Keith was kneeling down to examine the knife, possibly pick it up, but Cassidy stepped on the edge of it to stop him. He looked up at her. Cassidy shook her head slowly, and pointed at herself. She gestured to them all to get out. The Storms began leaving, slowed down by having to escort the sightless prisoner.
Keith lingered, waiting for other orders. Cassidy repeated her gesture to get out, and then held up five fingers. Keith nodded, and left, leaving Cassidy in the room with the knife, and the quiet.
Cassidy let her spear fall to the floor, threw off her mask, and crumpled to her knees in front of the knife. She found it in the darkness, picked it up and held it, laid across both hands. She was almost disappointed that the blade wasn’t warm. That she couldn’t feel Cheryl’s pulse in it. The thought made her all the more aware of her own pulse.
“Cheryl.” She whispered. The sound pressed against the silence in the same way that she pressed the edge of the blade against her palm. “Cry now.” She thought to herself. “Cry now, stupid.”
The tears refused to come until she screamed. As loud, and as hard, and as long as she could. She tried to scream again, but found herself unable to draw breath.
~~~
Horad was seated in the airlimb bay, and his cuffs were linked to a chain attached to the floor. There he sat with four Storms watching him. Where was the spear bearer? What did she have planned? He found himself nervous. Not a condition he found himself in often.
“What now?” he asked the Storms. They didn’t answer.
“Is the Grand Elder here?” he asked with a degree of reverence. One of the Storms scoffed softly, but no other answer was given. Not long ago, Horad considered himself a big fish. He was in a position to reconsider that thought now.
“Who is the spear bearer? Her name? What should I call her?” Still, no answer.
After what seemed like a long time, there was a knock at the bay door. One of the Storms opened it up, and Cassidy stepped in. She sat across from Horad, but stared at the floor. The airlimb shortly look off. Cassidy spoke. softly. “Leave me with him.”
“Sir?”
She looked at the Storm who questioned her, then towards the others, then looked towards the door. The Storms left the room, leaving Cassidy with the chained Horad. She stared at the floor again. She could hear his breathing. How dare he? What right did he have to air, and the life he ripped from others? From her?
She took out his knife, and listened to the change in his breathing. She let him stew for a bit, and then spoke as grimly as she had before.
“Your punishment begins now.” She paused again, staring at the knife, listening to him shift, his chain rattling slightly. Dropping the knife onto the floor between them, she watched it spin on its hilt for a moment before stopping. She looked up at him, and stared out from under the brim of her hat. Stared into his eyes. With a dead expression, she let tears begin to escape.
“I’m going to tell you about a girl named Cheryl. I believe you’ve met her.”
~~~
“Did she give any new orders?” Colonel Nafim asked Keith when he entered the ops room, “We’ve been floating around for hours.”
“No Sir, she’s still in the bay with the suspect, and some sharp things.”
“He confessed. I heard it over the comm. In Aguei law, that’s as good as any conviction.” She sat back and put her feet up on the nearby terminal, watching the various air traffic drift around the radar. “Armil’s in a meeting. I’d just take us to him, but we also have Captain Reichenbach on board.”
“Oh, yes. Sir, I was just talking to her. Cipriana says she’s not due back at the temple base until 06:00.”
The Colonel raised an eyebrow. “Stanton converted you to first name basis protocol, huh?”
Keith sighed. “Sorry Sir, I’m resisting.”
“The temple’s got a lot of slack on the surface. I know it pisses off some of the personnel at Yute central. Doesn’t seem to bother brass though.”
“No Sir. I suppose not. Maybe it’s the Armil connection. But honestly, I think their general behaviour tends to creep out regular army more than first name basis. But ever since the nanites have been cleaned out of their heads, they’re a lot less… weird.”
Colonel Nafim nodded. “Yeah.” She narrowed her eyes, and tilted her head. “‘Cept Reichenbach. She…”
Keith was quiet for a moment. “Well, Cipriana lost someone very close too. It’s hard to really put that in a bottle.”
“Do you think she’s fit for duty?”
“I’d like to say yes. I mean, it’s not like she’s doing anything weird. And how hard can it be to work at that temple, doing token guard duty?”
“Well, that’s just it. She’s not just a guard anymore, she’s the C.O.”
Cassidy walked in, looking tired as hell. “Hey folks.”
“Sir,” Keith said, reinforcing a little protocol. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Is he alright?” The Colonel asked.
“Pffft, yeah. Guts still on the inside and everything. Let’s go see Armil, I guess. Maybe we should throw Horad into holding at Yute first.” Cassidy was about to leave, but paused “No, they should meet. Let’s go see Armil.”
“I expect he’ll be available soon enough.” The Colonel turned to the terminal to make a couple calls. “Captain Reichenbach isn’t too worried about getting back before the early morning.”
“Oh, right.” Cassidy sighed. “Cip. Yeah, that works out for me. Let’s get moving to go see Armil, then.”
Cassidy tapped on the door to the visitor’s room. Cipriana’s voice came back, “Come.” Cassidy slid open the door to find Cipriana, predictably, in a lotus position on the bed, eyes closed.
“Hey there, Cippers.” She sat down on the corner of the bed, and rested her elbows on her knees. “Time for a real talk.”
Cipriana opened her eyes and looked at Cassidy, with a mildly inquisitive expression.
Cassidy sighed, and slid her stare towards the floor. “So… what’s the deal, huh?”
In her usual calm tone, she replied “What’s what deal, Cassidy?”
“Why’d you feel the need to come along for this ride, huh?”
“I thought I might be useful, or find something interesting.”
Cassidy scoffed. “More interesting than the guy that killed Cheryl and Marcus!?”
“Well… a different kind of interesting. I was hoping I might hear something about the ghost.” There it was. Everyone had figured that the attack had something to do with the nanites, since Horad came equipped with some, which triggered the destruction of the previously unnoticed nanites in the area. Most of them. “I hoped that once we got here, we’d notice some signs of nanite production capability.”
“But there was none.”
“Correct. The killer is a pawn for someone.”
“Alright, Cip, I gotta know, am I talking to you, the real you, or am I talking to the ghost?”
“Both of us.”
“I’m not really content with that. Cip, are you able to answer without the ghost interfering?”
“Yes. It hasn’t forced me to do anything.”
Sure, if that wasn’t the ghost talking. “Doesn’t the idea of a pile of microscopic robots fucking with your head make you a little uneasy?”
Cipriana raised her hand.
Cassidy looked at her, confused and shrugged. “Uh, yes, the long haired earth-goddess in the front row, you had a question?”
Cipriana lowered her hand, and spoke. “The following words are from the program you call the ghost. It is my personal top priority to do no damage to Cipriana’s brain cells, just as it was with Marcus. As well, my colonies in the brains of other temple staff accounted to identical safety standards.”
Cassidy stared. And stared. She finally stood up, and threw her hands to the air. “WHAT THE FUCK? Is this multiple personality Cipriana-puppet theatre, or what?!”
Cipriana looked down. “He spoke
with my permission, and I believe him.”
“Alright, alright, this is going to get confusing real fast. New rule!” Cassidy took Cipriana’s hand, and put it flat on the covers. She looked hard into Cipriana’s eyes. “Hey, robot thing! When you’re talking, one of you cross your fingers where I can see em! Otherwise, I’m going to assume I’m hearing pure, original Cipriana, alright??”
Cipriana crossed her fingers. “Alright.” She then uncrossed her fingers. “Alright.”
Cassidy rubbed her forehead. “Yeah, that’s so much better. Okay, robot,-“
Cipriana crossed her fingers. “Excuse me, if it’s just the same to you, I think I prefer ‘ghost’.”
Cassidy bit her lip and rolled her eyes. “Fine! Fine. Okay, ghost. First question. Where the heck did you come from?”
With fingers still crossed, Cipriana tilted her head slightly with a pause. “My first memory is of being in a small metal container. An uncounted time after that, I was in a plastic container. Then for a brief moment, none of my nanites were touching anything, and then suddenly we were all over the stone floor in front of the statue in the temple. From then on, I began following my instincts.”
“That’s a fascinating bucket of not-an-answer!”
“I’m sorry, it’s the best I have. I have no data regarding my creation.”
“Alright then, what were these instincts?”
“I awaited a person to touch me. I was almost fooled by an aeki lizard. You understand, I had no way of seeing at the time.”
“What were you? I mean, what did you physically look like??”
“I would have appeared as a grey powder.”
Ash. Cassidy had heard of some people wanting their ashes spread in front of the statue. Maybe this was a reason why Marcus hadn’t opted for that.
Cipriana, fingers still crossed, continued. “Eventually, enough of me got onto the boot of the person I later learned was Marcus. It took a while of course, but I eventually snuck a considerable colony of myself between his skin cells, and evaded natural immunities to reach his brain. From there I constructed a control core, like what is now…” Cipriana tapped her head lightly.
“Control!? So you are designed to control people!”
Cipriana looked very worried, and shook her head with quick little shakes. “No no no. I have to control the other nanite colonies, left behind at the statue!”
“And what the heck did they do?”
“The vast majority were ordered to replicate for the purpose of occupying billions of sand grains. Others were set to the task of creating significantly smaller brain augmentations to the other temple staff.”
“Fuck...! That hangover. When Horad’s little device was triggered, everyone had nanites dissolving in their bloodstream. It was the remainders of your goddam little … pets?! What were they for?!”
“They served only to provide a mild mood enhancement, which remained in effect as long as the person remained near the temple. My apologies for the ‘hangover’. When I received the order to self destruct all the colonies and myself, I did my best to ease-“
Cassidy exploded “No! Wait! No! You were getting us all a little stoned, fucking with our brains, for what purpose, and for how long? How long has this been going on?”
Cipriana sighed deeply. “I first embraced the base nearly five years ago now. Before you arrived.”
Cassidy paced back and forth angrily, holding her forehead with one hand. She looked at Cipriana, huffed, and continued pacing.
Cipriana uncrossed her fingers. “Cassidy, it’s alright, he-“
“Don’t EITHER of you tell me what’s alright!, Alright?” She slipped down in the corner of the room, shaking her head slowly. Cipriana crossed her fingers.
“I believe that I was created as a test. Future applications are beyond my speculation. I knew that the mood enhancements made people a bit happier. Cipriana has since explained to me the problem with doing that.
I took a chance and spoke to Marcus directly. He thought I was the statue. I told him that I was no mass of rock, and he called me a ghost. I didn’t correct him. I didn’t understand it then.
When Horad approached the temple, he activated another order. By the time I understood the possible dangers of allowing it to run, it was too late to halt it”
Cassidy muttered low, “What command?”
“It ordered all of my sand colonies to hyper react, creating the sandstorm that allowed him to pass. The order also made exception to temporarily deactivate any sand within half a metre of him.”
“Are you telling me you have enough tiny robots in the sand to do that?”
“I used to. It took a great deal of time to expand the sand colony to that size and ability. However, the second order set that Horad brought, was not successfully activated until much later. It was an order for me to destroy myself and the colonies. I willingly executed the orders to destroy the sand colonies, as well as those in other staff members, but I stopped it in time before the core… that is, the me that is currently what is left now, was destroyed. I then changed the access privileges to issue me orders.”
“Who the hell was sending you all these orders?”
Cipriana lowered her head and sighed. “I can only assume my creator.”
“Now what? What’s your big plan?”
“I… I don’t know. I’m just hiding.” Cipriana uncrossed her fingers. “He just doesn’t want to die! With the new laws, do you think doc Brock would hesitate for a moment to wipe him out?”
“Ah ha!” Cassidy blurted, “Cip, that brings me back to the earlier question, what are you putting up with it for?”
She paused with a sigh. “Cassidy. He’s harmless-“
“So he says!”
Cipriana continued “and… when he talked to you through me, it sounds like me of course. But when he speaks to me…”
Cassidy’s expression soured. “It sounds like Marcus.”
Cipriana nodded twice slowly. “It’s selfish and stupid, I suppose.” She then crossed her fingers. “I don’t mean to be manipulative. I spent the vast majority of my existence with Marcus. We think in similar ways, now. Much of what I am now, I owe to him.
She uncrossed her fingers. ”I think I should be more honest with myself about this. Maybe you should stop sounding like him.” She crossed her fingers. “Maybe I should sound like this?” The voice Cassidy heard was still just Cipriana’s, but the voice Cipriana heard from him was presumably changing.
She uncrossed her fingers again. “No, that’s a little redundant.”
Crossed, “This, then? This voice makes a certain sense.”
Uncrossed, “That would be too confusing for me, I think.
Cassidy coughed. “Confusing for you?”
“I’m sorry,” Cipriana said with a meek smile. This sort of thing doesn’t need to be discussed outside my head.”
Cassidy shook her head. “Yeah, I think I saw that printed on a T shirt once.” She paced the room slowly. “Alright then, so what does the ghost and nanites have to do with the A.R.A.? Nanite experimentation doesn’t seem like a typical hobby for Aguei terrorists.”
Cipriana crossed her fingers. “I suppose my technology could be used in any number of attack methods, or with further development, direct behavioural control.” Cipriana uncrossed. “But that wouldn’t make a lot of sense. The A.R.A. are low-budget, and regular bombs do their job just fine. Even still, the ghost stopped the A.R.A. grenade attack on the temple.”
Cassidy tried to get a word in. “Yeah, and then why would Horad be trying to destroy the project? Hey wait, ghost, how did you do that with the grenades and stuff?”
Cipriana crossed her fingers and smiled. “It’s a function I’m quite proud of. Any incoming aircraft would be monitored for anyone coming out. When I thought all were off who were coming, I’d use the sand colony to plant nanites on them. These nanites would then be in charge of finding any electronics or gunpowder. Electronics would have a tiny switch built into th
eir power supply, gun powder would be ‘hugged’ on a molecular scale. Then when these items crossed a perimeter I set around the temple, the electronics would get their power cut off, and gunpowder would be deactivated. Well. It’s a little more complicated than that.”
Cassidy remembered her watch, and the many tourists with camera problems. “It must be more complicated than that. I never had to reset my watch’s time after leaving the temple. Why did you start doing that?”
“I don’t really know. At first it was just part of my original instincts, but I never found reason to stop doing it. As it turned out, that was fortunate. I only regret that…” Cipriana looked down. “I can’t disarm a knife.”
“He knew.” Cassidy said. “Horad knew that a gun would be useless. I think I have some new questions for him.”
They felt the airlimb slow, and begin descending.
“Well, I can ask him when he gets to meet Armil, I guess. Cassidy left Cipriana alone with her thoughts.
~~~
Storms had moved Horad to a secure room so that he would not be in the loading bay when Armil boarded. Cassidy took her spear and walked into the bay. She gritted her teeth a little, glaring at the recessed metal ring in the floor, to which Horad had been chained.
“Sir.” Keith greeted Cassidy. The Colonel and several Storms were here for Armil’s boarding as well. The door opened, and there stood Armil, backed by a few Storms of his own.
Armil raised his arms in greeting, showing off his robe’s glory, and walked up to the Colonel with a big hug. “Judith!” Armil said, “Thank you for once more welcoming me onto your boat!” Maybe Armil was the source of all the first-name business. That was a much more pleasant thought than a fleet of microscopic machines making them all stoned enough to drop military protocol.
“Ahh, Armil. It is your boat, I just keep a hand on the rudder for you.”
“Oh, I suppose so. Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I had the entire thing painted…. fuchsia.”
Watching Yute Page 28