Relativity

by R S Penney

  Nareo bared his teeth with such ferocity you might have expected him to growl. “It increases production of dopamine, acetylcholine and adrenaline.” He scraped a gnarled knuckle across his forehead. “The result leaves one unstable.”

  Aamani studied the thing with her lips pressed together, her face as smooth as crisp, clean ice. “Still…” she mumbled absently. “With proper study, we might be able to adapt it for human use.”

  “My people have tried,” Nareo chimed in.

  “Aamani.”

  She spun to face him.

  Jack lifted his chin and held her gaze for one very long moment. “That's not our goal,” he said with as much delicacy as he could manage. “We're hoping that this thing might shed some light on what Slade is planning.”

  At the mention of Slade's name, Aamani went bone white and covered it by rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. Now there was an odd flash of emotion. Jack figured he couldn't blame the woman; by this point, the story of what Slade had done on Station One – shutting down the whole system, including life support, while he made his escape – had reached just about every major news outlet.

  The man had become public enemy number one on Earth, and yet, somehow, no law enforcement agency had been able to find him since he went to ground four months ago. That in and of itself was a bad sign; it meant Slade had connections, influence that he could exploit.

  It took him a moment to notice Raynar, but the young man was as intensely focused on Aamani as he was. Had Raynar sensed something? Some fleeting thought that might put Aamani's reaction in context? Jack decided that he would resist the temptation to ask. People had a right to their privacy. “So what do we know?”

  Raynar perked up at the question, shaking his head as if to clear away the thoughts that had distracted him. “Attempting to devise a technological interface is slow going at best,” he answered. “But I have managed to…read the thing's memory.”

  Jack blinked.

  The boy licked his lips, then bowed his head as if the topic had become a source of embarrassment. “It's hard to explain in words,” he went on. “But I can show you if you're willing. Share the experience with you.”

  “Let's do it,” Jack said.

  “I would like to see as well,” Aamani added.

  Less than a minute later, Jack was standing in the middle of the room with hands folded over his stomach, waiting patiently for Raynar to do…whatever it was he planned on doing. Aamani was at his side with posture fit for a solider, staring warily at the young man as he approached.

  Raynar closed his eyes, breathing deeply. “This may be somewhat disorienting,” he said, touching one index finger to Jack's forehead and the other to Aamani's. “But it will pass quickly.”

  Jack was yanked forward – or so it seemed – and suddenly the world around him was drowned out in a void of infinite blackness. Images floated in the distance, swirls of colour that he couldn't identify, but they quickly solidified.

  Two bright eyes glowing like a pair of suns, bearing down on him and threatening to pull him in. On some level, he understood what they were. This was an Overseer, his maker, his designer, and it had instructions for him.

  His function was to be versatile, to serve in many ways: as a sensory organ to study the world around him, as a tool to reshape flesh toward his master's desires, as a weapon to protect his master from harm. His mind was filled with knowledge: dates, locations, events. He couldn't make sense of any of it. It was as though he were looking at records in another language, possessing a vague intuition as to what kinds of information they held but unable to access the specifics.

  So much raw data!

  Too much for one mind to handle. He tried to sift through it, but it became nothing but sound and fury, totally incoherent. Something about that made him want to panic, and he pulled away, trying to rid his mind of those images.

  Raynar severed the link.

  Jack shut his eyes, hot tears leaking over his cheeks. “I'm gonna have a headache for a week,” he muttered. “But I think we finally have a sense of what this thing is.”

  Aamani was next to him with one hand pressed to her temple, wincing as if she felt terrible pain. “How did you stand it?” she asked in a hoarse voice. “Being overwhelmed by it. It's like I was swimming in a sea of noise.”

  “Yeah…”

  Turning to face her with his arms crossed, Jack frowned down at himself. “But you sensed it, right?” he mumbled, shivering despite his attempts to prevent it. “Your function is to be versatile.”

  “I did.”

  Not ten paces away, Nareo was tapping his lips with one finger. “You're saying it has some significance?” he asked. “Beyond the fact that this is a multipurpose device?”

  “I'm saying it has a basic operating system,” Jack said. “A rudimentary simulated intelligence that will allow it to interface and respond to its owner's wishes. I'm saying this thing is the Overseer equivalent of a multi-tool.”

  His declaration left everyone a little flabbergasted, though it really shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. They had already known that the device was capable of a wide variety of tasks. Perhaps it was just the fact that the Overseers – inscrutable, god-like aliens who were the living embodiment of Clarke's Third Law – might use tools on a day-to-day basis.

  Now, on to the bigger mystery.

  In the corner of the room, the sheet of skin that they had recovered from Wesley Pennfield's warehouse was stretched out on the floor, soaking up the light from the bulbs in the ceiling. Another shiver went through him when he looked at it. Organic technology. Would wonders never cease?

  He shuffled over.

  As he drew near to it, Summer grew tense, so tense that he could feel the sudden spike of alarm as if it were his own emotion. That was rare. Usually a Nassai's emotions felt like a faint, distant echo of what he might feel.

  Closing his eyes, Jack tilted his head back. Are you okay? he thought at the Nassai. I know you don't like being around things that remind you of the your creators, but you didn't react that way to the other device.

  Of course, she couldn't answer him with words. Nassai could only share feelings, not complex thoughts. Not while he was fully conscious, anyway. But the emotion his symbiont shared was…terror mixed with wonder. Something was wrong. “I need to talk to Summer for a moment,” he told the others. “Just ignore me.”

  Jack sat down on the floor, drawing his legs up against his chest, and he worked to calm his mind, to banish all superfluous thought and slip into a peaceful, relaxed state. Teetering on the edge of sleep and wakefulness. With practice, a Keeper could learn to commune with his symbiont in a matter of moments.

  The world slipped away, and he found himself standing in the middle of a forest of tall maple trees. Their branches reached for one another, nearly touching in some places, and provided shade against the hot afternoon sun.

  Summer glided toward him in a strapless white dress with a skirt that flared and cute little shoes. Over the years, she had developed a taste for Earth fashions. Or maybe those were his own preferences reflected back at him.

  Her golden hair was left to hang loose in waves that fell to the small of her back, framing a lovely face that was somehow a composite of every woman he'd ever looked up to – both real and fictional.

  “You look lovely, as always,” Jack said. “What's up?”

  Her face was a blank mask, but she did blink several times as she came close. “One of my kind is trapped inside the larger device,” she said. “I couldn't sense it until we got close, but I'm sure of it.”

  “A Nassai?”

  “Yes.”

  “Inside the device?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack winced, pressing a hand to the top of his head. He scratched at his scalp while he tried to formulate a response. “Well, that's just…” Words failed him. “Didn't you once tell me that the Overseers created the Nassai to be the means by which their ships would travel faster than l
ight?”

  Summer shut her eyes and sucked in a deep, hissing breath. “Yes,” she said with a curt a nod. “We were created for that purpose. But the Progenitors abandoned us on the moon that orbits Leyria.”

  “Some of you anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the Overseers were zipping through space at speeds much faster than light.” He turned away from her, making his way down a muddy path that cut through the trees. “Their ships must have employed some kind of propulsion. Perhaps they didn't leave all of you on Laras. Perhaps you were…excess inventory.”

  He felt awful describing one of his dearest friends in those terms, but if Summer was offended, she gave no sign of it. Instead, she came up behind him, resting one hand on his shoulder. “What should we do?” Jack asked.

  When he turned, she was watching him with her lips pursed, her large brown eyes slowly expanding. “I would like to try something,” she said. “If we get close enough, I may be able to reach out to the Nassai inside the device.”

  “Will it understand you?”

  “Unknown.” Touching two fingers to her forehead, she scrunched up her face as if she were fighting off a painful headache. “Thousands of your years have passed since the Progenitors left us on Laras. Our patterns of thought have evolved in that time, growing even more complex when we met your kind and discovered concepts such as love, justice and self-determination.”

  “Right.”

  “The Nassai inside that device may be feral,” she went on. “It may not be capable of truly complex thought.”

  “Well, it's worth a shot,” Jack said.

  The forest faded away in a blur as he felt himself being pulled back into his body. Awareness of his limbs, his breathing and of the presence of Aamani, Nareo and Raynar seeped back into his mind. The three of them were standing side by side behind him, all watching him as if they expected him to grow horns. For him, it had felt like minutes, but he knew that in the physical world, less than thirty seconds had passed since he'd entered the trance.

  Jack stood up on shaky legs, hunching over with his hands on his knees. “There's a Nassai inside the larger device,” he said, shaking his head. “Summer can feel it, and she wants to try contacting it.”

  “What?” Aamani said.

  In his mind's eye, Jack saw the blurry image of Nareo stride forward until the man was almost within arm's reach. “That's impossible,” he said. “Director Morane has been in half a dozen times since we brought that thing up, and she's felt nothing.”

  “Did she ever get within five feet of it?”

  Nareo paused, his mouth agape as he stared at the back Jack's head. “No,” he said. “She's been very cautious about going anywhere near either device. She said we should all do the same.”

  Jack whirled around to face the other man, head hanging as he let out a deep breath. “Well, there's your answer then,” he muttered. “Summer wasn't able to feel anything until I was almost close enough to touch it.”

  Raynar looked up with a frown, his brow furrowing as he made eye-contact. “But I've gotten within five feet of it,” he said. “I even touched it with my bare hand, and I can tell you that I sensed nothing.”

  “You're not a Nassai, kid.”

  “Be that as it may,” the young telepath countered, “I would have felt the presence of another sentient mind. All I felt from that big thing over there was the same…I don't even know what to call it. These devices, they have a rudimentary consciousness, but it has no desire except to serve.”

  Tilting his head back, Jack smiled up at the ceiling. “Well, there's really only one solution then,” he said, eyebrows rising. “Let's have Summer take a peek and see what she comes up with.”

  He spun around, making his way toward the slab of skin. His intention was to get down on his knees and touch it ever so gently with one finger – Nassai needed physical contact to speak to other Nassai in other bodies – but as soon as he got close enough, the sheet of flesh began to writhe.

  A bulge formed in its surface, growing larger and larger until it split into an upside-down V that rose up toward the ceiling. It happened so quickly! Jack was so mystified by the speed with which this thing changed shape that it barely registered when the device became a seven-foot tall triangle of flesh.

  Wait. A triangle?

  Jack understood at the last second.

  He spun around, intending to get away, but it was too late. A bubble formed around him, cutting him off even as Aamani rushed over to help. He saw her only as a blurry figure who came toward him with one hand outstretched. No! No! No! No! Panic welled up. He had to get out, but how-

  The bubble sped forward, pulling him into SlipSpace.

  Chapter 25

  The bubble jerked to a halt in a small room lit by two lamps on wooden tables on either side of a door that led into a hallway. Through the shimmering curtain of folded space-time, Jack saw two black lumps standing in that corridor. Men, he assumed. And dressed in full tactical gear. Matter couldn't pass in or out of a SlipGate bubble once it had formed – Jack was essentially in his own mini-universe, at the moment – but he had at most ten seconds before everything went to hell.

  Jack closed his eyes, letting his head hang. Just my luck, he thought, covering his face with one hand. I have to give you this much, Pennfield. When it comes to evil plans, you go above and beyond.

  The bubble popped.

  He immediately threw up another, forged of a Bending that he made with Summer's assistance. The air before him rippled and pulsed, and it seemed as if he viewed his two attackers through a wall of falling water.

  In that split second between when the SlipGate had deposited him back into normal space and when he had thrown up his Time Bubble, the two uniformed men had pulled the triggers on their assault rifles. And now bullets erupted from the barrels of each, slowly spiraling toward him. When they crossed the barrier into his time-frame, they would rip through his body like a dog tearing up an old rag. With a groan, Jack crouched down to get out of the line of fire.

  His bubble vanished.

  He somersaulted across the polished floor tiles while thunder filled his ears and bullets zipped through the space above him to hit the metal SlipGate with harsh pinging sounds. Jack came up on one knee between the two men.

  He flung his arms out to the sides, catching the back of each man's leg. Like a pair of dominoes, they both tumbled backwards to land face-up in the middle of the hallway, the one on his left still firing bullets up at the ceiling.

  Jack turned to the one on his right.

  He slammed a fist down into the man's throat, crushing the trachea with a sickening squish. The guard's eyes widened behind his visor, and he let out squeal when he realized that he could no longer breathe. His hands clawed at his throat.

  The one on his left was moving.

  Jack fell onto his backside, lying flat on the floor. The remaining guard managed to roll and point his gun at an oblique angle, loosing a steady stream of bullets at the wall on the other side of the corridor.

  Jack brought one leg up, striking the underside of the rifle, and ripping it right out of the man's hand to land several paces down the corridor. The silence that followed was so unexpected, it almost made him jump.

  The guard sat up.

  Jack did the same.

  For a moment that seemed to stretch into endless eternities, he stared through a clear visor at the face of a man who was probably only a few years older than himself. A face locked into slack-jawed terror.

  Clenching his teeth with a hiss, Jack squeezed his eyes shut. “Go,” he whispered, pointing down the corridor. “Don't reach for your sidearm; you'll be dead before you get it out of the holster. Just go.”

  The young man did as he was told.

  He stood up on shaky legs, then spun around and bolted down the corridor to what appeared to be an open foyer at the far end. Gasping and sobbing, he ducked around the corner and never looked back.

  That wa
s probably a mistake. Right now, the guy was frightened out of his wits, but when he regrouped with his buddies – and there was simply no way to tell how many of them were crawling around this place – he would probably regain his courage. Being part of a group had that effect.

  The practical part of Jack's mind said that all he had done was guarantee that he would have to finish the job whenever the man decided to take another shot at him. His conscience didn't give a damn. He had taken his first life today, and he wasn't intending to let that particular scorecard fill up with tick-marks.

  He stood.

  Jack winced, tears running over his face. You had to do it, he thought, shaking his head in dismay. They threw you into this with no weapons, no body armour. Nothing but your wits and a Nassai.

  He knew the protocol. In a situation like that, you took down your opponent by any means necessary. Non-lethal force was always preferable if you could manage it, but his instructors had been clear on this point. Sometimes the enemy left you no alternatives.

  A man appeared at the end of the corridor, standing tall and proud in a gray suit with a navy blue tie. Wesley Pennfield was looking a lot better, his eyes healed and his mangled glasses replaced by a stunning new pair of designer frames. “A pleasure to see you, Jack,” he said with a nod. “Once again, you continue to impress.”

  Jack felt his face burn, sweat oozing from his pores. “You son of a bitch,” he said, marching down the corridor. “What? Were you too scared to face me yourself? Easier to send a pair of hired goons. Is that it?”

  A wicked grin split the other man's face, and he lifted his chin to stare imperiously through the lenses of his glasses. “I'm sorry. Was I supposed to fight fair?” The mocking tone set Jack's blood on fire. “I see you have become the typical Justice Keeper. Nothing short of brilliant when it comes to ripping through enemies while your blood is hot. But true strategy eludes you.”

  Jack dove.

  He somersaulted through the corridor, catching the fallen assault rifle on his way, then came up on one knee. Half a second later, he was standing, pointing the weapon at his opponent.