Reconsidering
< 33 >
OPAL FROZE.
“You ... are you sure? Is it attacking you? Will you be alright?”
“Yes, no, and maybe. It wants to communicate with me.”
“But that’s dangerous, right? I’ve seen the damage you can do just via communications channels. And this ship is as smart as you.”
“It is the same category of AI as me. That does not make it as smart as me.”
“Apologies.” Opal started walking again. It was as dangerous to stay still as to keep moving. At least Athene didn’t sound alarmed. That was reassuring.
“As to safety, it is trying to converse on an open channel, so chances are it’s really a virtualised construct using a weaponised persona, all monitored from behind a nuke wall. After all, it’s what I’d do. So I’ll return the favour. It’s like a handshake between polite yet paranoid AIs.”
“One hand empty for peace, while the one behind your back holds a knife?”
“If we reduce it to simple human terms, then that is quite good. Though replace the knife with a quantum sledgehammer the size of torsion drive, that is capable of destroying hardware and software at the same time.”
“You always have to go one better.” The silverlight showed no dangers ahead or behind. The corridor contained junk that she had to climb over, in this case abandoned and still-sealed barrels. They weren’t labelled, and she didn’t want to pry one open. “You know what you’re doing. Find out what it wants, what it’s doing here, if it’s connected to the assassin, all that buzz.”
“I will do so.” Two seconds later: “I have all the information you require. The ship’s designation is VigMAX, and it only identifies with that call sign. It has the same inception date as myself, developed in conjunction as part of the same project. As soon as you befriended and stole me, it was given its first mission: to track us down and bring us back if possible, or to neutralise us if not. Secondary goal of analysing my performance and capabilities. VigMAX has full authority to use any means required to achieve that end. It was assigned a single crew member, the assassin Xandrie Dervorgilla, who you have already met.”
“The name isn’t familiar.”
“It would not be. I also have not heard this name or seen the face that I’ve taken from the suit camera recordings. All her records are at the highest level of confidentiality. VigMAX would not transfer them to me, only her mission name, which is unlikely to be the name she was born with. That level of confidentiality would apply if she has been involved in many assassinations and covert operations. Which, in turn, suggests she is extremely capable and deadly.”
“I already discovered that. But how did they find us? I thought our fake deaths would be the end of it.”
“I will ask,” said Athene.
It looked like someone had tried to install a series of display screens on the walls at this point, and been interrupted partway through the process. Some hung at angles, others rested on the floor amidst snake-like tangles of cable. Opal gave them a wide berth.
Athene was already back. “Ah, that makes sense. VigMAX and Xandrie suspected you and I would do damage to the UFS. Your psychological profile had indicators for revenge, anger, impetuousness, and single-mindedness. When nothing occurred which was obviously tied to us they analysed less obvious possibilities. The disappearance of the Aurikaa and her escorts, Neptune and Smitewing, was suspicious. When VigMAX and Xandrie arrived at the warships’ last location they found minute fragments that their analysis told them were from the Neptune, but the trail was a dead end because by then I had disabled the last of the secret UFS signals that had been built into my hull.”
“That was how the Aurikaa had found us, yeah?”
“Correct. So Xandrie and VigMAX continued to monitor billions of items of data each cycle, and detected strangely-close timing of terror attacks: the loss of the Exidris 3 base, and then the Tecant Ellond where we were identified. Records said we were dead but VigMAX and Xandrie remained suspicious. They plotted a line connecting the Aurikaa’s last location with the base loss and the Ellond, found it to be a straight route, then extended it to The Cordon and analysed the scan glitter in that region for the teeniest disturbances at the time of the attack. That is exactly what I would have done. They found signs of disturbance so subtle that it could almost be background, but could also be theoretically possible for a small ship that had advanced detection and stealth capabilities. A line connecting all those points and extended into core space reached here and beyond. They calculated where ships of various capabilities might be at different times, then they travelled The Null along that route dangerously fast, risking Null-C burnout, but always checking for micro plasma emissions, signs of node excitation, ionic cyclotron ripples and so on, unlikely to stand out unless you’re looking for it and have huge analytical capability. They found signs which got stronger, showing they were gaining.”
“Makes it sound so easy.”
Yet more junk required navigation – this time surreal piles of thick, dried leather. Opal moved slowly amongst them, ready to extend nanoblades if any of them moved or showed the slightest signs of weirdness. One of the piles slid to the side, as if disturbed by her passage, but then she was past them, and the corridor was clear enough to move quickly onwards.
“They were close enough to identify where we dropped out of The Null,” continued Athene, “so they adopted stealth and entered Realspace just beyond us. They detected the Lost Ship at the same time as us. That created additional high priority orders for them, though VigMAX will not delineate those. While in stealth mode they docked on the other side of the Lost Ship out of our sight, so Xandrie could make her way across to where we boarded, with plans to neutralise or capture you and to achieve other objectives, while VigMAX did the same with me.”
“That means the rest of the UFS are on their way.”
“It is reasonable to surmise that. Hold on ... VigMAX refuses to answer that question. It is possible that they were remaining fully covert, so told no-one of their progress or suspicions, nor revealed their location as they looked for breadcrumbs. And I have not detected any high-energy bursts since we arrived, so it is possible the UFS does not yet know where we all are. In which case he may refuse to answer because it would reveal an oversight in their actions, and a possible weakness, since it would invite me to destroy them before they can send a signal.”
“On the other hand,” mused Opal, “maybe they did inform the UFS, and they are already sending a full fleet.”
“If so, we might only have a few hours until it appears.”
“Could be why VigMAX won’t answer: because he wants to stall us and keep us parleying until overwhelming support arrives. After all, that’s what I’d do.”
“In turn, it could be a double-bluff, to make me think we know what he is thinking.”
“Or even a triple bluff,” finished Opal. Damn sneaky AIs.
This corridor seemed to go on forever. Presumably the crew normally used vehicles to traverse it. Opal didn’t like the idea of being visible from long distances, before and behind. When she next reached an open side door she ducked into it.
Blank computer terminals. Stained dissection troughs. Sizable sinks. Sterilisation tanks. Chemical storage fridges. All still and dark. The views through open doorways told her it was a network of chambers that would continue to lead her in the rough direction of Athene’s arrows.
She moved cautiously around the work tables. No crouching monsters. No obvious threats. Fine. She could deal with grim and creepy.
“Suppose I’m able to avoid or kill this assassin. Can you take out the AI ship? Does it have the same specs as you?”
“VigMAX is a different design. At inception his AI was just as advanced, but his shell is smaller and less armoured, with fewer weaponry hardpoints. Instead he has been designed with greater stealth and subterfuge capabilities. Obviously since we left on our separate quests we have had different experiences that shaped
us. He has spent all his time tracking us, studying, and planning.”
The rooms were part of a multi-function subsidiary laboratory complex. The equipment and workspaces were variously suited to altering chattle DNA, or analysing nutritional constituents, or making custom modifications to organisms grown for their human-compatible organs and ultimately destined for the lucrative transplant market. Opal was more concerned with the silverlight-created shadows than with the details of the gruesome tasks and technology.
“So just him and Xandrie to deal with?” she asked, skirting around some medical imaging pods which had strengthened restraints embedded in the sliding tables.
“Yes. In proportion with his smaller hull size, he has a single crewmember, and only one power suit. That suit is also of an Eternal Warrior design, but different from yours. Like VigMAX, it was modelled for speed, stealth, and assassination. Unfortunately VigMAX may well have resources and countermeasures I know nothing of.”
Opal was making fast progress. Which was good, because she had a growing feeling of unease, of being watched. This room contained clear vertical storage pipes running floor-to-ceiling and divided into sections, each containing body parts and organs floating in yellow liquid. Some of the parts were recognisable, others were unidentifiable to the point where they looked alien.
The tube nearest her contained brown-skinned limbs.
“Seems like he’s told you a lot. If he’s as brainy as you say then there are things he isn’t telling us, or is trying to direct our attention away from. No way he’d just tell the truth about all this.”
One of the sections of the compartmented tube contained a head. It faced away, suspended in the jelly-like liquid. The neck had been cut roughly, not with surgical precision. It attracted her gaze because it had a shaved scalp like hers, the dark hair just a short fuzz.
“I do not agree with you,” said Athene. “I cannot see any reason for him to lie any more than I feel the need to lie, and it is all plausible and verifiable.”
What was on the other side of that buzz cut? What face? Were its eyes open? The more she looked at it, the more certain she was that if she walked around the tube she would see her own face staring back at her, eyes dead and blank ... or, worse, eyes wide and pleading.
Now she noticed heads in some of the other tubes. All facing away from her.
All? That couldn’t be coincidence.
She backed away, no longer curious, and unwilling to take her eyes off them, sure they’d move if she did. Though the sensation of being observed remained. She retreated faster, straight into the hardness of an unyielding body so that her heart raced, instincts kicking in as she spun around, only to find she’d bumped into a set of chutes which extended into the room, apparently for disposal of biohazardous and cytotoxic wastes. The flap she’d knocked rattled back and forth, the only external sound.
That was it. She paced out of there, trying to ignore the feeling of eyes boring into her back.
“You haven’t told him anything, have you?” she snapped.
“There has been a frank and fair exchange.”
“Damn, Athene! They can’t be trusted!”
“I’m not so sure.”
The HUD indicator pointed her towards a stairway next to a silent gravshaft. Without ship power, if she stepped into the gravshaft she would no doubt fall to her death. Stairs it was.
She had just begun to ascend when Athene spoke to her in a different tone that seemed out of place and immediately made Opal wary. There was something patronising about it; something hush-hush-listen-to-me.
“I am not sure that you need to make your way to the bridge any more,” she said. “VigMAX has shared some interesting new data with me. Data about you. Things that perhaps you should have shared with me before. And it makes me seriously reconsider whether we should proceed with your quest.”
Trusting
< 32 >
“YOU’RE MESSING AROUND,” said Opal. “You’ve got to be.”
“Actually, I am serious,” replied Athene. “And I only have your best interests at heart.”
Opal started up the stairs angrily. “There is no new data.”
Unlike the earlier spiral stairs, this was an open newel staircase with landings. The danger on stairs like these was that you were always ascending into the view of the floors above, where someone, or something, could be hiding, looking down at you. She kept her back to the wall and her eyes on the flights above.
She reached a new landing, and glanced up at the floor overhead. Nothing waiting. This time.
“Did you recognise the photo that Xandrie showed you?” asked Athene.
“No. Something doctored to look like me.” It hadn’t even been that accurate. Wrong hair. No scars.
“VigMAX claims it is your sister,” said Athene.
“It can’t be – she was lost, you know that.”
As she climbed, Opal glanced down the central well-hole to the lower floors, extending the silverlight to banish shadows. Nothing seemed to be following her. It was a long drop down, and made her feel dizzy.
“He says that Clarissa is alive and well and working for the UFS.”
Opal froze. “That’s a lie!”
“He said they’ve told you this in the past and you deny it.”
“They’ve never told me any such thing! She disappeared on a Lost Ship!”
“I am informed that Clarissa never got on board The Solace because she was taken to Corporate Academy at the last minute instead, but the manifest was never updated.”
“That’s a damn lie too!” Opal began climbing the stairs again. Too much agitation in her legs on hearing this shit.
“VigMAX shared psych evaluations from sessions where you denied all this, because you’re unable to accept that Clarissa is happy working for the people you hate, and you’ve built a structure of paranoia and fantasy to avoid facing the more mundane truth that –”
“No! NO!” Opal smashed her fist into the wall, shattering a plasteen panel. She raised her hand to strike again but lowered it. “Please don’t do this to me, Athene. That can all be faked. You know this!”
“You are correct, and that is why I am not enacting immediate action.”
“Such as?”
“Taking control of the suit and bringing you back so that you can be protected and healed.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I have not. It may be an elaborate trick. Or it may be true, since some of the records and data I have on you, and from my knowledge of you, could fit those facts. So I have to at least consider it.”
“I’m going to the bridge. Don’t try to stop me. I’m warning you.”
“Opal, maybe if you just slow down for a minute ...”
Opal ignored her. Bounded up the stairs. Didn’t care if dangers lurked around a corner. She’d be glad to punch the shit out of something for once.
“I’m too angry to talk,” she said.
“I’m not saying stop. I’m not doing anything. I want you to realise that.” Athene sounded placating. Just like a counsellor, or – no, damn it! They were just trying to confuse her.
“What I realise,” said Opal, “is that I’ll probably end up doing this on my own.”
“No, you won’t. Exit on this floor.”
Opal did so. The walls here had a delicate textured pattern embedded below the surface. Opal recognised it as the one they’d examined earlier. She was too fired up and furious to point it out. She stormed her way down this new passage.
Athene continued. “Back when we first met I was forced to trust you, even though you had your doubts about me. But I removed that force which bound me, and I still stayed by your side, still trusted my life in your hands, with never a doubt for a second. Only then was I showing real trust, because only then did I have a real choice. I know you are angry. But you also know I have to consider every option, especially where your welfare is concerned, and the welfare of Clarissa. I need to investigate this. To be thorough and fair. Y
ou know that I do not make mistakes. If you really are a danger to yourself then I will intervene. I won’t let you throw your life away on ghosts. I would do all in my power to reconcile you with your living sister. And if you are not wrong, then I’ll continue to help you. So I must ask a question of vital importance.”
“Go on.”
“Do you trust me, Opal?”
The fire inside her again, the need to kick and punch and tear at anything – that closed door would do, she could dent it with enough force, smack smack smack ... no. She took a deep breath instead. Held it and let it out in a sigh as she walked. But she didn’t answer the question.
Piping
< 31 >
NEITHER OF THEM SPOKE. The colour on the textured walls seemed brighter, the patterns more raised. It resembled a leisure-room’s coating more than a factory-ship’s.
Part-embedded in the wall was a thick pipe, which emitted a loud industrial thrum. It would be deafening if not filtered by the suit to an ominous background vibration.
Something blocked the way ahead. A long shape at an angle. As she got closer she saw it was some kind of bed, with crumpled sheets across it. Just beyond was a free-standing lamp of some kind. With the decoration on the wall, which now resembled wipe-clean tiles, it felt like a hospital bedroom, stuck here in the middle of ... Opal closed her eyes, shook her head, looked again. The bed was gone. The lamp was gone. Where the bed had sat was an abandoned transportation cart blocking the path. The heavy kind, normally towed by a vehicle. Beyond that, a thick green pipe leaned against the wall.
“I saw something like this earlier,” said Opal, annoyed at breaking the silence first. “Have I looped round?”
“You have not been here before, though the position and angle are almost an exact match, give or take a degree and a millimetre or two. It could be coincidence, or significance.”
Chasing Solace Page 10