by M. D. Cooper
He walked to the service chest and pulled out the required tool to remove the power coupler’s cover.
Grayson slotted the tool into place and twisted, trying not to tense up at Jerrod’s words.
Jerrod didn’t respond, and Grayson knew he was running out of time.
Jerrod said.
“Jerrod…”
It wasn’t enough time to send a proper warning.
Brain-shattering pain caused Grayson to suck in a mouthful of air. A moment later, it was as though he couldn’t breathe at all. Panic set in and he felt like he was convulsing, but he wasn’t.
He was fine. He was breathing, he just couldn’t feel it because he was separated from his body—as though a wall had been erected around his mind.
His body moved.
First, it picked itself off the floor and then it started out of the engine room. Grayson didn’t tell the body to move, it just did. He saw everything as he normally would, his body walking down the hall, and his HUD reflected a search for Kylie’s location in the ship.
There she was.
Kylie lay on the deck, trying to push herself upright. She looked upset, but when she saw him her expression cleared.
The message went nowhere, his Link access was gone. He truly was trapped in his own head.
“Grayson—”
His body just kept moving toward her. Jerrod would hurt her. Grayson knew it but there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Real concern appeared on her face. “Gray? Can you hear me?”
He swung his arm wide and his fist almost collided with her head—but somehow missed as she dodged aside at the last moment. Witnessing his own body attacking her was almost more than he could bear. It felt like he was doing it. Grayson wished he could stop watching, but looking away was no longer a power he possessed.
“Grayson! What’s gotten into you!” Kylie called out as she fell to her knees and crawled under his outstretched arm to the other side of the passageway.
Turning, he charged at her again, this time his arms outstretched, going for her throat. Kylie pushed at him, but she was losing ground. Jerrod was leveraging every enhanced muscle Grayson possessed, flooding them with energy to kill the woman before them.
Before him, Kylie’s eyes grew wide in horror as she struggled against him. “Jerrod?”
There, at least she knew it wasn’t him doing this. He was desperate to speak, to tell her not to hold him back. Jerrod had to be stopped.
Kylie twisted free and tried to move, but she didn’t seem to be able to lift her legs. Jerrod took advantage of her delay and grabbed her by the throat, slamming her up against the wall. Her face scrunching from the pain.
Kylie seemed strong, Grayson could feel that as she pushed back—even from within his cocoon. She kept managing to break his—Jerrod’s—grip.
Then Jerrod appeared to decide on a new tactic, and let go of Kylie’s neck, but it was only so that he could kick her down the ramp past the airlock and toward the cargo bay.
Winter was screaming and slamming a fist against the airlock’s window as Jerrod stiffly walked Grayson’s body toward Kylie.
Kylie crawled toward the airlock, scampering like an animal. Go Kylie, Grayson cheered her on as his body raced toward her. Just as her palm was to slam against the button to release the airlock, his hand snaked out and grabbed her ankle.
Damn it, no!
Jerrod dragged Kylie into the cargo bay. He flipped her over to grab her arms, and Kylie squirmed free, backhanding him across the face while Jerrod tried to pin her arms down. She kicked him in the back of the head and lunged up biting his cheek hard enough to draw blood.
Grayson didn’t feel a thing but Jerrod shrieked into his head.
Kylie pushed him back and scurried away, jumping over empty cargo containers, casting her eyes about as though she was looking for something.
She disappeared around a stack of crates and Jerrod followed after, his movements still stiff and ungainly.
“Kylie?” Grayson heard his voice say…but it didn’t sound right, it was foreign and cold.
“Come out where I can see you,” Jerrod said again through Grayson’s mouth as he walked slowly around a corner.
A burst of movement caught his attention as a metal bar swung toward him. Kylie was above, on top of the crates, putting all her strength into the blow.
Jerrod was getting better at moving Grayson’s body and ducked out of the way as his arm shot out to grab the bar and pull Kylie down. Then something struck him from behind and Jerrod spun away, facing both attackers.
Jerrod said.
Grayson couldn’t either. He was staring into Lana’s eyes. Her hair was s
tringy and covering much of her face, but it was clearly Lana. Her jaw was set tight as she swung her fist. It collided with Grayson’s face and bowled him over.
Jerrod was learning the limits of a human body and was struggling to rise as Lana’s knee lifted and then her foot slammed into his chin. His teeth snapped together and he was certain at least one cracked.
Lana pushed him down with her boot on his chest as Kylie jumped down from the crates, still holding the metal bar.
Grayson couldn’t believe how fast Lana had moved. Even if he had been in control of his body, there would have been no way he could have countered her.
Not to mention the fact that she was alive….
He could tell that Jerrod was struggling to fit this new information into the parameters of his orders.
He looked up at the two women standing over him as Lana turned to Kylie and said, “Does someone want to explain to me what the hell is going on?”
COMPLICATIONS
STELLAR DATE: 09.16.8947 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Salvage ship Dauntless, dark layer, near Einendart
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
Lana was alive and standing right in front of Kylie. Even as Kylie reached out and grabbed Lana’s arm she had a hard time believing it. Skin to skin contact proved she wasn’t hallucinating, right?
“You’re alive. How?” Kylie asked aloud. Marge had confirmed it. Lana was real all right, which Kylie couldn’t wrap her mind around. Just minutes before Kylie had been mourning her.
Relief flooded her, fighting the part of her mind which was terrified about what may have happened to Grayson when Jerrod had taken over his body—which was currently lying very still beneath Lana’s boot.
Lana gave a tired smile. “The nanotech…Abby was able to use it to repair the damage to my skull.” As she spoke, Lana reached up to her forehead and tentatively brushed her hair—still matted with blood and some other fluids—away.
Kylie gasped. Previously fractured bone and brain, was now smooth skin. Red and swollen, but smooth and unbroken.
“You had that all along?” Lana asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Slow down,” Kylie said. “Were you conscious while we thought you were dead?”
“Mostly. I saw you and heard some of the things you said, pretty nice. I just couldn’t wake up.”
“That sounds…uncomfortable.”
Lana’s smirk widened. “You could say that. Abby helped keep me calm until suddenly everything felt like it was suddenly just fine—well, minus the pounding headache. Abby told me you were in trouble and here I am.” Lana glanced down at Grayson, her brow furrowing.
Kylie shuddered. Grayson—rather, Jerrod—only blinked mechanically in response. Unmoving and unfeeling. He was more like a hollow mannequin than like Grayson at all. The worry that he may not be in there anymore was almost crippling and Kylie turned her head away.
“You want to clue me in on what’s happening here? Why would he attack you like that?” Lana asked.
Kylie sighed and rubbed her temples, surprised at how forceful Lana sounded. Something had changed with the formerly meek girl. “It’s a long story, but Grayson’s not in charge right now. His AI, Jerrod, took over.”
As they spoke, Jerrod remained perfectly still. Kylie wondered if perhaps he had calculated the likelihood of taking them both down and decided to wait it out. She kept a firm grip on her pipe, ready to deliver a blow if necessary.
Lana’s eyebrows rose and she whistled. “They can do that?”
Kylie shrugged a and took a deep breath. What Jerrod did was unconscionable and she didn’t want to think about it, but she could see no small amount of worry in Lana’s eyes. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Jerrod’s actions lent some credence to everything her parents had said about AI. She wondered if Marge could take her over. She suddenly had some questions that she’d like to ask Gertrude back on Heaven.
Kylie let out a slow breath of relief—though she still wanted to cross-check that information.
Abby didn’t say anything, but there was a strong sense of resentment coming from the AI. Kylie was going to ask about the accords when Lana spoke up and did it for her.
“What are those?”
Margie replied, her tone far more neutral than normal.
“I’ve heard of those,” Lana said.
Kylie had as well. They were a backdrop for a lot of her father’s speeches. Speeches that never painted the AIs in a good light.
“What is it, then?” Kylie asked.
“That I’ve heard about,” Lana said. “It made for the ‘Pax Solus’ that lasted a thousand years.”
Marge paused, and a vision of her giving Jerrod a very stern look appeared in their minds.
Kylie felt a pang of guilt and realized where Marge was likely going with this history lesson.
“Either way,” Kylie said. “We all agree—except for Jerrod—that what he did was wrong. So, what do we do now?”
“Just another rule bent or broken by my father,” Lana spat. “Hey Jerrod, if you see him, tell him this is what I think of him.” With that, Lana sneered and made a rude gesture with her hand.
That she did, but maybe coming back from the dead did that to a person. Maybe after a good, or bad, cup of coffee Lana would feel more like herself. At least Kylie hoped; she certainly didn’t need any more complicati
ons.
“Can you shut Jerrod down, Marge?” Kylie asked. “Use our new nanotech to—”
Crap. Kylie glanced at Lana who nodded. “I can handle boy scout here. You go do what you do.”
Lana replied with a nod.
Kylie didn’t even know what that was anymore. Was it just digging a hole a little deeper than the previous one? Because that’s exactly what she felt like she was doing. Kylie couldn’t give up, so she just moved. She walked slowly to the bridge, stopping to grab the bulkhead at the entrance as the pain in her head threatened to cripple her.
She gasped out loud and squeezed her eyes shut.
Kylie stepped onto the bridge and slipped into the chair at the communications station. Sure enough, on the main holo was a GFF cruiser in all its glory, lit up like a search light in the dark layer, a dozen kilometers off the Dauntless’s bow.
She couldn’t help but close her eyes and shake her head when she saw the ship’s name hovering over the display. It was the Satisfaction, one of the GFF fleet flagships.
Though the GFF was really just a regional government within the Silstrand Alliance, the fact that it had come from pirates and crime syndicates made them much more aggressive than most stellar systems. Granted, they also had to control all the pirates and crime syndicates in the Gedri System as well.