by Brett Patton
Matt shifted uncomfortably on his perch. That was bad. Matt had always counted on losing the odd repeater in Union space, but FTLcomm itself was never supposed to be a problem.
“What if we send the second transmission from a repeater in deep Last Rising space?” Matt said.
“We’ve been talking about that,” Lena told him. “It won’t work.”
Peal nodded. “One of the principles of FTLcomm entangled communications is that it always reflects the distortion of the original source.”
“We’d have to actually do the transmission physically from a remote system in deep space,” Lena said.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Leaving Esplandian vulnerable? And possibly sentencing an innocent system to destruction by the Union?” Lena said.
Matt felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He could say nothing for a long time. Instead, he sipped his vacuum-distilled vodka and winced at its roughness. The booze was as new as the bar, it seemed.
“How many FTLcomm transmissions can we do and still be safe?”
Jahl and Peal pulled out their slates and bent over the gray-blue glow, muttering to themselves. Matt let them work.
“Assuming they work out the same reverse-processing algorithm we landed on, and they set it at Highest Priority in UARL,” Peal announced finally, “maximum may be as high as ten. Minimum could be three.”
Silence shrouded the table. Matt shared nervous glances with Captain Gonsalves and Soto.
“So the next transmission after this one, we could be found?”
Jahl frowned. “Like I said, it isn’t that simple, and there are a lot of assumptions—”
“But we could?”
Peal sighed. “Yes. We could.”
Matt sat silently as Gonsalves and Soto turned to look at him. At that moment, it seemed as if the entire bar had their eyes on him.
Saying, You’re gambling with our lives.
* * *
Word from Dr. Arksham interrupted Matt’s worries about discovery by the Union. Arksham had his genetic results back. Matt headed to his office, his mind in a daze. Would this finally answer, definitively, what his father’s gift really was?
Will I be HuMax? Matt wondered.
Matt barreled into the office. For a moment, his Perfect Record overrode reality and painted the office as he’d last seen it, spattered in blood and gore. Ione’s shredded body was still strapped to the table—
Matt closed his eyes, willing back the welling rage. Ione. The Union had taken Ione. They deserved to pay.
They deserve all your rage, a small voice said. Matt started. It didn’t even feel like his own thought. It felt—outside, alien. He was hungering to get back in the Demon. The voice was part of his addiction.
In reality, Arksham’s office was spotlessly clean. It had undoubtedly been disinfected weeks ago. Matt shook his head and went to the doctor’s inner office, where Arksham sat at his desk.
“What am I?” Matt asked.
Arksham raised an eyebrow, as if to say, No time for pleasantries, hmm? But he just said mildly, “You’re a mongrel.”
“Not HuMax?”
“There are similarities. But pure HuMax, with the markers that define it, no.”
Not HuMax. Matt nodded, not knowing whether to be relieved or disappointed. “What do you mean, a mongrel?”
Arksham shook his head. “Perhaps a bad term. There’s a ton of old code in your DNA, dating back to the beginning of human genetic modification. It looks like your father mined all the old databases. But . . .”
“But what?” Matt leaned forward.
“But you also have more pure sequences than I’ve ever seen in a viable genemod organism.”
“Pure sequences?”
“Sequences without the junk DNA and redundant viral clutter that fill up the human genome. Entirely engineered parts, crafted to perfection. As if a master engineer was creating a whole new code base.”
“My father did that?”
Arksham gave Matt a sad grin. “That’s the problem. I don’t know of anyone who could have put together these pieces so masterfully, without negative interactions.”
“So he found it somewhere in the databases.”
Arksham looked doubtful. “I don’t think so. There are no referents to large parts of your genome in any of the databases, not even from our Last Rising network.”
“Then he got it from the HuMax databases. My father worked with UARL, digging up HuMax history.”
A head shake. “HuMax aren’t this pure. Never were. He didn’t find it in a HuMax database.”
Matt frowned and said nothing for a long time. “So, what does this all mean?”
“It means that either your father was the greatest genetic engineer ever known or he found another source, one so buried it doesn’t even exist on Jotunheim.”
A pure chill worked its way down Matt’s spine.
You’re not a HuMax. You’re a mongrel.
But what was he, really? Had his father found a source nobody else had uncovered, or was it some kind of genetic magic? For all Arksham’s analysis, all he’d confirmed was that he was a true mystery.
* * *
The second transmission went much like the first.
At first, an uproar. Then Union assurances, coating everything like a confection. Finally separations: Union loyalists, loudly crying for an assault to put an end to the Corsairs once and for all, and Union skeptics, who dug even deeper into Union records—and began to find some corroboration with Matt’s message.
Still, even though the ranks of skeptics grew, they were a tiny minority in the grand Union. Their voices shouted on tertiary media, shrill and demanding. Primary media like UUN ignored them, as if they didn’t exist.
Of course, Matt thought. UUN was intimately entwined with the Union Congress and military. They’d never say anything against their beloved Union.
And for all the good they were doing, they might as well not be there at all. Peal had charted the rise of skeptics versus transmissions, and even in the best-case scenario, they were looking at dozens of messages before they would even be heard in Congress. They’d be found long before then, and the Union would have every excuse to use its Pushback II resources for one quick, surgical mission.
To excise him. As they had tried to do with Rayder.
Matt lay awake in his Esplandian apartment, looking out the high-set windows at Helheim. He knew he should be on the flagship of the Last Rising fleet, but he liked to be here on Esplandian whenever he could. Even though nearly everyone had been released from mind control now, Helheim still felt very much like a Rayder vessel.
And maybe that was what he should focus on. Expanding the mind-control reversal process throughout Last Rising space. One more transmission, and they were treading into the danger zone for detection—and without some kind of breakthrough angle, the numbers said they had no chance.
Matt’s slate shrilled, lighting the room with its chilly screen glow. Matt rolled over to look at it, and saw a message that both made his blood run cold, and his heart beat a little bit faster.
LENA STOLL: We have to meet. Discreetly.
Matt met Lena Matt at Esplandian’s air lock. She’d obviously been waiting for him.
“Have we been found?”
A surprisingly complex set of emotions passed over Lena Stoll’s face in an instant. Eventually she shook her head. “Not so simple. Best not to talk here.”
“Lead on, my lady,” Matt said, trying for levity.
“I was never your lady, and never will be,” Lena said, serious again.
Matt didn’t know what to say. Eventually he settled for “I’m sorry.”
Lena gave him a sad, thin smile. It was one of the most mournful express
ions Matt had ever seen. “I don’t understand the mechanics of attraction. I just know they don’t typically work in my favor.”
“Lena,” Matt said, reaching out toward her.
“No!” she said, and flung herself down the hall.
Matt followed. What else could he do? And what could he do for Lena? She had Soto. Matt had nothing but an empty space in his heart. Ione was dead. Michelle had turned on him.
Lena led him to a shuttle and set off for Helheim. It was a chilly, silent trip. Matt tried to think of something to say, anything. But his mouth was dry, and his words were absent.
In Helheim, Lena had her office in the Core tech labs. Peal and Jahl were there too, their eyes glazed behind NPP displays.
She shut the door and spun one of the displays so Matt could see it. On the screen, a freeze-frame image of Dr. Salvatore Roth stared blankly out at them. It was badly bit-rotted from FTLcomm.
Matt jumped, his heart pounding. “Tell me this isn’t live.”
Lena shook her head. “Just a message. Not two-way.”
“Play it.”
Lena nodded. Roth’s image jumped to life.
“So the prodigy has decided to set out on his own path,” Dr. Roth said. A haughty, sardonic smile twisted his words, but the expression never reached his soulless eyes. “Admirable, in its way, but you’re surely aware by now what a fool’s errand this is. The Union will find you, as I have found you, and it will crush you.”
Matt swallowed. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “He’s found us?”
Lena shook her head. “This is a broadwash. He’s not targeting us specifically. He’s still guessing.”
Beads of sweat dripped from Matt’s brow. He wiped it away as Dr. Roth continued:
“I am not here to make threats. As you know, I also follow my own path. And I may be able to help you on your own. Specifically, I may be able to provide certain locations that are of extreme interest—and use—to you. Given your failure on Silver, I would expect this to be highly intriguing. If you would like to accept this offer, please meet me at Sangre de Cristo’s main port to discuss. Coordinates and date follow.”
Roth’s image flicked off. Matt stood still for a long time, unsure how to react. Sangre de Cristo was an Aliancia world, closest to the Universal Union. But—
—working with Dr. Roth? Instinctive revulsion flared in Matt. He still didn’t know what Roth had done to him, in those three days he’d been unconscious in Mecha Training Camp. Nor did he know what Roth’s final goal was in Corsair space. Their intelligence network had never determined that.
Locations that are of extreme interest. Union labs currently working on HuMax? Could Roth know where they were? His Advanced Mechaforms hooks went deep into the Union. It was possible.
More than possible. Probable.
“You’re not actually thinking of accepting, are you?” Lena asked.
“No. I’m not thinking about it.” He’d already made his decision.
What other choice did he have?
* * *
Sangre de Cristo was less of a colony world. More of an outpost, used by the Aliancia as a base to shuttle rare-metal-rich asteroids back to their two Core Worlds. The sun burned a dull orange, and the world was a barren rock. Only the massive orbiting space station, built out of raw asteroidal steel, was habitable. Displacement Drive ships of the Aliancia and Corsairs hung suspended outside the Sangre de Cristo Station, glowing in the orange sun like rubies strung in a necklace.
Among the Aliancia and Corsair ships, one massive asteroid bore the unmistakable signs of a Union ship: scaffolding and partial armor, and giant antimatter maneuvering rockets.
It wasn’t any ship that Matt recognized, though. Not the Helios. Not Ulysses. In fact, it bore no Union marking, even under deep scrutiny. It just hung there, cool and implacable. Helheim’s sensors reported its weapons as inactive; not a single heavy-matter gun or antimatter annihilator was trained their way. If the readouts were to be believed, even the weapons control systems were cold.
“Doesn’t mean a damn thing,” Soto said, leaning over a technician’s shoulder and studying the readouts skeptically. “The Union could Displace in a half dozen warships at any second. This is still a damn stupid idea.”
Then why not have them waiting for us? Matt thought. And Soto was missing the even more disturbing possibility that Dr. Roth was building his own Displacement Drive ship, independent of the Union.
“Stupid or not, we’re here,” Matt said, heading out of the bridge. “Let’s do this.”
Soto followed, protesting all the way. Matt ignored him, until they reached the dock.
“If you’re so skeptical, stay behind.”
Soto’s sharp features crumpled in frustration. “I’m just trying—”
“If I’m wrong, these people need someone to lead them.”
Sudden fear shot across Soto’s face. “I can’t . . . I won’t—”
“You’re the best choice,” Matt said, and slipped through the air lock. The technicians locked it behind him, so Soto could only pound on the heavy steel.
Matt sighed. He’d made it sound so altruistic, but in reality there were many reasons he wanted to do this alone. What other information could he get from Roth?
And what would he have to agree to, in order to get what he needed?
Lena piloted the shuttle across to Sangre de Cristo Station, cool and efficient. There was no trace of the sad longing he’d glimpsed in her just a few days before. Was that how she felt all the time? Would she ever be able to make a stable connection to her true feelings? Or was her focused impassivity part of her genetic modification, and nearly impossible to overcome?
Matt sighed. He had to let it go. She was a good friend, and a great soldier to have on his side. That was quite a lot. He waved good-bye to her when they were docked, and followed preset markers down a steel corridor into the space station.
Two minutes later, Matt was standing in a spare little meeting room, set with a table and two chairs. There were no windows. The room was buried deep within the space station.
Roth entered after a few minutes. He looked Matt up and down, as if weighing him. Matt refused to look away. After a few moments, Roth nodded and sat at the table. Matt remained standing.
“I’m impressed,” Dr. Roth said. “You followed instructions precisely, and you came by yourself.”
“Am I to be graded?” Matt asked.
Roth gave Matt a thin, emotionless smile. “Touché. To continue the metaphor, no. You’re done with school. You have grown up since I had to drag you back from orbit in the Demon.”
Images from Matt’s ill-fated First Exercise flashed in his Perfect Record. Unpermitted Merge! Decouple! It seemed as if it had happened a million years ago. It seemed as if it had happened to a different person.
Roth has shaped me, Matt thought. Roth could have washed him out, on that one early day at training camp. Instead, thanks to him, he controlled Mecha now, the greatest weapon man has ever known.
But Roth was no father figure to him. Only a cold, calculating politician with his own inscrutable agenda.
“Where are the HuMax labs?” Matt asked.
Roth shook his head, as if disappointed. “So direct. So forthright. Is there to be no give-and-take?”
Matt clenched his fists. His only chance was to use the information he had about Roth’s past. “I know you’ve spent time in the Aliancia. And with Corsairs.”
A raised eyebrow. “And you hope to hold this over me? Threaten to tell the Union? Do you think they care?”
Matt’s intelligence network’s assessment of Roth came swimming back in his Perfect Record. It called him a “necessary commodity” and instructed security personnel to “observe, but not interfere.”
“Do you even dare another trans
mission?” Roth continued.
“We’ll continue as long as necessary,” Matt said. But his eyes flickered away from Roth’s.
The other man chuckled briefly. “We both know that isn’t true. The Union will find you if you continue down this path. And they will call on my Mecha to eliminate you.”
Matt said nothing.
“But that will destroy what we are both setting out to do: return the universe to balance.”
Matt looked at Dr. Roth, openmouthed. Was he actually saying that he had the same goals?
“By making Hellions? Demons? Killing cadets? Addicting pilots?” Matt shot back.
“What better way to curb the Union’s rapacious military than to bleed its funds with a perfect tool it cannot replicate? To subvert its most capable citizens with physical addiction to my Mecha?”
Matt rocked back, as if physically stricken. Could that possibly be true? Was Roth trying to bring the Union down—through his Mecha?
No. Impossible.
“I see you’re skeptical,” Roth said. “But I assure you, we have the same goal: the rebalancing of the Union.”
“I don’t believe it,” Matt spat back.
Roth sighed and spread his hands, as if saying, I have nothing to hide. “I understand. But consider my actions to date. I reached out to you. I have come here, at great risk, to meet with you, and discuss how I can further your goals.”
Matt ground his teeth. “Or to find out more about us, and report your findings to the Union.”
Roth shook his head. “You insult me by calling me a Union stooge.”
Matt fell silent. Roth was right. He and the Union had always had a contentious but intertwined relationship. Still, there was something wrong here. Something about Roth. More than his impassive demeanor, more than his severe countenance. Matt had known something was wrong with Roth from the moment he met him. He had his own agenda, and it didn’t align with anyone else’s—not Matt’s or the Union’s.