI nurse, until she realized it was him.
“Leave me,” she murmured. Her lips felt sewn together.
What had changed? How much time had gone by?
He had been here before. She remembered now. His voice connected stretches of drug euphoria like bits of land between oceans. He didn’t expect her to answer. He simply talked like he was working things out for himself, sounding like someone who didn’t get the opportunity to talk much. She could hear his voice growing more confident with time… since the first moment he had come to her, sounding so lost in the dark.
She struggled with the dream, still unsure if his voice was truly there or something she imagined. Had the nursing staff been playing newsfeeds outside her recovery cocoon?
The explosion replayed in her mind, followed by the ten minutes of standing before the Terran Assembly, berating them for not acting on the SAI threat. The threat who sat here with her, comforting her in the dark.
Kathryn would have cried if she could. She felt miserable and tired. She wanted this time of nothingness to end or stop completely, to close out her consciousness.
A light flared around her, white at first and then mellowing into radiant blue. She was lying on her back blinking at a cloud-streaked sky. She looked around herself and discovered she was lying on a wooden lounge, the same type they’d had when the kids were small. Kathryn sat up and studied the surrounding patio, the wide windows of their house a few meters away. The sounds of kids shouting drew her attention to the yard, where a boy was running with their Golden Lab, Sawyer.
She didn’t recognize the boy, though everything else was her home from forty years ago.
“His name is Douglas,” Kylan said.
Kathryn started. She turned toward his voice to see him sitting on the steps to the house level of the patio. He was older, as she had expected. He had his father’s lean build, with long forearms he let dangle between his knees. The breeze blew his thin blond hair in his hazel eyes. He smiled at her.
“Is this more comfortable?” he asked.
“Where are we?” Kathryn asked. She sat up, sliding her legs off the lounge to sit up. She was wearing a t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts, an outfit she’d often chosen for gardening. In fact, Kylan had recreated every detail of their home as he would have remembered it. His brother and sister would be somewhere else, playing.
“It’s a version of home,” Kylan said. “I’ve been afraid to try it while you were sedated. I didn’t want to confuse you.”
“How?”
“It’s called an expanse. It’s a place I can create and invite others into.”
“Am I trapped here?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. Do you want to go back?”
She nearly said yes out of spite, then stopped herself. It was easier to remember how many times he had visited her now. He had been with her almost continuously when no one else had come.
“It’s fine,” she said. “What do we do now?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. You get better. Read books. Walk in the garden. Talk to Douglas.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I thought you might like it. He doesn’t know I asked you, so it won’t hurt his feelings if you don’t.”
Kathryn watched the little boy running with the dog for a minute, suspicious that Kylan was tricking her, though he never had before.
“What is he?”
“A boy who lost his family. He doesn’t remember them, so it doesn’t bother him, at least he doesn’t realize it.”
“He was copied… like you?”
“Yes,” Kylan said. “Only he isn’t cursed with remembering everything.”
The word cursed stabbed her.
She looked from the little boy to Kylan. She saw the little boy in his face, realizing that he must have chosen this new version of himself, but it still resembled the man he would have become. The certainty of that settled in her stomach.
“Kylan,” she said. “Thank you for staying with me.”
He nodded. “Are you feeling better?”
“No,” she said. “Well, maybe a little.”
They sat for a while watching Douglas play with Sawyer. The flash of the city in the distance was just as she remembered it, even the thrum of the nearby maglev track. She expected Yandi or Urvin to run out on the patio at any minute asking for dinner. Kathryn closed her eyes, uncomfortable with how deeply the fantasy was affecting her.
“Please,” she said “Stop.”
“What? I thought this was helping.”
She could imagine his expression even with her eyes closed. The approximation was too good.
“You’re not my son. I know you think you are, but my son died and it hurts me to keep seeing you. I know you wish we could have a relationship but… we can’t.”
She opened her eyes to find him watching Douglas.
“Did you hear me?” she asked.
Kylan glanced at her. “Yes, I did. The only thing I would like from you is to not hate me or my kind. I know I can’t force that from you. But I’d like you to know that Kylan isn’t completely gone, no matter what you say. I remember everything about him. I am him, whether you believe it or not. These are my memories. Right now, you are my memory of my mother.”
Kylan stood and shouted into the breeze, “Douglas! It’s time to go.”
Before leaving, he turned and leaned down to put his hand on her cheek.
“All I want you to know is that I love you. I’ll be here for you if you ever need me.”
He straightened and stretched, spreading his fingers to the blue sky, then stepped off the patio to go meet Douglas and play catch with Sawyer.
As he left her, the world quickly grew dim, graying until the last color and detail faded into nothingness. Kathryn found herself in the void again, floating, and completely alone.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
STELLAR DATE: 02.18.2982 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Lyssa’s Expanse
REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony
They stood on a rise carpeted in tall dry grass, above a rock-covered shoreline. The sky glowed silver-gray above the deep blue ocean with white-veined waves. It reminded Cara of dark marble. The sky was huge, like the curved wall of a great hangar. Cara half-expected to find shuttles and freighters hanging in the sky, but there were only gulls wheeling in the air like bits of white cloth.
“Is this like when we met Xander?” she asked.
Lyssa nodded, giving her a pleased smile. “Very similar. Something Fugia’s developed. You entered your personal ID token?”
“Just now,” Cara said. “I’ve never used it before.”
She’d had to help Tim navigate the login.
“What is this place?” Tim asked.
“It’s a beach where the Weapon Born like to come. We wanted to do something for your dad.”
The wind off the ocean tossed Cara’s hair in her face, pressing the strands against the tears that immediately rose in her eyes. She nodded, pulling her hair out of her face.
“This way,” Lyssa said.
She led them down the winding path between the banks of grass, to a point where the land dropped abruptly, looking carved out as a wall of dark, compressed sand. At the bottom, a band of piled driftwood—all bare knotty branches and huge, broken trunks—created a kind of palisade between the sand wall and the water. Lyssa followed the path, which led them between two giant redwood trees, their roots like frozen monsters.
Cara glanced at Tim, who was staring in awe at everything around him.
“It’s so big,” he said.
“Don’t you remember High Terra?” Cara asked.
“No,” he admitted.
Cara wondered if that was due to his ordeal on Clinic 46, or just how ten-year-old boys viewed the world. He had perked up a bit since arriving on Cruithne, but there continued to be something distant about Tim that made him a different person than the brother she remembered. She hadn’t had time before to really think about the loss of the other Tim. Now it settled on her, adding to Dad’s death, another crack in the safety of the world.
Leaving the driftwood, wet air from the ocean blew in their faces, and Cara saw a group of people gathered down by the waves’ edge. She immediately recognized her mom in her black TSF duty armor, Ngoba Starl wearing a pale blue suit, Petral in a skin-tight outfit of metallic green, and Fugia wearing one of her gray suits, her hair bobbed. Fran stood away from the group, her hands shoved in the pockets of her faded tan worksuit. She had her back to the land, looking out at the water at something Cara couldn’t see behind all the others.
With various greetings, the group parted so Cara could see what they had been standing near, and what Fran had stepped away from.
Below the tide-line was a small wooden boat with a casket resting inside, tied down with wet hemp rope. An anchor in the sand held it in place as the waves rolled in, lifting it for a few minutes before dropping it again in the wet sand.
Their mom walked over to stand in front of Cara and Tim. The wind blew her hair around as she looked at each of them.
“Lyssa thought we should do something together,” she said. “To say goodbye. I thought it was a good idea.”
“Is dad in there?” Tim asked, peeking around her. There was a frantic note in his voice.
“No, Tim. No, he’s not. He died on the ship. He’s gone. That’s just something to help remember him.”
“I don’t want to remember. I want him to come back.”
Cara smiled slightly, looking at her brother. That was exactly how she felt.
She sighed. She wasn’t done crying, but she didn’t want to do it in front of others anymore. She put her arm around Tim and squeezed him against her.
“What’s that for?” he complained.
“Because you’re my brother,” she said.
Lyssa approached the boat. Cara watched her look at Fran, who seemed to want to be left alone, then continue walking. They all gathered around the boat, their shoes in the water now, and held it in place as Lyssa cut the anchor.
Cara was surprised by how eagerly the waves grabbed at the small craft, hungry to pull it away. She gripped the gunwale in both hands, the wood wet but solid under her fingers. The casket was made of a simple ash-colored wood. She hesitated before reaching to put her hand on the lid. The boat shifted with a balance that suggested more weight than just a wooden box. She knew he wasn’t there but liked the idea of their thoughts recreating him inside.
“Andy Sykes,” Ngoba Starl said, raising his voice to the gray sky. “A good man. A great father. A man who gave everything for those he cared about. A man I wish I could have known longer.”
Petral and Fugia both said they were lucky to have known him, and Tim shouted, “I love you, Dad! I’m sorry I was so mean to you.”
Their mom stared at the casket for a long time, pressing her lips until they lost their color, and Cara didn’t think she was going to say anything.
“Thank you, Andy,” she said in a small voice. She cleared her throat. Holding the boat kept her from crossing her arms as she usually did. She seemed more vulnerable, younger.
“I wasn’t as good to you as I could have been. All I can say is how grateful I am for your love, and that you didn’t shoot me when I came back.”
Starl laughed, which gave the others permission to chuckle as well. Cara didn’t think it was funny, and Tim only frowned.
Brit lowered her head, done talking.
“I everyone us to meet you here,” Lyssa said, “and I don’t really know what to say. I think I was very fortunate that Andy Sykes came into my life. He helped me understand what it is to be alive, and I find that understanding helping me every day. Andy didn’t always make the best decisions. In fact, I know he didn’t always make the best decisions, but he always acted to help others. I’m glad I have him as an example.”
Waves slapped against the boat’s hull as it rose and fell in their hands. Cara stared at the casket until it grew fuzzy. What would he say? What would he want to hear from her?
“I love you, Dad,” she said.
She didn’t know what else to say. They let go of the boat and Lyssa pushed it out into the waves. It went out quickly, then seemed to hang atop the waves, growing smaller only gradually.
Cara shielded her eyes against the glare, then turned to see that Fran was still standing in the water with her arms crossed. The others had started walking back up the rocky strand, Tim ahead of them, throwing rocks at the driftwood piles.
Cara walked over to Fran and, without saying anything, wrapped her arms around the woman’s waist. Fran clasped Cara’s head against her side.
“Sometimes you mourn a future that doesn’t happen,” Fran said. “Just when you started to imagine it. Then you have to remind yourself you were lucky to have what you did. And I got to meet you.”
“Can we stay friends?” Cara asked.
“That would be all right,” Fran said. She stiffened a little bit, like she was raising her shield again. “Besides, you do good work. You learn fast. And you don’t seem to want to get paid. I’d be stupid not to keep you around.�
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Cara snorted an ironic laugh, realizing she sounded a little bit like Fran when she did it. That pleased her.
They turned together to walk back up the beach. Cara stole another glance at the sea and saw the boat was nearly gone. She blinked, believing for a second she saw her dad sitting with his back against the casket, the way he used to lean back in the pilot’s seat.
The waves rose again, sending the boat into a trough, and then it was gone.
On the strand, Lyssa had started a bonfire in a circle of water-worn rocks. The Weapon Born had come down to the beach, carrying food and barrels of drink. They seemed quite used to the operation. More fires were lit and toasts were shouted to Captain Sykes, to Sunny Skies, to Rabbit Country.
Cara spent the next hours amazed by all the people remembering her dad, telling stories she hadn’t heard, laughing and teasing each other despite the worry outside.
When Tim started getting sleepy and their mom said it was time to go, Lyssa agreed to walk with them back up the hillside. As they left the party, Ngoba Starl shouted: “Lyssa! We need to talk. I want to enlist a flight of your Weapon Born here for a salvage job on some of those Psion ships. All kinds of good gear just floating out there because most are too scared to go after it.”
Lyssa turned, outlined by the bonfire. “That sounds like fun,” she said, grinning. “But only if I can go along.”
“I thought you were working with them?” Petral asked.
Lyssa shook her head. “I’m hedging my bets for now. We’ll see what kind of deal it works out to be.”
“I like it!” Starl shouted, raising a beer mug. “I’ll recruit you to Lowspin yet.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lyssa said. “I need to have some standards.”
Starl grinned. He surprised Cara by pointing at her. “Then maybe I’ll put young Cara to work. Lots of opportunities for a pirate like her.”
“Please,” Brit said, putting a hand on Cara’s shoulder to move her along.
“I want to be a pirate!” Tim shouted. “Em’s already a pirate dog.”
“Cara’s going to be a hacker,” Fugia said, Petral nodding beside her. “Don’t put useless ideas in her head.”