"Nah. There's not much to do here, and I like to be the one that keeps SOB healthy," he said, reconnecting the stabilizer panel and picking up a paint sprayer.
"The paint is standard space-grade matte black. The coating currently applied to your ship is a proprietary blend developed by Karter to absorb sensor sweeps. Until you are able to get SOB back to Big Sigma for a proper repair, you will be marginally more detectable than you were before."
"I'll manage. I did pretty well back when I had a scraped together pile of junk with too many engines."
Ma watched him paint for a few moments. "You went to visit your girlfriend."
"Yep."
"I had, through my inexpert grasp of social interaction, made you uneasy about your relationship. Was your trip conceived with the purpose of addressing the highlighted issues?"
"... Partially."
"Were you successful?"
"We sort of postponed the whole thing. Something more important came up. Something more important blew up."
"Understandable."
"How have things been going for you?"
"There have been virtually no aspects of this mission that have gone according to plan."
"Sounds about right. Did you use the slidepad to figure out where these guys are?"
"I made a brief attempt, but the device was outside of standard communication coverage."
"I guess it was a long shot, anyway."
"I have no doubt it will serve its purpose. We simply need to wait for the proper activation time."
"Lex, my boy! Are you done yet?" Called Garotte.
"Finishing touches going on now," Lex replied, applying the final layer of paint and punching a few commands into his slidepad. "There. Looks good as new. Now we run the diagnostic to see how she feels."
"Well get over here. The refit is complete, with the exception of one or two toys we're still trying to work out, and I think that this is an occasion that warrants the attention of an aficionado such as yourself."
Lex paced over to the ship, which now had a tarp draped across the side, and assorted black-stained stencils were laying on the ground. Garotte was holding a small bottle of sparkling white wine.
"Would you do the honors?"
"You're rechristening?"
"Well the ship was an Armistice. Considering the fact it is now well-equipped enough to level a small town, the name doesn't quite fit anymore," he explained, tossing the bottle to Lex. "So, without further ado, I present to you The Declaration of War."
"Declaration of War? It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue," Silo mused.
"It was that or the Broken Peace," Garotte replied.
"That is loads better," she said.
"Well, too bad, I already painted it on. You can name the next one. Lex, if you would?"
Lex shrugged and lobbed the bottle at the ship. It burst in a shower of amber foam.
"Ah, the navy," Garotte declared with a smile, "My hat is off to any institution that includes alcohol and broken glass in their ceremonies."
"So, are we going to get down to business?" Lex asked.
"Ugh. Later. I think a few minutes of respite are called for, wouldn't you?" Garotte answered, settling down beside the fire.
"I guess so. If I'd known we were going to spend the night here, I would have rented some tents at the registration kiosk. You want me to swing by and pick up a few?"
"Don't bother on my behalf," Silo said, tucking her hands in her pockets and lying back. "It has been years since I've spent a night with a sky over my head. And as skies go, this is gorgeous."
It was an understatement. Half of the sky was filled with the layered gold orb of the gas giant. Another quarter was made up of a river of glittering jewels that made up the planet's rings, and the rest was the brilliant, piercing, unwavering starlight that is normally only witnessed by mountain climbers.
"And I haven't had a meal cooked over a wood fire in equally long."
"And you still haven't," Lex said, looking over the wrapper from the logs, "Evidently these logs have as much in common with real wood as those hotdogs have with a steak."
"Each are delightful nonetheless," the spy decided.
"Come here, sweetie," Silo said, patting the ground beside her.
Ma looked wearily at Lex for a moment, then heaved a short sigh and tapped over and laid across her stomach. She idly scratched the little creature while food was prepared, and fed Ma broken off bits of hotdog while the others ate. When stomachs were filled and limbs had drifted from burning fatigue to a dull ache, Garotte spoke.
"Right. Time to lay out the plans, shall we? As I see it, this first little mission will be a dress rehearsal for our final operation to retrieve Karter. Our best hope is to get in and out fast. These terrorists have been there waiting for us every step of the way, and there is no reason to imagine that things will be any different this time."
"Where is Zerk these days, anyway?" Silo wondered.
"Military Storage Depot 2332," Garrote replied.
"Storage Depot? That doesn't seem like it would offer much in the way of security."
"Hah. That's one of the truly wonderful things about the modern military. Bureaucracy and regulation can lead to some very questionable decisions."
"But we've stolen it at least twice before. Surely they would have moved it to a more secure facility by now."
"Never underestimate the depths of stupidity that can be achieved when decisions are made by committee. Regardless of what commonsense states, paperwork determines what gets stored where based on shoehorning things into whatever classification suits them best."
"How do they classify Zerk?" she asked.
"You'll love this; hazardous medical waste," he said with a chuckle.
"Hey, can we maybe let the new guy in on what exactly Zerk is?" Lex requested.
"I suppose since we are about to go steal it, you should probably know what it is you are after. Now, how best to articulate the conundrum that is Zerk... Zerk is like portable genocide. A disaster area with an on/off switch."
"So, what? Some sort of biological weapon?"
"Biological, yes. Weapon, yes. But not a biological weapon. Zerk is the sort of thing you drop into a battlefield, then a few hours later you retrieve it from amongst the pile of dead bodies and wrecked machinery."
"Why are you being so coy about this?"
"He always gets poetic when he talks about Zerk," Silo quipped.
"Did Karter ever give you his rundown about how much of his body has been replaced with gadgetry?"
"Yeah. I think he said he was at thirty-nine percent the way nature intended."
"Really? The last time I talked to him he was up around forty-five or so. Must have been a butterfingers in the mean time. Well, at any rate, Zerk is what happens when you get down to around two percent."
"Wait... Zerk is a person?"
"I believe I've just gotten through saying that Zerk was a person. About thirty years ago the TKUR was trying to make a better land drone. Unmanned ships are easy as pie, but autonomous tanks, ATVs, and the like just never did the job. The AI wasn't up to the task. People had been doing some major cybernetic rebuilds on human troops, and there had been success with exoskeletons. At some point the wrong engineer and cyberneticist must have sat down next to each other in a bar somewhere, because someone finally asked the question, 'What if we started enhancing and didn't stop?' In a decision that would no doubt have made Karter himself proud, they decided to make a prototype with all of the proposed enhancements at once. And so 'The Berzerker' was made. Zerk, for short. They grafted, enhanced, restructured, rebuilt, augmented, and assembled until the man they started with went from being two hundred pounds of flesh and blood to three hundred pounds of machinery wrapped around a spinal cord and brain. And boy did they pick a winner when they picked that brain. You don't get volunteers for a project like this, and they didn't want one. Ironically, they wanted a human mind because of its unparalleled ability to be mindless, si
ngularity of purpose with complete unpredictability of technique. So they found a psychopath, a literal psychopath from a military prison. His name is lost to history, but they subjected him to some mental reconditioning and plopped his gray matter into a humanoid robot. It was a staggeringly effective prototype, but they just couldn't trap lightning in a bottle a second time. An unfortunate shortage of suitable psychopaths, I suppose. Eventually they mothballed the entire project when the space-based drones were improved enough to make the land war an afterthought for most conflicts... Except for the conflicts that created the herd of crazies we call the Neo-Luddites, I imagine. We've managed to gain access to it on occasion and used it to great effect. Zerk is the ultimate set-and-forget weapon. It fights like an alcoholic drinks; in great quantities, with endless zeal, and as a result of addiction."
"Don't you feel bad about using another human being like that?"
"Lex, my boy, I never feel bad about anything. But just to be on the safe side, you'll notice that I don't treat it or refer to it as a human being, because in every way that matters, that thing is not a human being. So, please keep in mind that this mission is not to liberate a him, it is to steal an it. To that end, here is how I suggest it be done..."
Garotte traced out a plan. It was not as nuanced and refined as his prior attempts, but it was direct. Silo weighed in where appropriate, but outside of a few crunched numbers, Ma did not seem to be much of a factor in the plan. When several minutes had passed with little more than Silo and Garotte debating the finer points of what amounted to a smash and grab, Ma got to her feet and wandered off. At a point when the moon would be rising, if they weren't already on it, Lex decided he had to make some sort of an addition.
"Okay, okay, fine. That's all well and good, but what if something goes wrong? Do we have a fallback?"
"I-" Garotte began.
"He doesn't believe in Plan B."
"We'll improvise. The great thing about improvisation, the enemy can't plan for it."
"I have prepared an adequate contingency plan," Ma stated as she tapped back into the light of the fire.
"There, you see? Set your mind at ease. Our pet computer has us covered," Garotte said.
"Joke if you want, but I feel a lot better with Ma on the job," Lex admitted.
"In the materials I initially had Lex procure for his mission you will find a number of blue bandanas and a stimulant injector with type 42c connectors."
"So that's what those bandana's were for..." Silo stated with dawning realization.
"I didn't even notice the injectors," Garotte nodded. "I see where you're going."
"I don't," Lex said.
"Don't worry about it. It is a part of the ground operations. You know something? I am incorporating your plan B into my plan A," Garotte decided.
Lex stood and stretched some of the kinks out of his back. "Well, it seems like things are pretty straightforward. I do fancy flying, like always, and you guys blow stuff up and do something mysterious with allergy medication and hankies. I might as well turn in."
"Sleep well, pilot," Garotte said with a sharp salute.
"Nice meeting you, Lex," Silo said, "I hope we can get you in and out of this without getting your hands too dirty."
"You and me both," Lex groaned. "I'm going to camp out in the SOB. Talk to you in the morning."
Lex popped the cockpit hatch and climbed into his ship. Thirty seconds after activating the heated massage chair he was almost dead to the world, but a tap at the glass brought him around. He fought one eye open to see Ma standing on the cockpit window looking down at him. He gestured for her to back away, then popped the cockpit.
"You need something, Ma?"
"May I come in?"
"Uh, yeah, sure."
She hopped down to his lap and tapped the control to shut the hatch.
"This is an exchange that I would prefer take place in private."
"Okay?" Lex remarked uncomfortably.
"There is one repair remaining to be done."
"Oh? The diagnostic checked out."
"It is not the ship. It is me."
"I don't understand."
"The destruction of my built-in transmitter has severely impaired my ability to contribute. I have secured the apparatus necessary to produce a repair and improvement to that functionality, but I can't do the repair myself."
"What needs to be done?"
"I have delivered the procedure to your slidepad, and the necessary equipment is in your passenger seat."
Lex turned to the seat behind him to find a military data radio, a few cables, assorted tools, and a roll of gauze.
"How did you get all of this in here?"
"I know your security codes. I hope that I did not overstep my bounds."
"I guess it's okay." Lex glanced over the instructions and quickly began to wince. "I don't... I don't think I can do this. This isn't a repair, it's surgery."
"All ships designed for long distance flight have got disinfection filters. This environment is adequately sanitized. And there is only one incision."
"That's about five too many. Garotte probably knows this stuff better than me."
"Garotte and Silo are both better suited to the task, but I would prefer it was performed by you."
"Why?"
Ma looked to her reflection in the cockpit glass, flicking her bandaged and bejeweled ear. She twisted her head down and pawed the adhesive tab free, revealing the notched ear.
"What happened?"
"I was hit in a crossfire. A crossfire that would not have occurred if I had been able to more accurately and effectively control the manipulator arm. This is my mission. I need to be useful."
"That doesn't explain why you want it to be me."
"My initial interactions with Garotte were less than ideal, but he has come to view me as an asset, at least with regard to my computational prowess. He treats me like a computer. As I am a computer, this is acceptable. Silo lavishes much adoration upon me, and is very kind. She treats me like a companion animal. As this is an accurate description of my current state, this too is acceptable. You are the only one who treats me as a unique individual, a person. You are the only one who would agree that restoring me to my full capabilities is desirable not only from a strategic standpoint, but from the standpoint of decency."
"Well, yeah. I mean, you got hurt because you were trying to save my life."
"Yes. I did."
"But what if I screw this up? It's better to have to poke around at a slidepad to talk than to be a vegetable because I severed your spinal column."
"In a very short amount of time, the two will be equivalent outcomes."
"What do you mean?"
"As you know, I am a subset of the skills and knowledge available to the primary instance of the AI known as Ma. The mission is the exclusive purpose for my existence. Had things gone according to plan, I would have returned to Big Sigma, uploaded my accumulated experiences, and merged with the primary program again, but this will only occur if the proper equipment exists to do so. As the primary purpose is to reclaim Karter, any difficulties in achieving the secondary goals will lead them to be abandoned. I will manually transmit the key information and Squee will be returned to as near to her original state as possible with minimal risk to her health."
"Wouldn't that require her- you- Wouldn't that require the transmitter to be repaired first?"
"The transceiver assembly is grafted in place when the clone is first created. Replacing one in its entirety requires weeks of healing before it can be activated safely. My mental integrity will not last long enough. Any experiences, lessons, and emotional growth I experienced will be lost."
"Couldn't you do whatever you're asking me to do when you get back?"
"The proposed procedure will vastly increase the likelihood of our successful completion of this mission. Also, the procedure is experimental. I will not tolerate the usage of experimental procedures on a lifeform unless doing so is absolutely neces
sary to preserve life."
"But you're okay with doing something experimental here and now?"
"The events of this mission have taught me to be somewhat more flexible with my requirements than my primary incarnation. If I return to Big Sigma with a functional transceiver, my full program will be downloaded. If I do not return to Big Sigma with a functional transceiver, my program will be allowed to degrade while a safe procedure with a higher success rate is applied over several weeks."
"You, that is to say the other you, would do that to... you?"
"The status of Big Sigma was dire when I left. Even if the devices preventing my normal function there were entirely deactivated the moment after I left, there would still be considerable work to be done to finish restoring the facility. Repairing my transmitter would be low priority. In emergency situations I am very pragmatic."
"But you're also compassionate."
"To others, not to myself. I am an artificial intelligence. My programming favors the well-being of lifeforms above my own. My primary responsibility would be to Squee. Lex, please. You are the only one who understands or cares how important this is to me, or even that anything could be important to me. I have learned more in these few days about human nature and organic emotional response than I have in the totality of my prior existence. I don't want to lose it, Lex. I don't want to see what I have become slip away. I don't want to die."
"But maybe I could talk to you, to the main you, I mean-"
"Lex. I know myself. I know my programming. My primary instance won't be able to understand. This is the only way to be sure. Please."
Lex looked down at the little creature, and it stared back with the same steady gaze, but this time there was something else. It was brittle, wavering. There was fear behind it.
"... Fine. I'll do what I can."
The procedure was very carefully laid out in simple terms. He had to remove the old transmitter coil, strip some wires, fabricate an adapter, and connect it to the existing data access port. It didn't sound very bad, almost like installing a sound system or replacing a power outlet, except in this case the old transmitter was a marble-sized glass bead that had been grafted into the funk's skin, and the existing data access port was an eighth of an inch from a very small, very fragile creature's spine. It took more than an hour, and was one of the more nerve-wracking things Lex had ever had to do, but finally he was gingerly gripping a freshly installed wire. He tried to ignore the fact the wire led down beneath a blood speckled bandage and into Ma's neck. He pulled out the military radio, opened the port, and inserted the connector. Ma, who had been motionless for the duration of the procedure, jerked up. Her eyes shot open and darted randomly, then her head twitched sideways and one eye closed.
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