by Gwynn White
“Oh, to the contrary. When your name is bandied about as much as yours is, it’s harder to hide the body.”
She…hadn’t looked at it quite like that, but then again, she doubted the Syndicate cared much either way.
“One day, Keva,” Koyl said with the calm pleasantness of velvet over steel “you will tell me who your benefactors are.”
“I doubt that.”
Koyl smiled and returned his attention to Hale. “Wait an hour and then take off.”
“Wilmur has slip drive.”
“Then use the underground travel lanes.”
Hale nodded. “Will do.”
“And, Hale?”
Hale sighed, setting his shoulders with a tired determination. “Yes?”
“Try to not die out there.” Koyl’s screen went blank.
Keva stared at Hale, a bottleneck of emotions warring inside her. What had she stepped into?
And did the Syndicate even know the kind of war already brewing?
21
What did you tell them?” Keva demanded.
“What I had to.”
Geny Pete glanced at them but kept his attention focused on the navigation control panels, even though, they weren’t going anywhere. Not for another hour, at least.
“You really work for the Families. You told them everything. I thought I could…” …trust him.
No, she’d never make that mistake again, but maybe a little part of her hoped he was different from everyone else in her life. But no, he was a Family man. Not that she completely understood what that meant. In her entire career, she’d known about them, but they’d never been drawn this powerful. Koyl Osiris had just faced off with Wilmur Zervek. A high-ranking elite. And won.
At least for the time being.
“Are you hungry?” Hale beamed a smile at her, his eyes pinched. He snapped his fingers and headed for the door. “I’m famished.”
Keva blinked, still processing everything she’d just learned. Finally, she followed Hale down the hall to the galley where the rest of the crew had gathered. She knew them, just generally didn’t care to converse much.
Reach and Domino sat at a table and played cards, though it looked like Reach was getting his ass handed to him. Domino had significantly more chips in front of her. Stekil yawned and stretched, curling up in his hard chair, resting his head on the back of it to nap.
“I didn’t trust you with the information I had so you could share it without consulting me.” Keva rounded the metal island and stared at Hale.
Hale closed the cooling unit, a bottle in his hand. He set it down and leaned on the counter, eyeing her incredulously. “Do you have any idea what’s going on out there? You think you’re after this weapon. You think your organization is looking out for the people. But what were your orders? Huh? What did that man tell you to do?”
She opened her mouth but closed it. She couldn’t tell him her orders, not when she had just seen proof he would tell others, people she didn’t even know.
“They ordered you to take it, didn’t they?”
She blinked. He wasn’t dumb, that was for sure.
“Not to save as many people as possible, which is the reason you’re upset the information got out. You need stealth on your side so you can get Batch D-65 and give it straight to the hands of these…people, whoever they are.”
“They’re trying to help.”
“And you know that how?”
Because they saved her.
He nodded and looked away. “Have they done anything—anything—to make you believe they’re trying to help the people? Ever? Once? Twice? How have they helped the pushers or the spacers? Or the people living next to Kalamatra’s core? Are they working on a cure for radiation poisoning? Are they developing ways to protect the babe in the womb of the mother who is forced to work down there?”
Of course not. The Syndicate was concerned with bigger things. They dealt with broad sweeps, not individuals.
“Or what about the HUMP condition? Would they stoop so low as to find a cure for the toxic air?”
“No,” Keva whispered, realizing she hadn’t been responding out loud. “My only mission has been to discover information about and the location of Batch D-65.”
“And did they want you to destroy it?”
“If I can’t retrieve it.” Keva crossed her arms over her chest.
Hale pinched the bridge of his nose before looking at her. “What do you know about them?”
“Nothing.”
“You have to know something. Why else would you follow them?”
Keva chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment before answering. “They need people like me to decrypt and decipher messages.”
“Like you.” Hale looked away. “Like Fallow and Tallow? You’re engineered, but through the military, right?”
She gritted her teeth but nodded. At the end of the day, she needed Hale’s help. She might be upset with him for telling people he trusted, but she trusted him, even if she didn’t want to. And it looked like she was heading into a battle she might not return from.
He blinked and turned back to the cooling unit. “You’re a Jay.”
She looked at him, startled. “How do you know about the Jays?”
“You seriously think anyone can keep all of that secret?”
Well, yes. She’d worked so hard to keep her secret while in the military it was hard to imagine other people, civilians even, knowing about it. “How?”
“Rumors mostly. And scientists love to talk. The Jays spawned a whole new segment of scientists who tried to replicate what they did in the military. To build people who are forced to obey without thought or hesitation, but then to have a continual anomaly? The Jays? Who are able to fight back?” He pulled out another bottle and handed it to her. “Milk.”
She frowned at him. Milk was expensive. She popped the top off and took a tentative sip. It tasted creamy and smooth, unlike anything she’d ever had before.
“So, yeah. We know about the Jays. The people who you work for are using you.”
“They saved me.”
“After you were spaced?” He said that last part like he was having a tough time believing it.
She took another sip and licked her lips. Then, she tipped her head in affirmation. “It’s true.”
“They literally threw you out into space.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t about to sugarcoat anything. She couldn’t afford to. Too much had been laid out in the open and she needed to figure out who she could trust. No. It didn’t matter who she could trust. She needed to decide what to do next. “I failed the wrong test. They sent a command to my chip, and I overrode it. So, they put me in a spacesuit and threw me out the trash chute.”
Hale stared at her for a long moment. The game at the table went quiet as well. Domino turned around in her seat and watched Keva with a new light in her eyes.
Hale clucked his tongue. “Well, that certainly paints a whole new picture of you.”
She didn’t appreciate the insight he was gaining on her when she hadn’t learned nearly as much in return. “How did you fall in with the Families?”
Hale gave her an appraising look then shrugged and left the kitchen area to join the others. “Like I said already. My parents were ranchers and a Reyher storm wiped us out. Took out the herd, destroyed the house, killed my brother. Not a whole lot left for us after that. The Families came in and helped us as much as they could, but it wasn’t ever going to be the same. Terrastorms were getting worse, and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. So, I got out.”
“And that’s your connection to the Families?” He didn’t quite make sense. It felt like she was getting a hyper-glossy version of the truth.
“Certainly how it got started.” He pulled out a chair and sat. He motioned for her to join them at the table. “There were plenty of other circumstances, a lot of things that happened. There’s a whole story on how I got the ship. But what you need to under
stand, Keva is that the Families have been looking out for the people a very long time. The Elite? The only thing they care about is giving us just enough technology to get us killed. If they have the comforts they desire, they couldn’t give two rats’ asses about the common people.”
Keva had learned more about the Elite since leaving the military than when she’d been there serving under them.
Domino gathered up the cards and shuffled them. “I’m not going to tell you the Families are everything bright and beautiful.” She tapped the cards against the table and began dealing about. “They can be just as bad as everybody else. Power makes people stupid.”
Hale took his cards and fanned them in his hand. “You won’t get any arguments here.”
“But I will say that they are less shitty—then the Elite.”
Keva picked up her cards, barely paying attention to them. She’d decided earlier she needed to get to know Hale’s crew. Might as well start now, even though she should check on Dottie soon. “So, what’s your story?”
Domino shook her head and played a card. “Is not a pretty one. I didn’t get spaced, I can tell you that much. But there’s a reason I’m a pirate, a reason I’m good at it. And there’s a reason why you shouldn’t cross me.”
“That doesn’t tell me a whole lot.”
“You didn’t tell me a whole lot either.”
Reach played a card and shrugged. “My story’s an easy one. Mom was a whore. Pa was a drunk. Was raised on my own. I learned early to kill people, get drunk, and fuck.”
Domino raised her head with a smile. “And that’s how I found him. Between the legs of a woman he thought was a whore but who was the property of another woman.”
“It wasn’t the first time I nearly died because of a woman.”
Keva raised her eyes and studied Hale who had a smirk on his face but his shoulders had relaxed, and his eyes were warm in a way she wasn’t accustomed to seeing. She’d known this man longer than she knew just about anybody else outside of the military. And yet this was the first time she was really seeing him. A lot could be learned about a person from the folks they gathered around them. What did that say about her? Who had she gathered around herself?
Keva set her cards down. “Not in the mood to play.”
“You never are,” Domino said with a roll of her eyes.
Keva stood and pressed her fingertips on the table. “There’s something you need to understand. The military knows I’m alive. They’ve seen my face on the broadband, and they know I’m still out here. They’re searching for me. And we’re heading close to Heliac Nine. Hell, we might be heading to Heliac Nine. We just don’t know. Batch D-65, whatever it is, is bad. And the closer I get to it, the closer I am to getting caught. And when the military gets their hands on me again?”
Hale met her gaze.
“You will all know exactly where I am, and be completely unable to help me. Presuming you even want to.” Keva straightened. “All I ever was, all I will ever be, is a science experiment. And according to those who owned me, I’m nothing more than a failed science experiment. If they get their hands on me, they’re going to experiment on me until they kill me.”
Domino leaned back in her chair.
“So, no, I don’t want to play cards. I don’t want to make friends. Because when they’re cutting on me, when they’re sticking needles in my brain, I don’t want to be thinking about you and how I may have gotten you killed. I don’t want to think about any of you.” She took a step back. “All I want to be thinking about is how quickly it will all end.”
“You should’ve thought of that,” Hale murmured, “before you saved the princess.”
“I should’ve thought about a lot of things.” She swallowed. She opened her mouth to say something else, foreign emotions bubbling inside her. But she clamped her mouth shut, spun on her heel, and left.
“Imagine what it will feel like,” Hale called after her, “if we fail and you’re still caught.”
“I really don’t want to.”
And she didn’t. As she opened the belly hatch and stepped down the ladder into her own ship, she wondered when she’d started living. When had she started caring?
Because this? Saving Dottie. Helping ILO. Saving ARO. None of it made any sense. When had she changed from the cold-hearted military person who followed orders to someone who got up every morning ready to live? Because the soldier would’ve been okay knowing she might die to complete her mission. The military person she’d been wouldn’t have hesitated.
The thought of ending up at Heliac Nine to find the Batch D-65’s origins terrified the crap out of her. She couldn’t afford to freeze out there. She couldn’t afford to falter. If she did, people would die. Lots of people would die.
She couldn’t afford to hesitate, but the thought of going back to that emotionless being that she had been? She couldn’t do it. At the end of the day, she wanted to be the type of person who saved someone like Dottie.
Mostly because at the end of the day she wished someone had saved her a lot sooner.
Well, she was going to enjoy what freedom she had for as long as she could. It was the only plan she had.
22
Keva tried shaking herself off as she walked down the hallway to ILO’s cubbyhole. She hadn’t realized just how nervous she was about this mission until…well, until just then. Experiencing emotions didn’t come easily for her. She’d always had them, sure. She was human, but she’d blocked them off, pushed them aside. Being a military-engineered person, her life didn’t afford her the luxury not to.
Being a civilian had rounded her edges, and it wasn’t until that moment she saw just how much softer she’d become.
By the time she’d made it to the cargo bay and the hidden door which opened automatically when she neared it, she felt more in control of herself again. Well, at least she didn't clench her teeth anymore. She hadn’t even realized she had been until her jaw released and the pain rushed in. She wasn’t too self-aware, another thing she needed to work on if she lived through this.
The hidden space was tidy, no longer filled with miscellaneous electronics and machinery. Dottie had been busy. Keva still didn’t know all the parts and pieces ILO had gathered in the room. The bust of a robot lay on one table, wires spilling from its middle like intestines. The metallic skin gave off a pale sheen in the overhead light. Bins full of more parts and wires were stashed under counters. The lights reflected off shiny surfaces in every direction.
Dottie ignored Keva’s entrance if she’d even noticed. She was bent over the head of the robot with microscope goggles on and a laser welder in one hand. Bits and pieces of metals piled around her on the table within easy reach.
“It’s not going to work,” ARO’s voice said over the speaker.
“Of course it is going to work,” Dottie said. She laid down the welder and grabbed a small screwdriver to shove inside the skull on her operating table. “There isn’t a better idea.”
“The hard drive in that monstrosity isn’t large enough for a complete download.”
“No,” ILO said. This time she had red hair instead of black, and it billowed around her face on the screen on the far wall as if to emphasize her point. “You’ll have to keep part of you downloaded on that shuttle.”
“If I had access to a larger hard drive—”
“You’re not sharing my hardware,” ILO said firmly.
“You have plenty of space.”
“No.”
Dottie picked something off the table and held it over her head. “This will give you plenty of space for anything you want to do.”
ARO didn’t say anything.
Dottie put it down and continued her work inside the skull of the robot.
Keva stopped beside her. “Looks like you’re enjoying yourself.”
“I do prefer being busy.”
Keva didn’t miss the fact that Dottie wore the elegant fabric top she’d made from her dress. A touch of home, she guessed. “
This is your idea to give ILO a body?”
“No,” ILO said, her lips tight. “She’s building that for ARO.”
Dottie sat up, setting her screwdriver aside. “I know ARO’s programming, ILO. I helped create it, and I know Eddqin’s techniques.” Sadness touched her expression around the edges.
The woman was maturing faster than Keva had expected.
“Because of that and because I know his hardware, I am working on creating a host form for him first.”
Which was all well and good. “But I tasked you with helping ILO.”
Dottie nodded and twisted around to see Keva better. “And I will as soon as I figure out if this is even possible with ARO. ILO’s tech is older. Honestly, I don’t even know how she managed to evolve with such outdated tech.”
“Can you give her a hardware upgrade?” Keva held out a hand as she looked at ILO. “I’m just asking if it would help.”
ILO pointed her face away.
Keva frowned. What was it like for ILO? What did she see when she turned her head away like that? Because from where Keva stood, ILO was staring at the side of the monitor.
Dottie shrugged. “It might, or it might hurt her. I just don’t know, which is another reason I do not want to mess with her tech until I learn more about what we are trying to accomplish. I want to focus on ARO’s tech, see what can be done and what cannot, and then help ILO.”
“That’s the way Father treated me, too,” ARO bit out. “I was his guinea pig as well.”
Keva didn’t know what a real guinea pig was, another earther phrase that had survived through the years without context. Now, all it meant was test subject, and she understood that feeling all too well. “How much is this going to damage ARO?”
“It won’t.” Dottie jutted both hands in front of her, fingers together, palms up. “That is what I have been trying to tell him, but he will not listen to me.”
“You’re speaking formally again.”
Dottie rolled her eyes in frustration. “I am in my own habitat where I should be free to be whomever I wish to be, not who you think I should be.”