by K. Gorman
This was not what the Shadow looked like, only how her brain managed to interpret it.
The Shadow shuddered. When it spoke again, its voice had gone off, like a robot that was malfunctioning.
“She is…inside…us…”
The next thing she knew, it struck out.
She went reeling over backwards, the alarms on her suit beeping. Everything went black. She felt the Shadow around her, smothering her, pulling itself in. It sank into her skin, sliding through her flesh and bones even as her light exploded out.
Then, it was gone. And she was standing alone in a jungle that was quiet as death.
The other Shadows had left, too.
That was weird. You still there, Tia?
Yep.
Notice anything different?
Other than an elevated cardiovascular rate and adrenal levels? No.
Where the fuck did it go?
I have no idea.
She sighed. “I should probably go get that checked out, shouldn’t I?”
Probably. I don’t trust it.
“All right. Well, at least it’s not like they can hold me. I can still come back to the Shadow world and fuck around with our powers.”
Yep.
Shaking her head, she warped back to the other world and hiked back up the hill to the compound.
Chapter Fifteen
“So, you just decided to go out in your klemptas suit and play soldier girl?” Nomiki arched an eyebrow. “I mean, I get it.”
She rolled her eyes. “I thought you were off on some fancy mission.”
“It got postponed. That specialist team arrived sooner than expected.”
“Ah, yes, they must have caught that fabled trade wind out of the gate,” she said, a sharp edge of sarcasm to her tone―with space travel, there was no way someone could arrive ‘sooner than expected.’ Unless they were sporting some serious stealth tech, both Fallon and the Alliance would have painted their ship the second they transversed the gate and, given their origin and the fact that this was their team of specialists that was operating under their scope and permission, they would have been communicating every inch of the way out of Nova.
Gate comms only had a minute’s delay.
“Maybe they canceled an appointment on the Manila or something.” Nomiki shrugged. “All I know is what I’ve been told. Also, I know this suit did not come from the Courant. Yours is still hanging in the team room.”
She reached out a finger and flicked it against Karin’s armored shoulder, making a tock sound.
“Those last statements are contradictory,” Karin said. “Unless someone told you my armor was in there.”
Nomiki aimed her next flick at her head. Karin swatted her hand away.
“Hey, Doctor, can you hurry up with this check? My sister’s getting grabby.”
“It would be helpful to know what I was looking for,” he said, squinting down at the diagnostics crown in his hands as he unfolded its last node and took a step toward her. “Did you have another fit?”
“No. Just a weird Shadow encounter. It felt like it went inside me.”
“Sounds dirty,” Nomiki said. “Just what the hell have you been up to in this armor?”
She moved aside to let Takahashi set the crown over Karin’s head. Karin grimaced as the arms and nodes slid into place.
“Nothing special. It just went inside me―you know, like they normally try to do when attacking?”
“Can’t say I’ve personally experienced that, given I’m such a badass,” Nomiki said, making a show of checking her nails. “But yes, I know what you mean. Didn’t that happen to you before, too? Back on Enlil?”
It had. Back in the beginnings of the Shadows’ attacks, when the crew of the Nemina had been staging a rescue at Songbird Sanctuary, a Shadow had attacked her and pushed itself into her mind.
For a few seconds, her consciousness had disconnected. She’d been lost in darkness, all of her senses gone, unable to feel her body, unable to feel herself breathing.
Then, the Nomiki she’d been seeing in her dreams―a version of Nomiki that she later learned existed in the Cradle―had woken her out of it.
Or so she’d thought.
“Yeah, but it didn’t take. Whatever they do to other people, it didn’t happen to me.”
But the last Shadow had clearly done something. She’d felt it.
Plus―where had it gone? Was it still inside her?
Tia, please tell me I didn’t imagine it. It went weird at the end, right?
It did.
The diagnostics crown beeped. She looked up at Takahashi as he scanned the data on his eyepiece. “Anything?”
He didn’t reply immediately, likely still reading the results. She was just impatient.
They’d done this dance before.
“Nothing more than your new normal,” he said finally. “Were you speaking with Tia during this test?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “I thought so. There were a few…hills in the activity scan.”
She raised her eyebrows. “‘Hills?’”
“They aren’t as sharp as ‘spikes,’” he said. “More of a rolling slope.”
“Good to know.” She scrunched her head down and pulled the crown off, squinting as a few hairs caught in its arm joints. “’Miki, you said that team is here?”
“Yes. They should be downstairs right now. They wanted to look at the Cradle first.”
She rolled to her feet. “Fun. Let’s go meet them.”
Nomiki arched an eyebrow. “In that suit?”
Karin shrugged and led the way. “Why not?”
“I will accompany you,” Takahashi said, folding the diagnostics crown back into his pocket. “I, too, would like to meet them.”
With her mix of memories, it always felt odd to walk through the compound’s halls. Tia had memories of running and laughing kids, and long nights poring over data in her office or lab, or watching the sunset slant a golden light across the halls while she waited for an experiment to run or took a meal break in the upstairs kitchen.
Brazil was beautiful, no doubt about it, the lush forest always right outside the doors. It felt like an entity, sometimes. As if the entire forest were alive, aware, and sentient.
Which, of course, was a lie. Trees didn’t have brains. They couldn’t fit the human definition of sentience.
Still, there had been many a long evening spent watching the sun set across the canopy down the hill, at first leaning against the railings of the first floor’s wide concrete balcony, feeling the breeze lift the humidity from her hair, then later as Tia in her wheelchair, watching it all through a pane of worn and dusty Plexiglas and feeling the weakness of the ALS making her arms and legs shake and turning her speech into stuttering, difficult slurs.
Karin’s memories, more recent, were of blood.
Lots of blood.
She’d killed over fifty people in the compound’s hallways, mostly on the first and third floors, and she’d killed them violently.
So, seeing the halls filled with groups of Alliance and Fallon soldiers, scientists, and technicians, all going about their business and working to uncover the scope of the lab’s work and following a number of leads that both Tia, who had worked there, and Seirlin, the Eurynome Project’s parent company, had given them…it proved jarring and surreal.
Plus, more than a few of them were giving her a second glance.
It was probably the armor. Fallon didn’t spin out klemptas tech for just anyone.
The descent to the third level of the lab―technically the second level, since it was one above the lowest floor, but the Brazilian compound used a descending order in its floors―proved quick and uneventful. It had only been a few hours since she’d last been there, but the mood had shifted. It was busier. She got a sense of stress and tension, people working on tough deadlines.
The space between her shoulder blades itched with others’ attention.
Paranoia, she remi
nded herself. These people are just curious. Not threats.
Ahead, the end of the hallway turned right into the lab that housed the Cradle.
She stared at it a moment, feeling the brush of awareness that was Tia in the tank―like a fingertip of connection.
Perhaps it was the addition of Program Delphi’s genetic code, but the Tia in the tank had some form of telepathy. She’d felt it before, when she’d been flying in.
She’d almost crashed the plane.
It was an accident, the Tia in her mind said, her memory flashing like the scales of a fish under water as she recalled back―sitting in her own lab, designing the code on an older model holo, slipping into the lab room, the dreaded confinement of isolation, running programs and simulations on repeat.
There came a time when you just stopped being able to build anything new.
A deep, dark emotion overlaid her face and chest. She quickly pushed it aside, turning to Takahashi. “Have you heard of these people before?”
He shook his head. “Alas, I have been preoccupied. All I know is that they are not who I recommended for this―which is understandable, since the ones I recommended live much further into the system and would take more time to retrieve.”
Uh huh. So these people had likely come from Nova. It was the closest grab.
She tried to keep a positive outlook. Unfortunately, her pessimism about Fallon’s current attitude was hard to shake.
What are they not telling me?
Inside, Tia chuckled. Oh, honey. Don’t tell me you trusted the government?
A slip of anger shifted into her mind and body, fluttering low in her stomach. Her head tilted forward, teeth on the cusp of baring as her thoughts spiraled darker and the scent of blood rose in her senses.
She fought it. Hard.
Whatever our opinions, we will not take them out on these scientists. They are just regular people who are likely trying their best. Maybe they needed special equipment, or maybe one of their key members had only recently become un-Lost or had just finished transport to Nova. We’re all on the same side. We all want to defeat Sasha. So I’ll go in there, introduce myself, make sure they aren’t going to kill Tia and the Cradle, and assume that they are all nice-ish people who are just wanting to help end all of this.
She shoved the anger and the violence down, took a breath, and turned into the room.
A group of three people gathered around the tank with Shinji and Bella, several of them excitedly gushing over something on the screen. A sense of nakedness came over her at seeing the brain just floating there, suspended and vulnerable, trapped like a nautilus in a tank―blind, and in complete mercy to its surroundings and whoever had control of the dashboard overrides.
At the side of the room, apart from the others, General Crane spoke with a fourth scientist, the two of them leaning into the conversation.
The sight of him so close to her Cradle send a fierce urge of protectiveness swelling through her. She clenched her right hand into a fist, riding through the emotion. Her heartbeat quickened, then slowed again.
She breathed a steady breath out, trying to calm her nerves.
Beside her, Takahashi made a note of surprise.
“I recognize him.” His tone had turned unusually airy, almost breathless, his shock quickly slipping into confusion and speculation. “That’s Dr. William Somner-Bosch. He works for Seirlin.”
Karin stopped dead. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Suddenly, everything had gone very still. A surge of adrenaline pounded into her bloodstream, washing through her veins like a splash of numb heat. As she focused on the man standing next to General Crane, leaning into the conversation they were having, she could already feel the power that shook through her limbs.
Beside her, Nomiki had done similar.
“Are you sure?” Karin asked, her voice a low tone.
By the way Takahashi had stilled, he had sensed the change come over them. His jaw trembled as his brown eyes held hers for a second, then slid back to the man, gaze shifting up and down to get a good, solid look.
Likely, he knew his next words would condemn the man.
He swallowed and wet his lips. “Yes. I watched him speak once, several years ago. A corporate event when they launched a new biomedical product.”
And, just like that, the final nail was struck.
Ice slid into her veins. She schooled her expression as her mind opened, bright anger lighting her brain up like a beacon. Her vision tunneled, and an old, familiar violence slid into her tensed fingers.
Within seconds, her emotions dulled, and a cold, hard logic pushed into her mind like winter ice.
Tia slid in behind her, the new, familiar edict pressing into both of their minds.
Protect the Cradle.
“You should stay outside, Doctor.” The corners of her lips twitched, tugging into a fake smile. “I wouldn’t want to get blood on your nice clothes.”
“Be careful,” he said, giving a slight incline of his head as he backed away, then left.
Her lips pulled the smile wider, the psychopath inside her making sure it reached her eyes before she turned and stepped smoothly toward General Crane and the Seirlin scientist, projecting a friendly, curious attitude. “Hello, General! Are these the specialists? It’s so good that they’re finally here!”
Crane looked neither pleased nor surprised to see her, and he was already lifting an eyebrow at the armor she wore. “Dressing up for something, Makos? I thought we had agreed that you needed to rest.”
“Ah, yes, well, I happened to find myself in the Shadow world, so I figured I might as well suit up while I figured out why,” she said, the lie coming out, smooth as unraveling smoke.
She stopped less than a meter away, aware that Nomiki hadn’t moved from where she’d left her―giving her space―and swung her smiling mask to Dr. William Somner-Bosch, the Seirlin scientist, giving him an obvious once over.
“So, I understand that you work for the same company that mutilated my body and murdered my friends? Tell me―” She turned her penetrating gaze onto Crane, her smile widening just a little too much. “Why have you invited Seirlin here?”
Her tone remained friendly and concise. Too much so. She was no longer trying to hide the mask, but display it broadly, a psycho doll for them to see. The tension Crane had been carrying ramped up. He drew himself roughly an inch taller, one of his hands twitching toward his holster before he stopped himself.
“Ms. Makos,” he began. “I’m sure you understand the scope of our problem. As it happens, Seirlin not only has staff who are familiar with the Eurynome Project’s records and data, but also the equipment with which to handle something as medically invested as a brain suspended in an isolated system.”
Not even going to deny it.
Good. That made it much easier.
“Oh, yes, I’m aware. We found their little Cradle experiment in Pomona.” Her smile had teeth in it now, her tone turning sharper as she rounded on Crane, her voice now dropping into a depth that was wholly Tia. “My question was meant for you―in what realm of reasoning did you think I would allow anyone from Seirlin to touch my body?”
The room went silent. Her voice had carried, as she’d meant it to, and Tia’s steel-edged intent along with it. Five shocked faces fixed on her, and the smell of fear lifted into the room.
Tia was right. Fear did have a smell. Sour and pungent, like a bitter fruit rotting under a hot sun.
Power fluctuated through her, the dimensional boundaries already shuddering under her control.
General Crane’s expression resembled a stormfront.
To his credit, he didn’t let his fear show.
And when he spoke again, his voice held no hint of a tremble.
“Ms. Makos, you―”
The dimensional powers snapped.
She screamed, a raw, brutal, savage cry, and leapt into action.
The next few seconds felt like a dream. Ringing filled her ears, along with the distan
t sound of static. It felt like she was one step back from herself, watching her body move from afar. The two soldiers who had been setting up the table vanished, pushed into the Shadow realm. She cut into Dr. Somner-Bosch with a hand like a scythe, neatly slicing him in half. Red splattered everywhere. People screamed. His metal briefcase dropped to the ground with a loud clunk.
She finished him off with another cut, leaving half of his body bleeding out in the Shadow world.
With another violent gesture, she sliced the other three in half.
They died instantly, blood and entrails spilling out onto the floor in a mess.
By then, Crane had backed up and drawn his blaster. He fired several rounds at her. She phased. The rounds cracked harmlessly on the glass of the back wall.
She turned toward him, her armor bloody and her lips tugging into a smile again.
“Careful, now. You’ll hurt someone.”
He made to switch targets, to aim for the Cradle instead of her, to use it as a hostage―but she read his intent even as he started moving.
Reality blurred. She shot forward. By the time he’d moved his gun three inches, she had crossed the distance, switched them into the second world, and slammed him into the counterspace behind him.
She broke his arm with a smack and sliced his gun in half. The blasterpack erupted over the cupboards and floor, neon green burning bright in her eyes.
Behind her, the two soldiers she’d transferred over made sounds of distress, one of them lunging forward to help their general. She drew her own blaster and leveled it at them.
They stopped.
The general struggled, but she held him easily. The suit’s augments enhanced her own unnatural strength as she pinned him into the counter and put her face near his.
“I won’t kill you,” she informed him, her voice a low snarl. “That would be an act of war. But you will damn well never see my Cradle again.”
Despite his injury, he managed to growl at her.
Fallon generals didn’t hold their ranks out of incompetence.
“Makos, you are making a big mistake.”
“No, you made the mistake when you allowed Seirlin to breathe the same air as me. You know what I’ve become―you’ve seen enough combat records now for proof.”