The Eurynome Code: The Complete Series: A Space Opera Box Set

by K. Gorman

  Soon, her breaths slowed. Cool air pricked at her skin, even chilling parts of her back inside her shirt.

  She shivered.

  Okay, she thought, sitting back up. What the fuck was that?

  She was still in the lab, at least. Marc and Soo-jin were gone, but the treatment I.V. was still hooked into her right elbow, set on a magnetized unit that, with a quick study and a flick of a button, unlocked itself from the floor and allowed itself to be pushed toward the end of the bed. Putting a foot out from under the covers, she eased herself over the side, allowing a grimace when the bottom of her sock hit the floor and the cold of the prefab began to seep through.

  The lab was empty, which she didn’t find odd—both doctors had to sleep and eat sometime—but the computer was off, which did trigger a line of doubt in her mind. She surveyed the lab with a stony frown, taking in everything on the half-lit counters and surfaces. Her wallet and netlink were still on the side table, and Takahashi had left a few of his things out—most notably his tea mug—but, except for that, it was clean.

  The holoscreen that should have been on lit up as soon as she touched the controls. She stared at the charts and graphs lighting its surface, spotting her name in the corner above an image of her brain scan from earlier. Several other brain scans populated the windows below, each of them different. The ones at the very bottom used an older image format.

  A record of her brain. Lovely.

  Well, at least the doctor was doing something productive with his time.

  Now, where was he?

  She turned around, intending to snatch up her netlink and send him a message, but a jitter of movement caught her eye.

  She jerked her head up.

  In the corner of the lab—which had been empty just a second ago—stood a Shadow.

  A sliver of ice slid through her spine as she locked eyes with it.

  It wasn’t very big. About mid-sized, based on her experience with Shadows. It also lacked the weird warped effect that some of its compatriots had, where random body parts would be either shrunken or engorged far beyond any limit of proportion, though she knew that could change in a heartbeat. Shadows were more like a viscous, compacted mist than anything truly solid—and more like ghosts than anything coming close to kingdom mammalia, despite their human shape. How they kept their forms was beyond her.

  When a few moments passed and nothing happened, she allowed herself to relax.

  Although the Shadows were best known for their unending attacks across the system, she’d encountered more and more docile ones in the recent months—especially when she was alone, like now. The Shadow in the old Seirlin lab hadn’t attacked her earlier. Maybe this one would be the same.

  Still, outright ignoring it wouldn’t do. They were a credible threat—potentially lethal, coming up with nary a sound. She dismissed it instead, but kept a wary track of it in the back of her mind as she found her shoes by the other end of the bed and rolled her I.V. stand to the door.

  Where was everyone?

  By the way the hall lights were turned down, it looked like night cycle—which made sense, since the ship had been heading into its night cycle when she’d started the treatment—but a Fallon military ship like the Manila was never truly asleep. Even if it hadn’t been operating in the potentially-hostile space of Novan orbit, there were far too many things that needed doing to get behind on it. The last time she’d been aboard, the place had been bursting with crew. She hadn’t seen too many down in the bowels where this particular clinic lurked, but she had seen a few.

  Now, the air was too still. And the quiet itched at the space between her shoulder blades.

  Had something happened?

  If it had, Nomiki would have come get her. If not her, then Marc or Soo-jin. Or someone else.

  They wouldn’t have left her.

  She snorted.

  Maybe there’s a new Sailor Moon episode out and everyone’s trapped to a netlink screen.

  Whatever it was, she’d find out.

  She pushed the I.V. stand ahead of her through the door and started off.

  The Manila’s hallways were wide and smooth, with only a slight rumble on the stand’s wheels from the pre-fab floor texture. She tried to ignore how loud it sounded in the quiet corridor, or the way the silence made all the hairs on her skin stand to attention. A quick scan of the ship map next to a fire kit center—and then a double and triple-take when she realized that the cross-section of tiny-looking halls, tubes, hangars, and corridors were only a small subsection of the entire ship—gave her a moment’s pause, then a direction.

  But even before she’d reached the security station two halls over, she could tell by the continued silence that it was empty. A peek inside only confirmed it.

  Her jaw tightened, as did her grip on the I.V. stand.

  A quick glance at the corner behind her revealed that the Shadow was following her, too.

  She huffed.

  If it was waiting for a good spot to attack, it should have tried when she was asleep. Even Jon and Nomiki, who were far too talented in violence to succumb to a Shadow attack, were second on the list of effective weapons against them. Her light powers made her a natural enemy.

  Plus, she was pretty sure she was immune. A Shadow had caught her once and tried to get in—enough that she’d had black eyes like a Lost, according to Ethan, who had seen her at the time—but she’d managed to fight her way back from it.

  Come to think of it, she had no idea what had happened to that particular Shadow. It had simply… gone away.

  She eyed the Shadow that was following her. Then, she dismissed it with a shake of her head.

  No. They were way too far away from Songbird Sanctuary for it to have followed her here.

  She continued on. Maybe, if she went up a level, she’d find someone. Either that, or a comms station. She might not have experience on the comms of a Fallon military cruiser, but they couldn’t be that different from the Nemina’s. And, of course, failing everything else, she could always go to the Nemina.

  She’d go to the bridge first, if it came to that.

  She walked on. Oddly, only a small amount of panic had slid into her movements—a kind of light, frenetic frenzy that tightened her shoulders and chest. She quickened her steps. There was a lift up ahead. If she could get into it and close the door before the Shadow caught up, she’d be away.

  They weren’t hard to avoid.

  She slapped the panel, and the door slid aside with a hiss much more subdued than the ones the Nemina’s old doors made. Ignoring the twinge of pain in her right arm as she bumped the I.V., she fumbled around, tapping at the console. The door hissed closed, trapping the Shadow outside—and still far down the hall. As the lift began to rise, she let her shoulders sink.

  Okay. Don’t panic. There’s got to be someone around here.

  But when the door opened again, the next corridor was empty, too.

  “Hello?” She stepped out, frowning down its expanse. “Is anybody there?”

  The only answer came in the hiss of the lift door as it closed behind her. She breathed, slow and shallow. Listening.

  If possible, the silence appeared to be even thicker here. As if it were trying to listen.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have called out. Maybe I should have stayed quiet. Something’s wrong. Something—

  She gritted her teeth and clenched her fist until the joints of her fingers hurt.

  Don’t panic.

  Her eyes locked on a comms station up the hall. Breaths loud in her throat, she forced herself to move.

  Before she got there, someone spoke.

  “Tia, did you send the E-Twenty reports over to CC yet?”

  The man’s voice rippled through the corridor like an ocean wave, its edges marked by a roar like surf. She cowered as it washed through her, then shied back with a yelp. Energy crackled straight through her skull with the touch of a magnet.

  In the pause that followed, the silence returned. She clun
g to the I.V. stand, breath shuddering through her.

  It started up again, the woman’s voice this time, her cadence the same as she remembered it—but loud, drawn out, as if someone had slowed down the broadcast. She braced herself, gritting her teeth as she located its source.

  It came from the end of the hall.

  “No. We’re still waiting on your brother. When is he going to finish with the subject twenty-three exam cloud?”

  Energy buzzed through her shoulders. As soon as the sound finished, she lunged forward. When she began to run, leaning on the stand as much as she could allow, her own energy slid into her skin, humming like a chorus of insects. The wheels rattled and rumbled. The next words hit like a strike from a battle drone.

  “He’s been busy. Something about corporate ass-kissing. He’ll be back next week.”

  “CC will get the reports next week, then.”

  The ensuing beep sounded like a pulse thrumming through her chest. She reached the end of the corridor, turned, and the world slipped like melted ice cream.

  Everything blinked out.

  Her energy roared up like arcs of thunder. The blackness stabilized. A room appeared. Tia stood with her back to Elliot Corringham in the same lab she’d seen them before, only this time, Karin saw her from a different angle. Energy zinged over her heart like a glowing, heated ember. Behind Tia, a slim teenage girl lay on the bed, most of her brown skin covered by either blankets or bandages. Her eyes were closed, delicate features slack. She recognized the short, spiky hair that framed the girl’s face.

  She winced as the voices came back, blowing through her ears as if she stood next to a loudspeaker.

  “We should talk.”

  “No, Elliot, we shouldn’t.”

  “But—”

  Gods, it was so loud. Too loud. Too much. It felt like it was going to split her apart, like it was rocking too hard on its track, blowing too fast and hard. She cringed downward, tensed her muscles, and yelled.

  “Stop!”

  The world jerked, twitched as her energy exploded out of her. She sucked in a breath as her stomach rocked in protest, all the hairs on her skin standing up in a wave. She pulled on the power, wrangling it back into place.

  “Go find a fucking priest.”

  This time, the volume was much more reasonable—as was the tempo. Though a modicum of hissing static remained, there was no strange warping.

  She looked up just in time to see Elliot Corringham walk away.

  Okay. Gonna go ahead and guess that this is not in the Manila and that I am, in fact, tripping balls on my treatment.

  Suns, what was in that stuff?

  “Saints and sinners, they won’t even let me die in peace.”

  The girl moved, then, her eyes fluttering open, and her bandaged arm shifting over the bed. Though emotion still grated through Tia’s words, her tone lightened away from the cold spite she had used with Elliot as she bent forward to help her.

  “Don’t worry, they don’t know that you’re awake. But then, they don’t know much about you at all, do they? Which is entirely their own fault. We’re going to be sisters soon. Did you know that?”

  That’s where it had ended before. Karin jerked. Before she knew what she was doing, she lurched forward. “Wait, wait! Who are you?”

  To her surprise, the woman stiffened. Though the girl stayed still—so still, as if she were frozen—Tia looked up. A frown came onto her face. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Layla, Program Athena, had said that, too, one of the last times she’d seen her in a dream.

  “Yeah, I’m getting that a lot, but I’m here anyway. And likely tripping out of my mind. So, while I’m here, I thought I’d ask—in case my subconscious actually has an answer—who are you? Who is she? Are you part of Project Eurynome? And,” she paused, ignoring the small trip in her stomach as she made a gesture at the hallway Elliot Corringham had just disappeared from. “How do I find him?”

  She’d tagged the last question on as an afterthought—if she was going to get answers, she might as well get all the answers she could, even if this was her subconscious mind answering through an acid trip—but the second it left her lips, the raw mix of emotions on Tia’s face slid into a mask of stone.

  “Why do you want to know about him? Did he kill you, too?”

  Her eyebrow twitched. Yeah, I’m just going to ignore the past tense in that.

  “If it hadn’t been for my sister? Probably.”

  She didn’t expect the frown that doused the woman’s ire. “What do you mean, probably? He either did, or he didn’t.”

  “Never mind that. Who are you? Are you part of the Eurynome Project?”

  The woman’s lip curled.

  “Yes. I’m the chief genetic programmer of Eurynome. And I will mind that—how are you here?” Her eyes slid back and forth, as if she were reading something in the midspace between them. “You aren’t in the Cradle. How are you here?”

  Karin narrowed her eyes. There was that word again—Cradle. If this was a dream, that meant it was finally either entering her unconsciousness or being revived from it like some of her old memories had to be.

  This was, however, feeling less and less like a dream as time ticked on.

  “No, I’m not in the Cradle.” She paused, eyeing the woman. “Are you?”

  The woman gave a soft snort. “If you’re here, that means I’m already dead. The parts that matter, anyway. And this is a memory, played to keep myself human. And this is a memory, played to keep myself human. Human. Human.” She stopped herself, seeming to realize what she’d been repeating herself, and gave herself a visible shake.

  Er… okay.

  Karin kept her expression smooth when the woman met her eyes again.

  “I am the Cradle. And, to answer your first question with more relevant accuracy, I was also the first human trial of the Eurynome Program.” A small, sour laugh fluttered out of her, and her eyes filled with emotion again. “As if we could do anything but human trials with this.”

  Karin snorted. “Yes. It’s funny, isn’t it? Even if you could transfer the genes of deities into modified pigs, the Animal Welfare laws might have actually gotten you where the genetic embryonic ones were lacking.”

  “Indeed.” Tia let out a breath. “Earth isn’t what it used to be.”

  A small pause slipped into the room, though the air didn’t seem to move. The girl on the bed was still frozen, she noticed. Like an image stopped in time.

  She swallowed.

  “So… If you’re dead, how am I speaking to you?”

  “I’m in the Cradle,” she answered simply.

  Right. As if that answered things. She ran her tongue over her front teeth, thinking. “Is that related to the hive mind Genesis point human consciousness experiment the Corringhams were going for?”

  “It is the hive mind Genesis point human consciousness experiment the Corringhams were going for.” She mimicked Karin’s tone and cadence perfectly, except for the edge of sarcasm at the end and the sneer she rounded on her with. “And you’re definitely not in the system. How are you here? What program are you?”

  Karin folded her arms over her chest, wincing and retracting the movement when she bumped the I.V. in her arm.

  “Eos,” she said, distracted. “And I’m currently tripping my ass off on treatment.”

  Tia frowned. “Program Eos was never supposed to do this. What happened? How are you able to—”

  Karin interrupted her. “I, ah, may have broken my programming.”

  The doctor frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Karin blew out a breath, puffing her cheeks in the process. Well, this was going to be a doozy.

  “One of the other subjects, Program Chaos, got it in her head to take over the universe with some weird shadow dimension, enlisted Program Tartarus to help her, and nearly took over Nova Earth about a week ago. It’s theorized that my programming deviated when I used my powers to oppose her.”

&
nbsp; The doctor’s lips formed a small ‘o.’ Her eyebrows shot into her forehead. “Okay. Wow. That’s… unique.”

  “Yes. She’s not the most stable organism herself,” Karin said. “Started talking about human core archetypes and how we’re closer to the source than others like Program Enyo.”

  Tia’s brows furrowed, her face thoughtful. “Well, she’s not wrong. You and she would be closer to the original programming than the war pantheon series. We designed those mostly for budget reasons. Not that they aren’t important. We certainly fine-tuned their adjustments, and they gave us a lot of early research tests.”

  She paused for a few moments, her face pensive. Her forefinger tapped on the side of her netlink, almost idly.

  “She’s not supposed to do that,” Tia finished finally. “If she was a creation archetype, she was supposed to be a Cradle base, like me.”

  Cradle base? Karin kept her face smooth, not wanting to distract Tia when she seemed to be on a roll with giving her answers—but her mind flicked back to what Tasuhada had said about organic computing.

  Hmm.

  “Eos has a minor connection to creation as a Dawn goddess. That is likely why you could oppose Chaos, especially given the light versus void motif. You would not have the same power as one of us, however.”

  This time, her eyebrow twitched. Was Tia suggesting that she did?

  “I had help, last time. I need more,” she agreed. “Another reason why I’m back in treatment.”

  “That won’t work,” Tia said, her tone flat. She started for the other side of the lab, where an old holoscreen flickered to life in front of her. “Not for Program Eos. It’ll help, yes, but one can only boost her so high. You need the power of a creation program.”

  The blood slipped away from her face. Karin could feel herself pale.

  It won’t work?

  “It has to,” she sputtered. “If it doesn’t, Sasha will—”

  She sucked in a breath. Her limbs began to shake, images smashing through her mind—Marc, Soo-jin, Cookie, they would all die. Everyone would die. Sasha would take them over as handily as she’d taken parts of Nova, dropping them into a void until they ran out of food or went mad.