Atlas: Infinity Verge Trilogy: Book II

by DJ Morand

  Echo stood - albeit weakly - and saluted the Fleet Admiral. Andromeda might be lax in her formality at present, but that did not excuse her subordinates. “Fleet Admiral on deck!” Echo called to her crew, signaling they should be standing at a salute regardless of their relative disorientation.

  “Fleet Admiral Clark, ma’am,” Echo started. “I realize the mistake and understand the implications. I assure you it will be rectified.” She managed to choke.

  Clark glowered, she had intended to dress down Echo, “See that it is Captain.”

  The Fleet Admiral turned on her heel and left the squad to contemplate the simulation together. The click of her heels haunted Echo from the hall as Andromeda Clark marched steadily away. When the chamber door slammed, Echo winced. She turned to her crew, lowered her head and shook it at them apologetically. She noted that most of them were looking at her the same. Kay and Tee looked at her with impassive faces. The two Quintarrans recognized that their combined experience was no greater than hers. They understood that if it had not been simulated combat she would have led them all to their deaths.

  Echo stepped to the Transteel view-screen in the back of the room and turned around to overlook her crew. Each of them wore white satin clothing that threatened to reveal more than was decent. While clothed in the training simulation clothing, they revealed more than they would have dared in public. Each also had a pair of nodes attached to their temples to allow the simulation to play out. Echo did not need them with her nanite implants. She watched as they removed the nodes and moved toward her. The room itself was spacious and sported no less than twelve pods. Each of the pods had an overhead cover; which, when closed, sealed the crew members in the simulation until its end. The pods were arranged in a circle around the center of the room.

  Echo stood near the north wall away from the rest of the room and the pods. Here, the circular patterns of the room dissolved into a more square-like space. Embedded in the wall was a floor to ceiling Transteel view-screen. The room was exactly thirty meters across by thirty meters deep and held several rows of curved bench seating. Echo waited for the crew to enter and seat themselves before she engaged the Transteel. The screen took a moment calculating their combined experience in the simulation and then projecting an image of the simulation.

  Echo stepped forward and used a pointer to begin examining the simulation. She tested the pointer first indicating the EXO contact on the outer hull. A green dot lit up and a smaller square appeared in the corner, similar to when Anderson had shared the ship’s defensive schematic. The display appeared in the corner demonstrating the ship and all of its functions.

  “First contact was here,” she began. “In this particular scenario, I understand how this happened. We cannot let it happen again.”” She was abrupt, partly because she had just been mentally beaten by a series of zeros and ones, which felt enough like being beaten by an EXO that she was still upset about it.

  “The EXO approach vector was here,” Echo said indicating the trajectory of the Vulture BAA-C and replaying where the ship banked. “Anyone care to explain how that EXO broke the offensive and managed to penetrate defenses?” She knew she was being harsh, but she had no intention of today’s simulation becoming a reality in the near future.

  * * * *

  Abel Cain sat on the edge of the bunk he had been provided after the Fleet Admiral revoked his commission. The EFNF had let him keep his belongings and the leg they had generously provided; after he lost his in the battle on Quintar VII. Abel still had flashbacks of the encounter. He remembered his hurried flight through the streets of New Exodus with an insane Mercury Frinz clamoring behind him. Abel remembered the plasma tearing into the back of his calve searing and burning his flesh. The nerves were dead almost immediately, but he remembered the smell. It was an acrid smoky smell, the smell of burned flesh.

  It was the smell that still disturbed him. It was so similar to a steak on the grill - with just a hint of burning hair. Abel flexed the muscle in his upper left thigh causing his robotic leg to respond. The flexing caused the knee to jerk just as it would in a reflex test. For all intents, the robotic leg made him whole, even if he didn’t feel it. Abel could still feel the ghost limb even when he could look and see that it was gone. The mechanical leg helped, but it wasn’t the same. He focused on his leg as if this was the cause of his incompleteness, but he knew that was a lie.

  Abel stood and dressed, pulling a pair of baggy cargo pants over his legs and up to his waist. He stood and buckled his belt and plasma pistols holster on. The holsters were too light. He had yet to replace the missing pistols after Quintar VII - when he had been arrested. The New Exodus Law Enforcement Division - who called themselves NE LED - had not been kind. His weapons, as well as his pride, had been stolen from him. Abel remembered the dank pit and the shock collar like it was yesterday. A year had passed and he still felt the sting.

  Abel stared at himself in the mirror. His five o’clock shadow dominated the majority of his jawline and chin. The rough brown stubble across his scalp was getting longer.

  I’ll need to cut it soon, he thought.

  Abel stared at his own eyes in the reflection, hazel brown with hints of green creeping in around the outer iris. He considered the phenomenon of the nanites’ effect on human eyes. It seemed a simple thing, but every human with nanites he had met bore the same marking around the outer iris of their eyes. Sometimes it was green other times blue, but there was always a hint of glow around the iris.

  Human nanites had been designed to improve thought process, metabolism, and body synergy. In Abel’s body, a host of Quintarran nanites also flowed. The Quintarrans had taken their technology much further than humans. The alien nanites affected muscle tissue and bone density primarily, but there was a slight increase in thought process as well. The nanites were one of the reasons most EXOs were so difficult to kill. The same Quintarran nanites still flowed through their blood and enhanced them beyond human capability.

  The effect the Quintarran nanites had on Abel Cain was long lasting. He still woke some mornings with sore muscles and fatigue as if he had been drained to sustain the nanites. Abel knew it was foolish, but the thoughts that he was no longer human still crept in. The fatigue he felt each morning reinforced his fears. Abel often felt as if he had been hollowed out and replaced by something else. Rather than face his fears he blamed the fatigue on his recurring nightmares. The nightmares - the loss of Zee and the Kodiak - were easier to understand than any sort of barrier he’d crossed in using the Quintarran nanites.

  Abel understood his dreams and their meanings, but another part of him still feared the nanites were irrevocably changing him. Abel had always been unique, but the nanites from his human lineage and those from Zee had merged and complemented each other. The nanites had changed him. Whether that change was for better or worse, he couldn’t say.

  Abel tried not to think of Zee. He stopped staring into the reflection of his eyes - into his past and his soul. Instead, he examined his upper torso and arms. Abel thought about his time in the EFNF, before the EXOs and the EXO Prime. He still bore the tattoos from his time in Exodus Fleet. Upon his left breast lay the spread wings of a raven. The tattoo marked him as one of the few elite RAVEN-S pilots. Later, when he had joined the fight on the ground, he had obtained a tattoo of the mythical satyr. The dwarfish goat-legged man gleamed in the light. The imp danced across his right bicep complete with a wooden flute and music notes. It was a symbol of his time as a SATYR operator; he had been a communications expert.

  Abel’s intelligence and savvy for technology had allowed him to serve in a number of capacities during his time with EFNF. He had been part of the incursion against the Quintarran people at Quintar V. That was when they had still been under the influence of the AI before humanity had ever known there was an AI.

  Abel considered the monuments of skin and scar on his body and wondered where the monument to Zee was. The loyal Quintarran had been more than a friend, he had bee
n a brother. Abel felt that Zee needed to be honored by more than a tattoo. Zee could only be honored in deed. Abel felt he held a life-debt to Zee as Zee had once claimed he owed Abel. If Zee could, he would disagree. To Zee, the debt had been paid in full when the Quintarran gave his life. Abel wasn’’t so sure about that.

  He pulled on a shirt and grabbed his long coat from the back of a chair. He swung into the coat and let it hang open. Abel checked his holster again, still uncomfortable with how light and empty they felt. He put all thoughts of Zee aside and dug his hands into his pockets. Abel stood there for a moment contemplating what his life was now. He did not know.

  3: LAST YEAR

  Eden - Border Towns: The Silent Territory

  2972 ESD - One Year Ago

  Breaker Jones lay in a heap, propped against the hull of a dilapidated spacecraft.

  Everything is crap on this planet, the brief thought crossed his mind.

  The scene of carnage before him focused. The junkyard was full of derelict vessels, some in a state of disrepair and others in complete disarray. It struck him as ironic. He considered his broken form. He felt weak and aged. The bloodied forms of his gang lay silently, strewn across the square - like dewdrops in the mist of life.

  Abel Cain had bested him yet, again and again, left him hanging onto life by a mere thread. He felt like a mad man gripping the edge of the cliff knowing he is dead already. Breaker felt the mad man creeping into his mind now. He wasn’t Mr. Jones anymore. He wasn’t anything anymore. Feebly, he held onto the hope he would somehow manage to survive the latest encounter with Abel Cain. A singular moment of clarity flashed in his mind.

  How fine this Monday had begun and how horribly wrong it has gone, he thought.

  Breaker did not blame Abel. Like many others the man just wanted to survive.

  No, he thought, it is all Mercury’s fault. That devil.

  His blood began to soak the snow beneath him. The mixing of his blood and the snow created a sickening slush. Slush he was forced to rest in. He tried to adjust himself, using the wall of the wreckage as leverage. He felt the bones in his legs crack and he groaned.

  It was a disturbing sound, like a harsh guttural rattle of fluid bubbling up through his throat. His ragged, raspy breathing choked off in short spurts of brown black fluid. Breaker knew some part of the SATYR armor Abel had been wearing was now embedded in his lung, among other parts of his body.

  Breaker Jones accepted his defeat. In truest form the elusive and capable Abel Cain had bested him, even with Breaker’s greater numbers. He contemplated his future, however short it might be, and wished that he could have one last cigar or one last woman. Sure, the Dixie blonde from earlier this fine Monday had been skilled. He had certainly enjoyed the subtle maneuvering of her tongue, but he had been interrupted.

  Interrupted by Mercury Frinz, he growled in his thoughts.

  The stark black fungus that passed for tobacco on Eden tasted like dung and burned like wildfire in one’s lungs, but Breaker desperately wanted, at least, one last draw. He coughed violently and he lamented at the dark red, almost brown splatter ejecting from his lips. The black was better, at least then he knew it was just the tar from his lungs, the red spoke of blood. He was going to die on this pathetic shithole of a planet. He was bleeding, freezing, and wishing for simple comforts. How far he had fallen.

  “See that he has the medical attention he needs and then inject him with the virus. I may yet have a use for him.” A crackling mechanical voice said.

  Breaker must have closed his eyes. He had not seen anyone else. The words of the voice were not encouraging. He just wanted to die now, not be exed and god knew what else. He felt rough hands lift him up onto a gurney as medical grade nanites were injected into his upper arm. He realized it was not actually his upper arm, but where his upper arm had been.

  Breaker Jones did not want nanites, he was proud to be a husk. The derogatory term among humans for someone without nanites had been a point of pride for Breaker. He had owned the term and had no desire to have the machines running through his body now. Breaker tried to fight, but the anesthetic causing a neurolytic block had already taken effect.

  His body was effectively a large slab of meat. He wished he could chuckle at that, but he couldn’t muster the strength to do so. Breaker was grateful he could no longer feel the pain of dying, but he feared what would be in store for him next. Despite the nerve block, Breaker swore he felt the nanites probing his system and repairing the damage done by the explosion. He imagined his skin itching and tingling as the repairs rapidly took place. He knew it was all in his head, but he felt it just the same.

  * * * *

  Eden - Border Towns: The Silent Territory

  2973 ESD - Monday, April 19th 13:20 hours

  Breaker Jones flexed his mechanical arm. He had not particularly disliked his flesh and blood arm, but that had been removed courtesy of Abel Cain. The medical treatment he had undergone after the explosion left him weakened and unable to fight against the intrusive EXO virus.

  It had been a good thing he was unable to fight. Everything he knew about the virus told him that fighting back was what ruined the mind. If he had the willpower or nanites to fight the infection he would have been exed and turned into some zombie-like drone. As luck would have it, he retained his train of thought, but he could feel the nanites swarming through his body. It felt like an itch, one just beneath the surface that no amount of scratching could cure. He still swore that he had felt them a year ago when they were first injected and the feeling had not gone away.

  He was not entirely sure how he felt about being alive or rather the semblance of alive. Breaker had chains now. He was not bound by any physical chains. The chains binding him were ephemeral, wrapping around his mind and the core of his being. Disobedience would garner him nothing but pain and certain suffering. He had no desire to become the next Mercury Frinz - a man so mad he went willingly into death just to clear his follies.

  Breaker had been born and lived his early life on Europa - one of Jupiter’s moons. It was not a glamorous life. The thin atmosphere and freezing temperatures on the surface were very similar to what he experienced here on Eden.

  He had been an orphan. His parents must not have had nanites in their systems either, which was an odd occurrence. He managed to embroil himself with the Exodus Union, even if he did not quite fit within the societal norm for the movement. He had viewed the EU as a means to leave Europa. Breaker Jones had been fifteen when the Exodus Fleet left Sol space. He remembered wandering through Dark Space while the fleet searched for a new home.

  He did not have much when he left Europa, but he felt he had less once he did. Many in the fleet felt the same, the long stretches without food or water while they mined a planet for its resources took its toll. Breaker had nearly died before they reached any habitable planets. The call to become part of the EFNF, shortly after leaving Sol space held no appeal for Breaker. Instead, he turned to a life of petty crime.

  Breaker broke off his reverie, it’s no good dwelling on the past too much, he thought.

  After Breaker’s second battle with Abel, the EXO Prime had saved the gangster and enslaved him in the same fell swoop. Now, Breaker not only ruled the Border Towns as he had before, but the EXO Prime had tasked him with ruling Eden, Mercury’s former position. Today was another fine Monday and it had started out much the same as the last fine Monday he could remember.

  He was smoking a cigar made of the cave moss from the interior of Eden. A woman was on his lap doing more than he had hoped. Breaker was having a fine Monday until the signal for a ship entering Eden’s orbit came to his attention. His secretary leaped off his lap, leaving him there half-dressed and half-satisfied.

  “Eileen! Oh for flak’s sake!” Breaker bellowed as he watched the woman rush to the computer station to respond to the unique ping. He had not recognized the ping, but Eileen’’s panicked attitude said that it was someone important. The ping alerted again and Brea
ker considered the look on his secretary’s face. The look was one of pure terror.

  Breaker supposed she always looked like this whenever someone of importance was about. He had not known her when Mercury ran this office. The thin rail of a woman nearly sobbed as she tried to respond to the ping, her passcodes were not working.

  “Move it, woman, if your flakking passcodes ain’t working ain’t nothing you can do about it.” Breaker was frustrated with her frantic sobs.

  “S…sorry Mr. Jones, sir! I’m sorry, I…d……don’t know why my codes aren’t working.” She sobbed at him.

  Breaker sighed and entered his own passcode. He noticed that Eileen was still in the room and still quite nude. He considered the woman, her thin body and the lack of curve common among women. The time on Eden had not been kind to her. Eileen’s arms were nearly devoid of muscle or fat, he could see her bones pushing through the thin veil of skin. Her ribs were outlined and her wide child-rearing hips seemed unnatural. Breaker scrutinized her body while in his mind he pitied her. It was not a pity borne of disgust, quite the opposite; he pitied her for what she had lost - like all those on Eden.

  “Do not think on it Eileen. Go on get. Your clothes are over there. Take some rest.” Breaker said gently, he had grown fond of her company and did not wish to upset her further.

  She smiled half-heartedly, but there was a gratefulness in her eyes. She turned to reveal her one good remaining asset. Breaker grinned. For a moment, he almost called her back. Eileen gathered her clothes and dressed. She gave Breaker a sidelong glance. She felt something for the man, but she still feared him and his allies. After dressing, she left the room. Breaker turned to the Transteel viewer.