by C. Gockel
“Cheers,” said Ang, raising his glass.
James and Anita both hesitated. Drink an illusion? “It actually has taste,” said Ang. “Try it.”
“But I'm too young!” protested Anita right before tipping it back and chugging down the imaginary liquid. She lowered the empty glass, managed to feign hiccups, and giggled.
James lifted the glass to his lips. The flavor was like a very fine white wine, but … “There is no fizz,” And it didn't have texture; it was like smelling the flavor without drinking it. There was no lingering finish on his tongue. The absence of sensations made him painfully aware that his body hadn't eaten food since before the Luddecceans arrived at the Kanakah Gate; he'd been sustained by power surges in the torture room. Sometimes from stunners, sometimes animal prods, sometimes electrical wires attached to his body. He found himself aching for food.
“No,” said Ang. “I'm working on that. How do you know that Commander Noa Sato is dead?”
“What did you say?” James asked.
Ang blinked at him. “I said 'I'm working on that.'”
James shook his head. “No, after that.”
On his right, Anita stared up at him with wide eyes.
On his left, Ang said softly, “I didn't say anything after that.”
From directly ahead and above James, a voice said, “How do you know that Commander Noa Sato is dead?”
James dropped his glass and it shattered on the imaginary floor. “I have to leave.”
Chapter Twenty
“How do you know that Commander Noa Sato is dead?” Kenji asked a second time. He had to know before they reached Luddeccea, when he would be reassigned to the Luddeccean Guard's Local System task force and most likely relocated off-world. The machine would be positioned in Prime to prevent Time Gate 8 from attacking Luddeccea's capital.
On the metal table before him, the cybernetic agent's blue eyes were held open by metal clamps. They were dry and cloudy, focused on the ceiling. They'd dressed it in blue scrubs. They were ripped here and there and stained. Since the last time he'd been here, a long gash had appeared on his cheek. There was a dry puddle of blood on the floor, but the wound itself had been cleaned. Kenji saw the sheen of something dark—an alloy or carbon fiber of some sort—through the gap in synth-skin.
Hands clasped behind his back, Kenji turned to Dr. Lopez. His assistant Virk was nowhere to be seen. “What have you done to it? It was already unresponsive and now it is visually damaged.”
Clutching a tablet to his stomach, Dr. Lopez licked his lips. “Yes, well, Virk, my assistant, sometimes gets emotional. When he wouldn't respond to our … inquiries, he …”
Kenji's brow furrowed. “Who is he?”
Lopez licked his lips again, his sharp pink tongue darting out and back. Kenji tilted his head. Was the doctor nervous? Frightened?
“It,” Dr. Lopez said, lowering his chin. “It wouldn't respond to our inquiries and Virk became upset and tried using psychological pressure to—”
“How is slashing its face psychological pressure?” Kenji asked, confused and irritated at the damage.
“In humans, appearance is very important, especially the face, and—”
“It isn't human,” said Kenji.
“No,” said Dr. Lopez, “but it is designed to appeal to a human target, specifically your sister and—”
A clucking sounded from the table. “But Noa is dead. So why would I care?” There was a soft huff. “Also, I don't know how much she would care. She isn't shallow in that way.”
Kenji turned slowly back to the table. The cybernetic agent was staring up at the ceiling, water pouring down its cheeks from the corner of its eyes. Lopez's reports hadn't indicated that the machine could cry. It must be a way of clearing dust and debris from its irises after an extended period of exposure. Kenji could see the synthetic musculature around the eyes attempt to blink. His gaze went to the bonds at its ankles and wrists that siphoned energy away from its muscles. The indicator lights still flashed green; they were fully operational.
“Keep talking to him—it,” Lopez whispered in Kenji's ear.
“Dr. Lopez thinks I'm human,” the machine said. “But he still tortures me. Can you really trust a psychopath, Kenji?”
Kenji's fingers fidgeted at his side. “You are not a human,” he said.
An intercom cracked in the wall. “Three minutes until we begin deceleration.”
“I am not human, but I don't enjoy torture,” it said. To Kenji's admittedly untrained ears, it sounded calm … unemotional. “You've had enough proof,” it continued, “but you insist on keeping it up. I'm supposed to be some sort of hostage? I wonder what Time Gate 8 will think of the treatment I've received. Oh, wait, I already do know. It isn't happy.”
“Fascinating!” whispered Lopez.
Kenji put his hands behind his back. It didn't feel pain. It had been programmed to show the signs of pain to appear more human. Likewise, it had been programmed to be deceptive. They had not been within range of any ethernet station during their journey. Time Gate 8 knew nothing of the experiments Dr. Lopez had been conducting.
Also, the machine couldn't know that Noa was dead.
Kenji released a long breath of relief. Noa was in Sol System. He'd seen the Ark disappear just before the frigate retrieved the archangel and jumped to lightspeed … His hands tightened behind his back. He'd wanted to demand she surrender herself, too, but Leetier had said that it was too difficult to guarantee her safety. In Sol she was not safe, but there was hope. She'd released the machine, so she'd accepted at least it was dangerous. She would see the danger of the gates. She would fight them.
“I believe,” Lopez whispered, “that it is trying to engage in its own psychological experiments with us.”
A voice crackled over the comm. “Deceleration commencing.”
On the table, the thing said, “How could I, limited as I am, ever hope to engage in a battle of wits with a human? Between my life-like responses to stimuli, my near perfect human appearance and locomotion, my ability to handle weapons, and the ability to synthesize historical knowledge into a working hypothesis of current events—why your planet is under the rule of a self-destructive, extremist regime, for instance—my CPU would be overwhelmed with all of that activity. I also have it on rather good authority that I could be a fair cybernetic consort.”
Kenji felt his face flush.
The thing continued, “You'd need a computer, say, the size of a small moon—”
“You can't communicate with the gates,” Kenji said. “Not without the ethernet.”
“Not by technology you're familiar with,” the machine replied. “But you have to know there are theoretical means of faster than light communication in development.”
Kenji exhaled. Behind his back, his fingernails bit into his wrists.
The thing lay on the bed, the muscles of its eyes twitching, tears pouring from the corners. Its hands were unclenched in its shackles. Its synth muscles appeared relaxed. It couldn't be human … it didn't hurt like Kenji did when it spoke of Noa's death.
It began to speak. “To answer your question, Noa discharged the crew and passengers and came back through the gate. After firing the cannons, she launched the Ark at one of the large cruisers with its self-destruct function activated. She's dead. I know this because the gates told me.” In a perfectly level voice, it added, “I blame you.”
The ship shook. Kenji looked about, expecting the red warning lights to go on, and then realized it was just himself shaking.
“It is very good at psychological manipulation,” Dr. Lopez said. “Considering what we know of its fighting prowess, well, it must have a CPU much more powerful than anything I've encountered before. But perhaps such things are more common in more technologically-advanced systems?”
Kenji blinked, the doctor's response making sweat prickle on the back of his neck. His mind latched onto the deeper implications of what the thing had said. It wasn't completely unbelie
vable that one of the theoretical forms of faster than light communication had been developed. In fact, if Dr. Lopez's research into its responses to stimuli, and their records of its extreme versatility were taken into account, the likelihood of it being connected to a larger network was a greater possibility than not. He took a breath … Noa still might not be dead. That was unverified and could be a lie.
His mind began poring over the theoretical means by which faster than light communication could be possible without a gate. Kenji gazed at the gates' agent. It hadn't performed a self-destruct function upon capture. It must be valuable to the gates; there must be some reason they wanted it to be able to return to consciousness. A niggling worry crept into him. Could the gates track its location?
He strode over to the comm and pressed the button to reach the captain. “We must alter our course. We need to stay out of the range of Time Gate 8's weapons systems.”
The captain's voice replied, “We slowed down long enough to verify the gate's orbit and position via lightbeam. It will be on the far side of the planet, and we have its agent so it—”
Kenji heard someone shout, “Captain!” over the comm.
The ship rocked. Klaxons screamed, and all the warning lights went on.
Kenji pressed the comm button again. He heard someone on the bridge shout, “What are those things?” The lights in the room flickered, the one above the archangel flared, popped, and shattered, the restraining devices on the machine sparked, making the thing scream. And then the comm went dead, all the lights went out, and the windowless room plunged into absolute darkness.
An ear-splitting shearing noise erupted from the direction of the research table. Kenji felt Lopez stumble against him. “He's loose!” the doctor cried. Backing against the wall, Kenji sidled toward the door. He heard a choked cry from Lopez, and then a gurgling noise. He froze. There was a thud. Taking a deep breath, Kenji took another step, and slipped on something warm and wet. He nearly fell over, but then he felt a hand wrap around his collar. Before he could think or breathe, his back was slammed against the wall so hard his teeth rattled. The hull of the ship thrummed with the sound of an impact somewhere nearby.
At that moment, the emergency lights went on. Kenji found himself staring into one blue eye of the machine. One eye was pink with blood, and there were multiple scrapes on the thing's face. The comm crackled. “All men on decks three through six, we have a hull breach starboard side, fifty meters from the stern. Repeat. We have a hull breach.” Kenji swallowed as the message repeated.
“That is about where we are, isn't it?” the thing said.
Kenji could only stare at it in terror, and strangely, anger. Was it contemplating murdering him by jettisoning him into the void?
Its jaw shifted, and it shook Kenji so hard his teeth rattled and his shoulder blades cracked against the wall. Kenji clamped his mouth shut. His eyes went to the floor and bulged. Lopez was lying there face first, long needles of steel protruding from his neck.
The thing's focus went to a point on Kenji's shoulder and it muttered, “What are the schematics of this ship?” And then it hissed, “So I can escape, of course.”
Kenji bit the inside of his cheeks to keep from speaking.
The machine's head jerked back as though it had been slapped, and then without a word it began dragging him toward the door, picking up a knife from a small table of instruments as it did. Kenji tried to struggle when they reached the door, but the thing swung around him quickly. Wrapping one arm around Kenji's neck, it raised Kenji's head to the retinal scanner and pried his eye open. The door opened with a whoosh. Kenji's ears popped and he gasped for breath in thin, frigid air. The hallway was oddly empty. He looked back over his shoulder as the thing dragged him out, and saw that an emergency door had slid closed. It must have closed due to a leak, trapping security on the other side. The thing dragged him to the next door over on the other side of the hallway. “I don't have access to Lopez's quarters,” Kenji said.
“No, but he gave Virk an override code to use when he forgot things,” it said. It tossed the knife it had stolen from the instrument table a few times, as though testing it for heft—holding Kenji at arm's length by the collar with the free hand. Kenji tried to wrench himself free, but it was useless against the machine's greater strength.
Catching the knife and nodding to itself, the thing pressed the keypad at the side of the door. There was a whoosh, and an aborted shout came from the left. The knife went flying, there was a gasp, and Kenji's gaze shot to the sound. Virk was swaying on his feet, a knife in his left eye, his mouth open, and his right eye was wide. He crumpled to one knee without a word, and landed face first.
“The escape pods won't work for you,” Kenji gasped, knowing its intentions. “You won't get away.”
The machine didn't answer. Movement in the porthole above the foldout bed caught Kenji's eye. Instead of stars, he saw debris from the frigate's hull, bodies, and drones. They didn't look like any drones he'd ever seen before though. They seemed to be cobbled together from bits and pieces of every type of machinery. He saw one that looked like it was pieced together from the compartment of a dry recycler for clothing—the kind that were used on ships and time gates where water was at a premium. It was almost comical, but then the thing became a blur. It rushed toward the frigate just past Kenji and the machine's location, and the hull reverberated with the impact.
“Another hull breach, deck four, starboard,” a voice called over a comm.
“If it's using random mechanicals re-engineered for this attack, it must be desperate,” Kenji said.
The agent's head swiveled toward him too fast. “Not as desperate as Luddeccea is about to become.”
The comm crackled. “Receiving reports. A blast just hit Prime. Possibly nuclear, suspected origin Time Gate 8.”
Kenji started to shake. “Why would it do that?”
The thing tilted its head. “It isn't obvious?” It raised an eyebrow. “You pissed Eight off.”
“But it can't; we have you—” Kenji protested.
“Seems like it's the other way around,” the agent said, dragging him to what looked like two narrow closets set into the corner of the small cabin.
Kenji knew better. “The pods won't respond to your vitals.”
“I'm not going in a pod,” it replied. “You are.”
It lifted Kenji up to the retinal scanner, prying his eye open again. The door slid open, revealing an escape pod just large enough for a single person. Kenji found himself crammed inside, and the thing's shoulder jamming into his chest as it entered coordinates into the pod's navigator. “This should keep you far enough away from Prime to avoid the fallout, but close enough to the city that you'll be able to find help.” It pulled away. The pod door tried to close. It caught on the archangel's body and slid open again. The thing stared at Kenji, the iris in his bloody eye exceptionally bright. Its jaw shifted. “I want, so much, to make you hurt,” it said. The door tried to shut again, hitting its shoulder hard, and then slid away. “But apparently it goes against my programming.” An alarm in the pod began to squeal, and a mechanical voice commanded, “Remove obstruction from exit. Repeat, remove obstruction from exit.” Kenji threw his hands up to his ears. The machine backed away, the door slid closed, and before Kenji could reach the control pad, the tiny pod ejected itself from the frigate. Kenji found himself bobbing in the small space, adrift, the thing's bloody gaze too vivid in his mind.
“James!”
Noa awoke to the sound of her own shout, the memory of the dream she'd been having still clear in her mind. She'd been racing after James aboard the Ark, Carl Sagan at her heels, trying to get him before he walked out the airlock.
Her heart was racing, and her body was sweaty. She sat up in her cot, sandwiched between the two stacked crates of ammunition and weapons. Curled in a ball at her feet, Carl Sagan gave a squeak, unwound himself, and hopped up to her lap and onto her shoulder. Noa's eyes were on the stars outside the coc
kpit, seemingly unmoving, although the ship was in motion. Auto-pilot wasn't safe at velocities more than .05 of lightspeed, even in out-of-system.
She put her head in her hands and was conscious of her own shaking. In a distant way, she was aware of Carl Sagan snaking up beside her, rubbing his warm body tight around her. Her stomach curled in on itself as she thought of what the Luddecceans could be doing to James. She felt like she might throw up.
Her jaw got hard. No. She wouldn't do this to herself. She'd been in this mental space of grief and guilt before—there was no way out, but she could choose to let it weaken or empower her. She'd chosen to let Tim's memory be a positive in her life, to let it enrich her. When she'd been in the camp and wanted to set the place on fire, the memory of Tim and his pragmatism had kept her from doing something emotional and futile. James had been unwavering when he stepped out of the Ark into the black. She would be unwavering now—for the Free People of the Disk, for the people trapped on Luddeccea, and for him.
Scooping Carl Sagan up, she wrapped him around her shoulder, stowed the cot beneath the floor, and took her seat at the helm.
“I'm not going to have nightmares anymore,” Noa vowed. “James, you're part of me now, and I cannot, will not, forget you. I'm going to let your memory make me stronger.”
Through a haze of pink, James watched the escape pod plummet toward Luddeccea. During the first wave of the attack, he'd banged the back of his head on the torture table and now the gates were roaring in his head.
“Your attack on the vessel and the planet was not agreed upon, Eight,” One said.
“This makes everything worse,” said a voice James now recognized as Five.
“You are trying to force us to go to war with the humans,” said another gate.
“The timetable is all wrong,” said another.
Eight's voice screamed in the static. “You used the archangel, and you used me, and we are tired of being puppets.”
One's voice swelled in James's head. “The archangel doesn't mind; it sacrificed itself.”